Tagata Shrine
Tagata Jinja · 田縣神社 · 田県神社
About
Tagata Jinja stands in Komaki City in Aichi Prefecture, near Nagoya, and is among the venerable rural shrines of the central Honshu plain. Its origins are lost in antiquity, but tradition holds that the sanctuary has stood here for more than fifteen hundred years, and it appears in the tenth-century Engishiki Jinmyōchō as a Myōjin Taisha.
The kami enshrined at Tagata are Mitoshi no Kami and the female deity Tamahime no Mikoto. Mitoshi is the son of the great agricultural kami Ōtoshi, grandson of Susanoo, and embodies the blessings of the harvest year. Tamahime is honoured as a princess of the Owari clan who returned to this region after her husband's death and laboured for the cultivation of the land.
The shrine is most widely known for the annual Hōnensai, the Harvest Festival, held on the fifteenth of March. The word hōnen means a prosperous year, and the rite celebrates the fertility of fields, families and all living things through processions and the carrying of carved wooden mikoshi.
A companion observance is kept at the nearby Ōagata Shrine the Sunday before, with complementary imagery of female generative power, so that the two shrines together honour the union from which all harvest and life proceed. Tagata's rites preserve a pre-modern agricultural Shinto sensibility that has weathered the changes of urban Japan with remarkable vitality.
History
The exact year of Tagata Shrine's founding has not been recorded, but tradition holds that worship has continued here for more than fifteen hundred years, and the shrine appears in the tenth century Engishiki Jinmyocho, the imperial register of that era, as a Myojin Taisha. The shrine enshrines Mitoshi no Kami, son of the agricultural kami Otoshi and grandson of Susanoo, together with Tamahime no Mikoto, honoured in local tradition as a princess of the Owari clan who returned to this district after her husband's death and gave herself to the cultivation of the land. Since ancient times the Honensai has been kept each spring to ask the kami's blessing on the harvest and on the fertility of family and field alike, joining Tagata to a small cluster of shrines in the Nagoya region that keep a related rite.
Significance
The Honensai carries a large wooden effigy, carved from Kiso cypress, by portable shrine from the nearby Shinmeisha Shrine to Tagata's own precincts, where prayers are offered for the year's grain and for the continuance of families and generations; the observance is recognised as an intangible folk cultural property of Komaki City. A companion rite kept the Sunday before at Oagata Shrine, with complementary imagery, completes the pairing by which this corner of Aichi honours the union from which harvest and life are held to proceed. The festival today draws visitors from across Japan and abroad, but its purpose within the shrine's own tradition remains what it has long been: a prayer, offered in the old agricultural language of fertility, for a prosperous year.
Architecture
Traditional Shinto shrine architecture; a wooden haiden (worship hall) with an irimoya-style curved gable roof
Visiting
Hours
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Festivals & Events
- Invalid Date
Honensai
Invalid Date · annual · next: 15 March 2027
The shrine's harvest festival, in which a great phallic effigy of Kiso cypress is carried by portable shrine from Shinmeisha Shrine to Tagata Jinja in prayer for a bountiful harvest and for fertility in family and field, a rite of pre-modern agricultural Shinto still kept with full ceremony today.
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