Gekū or Outer Temple; the other as the Naikū or Inner Temple; in ordinary parlance, the Gekūsan and Naikūsan.
An immemorial tradition requires that all the more sacred buildings shall be torn down and exactly rebuilt again once every twenty years. For this purpose each is provided with an alternate site which, similar to and by the side of the one occupied at the moment, awaits, vacant, its turn to be used. There are three such sites at each shrine; one belonging to the main temple and two to smaller temples a short way off through the woods.
The two main temples are dedicate, that at the Naikū to Ama-terasu-o-mi-kami, the Sun-Goddess, and that at the Gekū to Toyo-ake-bime-no-kami, the goddess of food. Formerly the Gekū was dedicate, as Satow, who made a study of non-esoteric Shintō, tells us, to Kuni-toko-tachi-no-mikoto; both the former and the present incumbent being deities connected with the earth. With these chief gods are associated several subordinate divinities. At the Naikūsan these are: Ta-jikara-o-no-kami, the strong-hand-great-god, he who pulled the Sun-Goddess out of the
