Kanda-myōjin
ⓒRebecca Bugge, All Rights Reserved
Do not use without permission.
At the Kanda shinto shrine - Kanda-myōjin (神田明神). This shrine dates its roots back to 730 AD, but it has relocated a couple of times and ended up here in 1603, moved to this place by the shogun (to make place for the expanding Edo castle, though officially to guard against misfortune because of an unhappy kami). Before this, in 1309, the warrior and rebel Taira no Masakado was enshrined in the Kanda shrine as a kami. The other two deities enshrined here are Onamuchi-no-mikoto (Daikoku-sama) and Sukunahikona-no-mokoto (Ebisu-sama). The shrine was added to the Tokyo ten shrines (東京十社 - Tokyo Jissha) during the Meiji era, but the emperor hesitated to do so since Masakado had led a rebellion against the central government in Kyoto in his day. This was resolved with the kami being removed from the shrine. However he proved to be so popular that he was reinstated after the second world war.
The shrine itself, as it stands today, was built in 1934 in the Gongen style after the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923 - but using concrete instead of traditional wood, which meant that it actually survived the fire bombings of the Second World War (when not much else in this area did). The shrine was very important for the warriors, and today its proximity to Akihabara has given it a bit of a special niche, selling talismans and blessings for electronic equipment (and all the usual talismans too, for good health, good luck, luck in business, etc).
Kanda-myōjin
ⓒRebecca Bugge, All Rights Reserved
Do not use without permission.
At the Kanda shinto shrine - Kanda-myōjin (神田明神). This shrine dates its roots back to 730 AD, but it has relocated a couple of times and ended up here in 1603, moved to this place by the shogun (to make place for the expanding Edo castle, though officially to guard against misfortune because of an unhappy kami). Before this, in 1309, the warrior and rebel Taira no Masakado was enshrined in the Kanda shrine as a kami. The other two deities enshrined here are Onamuchi-no-mikoto (Daikoku-sama) and Sukunahikona-no-mokoto (Ebisu-sama). The shrine was added to the Tokyo ten shrines (東京十社 - Tokyo Jissha) during the Meiji era, but the emperor hesitated to do so since Masakado had led a rebellion against the central government in Kyoto in his day. This was resolved with the kami being removed from the shrine. However he proved to be so popular that he was reinstated after the second world war.
The shrine itself, as it stands today, was built in 1934 in the Gongen style after the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923 - but using concrete instead of traditional wood, which meant that it actually survived the fire bombings of the Second World War (when not much else in this area did). The shrine was very important for the warriors, and today its proximity to Akihabara has given it a bit of a special niche, selling talismans and blessings for electronic equipment (and all the usual talismans too, for good health, good luck, luck in business, etc).