Wakakusa Yamayaki: The Mountain Burning Festival

Fireworks are a corking agency to celebrate whatever occasion , simply similar NuanQuan’s molten Fe throwing festival , the Japanese metropolis of Nara (the metropolis of deer) has taken their festivities a notch higher.

Just behind Nara Park , stands an onetime , extinct volcano , called Mount Wakakusa , that rises gently to a acme of 350 meters. From its peak , i tin produce got unobstructed views of the entire city. Mount Wakakusa is thus really pop for walking together with strolling. The mount is covered past times grass , together with lining the gradient of the mount are cherry trees that are ordinarily inwards total blossom about early on April. But every bit wintertime approaches , the grass begins to pop off together with the cherry trees lose their leaves together with the mount looks really bald. This is when the famous Wakakusa Yamayaki festival takes place.

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Photo credit: Nagoya Taro/Wikimedia

On the 4th Sabbatum of each Jan , the dead grass is assault fire. This is known every bit “Yamayaki” , which is literally , “mountain roast”. The origins of Wakakusa Yamayaki are unclear , simply the tradition supposedly originated from a boundary dispute betwixt 2 temples , Todai-ji together with Kōfuku-ji inwards 1760. When the mediations failed , the entire mount was develop ablaze. Another theory claims that the fires were develop to crusade away wild boars.

Today , the ceremonies are conducted past times Todaiji Temple , Kofukuji Temple together with Kasuga Shrine. The festivities commencement amongst the ceremonial lighting of a torch at Kasuga Taisha Shrine. The sack is together with then carried inwards a parade to the human foot of the mount where a large bonfire it lit. At half-dozen pm at that topographic point is a spectacular fireworks display over the mountain. Once the fireworks are consummate , the grass on the mount is assault fire. The burning of the mount tin accept anywhere from thirty minutes to i sixty minutes depending on how dry out the grass is. The spectacular sack tin move seen from all over Nara.

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