The Hiwatari Festival at Mount Takao 高尾山火渡り祭

A sacred mountain

Mount Takao ( Takao-san ), located about fifty kilometers west of Tokyo, is a sacred mountain that is part of the Meiji no Mori Takao Quasi-National Park . Throughout the year, the site attracts mystics but also Tokyoites in search of fresh air.

At the foot of the mountain stretch the buildings of the Takao-san Yakuo-in Yuki-ji temple, commonly known as Yakuo-in. Built in 744 under the orders of Emperor Shomu, it became one of the largest Buddhist temples in eastern Japan.

Restored in the 14th century by a monk from the Shingon esoteric Buddhist sect, the temple and Mount Takao flourished as a retreat for practitioners of Shugendo . Shugendo is a branch of Japanese esoteric Buddhism that combines magical practices with different kinds of asceticism, including that of fire walking .

To read: Mount Takao

A very ritualized ceremony

On the day of Hiwatari-sai ("fire-walking festival") , monks dressed in white and wearing a small skullcap worn on their foreheads (the outfit of the yamabushi ), leave the Takaosan Yakuoin temple and parade to the sound of conches to a lower parking lot, where a large pile of cypress branches has been formed into a long brazier.

A crowd of spectators is gathered around the future brazier to attend the long ceremony made up of rituals , incantations and magic gestures which precedes the walk on the fire. Faithful and religious keep chanting while a monk reads the long list of the names of the faithful who have bought a goma-gi, a small wooden plaque on which their name and wishes are written and which will be burned in the brazier in hope that wishes will be granted. This task completed, come the rituals: several movements are carried out by the monks using a long axe, a saber and arrows in order to chase away evil spirits. Then, with a lot of magical gestures, the senior monk sets fire to the pile of branches.

The heat is getting more and more intense as monks stoke the fire with hundreds of goma-gi . Then comes another strong moment: two bare-chested monks douse themselves with hot water using a branch of a sacred tree dipped in cauldrons of boiling water.

The way of purification is thus opened and the superior monk begins walking barefoot on the brazier followed by the other monks. Once the heat of the embers has subsided, this ceremony being open to all, the public, of all ages and of both sexes, can also walk on the fire in the hope that this act of purification [in Asia, fire has a role of purification] will allow the realization of his wishes.

See also: Nachi no Hi fire festival