, is a

Shinto Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintois ...

shrine A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon, or similar figure of respect, wherein they ...

located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The shrine dates back 1,270 years, but the current structure was rebuilt several times due to fire and earthquakes. It is situated in one of the most expensive estate areas of Tokyo. Kanda Shrine was an important shrine to both the

warrior A warrior is a person specializing in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior aristocracies, class, or caste. History Warriors seem to have be ...

class and citizens of Japan, especially during the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

, when ''

shōgun , officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamak ...

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fello ...

paid his respects at Kanda Shrine. Due in part to the proximity of the Kanda Shrine to Akihabara, the shrine has become a mecca for technophiles who frequent Akihabara.

History

Kanda Shrine was first built in the second year of the

Tenpyō was a after '' Jinki'' and before '' Tenpyō-kanpō.'' This period spanned the years from August 729 through April 749. The reigning emperor was . Change of era * 729 : The new era name was created to mark an event or series of events. The ...

Era (730 AD), in the fishing village of Shibasaki, near the modern

Ōtemachi is a district of Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is located north of Tokyo Station and Marunouchi, east of the Imperial Palace, west of Nihonbashi and south of Kanda. It is the location of the former site of the village of Shibazaki, the most a ...

district. In order to accommodate the expansion of Edo Castle, the shrine was later moved to the former Kanda ward in 1603, then moved once again to its modern site on a small hill near Akihabara in 1616. The shrine has been rebuilt and restored many times. The current structure was destroyed in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and rebuilt in 1934 with concrete, and thus survived the Tokyo

firebombing Firebombing is a bombing technique designed to damage a target, generally an urban area, through the use of fire, caused by incendiary devices, rather than from the blast effect of large bombs. In popular usage, any act in which an incendiary d ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, unlike many of Japan's historical structures. Restoration is being done on Kanda Shrine, and work continues today. Due to its proximity to the Akihabara Electric Town, the shrine has become a mecca for the technophiles who frequent Akihabara. The Kanda Shrine sells

talismans A talisman is any object ascribed with religious or magical powers intended to protect, heal, or harm individuals for whom they are made. Talismans are often portable objects carried on someone in a variety of ways, but can also be installed perm ...

specifically for blessing electronic devices against the types of harm that could come to them.

Architecture

The two-storey main gate, Zuishin-mon (隨神門), marks the entrance to Kanda Shrine. Zuishin-mon was reconstructed in 1995 with cypress wood, and is built with an

irimoya The East Asian hip-and-gable roof (''Xiēshān'' (歇山) in Chinese, ''Irimoya'' (入母屋) in Japanese, and ''Paljakjibung'' (팔작지붕) in Korean) also known as 'resting hill roof', consists of a hip roof that slopes down on all four side ...

styled roof. The shrine building is constructed in the Shinto style of Gongen-zukuri. It is painted vermilion, and decorated with gold and lacquered interiors. Many sculptures of its enshrined

kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...

can be found on the building grounds.

Enshrined Kami

The three major kami enshrined are

Daikokuten Daikokuten ( 大黒天) is a syncretic Japanese deity of fortune and wealth. Daikokuten originated from Mahākāla, the buddhist version of the Hindu deity Shiva, conflated with the native Shinto god Ōkuninushi. Overview Mahākāla in East As ...

, Ebisu, and

Taira no Masakado was a Heian period provincial magnate ('' gōzoku'') and samurai based in eastern Japan, notable for leading the first recorded uprising against the central government in Kyōto. Early life Masakado was one of the sons of Taira no Yoshimas ...

. As Daikokuten and Ebisu both belong to the

Seven Gods of Fortune In Japanese mythology, the Seven Lucky Gods or Seven Gods of Fortune (, shichifukujin in Japanese) are believed to grant good luck and are often represented in netsuke and in artworks. One of the seven (Jurōjin) is said to be based on a historic ...

, Kanda Shrine is a popular place for businessmen and entrepreneurs to pray for wealth and prosperity. Taira no Masakado was a land-owning government official who led a massive insurrection against the Heian government and declared himself the "New Emperor" (新皇). He was later elevated to the status of a local kami out of a mixture of fear and reverence. He is an important figure in the shrine's history. After his defeat in 940 AD, he was

decapitated Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the i ...

