On March 2nd, Wakasa Jinguji Temple holds the Omizu Okuri (“water-sending”) ritual. Accompanied by various rites, water from the temple’s sacred well is carried to the Unose area and poured into the Onyu River to symbolically send it to Nara for the Omizutori (“water-drawing”) ritual at Todaiji Temple, which is held ten days later, on March 12th.
The Omizu Okuri ritual is based on a legend that the deity Onyu Myojin (also known as Hikohohodemi no Mikoto) attended the founding ceremony for the Nigatsudo Hall at Todaiji in the eighth century. Impressed by the grand event, the deity decided to send sacred water from Wakasa to be used in the ritual in the following years. The Omizu Okuri reflects the historic relationship between Wakasa and Nara, which was the capital of Japan in the eighth century, as well as the belief in the sacred nature of the pure water of the Wakasa region.
Monks begin the ceremonies by drawing water from the sacred Akai Well at Wakasa Jinguji, and at 6 p.m., a prayer service is held in the main hall. After a purification rite, a torch-lit procession of worshippers and monks heads toward the Unose shoal, where a daigoma fire ritual takes place on the riverbank. After that, the sacred water is poured from a low cliff into the river to the sound of mountain ascetics chanting sutras and blowing conch shell trumpets. It is believed that the sacred water flows all the way to Nara and is then drawn from the Wakasa Well on Todaiji grounds during the Omizutori to be offered to Buddhist deities.
