Fire-walking-ritual of Buddhism with Shintoism
My wife invited me to see the Fire-walking-ritual, “hi-watari” in Japanese, at Suma-dera Temple in Hyogo prefecture. According to her explanation a fire-walking-ritual is a comprehensive ritual of showing will-power by walking on fire by practicing Buddhists who are called “shugenja” in Japanese. They are practicing under Buddhism and ancient Shintoism. In addition, it is for people’s peace and affluence by will-power.
Why do practicing Buddhists and normal people walk on fire? Incredible but interesting! It sounded like fun. So I made up my mind to accept her proposal.
The fire-walking-ritual in Sumadera Temple
It is held in the morning on November 23rd every year. It is fine today but a little bit cold. A lot of people already surrounded the field of the fire-walking-ritual and the venue was filled with people talking. We hastened to sit down on steal pipe seats. The field was encircled by rope ( an encircled field by rope is called “kekkai” in Japanese, it means a sacred field) and it has an alter and a pile of grass. The vermillion threefold tower and the vermillion shrine behind it color the venue. It’s for the first time in our lives, so we looked forward to its beginning.
Shugenjas' entrance video Instagram
Distant sound of shell horns echoed. Practicing Buddhists were blowing their shell horns. It was the signal of the beginning. They wore white shugenja-costumes with small black hats. Their procession approached. Oh! children also wearing shugenja-costumes followed them. The sound of the shell horns is different from a normal horn, I thought it was similar to the bark of an animal like a deer. And they endeavored blowing two octaves higher sound, when they aggregated in the ritual field. We were kind of exited.
The pile was big and round and it was completely covered with vibrant green grass in the center of the field. At first the highest ranking Buddhist priest prayed for peace, health and affluence. Secondly, the first rite of cutting up the air many times by a Japanese sword was performed, next the second rite of carving the air by a big axe was also performed.
During the third rite one practicing Buddhist fired four arrows into the sky at each of the four corner. Of course not full-power. The loosely fired arrows fell down among the people, then when he fired the arrow this way I felt a little suspense. These were for clearance of the field for the sake of the maximization of their will-power.
The ignition
The pile of green grass was ignited. Strong smoke rose from it and wrapped up the people( look at the first picture).
The monks continuously cast a spell. It is the gold word. Many visitors followed it and my wife and I also did it reading from the spell book. The meaning of this spell is opaque for us but it is considered to have strong power.
“ON ABO GYABEI LOSHANOU MAKA BODA LAMANI HANDOMA JIMBARA HARA BARITAYA UN “
It was repeated again and again. The sum of voices by more than 200 people deprived us of our daily senses and lifted our own mood in the venue, but the aspect of those voices was carried on solemnly and in no magical fashion.
The smoke transformed the pillar of blazing fire, which was like a fire-dragon but never bestowed any danger onto the visitors. The faces of the monks and the practicing Buddhists were tinged with red by the fire, and the ritual took steps toward the climax.
The walking rite on fire
About twenty minutes passed, when the fire became weaker but too strong to walk on normally, then the peak rite of today’s ritual came. The practicing Buddhists began to walk on the fire one by one. An elderly male seated on the left of my wife looking at it negatively said; “I probably can’t do it. I hate walking”. Then a female on the right of me encouraged him;” that doesn’t matter. When we walk, the fire will be deleted. Don’t worry about it”.
Visitors' fire-walking video Instagram
There was boiled-water in a big hot-pot in the corner of the field. The sub-chief priest of this temple did his prayer service and entered his will-power into the boiled-water. And he inserted a bundle of foliage that he had with his hands into the boiled-water and strongly moved it as if washing it in the boiled-water. Moreover he lifted it up as if scattering hot spray into the air, his body received much of it. I felt a kind of pain and I said to the lady on the right of me; “is he ok?” She answered; “he is ok, he is concentrating.”
Finally all the visitors walked on the way which was made from the remains of the burning ash by the practicing Buddhists. Elderly females and males who couldn’t walk by themselves also walked by the support of the practicing Buddhists. To me the hotness beneath my feet didn’t matter, but the smoke made me cry. The ritual ended and we were satisfied with it.
The weather got worse and colder, when the ritual ended. Maybe the wii-power of the monks and the practicing Buddhists made the weather better at the ritual time, didn’t they?
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