現代日本の新しい墓―ヴァーチャル霊園を事例として―

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to survey new style of cemeteries in contemporary Japan. There are many kinds of cemeteries established by temple, public enterprise and private agency in Japan. Some grave are traditional style made of stone, another are mechanical charnel house. Anyway we see gravestone as holy space. So we visit family grave to comfort the spirits of our ancestors. And we pray for the peaceful repose our ancestors by offering flowers and incense.　But some people scatter their family’s ashes in the sea or the mountain. So I have to identify a need for building gravestone. These days, everything is driven by computers. We can see global increase in the use of Internet. Because of advancement of information society, we are able to access one’s gravestone on the Internet. The online networking is expanding. But I wonder that the cemeteries building on Internet world are sacred or not. Because it is virtualized, so it isn’t based on reality. Therefore I did some case investigation. From case investigation, it is clarified that people use real graves and virtualized graves as the situation demands. That is, the new style graves assume to complement functions rather than to replace the traditional grave. The fact remains that we still commemorate the deceased.