Hattori Tenjin-gū, Shinto shrine in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan
Hattori Tenjin-gū is a Shinto shrine in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, dedicated to Sukunahikona-no-Mikoto and Sugawara no Michinaga. Its main hall was rebuilt in 1827, and the vermilion facade with a curved tiled canopy bears black plaques reading "Yakuyoke Kito" and "Kotsu Anzen Kito". A low red fence with a gold "Hōsai" medallion stands before the dark interior.
The shrine began as a small hokora where the Hata clan enshrined Sukunabikona-no-Mikoto, a deity of medicine, during the reign of Emperor Ingyō (412–453). In 783 Fujiwara no Uona died at Kawabe-no-shō and was buried beside it; in 901 Sugawara no Michizane, stricken with beriberi on his way to Dazaifu, prayed here and recovered. After Michizane's death he was jointly enshrined, and the shrine took the name Hattori Tenjin-gū, revered as a foot-healing deity.
The shrine is known as the "god of feet": people with foot ailments and runners or footballers pray here for healing and strong legs. On 25 August the Ashi no Shugo Kigan Taisai is held, and after the rite priests rub each participant's feet with paper effigies. The Sōri-dō hall holds offered straw sandals, shoes, iron geta and canes.
The shrine is a three-minute walk from Hattori Tenjin Station on the Hankyu Takarazuka Line, just off the Hattori Ekimae intersection of Route 176. Visitors pray at the 'ashibumi ishi' pedestal, sitting on it to ask for healing of foot ailments or strong legs. The grounds also hold the grave of Fujiwara no Uona and a Noh stage mirror room moved here in 1977.
In the hall called Waraji-dō, visitors leave straw sandals, shoes, crutches and iron or wooden footwear, a custom begun by people with foot ailments who offered sandals they had woven themselves. The shrine also keeps three sangaku, votive tablets of geometry problems; one, donated by Yoshida Denbei in June 1843, is among nine Edo-period sangaku surviving in Osaka Prefecture.
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