Takekoma Shrine

Takekoma Shrine (Takekoma-jinja) stands in Iwanuma City, Miyagi Prefecture, and is counted among the three great Inari shrines of Japan together with Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto and Toyokawa Inari in Aichi. The main enshrined deities are Uka-no-Mitama-no-Kami, Ukemochi-no-Kami, and Wakumusubi-no-Kami, the three Inari grain and harvest deities. Uka-no-Mitama is recorded in the Kojiki (712 CE) as the offspring of Susanoo-no-Mikoto. According to shrine tradition, the courtier-poet Ono no Takamura founded the shrine in 842 CE while serving as Mutsu governor. The shrine flourished as the protective Inari of the Date domain in the early modern period and continues as the leading Inari devotional site of the Tohoku region. It was designated a prefectural shrine in the Meiji era and is now a Jinja Honcho beppyo shrine.