| Religious Affiliation: | Shinto |
| Map Type: | Japan |
| Coordinates: | 33.5558°N 129.8906°W |
| Location: | Japan |
Tashima Shrine is a shrine situated on in Yobuko Town now, Karatsu City, Saga Prefecture, Japan.[1] [2] It is located in the area known as Matsurokoku, which is believed to be the first land of the mainland of Wakoku as per Wajinden records. It is an important point for safe sea crossings to the continent, and has received significant orders from the central government since ancient times.
In earlier times, it was called 'Tajima Niimasu Kaminoyashiro'. It is the only Myojin Taisha in Hizen Province, and was previously classified as Kokuhei Chusha due to renovations during the Meiji era. Currently, it is a beppyo shrine of the Association of Shinto Shrines.[3] It is associated with Matsura Sayohime who is said to be buried on the site.[4] [5] It is a Munakata shrine and is said to be the original shrine (roots) of Munakata Taisha, so it is sometimes called Moto-Munakata.[6] [7]
thumb|left|Sayohime Shrine According to a version of the legend of Matsura Sayohime, she prayed with such fervour that she was transformed into stone.[8] This petrification lore of Sayohime appears to be of later development, with its earliest attestation identified as renga poet 's Sodeshita shū (c. Ōei era, late 14th to early 15th century).[9] This lore of Sayohime's petrification is thought to have developed from a misunderstanding: a misreading of (13th century), which ponders on the Sayohime legend and makes reference to the petrification motif taken from an old Chinese work called the Youminglu. Sayohime's petrification is also mentioned in Nihon meijo monogatari (1670).[10]
Her supposed petrified remains, an example of a, is housed as the shintai ("body of the kami") at the Sayohime Shrine, an undershrine of Tashima Shrine on Kabe Island. The claim regarding her petrification on this island is given in a late account of the origin of this undershrine, preserved in the 19th-century document called the (written during the Bunka era). It states that the lady did not stop at the Scarf-Waving Peak bidding farewell, but she continued to a spot from whose vantage point she beheld an island nearby. She then hopped on a fishing boat to that island, called the island (present-day Kabe Island) where she climbed a "bit elevated spot" and there, out of sorrow, she turned intorock. Commentators identify this elevation as the or .
. Mock Jōya's Things Japanese . 1963 . Tokyo News Service Press . 222 . .