Hikawa Shrine Audio Guide

Hikawa-jinja: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Hikawa-jinja

   Welcome to Hikawa-jinja, written 氷川神社 in Japanese, in the Akasaka district of Minato City, Tokyo. This is the Akasaka Hikawa shrine, one of the 10 shrines of Tokyo. The name is shared by several shrines around Minato City, so it helps to know you are standing at the Akasaka one. This guide stays with the essentials: when the shrine was founded, who ordered the present building, and why that building is so unusual in a city that has been rebuilt so many times. At the end we will step briefly into the neighborhood to meet two other Hikawa shrines nearby in Minato City, so you can tell them apart. Take a slow breath before you go further. You are in the middle of a modern capital, standing at a place with roots reaching back more than a thousand years.

2. 02

   A Founding in 951 at Hikawa-jinja

   The shrine's founding is dated to 951, which in the Japanese calendar is the fifth year of the Tenryaku era. That puts its beginnings in the Heian period, long before Edo became a shogun's capital and long before anyone imagined the skyscrapers of present-day Tokyo. That date is worth holding in mind as you look around. Akasaka today is a district of offices, embassies and busy streets, yet the shrine's own story begins roughly a thousand years before the city grew up around it. The shrine has stayed through every change, and it is counted among the 10 shrines of Tokyo.

3. 03

   The Shogun's Building at Hikawa-jinja

   The shrine buildings you see were put up in 1729, the fourteenth year of the Kyoho era. They were built on the orders of Tokugawa Yoshimune, the eighth Tokugawa shogun of the Edo period. A shogun's commission is the reason the shrine looks the way it does, so look closely at its craftsmanship. Here is the remarkable part. Since that construction, the shrine has come through the Great Kanto Earthquake without damage, an event that flattened much of the city in 1923. As a result, it is designated a Tokyo cultural property and survives as it was originally built. Very little of old Tokyo can say the same. So when you stand before the buildings, you are looking at a rare piece of the Edo period still in place. Notice the roof lines, the woodwork and the way the structure sits calmly above the modern street.

4. 04

   Hikawa-jinja and Its Namesakes in Minato

   Hikawa is a popular name for shrines in this part of Tokyo, and Minato City has more than one. Two of them sit in nearby districts, and neither is the one beneath your feet. The Shirokane Hikawa shrine is traditionally said to have been founded in the Hakuho period as the guardian shrine of Shirokane village. The Motoazabu Hikawa shrine tells a story of movement. It is said to have stood near a solitary pine about 300 meters north of its present site before being relocated in the Manji years, between 1658 and 1661. It is also said to be one of the Edo Hikawa Nansha, the Hikawa shrines of Azabu. The Akasaka shrine has its own distinct dates: a founding in 951 and a building from 1729. It is worth keeping the three apart in your mind.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Before you leave Hikawa-jinja, take one more look at the buildings and remember that they date from 1729 and survived the Great Kanto Earthquake. Few places in Tokyo can pair a shogun's orders with such a well-preserved result. As you wander on, you may notice how Akasaka sits in layers: a very old shrine, an Edo-period commission, and the busy modern district around it. If your curiosity is still awake, the other Hikawa shrines of Minato City make an intriguing comparison, each with its own founding story and its own way of keeping the past alive.