Mankusen Shrine

Mankusen Shrine is a small shrine in Izumo, but it holds a well-known place in the story of the yearly gathering of the gods there.

Nobody knows exactly when the shrine was founded. It is understood to be the same shrine that appears under the name Kamushiro in the Izumo Fudoki, a regional record compiled in the eighth century, and in the Engishiki, a tenth century list of official shrines. That places its history at roughly 1,300 years or more. Over the centuries the name changed several times, and by the early modern period the shrine was known as Mankusen. After the Meiji Restoration it was kept as Mankusen-sha within the shrine of Tachimushi. The current main hall was rebuilt and rededicated on 10 October 2014, the first rebuilding since 1878.

Three named deities are enshrined at Mankusen Shrine, together with all the gods of Japan as a group:

• Kushimikenu no Mikoto, also identified with Susanoo, a god of food and of farming and other forms of production. He is also known as Kumano Okami and is the principal deity of Kumano Taisha in Matsue.

• Sukunahikona no Mikoto, who worked alongside Onamuchi to open up and settle the land. He is associated with farming, industry, and medicine.

• Onamuchi no Mikoto, who developed the land of Izumo and the wider country. He is better known as Okuninushi, the principal deity of Izumo Taisha, and is linked with farming, fishing, medicine, and good matches.

• The eight million gods, meaning all the deities of Japan, honoured here because of the gathering they are said to hold at this site each year.

People pray at the shrine for peace, good harvests, good relationships, recovery from illness, and safe travel, among other things.

Kamiarizuki

In most of Japan, the tenth month of the old lunar calendar, which falls around late November and early December in today's calendar, was traditionally known as the month without gods. In Izumo it was the opposite: this was Kamiarizuki, the month when the gods came. They were believed to travel from every part of the country to meet, discuss the year ahead, and decide matters such as who would be matched with whom.

Mankusen Shrine preserves the belief that this is the final place the gods visit before they go home. Here they bring their council to a close and, on the evening of the 26th day of that month, share a farewell banquet called a naorai. Early the next morning they set out for the shrines of their own regions. The festival that marks this departure is called Karasade, and locally the shrine itself is known as Karasade-san.

This connection with travel and leave taking shapes the way people pray here. Among the blessings the shrine lists are safe travel, harmony at meetings and banquets, prosperity for the restaurant trade, and good outcomes at turning points in life, such as starting a business, entering a school, or finding work.

Tachimushi Shrine

Mankusen Shrine shares its grounds with Tachimushi Shrine, and the two are visited together. Tachimushi Shrine is the local guardian shrine for the surrounding district, and it also appears in the same eighth and tenth century records, so its origins are equally old. It first stood on an island in the Hii River and moved into the present grounds after a flood changed the course of the river in 1670.