Benzaiten at the table

In Japanese tradition, a meal is not served to a deity as to a guest; instead, pure offerings called shinsen are arranged on light wood trays (sanbō). Order matters: first rice and water, then sake, sea or lake fish, seasonal vegetables, and fruits. White — rice, mochi, lotus — dominates, for it is the color of purity and of the white serpent, messenger of Benzaiten. At shrines set on water (Enoshima, Chikubushima, Itsukushima), fishermen and worshippers add the bounty of their lake or sea.

Cooked rice, pounded rice into mochi, fermented rice into amazake: a single grain, three states, all offered to the goddess of water and music. Immaculate white is the common thread — it evokes the white serpent that accompanies her and the lotus of purity she holds. To sweeten without cane sugar (rare and precious in the Heian period), they used amazura, a vine sap syrup that Sei Shōnagon already praised on shaved ice.