Tsuyu-no-Tenjin Shrine

Tsuyu-no-Tenjin Shrine (Tsuyu-no-Tenjin-sha), popularly known as Ohatsu Tenjin, is located in Sonezaki, Kita Ward, Osaka City, in the heart of the Sonezaki commercial district near JR Osaka and Hankyu Umeda stations. The principal deities are Sukunabiko-no-Okami, Onamuchi-no-Okami, Sugawara-no-Michizane, Amaterasu Sume-Okami, and Toyoukehime-no-Okami, with the Izumo pair of Sukunabiko and Onamuchi at the center and Sugawara-no-Michizane added by joint enshrinement. The shrine name 'Tsuyu-no-Tenjin' is traditionally said to derive from a waka composed by Michizane on his journey of exile to Dazaifu. Shrine tradition records founding as one of the ritual sites of the ancient Naniwa Yasoshima-sai. The shrine became associated with the Tenjin cult in the medieval period. In Genroku 16 (1703), the death pact of the courtesan Ohatsu and the merchant Tokubei occurred in the shrine's precincts; Chikamatsu Monzaemon dramatized the event as 'Sonezaki Shinju,' from which the popular name Ohatsu Tenjin derives. Ranked as a village shrine in the Meiji era. The main hall was rebuilt after damage in the Osaka air raids of the Pacific War.