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🏮 Kyokusui no En

曲水の宴

Dazaifu, Fukuoka (Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine) · Every year on 27 March

Traditional performing arts

194 days to go
Rooms around Dazaifu, Fukuoka fill up while the festival is on.

Kyokusui no En, held at Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine in Dazaifu, Fukuoka Prefecture, on the first Sunday of March every year, is a Shinto purification ritual that reenacts a Heian-period court ceremony. Participants dressed in Heian costumes such as junihitoe (twelve-layered robes) compose waka poems and drink sake before the sake cup floated down the garden stream from upstream passes in front of them, in an elegant event. This ritual is said to have begun at the shrine in 958 (Tentoku 2) and was revived in 1963. Highlights include the procession of participants leaving the shrine office and proceeding through Kotoriiguchi Lane and the approach to the main hall, as well as the ceremony held at the Kyokusui Garden just before Dazaifu Yuenchi after paying respects at the main hall. Held in time with the plum season, it allows you to experience up close the ancient elegance colored by costumes and waka poetry.