Sukunahikona Shrine

Sukunahikona Shrine stands among the office buildings of Doshomachi, the district known as the town of medicine, and is worshipped as a god of health and of pharmacy. Its deities are Sukunahikona no Mikoto, the ancestral god of medicine in Japan, and Shinno Entei, the ancestral god of Chinese medicine, which is why the shrine is also called Shinno-san. It began in An'ei 9 (1780), when a divided spirit of Sukunahikona no Mikoto was brought from Gojo Tenjin Shrine in Kyoto and enshrined together with Shinno, whom the drug merchants of Doshomachi had long kept at their guild hall. The hariko no tora, a papier-mache tiger popular as an Osaka souvenir, is the shrine's amulet against illness. When cholera spread through Osaka in Bunsei 5 (1822), a pill called 虎頭殺鬼雄黄圓 was made as a remedy against the epidemic and handed out free, with prayers for recovery, along with the paper tigers, and the sick are said to have got better. The Shinno Festival is held on 22 and 23 November each year, when the paper tigers are given out. The Kusuri no Doshomachi Museum is in the precincts.

Translated and shortened from the Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City tourist listings (観光施設一覧, CC BY 4.0).

Osaka Prefecture's list of designated cultural properties names this place as the owner of 2. Objects are not necessarily on view.

大阪府 文化財一覧 (CC BY 4.0), current at 2024-05-01. Joined by owner name; long names are shortened to the buildings or the object.