🏮 Inari Sai

稲荷祭

Kyoto (Fushimi Inari Grand Shrine) · Every year in early April

Mikoshi

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

The Inari Festival, held at Fushimi Inari Taisha from April to May, is the shrine's most important rite, in which the Inari deity makes a once-yearly progress through the parishioner districts. It consists of three parts — the Shinkosai (April 19), the Kankosai (May 3), and the Gokusai (May 4) — and spans about two weeks. The festival's origins go back to the Heian period, it reached its height in the Muromachi period, and it was once counted among the "three great festivals of Kyoto" alongside the Aoi Festival and the Gion Festival. At the Shinkosai, the chief priest and those below him dress with cedar sprigs inserted in their caps and eboshi headwear, and the sacred seals are transferred to five mikoshi (portable shrines). They make a progress through the parishioner districts, heading for the otabisho (temporary resting place) in Nishikujo, Minami Ward. Since 1962, the procession has been made by truck. At the Kankosai, the procession again travels by truck from the otabisho, receives offerings from monks of Toji, and returns to the main shrine. During the festival period, limited-edition goshuin (shrine seals) are also issued at the otabisho.

Getting there

The nearest station is Fushimi Inari Station on the Keihan Main Line, a short walk away, or Inari Station on the JR Nara Line, also a short walk away.