Celebration: Sensoji Temple Honzon Revealing Ceremony

"Asakusa Shrine Mikoshi Main Hall Raising and Lowering Ceremony"

Date and Time:

Reiwa 7, March 2025
Monday, 17th, 5pm - 6:40pm
18th (Tue) 9:00am - 11:30pm

place:

Sensoji Temple grounds Asakusa Shrine grounds

Organized by: Asakusa Tourism Federation and Asakusa Shrine Support Association

Sponsored by: Sensoji Temple and Asakusa Shrine

Monday, March 17
17:00 Shrine Mikoshi Ceremony to Enter the Divine Spirit
17:35 Three shrine mikoshi are taken out of the storehouse
17:50 The procession departs from the Asakusa Shrine grounds
18:00: Shrine Mikoshi Sankido lifted up
6:30 p.m. Sensoji Temple One-Mountain Ceremony Sutra Reading
18:40 Hand clapping

*From around 5:45pm on Monday, March 17th for approximately 60 minutes, entry to the front stairs and corridors of the main hall of Sensoji Temple will be restricted due to the raising of the mikoshi (portable shrine) in the Sankido Hall.

March 18 (Tuesday)
9:00am: Asakusa Shrine chief priest offers prayer
9:05am Sensoji Temple One Mountain Ceremony Sutra Reading
9:15am: The shrine mikoshi is lowered into the Sankido hall
9:35am: Shinto ritual Binzasara dance dedication

9:45am: Garden Festival Procession through the streets starts
10:15am: In front of the torii gate at Asakusa Shrine
10:15am: Miyairi procession
10:45am: Main closing ceremony

11:00am Shrine Maiden Dance Performance
16:30 Three shrine mikoshi are placed in the storehouse
17:00 Shrine Mikoshi Ceremony to Return the Divine Spirit

*From around 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, March 18th for approximately 60 minutes, entry to the front stairs and corridor of the main hall of Sensoji Temple will be restricted due to the lowering of the mikoshi (portable shrine) from the Sankido Hall.

[Objective]
The Sensoji Honzon Shigen-e (Asakusa Temple Honzon Revealing Ceremony) is an event based on the Sensoji Temple Origin, which tells of how in the early morning of March 18th, 628 AD, the brothers Himeka Hamanari and Takenari were fishing in Edoura (the Miyato River downstream of the Sumida River) when they discovered a Buddha statue in their cast net. When Haji Manakatomo worshiped it, he discovered that it was a statue of the Bodhisattva Kannon, and together with his attendants, he enshrined the statue in the stump of a locust tree.According to the same legend, the "Akazano Kusado" was then built overnight and the statue was placed in the Kusado by ten children, which is said to be the beginning of Sensoji Temple. Therefore, the "Sensoji Honzon Shigenkai" was held as an event to celebrate the birth of the town of Asakusa.
Furthermore, up until the Edo period, it was held together with the "Sanja Festival" and a portable shrine procession as an integrated event, but after the Meiji Restoration, in accordance with the Shinbutsu Bunri Rei (law to separate Shinto and Buddhism), the "Sanja Festival" came to be held in May, and the original meaning of the "Sensoji Honzon Shigen-e" ceremony described above has tended to be lost.

For those of us with roots in Asakusa, it has been a long-standing concern to us to make the Sensoji Honzon Shigenkai event even more popular, and so in 2000 we decided to reenact it as part of the Traditional Sansha Festival Boat Procession, with the aim of spreading the history of the birth of Asakusa both domestically and internationally, and ultimately leading to the further development of the town of Asakusa.
Five years from now (2028 A.D.) we will celebrate the 1,400th anniversary of the appearance of Sensoji Temple.
We ask that you all please fully understand that the three enshrined deities of Asakusa Shrine are people of great merit in the Asakusa area, Haji Manaka Tomoyuki, Himejima Hamanari, and Himejima Takenari, and that these deities will be celebrating the manifestation of Kannon and meeting the Kannon Bodhisattva in the main hall of Sensoji Temple. We also ask that you please reaffirm the historical significance of the Sensoji Honzon Shigenkai and support us so that we can carry out this event in a solemn and grand manner.

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The postCelebration: Sensoji Temple Honzon Gogenkai (Ceremony to Display the Honzon of the Asakusa Shrine) "Asakusa Shrine Mikoshi Main Hall Raising and Lowering Ceremony" March 17th and 18th, 2025first appeared onAsakusa Tourism Federation.

*This post automatically translated by google translator*