Yuki Jinja

Quick facts

Address

1073 Kuramahonmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto

About this place

Yuki Jinja is at Kurama in Sakyo, Kyoto. In earlier times it was enshrined within the Kyoto imperial palace as a guardian of the imperial house. What re-enacts and preserves the procession by which the deity was moved to Kurama is the Kurama Fire Festival, counted among Japan’s three great fire festivals. It is held on the night of 22 October each year, and draws people from across the country as a spirited festival of a kind rarely seen in Kyoto. The shrine names its blessings as the granting of children and safe birth, prosperity in business, matchmaking, and the prevention of fire.

Origin and history

Yuki Jinja was in earlier times enshrined within the Kyoto imperial palace as a guardian of the imperial house.

What re-enacts and preserves the procession by which the deity was moved to Kurama is the Kurama Fire Festival, counted among Japan’s three great fire festivals. It is held on the night of 22 October each year and draws many from across the country as a spirited festival of a kind rarely seen in Kyoto.

The shrine names its blessings as the granting of children and safe birth, prosperity in business, matchmaking, and the prevention of fire.

What it is locally associated with

• What people do here

  A festival that re-enacts the procession

  The Kurama Fire Festival, one of Japan’s three great fire festivals, re-enacts the procession by which the deity was moved here. It is held on the night of 22 October.

  documented history

• Power spotProtection & Safety

  The prevention of fire

  The shrine names the prevention of fire among its blessings — a shrine known for a fire festival, governing keeping fire down.

  documented history

• Power spotFertility & ChildrenMoney & ProsperityLove & Romance

  Children, business, matchmaking

  The shrine also names the granting of children and safe birth, prosperity in business, and matchmaking.

  documented history

This shrine’s festival is not a commemoration but a re-enactment. The shrine once stood inside the imperial palace. When the deity was moved to Kurama, the shrine says, it is the appearance of that procession which the Kurama Fire Festival re-enacts and has preserved. Not a symbol of the move — the procession of that night, done again every year, on the night of 22 October.

One item in the list of blessings stands out: the prevention of fire. A shrine known for a festival of fire also governs keeping fire down. The line of torches and the warding of fire live at the same address.

The rest are the granting of children and safe birth, prosperity in business, and matchmaking — children, trade and marriage, the three of ordinary life.

Related guides

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• 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.
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Sources

1. 由岐神社 — Yuki Jinja (accessed 2026-08-13)