Word: shrine
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When the aging General and his wife learned of Meiji's death, they purified themselves by Shinto rites. Then according to the old Shinto practice of junshi (servants following masters in death), they knelt before their household shrine and with ceremonial swords committed hara-kiri by eviscerating themselves. Later, Americans, shocked and baffled when trapped Japanese soldiers blew themselves to bits with hand grenades, or Japanese civilians drowned themselves rather than surrender, might recall General Nogi's act, with a shudder...
...ritualistic orange raiment of his forebears. From Tokyo he rode in a crimson carriage to the old capital at Kyoto. There, in a confident, resonant voice, he read his imperial Rescript, announcing his ascension. Alone, save for two attendants, he appeared, once before midnight and once after, at the shrine of his ancestress the Sun Goddess and offered her a sacrifice of holy rice...
...Asia, Japan was making history whose consequences for the world are still incalculable. Through it all, Hirohito remained a model Shinto sovereign-conventional, secluded, aloof, a proper family man as well as national deity. He rose early each morning (6 or 7 a.m.), shaved himself, bowed before the little shrine of his ancestors in his copper-domed Tokyo castle, breakfasted in foreign style on coffee, bacon & eggs, shuffled through the papers on his desk. Thirteen times a year, clad in the white silk robe of high priest, he officiated at major Shinto rites. His wartime frugality set an example...
Peaceful is morning in the shrine garden...
Adolf Hitler loved music-especially Wagner. In Mein Kampf, he had written: "My youthful enthusiasm for the Bayreuth master knew no bounds." The Third Reich, Hitler said, had its foundations in the German myths of Composer Richard Wagner, and the shrine at Wagner's Bayreuth was called "the Olympus of German art." In 1938 Hitler ordered that the military music of his favorite composer be used at all of Nürnberg's pagan rallies, and he sat for long hours at Berchtesgaden listening to recordings of Siegfried...