A single flower-viewing party from over four centuries ago is still the name of this place. The Kyoto prefectural tourism federation describes Daigoji as famous for Taiko-san no hanami, the cherry viewing held here by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. He did it once. The year was 1598, a few months before he died. That single event became the way the temple's cherry trees are referred to, and it has stayed that way ever since.

There are about seven hundred trees in the grounds now, of various kinds, none of them the ones he saw.

The flowering runs from the last part of March into the first days of April, which is early by Kyoto standards.

What is odd about this is that hanami is normally a word for something that repeats. Here it attaches to one afternoon, one host, one guest list. None of the trees standing now were standing then; the people who come are obviously different people. The only thread that actually runs the whole four hundred years is that human beings keep arriving at this particular hillside in early April to sit under flowers. That turns out to be enough to carry a name across four centuries, which is more than most buildings manage.