ISE JINGŪ AND MODERN EMPERORSHIP

Rosemarie Bernard

Introduction

Jingū (the Grand Shrines of Ise), the sanctuary dedicated to the imperial deity Ōmikami, is one of ’s most sacred religious sites.1 During the Tokugawa period, mass pilgrimages (okage mairi) brought millions of worshippers to Ise on foot, via the Tōkaidō. Ise Jingū’s importance in Japanese society derives not only from its place in popular religion, but also from ceremonial history associated with emperorship. In the wake of the Meiji Restoration, as the modern state made visible the new emperor, the Inner Shrine (Naikū) in Ise was placed at the pinnacle of a state-sponsored hierarchy. No other shrine was better suited for this prominent position: the Naikū possesses a direct link to emperorship by serving as the repository for the sacred mirror ( yata no kagami), the most valued item among the three imperial regalia. Made to serve the interests of the modern state, Jingū became a key symbol to unite Japan and its empire in the ceremonial celebration of the emperor’s pre-eminence and the timelessness of the nation. After the Meiji Restoration, the symbolic relationship between state authority and emperorship was integrated by means of ceremonies in the new capital of Tokyo, by imperial pilgrimage within Japan, and at Ise where a crafted rhetoric of eternity blurred the break between ancient times and modernity. In 1869 the Meiji Emperor made a pilgrimage to the Ise shrines, the fi rst visit in nearly twelve centuries by a reigning monarch. This new ceremony displayed the emperor as a national symbol and assigned a modern form to the imperial-Ise relationship. After the war, the allied occupation severed the link between shrines and the state. To this end it targeted State Shinto (kokka shintō), which it

1 Research for this paper was conducted between 1990 and 2007. Some informa- tion and arguments appeared previously in my doctoral dissertation The Image World of Jingū: Media Representation and the Performance of Rites of Renewal at the Grand Shrines of Ise, 1869–1993 (Harvard University, 2000). 80 rosemarie bernard distinguished from popular or Shrine Shinto ( jinja shintō), by swiftly draft- ing and promulgating a Shinto Directive and a new constitution.2 These measures effectively terminated the fi nancial, political and ideological dimensions of the imperial-state relationship. In Ise as well, postwar constitutional law fi nancially severed the state-shrine relationship, yet it had only limited bearing upon ceremonial symbolism and the impe- rial-shrine connection. This was in accordance with the occupation’s benevolent treatment of the emperor, and with the spirit of postwar laws guaranteeing freedom of religion. Thus, ironically, postwar law, as drafted by the American offi cials under General MacArthur, granted imperial ritual a legitimate afterlife under postwar democracy by guar- anteeing the right of the newly independent religious body of Jingū Shichō (Administration of the Grand Shrines of Ise) to maintain its ceremonial system, and by allowing the modernized ceremonial customs of the imperial house at the palace, at Ise, and at other shrines and mausolea, to be retained as private religious practices of the emperor. As a result, the shrines at Ise have remained key ceremonial arenas for Japanese emperorship, albeit with a new status, legally independent from the state and the imperial institution. A rich icon of historical continuity and of the modernization of ritual tradition, Jingū remains of central importance to the present-day impe- rial institution. After the Meiji Restoration, the shrines at Ise were used to sacralize the increasingly political role of emperorship. Since 1945, they have sustained and adapted the symbolic apparatus of imperial pre-eminence to the age of democracy and secularism.

The Imperial Pilgrimage of 1869

In order to unify the new modern nation, the Meiji government drew upon existing imperial symbolism and ritual to create new ceremonial practices. At Ise, modern-style political and ritual culture required that the link be made visible—or at least understood if invisible in the case of esoteric rites—between the imperial body of the Meiji emperor, the ’divine body’ () that is the sacred mirror in Jingū’s keeping,

2 For detailed accounts in English, see William Woodard, The Allied Occupation of Japan 1945–1952 and Japanese Religions (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1972); also Kyoko Inoue, MacArthur’s Japanese Constitution: A Linguistic and Cultural Study of Its Making (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).