Tado Taisha, Shinto sanctuary in Kuwana, Japan.
Tado Taisha is a Shinto shrine in Tado-chō, Kuwana, Mie Prefecture, whose two sanctuaries, the Honmiya and the Betsugu Ichimuren Shrine, are together called the "Tado Ryōgū". A plain white torii with two cylindrical pillars and a straight lintel stands at the roadside before tree-covered hills. The shrine building rests on a raised stone base, with a curved roof of greenish-brown strips above a dark wooden facade, square posts and rails forming a fence, and a yellow-brown panel wall with a crenellated top beside it.
According to shrine tradition, Tado Taisha was founded in the reign of Emperor Yuryaku, and in 763 the monk Mangan founded a jingū-ji, Hōun-ji, beside it. In 863 the shrine's rank rose to shō-nii, and in 1261 to shō-ichi-i. In 1571 Ujiie Bokuzen, acting on Oda Nobunaga's orders, burned the main shrine, its subsidiary shrines and Hōun-ji's halls; Honda Tadakatsu rebuilt it in 1605.
The May 4–5 Tado Festival centres on the ageuma shinji, in which horses are ridden up a slope; the shrine was rebuilt after Oda Nobunaga's forces burned it in 1571, and the rite was cancelled in 2020 for the first time in about 400 years. A November 23 yabusame archery rite is held on a riding course in the approach with three targets.
Tado Station on the Yoro Railway is about 15 minutes on foot from the shrine, or roughly 5 minutes by bus. The shrine sits near Tado Gorge, about 1 km away. A pond called Miyagawa Kiyome no Ike, roughly halfway between the shrine and the station, is where festival horses have their legs washed.
The shrine keeps a sacred horse, and before the May 4–5 ageuma rite the animal's hooves are washed in the Miyagawa Kiyome Pond, which lies roughly halfway between the shrine and Tado Station. The custom survives today and is easy to miss on the walk from the railway.
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