Tenjin Matsuri Festival

Osaka Tenjin Festival is known as one of the three great festivals in Japan along with Kyoto Gion Matsuri and Tokyo Kanda Matsuri. It attracts more than a million visitors every year. A series of Tenjin Festival rituals and events are held from the end of June for about a month. This is an ancient event that is said to date back to the year 951, when purification rites were performed to protect against the infectious diseases which were rampant in the hot and humid summer months. One of the highlights of the festival is the land procession, which is a parade of some 3,000 people dressed in the imperial-court style of the 8th-12th Centuries marching beside portable shrines. The other highlight is the boat procession, when the same 3,000 people board some 100 boats from the approach of the Tenmabashi Bridge and sail upstream. Flutes.mp3 by Capuchin