Ikumi-tenmangu Shrine (生身天満宮)
Ikumi-tenmangu Shrine is a shrine in Sonobe-cho, Nantan City, Kyoto Prefecture
Its ranked as a prefectural shrine.
It enshrines Sugawara no Michizane.
According to the historical document on this shrine, it was built when Michizane was alive, and thus, it's called the 'oldest Tenmangu shrine in Japan.'
History
The Sonobe district was a fiefdom belonging to the Sugawara clan. In 901, when Michizane was exiled to Dazaifu (the governmental office in Chikuzen Province), Genzo TAKEBE, the prefectural governor of Sonobe, who was asked to bring up Michizane's eighth son, Keno gimi, built a small shrine on his premises in Komugiyama to secretly enshrine an image of Michizane as seishi (the enshrining of a living person), and this is considered to be the origin of this shrine. In 903, when Michizane died in Dazaifu, the seishi was changed to a mausoleum, and in 956, newly performed religious services were performed at the shrine. The Guji family are descendants of Genzo TAKEBE.
In the Sengoku period (the period of warring states), the guardians of Tanba, the Hosokawa family, and the Oda family, who controlled who governed the region, set up a kinsei kosatsu (bulletin board of prohibitions) on the grounds of the shrine in order to prevent disturbances; among other things, it prohibited disorderly behavior and loitering. The bulletin board remains today, and is a designated cultural property of Kyoto Prefecture. It was relocated to its current position in 1653, when Yoshichika KOIDE, the first feudal lord of the Sonobe Domain, built a castle in Komugiyama.