A night in mid-August. On a mountain east of Nara, a single character — 大, “great” — appears in flame. The following night, five mountains ringing Kyoto light up one after another.
These are the fires burned at the close of Obon. They are called okuribi — the sending-off fire.
Obon is the period when the spirits of the ancestors are said to return home from the other world, once a year. In most of Japan it falls across four days, August 13th to 16th. A fire lit on the evening of the first day is the mukaebi, the welcoming fire. A fire lit on the evening of the last day is the okuribi. You welcomed someone in; now you see them off. That is all it is — and it is a very quiet fire.
Here we’ll walk gently through what okuribi is, for anyone meeting it for the first time.
What this article covers
- What the sending-off fire is for
- The small fire burned at the front door (ogara and hōroku)
- Fires lit on mountains — Kyoto’s Gozan no Okuribi
- Nara’s Daimonji Okuribi — a fire that prays for the dead and for peace
- Fires sent out on water — tōrō nagashi, and Nagasaki’s shōrō nagashi
- What is left after the fire goes out
What is okuribi?
Okuribi is the rite of sending the souls that came home for Obon back out to the other world. It is the counterpart of the welcoming fire, mukaebi.
Fire has always carried the role of a light that shows the way through the dark. The welcoming fire is a marker, so the ancestors can find the house. The sending-off fire lights the road home again — that is how it is usually explained.
A fire that illuminates a destination, burned twice: once going, once returning. The few days of Obon are the time held between those two fires.
Observances like these are said to have settled into the yearly calendar after the Muromachi period, once Buddhism had spread among ordinary people. That said, much about the origins remains genuinely unclear, and the shape and even the name of the rite differ considerably from region to region.
The small fire at the front door
Say “okuribi” and you may picture a great fire on a mountainside. But it began as something far smaller — a fire kept by each household.
Usually it is lit on the evening of August 16th, once the light has started to go and before the sun is fully down — roughly 5 to 7 p.m. is the common guide. The fire is made at the entrance or the gate.
Two things are used: ogara and hōroku.
- Ogara — dried hemp stalks with the bark stripped away. They catch easily; this is the fuel
- Hōroku — a flat unglazed earthenware dish. The ogara is burned on top of it
Come Obon, both appear on the shelves of supermarkets and home centers. They are not special equipment.
Many homes today — apartments in particular — simply cannot have an open flame. In that case it’s widely suggested that you light an electric or battery-powered bonchōchin (an Obon lantern), use a candle sold for the purpose, or set out the dish and stalks as a display without lighting them at all.
Which is to say: the form is flexible. What matters more is that one light is made ready for the sending off.
Fires on the mountains — Kyoto’s Gozan no Okuribi
The small household fire, grown to the scale of a whole city. That is Kyoto’s Gozan no Okuribi, the Five Mountain Sending Fire.
Every year on the night of August 16th, five mountains encircling Kyoto are lit in sequence.
- 20:00 — Daimonji, the character 大 (Sakyō ward, Jōdoji)
- 20:05 — Matsugasaki Myō-Hō, the characters 妙 and 法 (Sakyō ward, Matsugasaki)
- 20:10 — Funagata, a boat shape (Kita ward, Nishigamo)
- 20:15 — Hidari Daimonji, a second 大 (Kita ward, Ōkitayama)
- 20:20 — Toriigata, the shape of a shrine gate (Ukyō ward, Saga Toriimoto)
Five minutes apart, one mountain after another comes alight. Each burns for around thirty minutes, then quietly goes out.
When all this began is, in fact, not known. No official record survives, and the theories range from the Heian period to the Edo period. Each mountain has its own handed-down story, too. The boat shape is said to recall the monk Jikaku Daishi Ennin, who met a violent storm on the voyage home from Tang China and arrived safely after chanting the name of Amida Buddha. The torii shape is sometimes traced to Kōbō Daishi lighting a fire at the consecration of a thousand stone Buddhas — though that account is regarded by some as having little credibility, and other explanations exist. None of them can be dated with confidence.
