Keihin Fushimi Inari Shrine

Keihin Fushimi Inari Shrine is a compact but eye-catching Inari shrine guarded by 108 stone foxes. It's a branch of the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto, and like its parent it stands independent of the national association of shrines.

The shrine is a modern one, and its origins are tied to the postwar years. Founded in 1951 by its first head priest, Tomizawa Kanju, following a revelation from Kyoto's Fushimi Inari Taisha, it was built here, between Tokyo and Yokohama, to pray for the recovery and revival of a community still finding its feet after the war. Its principal deity is Tokiwa Inari Okami - a local form of the Inari deity - enshrined alongside a group of five associated deities known collectively as the Gosei Daimyojin. Between them they cover the blessings the shrine is sought out for: business and industry, safe households, study, travel, and advancement in one's work. It was founded specifically as a shusse Inari, a shrine for getting ahead in life and career.

The shrine is built in the "Edo style", in which the base of the building is packed with volcanic rock from Mount Fuji - considered highly auspicious and fashionable in the Edo period - so here the main hall is ringed with Fuji lava. Above it rises a striking multi-tiered sanctuary, and a great iron torii, about 14 metres tall, marks the entrance. The grounds hold 108 statues of the fox, the messenger of Inari, each a little different from the next.