The main news on the front page of the November 17th issue of Jinja Shinpō was that the Tennō (天皇) and Empress have made a personal donation to the Shikinen Sengū (式年遷宮) at Isë Jingū (伊勢の神宮).
Now, it is true that just about anything Shinto-related that the Tennō does makes the front page of Jinja Shinpō, but this also got an editorial, because it is extremely significant, and not just because it involves both the Tennō and the Shikinen Sengū.
There are two aspects to Jingū, as seen by the Shinto establishment. On the one hand, it should be venerated, and visited, by every Japanese person, and every household should have a Jingū Taima, the sacred plaque issued by Jingū. On the other hand, it is the site of the Tennō’s personal veneration of Amaterasu Ōmikami, and is fundamentally by and for the Tennō. The Tennō is the head of state, and therefore the state, on behalf of the Tennō, should pay for all the ceremonies at Jingū, including the Shikinen Sengū. Because the post-war constitution doesn’t allow this, the gift from the Tennō is of great symbolic importance.
These gifts have happened consistently since the first post-war Shikinen Sengū, in 1953, when Shōwa Tennō made a donation. Last time, the previous Tennō made a donation every year from 2005 to 2013, and there is a good chance that the same will happen this time. There is even a special name for this donation: gonaidokin (御内帑金). The third character of that is very unusual — as in, I have only seen it used in this compound — and although my computer can input it, I actually copied and pasted from Jinja Shinpō’s web site to get it. The compound as a whole, at least in this application, must be post-war, because the system was different in earlier times, without space for a donation like this. “帑” was used for state funds and offerings to the kami, which is presumably why it is used here, but it is not the normal character used for offerings from the Tennō to the kami. (That’s “heisenryō” (幣饌料).) The use of special words is quite common when talking about how the Tennō interacts with the kami, as a way of indicating that it is different from the way anyone else does so.
The amount of the gift is not specified, and I have almost no idea how much it is. In terms of orders of magnitude, I would think ¥100,000 to ¥10,000,000, but in one sense the amount does not matter — it is the fact that it is from the Tennō that is important. The existence of the gift means that the Shikinen Sengū is still, in some sense, the Tennō’s matsuri.
The Shinto establishment’s view of the ideal roles of the Tennō, the Japanese government, and the Japanese people in the support and administration is not entirely clear and, to be honest, probably not a single view. The active involvement of the Tennō in the Shikinen Sengū is, however, very important to them, and that is why this gift is given so much emphasis.