Obon

Obon is short for Urabon'e, derived from the Sanskrit ullambana, traditionally interpreted as 'hanging upside down', the suffering of souls in hell. The festival's founding story, from the Chinese Ullambana Sutra, tells of Mokuren (Maudgalyayana), a disciple of the Buddha, who saw his dead mother suffering as a hungry ghost. On the Buddha's advice he made offerings to the monastic community on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and his mother was released.

The rite is recorded at the Japanese court in 606 and 657 and spread widely in the medieval period. It merged with older Japanese beliefs that the spirits of the dead return to their families at fixed times of the year, and with the midsummer purification rites that also underlie Tanabata. In the Edo period, when every household was registered with a Buddhist temple, Obon became a universal family observance.

Obon originally fell in the middle of the seventh lunisolar month. After Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1873, regions resolved the date in different ways. Parts of Tokyo and some other urban areas in eastern Japan hold Obon on 13–16 July, keeping the calendar date. Most of the country observes 'late' Obon on 13–16 August, one month later, which is closer to the original season and to the end of the agricultural busy period. Okinawa and a few other areas still follow the lunisolar calendar, so their Obon moves between August and early September.

When people in Japan speak of the Obon holidays, they usually mean the August dates, when schools are already on summer break and companies close.

On the first evening families light mukaebi, a small 'welcome fire' of hemp stalks at the gate or the grave, so that the spirits can find their way. A spirit altar, the shoryodana or bondana, is set up near the household Buddhist altar with offerings of food, flowers and lanterns. Cucumbers and aubergines with legs made of chopsticks or hemp stalks represent a horse and a cow: the swift horse brings the ancestors home quickly and the slow cow carries them back leisurely. A Buddhist priest often visits to chant sutras, and families visit and clean the family grave.

On the last day the okuribi, the 'sending-off fire', guides the spirits back. In some regions this takes the form of toro nagashi, paper lanterns floating downstream or out to sea. A family's first Obon after a death, hatsubon or niibon, is observed with particular care, often with a white lantern.

Bon odori, the Obon dance, was originally a dance to welcome and console the spirits and is often traced to the nenbutsu odori, the chanting dance of medieval itinerant Buddhist preachers. Today it is a community event in schoolyards, temple grounds and parks: dancers in yukata move in a circle around a yagura, a raised wooden tower carrying drummers and musicians, repeating simple steps that newcomers learn by imitating those in front of them.

Some bon odori have grown into major festivals. Tokushima's Awa Odori draws huge crowds to its dancing groups in mid-August; Gujo Odori in Gifu Prefecture continues on summer nights from July to early September, with all-night dancing over the Obon days; Nishimonai Bon Odori in Akita is performed by masked dancers; and in Okinawa the Obon dance takes the form of Eisa, with drums and chanting groups that parade through the streets.

Kyoto's Gozan no Okuribi on the night of 16 August is the country's best-known sending-off fire: five giant characters and shapes, including the character dai ('great') on Mount Nyoigatake, a boat and a torii gate, are set alight in sequence on the mountains around the city. In Nagasaki, families carry elaborate spirit boats through the streets on the evening of 15 August in the shoro nagashi, accompanied by firecrackers and gongs. In many coastal and river towns thousands of lanterns are floated on the last night.