Joya no Kane on New Year’s Eve in Kyoto

The Year-End Bell at Chion-in

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Today is Ōmisoka（大晦日）, New Year’s Eve in Japan.
As we reach the final day of the year, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone I encountered through Spiritual Japan Journal in 2025.

In Japan, Ōmisoka refers to the last day of the year, the night before welcoming the New Year. On this evening, people spend quiet time reflecting on the year that has passed and preparing to cross into the next one.
One of the symbols of this moment is Joya no Kane（除夜の鐘）.

Joya no Kane refers to the bell that is rung at Buddhist temples on the night of Ōmisoka.
At many temples, the bell is struck 108 times.
This number is associated with bonnō（煩悩） in Buddhism.
Bonnō refers to the emotions and attachments that disturb the human mind, such as anger, obsession, and desire.

By ringing the bell at the end of the year, people symbolically release these burdens of the heart and welcome the New Year.
This meaning is embedded in the sound of Joya no Kane.

Chion-in（知恩院）, located in Kyoto, is one of the temples best known for its Joya no Kane.
The bell struck here weighs approximately 70 tons.

During the Joya no Kane at Chion-in, 17 monks, each with a specific role, work together to ring a single bell.
When the bell is struck, the monk holding the thick rope known as the omozuna（親綱） calls out, “Ee-i, hitotsu.” This call signals that a single strike is about to take place and carries a meaning close to “Ready, one” or “Here we go, one” in English.
Following this, the monks holding the kozuna（子綱） repeat the same call, “Ee-i, hitotsu.” Finally, with the shout of “Sōre!”, the monk holding the omozuna moves with his full body, and the bell is set in motion.
The sound of the bell, weighing nearly 70 tons, resonates through the air.

Rather than something festive, the sound reaches people’s hearts as a quiet yet unmistakable signal of the year’s end.

At Chion-in, ahead of the Joya no Kane on December 31, a bell-ringing ceremony known as tameshi-zuki was held on December 27.
Because the Joya no Kane itself takes place late at night on New Year’s Eve and is difficult to record on video, this article presents footage of the tameshi-zuki instead.

We visited Kyoto in order to share Japan’s year-end Joya no Kane with our readers.
The time we experienced there carried a weight that cannot be fully conveyed through images or photographs alone, and it has remained deeply in our own hearts.

In this article, to convey the atmosphere of Japan’s year end as promptly as possible, we are sharing footage that was filmed on site just a few days ago, without editing.

We plan to edit the DSLR footage captured from various angles and share it in a future article.
If you wish, we would be grateful if you subscribed and waited for it.

We have chosen to make this article freely available in the hope that readers who are interested in Japan can come to know its appeal more deeply and more widely.

Going forward, Spiritual Japan Journal will continue to travel throughout Japan, sharing articles and videos that convey Japan as it is today, along with the sense of time that flows through each place.
We also plan to continue introducing, through our writing, the world of Japanese myths, legends, and yōkai that have been passed down through Japan’s long history.

If you feel inclined to support this work, we would be grateful for your support through a paid subscription or by offering a cup of coffee.

In Japan, as the year draws to a close, people exchange the phrase “良いお年をお迎えください (Yoi otoshi o omukae kudasai)”.
This is a greeting that expresses the wish that the coming year will be calm and a good one.

Once again, thank you sincerely for the connections we have made.
良いお年をお迎えください

—Written by Sumire

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