Wakasahiko Jinja

Wakasahiko Jinja.

In the small coastal town of Obama in Fukui Prefecture, sits a shrine that, every March 2nd, sends water through the earth to a temple in Nara, two hundred kilometers away.

This is not a metaphor.

The ritual is called Omizu-okuri — "the sending of water." On the night of March 2nd, priests at this shrine carry sacred water from the Onyu River to a designated stone basin, perform a ceremony, and pour the water into the river. Ten days later, on the morning of March 12th, monks at Todaiji temple in Nara — exactly two hundred kilometers south — perform the corresponding ritual, Omizu-tori, "the receiving of water," and draw water from a well in their courtyard.

The Nara well, by tradition, is fed by the water sent from Wakasa. Underground rivers, the old understanding holds, connect the two places.

This has been going on for over twelve hundred years. Every single year, without missing one. Even during war, even during pandemic, even during the destruction of the original temple. The ritual has survived everything.

Whether or not water actually flows underground from Fukui to Nara is a question for geologists. The ritual itself, however, has created a thousand-year connection between two distant places, in a country where most ancient connections have long since broken.

Stand at the modest gate. The Onyu River runs nearby. The water you see could be, by tradition, on its way to a temple far to the south.

Some places are still in conversation with somewhere else.