Ise Grand Shrine

The Ise Grand Shrine in Shima province is the holiest place of Shintō, built around the Naikū that houses the Yata no Kagami, the sacred mirror of the sun goddess Amaterasu, and the Gekū dedicated to the food goddess Toyouke. Tradition says the princess Yamatohime chose Ise as the goddess's dwelling, and Emperor Tenmu raised the first shrine hall between 678 and 686; his widow Empress Jitō carried out the first ceremonial rebuilding in 692.

The Shikinen Sengū renewed every hall every twenty years, alternating between two adjacent sites and preserving the shinmei-zukuri style of plain cypress joined without nails.

In the Edo period the Okage mairi pilgrimage became a mass movement: in 1625 some 3.6 million pilgrims came within fifty days, and in 1829 more than a million arrived in three days for the great festival.