Higan
Practices彼岸 ・ Reading: higan (ohigan)
Definition
The week around each equinox when Japanese families visit graves and hold memorial services. The name means "the other shore": when day and night balance, the world of the living is felt closest to the world beyond.
The week of the other shore
Higan (usually o-higan) spans seven days centered on the spring and autumn equinoxes, both national holidays in Japan. In Buddhist imagery the world of enlightenment lies across a river on "the other shore", higan, and the equinox sun, setting due west toward Amida's Pure Land, makes these days the natural season to remember the dead. The custom is uniquely Japanese: nowhere else in the Buddhist world is the equinox itself a memorial season.
What families do
The heart of higan is ohaka-mairi, the grave visit: the family plot at the bodaiji or cemetery is washed, weeded, and offered flowers, incense, and the season's sweet, botamochi in spring and ohagi in autumn, the same rice-and-bean confection under seasonal names. Temples hold higan services, and priests are at their busiest reciting sutras for parishioner families. For travelers the season is gentle rather than spectacular: cemeteries bright with fresh flowers, incense on the air, and the red spider lilies of autumn higan blooming along field paths.
Common questions
- When is higan?
Twice a year: the seven days centered on the spring equinox (around March 20) and the autumn equinox (around September 23). Both equinox days are national holidays.
- What is the difference between botamochi and ohagi?
They are the same sweet, sticky rice wrapped in sweet bean paste, named for the season's flower: botamochi for the spring peony, ohagi for the autumn bush clover.
- How is higan different from Obon?
At Obon the ancestors are believed to come home to the living; at higan the living turn their thoughts toward the other shore, visiting graves while the equinox sun points due west to the Pure Land.