STORYWALK
Miyajima and Kiyomori
The island that is a god, set afloat on the sea
Hear each place’s story in English — about a minute per chapter, right where it happened. An iPhone app.
Before you step onto the island.
Picture a vermilion shrine standing out on the sea. Why the water, of all places? The answer is the island itself.
Itsukushima, part of the city of Hatsukaichi in Hiroshima Prefecture, has long been held to be a god in its entirety. To build on its land felt presumptuous — and so the shrine was built where the tide rises and falls. To this day there is not one cemetery anywhere on the island. That is the rule here.
The backbone of this story is one man's imagination. Taira no Kiyomori. In 1146 this warrior of the Heian period was appointed governor of Aki. In 1168 he pulled off something unreasonable: he raised shrine halls out on the sea. Gaps were left on purpose between the floorboards of the corridors. The great torii standing in the water is not buried in the seabed. And why has that held for a thousand years? That answer waits in the place itself.
The further south you walk from the pier, the further back in time you go. Kiyomori's road, Hideyoshi's unfinished dream, and then the mountain of faith that goes back to Kukai.
Take the first step — and the torii floating on the sea should begin to mean something different.
From the pier, south along the island.
Start at Miyajima Pier and walk the chapters in order.
Walk in the order of the numbers. On the day, the app guides you to each next chapter.
5 chapters
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01 ・ 1 min walk from the stationMiyajima Pier Plaza
Ancient times — Arriving on the island that is a godThere is not a single grave on this island — the answer to a rule 1,400 years old.
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02 ・ 4 min walk from the last chapterOmotesando Shopping Street, the Kiyomori Road
Heian to Edo — The one road left by an island that could not be cutNever cut the mountain, never fill the sea — this thin curve of a street is the island's thousand-year answer.
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03 ・ 5 min walk from the last chapterHokoku Shrine: Senjokaku Hall & Five-Story Pagoda
Momoyama — Hideyoshi's unfinished dreamA hall the size of 857 tatami mats has no ceiling and no walls, because Hideyoshi died before he could see it finished.
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04 ・ 4 min walk from the last chapterItsukushima Shrine: Corridors & the Great Torii
Heian to today — A thousand years of engineering on the seaThe gaps between the floorboards are deliberate — Kiyomori's quiet way of letting a high tide through.
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05 ・ 8 min walk from the last chapterDaisho-in Temple
Ancient to modern — The mountain where gods and Buddhas lived togetherThe order that split gods from Buddhas is what brought the shrine's own Buddha into this temple.
Stand there, and you’ll hear it.
Let's begin with a number: zero. That is how many graves there are on this island. Not one. Search the whole 431.2 hectares inscribed as World Heritage, and you will not find a single grave. A record written around 1580, the Tanamori Fusaaki Oboegaki, sets down the reason plainly. When someone died on the island, it says, the body was taken across the water to Akasaki at once and buried there. The record goes on: when a woman bore a child, mother and child were both put in a boat and carried to the mainland. They came back a hundred days later, when the blood taboo had run its course. On this island, in other words, neither dying nor being born was permitted.
The rest is in the app. Chapter one is free.
People in this story
Time, fees and getting there
- Start
- Miyajima Pier (right off the ferry)
- Time
- 1.3 km on foot · about 1.5 hours including stops
- Admission
- ¥400 total in entry fees (shrine ¥300 + Senjokaku ¥100)
- Getting there
- About 25–60 min from Hiroshima Station to Miyajimaguchi by JR or tram, then a 10-min ferry
SourcesNon-fiction, based on official sources.
Miyajima Tourist Association (official site) ／ Itsukushima Shrine (official site) ／ Agency for Cultural Affairs — Cultural Heritage Online ／ Hatsukaichi City (official site) ／ Daisho-in (official site) ／ Japan Tourism Agency — multilingual explanation database
Hear this story where it happened.
iPhone app — coming soon. Chapter one is free.