One thing is worth knowing if you visit: what to call it. The formal name is Gozan no Okuribi; locally, people usually just say Daimonji. Quite a few Kyoto residents dislike the form “Daimonji-yaki” — “yaki” meaning to burn or grill — because there is no burning of the mountain involved. It is a fire for sending someone off, not a spectacle. That sense has survived in the argument over its name.
Nara’s Daimonji Okuribi
The night before Kyoto, on August 15th, a 大 is lit in Nara as well. This is the Nara Daimonji Okuribi.
It is a modern observance, begun in 1960. It started as a fire to console those who died in the war, and it continues today as a rite that mourns all who have died — including in disasters — and prays for world peace.
Before the lighting, a memorial service is held from 7 p.m. at Tobihino, on the grounds of Kasuga Taisha shrine. Shinto priests of Kasuga Taisha and Buddhist monks from around thirty temples in the prefecture pray together at the same altar — a joint Shinto-Buddhist form that is unusual anywhere in Japan. Then at 8 p.m., the fire beds on Mount Takamado are lit.
On this particular date, a fire before which people put their hands together across the line between religions. It is an example of an old form — the sending-off fire — taking on a new prayer.
Fires sent out on water — tōrō nagashi and shōrō nagashi
Okuribi does not belong only to the mountains. There is also a form that floats the light out onto water.
Tōrō nagashi sets lit lanterns adrift on a river or the sea to send off the souls of the dead. In Japan it is done at Obon as a kind of sending-off fire — but not on one nationwide date, since the timing and the reading of Obon vary by region. Similar customs exist across Asia.
One thing deserves to be said plainly. From the 1970s onward, pollution of rivers and seas became a problem, and a fair number of places stopped releasing lanterns as they had. Today the numbers are limited, gentler materials are used, and lanterns are collected downstream. Not letting them simply drift away — that, too, is part of what this observance is now.
There is another rite whose name sounds similar and is often confused with it: Nagasaki’s shōrō nagashi. It is a different thing entirely.
Every year from the evening of August 15th, families whose relative has died since the previous Obon carry that person’s spirit through the streets aboard a shōrō-bune, a spirit boat decked with Obon lanterns and paper flowers. The boats have a set limit — up to ten meters long, and anything longer is made by linking smaller boats together. And above all, this is not quiet. It takes place in tremendous noise: the crack of firecrackers, the clang of hand gongs, voices calling out. That clamor is attributed to the influence of the Chinese custom of floating decorated boats. The firecrackers are understood as a charm against evil, clearing the road the boat will travel.
Some places see the dead off in silence. Others see them off with firecrackers. Both are okuribi.
In closing
Okuribi is not a fire of beginnings. It is a fire of endings.
You welcome someone, spend a few days together, and see them off. This fire sits at the very last of that, which is why people mostly watch it in silence. Even Kyoto’s Gozan no Okuribi, which looks like a grand event, is over in about half an hour. Afterward the mountain goes back to being a dark mountain.
Still, a fire whose purpose is to go out is a strange thing when you think about it. A fire that burned on and on could not be a sending-off fire. It becomes a farewell precisely because it ends.
If you happen to be in Japan in mid-August, try walking through a neighborhood in the early evening. You’ll find a small fire set by a doorway, or a lantern swaying behind a window. Someone’s household is seeing someone off, right at that moment.
Standing still and looking is enough. Okuribi is not a fire you have to join — only one it is enough to know is there.
References
- Wikipedia, “送り火” https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/送り火
- Wikipedia, “五山送り火” https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/五山送り火
- Wikipedia, “灯籠流し” https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/灯籠流し
- Wikipedia, “精霊流し” https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/精霊流し
- KBS Kyoto, Gozan no Okuribi feature https://www.kbs-kyoto.co.jp/contents/okuribi/index.htm
- Nara City Tourism Association, “The 67th Nara Daimonji Okuribi” https://narashikanko.or.jp/feature/naradaimonjiokuribi
- Nagasaki Tourism Portal, “Shōrō Nagashi” https://www.at-nagasaki.jp/event/51798
- Hasegawa, “When to light the Obon welcoming and sending fires” https://www.hasegawa.jp/blogs/kuyou/obon-mukaebiokuribi
