Gokoku Jinja
Pretty much anyone who knows anything about Japan has heard of Yasukuni Jinja, the jinja in Tokyo enshrining Japan’s war dead, even if they know nothing about Shinto. The Gokoku Jinja, which also enshrine the war dead, are much less well known. “Gokoku Jinja” means “Country Protecting Jinja”, and these jinja were set up by the government of Japan before the war. The idea of enshrining people who had died fighting for the Tennō first appeared among the people pushing to restore Imperial rule to Japan in the mid nineteenth… Read More »Gokoku Jinja