Katsuragi Hitokotonushi Shrine

Quick facts

Address

432 Moriwaki, Gose, Nara

About this place

Katsuragi Hitokotonushi Shrine is in Gose, Nara, and its deity is Hitokotonushi no Okami. The deity appeared when the twenty-first sovereign, Emperor Yuryaku, was hunting on Mount Katsuragi, and in the Kojiki declares: "I am the deity who parts words, evil in one word and good in one word — Hitokotonushi the great deity of Katsuragi." The emperor offered his great sword and his bow and arrows, and the garments worn by the hundred officials. The Montoku Jitsuroku records the grant of senior third rank in 850, the Sandai Jitsuroku junior second rank in 859, and the Engishiki of 907 lists it among the great shrines of eminent deities. In 804 Saicho came to pray here, and Emperor Go-Kogon granted it senior first rank. It draws devotion from across the country as a deity who will hear any wish at all, so long as it is a single wish.

Origin and history

The deity appeared when the twenty-first sovereign, Emperor Yuryaku, was hunting on Mount Katsuragi. In the Kojiki the deity declares: "I am the deity who parts words, evil in one word and good in one word — Hitokotonushi the great deity of Katsuragi." The emperor offered his great sword and his bow and arrows, and the garments worn by the hundred officials.

The Montoku Jitsuroku records the grant of senior third rank in 850, the Sandai Jitsuroku junior second rank in 859, and the Engishiki of 907 lists it among the great shrines of eminent deities.

In 804 Saicho came to pray here, and Emperor Go-Kogon granted it senior first rank.

What it is locally associated with

• Power spotWish Fulfillment

  Any wish, if it is only one

  The deity is revered across the country as one who will hear any wish at all, so long as it is a single wish.

  folk tradition

• Origin

  The deity names itself

  In the Kojiki the deity declares: "I am the deity who parts words, evil in one word and good in one word — Hitokotonushi the great deity of Katsuragi."

  documented history

• Origin

  An appearance during a hunt

  The deity appeared while Emperor Yuryaku was hunting on Mount Katsuragi, and the emperor offered his sword, his bow and arrows, and the officials’ garments.

  folk tradition

There is one condition on how you ask here. The deity will hear any wish at all, so long as it is a single wish — the subject is unrestricted, the number is not. What sets this shrine apart is that the limit is on how many, not on what.

The deity introduces itself. A line from the Kojiki is quoted, spoken in the first person: the deity who parts words, evil in one word and good in one word, Hitokotonushi the great deity of Katsuragi. Not a description written by someone else, but a self-naming that survives as speech.

The appearance is specific too. Emperor Yuryaku was hunting on Mount Katsuragi when the deity appeared, and he offered his great sword and his bow and arrows, and the garments worn by the hundred officials. The meeting and the offering made on the spot both come down together.

The recorded ranks follow: senior third in 850, junior second in 859, listing among the great shrines of eminent deities in 907. Saicho prayed here in 804, and Emperor Go-Kogon granted senior first rank.

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. 一言主神社について — Katsuragi Hitokotonushi Shrine (accessed 2026-08-15)
2. 葛城一言主神社 — Katsuragi Hitokotonushi Shrine (accessed 2026-08-15)