Fushimi Inari Taisha

Quick facts

Address

68 Fukakusa Yabunouchicho, Fushimi-ku, Kyoto

Spiritual entities

Inari (稲荷大神)

About this place

Fushimi Inari Taisha stands at the foot of Inariyama in Fushimi, Kyoto, and is the head shrine of the Inari shrines of Japan, said to number thirty thousand. By the shrine’s account, the deity Inari Okami took up residence on this mountain on the first Horse day of the second month of 711, in the Nara period. The shrine describes Inari Okami as the deity of abundant harvests, prosperous trade, the safety of the household, and the granting of prayers.

Origin and history

Fushimi Inari Taisha records that Inari Okami came to dwell on this mountain on the first Horse day of the second month of 711, the fourth year of Wadō, in the Nara period.

The shrine has been the centre of Inari devotion ever since, and stands as head shrine to the Inari shrines across the country, said to number thirty thousand.

What it is locally associated with

• Power spotMoney & Prosperity

  The deity of prosperous trade

  The shrine describes Inari Okami as the deity of abundant harvests, prosperous trade, household safety, and prayers fulfilled.

  documented history

• Power spot

  Head shrine of thirty thousand

  Inari shrines across Japan are said to number thirty thousand, and this shrine stands at their head.

  documented history

• Origin

  711, on the first Horse day

  By the shrine’s account, Inari Okami took up residence on this mountain on the first Horse day of the second month of 711.

  documented history

What is believed here, the shrine states itself, in four phrases: abundant harvests, prosperous trade, safety of the household, prayers fulfilled. A deity first asked for the rice crop came, as the towns grew, to be asked about trade — and that whole widening is preserved in the four phrases.

The other fact is the number. Inari shrines are said to number thirty thousand across Japan, and this is the head of them all. One mountain’s deity came to have that many branches.

Because the enshrinement fell on the first Horse day of the second month, Hatsuuma — the first Horse day — remains the Inari festival day.

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.

Sources

1. 伏見稲荷大社について — 伏見稲荷大社 — Fushimi Inari Taisha (accessed 2026-08-13)