Of all the places on Awaji, this is the one with the deepest claim. The Kojiki says, in plain language, that after Izanagi finished bearing the islands of Japan with Izanami, he retired to a small palace on Awaji to live out his immortality. Izanagi Jingu stands on the site of that palace, and is named — by name, by location, by function — in both the Kojiki (compiled 712) and the Nihon Shoki (compiled 720) as Japan’s first shrine.
Older than Ise. Older than Izumo. Older than every other shrine you will visit on this trail.
What happened here
The kuni-umi — the bearing of the islands — is described as exhausting work. Izanami dies giving birth to fire. Izanagi pursues her into the underworld, fails to bring her back, and performs the world’s first purification rite at a river mouth in Kyushu. From that purification three more deities are born: Amaterasu, the sun goddess; Tsukuyomi, the moon god; and Susanoo, the storm god.
His work done, Izanagi returns to Awaji — the first of his children — and retires here. The Kojiki uses the word shizumaru (鎮まる), to settle, to be enshrined. He passes the active rule of the world to Amaterasu and her descendants, and the Kojiki’s center of gravity shifts away from him to her.
This shrine is where that transition happens.
What you’ll actually see
The grounds are unexpectedly large. A long approach lined with stone lanterns leads to a haiden (worship hall) painted in deep vermilion, set against the dark green of the surrounding camphor forest. The current honden was rebuilt in the Meiji era directly above what had been Izanagi’s burial mound (御神陵), so the most sacred ground at the shrine is, literally, the ground beneath the main hall itself.
The defining feature is a single tree: the Husband-and-Wife Camphor (夫婦の大楠), an enormous camphor estimated to be over 900 years old, formed where two trunks fused into one. Couples come here to pray for marital harmony, mirroring the cosmic marriage of Izanagi and Izanami. The tree is roped off and protected, but you can walk its full circumference.
Three things to look for
- The Husband-and-Wife Camphor (夫婦の大楠) — the 900-year-old fused twin tree behind the haiden, the shrine’s most prayed-to spot.
- The Sun Path Plaque (陽の道しるべ) — a stone monument in the precinct showing how Izanagi Jingu sits at the geometric center of a remarkable pattern of major shrines. Due east on the equinox sunrise line lies Ise Jingu. Northwest on the summer-solstice sunset line lies Izumo Taisha. Southwest on the winter-solstice sunset line lies Takachiho Jinja. Either an extraordinary coincidence, or evidence that the early compilers of the Kojiki — and the builders who came after them — were thinking carefully about geography.
- The Sazare-ishi monument (さざれ石の碑) — composite stones from Awaji and from Kumamoto displayed together near the approach, both the kind referenced in Japan’s national anthem.
How it fits the trail
If Onokoro Jinja marks the place of Japan’s birth, Izanagi Jingu marks the place where Japan’s first father retired to die. The two shrines bracket the kuni-umi narrative. They are about thirty kilometers apart, which is to say roughly thirty minutes by car. You can visit both in a morning.
The Sun Path Plaque is the conceptual key to the entire Kojiki Trail. The fact that this shrine sits on a cosmic axis with Ise (where Amaterasu would later be enshrined), with Izumo (where her brother Susanoo’s son Okuninushi ruled), and with Takachiho (where Amaterasu’s grandson descended) is, depending on your inclination, either an extraordinary coincidence or evidence that the early compilers of the Kojiki were thinking very carefully about geography.
Either way, the four other regions on this trail align, in one way or another, with the lines drawn from this one shrine.