---
node: spot_nara_kasuga_taisha
type: spot
slug: kasuga_taisha
destination: dest_nara
title: "Kasuga-taisha"
lead: "Kasuga-taisha is the Fujiwara clan shrine, founded in 768 at the foot of a mountain that has been left uncut ever since. Three thousand stone and bronze lanterns line its approaches, donated over the centuries and lit twice a year."
published: 2026-08-12
updated: 2026-08-12
image_file: spot_nara_kasuga_taisha.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:03-05-JPN129.jpg"
image_author: "Bobak at English Wikipedia"
image_license: "CC BY-SA 2.5"
---

## Overview

The shrine was rebuilt every twenty years for most of its history, in the same way as Ise, so the vermilion buildings are old in design and young in timber. Behind it, Kasugayama has been a sacred forest closed to logging since 841, which makes it one of the oldest protected woodlands in the world and the reason primeval forest survives beside a city. The deer of Nara are considered the shrine's messengers, which is why they were never hunted.

## Highlights

Pay the inner precinct fee to walk the corridor where the bronze lanterns hang; a dark room there lights them all together and shows what the festival nights look like. The lantern festivals are in early February and mid-August. The path up from the shrine into Kasugayama primeval forest is open and almost empty.