Priests of the Inner Shrine of Ise, Ise ritual records (804)

The report submitted by the priests of Ise to the imperial government in 804, describing the shrine’s buildings, treasures and rites, including the rebuilding of the sanctuaries every twenty years.

In 804 the priests of the Inner and Outer Shrines at Ise sent the court detailed accounts of their ceremonies and buildings. The record of the Inner Shrine lists the halls and fences of the precinct with their dimensions, the materials to be gathered, and the ceremonies of the periodic rebuilding (shikinen sengū) that renews every building on an adjacent site.

Together with the continuous practice of rebuilding (interrupted only in the wars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries), these records are why the shinmei-zukuri of Ise is thought to preserve very closely a form of the seventh or eighth century, even though no timber at Ise is more than twenty years old.

The book, part by part

I The halls of the Inner Shrine

The main sanctuary and its treasure houses, fences and gates, with their dimensions.

Rules: Shinmei-zukuri: the style of Ise

II The periodic rebuilding

The cycle of rebuilding on the alternate site, and the ceremonies from the felling of timber to the transfer of the deity.

Rules: Rebuild the shrine every twenty years

Rules drawn from Ise ritual records

Shinmei-zukuri: the style of Ise

Build the sanctuary of unpainted cypress on posts set directly in the ground, with a raised floor and veranda, a straight thatched gable roof entered on the long side, crossed finials (chigi) and ridge billets (katsuogi), and a free-standing post at each gable carrying the ridge.

Rebuild the shrine every twenty years

Every twenty years build an exact replica of each sanctuary on the alternate site beside it, transfer the deity at night, and dismantle the old buildings.

cycle = 20 years · two sites used alternately