Aizen Summer Festival (June 30-July 2)

The Aizen Summer Festival is one of three summer celebrations based in Osaka, Japan, unique for being held at a Buddhist temple. Its role in the festival survived through the Meiji Restoration and the subsequent privileging of Shinto over Buddhism as this temple dates to the sixth century. It was a gift to Osaka by the pioneering Japanese Buddhist Prince Shotoku (a.k.a. Shotokutaishi, 574–622). The festival originated in the 18th century.

The Aizen Temple was a public clinic for the poor, one of four such temples built by Shotoku. Its monks grew plants, which were then used as medicinal aids for the poor. Shotoku also installed a statue of Queen Srimala (Queen Shoman), an Indian queen mentioned in the Srimaladevi Sutra, also known in English as The Lion’s Roar of Queen Srimala. Later, Aizen-Myoo, the god of good matchmaking and happy marriages, was also installed. Thus the temple became known as Shoman-in Aizen-do. Rites for the summer fest are led by a group of priests led by the chief priests of Shitennoji at Taho Pagoda (a nearby temple in Osaka).

Women have a key role in the festival. At the same time, many females coming to the event wear yukatas, the light summer kimonas that have again become popular in Japan as street wear. As the three-day festival starts, a group of Aizen girls wearing a yukata designed for the festival moves between the temple and the local train station shouting out a chant about the coming event. The festival includes a parade in which local girls play the role of geisha girls in their kimonas coming for worship at the temple. They arrive on elaborately decorated palanquins. Among the yukata-wearing women accompanying the palanquins are a contingent from the Osaka Yuhigaoka Gakuen Fashion Department.

Meanwhile, at the temple, the women will organize what is known as the “palanquin shake,” held in front of Taho Pagoda. Twelve Aizen girls on the palanquins are raised above the crowd to their delight and shaken, their back-and-forth movement being said to ward off the evil. In the crowd are many people from the local dyeing and apparel industry who come to pray to Aizen-Myoo. “Aizen” in Japanese means indigo dye.

References 
“Naniwa Summer Festivals.” Posted at http://www.osaka-info.jp/en/ofc/201006/ index.html. Accessed June 15, 2010. Plutschow, Herbert. Matsuri: The Festivals of Japan. Richmond, Surrey, UK: Curzon Press, 1996.