Kifune Jinja Shrine （貴船神社）

In the woody woods in the north in Kyoto, along a wild river. Going deeper in the woods and you will see a red Tori-i gate, a symbol to a sacred area in Shintoism. There has been a water deity enshrine inside its core for around 2,000 years. 

Kifune Jinja Shrine（貴船神社） is located in the northern part of Kyoto called Rakuhoku （洛北）. The place is a water-head of Kamo River（賀茂川） running throughout Kyoto . With this regard, the main deity of the shrine is a water guardian who ensures water supply to people. 

A crystal-clear water stream

The origin is quite old. It still is unclear when exactly the shrine was started but the official chronicle of the shrine says that Tamayori-Hime, a mother of Jinmu-the first emperor, sailed from Osaka Bay to Yodo River, Kamo River and arrived in the place which is the current "inner palace" （奥宮）of the shrine. Tamayori-Hime built an alter for the water deity and started its prayer. This is the very first moment of the shrine's birth. As years passed, the 18th emperor Hanzei (反正天皇）established the shrine room and building in 406 AD. The Inner Palace is the original place where the deity was enshrined but it was moved to the current main building in 1046 AD because a flood demolished the original alter. 

Black and White horses

The enshrined deity called Taka-Okami（高龗神）, a child of Izanagi（refer to my previous article), was respected by the emperors-in-history and its imperial courts for the rain. Since Japan adapted rice farming as production of its dietary staple, the rain has been an important factor to its harvest. When water was scarce and drought happened, the imperial court sent a special ambassador and donated a black horse to the shrine for raining. On the contrary, if they had too much rain to cause damages, they prayed for stop raining by donating a white horse  The horse donations were just symbolic; it was actually alternated with wood plates in which a black/white horses was drawn. Anyways, due to this characteristic, the shrine was chosen as one of the "twenty-two shrines" which the imperial court sent special donations in the face of its national crisis. 

Nowadays, the shrine has attracted respects from culinary people and companies in the water-industry, and since the deity is considered having a power to control the water, people who get involved in sailing often visit the shrine to pray for their safety during their voyage. Recently, a series of renovation works was completed so the main building and the inner palace look quite new today. 

When you visit the shrine, you will meet many young boy-and-girl couples and groups of single boys and girls easily. The reason is very understandable. These is a shrine annexed to the main building  for a god called Iwanaga-hime to be enshrined, located between the main building and the inner palace and the deity is said to be the marriage-tie divine supporter. In this case, the shrine is also famous as a place to gain a spiritual support for a marriage-tie making. The young marriage seekers are willing to come here for the divine supports for their happiness. Besides, at the inner palace, there is an unique tree symbolizing a harmonized relationship. The tree is called "Renri-no-ki", which means that the two different trees have been entwined and now living as a complete new type of tree; the tree is said to give a power to people in need for their "harmonization" with their future spouses and/or the current partners.

Izumi-Shikibu（和泉式部）, a female Tanka （短歌：A Japanese traditional poem）poet in Heian era, was one of the happiness seekers in the shrine's long history. She visited the shrine and made a prayer to regain a strong tie with her husband, with whom she had had a difficulty to continue her marriage life. However, she did not receive the shrine's ritual for her wish because she had to reveal her genitalia during the ritual as its rlule. Her husband saw that his wife rejected the embarrassing action gracefully and was stunned to love her again. The story was spread by those happiness seekers and the shrine became popular as the spiritual marriage-tie supporter.