Inari- Japanese GodDeity"God/Goddess of Rice"

The White Bird on the Mountain

The earliest traditions of Inari worship trace to the Hata clan, who established a shrine on Mount Inari near Kyoto in 711 CE. According to the Yamashiro no Kuni Fudoki, the Hata ancestor Irogu shot a rice cake as an archery target. It transformed into a white bird that flew to the mountaintop and alighted where rice sprouted. The name "Inari" derives from "ine-nari," rice growing.

In the Kojiki, the kami identified with Inari is Uka-no-Mitama-no-Kami, a grain deity born to Susanoo and the food goddess Kamuoichihime. The name means "spirit of food." The shrine the Hata clan founded, Fushimi Inari Taisha, remains the head shrine of all Inari worship.

Kukai and the Old Man

When the Buddhist monk Kukai was establishing To-ji temple in Kyoto in the early ninth century, he encountered an old man on the road carrying rice sheaves and accompanied by foxes. The old man revealed himself as Inari and offered to serve as the guardian deity of To-ji. This encounter formalized the union of Inari worship with Shingon esoteric Buddhism. To-ji's annual Hatsu-Uma ceremony, performed since the ninth century, remains one of the oldest continuous Inari rites in Japan. Within Shingon theology, Inari was identified with Dakiniten, a tantric Buddhist figure who rode through the sky on a white fox. Toyokawa Inari in Aichi Prefecture, the second most prominent Inari worship site, is actually a Soto Zen temple rather than a Shinto shrine, its principal object of worship Dakiniten riding a white fox, its grounds filled with thousands of fox statues donated by devotees.

The Fox Messengers

Foxes serve as Inari's messengers. Statues of them flank the entrances to Inari shrines, typically in pairs, one with its mouth open, one closed. They hold symbolic objects: a jewel or a key to the rice granary.

Foxes hunt in rice paddies, catching the mice and rats that threaten grain stores. At Fushimi Inari, the fox messengers received the court title myobu, a rank originally held by ladies of the imperial court. Shrine foxes are addressed as O-myobu-san. Offerings of abura-age, fried tofu said to be the fox's favorite food, are left at Inari shrines. The dish inarizushi, sushi rice stuffed in sweet tofu pouches, takes its name from this tradition.

The benevolent white foxes who serve Inari are carefully distinguished from wild foxes who cause mischief, but the line between them is not always clear.

The Thousand Gates

Fushimi Inari Taisha is famous for its senbon torii: thousands of vermillion gates forming tunnels that wind up the sacred mountain behind the shrine. Each gate is donated by a business or individual seeking Inari's blessing for prosperity. Each bears the donor's name and the date of donation. The practice began in the Edo period. An Edo-period saying captured the ubiquity of Inari worship: "The things you find everywhere are Ise-ya, Inari, and dog droppings."

The vermillion color, made traditionally from cinnabar, was believed to ward off evil. The full pilgrimage trail passes through subsidiary shrines, teahouses, and sacred groves, ascending to the summit of the mountain where the white bird first landed.