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🏮 Takao San Hiwatari Matsuri

高尾山火渡り祭

Hachioji, Tokyo (Mt. Takao Yakuo-in Temple) · Every year on the 2nd Sunday of March

Mikoshi

181 days to go
Rooms around Hachioji, Tokyo fill up while the festival is on.

The Takao-san Hiwatari Festival, hosted by Takao-san Yakuo-in in Hachioji City, Tokyo, is a major Shugendo event held on the second Sunday of March each year at the Automobile Prayer Hall Plaza at the foot of Mount Takao. It is a festival in which practitioners perform goma (homa) rites, the pinnacle of Shingon Esoteric Buddhist incantation, praying for world peace, health and long life, the elimination of misfortune, and traffic safety; ordinary worshippers may also walk across the fire after the ascetics. This festival is based on the vow of Iizuna Daigongen, the main deity of Mount Takao, to save all sentient beings, and has been passed down since ancient times as a fire ritual that purifies misfortune with sacred fire. Those who perform the training are the yamabushi (mountain ascetics) of Mount Takao who have accumulated the merits of physical and spiritual discipline. On the day, a brave ritual unfolds in which yamabushi carry a mikoshi (portable shrine) bearing a bonten-fuda and parade around the blazing flames while offering prayers. Worshippers can participate in the Shibito Dai-goma-ku and experience walking across the fire carrying sacred salt, and can also receive items such as a fire-crossing certificate.