Toshogu Shrine, Nikko: Tickets, Carvings and How to Visit

Tokugawa Ieyasu asked to be buried in a small shrine on a mountain, quietly, as a guardian spirit watching over the country he had unified. His grandson ignored him completely. In 1636 Iemitsu tore down the modest original and spent what would now be hundreds of millions of dollars covering the site in gold leaf, lacquer and more than 5,000 carvings.

Toshogu Shrine is the result: the most ornate religious building in Japan, a deliberate rebuke to the restraint that defines almost everything else in Japanese architecture. It sits in cedar forest at Nikko, about two hours north of Tokyo, admission is ¥1,600, and two hours there is not enough.

Sacred Storehouse

What is Toshogu Shrine famous for?

Three things.

The decoration. Japanese religious architecture is usually plain wood and white plaster. Toshogu is the opposite: every surface carved, painted in vermilion, green, blue and gold, with animals, flowers, sages and mythical creatures worked into the joinery. It is Japan showing off, once, and never quite doing it again.

The carvings themselves. The three wise monkeys and the sleeping cat are both here, and both are more famous than the building they are attached to.

Ieyasu. The man who ended 150 years of civil war and founded a shogunate that ruled for 265 years is buried at the top of the hill, behind a plain bronze urn that is the least decorated thing on the site.

The shrine was founded in 1617, a year after Ieyasu's death, and rebuilt on its current scale in 1636. Since 1999 it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing covering 103 buildings across Nikko's shrines and temples.

Toshogu Shrine tickets and opening hours

Admission is ¥1,600 for adults and ¥550 for elementary and junior high school students. That covers the shrine precinct, including Yomeimon, the Sleeping Cat and the climb to Ieyasu's tomb.

The Treasure Museum costs ¥1,000 for adults separately, or ¥2,400 for a combined ticket with the shrine. It holds Ieyasu's armor, swords and documents, and it is worth it if you care about the history rather than the carving.

Hours are 9:00 to 17:00 from April 1 to October 31, and 9:00 to 16:00 from November 1 to March 31. Ticket windows close 30 minutes before the gates.

The Honjido, with its famous crying dragon, charges a small separate fee and is administered by Rinnoji rather than the shrine, which confuses a lot of visitors standing at the wrong ticket counter.

What to see, in walking order

The approach and the stone torii

The Stone Torii Gate

The path in runs between cryptomeria cedars planted in the 1600s, some over 300 years old, and the first structure is a granite torii from 1618. It was shipped from Kyushu and was the largest stone torii in Japan when it was built.

The Five-Story Pagoda

The Five-Story Pagoda

The pagoda on the left as you approach dates originally to 1650, burned down, and was rebuilt in 1818. It is 36 meters tall, and the first tier carries the twelve zodiac animals.

The interesting part is invisible from outside: a central pillar, the shinbashira, hangs suspended from the fourth story rather than resting on the ground, swinging to counteract earthquakes. It is the same principle used in the Tokyo Skytree. A small extra fee lets you see the base of it.

Omotemon

The Omotemon

The main gate, also called Niomon, is guarded by two Nio figures and carries 82 carvings of animals, including several the sculptors had never seen. It is the first indication of what the rest of the site is going to be like.

The Sacred Stable and the three monkeys

The Sacred Stable

The stable is the only unpainted, unlacquered building in the complex, which is the point: horses were believed to be protected by monkeys, so the building carries eight carved panels telling the story of a life through monkeys.

The Three Monkeys or Sanzaru

The second panel is the famous one. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, carved here around 1636, representing the stage of childhood when you are shielded from the world's bad influences. The proverb is older than the carving and probably arrived from China along a Tendai Buddhist route, but this is the image that made it global.

Most visitors photograph that one panel and walk away. Look at the other seven; they run through courtship, marriage, pregnancy and adulthood, and they make far more sense as a sequence.

The storehouses and the imagined elephants

The Imagined Elephants

Three sacred storehouses hold the costumes and portable shrines used in the spring and fall festivals. The upper one carries two elephants carved by Kano Tanyu, who worked from written descriptions because he had never seen one.

They have the wrong number of toes, ears like seashells and tails at the wrong end. They are known as the sozo no zo, the imagined elephants, and they are the most endearing thing at Toshogu.

Yomeimon

The Yomeimon

The Yomeimon is the reason the shrine is famous. It carries 508 carvings: Chinese sages, children at play, dragons, lions, peonies, all in white, gold and vermilion, packed so densely that the structure underneath disappears.

