Senso-ji Temple

Senso-ji Main Hall

Asakusa Subway stop

Main Hall

The Incense Burner is one of the temple's focal points.

The joukoro (incense burner) is constantly surrounded by people wafting the smoke over them to keep them healthy.

The Main Hall houses the original Kannon image. Worshippers come to pay their respects by throwing coins and lighting candles.

Five Story Pagoda

Sensō-ji (金龍山浅草寺) is an ancient Buddhist temple located in Asakusa, Taitō, Tokyo. It is Tokyo's oldest temple, and one of its most significant. Adjacent to the temple is a Shinto shrine, the Asakusa Jinja.

The Sanja Festival (三社祭) is one of the "Three Great Festivals of Edo," along with the Kanda Festival and Sanno Festival, and is known as one of the wildest. It is held by ujiko (inhabitants of the neighbouring community) on the third weekend of every May at Asakusa Shrine. The main attractions of the festival are the parade of about a hundred mikoshi (portable shrines used to carry a deity) on the Saturday, and (as san means "three") the procession of three mikoshi owned by the shrine beginning early Sunday morning. The processions of the elaborate shrines are in honour of the three resident deities of Asakusa Shrine.

Carrying the mikoshi

Dominating the entrance to the temple is the kaminari-mon or "Thunder Gate". This imposing Buddhist structure features a massive paper lantern dramatically painted in vivid red-and-black tones to suggest thunderclouds and lightning. Within the precincts stand a stately five-story pagoda and the main hall, devoted to Kannon Bosatsu.

Nakamise-dori, the street leading from the Thunder Gate to the temple itself, is lined with small shops selling souvenirs ranging from fans, ukiyo-e (woodblock prints), kimono and other robes, Buddhist scrolls, traditional sweets, to Godzilla toys, t-shirts, and cell-phone trinkets. These shops themselves are part of a living tradition of selling to pilgrims who walked to Sensō-ji.

Within the temple itself, and also at many places on its approach, there are omikuji stalls. For a suggested donation of 100 yen, visitors may consult the oracle and divine answers to their questions. Querents shake labelled sticks from enclosed metal containers and read the corresponding answers they retrieve from one of 100 possible drawers.

Omikuji (御御籤, 御神籤, or おみくじ) are random fortunes written on strips of paper at Shinto shrines in Japan. Literally "sacred lottery", these are usually received by pulling one out randomly from a box that one shakes, hoping for the resulting fortune to be good. The omikuji falls out of a small hole, scrolled up. Unrolling the piece of paper reveals the fortune written on it, which can be any one of the following:

Great blessing (dai-kichi, 大吉)
Middle blessing (chū-kichi, 中吉)
Small blessing (shō-kichi, 小吉)
Blessing (kichi, 吉)
Half-blessing (han-kichi, 半吉)
Near-blessing (sue-kichi, 末吉)
Near-small-blessing (sue-shō-kichi, 末小吉)
Curse (kyō, 凶)
Small curse (shō-kyō, 小凶)
Half-curse (han-kyō, 半凶)
Near-curse (sue-kyō, 末凶)
Great curse (dai-kyō, 大凶)

The omikuji predicts the person's chances of his or her hopes coming true, of finding a good match, or generally matters of health, fortune, life, etc. When the prediction is bad, it is a custom to fold up the strip of paper and attach it to a pine tree in the temple grounds. A purported reason for this custom is a pun on the word for pine tree (松 matsu) and the verb 'to wait' (待つ matsu), the idea being that the bad luck will wait by the tree rather than attach itself to the bearer. In the event of the fortune being good, the bearer should keep it.