This paper discusses the logic that leads small shrines, which were enshrined in the cities through premodern times, to continue to exist or be abolished in the early Meiji period in which the system of the Shinto shrines was reformed drastically from the perspective of urban history. The actual situation of shrine disposal in Tokyo is inspected diachronically and comprehensively by analyzing the administrative documents of Tokyo Prefecture during this time.
Firstly, the legal characteristics of ordinance No. 37 of the Ministry of Religion in 1876 are clarified by referring to previous studies. This ordinance has been investigated in relation to the shrine merger at the end of the Meiji period as the law that was the basis for shrine disposal. Takishima (2000) revealed that a few shrines were newly registered as unranked shrines in Jinja Meisai-cho—an official register of the government in Tokyo—after this ordinance; most of the shrines were merged with other shrines or were relocated to the precinct of other shrines. The actual situation was that many shrines were already registered as unranked shrines until the ordinance was elected.
In Chapter 3, the process of shrine disposal in Tokyo during the early Meiji period is discussed by interpreting historical administrative documents and referring to several systems concerned with shrine disposal. A total of 105 shrines (45 shrines in the urban area) were disposed of in Tokyo Prefecture from 1873 to 1888. Some of the shrines disposed were ranked as shrines, but most were unranked. These shrines or small shrines by the streets and in private estates were not registered in Jjinja Meisai-cho after 1873, during which time there was wholesale grading of the shrine-ranking system in Tokyo Prefecture.
In Chapter 4, the maintenance and survival of Shinto shrines in the early Meiji period are considered by analyzing the person concerned, the manners and factors of individual cases, and disclosure of the logics and the facts of shrine disposal in Tokyo. The first half of this chapter discloses that shrine disposal in Tokyo was executed in three ways: merge the deity with other shrines, relocate the temple to other places, and change the registration from official to private. The union of shrines by merging the deity or moving the temple into other shrine precincts as subordinate shrines was frequently chosen as a passive method for economic reasons. However, this method was not necessarily equivalent to the physical elimination of shrines, which was recommended by the administration.
In the last half of Chapter 4, it was found that shrine disposal in Tokyo in the early Meiji period had four causes: serious damage to the temple, absence of permanence, loss of the precinct, and improvement of the conditions; by analyzing actual situations, the combination of these multiple reasons led to the disposal of many shrines. Many shrines that were disposed of had serious damage from fires and typhoons, and the loss of the precincts provided the momentum. Fundamentally, Ujiko and believers assessed the permanence of the shrine temple and precinct and selected the method of disposal that was required in special cases of disposal by the administration.
