History of Tensha Shrine

Tensha Shrine enshrines Taiitsu (太一), the source of divine qi, and carries on the rites of Onmyodo and the art of calendar-making said to have been transmitted since the time of Abe no Seimei.

Its history is grounded in traditions linking Abe no Nakamaro, Kibi no Makibi, Abe no Seimei and the Tsuchimikado family, and is deeply connected with the sacred land of Natasho in Wakasa.

The Name “Tensha Shrine”

In 1682, during the reign of Emperor Reigen, the shrine received an imperial proclamation bestowing upon it the honored name “Tensha-gū” (天社宮).

The Transmission of the Sacred Object

According to the history preserved at the shrine, its story reaches back more than 1,300 years to 717. Abe no Nakamaro traveled to Tang China as a member of a Japanese mission. Tradition holds that he passed the imperial civil-service examination, served Emperor Xuanzong and won the emperor’s deep confidence through his exceptional ability. At Mount Tai, the most revered sacred mountain in China, he was granted a sacred object of Dayuanzunshen (大元尊神)—Taiitsu, the supreme deity of Heaven.

Nakamaro was entrusted with the great charge of transmitting the esoteric teachings he had mastered, together with the sacred object, to the Imperial House and the Abe family. He placed all of these in the care of Kibi no Makibi, who had traveled to China with the same mission.

Enshrinement in Wakasa

In 736, the year after Kibi no Makibi returned to Japan, Emperor Shomu designated Natasho in Wakasa Province, north of the capital at Heijo-kyo, as an estate supporting the rites of Taizan Fukun (泰山府君). North was held to be the most sacred direction, where Taiitsu—the North Star and the Big Dipper—abides.

The Wakasa Omizu-okuri rite, in which sacred water is sent to Todai-ji, is also transmitted as a rite offering the waters of the north to the capital.

After Makibi’s return, the sacred object was entrusted to the Kamo family and protected with reverence for generations. In time, Nakamaro’s intention was fulfilled: it was transmitted to Abe no Yasuna, father of Abe no Seimei. It was thereafter enshrined by the Abe family, later known as the Tsuchimikado family, and the sacred lineage of Taiitsu continues to the present day.

From the Heian Period to the Wars of the Fifteenth Century

During the Heian period, the sacred object was enshrined in a shrine within the Kyoto residence of the great onmyoji Abe no Seimei. The buildings were destroyed in the fires of the Onin War, but the sacred object escaped the devastation and was moved to Natasho in Wakasa, the estate supporting its rites.

In 1488, Tsuchimikado Arinobu, a descendant of the Abe family, rebuilt the shrine at Natasho. In 1317, Emperor Hanazono had designated this land as the sacred place where the Tsuchimikado family would conduct the rites of Taiitsu. Arinobu established his residence here and solemnly performed the rite of transferring the shrine.

For more than a century thereafter, Natasho in Wakasa received deep reverence as a center for rites conducted for the peace of the nation.

The Edo Period and the Direction of Onmyoji throughout Japan

In 1600, following the Battle of Sekigahara, Tsuchimikado Hisanaga (土御門久脩) returned to Kyoto by imperial command. The following year, he left Natasho and established a residence at Umekoji on the outskirts of Kyoto. Tokugawa Ieyasu recognized the family as the hereditary head of Onmyodo and granted it an estate.

Throughout the Edo period, the Tsuchimikado family held an important position as the head family of Onmyodo. In 1683, during the time of Tsuchimikado Yasutomi, the family received both a shogunal vermilion-seal license from Tokugawa Tsunayoshi and an imperial order from Emperor Reigen, gaining authority over onmyoji throughout Japan.

Thereafter, at each succession of an emperor or shogun, the Tencho Chifu-sai (天曺地府祭), a national rite praying for the peace of the new reign, was performed. The shrine’s tradition records that this great rite was solemnly conducted through fourteen imperial reigns, from Emperor Go-Mizunoo to Emperor Komei, and fourteen shogunal reigns, from Ieyasu to Iemochi.

When the sanctuary of the Imperial Palace was rebuilt every twenty years, its former building was also bestowed upon the shrine on a number of occasions—an exceptional honor.

The Trials of the Meiji Period and the Continuation of Faith

The changes of the Meiji Restoration brought a severe trial to Tensha Shrine. On the seventeenth day of the intercalary tenth month of 1870, the new government issued an order prohibiting Tensha Shinto, and the very existence of onmyoji was forbidden. The shrine buildings were dismantled, and the Tsuchimikado family lost its Kyoto residence, observatory and other centers of ritual practice.

Even so, successive heads of the family protected the sacred object for seventy-eight years after the Restoration. Faith in Taiitsu continued to live within the seasonal observances, the calendar and ritual practice, enduring in the depths of Japanese culture and spiritual life.

Revival in the Showa Period

In 1942, the Tsuchimikado Shinto Domonkai was formed under the presidency of the head of the Tsuchimikado viscount family, Tsuchimikado Hiroteru (土御門熙光). With the support of the Mimurodo family—his father Haruyoshi’s birth family, which had served as chief priests of Moto-Ise Jingu—and with assistance from many shrines and temples centered in Kyoto, work toward the revival of Tensha Shrine began.

After Hiroteru’s passing, his aspiration was carried on by his younger brother Noritada (土御門範忠). On May 21, 1946, the tradition was revived as Tensha Tsuchimikado Shinto. In the same year, Fujita Kendo (藤田乾堂), the thirty-seventh head of a family related to and long in service to the Tsuchimikado family, came from Wakasa to Kyoto and worked with members of the extended lineage and tradition to restore the shrine.

On January 11, 1954, the organization was officially certified by the Minister of Education as the religious corporation Tensha Tsuchimikado Shinto Honcho. A headquarters was established, with Tsuchimikado Noritada as chief priest and Fujita Kendo as representative and administrative head, creating a structure through which the rites of Taiitsu could be transmitted to the future.

Thus, even amid the hardship of the years immediately after the war, the sacred object was first temporarily enshrined in Kyoto and later solemnly transferred once again to Natasho in Wakasa, the sacred land of Taiitsu, through the devoted efforts of the Tsuchimikado family and fellow members of the tradition, together with the support of many shrines and temples in and around Kyoto.

At the time of this revival, through the bond between the Tsuchimikado family and Ise, a calligraphy of the characters “Taiitsu” by Arakida Takekuni, a descendant of a hereditary priestly family of Kotaijingu, was dedicated to the shrine. It remains before the deity today.

To this day, the sacred object of Taiitsu is solemnly enshrined here, and the faith continues to live together with the calendar.

The history of Tensha Shrine is therefore the history of preserving the sacred object of Taiitsu and transmitting the rites and calendar arts of Onmyodo.