Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Senso-ji (Asakusa Kannon) Temple - Tokyo

Senso-ji temple is an ancient Buddhist temple located in Asakusa, a central part of downtown Tokyo. It is very close to Asakusa Station. Sensoji entrance (Thunder Gate)  features a massive paper lantern dramatically painted in vivid red-and-black tones to suggest thunderclouds and lightning.

 A shopping street of over 200 meters, called Nakamise, leads from the outer gate to the temple's second gate, the Hozomon (Treasure-House Gate) Shops in Nakamise The first story houses two statues, three lanterns and two large sandals. It stands 22.7 metres (74 ft) tall, 21 metres (69 ft) wide, and 8 metres (26 ft) deep.

The front of the temple forecourt is an incense burner. Here you will usually see a group of visitors fanning smoke from the burning incense over themselves. The incense is believed to have healing powers, and so fanning the smoke over your ailment will help to heal it. If you suffer from headache, fan some of the smoke over your head. 

Sensoji temple Fanning


At all Shinto shrines and temples, worshipers and casual visitors are asked to purify themselves (Harai) of impurity before praying to the Shinto deities. The act of cleansing is called Misogi, and the actual washing of hands and mouth with water is called Temizu.

Sensō-ji's main hall ......

 If you pay 100 yen will buy you an omikuji (fortune written on a small piece of paper). You place the money in an honour box and shake a small cylinder containing sticks with numbers written on them. Shake the cylinder until one of the sticks falls out and pull your fortune from a drawer with the corresponding number. If your fortune is bad, tie the paper onto a nearby string so that the wind can disperse the bad luck. 

To the left of the forecourt and forming part of the temple, is the 5 story (53 meter) pagoda which is believed to have some treasured sutras. Yes these are sutras from India but I could not check it as it was not open to public.

 Sumida river, Azuma bridge and you can see also a unusual black building with a golden carrot on the top.


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