Senso-ji

Senso-ji, formally Kinryūzan Sensō-ji, stands on the west bank of the Sumida River in Asakusa. According to the temple's founding legend, two fishing brothers pulled a small golden statue of Kannon from the river in 628; their master turned his house into a shrine for it, and the image has been kept as a hidden Buddha ever since. Formerly part of the Tendai school, the temple became the head of its own Shō-Kannon sect in 1950.

The approach is a sequence that has shaped the image of old Tokyo: the Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate) with its huge red paper lantern, the roughly 250-metre shopping street of Nakamise, the two-storey Hōzōmon gate and finally the main hall, with a five-storey pagoda to its left. Most of these buildings are post-war reconstructions in reinforced concrete, since the main hall and pagoda, then National Treasures, burned in the air raid of 10 March 1945.

In the Edo period Asakusa grew into the city's great entertainment district, with theatres, sideshows and the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter nearby. The temple remains a popular centre of everyday worship: people waft incense smoke over themselves at the great censer, draw omikuji (paper fortunes) and crowd the precincts at New Year.

The temple's origin story links it to the Sumida River and the fishing village that preceded Edo. In the Kamakura period it enjoyed the patronage of warrior rulers, and after Tokugawa Ieyasu made Edo his capital, the shogunate designated Senso-ji a prayer temple for the Tokugawa house. The main hall rebuilt in 1649 became a model of large early modern temple halls.

Asakusa's popularity as a place of pilgrimage and pleasure made it the liveliest part of Edo and, later, of Meiji and Taishō Tokyo. The temple survived the 1923 earthquake largely intact, but the 1945 air raid destroyed the main hall, pagoda and gates. The main hall was rebuilt in 1958, the Hōzōmon in 1964 and the pagoda in 1973.

Senso-ji is the setting of the Sanja Matsuri, held in mid-May by the adjoining Asakusa Shrine, which honours the three men linked to the temple's founding; heavy portable shrines are carried through the streets of Asakusa over three days. Other fixtures of the calendar include the Hōzuki-ichi, a market of Chinese lantern plants in early July tied to a day of special merit on 9–10 July, and the Hagoita-ichi battledore fair in December.

As a temple of Kannon, Senso-ji draws worshippers who pray for protection and good fortune rather than for funerary rites. It is the thirteenth stop of the Bandō pilgrimage of 33 Kannon temples and the first of the Edo 33 Kannon circuit, and it is one of the busiest places in Japan for hatsumōde, the first temple or shrine visit of the year.