page_title: Takeminakata
section_title: Suwa Myōjin and Moriya
hierarchical_section_title: Takeminakata / Analysis / Suwa Myōjin and Moriya
caption_attribution_description: 日本語: 八栄の鈴（諏訪大社の神宝の一つ）
context_page_description: Takeminakata-no-Kami or Takeminakata-no-Mikoto, also known as Minakatatomi-no-Kami or Takeminakatatomi-no-Mikoto is the name of one of the two principal deities of Suwa Grand Shrine in Nagano Prefecture. Also known under the epithet Suwa Myōjin or Suwa Daimyōjin, he is considered to be a god of wind, water and agriculture, as well as a patron of hunting and warfare, in which capacity he enjoyed a particularly fervent cult from various samurai clans during the medieval period such as the Hōjō or the Takeda. The deity was also held to be the original ancestor of certain families who once served at the shrine as priests, foremost among them being the Suwa clan, the high priests of the Upper Shrine of Suwa who were also revered as the living incarnations of the god.
  The Suwa deity is the subject of a number of different, often conflicting myths.
context_section_description: The myth of Takeminakata's (Suwa Myōjin's) arrival in Suwa and his defeat of the god Moriya has been interpreted as the mythicization of a historical event in which a local lineage of chieftains who ruled the Suwa area was subjugated by invading outsiders, who subsequently set themselves up as the new rulers of the region - all the while still retaining the subjugated clan in an important position as the wielder of spiritual and ritual authority. This theory explains the relation between the Suwa (Miwa/Jin) and Moriya priestly families of the Upper Shrine of Suwa as that of the Moriya clan being the regional power supplanted by the newly arrived Miwa (Suwa) clan.
  While one theory places this event during the end of the Jōmon period, thus portraying the new arrivals as agrarian Yayoi tribes who came into conflict with indigenous Jōmon hunter-gatherers, others instead propose this conflict to have taken place during the late Kofun period (late 6th-early 7th century), when keyhole-shaped burial mounds containing equestrian gear as grave goods - up to this point found mainly in the Shimoina region southwest of Suwa - begin to appear in the Lake Suwa area, replacing the kind of burial that had been common in the region since the early 5th century. This theory thus supposes these migrants to have been a clan allied with the Yamato kingdom that specialized in horse breeding and horseback riding. Indeed, the Yamato polity showed strong interest to Shinano because of its suitability as a place for grazing and breeding horses and considered it a strategic base for conquering the eastern regions. This clan, the Miwa (Suwa), is thought to be related to either the Kanasashi clan (金刺氏), an offshoot of a local magnate clan (kuni no miyatsuko) that later became the high priestly family of the Lower Shrine of Suwa, or the Miwa (Ōmiwa) clan (三輪氏) originally based on the area around Mount Miwa in Yamato Province. The theory suggests based on archaeological evidence that the Miwa (Suwa) came to the Suwa Basin from Shimoina, making their way northwards along the Tenryū River. In conjunction with this hypothesis, it is pointed out that in the Nobushige Gejō (believed to be the earliest attestation of this myth), the Suwa deity is said to have descended from heaven bringing with him bells, a mirror, a saddle and a bridle.
  This theory that the legend of the Suwa deity's victory over Moriya reflects historical fact has recently come into question. Due to similarities between certain variants of this myth and medieval legends surrounding Prince Shōtoku's defeat of Mononobe no Moriya (e.g. Shōtoku's and Suwa Myōjin's opponents both being named 'Moriya', the deity's manifestation and the foundation of the Upper Shrine being dated to the year 587 - the same year as the battle between the Soga and the Mononobe clans - in some texts), some see the myth as being highly influenced by such stories about Shōtoku (so Ihara, 2008), while others regard it as an outright invention modeled on these legends (Harada, 2018). Aoki (2012) theorizes that the myth developed somewhere during the late Heian and early Kamakura periods, when the deity of Suwa came to be venerated as a warrior god, and cautions against uncritical application of this story to known archaeological data.
caption: The yasaka no suzu (八栄の鈴), a set of bronze bells reputed in legend to have been brought to Suwa by Suwa Myōjin. In actuality, the bells date from the early Heian period.
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