Kasuga Jinja (春日神社)

Kasuga Jinja

Kasuga Jinja (春日神社) is a Shinto shrine located in the Miyauchi area of Nakahara-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture. The shrine stands on a slightly elevated area within the Mizoguchi Delta and enshrines five kami (deities): Ame-no-Koyane-no-Mikoto (天津兒屋根命), Sugawara no Michizane (菅原道真), Takehaya-Susanoo-no-Mikoto (建速須佐之男命), Izanagi-no-Mikoto (伊奘諾命), and Uka-no-Mitama-no-Mikoto (稲倉魂命).

The exact founding date of the shrine is unknown, but it appears in the Inagesho Kenchu Mokuroku (稲毛荘検注目録), a record compiled in 1171. At that time, the area was known as Inage-no-sho (稲毛荘), a manor belonging to the Kujo family (九条家), a branch of the Fujiwara clan and one of the Five Regent Houses (五摂家). The document mentions a shrine called Kasuga Shingu (春日新宮) and a temple called Shingogan-ji (新御願寺).

Kasuga Shingu is believed to have been established when the Kujo family enshrined the kami of Kasuga Taisha in Nara Prefecture, their ancestral tutelary shrine. It is thought that Kasuga Shingu corresponds to the present-day Kasuga Jinja. Shingogan-ji, meanwhile, is believed to have been the predecessor of the adjacent Joraku-ji (常楽寺), which once served as the shrine's betto-ji — a Buddhist temple that managed a Shinto shrine until the Edo period (1603–1868).

Kasuga Jinja's chinju no mori

Behind the shrine lies the chinju no mori, or sacred forest, designated as a Prefectural Natural Monument.

The kinsokuchi behind Kasuga Jinja

Directly behind the shrine building lies a small rectangular kinsokuchi — a "prohibited area" believed to be an ancient kofun (burial mound).

According to the Shinpen Musashi Fudokiko, a topographical record of Musashi Province (covering most of present-day Tokyo, Saitama Prefecture, Kawasaki, and Yokohama) compiled between 1810 and 1826, the kinsokuchi was regarded as an extremely sacred place. It was said that "those who approached it would incur divine punishment, and thus no one dared to go near. Covered with moss and buried, it naturally decayed, and its original form is now no longer visible."

The shrine's historical records state that around 738, during the reign of Emperor Shomu (701–756), prayers were offered to a reiseki (sacred stone) of Kasuga Myojin (the kami of Kasuga Taisha) for the recovery of Princess Abe (718–770), who later became Empress Koken. The prayers were immediately answered, and thereafter Kasuga Myojin was enshrined at the site of that reiseki.

In April 2007, during excavation work to plant a sacred masakaki tree within the kinsokuchi in commemoration of the publication of the shrine's chronicle, a red stone (about a meter in size) believed to be the reiseki and an earthenware jar were unearthed. Respecting tradition, the stone was immediately reburied in its original location, while the jar is now preserved at the shrine.