Shirahige Shrine

Shirahige Shrine stands on the western shore of Lake Biwa at Takashima in Shiga Prefecture, with the road and then the water in front of it. It is the head shrine of the Shirahige shrines found across the country, and calls itself the oldest of the great shrines of Omi, the old province that Shiga now occupies.

The shrine is dedicated to Sarutahiko, the god who went ahead of Ninigi, the grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu, when he came down from heaven to rule the land, and showed him the way. He is worshipped as the god of guidance, of opening roads and of beginnings, and prayers are made here for long life, for marriage, for children and for safe travel.

The name comes from the form he takes here: an old man with white hair and a white beard. "Shirahige" means white beard.

By the shrine's own record it was founded in the twenty-fifth year of the emperor Suinin, more than two thousand years ago, and in 675 an imperial order gave it the title Hira Myojin, myojin being an honour paid to a deity and Hira the name of the mountains behind the shrine. The main hall standing now dates from 1603, rebuilt in the name of Toyotomi Hideyori on Hideyoshi's dying instruction. The shrine's own record credits a daughter of the warlord Azai Nagamasa. It is an Important Cultural Property.

A torii stands in the water in front of the shrine. Something of the kind is old: a torii offshore appears in a folding screen of the Muromachi period showing famous views of Omi, and again in the shrine's own painted scroll of the Edo period. Older stories tell of a torii and a stone bridge appearing in the lake as a sign of coming upheaval.

The torii that stands there now is not ancient. It was put up in 1937, given by a wholesale druggist from Osaka, and the present one replaced it in 1981.

At the autumn festival the shrine holds a rite for children in their second year. A name is conferred on the child before the god, and if that name is used for three days the child is said to be given health and long life.