After reading the Rock Cave Myth, let’s explore what scholars say about it.
Category: Japanese Shrines & Temples
Amaterasu and the Rock Cave Myth – the most important Japanese legend.
What does it all mean? This is my in depth breakdown of the Japanese Creation Myth.
Japanese mythology is confusing, but let’s break down in easy, bite-sized parts and start at the beginning of everything.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Japanese Mythology
What do foxes and subways have in common?
#Harajuku means a lot of things to many people, but the area was insignificant until the 1920’s and finally prospered in the post-war years.
There’s a new service specializing in tourism for Japanese History. It may include beer! Help me spread the word, guys!
Kiyokawa Hachirō was a duplicitous terrorist whose final days
Today’s place name isn’t the most exciting and the area isn’t much better, but we have magical bugs living inside people. That’s cool, right?
There are a cluster of places names related to horses in Setagaya and I want to get to the bottom of it!
Suijin is a reference to the god of the Sumida River. This bridge replaced a famous ferry crossing immortalized in ukiyo-e by Hiroshige.
Tsukisha and Tsukiji are famous Tokyo neighborhoods. But do you know Tsukuda?
The autumn leaves are changing. It’s time to tackle the otaku mecca – Akihabara!
Sorry for the delay, y’all. I got locked out of my Wordpress account temporarily and I wasn’t able to update quickly so this post is back-dated. Anyways, it’s good to be back in the game. So let’s get down to business, shall we?
In the Edo Period, Senju was a hub to some of the most prestigious destinations of the Era. It was a launch pad for many travelers in the realm, but it was a particularly special hub for the Shogun Family.
Kichijōji, one of the coolest towns in Tokyo looks like a temple name. But if you go to Kichijōji, you won’t find any temples by that name. Today, we’ll find out why there is not temple in Kichijōji called Kichijō-ji. Are you ready to rock?
The shogunate is finished… that’s not sad to me. The sad thing is closing out this chapter on a subject that is so personal to me. I also love Yoshinobu because after a hundred years of 微妙 shoguns, we got a guy who represented his era and his pedigree exceptionally. Until the bitter end, Yoshinobu was an aristocrat, but in a time of crisis he took the challenge and helped to save the shogun family line persist until the present day.
We’re at the twilight of Tokugawa power in Japan – the 14th shogun, Tokugawa Iemochi.
Onkyo-in is the grave of the 14th shogun Tokugawa Iesada and his wife Atsu-hime. He was incapable when foreigners knocked on Japan’s door.
Tokugawa Ieyoshi was a pretty much a brown paper bag shogun. There is nothing notable about his rule… until the last year. In the last year, Commodore Perry arrived in Japan with his “Black Ships” and demanded that Japan end its isolationist policy. That’s when the shit hit the proverbial fan.
Tokugawa Ienari is my favorite shogun. Dude as a straight up player. Watch and learn, children.
Tokugawa Ieharu, the lovable but forgettable 10th shogun.
Today we’ll look at the grave of the 9th shogun, Tokugawa Ieshige — which is basically the grave of the 7th shogun, Ietsugu.
Tokugawa Yoshimune is considered one of the greatest shoguns of Edo Bakufu. He initiated financial reforms that most likely made writing the rest of this series on Tokugawa shogun graves infinitely easier. Just as they re-used existing sites, I can re-use existing blogs. Awwwww yeah.
We’ve come to the 7th shogun. His funerary temple was one of the architectural gems of Edo-Tokyo. Sadly, it was the last of these fine structures. From here on out we will only have group enshrinements. It’s the end of an era.
The second greatest funerary complex at Zojo-ji was Bunshoin, the mortuary temple of the 6th shogun, Tokugawa Ienobu.
Almost nothing remains of the site, but I hope to walk you through it today as best as I can.
Last time, I wrote about the 4th shogun, Tokugawa Ietsuna. Today let’s look at the grave of his younger brother, the much more famous Tokugawa Tsunayoshi – the so-called Dog Shogun. If you’ve been to Ueno Park, you may have seen the gate to his tomb. It’s much better preserved that Ietsuna’s and a little more centrally located… kinda.
Most people think that all that remains of Tokugawa Ietsuna’s grave is a small gate in Ueno Park.
They are wrong.
And I’ve got the pictures to prove it.
Taiyu-in is the funerary temple of Tokugawa Iemitsu. It’s located in Nikko next to Tosho-gu. It became the standard for all shogun graves.
