The festival of Tanabata was first celebrated in Japan on the seventh day of the seventh month of Tombyō Shōhō (A.D. 755). Perhaps the Chinese origin of the Tanabata divinities accounts for the fact that their public worship was at no time represented by many temples.
I have been able to find record of only one temple to them, called Tanabata-jinja, which was situated at a village called Hoshiaimura, in the province of Owari, and surrounded by a grove called Tanabata-mori.[4]
Even before Tembyō Shōhō, however, the legend of the Weaving-Maiden seems to have been well known in Japan; for it is recorded that on the seventh night of the seventh year of Yōrō (A.D. 723) the poet Yamagami no Okura composed the song:—
Amanogawa,
Ai-muki tachité,
Waga koïshi
Kimi kimasu nari—
Himo-toki makina![5]