สถานที่ศาลเจ้าฟูชิมิอินาริไทฉะFushimi Inari-taisha伏見稲荷大社

The shrine was formally founded in 711 CE by the Hata clan, immigrants from the Korean peninsula who brought irrigation, sericulture and sake brewing into Yamashiro. The Yamashiro fudoki tells it as an arrow, a rice cake that turned into a white bird, and rice growing where the bird came down. Inari began as the kami of rice and agriculture and stays that; merchants took Inari up as the patron of business, which is why the gates are donated by companies.

Donating a torii to have a wish granted, or in thanks for one granted, spread from the Edo period onward and has not stopped. Unlike most Shinto shrines, this one leaves the main object of worship — a mirror — in open view. Foxes stand at the gates as Inari's messengers, often with a granary key in the mouth.

The shrine was in the first rank of state-supported shrines from 1871 to 1946. Police counted 2.69 million worshippers over three days of the new year in 2006, the largest count in western Japan. Around 32,000 branch shrines carry Inari elsewhere in the country.

On the approach, sweet shops sell tsujiura senbei, a folded fortune cracker documented at least to the 19th century and argued to be the ancestor of the American fortune cookie.

Inference — an omamori bought at a shrine gate is the shrine's own object, and a head shrine of this size is one of the places the practice runs at scale. This atlas has read no published stock list for this shrine's own counter, so the charm records below are linked as kin rather than as inventory.

Open, with no entrance fee. The approach and the main hall are lit all night.