History

It is said that the Imado Jinja was founded as Imado Hachiman in 1063 by the father-son team of Minamoto Yoriyoshi and Yoshiie when they were on their way home after subduing the Ōshū Province. En route they established bunshi of Kyōto’s Iwashimizu Hachimangū in Kamakura’s Tsurugaoka and Edo’s Hinotsu, now Imado. In 1081, Yoshiie was passing through Hinotsu on his way to put down the rebellion of the Kiyohara brothers, Takehira and Iehara, and prayed at the shrine for success. He achieved a splendid victory and thanked the kami by rebuilding the shrine’s main hall. Moving on to the Edo Period, the main hall was again rebuilt, this time by the third Tokugawa Shōgun, Iemitsu. More recently, in September 1923, the shrine was reduced to ashes by the Great Kantō earthquake and seemingly no sooner had it been rebuilt than the March 1945 fire bombing and other attacks again reduced it to rubble. In between these disasters, in July 1937, the shrine was merged with the neighbouring Hakusan Jinja and the new entity renamed Imado Jinja. The current main hall was built in 1971.