Himuro Shrine

Quick facts

Address

1-4 Kasuganocho, Nara

About this place

Himuro Shrine is in Nara. Its deities are Osasagi no Mikoto, Tsuge no Inagi Oyamanushi no Mikoto and Nukata no Onakatsuhiko no Mikoto. In the reign of Empress Genmei, in the third year of Wado, it was enshrined by imperial command on the imperial mountain of Mikasa at Kasuga, in the eastern half of the new Nara capital. The following year the imperial rite of offering ice was first held, and from then ice was presented to the capital each year from the first day of the fourth month to the thirtieth of the ninth. In the reign of Emperor Seiwa, in the second year of Jogan, it was moved to the present site, and two further deities were added to left and right, making three seats. The ice-offering festival has become a rite at which ice makers and sellers from all over the country attend and pray for the fulfilment of the year’s business, and it is held on 1 May, avoiding the trade’s busy month of June.

Origin and history

In the reign of Empress Genmei, in the third year of Wado, the shrine was enshrined by imperial command on the imperial mountain of Mikasa at Kasuga, in the eastern half of the new Nara capital.

The following year the imperial rite of offering ice was first held, and ice was presented to the capital each year from the first day of the fourth month to the thirtieth of the ninth.

In the reign of Emperor Seiwa, in the second year of Jogan, it was moved to the present site, and two further deities were added to left and right, making three seats.

What it is locally associated with

• Power spotMoney & Prosperity

  The ice trade’s own festival

  Ice makers and sellers from across the country attend the ice-offering festival to pray for the year’s business; it is held on 1 May to avoid the trade’s busy June.

  documented history

• Origin

  It supplied the capital with ice

  From the year after its founding, ice was presented to the Nara capital each year from the first day of the fourth month to the thirtieth of the ninth.

  documented history

• What people do here

  Shaved ice before the deity

  From 1 June to 1 September, shaved ice is offered before the deity and may afterwards be received and eaten.

  local custom

This shrine was a working place first. Ice was presented to the capital each year from the first day of the fourth month to the thirtieth of the ninth — the job came first, and the devotion practised here now runs on from it.

At the ice-offering festival, ice makers and sellers from all over the country attend and pray for the fulfilment of the year’s business. A festival where one trade gathers for its own livelihood. Sukunahikona Shrine in Osaka, the shrine of the pharmacists’ street at Doshomachi, has the same shape.

The date shows the trade’s hand too. It is held on 1 May, avoiding the busy month of June — the rite moved to fit the working year of the people who come to it. On the day, two great ice pillars with a sea bream and a carp sealed inside them are offered along with flower ice, and shaved ice is handed out, with court music performed.

From 1 June to 1 September, shaved ice is offered before the deity and may afterwards be received and eaten.

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. 氷室神社について — Himuro Shrine (accessed 2026-08-15)