二月堂

This guide to Nigatsu-do in Nara opens in the year 752, when the monk Jitchu is said to have found thousands of gods performing a secret rite and begged to bring it to human beings, on one condition. It follows the confession ritual monks have kept every March for over twelve centuries, and the legend of a late-arriving god from Wakasa Bay whose apology sent a spring toward the well beneath this hall. You'll hear how priests far away still pour water each March 2nd, on a journey said to take exactly ten days underground. Come after dark to watch torches carried along the balcony above.