All festivals

Festivals in Japan in March

Dates are computed from each festival’s rule, so future years work too

4

• 1–14 March 2027Nara

  Omizutori (Shunie at Tōdai-ji)

  お水取り(東大寺修二会)

  A fortnight of penitence for the faults of ordinary life, unbroken since 752.

• 2 March 2027Fukui

  Omizuokuri (Water-Sending Ritual)

  お水送り

  A rite in Obama, on the Wakasa coast, that sends sacred water to the Omizutori at Tōdai-ji’s Nigatsu-dō in Nara. A torchlit procession follows the Onyū River from Jingū-ji to Unose, where the water is poured into the river at night. Held every year on 2 March.

• 13–14 March 2027Shiga

  Sagichō Matsuri, Ōmihachiman

  近江八幡左義長まつり

  The year’s zodiac animal, modelled entirely in foodstuffs, rides on thirteen floats — which are burned on the second night.

• 15 March 2027Aichi

  Hōnensai at Tagata Shrine

  豊年祭(田縣神社)

  Seed rice handed from a temple to a shrine, carried through the district in an old form of rite.