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STORY NOTES

Atsuta Jingu is one of the three major shrines in Japan, along with the Meiji Shrine and the Grand Shrines at Ise. Atsuta is said to be the repository of Kusanagi-No-Tsurugi, the Grasscutting Sword, though some believe the original sword was lost in the Battle of Dan-No-Ura Strait during the Gempei War, in the 12th century.

The shrine grounds cover 190,000 square meters of thickly wooded area in the middle of Nagoya. Some of the trees there are over a thousand years old. The shrine is also home to sixty annual festivals and ten religious events, including the Atsuta Jingu Hono Tanren, a festival for swordsmiths.

Kusanagi is actually housed in the Honden, or main inner shrine, along with many other treasures. Only priests and miko (shrine maidens) are allowed to approach the Honden.

A few historians believe that the sword kept at the shrine no longer exists, that it was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid in WWII. The present shrine was built on the old site in 1955.

REFERENCES

References for this chapter came from: Japan: A Country Founded by "Mother" by Hajime Hoshi, 1937, published by the Columbia University Club in Tokyo; The Japan Handbook by J.D. Bisignani, 1983, Moon Publications of Chico, CA; reference for the kannushi was found in A Look into Japan, published in 1985 by the Japan Travel Bureau, Inc.; and additional reference came from the Nagoya Visitors Guide, the Live Map of Nagoya, and the Sightseeing Spot Guide to Nagoya and Inuyama, published by the Nagoya Convention and Visitors Bureau. I would also like to acknowledge the help of the Usagi Yojimbo Dojo web site members, who scoured the Internet for visuals and information on Atsuta Shrine.