Inaba, Inazawa — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Inaba?

Zengen-ji holds a seated Amida from the early Kamakura period. The wooden figure is designated by Aichi prefecture, and the temple keeps a Muromachi painting of Bishamonten and two more seated figures listed by the city. It was founded in 1376.

Taisei Soi opened it, and Shogan restored it in 1512. Tokugawa Iemitsu lodged there in 1634. The temple received a roll of white silk and a robe on that visit, and was allowed to put the hollyhock crest on its formal furnishings.

Older buildings survive around it. The former Chubu Electric office of 1936 and the old Inaba post office are both modern architecture kept in the district.

What is the history of Inaba?

A gazetteer of 1816 explains the name. It says Inaba is a name that comes from the celebration of the autumn ripening, and the place appears in the Nakashima district of Owari from after the Muromachi period. Myoko-ji held it from 1416.

The temple's estate took it in that year, and in the Edo period Inaba village belonged to the Owari domain and was governed from the Kiyosu magistracy. The village was a stage on the Mino road. Inaba-juku lay ninety-three ri and thirty-five cho from Edo, a ri and a half west to Hagiwara-juku and the same east to Kiyosu-juku.

Registers give the village yield. The Kanbun register of the 1660s puts it at a little over eight hundred koku with a hundred and twenty-two houses, and the Owari Junkoki of 1822 counts two hundred and fifty-nine houses. A rising began here in 1870.

Farmers asking for tax relief and famine rice started at Inaba-juku, the movement spread across the western part of Owari and took the name of the place, and the house of the great landowner Yamada Ichisaburo was among those attacked.

Where is Inaba?

Inaba lies at the centre of Inazawa in Aichi on the left bank of the Miyake river, with Inajima to the north, Nishimachi to the west, Inazawa to the south and Ozawa to the east.