Taka Tenjinja, Shinto shrine in Japan

Taka Tenjinja is a small Shinto shrine in Kakegawa with a simple traditional wooden structure surrounded by trees. The main area features a small altar where visitors respectfully bow, clap their hands, and offer prayers.

Taka Tenjinja was founded to guard Takatenjin Castle, a stronghold contested by Takeda Shingen and Tokugawa Ieyasu during the Sengoku period. After the castle was abandoned in the Edo period, a memorial to war dead was raised on the mountain, yet the shrine remained and kept the local community's devotion.

The name is read Taka-Tenjinsha, not Takaten, because the shrine honours Sugawara no Michizane as a Tenjin shrine beneath Mount Takatenjin. Its annual festival, held around the last day of March, moves the deities from the main hall to another hall; stalls line the approach and a gunnery demonstration with matchlock guns is staged.

The shrine stands near the summit of Mount Takatenjin, the hill that also held Takatenjin Castle, so reaching it means walking up the mountain. The annual festival falls on the last day of March, though in recent years it has usually been held on the last Sunday of that month, so the date varies.

The shrine's name looks like "Takaten Shrine", but it is read as "Taka Tenjinsha": it is a Tenjinsha (Tenmangu) enshrining Sugawara no Michizane, and the mountain and former castle are both called Takatenjinyama and Takatenjinjo.