Carmen Blacker Lecture 2015 – Amaterasu’s progress: the Ise shrines in the public sphere of postwar Japan, with John Breen

In 2013, the Inner and Outer shrines in Ise were rebuilt at vast expense. On 2 October 2013 Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, abandoned her old, and somewhat worn, shrine to progress to her new abode, located a matter of metres away on an adjacent site. Her old shrine was duly dismantled. This was the latest event in a remarkable tradition of vicennial rebuilding that extends back to the 7th century AD. In twenty years, when a new building takes shape, Amaterasu will be on the move again. In this lecture, I explore the ritualized rebuilding of the Ise shrines in postwar Japan as a technique to highlight the shrines’ constant negotiation with the realms of politics, economy and society. Out of this negotiation has come change for the private religious charity that is Ise. I propose here that the dominant trajectory of change is best understood in terms of “de-privatisation” or the re-emergence of the Ise shrines into the public realm.

 

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