Shuni‑e (Omizutori)

What: The fes­ti­val of Fire and Water, Shuni‑e is a 14-day Bud­dhist fes­ti­val held in the ancient wood­en tem­ples of the Nigat­su­do Hall of Japan’s Todai­ji Tem­ple, in which both sacred water believed to have heal­ing pow­ers is drawn from the Waka­sai well — which runs day except on the day of the fes­ti­val — by monks and offered to an eleven faced god stat­ue and the more famous Omizu­tori per­for­mance – in which on each night of the fes­ti­val giant torch­es will be lit across the tem­ple and car­ried back and forth by the monks is per­formed.

Dat­ing back to 752, the cer­e­monies con­duct­ed also coin­cide with and bring in the Lunar New Year, with a par­tic­u­lar impres­sive Omizu­tori per­for­mance, which fea­tures the monks car­ry­ing enlarged lit torch­es and run­ning back and forth on the temple’s bal­conies tak­ing place in the days lead­ing up the New Year, cre­at­ing not only an incred­i­bly visu­al per­for­mance but also show­er­ing those in atten­dance with embers – which accord­ing to Bud­dhist leg­ends allow­ing peo­ple to repent for wrong­do­ings, being in good wish­es and gain pros­per­i­ty for the year ahead.

When:  Shuni‑e takes place between the 1^st and 14^th of New Year, coin­cid­ing with the lunar year, while the fes­ti­val lasts for 14 days and each night fea­tures a Omizu­tori per­for­mance – it’s rec­om­mend­ed to attend on the 12^th for the best and biggest Omizu­tori per­for­mance – or on the 14^th when the monks will retrieve the sacred water from the well in a cer­e­mo­ny that lasts into the ear­ly hours.

Where: Shuni‑e takes place in the Nigat­su­do Hall of Japan’s Todai­ji Tem­ple, which is just out­side of Kyoto.

Dura­tion: The fes­ti­val lasts for 14 days, with an Omizu­tori per­for­mance tak­ing place on each night of the fes­ti­val – with the Omizu­tori tak­ing place at 7pm each night and last­ing for 20 min­utes, except on the days of the 12^th – when the per­for­mance takes place at 7:30pm and fea­tures 11 70kg torch­es being used to bless the crowd for 45 min­utes and on the 14^th when the last day of the fes­ti­val fea­tures only a 10 minute Omizu­tori, but also fea­tures all the torch­es return­ing to the tem­ple which is visu­al­ly impres­sive and the cer­e­mo­ny of the water being drained from the Waka­sai well – which is fol­lowed by a cer­e­mo­ny of bell ring­ing, horn blow­ing and occa­sion­al­ly monks swing­ing with­in the tem­ple as cel­e­bra­tions last inside the tem­ple until the ear­ly hours.

Tick­ets: Atten­dance at Shuni‑e comes at a cost of 500 Yen – with view­ing spots avail­able out­side the tem­ple for free, but fill­ing up well in advance so it’s advised to arrive at 5pm for the cer­e­mo­ny and ear­li­er for the night of the 12^th and 14^th.

Need to Know:  The fes­ti­val takes place in the evening so bring a coat, the final days also coin­cide with the start of Japan’s cher­ry blos­som sea­son which are always worth a vis­it, on all days of the event the court­yard below Nigat­su­do becomes crowd­ed before sun­set, and it is advised to arrive ear­ly in order to get good views of the bal­cony.

More Infor­ma­tion:  For more on dates, activ­i­ties and trans­porta­tion access vis­it the offi­cial web­site of the fes­ti­val at: https://www.visitnara.jp/venues/E02017/