Imamiya Ebisu Jinja

Quick facts

Address

1-6-10 Ebisunishi, Naniwa-ku, Osaka

Spiritual entities

Amaterasu Ōmikami (天照大御神) · Ebisu (恵比寿, Sukunahikona) · Susanoo no Mikoto (素盞嗚尊)

About this place

Imamiya Ebisu Jinja is in Naniwa, Osaka. It was founded in the year 600, in the reign of Empress Suiko, when Prince Shotoku was building Shitenno-ji, and it is transmitted that it was revered as the deity guarding the marketplace. The main sanctuary enshrines Amaterasu, Kotoshironushi, Susanoo, Tsukuyomi and Wakahirume; the Okuni hall enshrines Okuninushi and the eight pillar deities, and the Inari hall enshrines Ugamitama. It has been worshipped as a deity who grants good fortune and one prayed to for the flourishing of commerce, and its Toka Ebisu rites are held over the three days of 9, 10 and 11 January.

Origin and history

The shrine was founded in the year 600, in the reign of Empress Suiko, when Prince Shotoku was building Shitenno-ji, and it is transmitted that it was revered as the deity guarding the marketplace.

The main sanctuary enshrines Amaterasu, Kotoshironushi, Susanoo, Tsukuyomi and Wakahirume. The Okuni hall enshrines Okuninushi together with the eight pillar deities, and the Inari hall enshrines Ugamitama.

It has been worshipped as a deity who grants good fortune and one prayed to for the flourishing of commerce. The Toka Ebisu rites are held over three days, 9, 10 and 11 January, and the shrine is known as a guardian of prosperous trade and full good fortune.

What it is locally associated with

• Origin

  Guardian of the marketplace

  Founded in the year 600 as Prince Shotoku was building Shitenno-ji, and revered, it is transmitted, as the deity guarding the marketplace.

  documented history

• Power spotMoney & Prosperity

  Good fortune and flourishing trade

  Worshipped as a deity who grants good fortune and is prayed to for the flourishing of commerce; a guardian of prosperous trade.

  documented history

• What people do here

  Toka Ebisu, three days

  The Toka Ebisu rites are held over the three days of 9, 10 and 11 January.

  documented history

That this is a shrine of commerce is not a reputation acquired later. The shrine records its own beginning as a place revered as the deity guarding the marketplace. What it was set there to protect was a market. A shrine placed where things are bought and sold, and prosperous trade follows from the job description.

It was founded in the year 600, while Prince Shotoku was building Shitenno-ji — so it shares its opening sentence with another place on this list.

What the shrine names as its gift is good fortune and the flourishing of commerce. The Toka Ebisu rites fall on 9, 10 and 11 January. Three days at the start of the year carry the shape of the shrine’s whole calendar.

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. 今宮戎神社とは — Imamiya Ebisu Jinja (accessed 2026-08-14)