Events & festivals・Kyoto

Gozan no Okuribi (Five-Mountain Send-Off Fires)Gozan no Okuribi

Also known as: Daimonji・大文字

On the night of August 16, giant characters and shapes blaze in sequence on five mountains ringing Kyoto. Rather than a shrine festival, it is an Obon rite that sends the ancestral spirits, welcomed home days earlier, back on their way; the best known of the five is the Daimonji character.

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‹ Kyoto glossaryAll terms