Heian Jingu

Quick facts

Address

97 Okazaki Nishitennocho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto

About this place

Heian Jingu stands in Sakyo, Kyoto. It was founded on 15 March 1895 to mark eleven hundred years since the capital moved to Heian-kyo. Its original deity was Emperor Kanmu; in 1940 Emperor Komei (1831–1866), the last emperor of the Heian capital, was enshrined alongside him. Before the sanctuary stand reproductions of the Daigokuden and Otenmon, the symbols of the Heian palace, designed and supervised by the architects Kigo Kiyoyoshi and Ito Chuta. They are designated Important Cultural Properties.

Origin and history

Heian Jingu was founded on 15 March 1895 to commemorate eleven hundred years since the move of the capital to Heian-kyo.

Its original deity was Emperor Kanmu. In 1940, Emperor Komei (1831–1866), the last emperor of the Heian capital, was enshrined with him.

Before the sanctuary, the Daigokuden and Otenmon of the Heian palace’s state compound were reproduced as monuments. Kigo Kiyoyoshi and Ito Chuta, leading architects of the day, directed the design and construction, and the buildings are now Important Cultural Properties.

What it is locally associated with

• Origin

  For the 1100th anniversary

  Founded on 15 March 1895 to mark eleven hundred years since the capital moved to Heian-kyo.

  documented history

• Power spot

  The first emperor and the last

  Emperor Kanmu was the original deity; in 1940 Emperor Komei, the last emperor of the Heian capital, was enshrined with him.

  documented history

• Power spot

  Daigokuden and Otenmon

  The Heian palace’s great hall and gate were reproduced before the sanctuary and are now Important Cultural Properties.

  documented history

What this shrine holds is the beginning and the end of a thousand years. Emperor Kanmu, its deity, moved the capital here in 794; Emperor Komei, enshrined later, was the last emperor of that capital. One shrine, the man who started it and the man it ended with.

The shrine itself is new — founded in 1895. On this Kyoto list it is roughly a thousand years younger than anything else.

No category of prayer is attached. The shrine’s record is about commemoration and architecture, not about what is asked here.

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. 平安神宮の歴史 — 平安神宮 — Heian Jingu (accessed 2026-08-13)