Sanjo Matsuri
I start my Japan tavel log with the last days in Japan. That was to attend the famous festival of Sanja Matsuri. It is one of the largest and most renowned festivals in the city, held annually on the third weekend of May at Asakusa Shrine. The eyewitnessing the festival is a great fun experience not just to quench the my "culture vulture" soul but as an illustrious example of religious co-existence in a modern secular society, between two sects having past rivalary and animosity. Japan has practiced a policy known as "Shinto-Buddhism amalgamation" (Shinbutsu Bunri) at the societal and national level. Sanja Matsuri. (I will expand on this Shinto-Buddhism co-existence later at the blog as it is a role-model some for many nations having inious contreligius conflicts)
It is held over three days typically on the third weekend in May. It draws a very large crowd to the Asakusa area with around 2 million people visiting the festival during the course of the weekend. I coordianteed our trip to be at Asakusa, Tokyo on May 19-20 2023 to atted the festival. Last three years the festival did not happen due to Covid.
The festival features processions of portable shrines (mikoshi), traditional music and dance performances, and attracts a large number of visitors. It has some commonalities with the "rath yatra" in India where Hindu deities are carried on chariots few miles away or "tajia procession in Muharram" ritual by Shia Muslims.
The authorities has given schedule and the procession pathways. However it was not followed due to heavy rain on Friday and light rain on Saturday. However I was lucky enough to bump in to procession on late Friday evening and more of a full procession on Saturday noon before leaving for the airport for the retrun flight.
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The best day to visit the festival in my opinion is on the Saturday when all the local neighbourhoods are carrying their mikoshi (portable shrines) from Asakusa Shrine through the Senso-ji grounds and out through the Kaminarimon gate. There are around 100 mikoshi so the event goes on for quite a few hours with the first mikoshi leaving the shrine at around noon. At this time the crowd gets very intense with people pushing for a chance to see them up close.
Despite the intensity of the crowd you can't help be happy at this festival as you watch all the team members chanting and heaving the mikoshi into the air with so much enthusiasm. The mikoshi are not light either with many weighing in at around 1 ton but yet everyone looks like they are carrying it without too much trouble. The people were exceptionally cordial. Readily allowed me to be part of procession inol the parade, volunterring for selfies , communicate ( even though we can not w/o some translating rapp). The Nakamise-dori, a shopping street gets so crowded (one can reconcile the visitor crowd in millions) that one may get mindful of being run over in a stempade. Fortunately crowd was very patient and Civil . You may see in the detailed photo-album.
My Videos of SanjaMatsuri festivals ( coming)
References:
posted by TusharInAsia @ May 26, 2023
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