Yatagarasu Shrine

Yatagarasu Shrine (Yatagarasu-jinja) is located in Haibara Takatsuka, Uda City, Nara Prefecture. The principal deity is Taketsunumi-no-Mikoto, who according to Kojiki (712 CE, middle volume, Jinmu eastern campaign) and Nihon Shoki (720 CE, Jinmu chronicle) took the form of the three-legged crow Yatagarasu to guide Emperor Jinmu from Kumano to Yamato. The shrine is recorded in Engishiki Jinmyocho (927 CE) as Yatagarasu-jinja, a shikinaisha of Uda district, Yamato province. Tradition holds that the shrine was founded by imperial command of Emperor Monmu in Keiun 2 (705 CE). Located on the northern slopes of Mount Inasa near the upper reaches of the Uda River, the surrounding region appears in Nihon Shoki as Uda-no-Shimo-no-Agata, where Jinmu sojourned before entering Yamato. Taketsunumi is also enshrined at Shimogamo Shrine in Kyoto as the ancestral deity of the Kamo clan. Ranked as a village shrine in the Meiji era.