A worshipper bowed deeply before passing through the second torii gate of Yasukuni Jinja Shrine

Worshipper boing down in front of Torii — The second torii of Yasukuni Jinja Shrine

I made my slow, dragging way up the gentle slope of Yasukuni-dori. From the Kudanshita subway station to the outer precincts of Yasukuni Shrine is only a brief walk, but the transition feels monumental. Standing at the entrance of the main approach, the first thing that hijacks your vision is the Daiichi Torii—the First Gate—towering twenty-five meters into the sky. Rebuilt after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, it was famously the first steel gate of its kind in Japan. It is so gargantuan that looking up at it induces a strange, industrial vertigo, akin to staring at a factory smokestack. Rather than marking a sacred boundary into the divine, it looms like a relic of modern infrastructure. Yet, under this titan of iron I went, stepping onto the wide, gravel approach.

Passing through that iron colossus, I walked past the bronze statue of Omura Masujiro—the nineteenth-century mastermind of Japan's modern army—and soon encountered a second, more brooding gateway. The Daini Torii is a fraction smaller than the first, but this bronze structure, erected in 1887, remains the largest of its kind in the country. It carries a grim, martial lineage, having been cast at the Osaka Artillery Arsenal—a military factory that once churned out cannons. Refusing to let myself be easily intimidated by the sheer weight of this history, I paused at the flank of the gate.

I stood there for a while, idly watching the stream of visitors passing beneath it. According to the official guidelines of the Association of Shinto Shrines, one should bow before entering a torii, approaching it with the same reverence as entering the home of an honored elder. Yet, human nature rarely conforms to bureaucracy. Not everyone in the crowd was bowing with pious devotion. In fact, I am precisely the sort of irreverent soul who invariably forgets to lower his head, wandering through the thresholds entirely unprompted by the divine.

Just as I was complacently assuming that my fellow sinners formed the vast majority, a woman approached the gate and came to a sudden halt. Shouldering a backpack, she stood in the shadow of the colossal pillar and delivered an exquisite, profoundly deep bow. There was not a shred of self-consciousness in her movement, no awkward hesitation or awareness of an audience. Beside the dark, towering pillar that stretched straight toward the blue sky, her posture achieved a strange, quiet harmony.

It is not my habit to be easily moved by the piety of strangers, nor do I care to put on a solemn face for the sake of appearances. Still, standing there under the shadow of the old arsenal's bronze, I couldn't help but reflect, if only for a fleeting moment, on the casual negligence of my own stride.

Yasukuni Jinja on Google Map

Comment via

日本語