Description

This is one of seven Hikawa Jinja in Fushimi-shi and one of two in the Mizuko section of town. During the Tenshō Period, 1573-1592, what was then Mizuko-mura (village) began to develop, and this shrine probably dates from that time. In the Shōhō Period (1644-1648) the village was divided into three parts, Jō-Chū-Ge (Upper, Middle, Lower), and the shrine became the guardian shrine for the Upper section. A quarter of a millennium later, 1906 to be exact, the national government instituted a policy known as  isson-issha  (One Village One Shrine) designed to limit the number of shrines in any one village to one and by 1914 about 70,000 shrines had been closed as a result. Our shrine was designated to merge with the Lower Hikawa Shrine but so fierce was the resistance from its ujiko (parishioners) that it was allowed to remain independent, although its name was struck from the official register. To this day the shrine is not registered with the Association of Shintō Shrines and in a case of old memories dying hard the Association refers to the shrine as Hikawa Sha rather than Hikawa Jinja. Organisationally orphaned it may be but this shrine nevertheless retains its own strong identity.