Kuramadera Joya no Kane 2026

Before you go

At Kurama-dera a New Year's Eve service is held in the main hall first, and the bell is rung afterwards. The temple's homepage calendar puts the two in a single entry.

The principal object of worship in that hall is called Sonten, a single being in three forms — Senju Kannon, Bishamonten and Goho Maoson — symbolising the great spirit of the universe. The image is a secret Buddha, shown only once in sixty years, in the year of the fire tiger. In front of the hall, the Kongosho floor spreads Sonten's vibrations in the form of a star mandala, and the temple describes it as a place of practice where a person becomes one with Sonten.

The mountain's beginning is told, as legend, in the Kurama Gaitera Engi quoted by the temple: in 770 Gantei, a senior disciple of Ganjin, climbed the mountain guided by a dream oracle and a white horse, was saved by Bishamonten when attacked by a demoness, and built a hermitage. In 796 Fujiwara no Isendo developed the precinct, and an image of Senju Kannon was later made and enshrined alongside Bishamonten.

The climb itself survives in an old sentence. In The Pillow Book, Sei Shonagon counted the winding path of Kurama among "things that are near yet far"; the temple quotes the line on its homepage. The Ushiwakamaru legend belongs to the same path: the temple's history page records that the young Minamoto no Yoshitsune trained at the temple, and legend says tengu taught him swordsmanship at night in Sojogaya.