The festival of Kanda Shrine


About thirty years ago when I was young and I worked at the Akihabara branch of a bank, I enjoyed the festival of Kanda Shrine four times. Almost all of the young male bankers in the branch participated in the festival, and we looked forward to carry a portable shrine “o-mikoshi”. It was an unordinary experience with release of myself as a banker who is required to behave politely on business which was somewhat difficult to me. After the festival I was used to feel severe muscle weakness of all my body and shoulder inflammation, but the pleasure of carrying the portable shrine was supreme.


At the first participating time I was a little bit nervous to carry the portable shrine, because it was the first time in my life and I heard that the portable shrine was very heavy. On wearing the happi coat of the festival the thermometer of my tension gradually rose, but yet I couldn’t wear the formal underwear “fundoshi”( a long cotton cloth) humbly. While being taught by my close coworker who had a lot of experiences of carrying the portable shrine I threw myself into the carrying group. The weight on my shoulder was more than I expected. However while saying “washoi!” and “seiya!!” strongly and repeatedly in sync with all the carrying members and while exhausting my energy, my adrenaline eased my worries and only my intention moved myself. While taking short breaks and having some drinks I carried the portable shrine on my shoulder.


We strolled with the portable shrine in the town with our branch and marched slowly on the main street to Kanda Shrine. The street has a gentle slope, so all the carrying members had to change up our body-gears. The festival that started at three o’clock was in dusk. The rhythm of the Japanese accompaniment quickened. Spectators’ cheers along the street vitalized us and I felt something cool. Each of the carrying members gradually became brave. Among us a little skirmish happened. All the carriers wanted to stand out. The most conspicuous spot was the tip of the right front bar of the portable shrine. Of course that spot was the most violent. I couldn’t get to the spot by myself, but my close veteran friend helped me while restraining other people. “Hey, Akihiro! Come’on!” I could get to the tip thanks to his support. I stretched my back resisting the weight and made a face using all my energy. It was more than my ability. I conceived a lot of thanks to my friend and I never prayed to the deity for helping me, but it might be that the deity helped the carriers and me. On entering Kanda Shrine my feeling flashed strongly. After the festival my coworkers and I had no energy to go drinking. At night I couldn’t sleep easily, but I didn’t know the reason for the pain or its exiting.


On participating in the next year’s festival I wore the fundoshi naturally.

The original reason for the three big festivals in Tokyo


Tokyo has three big festivals with portable shrines of Senso-ji Temple, Hie Shrine and Kanda Shrine. Those three festivals have the secret reason of an invisible intermediary. The portable shrine is a strolling deity from a shrine, so that deities guard people from something sinister. What is something sinister? Before answering the question those three shrines were placed to guard Edo Castle.

Kanda Shrine


Kanda Shrine was very old before the foundation of Edo Castle. The shrine enshrines the spirit of Masakado Taira.

Masakado was a real person in the 9th century and lived in the present-day Kanto area including Tokyo. He was an original samurai leader with cultivating farms. He was very strong and well respected by the country people. In those times the power of the Imperial Court was absolute, all farmers were suffering from a heavy tax of the Court. Then Masakado formed the first resistance against the Court since the beginning of the Yamato Imperial Court and his army beat the governors of the rural area. And he declared the New-Emperor, in other words it was independent from the Court, so then The Court was shuddered. The Court dispatched an army to the Kanto area, after several battles between the Court and Masakado’s army, finally Masakado riding on his horse was killed by a arrow penetrating his forehead.


His severed head which was brought to Kyoto was exposed in front of the citizens of Kyoto, but it is said that the head flew to a village in Kanto (presently Ote-machi near The Imperial Palace) far from Kyoto. The dead Masakado became a strong revengeful ghost and it is said that the strong revengeful ghost caused a lot of terrible things. His body was kept by the then Kanda Shrine near the spot of his fallen head and Kanda Shrine enshrined the spirit of Masakado for the sake of peace.


In building the new city of Edo the most important worry in the realm of the invisible world was how to guard the city from the strong revengeful ghost. Tenkai, who was an adviser of the founder of Edo Castle, Ieyasu Tokugawa, moved Kanda Shrine to its present place near Akihabara on the sinister north east line from the castle. He used the spirit of Masakado in order to restrain the strong revengeful ghost of Masakado.

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