Horikawa Ebisu Shrine

This guide to Horikawa Ebisu Shrine in Osaka opens with a founding legend: guided by a dream from Ebisu, the fisherman god of fortune, a man dug a jewel from the reeds of old Naniwa some 1,400 years ago and marked the spot where people began to pray. The shrine wandered for centuries, driven into the hills of Tanba before settling here between 1352 and 1355, when merchants started calling it the Ebessan of the North. You'll hear how an American air raid destroyed the shrine in 1945 and how it stood in ruins for nearly two decades before it was rebuilt. Come during the shrine's lucky bamboo festival to see the courtyard transformed.