Its other name is Higurashi-mon, the day-long gate, because people were said to stand looking at it until sunset. One of its twelve columns has its pattern deliberately carved upside down, on the principle that a perfect object invites misfortune.

It came out of a four-year restoration in 2017, the first full repaint in decades, so the colors you see now are close to what the Edo public saw. There is more on the restoration and the symbolism on the Japanese government's guide to the gate.

Karamon and the main hall

The Karamon

The Nemurineko (Sleeping Cat)

The Karamon, the small white Chinese-style gate in front of the main hall, is finer work than Yomeimon and gets a fraction of the attention. It is coated in gofun, a white pigment made from crushed shells, and carries 611 carvings on a structure three meters wide.

Beyond it, the Honden and Haiden are connected in the gongen-zukuri style that Toshogu standardized, and you go in barefoot. No photography inside.

The Shinyosha

The Shinyosha nearby houses three portable shrines used in the Procession of a Thousand Warriors each May and October, when over a thousand people in Edo-period armor walk the route from Toshogu to Futarasan.

The Sleeping Cat and the tomb

The Nemurineko sits above the Sakashitamon gate, and it is small enough that most people walk past it. The sleeping cat is attributed to Hidari Jingoro, carved from a single block, and on the reverse of the same beam are sparrows playing, which is the point: the cat sleeps while the sparrows are safe, so Ieyasu's peace holds.

The Stone Steps to the Inner Shrine

From there, 207 stone steps climb through the cedars to the inner shrine.

Ieyasu's tomb is a plain bronze pagoda on a stone platform, with a crane and a tortoise in bronze in front of it and nothing else. After everything below, the austerity reads as deliberate, and it is the closest the site comes to what the man actually asked for.

The rest of Nikko's World Heritage sites

Toshogu is one of three, and the ticket does not cover the others.

Rinnoji is the Tendai temple that predates everything here, founded in 766. Its Sanbutsudo hall holds three gilded eight-meter Buddha statues and recently came out of an 11-year restoration.

Futarasan Jinja is older than Toshogu and quieter, dedicated to the three mountains around Nikko. Its grounds run back into the forest and cost very little.

Taiyuinbyo is the mausoleum of Iemitsu, the grandson who built Toshogu. He instructed that his own tomb should not outshine his grandfather's, so it is smaller and darker, in black and gold rather than white and vermilion. Most people skip it and it is arguably the better building.

Shinkyo Bridge, the red sacred bridge over the Daiya River at the bottom of the hill, is the traditional entrance to the whole complex. Walking onto it costs a few hundred yen; photographing it from the road is free.

Our guide to Japan's historical landmarks puts Nikko in context with the country's other major sites, and the Edo period guide explains the 265 years of peace this shrine was built to celebrate.

The Tomb of Tokugawa Ieyasu

How to get to Toshogu Shrine

From Tokyo: the Tobu line from Asakusa is the direct route, about two hours on a limited express to Tobu-Nikko, or closer to 2 hours 30 with a change on the cheaper rapid services. By JR, take the Tohoku Shinkansen to Utsunomiya and change to the JR Nikko line, which is faster but costs more.

From the stations: Tobu-Nikko and JR Nikko sit next to each other at the bottom of the hill. The World Heritage sightseeing bus runs up to the shrines in about 10 minutes, or you can walk it in 35 to 45 minutes via Shinkyo Bridge, which is the better arrival if the weather holds.

Passes. The Nikko Pass World Heritage Area covers the round trip from Asakusa plus local buses for two days at ¥3,000 for adults. The Nikko Pass All Area runs ¥8,000 for four days and extends to Lake Chuzenji and Kinugawa, which is the one to buy if you are going up the mountain. Limited express seat fees are extra on both, at ¥1,450 to ¥2,140 each way, and both require a non-Japanese passport.

Practical notes

Toshogu Shrine Location Map

Wear shoes you can take off easily; you go barefoot inside the main hall and at Taiyuinbyo.

Nikko is 600 meters above sea level and noticeably colder than Tokyo, by five degrees or more in winter, and it rains here more than in the city.

The climb to Ieyasu's tomb is 207 uneven stone steps with no alternative route. Everything below Sakashitamon is manageable with limited mobility; the tomb is not.

Bring cash for the smaller sites, the Honjido and the bus. Photography is fine outdoors and banned inside the main buildings.

For the wider cultural background before you go, our guide to museums across Japan covers where else Edo-period material is held, and our trips beyond Tokyo guide covers the other directions worth taking out of the city.