Greater Tokyo · Gunma · Takasaki
Shōrinzan Daruma Market (Nanakusa Festival)
少林山七草大祭だるま市
The New Year fair at Shōrinzan Darumaji in Takasaki, Gunma, the temple where the lucky daruma doll was born. Daruma stalls fill the grounds, and from the 6th into the 7th worshippers come through the night for the temple’s star-festival prayers. Held every year on 6 and 7 January.
Next
6–7 January 2027
66 days away
Every year, 6 January, for 2 days
Future dates: 6 January 2027 · 6 January 2028 · 6 January 2029
Origin
Shōrinzan is said to have begun around 1680, when an ascetic named Ichiryō Koji, told in a vision by Bodhidharma, carved a seated figure of him from a glowing piece of fragrant wood found in the Usui River. In 1697 it was founded as a temple guarding the inauspicious north-east of Maebashi Castle, with Shin’etsu, a Chinese monk revered by Tokugawa Mitsukuni of Mito, as its founding priest. When the great eruption of Mount Asama in 1783 and other disasters brought famine, the ninth abbot, Tōgaku, carved a wooden mould from Shin’etsu’s one-stroke drawing of Bodhidharma and taught Yamagata Tomogorō of Toyooka village to make papier-mâché daruma, to give the farmers a living. Sold as lucky charms at the New Year Nanakusa fair, these were the first good-luck daruma, and the start of this market. After the war daruma-making grew into one of Takasaki’s signature industries.
What to look for
Lucky daruma of every size line the grounds, and worshippers keep coming through the night from the morning of the 6th to the evening of the 7th. Shōrinzan is a temple of star worship, enshrining a deity of the Pole Star and the Big Dipper, and 2 a.m. on 7 January is held to be the auspicious hour of the deity’s descent, so the fair grows lively from the eve on the 6th; in the small hours of the 7th the great star-festival prayer is held. The temple’s daruma have a “crane and tortoise” face, the eyebrows two cranes facing each other and the moustache two tortoises, with the character for good fortune written large on the belly. In the grounds there is a place to have the eyes of your new daruma painted in, and another to return the daruma that carried your wishes through the past year.
How to watch
The daruma market is the fair of Shōrinzan’s star festival, and star-festival prayers go on in the temple through the night. Please do not bring pets, and drones may not be brought in or flown. Always take your rubbish home. The temple is extremely crowded, so visitors are asked to come by train, bus or taxi.
If you go
If you go, go on the night of the 6th into the small hours of the 7th, when the fair runs through the night. Shōrinzan Darumaji is 8 minutes from Takasaki Station to Gunma-Yawata Station on the JR Shin’etsu Line, then about 18 minutes on foot; from Takasaki Station it is also about 25 minutes by bus plus a 5-minute walk, or about 15 minutes by taxi. During the fair the temple car park is closed and the car park under Hanatakabashi bridge nearby is free; parking on the road is not allowed. Check the road closures on the traffic map the temple publishes each year.
Where
Shōrinzan Darumaji Temple
Takasaki, Gunma
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