Fushimi Inari Taisha

The shrine dates its founding to 711, when the Hata, an influential clan descended from immigrants from the Korean peninsula, enshrined a kami on the three peaks of Inariyama. An old story in the provincial records tells of a Hata noble who used a rice cake as an archery target; it turned into a white bird, flew to the mountain and rice sprouted where it landed. The name Inari is often explained as ine-nari, ‘rice growing’. The mountain, 233 m high, was sacred before any building stood on it.

Like most of Kyoto, the shrine burned in the Ōnin War. The main sanctuary (honden) was rebuilt in 1499 and is the oldest structure on the site. Toyotomi Hideyoshi paid for the two-storey tower gate, the rōmon, in 1589, according to tradition in thanks for his mother’s recovery from illness. As merchants grew rich in the Edo period, Inari’s role widened from harvests to trade, and the custom of donating a torii to give thanks for a granted wish spread from about the 17th century.

Fushimi is the head of a network the shrine puts at around 30,000 Inari shrines across Japan, roughly a third of all Shinto shrines in the country. You will find small branches on department-store roofs, in office car parks and at farm edges; many large companies still keep one. The shrine marked its 1,300th anniversary in 2011. Branch shrines receive their kami by ritual division from Fushimi, which is why priests from across the country still come here.

There are roughly 10,000 torii on the mountain. Each carries the name of its donor and a date, painted in black on the pillars. The inscriptions are on the uphill-facing side, so on the way up the tunnel looks like an unbroken run of orange; turn around and look down and every pillar is covered in writing. Most donors are businesses, from construction firms to small restaurants, often with their address. The shrine prices torii by size, from a few hundred thousand yen for the smallest to over a million for the largest, and a gate is replaced when it rots.

The colour is vermilion (shu), historically made with cinnabar and associated with warding off evil and with the vitality of the harvest. The feet of each gate are painted black to protect the wood from damp. Senbon Torii (‘a thousand torii’) is the stretch of two parallel tunnels just behind the main hall, where the gates are small and densely packed. It leads to the Okusha, the inner worship hall, where the omokaru-ishi stand: you make a wish and lift a stone lantern top; if it feels lighter than you expected, the wish is likely to come true.

Above and beside the trail are otsuka, thousands of small stone altars set up by families and groups, each inscribed with the name of their own form of the kami, such as Suehiro Ōkami. They are often crowded with miniature torii left as offerings. The trail climbs past teahouses to the Yotsutsuji crossroads, about 30–45 minutes from the bottom, which has a wide view over the south of the city. The full loop over the summit takes two to three hours.

The fox statues are not Inari but its messengers, kitsune. They come in pairs and usually hold something in their mouths. A key stands for the key to a rice granary; a ball or jewel for the spirit of the kami or for wishes granted; a scroll for wisdom; a sheaf of rice for the harvest. Many wear red bibs tied by worshippers. Some scholars think the fox itself was once worshipped as a rice spirit, since foxes hunted the rodents that raided granaries.

Foxes in Japanese folklore are shape-shifters, often taking human form, and are said to be fond of fried tofu. That is where the food names come from: kitsune udon is noodles topped with sweet fried tofu, and inari-zushi is rice packed into a pouch of it. Worshippers leave both as offerings at small altars. Fox-shaped wooden prayer boards (ema), on which visitors draw a face before writing a wish, are sold at the shrine and hung near the main hall.

Inari has no single fixed image. The kami is shown as a young woman carrying rice, or as an old man with a sheaf over his shoulder, and in Buddhist settings is linked to the figure of Dakiniten riding a white fox. At Fushimi, five kami are enshrined together. The flexibility is part of the appeal: many devotees give their household’s Inari a personal name, which is what the otsuka on the mountain record.

Business owners are the core congregation. In the first days of January the shrine receives huge numbers of New Year visitors, and the first Day of the Horse in February, Hatsuuma, is the traditional day to climb the mountain and pray for trade, carrying a sprig of cedar home as a charm. In spring the Inari Matsuri takes the kami out in portable shrines to a temporary shrine in the neighbourhood before bringing them back in early May.

Rice is still at the centre of the calendar. A rice-planting ceremony is held in the shrine’s sacred paddy in early June and a harvest rite in autumn, and in summer the Motomiya-sai fills the approach with lanterns donated by worshippers. The trail stays open at all hours, and local people walk it at dawn and in the evening as exercise, which is when the upper mountain is most quiet.

The streets between the stations and the gate have long sold pilgrims’ food. Stalls along the approach sell inari-zushi, kitsune udon and grilled skewers, and some older shops serve grilled sparrow and quail, a dish once common here. Fushimi’s sake breweries are a short train ride south, and shops near the shrine sell small fox-shaped earthenware bells and dolls, the Fushimi ningyō, one of Japan’s oldest clay toy traditions.