山笠/博多の見物スポット

Natsukitō Report

The fastest readers in the world.

It Begins at 11:00. The Spectators are seated in the prayer hall of the Jōten-ji temple and the incense has been prepared. A large bronze bell is rung to signal the begin of the ritual.



Everything is quiet and while the monks walk in single-file and take their seats, the beautiful stone garden outside bakes in the heat of Japans summer. Still silent as the books containing the entirety of buddhist scriptures are waved before the altar and handed out to the monks. They are now ready to do some serious reading.



With a bang the silence is broken as a large iron bowl ist struck and reverberates through the Temple. The bowl and a large wooden sound body are hit in quick succession creating a hard rhythm. The monks start to chant at a steady sound level and open the books. It turns out the books are made of long sheets of folded paper with one side of the paper written on. The monks all read the first few words and begin to flip the pages by letting the folded paper ruffle from one side to the other. Soon the whole hall is full of the fascinating lengths of falling paper. All the while the monks concentrate on their book and read a few sporadic words that they manage to catch. The air is filled with the sounds of the falling paper and the motivational shouts of the monks.



The whole ceremony is a part of the Hakata-Gion-Yamakasa festival and is supposed to be a prayer for the safety of the festivities. A prayer is said to have special strength when the person praying reads the whole compendium of buddhist scriptures for the cause. Each of the monks has one stack of books, that together make up the compendium. They together “read” the whole compendium several times, which is supposed to assure the safety of the festival.

The only one not using the ruffling technique is the high priest in the middle, who reads one book out loud for most of the ceremony. When a book is ruffled about three times it counts as read and is placed on the according pile. Each monk ruffles through his compendium three times before the high priest ruffles through the rest of his book after about 30 minutes of reading and rings a bell to signal the end.



The monks start to calm down after the vigorous reading session and fall into a chant while the books are stored and the offerings are made at the altar. When the offering is finished the monks fall into a short silence.

The silence is followed by a more melodic song accompanied by the iron bowl and sound body being struck. Then, while one monk keeps on singing, the high priest leaves and the other monks leave one by one with a bow to the other monks and the altar.

When the monks are gone, the district representatives of the Yamakasa festival bow to the altar and give a short prayer.


The ruffling is a great view to watch and it may look like the monks think they can fool buddha by pretending to read the books and expect the safety of the Yamakasa in return. However since the prayer seems to work and there haven’t been any recent major accidents during the festival, the monks must be the fastest readers in the world.