Ueno Toshogu Shrine: The Gold Leaf Sanctuary of the Great Shogun

Why is it significant?

Walk down the long, solemn pathway lined with over two hundred towering stone lanterns and fifty massive bronze lanterns, all donated by feudal daimyo lords to demonstrate their absolute submission to the Tokugawa Shogun.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Walk down the long, solemn pathway lined with over two hundred towering stone lanterns and fifty massive bronze lanterns, all donated by feudal daimyo lords to demonstrate their absolute submission to the Tokugawa Shogun. At the end of the avenue stands the Karamon, a breathtaking Chinese-style gate shimmering with brilliant real gold leaf and vivid polychrome carvings.

Look at the two carved wooden dragons framing the golden gateway: according to legend, they were sculpted by the fabled master Hidari Jingoro. The carvings are so lifelike that local priests claimed the dragons crept down from the gate every night to drink cool water from the nearby Shinobazu Pond, requiring iron cages to keep them tethered!

Built in sixteen twenty-seven and expanded in sixteen fifty-one to deify Tokugawa Ieyasu—the great general who unified war-torn Japan and founded the two-and-a-half-century Edo peace—this shrine miraculously survived the fires of eighteen sixty-eight, the Great Kanto Earthquake of nineteen twenty-three, and the bombs of World War Two.

Head down the stone embankment steps toward the lotus blossoms of Shinobazu Pond.