is a large cemetery located north of Ueno in Yanaka 7-chome, Taito, Tokyo,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

. The Yanaka sector of Taito is one of the few Tokyo neighborhoods in which the old Shitamachi atmosphere can still be felt. The cemetery is famous for its beautiful cherry blossoms that in April completely cover its paths, and for that reason that its central street is often called Cherry-blossom Avenue.

Description

Although renamed over 85 years ago, the cemetery is still often called by its old official name, , and not ''Yanaka Reien''. It has an area of over 100 thousand square meters and hosts about 7 thousand graves. The cemetery has its own police station and a small walled enclosure dedicated to the

Tokugawa clan The is a Japanese dynasty that was formerly a powerful '' daimyō'' family. They nominally descended from Emperor Seiwa (850–880) and were a branch of the Minamoto clan (Seiwa Genji) through the Matsudaira clan. The early history of this cl ...

, family of the 15 Tokugawa ''

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 Kamaku ...

s'' of Japan, which however is closed to the public and must be peeked at through double barred gates. The last ''shōgun'' Tokugawa Yoshinobu, also known as Keiki, rests here. The cemetery used to be part of a Buddhist temple called , and its central street used to be the road ('' sandō'') approaching it. At about the middle point of the central street are the ruins of the five-storied pagoda that became the model for Kōda Rohan's novel The Five-Storied Pagoda. The pagoda had been a donation made in 1908 by Tenno-ji itself. The five-storied pagoda was burned one summer night in 1957 in the Yanaka Five-Storied Pagoda Double-Suicide Arson Case and was later declared a historical landmark by the city authorities.

History

After the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

, the government pursued a policy of separation of

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

and

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 ''Shint ...

(

Shinbutsu bunri The Japanese term indicates the separation of Shinto from Buddhism, introduced after the Meiji Restoration which separated Shinto ''kami'' from buddhas, and also Buddhist temples from Shinto shrines, which were originally amalgamated. It is ...

), and Shinto funerals became more common. This posed however a problem because until then most cemeteries had been property of Buddhist temples. The solution adopted was the opening of public burial grounds. In 1872, Meiji authorities confiscated a portion of Tennō-ji and declared it a public Tokyo cemetery, the largest in the country at the time. In 1935 the name was changed from Yanaka Bochi to the present (Yanaka Reien).

Notable burials

* *

Ichirō Hatoyama was a Japanese politician who was Prime Minister of Japan from 1954 to 1956. A conservative, Hatoyama helped oversee the 1955 merger of the Liberal Party and the Democratic Party to create the Liberal Democratic Party (Japan), of which Hatoy ...

* Ichiyo Higuchi * Momoko Kochi * Oden Takahashi *

Shibusawa Eiichi was a Japanese industrialist widely known today as the "father of Japanese capitalism". He spearheaded the introduction of Western capitalism to Japan after the Meiji Restoration. He introduced many economic reforms including use of double- ...

* Murata Tsuneyoshi * Tokugawa Yoshinobu * Nicholas of Japan

Access

The cemetery lies 1 minute from JR's Nippori Station and 5 minutes from JR's

Nishi-Nippori Station is a railway station in Arakawa, Tokyo, Japan, operated jointly by East Japan Railway Company (JR East) and the two Tokyo subway operators Tokyo Metro and Toei. Lines Nishi-Nippori Station is served by the following lines. * Yamanote Line * ...

and

Uguisudani Station is a railway station in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan, operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East). The name relates to a valley where formerly many Japanese bush warblers (''uguisu'') were found. The station is to the north of the Tokyo National ...

Gallery

File:Yanaka inviting doorway.jpg File:Yanaka grave.jpg File:Yanaka Cemetery - spring - 2021 March 29.ogg File:Yanaka gravemarker.jpg File:Yanaka gravemarker2.jpg File:Yanaka gravemarker3.jpg File:MurataTsuneyoshi20121006.jpg File:Yanaka_Cemetery_grave_(Dec_2019).jpg File:Yanaka Cemetery graves (Dec 2019).jpg File:Yanaka cemetery- Dec 30 2020 various 23 16 25 305000.jpeg

References

* 谷中霊園, Japanese Wikipedia
Edward Seidensticker: Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake: how the shogun's ancient capital became a great modern city, 1867-1923

External links

* {{YouTube, cDcKuS0qv1w, 谷中霊園 Parks and gardens in Tokyo Neighborhoods of Tokyo Cemeteries in Japan Hanami spots of Japan Taitō