Ayato's Night Prayer and Bon Dance

What You Will See on a Summer Night in Ayado

The evening begins around seven o'clock at Heishōji, an old Soto Zen temple at the heart of the village. Members of the preservation society gather their bells, flat woven hats, and lanterns inside the assembly hall and then move to a spot called "Nobori-tate" at the entrance to the temple's stone-paved approach. There, the men assemble into a procession. Each wears a wide flat hat known as a hiragasa, a yukata cinched with a kaku-obi belt, a white folding fan tucked into the sash, and wooden geta over white tabi socks.

At the front and rear of the line stand bearers carrying tall pole-mounted lanterns called orikō. The lantern at the front depicts the Pure Land of paradise; the one at the rear depicts the realms of hell. Between them walks the kō-taki, an incense bearer who is also the year's leading ritualist, followed by the two ondo song leaders and a double column of bell-ringers known collectively as the gawa-shū. The atmosphere is hushed. As the procession moves forward, the lead voice intones the Michi-ondo, or "song of the path," and the side voices answer in unison while bronze hand bells mark the rhythm.

The procession halts at five stations along the way. At a stone Buddha image, they perform Tsuji-ekō, a crossroads memorial chant. At the temple's mountain gate, they perform Mon-biraki, the "opening of the gate." Then before the Kannon hall they offer the Kannon-sama-ekō, before the Shinmei Shrine the Kami-ekō for the Shinto deity, and finally before the main hall of Heishōji the Hotoke-ekō for the Buddhas. At each station the line opens into a half-circle, with the incense bearer at its center and the two lantern bearers anchoring the ends. The whole sequence lasts roughly an hour and a half. Under a summer moon, with cicadas in the cedars and the bell tones rising and falling, listeners often describe being drawn into a state that words cannot quite reach.

When the chanting ends, the two paradise-and-hell lanterns are planted upright in the middle of the temple courtyard, and the bon dance begins. Women and children, who watched silently from the edges, now join. A song-leader called the ondo-tori sings from outside the circle, and the dancers sing the refrains while moving in a ring. There is no shamisen, no taiko drum, no flute. The only accompaniment is the simultaneous strike of dozens of geta against the sandy ground — a soft, percussive heartbeat that has somehow survived through every modernization Japan has known. Ten songs are passed down, including Echigo Jinku, Ontake Ōgi-odori, Musume-zukushi, and Asuke Ayado Odori, with some danced holding folded paper fans.

Why This Tradition Was Designated

Yo-nenbutsu was once practiced widely throughout the mountainous interior of Mikawa Province and across the prefectural border into the Ena region of Gifu. Within the former town of Asuke alone, fourteen districts in seventeen villages once held the rite. Twelve commemorative stone pillars from these old yo-nenbutsu observances still stand in the area, the oldest dating from 1794. Across the mountains in former Asahi-cho, more than ten additional pillars survive. The custom is woven into the fabric of these valleys — but Ayado is now the only village anywhere in Japan where the full sequence of a chanted memorial procession followed by an unaccompanied bon dance has been continuously preserved as a single living rite.

Originally, the rite was performed by the wakaren, a young men's association of villagers between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five. They would begin practicing on the first day of the seventh lunar month, perform a full rehearsal at Heishōji's Kannon hall on the tenth, and from the thirteenth through the sixteenth visit homes that had experienced a death within the past year — what local people call shin-botoke, the "newly arrived Buddhas." There they offered the chants of consolation and danced through the night. On the seventeenth they performed once more in the temple courtyard. The shift to the modern Gregorian calendar dates of August 10 and 15 took place around 1965, after the local young men's association became too small to continue alone, and the present preservation society was formed in 1960 to safeguard the tradition.

The official designation in 1997 recognized that this rite preserves an archaic form showing both the historical evolution of Japanese performing arts and the distinctive character of a specific mountain region. The 2022 UNESCO inscription as part of the Furyū-odori grouping placed Ayado on the world stage — the very first Toyota City property to be inscribed as world intangible heritage.

Highlights to Watch For

Even visitors who do not understand a word of the chanting often find that the most powerful experience is the contrast in sound. The yo-nenbutsu fills the still mountain night with the call-and-response of a leading voice and a dozen low responding voices, punctuated by hand bells. After ninety minutes of this slow, prayerful rhythm, the bon dance shifts the texture entirely: voices rise into folk melody, paper fans flicker, and the geta-on-sand percussion gives the dance a startling drive that needs no instrument behind it.

The two paradise-and-hell lanterns repay close attention. They are not stage props — they are explicit reminders, in the old Buddhist worldview, of the destinations the souls of the recently deceased may take, and they sit at the center of the dance circle precisely so that those who have died this past year are honored at the heart of the village's joy. The procession route through the temple grounds is itself a kind of cosmological diagram, beginning at a roadside stone Buddha and ending before the main hall after greeting both kami and Buddhas along the way.

For visitors with longer interest, Heishōji itself rewards quiet exploration. The temple is said to have been founded in legend by Prince Shōtoku and was once a Tendai-sect institution before becoming Soto Zen. Its Wooden Seated Statue of Kannon Bodhisattva, carved in 1159 from joined blocks of hinoki cypress and standing about 1.5 meters tall, is a Nationally designated Important Cultural Property — and a hidden image revealed only once every seventeen years.

Things to Do Nearby

Ayado lies only five kilometers east of one of central Japan's most celebrated autumn destinations, Kōrankei Gorge. From late October into early December, around four thousand maple trees turn the gorge brilliant scarlet and gold, and an evening illumination transforms the Taigetsu-kyō footbridge and surrounding cedars into a glowing fairy-tale landscape. Kōjakuji Temple, founded in 1427 above the gorge, was the home of the priest Sanei, who is credited with planting the first maples here in the seventeenth century.

A short walk from the gorge brings visitors to the historic Asuke townscape, designated in 2011 as Aichi Prefecture's first Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings. Asuke was once a key relay station on the Inakaidō — also called the Chūma-kaidō, or "packhorse road" — that linked the salt-producing coast of Mikawa to the inland Shinshū highlands. The plastered fire-resistant town houses, a result of rebuilding after a great fire in 1774, line two kilometers of streets and alleys. Manrin Kōji, an atmospheric lane of black-board and white-plaster storehouses, is a particular favorite of photographers. Asuke Castle, a faithful reconstruction of a fifteenth-century mountain fortress on Mt. Mayumi, offers panoramic views over the valley.