is a mausoleum complex of the

Japanese Emperors This list of emperors of Japan presents the traditional order of succession. Records of the reigns are compiled according to the traditional Japanese calendar. In the ''nengō'' system which has been in use since the late-seventh century, years are ...

in Nagabusa-machi,

Hachiōji is a city located in the western portion of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 561,344, and a population density of 3000 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Hachiōji is located in the ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

, Japan. Located within a forest in the western suburbs of Tokyo and named for the ancient Musashi Province, the site contains the mausolea of

Emperor Taishō was the 123rd Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession, and the second ruler of the Empire of Japan from 30 July 1912 until his death in 1926. The Emperor's personal name was . According to Japanese custom, while reigni ...

and

Emperor Shōwa Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...

, as well as those of their wives,

Empress Teimei , born , was the wife of Emperor Taishō and the mother of Emperor Shōwa of Japan. Her posthumous name, ''Teimei'', means "enlightened constancy". Biography Sadako Kujō was born on 25 June 1884 in Tokyo, as the fourth daughter of Duke Michit ...

and

Empress Kōjun , born , was a member of the Imperial House of Japan, the wife of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) and the mother of Shigeko Higashikuni, Princess Sachiko Hisa-nomiya, Kazuko Takatsukasa, Atsuko Ikeda, the Emperor Emeritus Akihito, Prince Masahito ...

History

was the first

Emperor of Japan The Emperor of Japan is the monarch and the head of the Imperial Family of Japan. Under the Constitution of Japan, he is defined as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, and his position is derived from "the ...

to be buried in Tokyo. He has been called the first "Tokyo Emperor" because he was the first to live his entire life in or near Tokyo. His father, Emperor Meiji, was born and reared in Kyoto; and although he later lived and died in Tokyo, his mausoleum is located on the outskirts of Kyoto, near the tombs of his Imperial forebears. It is under the administration of the Archives and Mausolea Department.

Design

The imperial graveyard in

is designed as a semi-natural planted space which mainly consists of woodland, rocks and trees. In addition to the stone-topped Imperial mausolea, it also contains smaller monuments and religious structures, like ''

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 ...

''. The approach to the Musashi Imperial Graveyard from the

Kōshū Kaidō The was one of the five routes of the Edo period. It was built to connect Edo (modern-day Tokyo) with Kai Province in modern-day Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. The route continues from there to connect with the Nakasendō's Shimosuwa-shuku in ...

is lined with

zelkova ''Zelkova'' (from Georgian ''dzelkva'', 'stone pillar') is a genus of six species of deciduous trees in the elm family Ulmaceae, native to southern Europe, and southwest and eastern Asia. They vary in size from shrubs (''Z. sicula'') to large ...

and the mausolea planted with

cryptomeria ''Cryptomeria'' (literally "hidden parts") is a monotypic genus of conifer in the cypress family Cupressaceae, formerly belonging to the family Taxodiaceae. It includes only one species, ''Cryptomeria japonica'' ( syn. ''Cupressus japonica'' ...

Tombs

Future

In 2012 and 2013, the Imperial Household Agency confirmed press reports that then-Emperor, now Emperor Emeritus

Akihito is a member of the Imperial House of Japan who reigned as the 125th emperor of Japan from 7 January 1989 until his abdication on 30 April 2019. He presided over the Heisei era, ''Heisei'' being an expression of achieving peace worldwide. B ...

and then-Empress, now Empress Emerita Michiko do not plan to be buried like their immediate predecessors, but to be cremated, for which

cremation Cremation is a method of final disposition of a dead body through burning. Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India and Nepal, cremation on an open-air pyre is ...

facilities will be added to the Musashi Imperial Graveyard. Their ashes will then be interred in individual mausoleums, to be built side by side in an integrated fashion, on the west side of the tomb of Emperor Taishō. This adaptation of the imperial funeral rites will mark a historic change from some 350 years in which in-ground burials were the norm for monarchs and their spouses. The Imperial Household Agency plans that the two new mausoleums will have an area of some 3,500 square metres, about 80 percent of the 4,300 square metres of the tomb of the Emperor’s parents, Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun.Mausoleum, cremation plans revealed for emperor, empress
online
) Retrieved 9 October 2015.

References

External links