Festivals and Events｜

Kyokusui no En Festival

Visitors Guide

The Kyokusui no En Festival is a shrine ritual of purification that reenacts a picture scroll from the Heian Era (794 - 1185). The festival began in 958 AD and died out once but was resurrected in 1963. At this festival, poets wearing Heian Era costumes (such as the junihitoe, an extremely elegant and highly complex kimono, and ikan, the work clothes of the nobility and government officials at imperial court) sit along the banks of the small channel in the Kyokusui Garden of Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine. Each poet must compose a poem and drink a cup of sake before a floating sake cup in the channel reaches them. Amid the sight of falling plum blossom petals and sound of the Japanese harp, visitors will feel as if time has stopped at this elegant festival!
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