Located on the east bank of the Kaniegawa River, the enshrined deity at Tomiyoshi-Takehaya Shrine is Susanoo-no-Mikoto, while Hakken-sha Shrine’s deity is the divine spirt of Kusanagi and the “Five Great Gods of Atsuta.”
Originally constructed in the year 733 and then restored by general Kiso Yoshinaka in 1182, Tomiyoshi-Takehaya Shrine was later repaired in 1548 by warlord Oda Nobunaga, the first of the Three Unifiers of Japan. Furthermore, it is said that the second of the Three Unifiers, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, offered rice and money to the shrine and prayed here for the end to an epidemic.
Each building has special characteristics from the Muromachi period. Both have cypress bark roofs, but Tomiyoshi-Takehaya Shrine’s main shrine has one ken (an interval between pillars) in the common nagare-zukuri style of architecture and Hakken-sha Shrine has three ken in the misedana-zukuri style.
The skillful techniques seen in elements such as the front part of the sloping roof and the curved wooden support on the main beam give the buildings their designation of national Important Cultural Properties.
The Sunari Festival, a registered UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, is held every year on the first Saturday and Sunday in August as a religious festival of these two shrines.