Fire events of the Bon are held late in summer at five sites on the hills surrounding Kyoto to bid farewell to ancestors’ spirits. This is the fire on Mt. Daimonji among the eastern hills.

“They have another festival called Bon, held each year in the memory of the souls of their forebears in the month of August, on the fifteenth day of the moon thereof, beginning on the evening of the fourteenth. Everybody sets lighted lamps in the streets, decorated as best he can, and all night long the streets are thronged with people, some out of devotion to the dead, and others out of curiosity to see what is going on… On the evening of the second day, many people roam through the hills and fields with torches and lights, saying that they are showing the souls their way back, lest they should miss their way…”

— Letter written by Father Gaspar Vilela to his colleagues of the Society of Jesus dated August 17, 1561.
Cited in C. R. Boxer (1967) The Christian Century in Japan, pp. 51-2.

Fire depicting ‘Myô-hô’, the title of the Lotus Sutra, held on the hill near Matsugasaki

Fire depicting a boat held on the hill near Nishikamo

Photographed by Noboru Ogata