The Feast of Lanterns

Uranbon Festival is the so-called “Obon Festival.

At home, people set up a sacred trellis to welcome the spirits of their ancestors, and at temples, people hold a Buddhist service to offer offer sacrifices to the spirits of all the dead.

Obon is officially called “Urabon-e,” and is traditionally held around July 15 of the lunar calendar. Although the unfamiliar word may seem a bit confusing, it is actually derived from the ancient Indian Sanskrit word “Urabanna,” which means “hanging upside down.

This may sound surprising, but it is derived from a certain teaching of Chinese Buddhism.
One of the Buddha’s ten great disciples, Mokuren, was a man with divine powers. One day, using his powers, he found his deceased mother suffering from the path of the hungry demon. She was always suffering from hunger and thirst and was hanging upside down. The Buddha told her that on July 15, monks who had completed 90 days of ascetic training would gather together and that she should make offerings to them by serving them a large amount of food. When Meren put his teachings into practice, his mother was reborn in paradise through the merits of his teachings.

Furthermore, the Buddha said, “If you make offerings to many people on July 15 by bringing various kinds of food and drink on a tray, your ancestors will be saved from suffering by the merit of your offerings, and the people who are alive today will also gain happiness. This led people to hold Uranbon Festival events at this time of the year.
It was then introduced to Japan, and combined with the ancient belief in ancestral spirits, it took on its present form. In Japan, people not only worshiped the dead and spirits as “mittama,” but also their living parents as “ikimitama,” or “living souls,” and offered them food (sometimes as a gift). Some people believe that the word “obon” is derived from the vessel in which these offerings were made.
The customs we know are a combination of Buddhist teachings from China and various beliefs unique to Japan.