Ushijima Shrine

牛嶋神社
Ushijima Shrine sits on the east bank of the Sumida River, adjacent to Sumida Park, on the site of the former Mito Tokugawa residence. In the old days, it was located in Mukojima Susaki Town, but after the Great Kanto Earthquake, it was rebuilt at its current location at the beginning of the Showa era. Before the Meiji Restoration, Ushihozan Myo-in Saishoji Temple in Honjo Omotemachi managed it as a separate temple, but after the separation of Shinto and Buddhist shrines in the first year of the Meiji era, the name of the shrine was changed to Ushijima Shrine. The land around the former Honjo along the Sumida River was called "Ushijima" in the past, and it was called Ushijima Shrine as its guardian. According to the auspicious book handed down at the shrine, in the second year of Sadakan (860), Jikan Daishi solicited Susano's life as a local guardian deity by an oracle, and later the Tennoho Himei festival, and then the seventh prince of Emperor Seiwa, Sadatsu, who died in this place, was enshrined. The deities of Ushijima Shrine are these three pillars. It is said that September 15, the annual holiday, is the day when the first ritual was held in the old days of Sadakan. In the fourth year of his reign (1180), when Minamoto Yoritomo led a large army and tried to cross from Shimoso Province to Musashi Province, he was unable to cross due to flooding caused by heavy rains, and the warlord Chiba Sukehei Tsuneji prayed, and with the blessing of Shinmei, the whole army was able to cross safely, and Yoritomo respected his divine virtue, and in the first year of the following Yowa (1181), he built a shrine and donated many Shinto domains. Furthermore, in June of the seventh year of Tenmon (1538), it is said that the royal title of "Ushi Gozensha" was given by Go-Nara-in, and in the eleventh year of Eiroku (1568), when the Hojo clan was in charge of the Kanto region, Daidoji Suruga Mori Kagehide donated the Shinto territory. In the Edo period, it was revered by the shogun family as a shrine to protect the demon gate, and in particular, it received a donation of land from the third shogun Iemitsu of Ishihara Shinmachi, and it became a shrine for the festival. The current Setsha Wakamiya is a part of it. Ushijima Shrine, which boasts one of the largest shrines in Toto, is revered and revered as the guardian deity of Ushijima-ko.