Tenkawa Daibenzaiten

Quick facts

Address

107 Tsubonouchi, Tenkawa, Yoshino, Nara

Spiritual entities

Benzaiten (弁才天)

About this place

Tenkawa Daibenzaiten is in Tenkawa, Nara. Its chief deity is Ichikishimahime, venerated as Benzaiten; also enshrined are the great deity of Kumano, the great deity of Yoshino, the spirits of four sovereigns of the Southern Court, and a hundred deities from Ame-no-Minakanushi of the age of the gods. The Muromachi-period Tamon-in diary records that the opening of Tenkawa was by En no Gyoja, and the beginning is held to be its enshrinement as guardian of Misen, the highest peak, when En no Gyoja opened Omine. By the resolve of Emperor Tenmu, a shrine building was raised on the present site at Tsubonouchi. A retreat by Kobo Daishi in the Konin era is also transmitted. Its stated virtues are the great deity of water, of eloquence and wit, of music, art and performance, and of treasure. The shrine holds thirty Noh masks designated Important Cultural Properties and thirty Noh costumes designated by the prefecture.

Origin and history

The Muromachi-period Tamon-in diary records that the opening of Tenkawa was by En no Gyoja. The beginning is held to be its enshrinement as guardian of Misen, the highest peak, when En no Gyoja opened Omine.

By the resolve of Emperor Tenmu, a shrine building was raised on the present site at Tsubonouchi. A retreat by Kobo Daishi in the Konin era is also transmitted.

Its stated virtues are the great deity of water, of eloquence and wit, of music, art and performance, and of treasure.

What it is locally associated with

• Power spotSkill & MasteryMoney & Prosperity

  The great deity of music, art and performance

  Its stated virtues are the great deity of water, of eloquence and wit, of music, art and performance, and of treasure.

  documented history

• What people do here

  Noh masks six hundred years old

  The shrine holds thirty Noh masks as Important Cultural Properties and thirty Noh costumes; in 1430 Kanze Juro Motomasa dedicated the play Toshin here.

  documented history

• Origin

  Guardian of Mount Misen

  The Tamon-in diary records the opening of Tenkawa as by En no Gyoja, enshrined as guardian of Misen when Omine was opened.

  folk tradition

The connection to performance here is not only a saying. The shrine holds thirty Noh masks designated Important Cultural Properties and thirty Noh costumes designated by the prefecture. In 1430 Kanze Juro Motomasa dedicated the play Toshin and presented a jo mask inscribed as an offering before the Benzaiten. Behind the virtue named as music, art and performance stands a mask given six hundred years ago that is still here.

The beginning was a mountain guardian. The Tamon-in diary records that the opening of Tenkawa was by En no Gyoja, and the shrine holds that it was enshrined as guardian of Misen, the highest peak, when Omine was opened. On this list, Kinpusen-ji in Yoshino and Muro-ji both put the same man at their beginnings.

A retreat by Kobo Daishi in the Konin era is also transmitted. As at To-ji in Kyoto and Amanosan Kongo-ji in Osaka, his name turns up in the founding accounts of widely separated places.

Four virtues are named: water, eloquence and wit, music and art and performance, and treasure. The shrine explains that Benzaiten originates in the ancient Indian Sarasvati, was originally a deity of water, eloquence and music, and came later to be a deity of prosperity in business.

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. 天河大辨財天社について — Tenkawa Daibenzaiten (accessed 2026-08-15)