Obon is a Japanese Buddhist custom that is more than 500 years old.
Do you know: Based on the lunar calendar, the Obon festival is organized at three different times in a year.
The Obon festival evolved out of a story of one of the Buddha’s disciples–Mokori and his offerings to the Buddhist monks to set the spirit of his deceased mother free. When he had succeeded in doing the same, he danced with joy. From this dance came the Bon Odori dance. The festival ends with the floating of lanterns that guide the ancestral spirit back to the world of the dead.
