The Inari Festival (Inari sai) at Kyoto’s Fushimi Inari Shrine finished today with the return of its five mikoshi from their ‘otabisho‘, or resting place, where they have been since April 20. (The Shinko Festival held that day is when the mikoshi leave the Fushimi shrine).
The return home is known as the Kanko Festival, which consists of welcoming back the festooned trucks carrying the mikoshi, then transferring the ‘goshintai’ (sacred body of the kami) from the mikoshi and back into their respective shrines. Crowds are milling around during the event, though guards are on hand to keep people out of sacred areas.
The weather had been cloudy shortly before the event began at 4 o’clock, but it soon brightened up into one of those glorious May afternoons when you couldn’t imagine a more sparkling occasion. With the parishioners and shrine personnel decked out in their finest apparel, it was a truly joyous occasion and one that combined pageantry with a sense of tradition and spirituality.
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