Kishu Toshogu was founded in 1621 by Tokugawa Yorinobu, the tenth son of Tokugawa Ieyasu and first lord of the Kishu domain, to enshrine his father as the deity Tosho Daigongen. Alongside the Toshogu shrines of Nikko and Kunozan, it is one of the foremost shrines dedicated to Ieyasu, and its gorgeous halls, called the 'Nikko of the West,' convey the prestige of the Kishu Tokugawa house to this day. The Kishu Tokugawa line begun by Yorinobu later produced the eighth shogun, Yoshimune, carrying Ieyasu's bloodline through the Edo period.