Wealth & Prosperity
Shrines with deep ties to mines, metals, and commerce, long known for prayers for financial fortune.
For wishes likeMoney luck, thriving business, success in enterprise, the fruits of one's work
KyotoFushimi Inari Taisha
The vermilion Senbon Torii — head shrine of all Inari shrines in Japan.
KyotoKurumazaki Shrine
A deity who keeps promises — and the vermilion fence of the performing arts.
TokyoToyokawa Inari Tokyo Betsuin
A temple of Dakini Shinten in Akasaka, with ties to the celebrated magistrate Ooka Echizen.
TokyoMatsuchiyama Shoden (Honryuin)
Asakusa's beloved Shoden temple, where wishes are entrusted to daikon radishes and drawstring purses.
TokyoKanda Myojin (Kanda Shrine)
The guardian shrine of old Edo, enshrining Daikoku, Ebisu, and Lord Masakado.
ChibaAwa Shrine
First shrine of old Awa Province, enshrining Ame-no-Futodama, ancestral deity of all industry.
SaitamaHijiri Shrine
The "deity of coins," bound to the birth of Japan's first currency, the Wado Kaichin.
YamanashiArayayama Shrine
A mountain deity at the foot of Mount Fuji, popularly hailed as a "shrine of financial fortune."
IshikawaKinkengu Shrine
Said to be among Hokuriku's oldest shrines, a place of prayer for financial fortune.
MiyagiKinkasan Koganeyama Shrine
A sacred island of golden legend, holy ground from shore to summit.
About Wealth & Prosperity
Shrines of the money-fortune lineage enshrine deities with deep ties to mines and metal mountains, to smithing and to trade, and have long been known for prayers concerning fortune in wealth. As places to entrust one's hopes to the workings that bring forth abundance, they have been cherished in both daily life and commerce.
Among the enshrined deities are Kanayamabiko no Kami, held to govern minerals and metals, along with gods who preside over the ripening of rice and food, and deities tied to prosperity in trade. Kanayamabiko is spoken of as a divinity of metal and of the mines, and the faith is said to have spread together with the history in which the refining of metal and the smith's craft brought forth wealth. At shrines enshrining the gods of the rice harvest, the bounty of the fields was itself the richness of daily life, and prayers for money fortune have been offered from farming and trade alike.
Fortune in wealth means not merely the seeking of money: it is held to suit the whole of the abundance that sustains daily life — flourishing trade, fruitful work, a stable household. Those who run a business or begin a new venture, those who would set in order their anxieties around money, and those who pray for fruitful labor often visit shrines of this lineage.
At such shrines, it is said to be good to bow with a picture in one's heart of how the seed of the fortune received will be put to use. Abundance is held to dwell in the daily accumulation of honest work; rather than wishing only for gain close at hand, one would keep dear the spirit of vowing steady diligence before the deity. When a wish is granted, one would wish to show gratitude for the abundance received by returning with thanks.
In choosing a shrine of the money-fortune lineage, it is considered good to take as one's guide its ties with one's own livelihood and daily life. Visiting from time to time a shrine rooted in the land of one's trade, or one long cherished in the region where one lives, is said to become a support for setting in order the heart that prays for abundance.