Toride Yasaka Shrine

Toride Yasaka Shrine (Toride Yasaka-jinja) stands in Toride City, Ibaraki Prefecture, on the lower Tone River, as a local Yasaka shrine in the nationwide Gion/Yasaka cult network whose head shrine is Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto. The main enshrined deity is Susanoo-no-Mikoto (medievally venerated as Gozu Tenno), recorded in the Kojiki (712 CE) and the Nihon Shoki (720 CE) as the offspring of Izanagi and the slayer of the Yamata-no-Orochi. According to shrine tradition, the shrine was founded in the Edo period as the tutelary of the Toride post-station of the Mito road and as a protector against epidemic disease, following the medieval Gozu Tenno cult that spread Yasaka branch shrines across Japan. It was designated a village shrine in the Meiji era and continues as a Jinja Honcho registered shrine maintained by the local parish community, which holds an annual summer festival as a continuation of the Gion festival cycle.