Asakusa Shrine

The Asakusa Shrine (Japanese浅 草 神社, Asakusa -jinja ) is a Shinto shrine next to the Buddhist temple Senso-ji in Asakusa district of the municipality Taitō of Tokyo in Japan. It was built in 1649 by Tokugawa Iemitsu.

In it, the three men are revered that should have been responsible for the construction of the adjacent Sensō -ji. According to legend, two of them, the fishermen - brothers Hinokuma no HAMANARI (桧 前 浜 成) and Takenari (桧 前 竹 成), found in the year 628 a statue of Bodhisattva Kannon in the Sumida River. The fishermen are said to have thrown back the statue into the river, on what it should be but surfaced time and time again. The village headman, Haji no Atai Nakatomo (土 师 真 中知) or Haji no Nakatomo (土 师 中知) should have recognized as their holiness and then built the temple around them, and converted the two brothers to Buddhism.

In the shrine many festivals ( matsuri ) are aligned, including one of the three largest matsuri in Tokyo, the Sanja Matsuri, which takes place over a period of three to four days on a weekend in May each year. At its peak, the district will be carried to the 100 portable shrines ( mikoshi ) through the streets.

Mikoshi on Sensō -ji during Sanja Matsuri