Kyoto Ebisu Shrine Toka Ebisu Festival

Before you go

Every January, people in Kyoto go to the Ebisu Shrine in Gion for a bamboo branch, and a prosperous year in business.

The shrine's story begins at sea. In 1202, Eisai, founder of Japanese Rinzai Zen, built Kennin-ji Temple and invited Ebisu to guard it. The story says that in 1191, on his way home from Song China, Eisai's ship ran into a storm, and Ebisu appeared and saved him. Ebisu — the god Yae Kotoshironushi — is the main deity. After the Onin War the shrine moved to its present site, and it is also known for travel safety.

The Toka Ebisu Grand Festival, also called the first Ebisu of the year, runs for five days: the Fortune-Inviting Festival, the Eve Festival, the main Toka Ebisu Festival, the Remaining Fortune Festival, and the Fortune-Closing Festival. The grounds stay open through the night on two nights in the middle of the festival, and kagura dance is offered in the kagura hall all day. Over the five days the shrine gives out lucky bamboo branches and charms — the great treasure, lucky bales, lucky winnowing baskets, lucky sea bream, treasure ships, and more — as well as lucky coins and miniature gold ingots. The main rites themselves are closed to the public; what visitors take home is the bamboo and the charms.

The bamboo is the point. Ebisu's bamboo is said to have spread from this shrine's own form of talisman. Bamboo grows straight, joint by joint, and its leaves stay green — a figure of steady business and a flourishing household. On the first day there is a hot-water kagura rite, on the second a lucky tuna is offered, and on the Remaining Fortune day, maiko from Gion Kobu and Miyagawa-cho hand out the bamboo branches.

The zodiac picture tablets the shrine gives out each year are drawn by the current head priest, Hisamasa Nakagawa. He and his predecessor have drawn them for about fifty years.

The shrine is counted with Nishinomiya Shrine and Imamiya Ebisu Shrine as one of Japan's three great Ebisu shrines, and is a stop on the Miyako Seven Lucky Gods pilgrimage. Locals call it Ebessan. In October there is another grand Ebisu festival, the twentieth-day Ebisu, also called the Ebisu-ko; on the third Sunday of May the shrine holds the Shinko Festival procession.

Booking

Prayer reception is 09:00 to 21:00 (to 19:00 on the 12th).