Ise Grand Shrine: Japan's Most Sacred Site, and How to Visit

Every twenty years they pull the shrine down and build it again. Not repair it, rebuild it entirely, on an empty plot beside the old one, using new timber cut from the shrine's own forests and joinery techniques handed down for more than thirteen centuries. Then they move the deity across, dismantle the old buildings, and the empty plot waits two decades for its turn. This has happened 62 times.

Ise Jingu is the most sacred Shinto site in Japan, a complex of 125 shrines in Mie Prefecture centered on two main sanctuaries. Entry is free and the grounds are open from dawn to dusk every day of the year. The current buildings date from 2013, and the next rebuilding falls in 2033.

Kotai Jingu

What Ise Jingu is

Ise Jingu is not one shrine. It is 125 of them spread across Ise and the surrounding area, and the two that matter to a visitor are several kilometers apart.

Naiku, the Inner Shrine, is dedicated to Amaterasu Omikami, the sun goddess and the mythical ancestor of the imperial family. Tradition dates its founding to around 2,000 years ago. It is the more visited of the two and the spiritual center of Shinto.

Geku, the Outer Shrine, honors Toyouke Omikami, the deity of agriculture, industry, and food, who was brought here to provide sacred meals for Amaterasu. It is the quieter of the two and, by custom, the one you visit first.

Between them sit 123 auxiliary shrines, many of them small structures in the forest with no signage in any language.

Why Ise Jingu is rebuilt every twenty years

The Shikinen Sengu is the ceremony that defines the place. Every twenty years the main sanctuaries and the Uji Bridge are rebuilt from scratch on an adjacent site, and the sacred objects are moved to the new buildings in a night ceremony.

The practice has run since 690 AD, interrupted only by civil war in the sixteenth century. The 62nd rebuilding completed in 2013, and the 63rd is scheduled for 2033.

Shikinen Sengu Ceremony

The reasons given are layered. It keeps the carpentry skills alive across generations, since each cycle trains the craftsmen who will lead the next one. It reflects a view of purity and renewal central to Shinto. And it means the buildings are simultaneously ancient and brand new, which is a different idea of preservation from the Western one.

Preparation runs for years before the rebuilding itself. Timber is felled in ceremonies, floated downriver, and hauled through the town by teams pulling ropes, and visitors can sometimes take part in those processions.

The architecture

The style is called shinmei-zukuri and it is deliberately archaic. Unpainted Japanese cypress, a thatched roof of miscanthus reed, raised floors, and no nails anywhere in the main structure. Gold caps sit on the ends of the roof beams and forked finials cross at the ridge.

It predates Buddhist influence on Japanese building, which is why it looks nothing like a temple. The form is thought to derive from ancient raised granaries.

You will not see much of it. The main sanctuary at each shrine sits behind four concentric fences, and visitors reach only the outermost gate. What you photograph is the approach, the gate, and the fence.

Photography is prohibited beyond a marked point at both main shrines, and this is enforced.

Visiting: what it costs and when to go

• Admission: free at every shrine in the complex

• Hours: from dawn until dusk, which in practice means about 05:00 to 17:00 in winter and 05:00 to 19:00 in summer

• Open: every day of the year

• Time needed: two hours for Geku, two to three for Naiku and Okage Yokocho, so a full day for both

Early morning is the answer. Arriving at Naiku at 06:00 gives you the cypress forest and the Isuzu River in mist with almost nobody around, and it is the single best decision you can make here.

New Year is the exception to everything. Ise Jingu receives enormous crowds in the first days of January, when hatsumode visitor numbers run into the millions.

Ise Grand Shrine

How to get to Ise Jingu

Ise sits in Mie Prefecture on the Shima Peninsula, which is less convenient than most major sights and part of why it stays uncrowded.

From Nagoya is the standard route. Kintetsu limited express trains run to Ujiyamada or Ise-shi Station in about 80 to 90 minutes for roughly ¥3,080 including the express surcharge. Coming from Tokyo, take the Shinkansen to Nagoya first, making around three hours in total.

