Tanabata
Shi-tennoji Temple
It's once again festival season in Japan, and with the abundance of
holy celebrations that illuminate the country seemingly every weekend
throughout the summer, July brings Tanabata to Osaka.
Tanabata, or “the star festival”, is a country-wide tradition
that dates back to the year 755 when Empress Koken introduced it as a
derivative of the Chinese Qixi festival. Gaining popularity with the
general public by the beginning of the Edo period, Tanabata is based
on the myth of Orhime and Hikoboshi (represented by the stars
Vega and Altair respectively); two lovers separated by the milky way.
Legend has it that the two agricultural deities met and immediately
and fell in love, shirking their field duties and thus angering
Orhime's father Tentai, who separated them and granted them
permission to meet only once every subsequent year on the 7th
day of the 7th lunar month. Despite this being 7th
July on the Gregorian calendar, celebrations of the typically three
day festival start at different times according to region and city. I
head to Osaka's famed Shi-tennoji temple on the weekend of the
festival to find out more.
Being of the stars, the festival naturally doesn't come into its own
until after sunset, but I arrive early evening to see the temple's
grounds already brimming with revellers around the temple's main gate
or karamon. As well as socialising parents and cute,
jimbei-clad kids whom laugh maniacally as they run through the
temple's misters (presumably installed as a potential respite from
the early summer heat), there are also throngs of welcoming temple
staff handing out pamphlets and the ubiquitous old man security
guards; stationed every few yards and bearing megaphones set to human
speech level through which they remind us to be careful and earnestly
warn of the very real dangers of tripping over shoe laces and
drowning in said misters.
As night falls, the whole place becomes illuminated and magic imbues
the atmosphere. Ignoring the majestic main hall, pagoda and other
holy structures that permanently reside within these grounds, the
most eye-catching aspect is the bamboo tunnel, which is embellished
with traditional crate paper streamers and twinkling white lights all
around that serve to remind of the roots of the matsuri. A couple of
hundred yen will buy a strip of tanazaku paper on which to
write a wish and hang it on the tunnel's sides. This harps back to
the Edo period manifestation of the festival when boys would inscribe
on similar strips of paper and pray for neat hand writing. In the
area towards the rear of the temple grounds lie minimalist
water-filled tubs where for 500 yen, one can write one's wish on a
floating candle. People amass here as night falls, eager to get a
spot for their candle among the finite surface space to give their
wish credence and also to contribute to the exquisite display that
illuminates the temple's impressive pagoda against the black night
sky. Definitely more of a practice for the adults, this space is
elegantly serene where the bamboo tunnel is jostling and exciting.
Both, however, share equally in their beauty.
After making their wish, many revellers head out to the periphery and
to one of the many stalls that sell a wide array of both traditional
Japanese and Western fare, all with the option of not too overpriced
alcohol to wash it down. Upon scanning from left to right and seeing
families sat down together bonding over the food and atmosphere, I
realise that, as is the case with many of the festivals in the
Japanese calendar, the importance lies not so much in the particular
practices and spiritual significance festival, but in the transient
opportunity it affords for young and old alike to let their hair down
in a usually fastidious society, taking in the beauty while they look
up at the stars.
