to Sri Lanka for the first time; this season is marked
by pilgrimages and processions to the mountain
where he first encountered the Sri Lankan king, by
the offering of food and drink to pilgrims, and by
such modern entertainments as television dramas,
concerts of devotional music, and “haunted houses.”
Quite apart from these pan-Buddhist and large-
scale rituals and festivals, individual Buddhist families
often observe rites on a calendrical cycle, punctuated
by the day each month or each year when they take
alms (dana) to the monks at a chosen temple, or yearly
death anniversaries when they make special offerings
of food, robes, and other requisites. Individual temples
may also sponsor calendrical rites and festivals to cel-
ebrate their founding or the birthday or death an-
niversary of an incumbent monk, or to raise funds for
temple improvement projects.
Throughout the region there are also calendrical
rites and festivals associated with indigenous as well as
originally Hindu deities, which, though only quasi
Buddhist, have been absorbed into the Buddhist mi-
lieu. In Sri Lanka, the month that culminates in the
full-moon day corresponding to July/August (Sinhala,
Äs ́ala) is the primary period for annual festivals and
processions honoring various such deities. The most
famous of these is the Kandy Perahera, in which the
guardian deities of the island, together with the tooth
relic of the Buddha, are paraded through the streets of
the last Sri Lankan Buddhist royal capital amidst rites
that derive from both Buddhism (e.g., paritta-chant-
ing, sermons, almsgiving) and Hinduism (e.g., pujato
images of the deities, mantra-chanting). The celebra-
tion of the Lunar New Year, in mid-April, is another
example of a calendrical festival that, though not
specifically Buddhist, nevertheless entails various Bud-
dhist rituals, such as the presentation of the first rice
of the year to a temple and vows to Buddhist deities.
In modern times, Buddhist countries also use the
Roman calendar, within which secularized calendrical
festivals are observed. Thus, the Western New Year
might be celebrated on the night of December 31, even
by those who will celebrate the traditional New Year
in April; though full-moon days are holidays, with at-
tendant laws (such as prohibitions on the sale of alco-
hol) to keep them sacred, Saturdays and Sundays enjoy
the same status. National festivals tend to be calculated
according to the Roman calendar, such as Sri Lanka’s
National Day on February 4, the Thai King’s Birthday
on December 5, or May Day, which is celebrated by
workers all over the region. These national festivals are
often attended by colorful street displays that parallel
the strictly Buddhist festivals described above, Bud-
dhist rites such as almsgivings and processions, and the
active participation of Buddhist clergy.East Asian festivals
In East Asia, Buddhist celebrations have been incor-
porated into a greater festival year that includes obser-
vances that might be defined as primarily Confucian,
Daoist, “folk,” or Shinto, depending on the country.
Of particular note are the Buddha’s birth, enlighten-
ment, and parinirvana,which are commemorated on
separate days (unlike the situation in Theravada coun-
tries, where they are all celebrated on the full-moon
day of Vesakha, or April/May). The festival of the Bud-
dha’s birthday, in modern times, falls on April 8, and
features the bathing of images of the infant Gautama,
who is represented at the moment of his birth, stand-
ing with one hand pointed to the sky declaring his su-
premacy in the world. The rite has been traced back as
early as the fourth century in China, and may have its
roots in India. In Japan this event overlaps with the fes-
tival of flowers known as Hana matsuri. The Buddha’s
enlightenment day (Japanese, jodo-e) is celebrated on
December 8, and marks not only his attainment of
BODHI(AWAKENING), but the end of his period of se-
vere austerities. In the CHAN SCHOOL, this day is some-
times preceded by a one-week period of intensive
meditation, often involving never lying down to sleep.
The commemoration of the Buddha’s death and
parinirvana(Japanese, nehan-e) falls on February (or
March) 15. This celebration has been traced as far back
as the sixth century in China, and may also have its
origins in India. In Japan, the celebration held in Bud-
dhist temples involves exhibitions of large paintings of
the Buddha reclining on his deathbed.
Of greater importance and more generally popular
is the celebration of the GHOSTFESTIVAL(Japanese,
Obon), which falls on July (or August) 15. This is a
time when family graves are cleaned and when the spir-
its of departed ancestors are received on household al-
tars. Its Buddhist roots are found in the story of the
Buddha’s disciple MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA, who, at the
Buddha’s recommendation, gave offerings to the
monks in order to allay the sufferings of his mother
who had been reborn in hell, an act that emphasized
the ethic of filial piety.
Perhaps of lesser connection to Buddhism in East
Asia is the celebration of the New Year, which is also
understood to be a time for welcoming the dead, as
well as an occasion for renewal and the reassertion ofFESTIVALS ANDCALENDRICALRITUALS