Since the year 752, the monks of Todai-ji have not missed a spring. The Shuni-e, better known as Omizutori, runs from March 1st to 14th at Nigatsu-do, the wooden hall on the hillside above the Great Buddha, and it has been performed annually through the burning of the temple, the fall of capitals, civil wars, and everything since: more than 1,270 years without a gap, a record the monks describe simply as the practice that does not retreat. Eleven priests, the rengyoshu, confess the sins of humanity on humanity's behalf, in rites that run deep into the freezing night. What the crowds come for is the fire. Each evening, torches over six meters long are run along the balcony rail, showering sparks over the upturned faces below, embers said to guarantee a year's good health to anyone they touch. Past midnight on the 12th comes the ceremony that names the festival: water drawn from the Wakasa Well, fragrant and secret, offered to the Eleven-Headed Kannon. The viewing ground is bitterly cold, and full every night. In Kansai they say spring does not arrive by calendar but by this fire, that the season, like the practice, simply keeps its word.