Shima Shrine Temizusha

What Is the Shima Shrine Temizusha?

The Shima Shrine Temizusha (志磨神社手水舎, Shima Jinja Temizusha) is a 1944 water pavilion in the grounds of Shima Shrine in Nakanoshima, Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture, registered as a national Registered Tangible Cultural Property on March 6, 2024.

A temizusha (also read temizuya or chozuya) shelters the basin where visitors rinse their hands and mouth before approaching the deity. The national database gives the Shima Shrine Temizusha a building area of only 5.8 square meters, a single-story timber structure with a tiled roof.

It is one bay square, with a Kirizuma-zukuri gable roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles. It stands beside the approach and faces west, presenting its front to the path.

Why the Shima Shrine Temizusha Was Registered

The pavilion was registered in the 106th round of registrations as number 30-0345, under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a simple yet refined design that helps shape the historic character of the grounds.

It was built in 1944, the same year as the worship hall and the gate. Wakayama Prefecture notes that the pavilion, the gate, and the walls, built alongside the worship hall, together form the historic scene of the grounds, and values them as rare survivors of well-made modern traditional-style building in a city center hit hard by bombing. The Shima Shrine Temizusha came through the 1945 air raid along with the rest of the shrine.

What to Look For at the Shima Shrine Temizusha

Four Posts Leaning Inward

The four corner posts are square with chamfered edges. According to the national commentary, they are set with Uchikorobi, a slight inward lean so that they draw closer together toward the top, and they are tied by penetrating tie beams. Follow the line of the posts from the front and you can see why such a small structure looks so planted, as if bracing its feet.

Daibutsuyo-Style Beam Ends

Where the tie beams poke out past the posts, their ends, or Kibana, are shaped in the manner of Daibutsuyō. That bold style arrived with the rebuilding of Todaiji in Nara in the Kamakura period and is known for heavy, simply curved beam ends. Seeing that vocabulary from great temple architecture on a pavilion of under six square meters is part of the charm.

No Bracket Sets, Just Frog-Leg Braces

The Shima Shrine Temizusha does without Kumimono, the bracket sets that usually carry the eaves. Beams and purlins rest directly on the post heads. Between the posts, Kaerumata braces sit on the tie beams as the main ornament, and in the gable end two struts meet in an inverted V under the ridge, a form called Inoko-sasu. Keeping decoration to a few points is what the Agency means by simple yet refined.

Visiting the Shima Shrine Temizusha

The pavilion stands beside the approach between the gate and the worship hall, facing west, so you see its front from the path. The national database even includes a photograph looking up into the roof, and standing under the eaves lets you study the braces and the beam layout at close range. The inward lean of the posts is easier to read from a few steps back, straight on.

This is also where worshippers purify themselves. No photography rules are published, so keep people using the basin out of your frame and refrain during ceremonies. Directions to the shrine and general visiting information are on the Shima Shrine page.