Seiryu-e Festival

Today, I went to an awesome festival at Kiyomizu Temple. The temple was in the running to be one of the New Seven Wonders of the World and really is stunning.

Anyway, this festival was Seiryu-e or the Rite of the Blue Dragon. The dragon is supposed to be a reincarnation of the temple’s main statue, Kannon, who comes to drink every night at the Otowa no taki waterfall in the temple precincts.

This festival is to revere the dragon who has been keeping vigil over Kyoto at all times to make sure people don’t suffer from misfortune. Seiryu-e is held twice a year, in March and September. I am pretty sure it carries "change of the seasons" significance as well.

In the festival, a very large and very cool dragon made from linen and washi paper was paraded around by "warriors". I heard that papers bearing the texts of the sutras are placed inside the ~ 8000 scales of the dragon. Wow!

Meanwhile, monks blew horagai, or conch shell trumpets, and others clicked wooden sticks together and chanted. Ceremonial women carried incense and later blessed leaves in white, orange and green for some of the festival viewers. I was one of the lucky ones to receive a leaf. Yay!