by Fujiwara no Hidesato and his severed head was brought to the Shibasaki ( Edo) area in a wooden bucket (首桶) and buried on a low hill near the shrine's location today. Locals who respected his defiance, and fearing his curse, enshrined him in Kanda Shrine, and his spirit is said to watch over the surrounding areas. It was rumored that when his shrine fell into disrepair, Masakado's angry spirit wrought natural disasters and plagues upon the nearby lands. It is also said that Tokugawa Ieyasu felt uncomfortable to have his castle built close to such a powerful spirit, and so decided to move Kanda Shrine to its modern location. During the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

, the Emperor Meiji was faced with public pressure to include Kanda Shrine in the , but hesitated to do so because of the shrine's association with Taira no Masakado, who was seen as a dangerous anti-government

demagogue A demagogue (from Greek , a popular leader, a leader of a mob, from , people, populace, the commons + leading, leader) or rabble-rouser is a political leader in a democracy who gains popularity by arousing the common people against elites, ...

. This was temporarily resolved by removing Taira no Masakado as an enshrined kami. However, Masakado's spirit proved so popular amongst the commoners, that it was symbolically returned to the shrine after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

Festivals

Kanda festival (Kanda Matsuri) is one of the three major

festivals A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...

of Tokyo, started in 1600 by Tokugawa Ieyasu to celebrate his decisive victory at the battle of Sekigahara. At the time, the festival was important enough to be named a state festival, and its highly decorated

mikoshi A is a sacred religious palanquin (also translated as portable Shinto shrine). Shinto followers believe that it serves as the vehicle to transport a deity in Japan while moving between main shrine and temporary shrine during a festival or when ...

were paraded down the main streets and into Edo castle, so that even the ''shōgun'' could observe the celebrations. Today, it is held in honor of the enshrined kami, and celebrated around May 15 of every

odd Odd means unpaired, occasional, strange or unusual, or a person who is viewed as eccentric. Odd may also refer to: Acronym * ODD (Text Encoding Initiative) ("One Document Does it all"), an abstracted literate-programming format for describing X ...

year. Daikoku festival is also held at Kanda Shrine in January.

Cultural references

In the

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

Love Live! is a Japanese multimedia project created by Hajime Yatate and Sakurako Kimino and co-produced by Kadokawa Corporation, Kadokawa through ASCII Media Works; Bandai Namco Music Live through music label Lantis (company), Lantis; and animation studio ...

'' the character Nozomi Tojo serves as a shrine maiden at the Kandamyoujin shrine. Announced via

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

in early 2015, the administrators of the Kandamyoujin shrine have in turn adopted the character as the official mascot of the shrine. Kanda Shrine is popularly known as the hangout for

Zenigata Heiji , usually called and formerly Heiji Zenigata VII, is a fictional character created by Monkey Punch for his manga series ''Lupin III'', which debuted in ''Weekly Manga Action'' on August 10, 1967. He is named after the famous fictional Japanes ...

, a fictional policeman who thwarted criminals by throwing coins. Heiji's beat is ''Myōjin-shita'', or "beneath the (Kanda) Myōjin shrine." Several monuments have been erected at the shrine in his honor.

Images

File:Kanda-Myojin torii.JPG,

Torii A is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred. The presence of a ''torii'' at the entrance is usually the simple ...

File:Daikoku8727.jpg,

File:Kanda shrine paper lantern.jpg, Paper Lantern File:KandaMyojin8816.jpg,

Chōzuya is a Shinto water ablution pavilion for a ceremonial purification rite known as ''temizu'' or . The pavilion contains a large water-filled basin called a . At shrines, these '' chōzubachi'', are used by worshippers for washing their left h ...

Pavilion File:Kanda shrine.jpg, The Honden File:KandaMyojinLanterns8758.jpg, Lanterns File:KandaMyojinRooflines8768.jpg, Roof Designs File:KandaMyojinRailOrnaments8756.jpg, Rail Ornamentation File:KandaMyojinZenigataHeiji8801.jpg, Monument to Zenigata Heiji File:Kanda Matsuri 2009-1 in Akihabara.jpg,

Kanda Matsuri or the Kanda Festival, is one of the three great Shinto festivals of Tokyo, along with the Fukagawa Matsuri and Sannō Matsuri. The festival started in the early 17th century as a celebration of Tokugawa Ieyasu's decisive victory at the battle ...

File:100 views edo 010.jpg,

Hiroshige Utagawa Hiroshige (, also ; ja, 歌川広重 ), born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format l ...

References

External links

Official Site
(Japanese) {{Authority control Beppyo shrines Shinto shrines in Tokyo Rebuilt buildings and structures in Japan Kanda, Tokyo Buildings and structures in Chiyoda, Tokyo Religious buildings and structures completed in 1934 Shinto in Tokyo 1934 establishments in Japan