Konomoto Shrine 樹下社（別名:豊国神社）

Official explanation

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.

出典: 地域観光資源の多言語解説文データベース（観光庁） — www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db. この英語解説文は観光庁の地域観光資源の多言語解説整備支援事業で作成しました。
Source: Japan Tourism Agency, Multilingual Explanation Database. This English text was produced by the Japan Tourism Agency's multilingual explanation project and is shown unedited. Opening hours and services may have changed since it was written.