History
After the Meiji Restoration, the government pursued a policy of separation of Buddhism and Shinto (Shinbutsu bunri), and Shinto funerals became more common. This posed however a problem because until then most cemeteries had been property of Buddhist temples. The solution adopted was the opening of public burial grounds. In 1872, Meiji authorities confiscated a portion of TennÅ-ji and declared it a public Tokyo cemetery, the largest in the country at the time. In 1935 the name was changed from Yanaka Bochi to the present (Yanaka Reien).
Read more about this topic: Yanaka Cemetery
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
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—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.”
—Lytton Strachey (1880–1932)
“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)