Autumn Leaves at Takaosan

It is autumn leave season and most people make a point of leaving the house and getting at least a little bit of fresh mountain air. One of the most popular destinations for Tokyo residents is the Takaosan mountain in the Western Tokyo city of Hachioji. I took these photos at the temple at the summit of the mountain when I visited last year. I have yet to make a visit this year.

Takaosan Kitouden – Drive in Temple

At the holy Takaosan mountain in Tokyo’s Hachioji city you’ll find the Kitouden (高尾山自動車祈祷殿), a sub temple to the famous Yakuoin which is devoted solely to traffic safety, and naturally it is a drive in temple. Well, not as much drive in as drive up to, but still. The temple is open to a large parking space where observant car owners, bikers and cyclists pull up to receive their yearly blessing. In the ceremony a monk will read prayers over the vehicles and the visitors and at the end of it you get a sticker to put on your car.

Quite correctly, buddhist monks are of the opinion that there is no such thing as an “accident” in traffic and that they can be avoided by having the correct attitude, the right state of mind and a heightened awareness of everything from your own stress as a driver to the mood of the drivers around you. It is the monks hope that the prayers will help you keep concentrated on traffic safety and thus avoid injury to yourself or others. Being calm and aware are two very buddhists attitudes so they fit right in with traffic safety!

The temple building of the Kitouden itself is not very interesting but the statues of the ferocious tengu facing the cars are fantastic, and very photogenic. My favorite is the seated tengu, taking the aspect of Buddha himself.

Mount Takao Fire Walking Festival

The third and final part of the grand Hiwatari Matsuri, or fire walking festival, at Tokyo’s holy Mount Takao last weekend. After having spent quite some time trying to contain the fire and dousing it with clear water and burning the votive sticks, the shugenja would line up for the final fire walking test. Before that two of them would take part in a ritual cleanings ceremony involving showering themself with near boiling water which they beat out of cauldron with a bundle of tree branches. After that the shugenja and lay followers of the shugendo sect would start the fire walking, first stepping on a mound of pure white salt which has a further purification symbolism.

There were several shugenja performing the ceremony and when they were done they took up positions around the dojo to chant prayers while the ordinary people started the fire walking. In the last photo you can see the what it all looked like after several hours into the ceremony. The line snaking around the dojo continued up onto the hill where I took the photo, went around the hill and down onto the other side. By the time normal people get to do the fire walking any remaining embers would have died out and there should be barely any heat left at all. The significance in the ceremony is not the physical challenge though, it is the ritual purification that is the important part. I didn’t stay to see all the ordinary folks performing the ceremony but the shugenja must have spent many hours of continuos chanting and drumming!

Standing so close to many shugenja (a rare treat!) gave me a grand opportunity to take plenty of photos of their gear close up. I have included some of the photos in this post.

Hiwatari – Fire Festival at Takaosan

More photos from last Sunday’s Hiwatari Matsuri (Fire Walking Festival) at Tokyo’s Hachioji City’s holy Mount Takao. Even though I was one of the first in line to pick a good spot there were so many participants I had a hard time getting the shots I wanted. Especially when shooting something as long and complicated as this, it is hard to get a sense of the ritual narrative of the events. For most people seeing these photos, it must look like random snapshots from a chaotic meet up, like a 16 random stills from a random Hollywood movie.

The dojo, or the training ground was quite big and although we stood way away from the fire the heat, as it was tossed in waves over us as the wind blew the hot air in our direction was immense. The other side of the bonfire, up on the hill was cleared out in advance as the wind was generally blowing in that direction for the day. I was lucky my camera didn’t melt!

One of the ceremonies that took place before the bonfire was lit was the weapons training. An axe, a sword and a bow were used while chanting invocations. For the occasion, the shugenja in charge of the ceremony was miked up so we could hear the chant perfectly through loudspeakers. It was quite dramatic. The archer let off three arrows in three different directions at an angle against the crowd. The luckiest of the luckiest of the visitors actually managed to catch an arrow and according to tradition is now going to be pretty safe from all sorts of misfortunes.

After the bonfire was lit the shugenja would run up to it with buckets of clear spring water to purify the fire, while three stands of talismans dedicated to the Buddhist guardian Brahma would be paraded around the bonfire. At this part of the ceremony everything is moving very quickly and the shugenja (mountain ascetics, shugendo monks or warrior monks) are doing their best trying to control the fire and to throw in the votive sticks dedicated by the visitors. It was interesting trying to take photos over the heated air from the fire, I included two of the clearest photos here, and still they look like I played around some very bad photoshop filters!

The head shugenja were busy relying instructions and orders to the others, and a group of them walked around with golden trays flinging printed cards in the shape of lotus flower leaves, called sange (散華). The cards came in many colors and had images of the tengu spririts of the shugenja on them. I managed to catch two cards! In the old days the monks would hand out fresh lotus leaves with mystical symbols on them. The leaves would serve as a buddhist “memento mori”, in that they symbolized the death of all things living. These days they are made of paper though and people keep them as good luck charms in the wallets or in the their home altars. I have a little collection of my own by now! At a festival last year I took a photo of very simple paper sange being thrown from the top of a pagoda in Ota Ward in the South of Tokyo.

I still have a few more photos to come, of the main event: the fire walking! Stay tuned!