Toyokawa Inari

Toyokawa Inari 豊川稲荷
Toyokawa Inari's main hall
Basic information
Location	1 Toyokawa-chō Toyokawa, Aichi Prefecture
Affiliation	Sōtō sect
Deity	Juichimen Kannon
Country	Japan
Website	http://toyokawainari.jp/ Toyokawa Inari
Architectural description
Founder	Tōkai Gieki
Completed	1441

Toyokawa Inari (豊川稲荷^?) is the popular name for a Buddhist temple of the Sōtō sect located in the city of Toyokawa in eastern Aichi Prefecture, Japan. The temple’s true name is 妙厳寺 (Myōgon-ji^?), or full name is Enpukuzan Toyokawa-kaku, Myōgon-ji (円福山 豊川閣 妙厳寺^?). Despite the torii gate at the entrance, and the popular identification of its main image of veneration (a Juichimen Kannon) with Inari Okami, the Shinto kami of fertility, rice, agriculture, industry and worldly success, the institution is a Buddhist temple and has no overt association with the Shinto religion.

The temple was founded in 1441 by a Buddhist priest named Tōkai Gieki (東海義易^?), whose distance predecessor, Kangan Giin had studied Tantric Buddhism in Song Dynasty, China . Per his teachings, the main object of veneration, Juichimen Kannon was identified as an avatar of the Toyokawa Dakinishinten, who is depicted in Japanese Buddhist iconography as a female deity riding on a white fox. In the period of Shinbutsu shūgō, the line between Buddhism and Shinto became blurred, and images of a goddess on a fox were associated with Ukanomitama-no-mikoto, the goddess of agriculture, who used the white fox as her messenger.