Akasaka Hikawa Shrine

Shrine · Tokyo

赤坂氷川神社 · Akasaka Hikawa Jinja

Researched and translated with AI assistance. Every claim is linked to its source, but errors get through, so check the official site for opening times, fees and closures.About

In short

A Minato shrine founded in 951 whose Edo-period buildings survived both the earthquake and the war, known for warding off misfortune and for the tying of bonds, and the shrine explains why it is known for each.

The main hall of Akasaka Hikawa Shrine, a dark timber building among trees — Photo: Doricono, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Quick facts

Address: 6-10-12 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052
Access: Akasaka on the Tokyo Metro Chiyoda line, Roppongi-itchome on the Namboku line, Roppongi on the Hibiya and Toei Oedo lines, and Tameike-sanno on the Ginza and Namboku lines are all within about ten minutes on foot. The approach is uphill from most of them.
Hours: Gates open at 6:00 and close at 17:30. The shrine office takes visitors from 9:00 to 17:00.
Best time: The annual festival falls on 15 September, and the Akasaka Hikawa Festival brings out the portable shrine and the floats. The bond-tying rite is held once a month by reservation, and there are seasonal versions in March and July.
Spiritual entities: Ōkuninushi (大国主命) · Susanoo no Mikoto (素盞嗚尊)
Official site: www.akasakahikawa.or.jp

About this place

Akasaka Hikawa sits on a wooded slope between Akasaka and Roppongi, a few minutes from some of the densest office blocks in Tokyo. Its main buildings were put up under the shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune and came through the earthquakes and the air raids, so the shrine keeps torii (鳥居), guardian lions and lanterns carved with Edo era names, which is unusual in central Tokyo. It is one of the Tokyo Ten Shrines.

Origin and history

The shrine dates its founding to 951. Its account is that the monk Renrin, travelling in the eastern provinces, spent a night at Hitotsugi village, in what is now the Akasaka 4-chome area, received the deity in a dream, and built a hall to Hikawa Myojin on the spot.

The name Hikawa comes from the Hi River in the old province of Izumo, now the Hii in Shimane. The upper reaches of that river are where the Yamata-no-Orochi story is set, which is the story of the shrine's principal deity.

The buildings visitors see were raised under Tokugawa Yoshimune. They survived the disasters that took most of Tokyo's older shrines, and the grounds still hold a torii, guardian lions and stone lanterns cut with Edo period dates.

What it is locally associated with

Power spotProtection & Safety
Why it wards off misfortune
The shrine reads the "susa" in Susanoo's name as susabu, to rage, and takes it as the power to sweep away impurity and calamity by force. The Orochi story is the same argument.
documented history
Power spotBonds & MatchmakingLove & Romance
Three deities, one married pair
Susanoo and Kushinadahime, husband and wife, are enshrined with their descendant Ōnamuchi, whom the shrine calls the deity of all binding. That is its stated reason for the bond-tying association.
documented history
What people do hereBonds & Matchmaking
The bond-tying rite, by reservation
A monthly rite limited to thirty people. Afterwards the shrine gives out a charm filled with indigo seed grown in its own grounds, the plant name being a homophone for love.
local custom
Origin
Edo buildings that survived
Raised under the shogun Yoshimune and never lost to earthquake or fire, with torii, guardian lions and lanterns still carrying Edo dates.
documented history

Most shrines leave you to work out where a reputation came from. This one sets out four things it is associated with and then explains each from the deities it enshrines, which is why every tag on this page traces to a sentence rather than to a reputation.

Warding off misfortune comes first, and the argument is about a name. Susanoo killed the eight-headed Yamata-no-Orochi, and the shrine reads the susa of his name as susabu, to rage, taking it to mean a power that drives out impurity, calamity and misfortune by force rather than gently. The tying of bonds comes from the household: Susanoo and Kushinadahime are enshrined here as a married pair, together with their descendant Ōnamuchi, who is also the deity of Izumo Taisha and whom the shrine calls the deity of every kind of musubi. Its own gloss is careful to say that this covers friendships, work and children as well as couples, which is why this page carries both the love and the relationship tags. Household safety and prosperity in trade complete the four.

Kushinadahime is worth knowing about even though she has no page here. She was to be the Orochi's sacrifice, and the shrine records that Susanoo turned her into a comb and wore her in his hair through the fight. The poem he composed afterwards, about the eightfold fence of Izumo built to keep his wife within, is held to be the origin of Japanese verse.

One practice belongs to this shrine and not to shrines in general. The bond-tying visit is a reserved rite held once a month for thirty people, with seasonal versions in March and July. The shrine grows indigo inside its own precinct and packs the seed into charm bags by hand, the point being that the word for indigo is a homophone for love. It also gives out a comb, named after the Shigō Inari in the grounds, which Katsu Kaishū named.

Claims and evidence levels 7

The shrine dates its founding to 951, relating that the monk Renrin received the deity in a dream while staying at Hitotsugi village and built a hall to Hikawa Myojin there. folk tradition
The name Hikawa derives from the Hi River in the old province of Izumo, now the Hii River in Shimane, whose upper reaches are the setting of the Yamata-no-Orochi story. documented history
The present shrine buildings were raised under the shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune and survived the earthquakes and wartime destruction that took most of central Tokyo's older shrines; torii, guardian lions and lanterns carved with Edo era dates remain in the grounds. documented history
The shrine enshrines Susanoo, Kushinadahime and Ōnamuchi, and names warding off misfortune, the tying of bonds, household safety and prosperity in trade as what it is associated with. documented history
The shrine attributes its warding association to Susanoo's slaying of the Yamata-no-Orochi and to reading the "susa" of his name as susabu, to rage, meaning a power that drives out impurity and calamity by force. documented history
The shrine attributes its bond-tying association to enshrining the married pair Susanoo and Kushinadahime together with Ōnamuchi, whom it describes as the deity of every kind of binding, covering friendships, work and children as well as couples. documented history
The shrine holds a reserved bond-tying rite once a month for thirty people, and gives out a charm filled with indigo seed grown inside its own precinct, the word for indigo being a homophone for love. local custom

Visiting tips

The general form is in the visiting guide below. Specific to Akasaka Hikawa:

The bond-tying rite cannot be joined on the day. Reservations open at 9:00 on the first of each month for the following month and the places go quickly, so it is not something to plan around at short notice. Ordinary prayers are also by reservation, in fifteen-minute slots between 9:30 and 16:00.

The shrine publishes rules for photography in the grounds, which is worth checking if you intend to shoot more than a snapshot.

Unusually for this site, the gate times are real published figures rather than an estimate: open at 6:00, closed at 17:30, with the office running 9:00 to 17:00. Arriving in the last hour gets you the grounds but not the counter.

Related guides

How to visit a shrine or temple in JapanThe country-wide basics: purifying at the water basin, the two-bows-two-claps-one-bow form at shrines, and what temples do instead.
What a "power spot" actually isA modern Japanese coinage, not a traditional religious category. Where the word came from, what it does and does not claim, and why this site uses it anyway.
Shrine or temple?A shrine is Shinto and a temple is Buddhist, and you can usually tell at the gate. Why the line is cleaner on paper than on the ground, and what a government order in 1868 has to do with it.
Omamori, ema, omikuji and goshuinThe four things you are most likely to receive, write, draw or be given at a shrine or temple, what each is actually for, and the one of them people most often get wrong.