Enshrined deity and origin

Founding of Keitoku Inari Shrine

The founding and worship of this Inari Shrine dates back to the 5th year of Kanji, when Minamoto no Yoshiie, the Shogun of the Chinjufu under Emperor Horikawa, descended upon Oshu to subjugate Kiyohara Takehira and Kiyohara Iehira, he promoted the Inari Shrine enshrined on Mount Fushimi Inari in Kyoto to this site and donated a sacred land. It began when a man named Suzuki Kurodo Motoyuki (an ancestor of the current priests of this shrine, the Hozumi clan) accompanied the god and became the head priest of this shrine.
After that, due to the change of lords and the continuous wars, the shrine also declined, the shrine building fell into disrepair, and only a few large cedar trees, known as sacred trees, flourished. In the spring of the third year of the Oei era (1396), the founder of the village Keitoku-ji temple, Gen’o Osho, decided to restore the dilapidated shrine after hearing a message from a spirit woman in a dream. He remodeled the shrine building and improved the grounds, restoring it to its former appearance through fundraising activities. Since then, many people, including the lord and the local lord, have diligently repaired the shrine building, and on the first day of the horse month in February and November every year, offerings of a hundred delicacies from the sea and mountains are made, and pilgrims come from nearby areas to visit the shrine as a god of divine virtue and miraculous power, and the village prospers along with the prosperity of the shrine. It is believed that the rice produced by Keitoku-gumi is superior to that of other places, thanks to the deep blessings of this great god.

Since the Hoshina clan arrived in Aizu in 1643 as lords, they have had deep reverence for the Inari Shrine, posted signs prohibiting violence, murder, and the cutting down of trees within the shrine grounds, and designated it as a place of prayer.
On major festival days each year, they would send representatives to offer heihaku (gifts offered to the altar), recite prayers, and pray for bountiful harvests.
On December 29, 1800, the Imperial Court proclaimed him to be a Shoichii (first rank) god.

The ritual of the rice planting festival is our shrine’s largest festival event. It is held on the day of the seventh month of the year of summer, and a portable shrine accompanied by many offerings is carried around the town, placed in the rice field, and a ritual is held in the rice field, praying for a good harvest. The rice planting song also has a long history, and is said to have been created about 500 years ago. The rice planting festival fell into disuse around the year of Meireki (1657), but when it was revived in the year of Tenpo (1834), the original rice planting song was supplemented by Sawada Naoshige, a great scholar and poet of the Aizu clan, and Uragami Shukin, a samurai of the same clan who was also skilled in gagaku, composed the song in the style of “Etenrakucho”, and it has been sung to this day.