Okutsunomiya

The third building of the Enoshima Jinja, Okutsunomiya (Shrine in the Depth), is situated further away in the Western part of the small island. It is believed to be an Otabisho, a resting place for the goddess Tagirihimenomikoto during the heat of summer.
The Torii at the entrance was donated by Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1182, the founder and first Shogun of the Kamakura Shogunate of Japan, a proof of the importance and antiquity of the site.
The Bronze Statue of Kengyo Yamada, to whom a special style of Koto music is related, reminds us that Benten, the goddess of the island, is also patron of music.
Legend tells of a giant, sacred turtle which inhabited the cave below the shrine. No wonder, the surrounding grove on Kinkisan, the "Hill of the Golden Turtle" is "turtle ground", a sacred stone and other features resemble one of the totems of Enoshima.



The brown and grey wooden structure of the Jinja rebuilt in 1842 blends harmoniously in with the green trees.
On the ceiling of the Shrine's divine gate Hoitsu Sakai, an artist of the Edo period, painted "Happo Nirami no Kame". What else but a picture of a turtle, a masterpiece, strange and unusual as the turtle, glaring in all directions seems to return your gaze, regardless which angle you look at it from.