To a glorious resting-place on the hill-slope of Hotoké Iwa, sacred since 767, when a Buddhist saint, called Shôdô Shônin, visited it, and declared the old Shintô deity of the mountain to be only a manifestation of Buddha, Hidetada, the second Shôgun of the Tokugawa dynasty, conveyed the corpse of his father, Iyéyasu, in 1617. It was a splendid burial. An Imperial envoy, a priest of the Mikado’s family, court nobles from Kivôto, and hundreds of _daimiyôs_, captains, and nobles of inferior rank, took part in the ceremony. An army of priests in rich robes during three days intoned a sacred classic 10,000 times, and Iyéyasu was deified by a decree of the Mikado under a name signifying “light of the east, great incarnation of Buddha.” The less important Shôguns of the line of Tokugawa are buried in Uyeno and Shiba, in Yedo. Since the restoration, and what may be called the disestablishment of Buddhism, the shrine of Iyéyasu has been shorn of all its glories of ritual and its magnificent Buddhist paraphernalia; the 200 priests who gave it splendour are scattered, and six Shintô priests alternately attend upon it as much for the purpose of selling tickets of admission as for any priestly duties.
All roads, bridges, and avenues here lead to these shrines, but the grand approach is by the Red Bridge, and up a broad road with steps at intervals and stone-faced embankments at each side, on the top of which are belts of cryptomeria. At the summit of this ascent is a fine granite _torii_, 27 feet 6 inches high, with columns 3 feet 6 inches in diameter, offered by the _daimiyô_ of Chikuzen in 1618 from his own quarries. After this come 118 magnificent bronze lanterns on massive stone pedestals, each of which is inscribed with the posthumous title of Iyéyasu, the name of the giver, and a legend of the offering—all the gifts of _daimiyô_—a holy water cistern made of a solid block of granite, and covered by a roof resting on twenty square granite pillars, and a bronze bell, lantern, and candelabra of marvellous workmanship, offered by the kings of Corea and Liukiu. On the left is a five-storied pagoda, 104 feet high, richly carved in wood and as richly gilded and painted. The signs of the zodiac run round the lower story.