Yanaka Cemetery

nihongo|Yanaka Cemetery|谷中霊園 |Yanaka Reien is a huge cemetery located north of Ueno in Yanaka 1-chome, Taito, Tokyo, Japan. The Yanaka sector of Taito is one of the few Tokyo neighborhoods in which the old Shitamachi atmosphere can still be felt. The cemetery is famous for its beautiful cherry blossoms that in April completely cover its paths, so much so that its central street is often called Cherry-blossom Avenue.

Description

Although renamed over 72 years ago, the cemetery is still often called with its old official name, nihongo|Yanaka Graveyard|谷中墓地|Yanaka Bochi. It has a surface of over 100 thousand square meters and hosts about 7 thousand graves. The cemetery has its own police station and a section dedicated to the Tokugawa, family of the 15 Tokugawa shoguns of Japan, which however is closed to the public and must be peeked at from above the surrounding walls. The last shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu, also known as Keiki, rests here.

The cemetery used to be part of a Buddhist temple called nihongo|Tennō-ji| 天王寺, and its central street used to be the road approaching it. At about the middle point of the central street are the ruins of the five-storied pagoda that became the model for Kōda Rohan's novel The Five-Storied Pagoda. The pagoda had been a donation made in 1908 by Tenno-ji itself. The five-storied pagoda was burned one summer night in 1957 in the so-called Yanaka Five-Storied Pagoda Double-Suicide Arson Case and was later declared a historical landmark by the city authorities.

History

After the Meiji Restoration, the government pursued a policy of separation of Buddhism and Shintoism (Shinbutsu Bunri), and Shinto funerals became more common. This posed however a problem because until then most cemeteries had been property of Buddhist temples. The solution adopted was the opening of public burial grounds. In 1872, Meiji authorities confiscated a portion of Tennō-ji and declared it a public Tokyo cemetery, the largest in the country at the time. In 1935 the name was changed from Yanaka Bochi to the present (Yanaka Reien).

Access

The cemetery lies 6 minutes from JR's Nippori Station

References

* [http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B0%B7%E4%B8%AD%E9%9C%8A%E5%9C%92 谷中霊園] , Japanese Wikipedia
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0674539397 Edward Seidensticker: Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake: how the shogun's ancient capital became a great modern city, 1867-1923]
* [http://www5f.biglobe.ne.jp/~ohaka/ohakanorekishi_15.html お墓の歴史]