Shimogamo Jinja

Quick facts

Address

59 Shimogamo Izumigawacho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto

About this place

Shimogamo Jinja, properly Kamo Mioya Jinja, is in Sakyo, Kyoto. Its deities are Kamo Taketsunumi no Mikoto in the west sanctuary and Tamayorihime no Mikoto in the east. A record survives of repairs to the shrine’s sacred fence in the seventh year of Emperor Sujin — 90 BC — from which devotion earlier still is inferred. People pray here for protection from misfortune, for marriage, for children, for safe birth, for raising them, and for safe travel, as well as for the peace of the nation and of the world. It was inscribed as World Heritage in 1994, and its two main sanctuaries are National Treasures.

Origin and history

The deities of Shimogamo Jinja are Kamo Taketsunumi no Mikoto in the west sanctuary and Tamayorihime no Mikoto in the east. Kamo Taketsunumi is held to be the deity who opened ancient Kyoto, and a symbol of guidance and of victory.

A record survives of repairs to the shrine’s sacred fence in the seventh year of Emperor Sujin, 90 BC, and from it devotion earlier still is inferred.

Within the precinct stands Tadasu no Mori, a wood that keeps vegetation from the remote past. The shrine was inscribed as World Heritage in 1994 and its two main sanctuaries are National Treasures.

What it is locally associated with

• Power spotProtection & SafetyLove & RomanceFertility & ChildrenFamily & Home

  Six things asked for

  Protection from misfortune, marriage, children, safe birth, raising them and safe travel — with the peace of nation and world besides.

  documented history

• Origin

  Dated from a fence repair

  A record of repairs to the sacred fence in the seventh year of Emperor Sujin, 90 BC, is used to infer devotion earlier still.

  documented history

• Power spot

  Tadasu no Mori

  The precinct holds a wood keeping vegetation from the remote past. The shrine was inscribed as World Heritage in 1994.

  documented history

What is asked for here is set down as a list of six: protection from misfortune, marriage, children, safe birth, raising them, safe travel. Guarding a life and making a family run through it almost in order. Beyond those, the peace of the nation and of the world are also prayed for.

The way the date is given is worth noticing. The shrine does not say "founded in". It cites a record of the sacred fence being repaired in the seventh year of Sujin, and infers devotion earlier than that. A note about mending a fence is the evidence for how old the worship is.

Tadasu no Mori, inside the precinct, keeps vegetation from the remote past — a wood in the middle of the capital that is older than the capital.

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. 下鴨神社について — 賀茂御祖神社 — Shimogamo Jinja (accessed 2026-08-13)