This is the twenty-sixth of my ex post facto shrine reports. I visited it in November 2014.  

There is no clear record of the establishment of this shrine, but it is said that in 942 Sugiwara Michizane began to be worshipped there: until then Sukunabi-kona had been the sole Kami. On his exile to Kyushu, Michizane’s ship had been  waiting near this shrine for a favorable wind and during this time he stayed at the shrine. For this reason, it was given the name Yasui (安井, a synonym for 休息, “peaceful rest”) Jinja. Another theory has it that the monks of the nearbye Tennoji Temple used the shrine as a summer retreat 夏安居 and for this reason it was given the name 安居, also read as Yasui, Jinja.

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From 1614 to 1615 the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Toyotomi clan fought a series of battles in and around Osaka Castle in what has become known as the Siege of Osaka. On June 3, 1615, during one of these battles, that of Tennoji, Sanada Yukimura (真田 幸村),the general  in charge of the Toyotomi forces, was killed in the grounds of the shrine and there is a statue and memorial to him.

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In the early decades of the seventeenth century the founder of what is now the Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Store, Shimomura Hikoemon Shokei 下村彦右衛門正啓, became a regular worshipper at the shrine and for a time it was referred to as Daimaru Tenjin 大丸天神.

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The shrine was completely destroyed during the bombing of Osaka on March 13/14 1945.