is a mausoleum complex of the Japanese Emperors in Nagabusa-machi, Hachiōji,

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. Located within a forest in the western suburbs of Tokyo and named for the ancient

Musashi Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan, which today comprises Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis, most of Saitama Prefecture and part of Kanagawa Prefecture. It was sometimes called . The province encompassed Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Kawasaki and Yokohama. ...

, the site contains the mausolea of Emperor Taishō and Emperor Shōwa, as well as those of their wives, Empress Teimei and Empress Kōjun.

History

Emperor Taishō was the first

Emperor of Japan The emperor of Japan is the hereditary monarch and head of state of Japan. The emperor is defined by the Constitution of Japan as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, his position deriving from "the will of ...

to be buried in Tokyo. He has been called the first "Tokyo Emperor" because he was the first to live his entire life in or near Tokyo. His father,

Emperor Meiji , posthumously honored as , was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the List of emperors of Japan, traditional order of succession, reigning from 1867 until his death in 1912. His reign is associated with the Meiji Restoration of 1868, which ...

, was born and reared in Kyoto; and although he later lived and died in Tokyo, his mausoleum is located on the outskirts of Kyoto, near the tombs of his Imperial forebears. It is under the administration of the Archives and Mausolea Department.

Design

The imperial graveyard in Hachiōji is designed as a semi-natural planted space which mainly consists of woodland, rocks and trees. In addition to the stone-topped Imperial mausolea, it also contains smaller monuments and religious structures, like ''

Torii A is a traditional culture of Japan, Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred, and a spot where kami are welcomed and thought to ...

''. The approach to the Musashi Imperial Graveyard from the Kōshū Kaidō is lined with

zelkova ''Zelkova'' (from the Georgian language, Georgian ''dzelkva'', 'stone pillar') is a genus of six species of deciduous trees in the elm family Ulmaceae, native to southern Europe, and southwest and eastern Asia. They vary in size from shrubs (''Ze ...

and the mausolea planted with cryptomeria.

Tombs

Future

In 2012 and 2013, the

Imperial Household Agency The (IHA) is an agency of the government of Japan in charge of state matters concerning the Imperial House of Japan, Imperial Family, and the keeping of the Privy Seal of Japan, Privy Seal and State Seal of Japan. From around the 8th century ...

confirmed press reports that Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko do not plan to be buried like their immediate predecessors, but to be cremated, for which

cremation Cremation is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a corpse through Combustion, burning. Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India, Nepal, and ...

facilities will be added to the Musashi Imperial Graveyard. Their ashes will then be interred in individual mausoleums, to be built side by side in an integrated fashion, on the west side of the tomb of Emperor Taishō. This adaptation of the imperial funeral rites will mark a historic change from some 350 years in which in-ground burials were the norm for monarchs and their spouses. The Imperial Household Agency plans that the two new mausoleums will have an area of some 3,500

square metre The square metre ( international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures) or square meter ( American spelling) is the unit of area in the International System of Units (SI) with symbol m2. It is the area of a square ...

s, about 80 percent of the 4,300 square metres of the tomb of the Emperor's parents, Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun.Mausoleum, cremation plans revealed for emperor, empress
online
) Retrieved 9 October 2015.

References

External links