Sumiyoshi Taisha

This guide to Sumiyoshi Taisha in Osaka opens at its steeply arched red drum bridge, then reaches back to around 211 CE, when tradition credits Empress Jingu's safe return from an overseas expedition to three sea gods born from the ocean. It follows the shrine's centuries standing near the shoreline and the slow retreat of Osaka Bay that left a shrine built for sailors landlocked. Listen for how the architecture behind the bridge differs from the curved-roof shrines built after Buddhism reached Japan.