Japan's most sacred Shinto shrine is rebuilt every 20 years

Описание: (23 Sep 2025)
FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4583368

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ise, Japan – 2 May 2025
1. Various of procession of priests, shrine personnel and shrine builders displaying five-colored ‘mitegura’ ritual streamers during Yamaguchi Festival, the first festival marking the start of Shikinen Sengu ritual
2. SOUNDBITE (Japanese) Yuto Nakase, local resident and spectator of Yamaguchi festival:
++PART OVERLAID BY SHOTS 1, 3++
“You can count the number of times you’ll witness something like this in your lifetime with one hand, so I really felt it was a rare and precious sight.”
3. Priests performing eightfold bowing ceremony during the Yamaguchi Festival, during which prayers are offered for safe felling of the timber for building the new shrine

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ise, Japan – 1 May 2025
4. Torii gate inside the inner shrine of Ise Jingu

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ise, Japan – 2 May 2025
5. SOUNDBITE (Japanese) Noboru Okada, Professor Emeritus at Kogakkan University:
++PART OVERLAID BY SHOTS 4, 6, 7, 8, 9++
“In Jingu’s Inner Shrine, there is Yata no Kagami, a sacred mirror. The Outer Shrine also enshrines a similar but different mirror as its sacred object. These sacred objects are revered and enshrined for 20 years, and then, in a process called Shikinen Sengu, they are ceremonially transferred from the old shrine building to a newly constructed one."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ise, Japan – 1 May 2025
6. Visitors praying at one of the shrines inside the complex
7. Visitors walking up the stairs of the main sanctuary of the inner shrine
8. Pan of one of the auxiliary shrines in the Ise Jingu complex that will be rebuilt in Shikinen Sengu process. The empty space next to the shrine is where the new shrine will be built
9. Visitors entering the outer gate of the main sanctuary of the Ise Jingu’s inner shrine

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tamaki, Japan – 1 May 2025
10. Various of Miyachu factory which manufactures ‘kamidana’ -- small altars enshrining Shinto deities that are commonly found inside Japanese homes or shops
11. SOUNDBITE (Japanese) Yosuke Kawanishi, Ise resident and managing director at Miyachu:
++PART OVERLAID BY SHOT 10++
“Of course, wooden shrines eventually decay. That’s why it was decided—long ago by an emperor—that they should be rebuilt every 20 years.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Agematsu, Japan - 3 June 2025
12. Tilt down of woodcutters chopping ancient cypress trees using axe during Misomahajime-sai ceremony for making container vessel for enshrining deities of Ise Jingu
13. SOUNDBITE (Japanese) Mitsuo Hashimoto, head woodcutter:
++PART OVERLAID BY SHOTS 13, 14++
“Leaving parts of the tree uncut requires extreme precision. The direction and place where a tree will fall can change entirely. Even a tiny adjustment can cause the tree to land two or three meters off. That’s the most delicate, nerve-wracking part.”
14. Woodcutters chopping 300-year-old cypress tree
15. UPSOUND of tree cutter shouting (Japanese) ‘One tree is falling! Now it’s really falling!’ as part of the custom before they lay down the tree
16. Ancient cypress tree falls
17. SOUNDBITE (Japanese) Soju Ikeda, the head of Mitsuogiri tree cutting preservation society:
++PART OVERLAID BY SHOTS 16, 18, 19++
“(The Shikinen Sengu festival) is often described as simply a transmission of techniques, but I think it is more than that, it is about the transmission of spirit and devotion that has continued unbroken over the centuries. The fact that a festival which began over 1,200 years ago is still carried out every 20 years is something truly extraordinary.”
19. Spectators watching ceremony










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