The steps to Naiku, Ise's main shrine building. About as arduous as the modern pilgrimage to Ise gets...
Ise donates cypress logs to fix Tohoku shrines (Japan Times, 1/12)
“Hinoki” cypress from Ise Shrine in Mie Prefecture will be used to rebuild Shinto shrines damaged during the deadly March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, whose monster tsunami devastated the Tohoku region.
The shrine conducts the Shikinen Sengu ceremony once every 20 years to transfer enshrined objects to newly constructed buildings.
This year, Ise Shrine will provide cypress logs from trees grown in the area to be used as construction material at shrines in areas affected by the earthquake. In addition, parts of defunct old buildings will also be donated when the 62nd Sengu ceremony ends this fall.
In this 1,300-year-old tradition, 65 wooden buildings, including the Inner Ise Shrine, which houses one of the three sacred treasures, the Yata no Kagami (Sacred Mirror), and the Outer Ise Shrine, are rebuilt and roughly 1,500 sacred treasures, including weapons and furnishings, are moved into the new buildings.
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Matsuo Basho (1644-94). The great man got to see the crowds at the 20-year rebuilding ceremonies
Basho wrote of the Ise rebuilding on a previous occasion some three and half centuries ago… (courtesy of Gabi Greve’s Joys of Japan-Poetry)
尊さに皆おしあひぬ御遷宮
tootosa ni mina oshi-ainu gosenguu
For holiness,
Everyone has pushed others in the crowd.
The Shrine Removal !
Tr. Oseko
Written on the 13th day of the 9th lunar month in 1689
元禄2年9月13日
After finishing his travels in Oku, he went to see this ceremony at the Grand Shrine at Ise. One ceremony of the Inner Shrine had already ended on the 10th day of the 9th lunar month, but he was able to see the one of the Outer Shrine on the 13th day.
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Basho in Ise
Entrance to Geku, Ise's outer shrine: Basho got to see it without the cars and railing...
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