Takijiri-ōji, Shinto shrine in Tanabe, Japan

Takijiri-ōji is a Shinto shrine in Tanabe, Wakayama Prefecture, at the confluence of the Tomita River (Iwata River) and the Ishiburi River. Its grounds hold the Honden shrine building, a stone torii, and, on the slope east of the shrine, a great rock over 20 m wide and 10 m high with two worship stones below it. The ridge above carries the upper shrine area, with rock platforms, stone clusters and a small artificial terrace.

Takijiri-ōji appears in records by 1109, when the Nakayuki notes that pilgrims were already entering the sacred mountains here. It was one of the Gotai-ōji and the entry to the Kumano deity realm. After the Jōkyū War of 1221, aristocratic pilgrimage declined, and by the Muromachi period the route shifted to Shiomi Pass, bypassing the shrine. In 1908 eleven local shrines were merged and it was renamed Tōgō Jinja.

The name Takijiri comes from the meeting of the Iwata and Ishiburi rivers, whose rushing waters sounded like a waterfall. Pilgrims once bathed here to wash away sins, and poetry gatherings were held: nine of the Kumano Kanshi poems survive from a gathering at Takijiri-ōji on 6 December 1200.

Takijiri-ōji sits on the Nakahechi route of the Kumano Kodo, reached by bus from Kii-Tanabe in about 30 minutes. The trail from the shrine climbs through oak forest toward Takahara, and the ridge path is steep in places. The shrine grounds and the rock formations above them lie on a slope, so allow time for the climb.

The shrine's grounds hold a sacred rock called Chibuki-iwa, said to have dripped milk for the infant son of Fujiwara no Hidehira, born in a cave behind the shrine during a pilgrimage; a nearby rock hollow, the Tainai-kuguri, is entered by women praying for an easy childbirth.