Sumiyoshi Shrine

Sumiyoshi Taisha—affectionately called ‘Sumiyossan’ in Osaka—receives more than two million visitors for Hatsumode (New Year’s shrine visits) over the first three days of the year, and it is the head shrine of the more than 2,300 Sumiyoshi shrines nationwide. It has been worshipped since ancient times as a deity of safe voyages, purification, agriculture, waka poetry, martial valor, and sumo, and its origins trace back about 1,800 years. Its distinctive architectural style, regarded as the oldest of its kind in shrine architecture, has been designated a National Treasure. The shrine hosts many festivals and rituals, including the Sumiyoshi Festival, and numerous National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties are carefully preserved within the grounds. Among them, the ‘Sumiyoshi Taisha Jindaiki,’ one of the few surviving ancient documents, is designated an Important Cultural Property, and many items such as wooden bugaku masks are also designated as Important Cultural Properties or as Osaka Prefecture cultural properties. The reading of ‘Sumiyoshi’ today is ‘Sumiyoshi,’ but it was originally ‘Suminoe (Sumie).’ In the ‘Manyoshu,’ compiled in the Nara period, it appears not only as ‘Sumiyoshi’ but also as ‘Sumie,’ ‘Sumi-e,’ ‘Kiyoe,’ and ‘Suminoe.’