Hiraoka Shrine

About

Hiraoka Shrine nestles on the western slopes of the Ikoma range in the centre of Osaka Prefecture. In its earliest days it was a place of mountain worship, with the kami of the peak Kozudake honoured behind the shrine. That mountain kami came in time to be identified with Ame-no-Koyane, the tutelary deity of the Nakatomi clan from which the great Fujiwara family descended.

Four kami are enshrined at Hiraoka: Ame-no-Koyane, ancestor of the Fujiwara; his consort Hime-gami; and the warrior deities Futsunushi of Katori Jingu and Takemikazuchi of Kashima Jingu, both protectors of the Fujiwara. These same four kami were transferred from Hiraoka to Nara when the Fujiwara established Kasuga Taisha, giving Hiraoka the affectionate title Moto-Kasuga, the original Kasuga.

The main shrine, like that of Kasuga, comprises four Kasuga-zukuri sanctuaries within a single roofed structure, and is designated a Tangible Cultural Property of Higashiosaka. The principal annual festival is observed on 1 February, when the shrine community gathers to renew the bond between kami and ujiko, the protected parishioners of the deity.

History

Hiraoka Shrine's founding lies beyond written record but is believed to reach back to the Kofun period, when the kami of Mount Kozudake behind the shrine was already honoured as Ame-no-Koyane, ancestor of the Nakatomi and Fujiwara clans. By the Heian era the shrine was named in the Engishiki as a Myojin-taisha and recognised as Kawachi province's Ichinomiya. Oda Nobunaga burned the shrine down in 1574, and it was rebuilt under Toyotomi Hideyori between 1602 and 1605; the present main hall dates to 1826.

Significance

Because two of Hiraoka's four kami were carried to Nara to found Kasuga Taisha, the shrine is known with affection as Moto-Kasuga, the original Kasuga, and its honden still holds four Kasuga-zukuri sanctuaries beneath a single roof, the same design later built at its more famous descendant. The stone deer resting before its steps recalls that same kinship, deer being the sacred messengers of the Kasuga kami.

Architecture

Kasuga-zukuri: four sanctuaries housed beneath a single roof, the form later built at Kasuga Taisha