Hikawa Shrine, Shinto shrine in Takahanacho, Japan
Hikawa Shrine is a Shinto shrine in Takahanacho, Saitama, and head of about 280 Hikawa shrines. Its nagare-zukuri worship hall has a shingled roof with gold ornaments along the eave, white rafter tips, dark wooden pillars, and a curtain with green, white, and red motifs. Stacked sake barrels flank the entrance.
A ruling clan from Izumo brought the worship of Susanoo to this site and founded the sanctuary in the fifth century BC. Over the centuries, it maintained its position as a religious center for the region.
The name Ōmiya, meaning "Great Shrine", comes from this sanctuary, and the district grew around its approach after the Nakasendō was rerouted here in 1628. Its annual festival is held on August 1, and since 1982 a firelit Noh performance takes place each May. The shrine heads some 280 Hikawa shrines, mostly in the Kantō region.
The shrine is a 10-minute walk from Kita-Ōmiya Station or Ōmiya-kōen Station on the Tōbu Noda Line, and a 20-minute walk from Ōmiya Station. The 2 km approach runs almost straight north-south from the old Nakasendō, with three large torii along it; inside the grounds the path curves left over a bridge across the Kamiike pond to the worship hall.
The shrine stands on a hill that once jutted into Minuma swamp, and the pond south of it, fed by groundwater seeping from the west, preserves part of that inlet. The three Hikawa shrines of Omiya, Nakayama and Mimuro sit on a straight line along the old swamp shore.
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