🏮 Ohitaki Sai

お火焚祭

Kyoto (Fushimi Inari Grand Shrine) · Every year on 8 November

Traditional performing arts

55 days to go
Rooms around Kyoto fill up while the festival is on.

The Hitaki-sai (fire-burning festival) is held every year on November 8 at Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture. It is an important rite passed down since ancient times, expressing gratitude to Inari Okami, who nurtured all things including the five grains, and reporting the autumn harvest. After the main hall ceremony ends, three fire beds set up in the shrine garden ceremony ground are surrounded, and hundreds of thousands of wooden prayer sticks offered from across the country are burned one after another amid the chanting of the Oharae no Kotoba (great purification prayer). The rising flames and smoke symbolize gratitude and prayer to the deity. In the evening, an ancient and elegant kagura dance is offered to the accompaniment of gagaku music in the front courtyard of the main hall, wrapping worshippers in a quiet and solemn atmosphere different from the daytime fire ceremony.