The ichinomiya of Bingo Province

What the Japanese sources say

Two shrines, Kibitsu Jinja (吉備津神社) and Susanoo Jinja (素盞嗚神社), both call themselves the ichinomiya of Bingo Province — the shrine ranked first in the province. Both stand in Shinichi-chō in Fukuyama City, within a few kilometres of each other.

Kibitsu Jinja’s own website says it was founded in Daidō 1 (806), at the beginning of the Heian period, when “a branch spirit of the deity was received from Kibitsu Jinja in Bitchū”, and that “as the ichinomiya of Bingo Province it drew reverence from across the province”. The account is that when Kibi Province was divided, the ichinomiya of Bingo was established by bringing the deity from the ichinomiya of Bitchū.

Susanoo Jinja’s own website says that “the Susanoo Jinja (須佐能袒神社) entered as the one shrine of Fukatsu District in the Engishiki Jinmyōchō (延喜式神名帳), the register of official shrines in the Engishiki, a law code completed in 927, is this shrine”, and that “the shrine’s old name, Ekinokuma no Kunitsuyashiro, appears in the surviving fragments of the Bingo Fudoki (備後風土記, compiled in 713)”. The claim is that the shrine is an old one, from before the province was divided.

— Susanoo Jinja presses its age, Kibitsu Jinja the position it actually held from medieval times onward (this is our own reading).

Written from Japanese sources, each quoted. The Japanese page has the same discussion with the original wording.