Takeaways from AP's report on Japan's most sacred shrine, rebuilt every 20 years for a millennium

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ISE, Japan (AP) — Every two decades for the last 1,300 years, Ise Jingu, Japan’s most revered Shinto shrine, has been knocked down and rebuilt from scratch.

The massive, $390 million demolition and construction job takes about nine years. It requires the country’s finest carpenters, woodcutters, builders and artisans to pour their hearts into the smallest details of structures that are doomed from the moment the work begins.

The buildings at Ise will only stand for about a decade before the project starts all over again, but as the priests consecrate the construction, the workers shout: “A building for 1,000 years! 10,000 years! A million years and forever!”

Journalists for The Associated Press are documenting the latest version of this ancient cyclical process, which publicly began this year.

This is the 63rd cycle of reconstruction. The first was documented in 690, during Empress Jitō’s reign, said Noboru Okada, professor emeritus at Kogakkan University and a specialist in Japanese history and archaeology.

All 125 shrine buildings will be knocked down and identical structures — as well as more than 1,500 garments and other ritual objects used in the shrine — will be rebuilt using techniques that have been painstakingly passed down the generations. There are 33 accompanying festivals and ceremonies, cumulating in a 2033 ritual that sees the presiding deity transferred to the new shrine.

Ise’s inner shrine is dedicated to the sun goddess Amaterasu, who has been enshrined for two millennia among the mountains of Mie prefecture, on the banks of the Isuzu River.

Miori Inata, in a book based on a decade photographing Ise’s reconstruction, offers some theories about the constant rebuilding, including that the 20-year cycle matches the shelf life of stored rice or the traditional two-decade phases that make up a human lifespan — birth to adulthood, adulthood to middle age, middle age to death.

Inata writes of the culminating rites marking a new shrine: “I was greatly moved by the realization that what was transpiring before my eyes were precisely the same ceremonies that were performed 1,300 years ago, every 20 years since, and will continue to unfold again and again in the future.”

The rebuilding process begins as priests dressed in starched robes bang drums and march to Ise’s inner shrines for prayers.

“The world where we live and the mountain realm are separate, distinct worlds. Therefore, when people go onto the mountain to cut trees or gather plants, they must first receive permission from the mountain deities,” according to Okada, the historian.

Thousands gather to see the rebuilding ceremonies, part of about 7 million pilgrims a year who converge on the shrine, which has long been the polestar for Shinto devotees. Japan’s Indigenous Shinto faith, which also acts as a cultural connection for family and community, is largely rooted in animism. In Shinto there are thousands of “kami,” or spirits, that inhabit the world.

“You can count with one hand the number of times you’ll witness something like this in your lifetime, so I really felt it was a rare and precious sight,” said Yuto Nakase, who was viewing the ceremonies for the first time.

At night the priests assemble with lanterns and march to the mountains for a secret purification rite for a sacred pillar that will be enshrined beneath the floor of the main sanctuary.

Visitors often mention Ise’s deep sense of mystery.

Yoriko Maeda, who owns a local sake shop, recognizes a transformation the moment she crosses a bridge into the shrine grounds.

“My breathing changes,” she said. “It really feels different. What I sense also changes. The sounds, the wind or nature, seem to release my stress. … There’s a kind of depth there that, for me, makes it a very comforting and pleasant space.”

In the forests of Nagano prefecture, a woodcutter takes the tip of a freshly felled tree and inserts it into the stump of another tree that has just been cut down. The assembled woodcutters then pray and bow together in front of the stump, commemorating these special cypresses that will be used to rebuild Ise.

“It honors the continuity of a tree’s life and is a prayer for the regeneration of the forest,” explains Soju Ikeda, who operates a local lumber company and manages a society for the preservation of traditional tree-felling skills. “You take a moment to appreciate that trees are living beings and engrave that feeling into your heart.”

Over the following days, dozens of men dressed in traditional clothing drag the two-ton logs through the Isuzu River to the shrine, chanting rhythmically as they pull, knee-deep in the water.

Hundreds of locals later sing traditional songs as they carry logs for the shrine on carts through Ise’s narrow streets.

Cypress groves are specially planted at Ise for the constant construction, and their cultivation often exceeds individual human lifespans, with responsibilities for the trees passed from generation to generation.

“It’s not just about rebuilding a structure. Every aspect, from the wood to the thatch, is carried out in dialogue with nature. It’s a process where nature grows, and people grow alongside it,” Okada, the historian, said.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.