Ikuta Shrine Audio Guide

Ikuta Shrine: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Ikuta Shrine

   Welcome to Ikuta Shrine, known in Japanese as 生田神社, in the Chūō Ward of Kobe. It sits right in the middle of the city, close to the bustle of Sannomiya, and yet it counts among the oldest shrines in the country. Locals simply call it Ikuta-san, which tells you how much affection the place enjoys. This shrine does more than add a splash of vermilion to the downtown skyline. According to tradition, it is the reason the city is called Kobe at all. Behind the main hall, a patch of sacred woodland called the Ikuta Forest survives as a quiet green pocket among the buildings. Over the next few minutes we will follow the founding legend, the story of a great flood and a long walk with a sacred object, the way a shrine's land became a city's name, and the warrior history that once touched this ground. Take a breath, let the city noise soften, and let's begin.

2. 02

   Ikuta Shrine and the Empress Who Nearly Drowned

   Every old shrine has an origin story, and this one begins at sea. The tradition tells us that Empress Jingu was sailing home from her campaign to the Korean peninsula, which the old texts call the Three Kan, and she was nearly shipwrecked before she survived the crossing. When her ship reached the waters of what is now Kobe harbor, it would not move forward. The Japanese chronicle Nihon Shoki says she turned to divination. The answer came through an oracle: the goddess Wakahirume-no-mikoto spoke, saying she wished to dwell in the land of Ikuta. The empress appointed a man named Umigami-no-isachi as priest, and the goddess was enshrined at a place called Sunayama, set back in the Nunobiki hills beyond today's Shin-Kobe Station. The traditional dating places this in the first year of Empress Jingu's reign, which is given as the year 201. Wakahirume is described as a fresh, youthful goddess of the sun, either a child or a younger sister of the sun goddess Amaterasu. That solar link helps explain the shrine's popular fame today. The sun nurtures the growth of people and plants and brings new things into being, and that is why Ikuta Shrine is so closely tied to matchmaking and wishes for love.

3. 03

   Ikuta Shrine: A Flood, a Long Walk and a Heavy Burden

   Now picture the year 799. On the ninth day of the fourth month, a great flood came down from the Nunobiki Falls. It broke away the western edge of Sunayama, and the shrine buildings began to tilt. According to the tradition, a man from Ikuta village named Tone Shichidayu lifted the sacred object, the vessel of the deity, onto his back and carried it away to safety. For seven or eight days he wandered looking for a new resting place. Then, in the Ikuta Forest, the object suddenly grew so heavy that he could not take another step. Everyone read this as the will of the deity, and the sacred object was set down right there. That spot is where the shrine stands today. It is a lovely story to hold in your mind as you walk in, because the forest behind the main hall is the very setting of that moment. The shrine's land was once far larger than it is now, before the city of Kobe grew up around it. What you see today is what remains of a much wider sacred landscape.

4. 04

   Ikuta Shrine, the Origin of Kobe's Name

   Here is the hook that makes this shrine matter to the whole city. In the year 806, the imperial court granted the shrine 44 households, called kanbe, meaning families who made offerings, looked after the shrine and guarded it. From then on, the area that is now central Kobe became shrine land. The story goes that the word kanbe softened over time into konbe, and eventually into Kobe. So when you say the name of this great port city, you are echoing a word that once described the people who served this shrine. Kobe later opened its port in 1868 and became a hub of international trade, and the nearby Motomachi district filled with Western-style buildings. Yet the name itself reaches back more than a thousand years before that. The shrine also carries a place in warrior history. Parts of the Battle of Ichi-no-Tani, during the Genpei War, were fought in and around it, and markers in the Ikuta Forest commemorate the fighting. Among the monuments you may notice on the grounds are a stele for the Noh play Ikuta Atsumori, a knife mound, and a sacred camphor tree, both given by local restaurants and food businesses.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   As you wander the grounds, notice the vermilion of the buildings. It is said that this color arrived from Tang China in the Heian period as a protective color that wards off evil. See how it glows against the green of the forest behind. This is also a shrine that fills up dramatically at the turn of the year, when around 1.3 million people come to pray at New Year. On an ordinary day, though, it can feel remarkably calm, and there is plenty to discover at a gentle pace: the water fortune slips, charms that do not look much like traditional amulets, and the quiet shade of the forest. Before you leave, take one more look at the trees and ask yourself how much of this land a flood, a battle and a growing city have swallowed up. Then step out into the streets of Kobe and listen for the name of the city itself, because it began right here.