These barrels are full of cucumbers, radishes, ginger or possibly some other vegetable and are in the process of being pickled. These are called tsukemono. Tsukemono are eaten with any traditional styled meal and are often used as a palate cleanser or a garnish. Here, they have this rather unique way of preparing the tsukemono involving the stones you see here. They first fill these barrels full of their vegetable and likely vinegar. As time goes on, and the pressure the stones exert on the lids, the barrels compress which is essential for the process. As you can see in the picture, some of the lids and stone levels are different. This particular picture was taken at a Kamigamo shrine in Kyoto.
Symbolically, I suppose the fact that the place they are pickling is a shrine, can relate in western culture with the splashing holy water in the churches. Here, the pickled products are on sacred ground or prayed over such that whomever ingests them will be healthy in the year.
Kind of like, you know, everything Japanese. Do/Eat/Buy this and be pure and healthy and prosperous and fortuitous and magical for an entire year, or you know until the next time we try to gain money from you somehow.
This same temple will pray over pretty much everything. They even have a place to park your car to preform rituals on it so that it may be safe on the roads. It is also large enough for a bus to park should the need arise.
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