Word: shrines
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...understand why foreign governments would intervene in a spiritual matter and try to turn it into a diplomatic problem." JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI, Japanese Prime Minister, on the outcry from China and South Korea over his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where millions of Japanese war dead are honored, including 14 Class-A war criminals...
...shows a tall crown studded with 4,000 diamonds and made from seven kilograms of gold. Four craftsmen from NAC Jewellers spent six months making the crown, at a cost of about $700,000. It now rests on a statue of the goddess Padmavathi Devi at the Tiruchanur Shrine in South India. Anantha Padmanaban, a partner of NAC Jewellers, proudly shows off a photo album full of snapshots of the work his shop has done for other Hindu shrines: a gold-plated archway for the temple at Guruvayur, a silver crown for the god Kubera at Badrinath, and gold...
...That question can be posed another way: Why on Earth does Koizumi stubbornly keep doing something so unpopular? He himself has never fully explained his motivations, except to say things such as: "I visit Yasukuni Shrine to pledge to the soldiers who were made to fight and to die that the future will hold no wars." Granted, Koizumi did make annual visits to the shrine a campaign promise in 2001, and some speculate that he fears the wrath of the Japan Association of War Bereaved Families if he stops. But Koizumi is a lame duck?he has repeatedly said...
...During Japan's time as a colonial power, the shrine was a focal point of the country's native religion, used by political leaders to help justify national conquests. They proclaimed that the souls of those who sacrificed their lives at war for Japan and its Emperor would live forever, venerated as gods, at Yasukuni. Soldiers, pilots and seamen heading into battle would frequently bid farewell to each other by saying, "See you at Yasukuni." Since 1945, Yasukuni has remained a quiet but potent and enduring symbol for the country's die-hard nationalists. Since 1959, priests at Yasukuni have...
...just in China and South Korea that the visits are controversial. In June, five former Japanese Prime Ministers asked Koizumi to stop going to the shrine. Only the most conservative of Japan's five major newspapers have run editorials in favor of the visits. And there is evidence that Koizumi's stubbornness is now threatening to do irreparable harm to Japan's long-term interests. "Japan pays nearly 20% of the U.N.'s budget, which [it says] argues strongly for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council," says Jeff Kingston, a professor of Japanese history at Temple University...