Konomoto Shrine
The name of this subsidiary shrine located within the grounds of Ima-Hie Jingū Shrine is designed to conceal the fact that it is dedicated to Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598), the warlord who unified and controlled Japan in the last decades of the sixteenth century. After Hideyoshi’s death, power was seized by Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616), who viewed the popularity of devotion to Hideyoshi as a threat, and actively discouraged worship at his shrine.
Legend has it that the sacred object of worship from the original Toyokuni Shrine was secretly brought to Ima-Hie, where, in the mid-eighteenth century, it was installed in the Konomoto Shrine and hidden behind a nominal dedication to other gods. The shrine takes its title from an alternative reading of Hideyoshi’s original family name, Kinoshita, both concealing and maintaining its link to the once politically problematic leader.