From Osaka, Kintetsu limited express from Osaka-Namba takes about 105 minutes.

From Kyoto, Kintetsu limited express runs about two hours.

JR also serves Ise with rapid trains from Nagoya, which matters if you hold a Japan Rail Pass, though Kintetsu is faster and more frequent.

Between the shrines: buses run from Ise-shi Station to Geku in a few minutes and on to Naiku in about 15. Geku is walkable from the station, Naiku is not.

The order of a visit

Custom says Geku first, then Naiku. Locals take this seriously and it also works practically, since Geku is closer to the station and less crowded.

At the entrance to each, bow at the torii, then purify your hands and mouth at the temizuya. At Naiku you can do this at the Isuzu River itself, which is the traditional method and considerably more atmospheric than a stone basin.

Walk to the side of the path rather than down the middle, which is reserved for the deity. The convention differs between the two shrines: keep left at Naiku and right at Geku.

At the offering hall, bow twice, clap twice, bow once. Personal wishes are traditionally not made here, since Ise is a place for gratitude rather than requests.

Ise Jingu Geku

Uji Bridge and the approach

The Uji Bridge over the Isuzu River marks the entrance to Naiku and is itself rebuilt on the twenty-year cycle. Crossing it is understood as passing from the everyday world into sacred ground.

The path beyond runs through cypress forest with trees several hundred years old, and the walk from the bridge to the main sanctuary takes about fifteen minutes at an unhurried pace. That walk is most of what people remember.

Kagura-den, the hall where ceremonial dance and music are performed, sits along the way. Visitors can commission a kagura performance for a fee, which is an unusual thing to be able to do.

Okage Yokocho and Oharaimachi

Ise Jingu in Japan

The street outside Naiku is the other half of the day. Oharaimachi runs for about 800 meters in Edo-period style, and Okage Yokocho is a reconstructed district within it recreating the town as it looked in the Edo and Meiji eras. Both are free to walk.

This is where you eat. Ise udon is the local dish, thick soft noodles in a dark, sweet tare rather than a soup, and it divides opinion sharply. Akafuku, a mochi cake under sweet red bean paste, has been made here since 1707 and the main shop is the one to visit.

Tekone-zushi, marinated bonito over sushi rice, is the other regional specialty, and the area also sells Ise lobster and pearls from nearby Toba.

Festivals

Sengu Ceremony

Kannamesai in October is the most important annual ceremony, offering the year's first rice harvest to Amaterasu. Tsukinamisai runs in June and December.

The shrine's ceremonial calendar includes roughly 1,500 rituals a year, most of them closed to the public and performed regardless of whether anyone is watching. Our guide to Setsubun and Japan's spring festival covers the seasonal calendar more broadly.

What else is nearby

Ise Jingu Shrine

Meoto Iwa, the wedded rocks at Futami, are two rocks in the sea joined by a heavy rope, representing a married couple. Best at sunrise between May and July when the sun rises between them.

Toba is 20 minutes away and has the Mikimoto Pearl Island, where cultured pearls were invented, with ama diver demonstrations.

Ise-Shima National Park covers the peninsula's ria coastline and is worth a night if you have one.

The area pairs naturally with Nagoya as a base, and it sits on the Iseji route of the Kumano Kodo, which connects Ise to the Kumano shrines on foot. Our guide to walking the Kumano Kodo covers that route.

Is Ise Jingu worth the trip?

Yes, with a caveat. If you want dramatic architecture and photographs, you will be disappointed, because you cannot see or photograph the main buildings.

What you get instead is an ancient forest, a river, a 2,000-year-old religious tradition still functioning exactly as intended, and the quietest major site in Japan. It is a place to walk slowly rather than to look at.

Go early, visit both shrines, eat on Oharaimachi, and give it a full day. Our roundup of Japan's temples and shrines puts it alongside the alternatives, and a cultural experiences tour covers the Shinto practices you will see in use here.

For a route that reaches Ise without doubling back, a fortnight through central Japan and Kansai runs through Nagoya, which is the natural gateway.