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🏮 Kinpusenji Kegu e

金峯山寺花供懺法会・花供会式

Yoshino, Nara (Kinpusenji Temple) · Every year on 10 April

Traditional performing artsFloats

208 days to go
Rooms around Yoshino, Nara fill up while the festival is on.

The Hokke Senboe and Hokku Gyoji, held every year from April 10 to 12 at Kinpusenji Temple in Yoshino, Nara Prefecture, is a traditional Buddhist service reporting the full bloom of the mountain cherry trees—the sacred trees of Zao Gongen—to the main deity. It is one of the temple's three major events with a history of a thousand years, and features a grand daimyo procession said to carry the prestige of a 100,000-koku domain. The event traces its origin to the high priest Kosan of Kinpusen, who obtained the emperor's permission, pounded rice donated from various provinces into mochi, offered it to Zao Gongen, and distributed it to the people. This "hana-ku senbon-tsuki" (flower-offering thousand-pounding) is considered the origin of the Hokke Senboe. On April 10, a thousand-pounding event in which many people pound mochi takes place, along with the "Nyonin Saitō Daigoma-ku," a fire ritual unique to Kinpusenji within Shugendo. On the 11th and 12th from 10:00 a.m., a daimyo procession departing from Chikurin-in heads to Zao-do, and after the service, from around 1:00 p.m., the pounded mochi is distributed to worshippers in the "Goku-maki" (offering scattering).