Yanagiwara hiruko-jinja, Shinto shrine in Japan
Yanagiwara hiruko-jinja is a Shinto shrine in the Hyogo-ku neighborhood of Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture. It is made up of a wooden main hall and a few smaller structures set among trees and stone lanterns.
The shrine stood at the western entrance of Hyōgo-tsu, the old port of Kobe: the Yanagiwara Sōmon gate was set up in front of it, and the Saigoku Kaidō runs east-west between the shrine and neighbouring Fukukai-ji. It is dedicated to Hiruko Ōkami and Ōmononushi Ōkami, and its Jūgatsu Ebisu festival is held over three days around 10 January, as at Nishinomiya Shrine.
The shrine is dedicated to Ebisu, a deity often shown as a smiling fisherman carrying a sea bream. Visitors write wishes on small wooden plaques called ema and hang them on a wooden rack as part of a personal prayer ritual.
The shrine stands a five-minute walk east from the south exit of JR Hyogo Station on the Kobe Line. The old Saigoku Kaido road runs east-west past the grounds, between the shrine and Fukukai-ji temple, and the Yanagiwara Somon gate of the old Hyogo-tsu port quarter once stood in front of the shrine.
The name Hiruko in the shrine's name refers to a deity described in Japanese mythology as the first child of the creator couple, set adrift as an infant on the sea. Many shrines across Japan honor Ebisu, but this one uses the older mythological name, keeping alive an earlier layer of the story.
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