At the Nigatsu-dō hall of Tōdai-ji in Nara, monks carry cedar torches several metres long along the balcony each evening for a fortnight, shaking burning fragments down onto the crowd below — a shower of sparks is held to confer a year's protection. The rite ends in the small hours of the thirteenth with the drawing of sacred water from a well said to flow only on that night.
It has been performed every year since 752. Through civil wars, the burning of the temple, famine and occupation, the sequence has not been broken, which makes it one of the longest unbroken annual observances anywhere in the world.
No attendance figure is collected in this pass.
The dates are fixed at 1–14 March. The torches on 12 March are the largest and the crowd is correspondingly heavy; any other evening gives the same rite with room to stand.
PlanningFixed on 1–14 March and unbroken for over 1,270 years; the largest torches are on 12 March.
Dates
computed from the rule
Computed from the recurrence rule we record for this entry, not copied from a listing. A date marked ~ comes from a calendar conversion and the observance may fall a day or two either side.