The main hall of the temple was filled with cucumbers. Chief Buddhist pastor gave a prayer to each cucumber. (in Saijo-shi, Ehime Prefecture)
Once a year on the day of the ox in midsummer in Japan, a Buddhist temple in Saijo-shi, Ehime Prefecture performs a unique traditional ritual called Kyuri-fuji, which literally means a cucumber sealing service. The Buddhist rite is held by the temple, Setayakushi, to pray for good health of people by having cucumbers bear all the bad conditions of for example the people suffering long-standing illnesses.
A paper with a name, the person’s age and wish is pasted to each cucumber.
On July 30, 2016, the ceremony began with the sound of a shell horn blown loudly. The main hall of the temple was filled with approximately 6,000 cucumbers set on big wooden trays. Local Buddhist practitioners beat a dram and ringed shakujo, Buddhist ringed staffs, as the chief pastor of the temple, Seiji Tanaka, picked up the cucumbers one by one to give strong prayers. A piece of paper which wrote a name and the person’s illness was
Purified cucumbers were buried in the soil after the ceremony.
pasted to each cucumber. From early in the morning,
local Buddhist believers pasted the papers sent from all over Japan to the cucumbers.
Aono harvesting big cucumbers
After the ceremony, all the purified cucumbers were thrown into a one-meter-quare stone-walled hole in the temple’s garden. The illnesses are believed to go away when the cucumbers return to the soil in the hole. “I have a bad leg, so I came to pray for early recovery,” an 80-year-old man from Saijo-shi said.
The ritual can date back to the Edo period, more than 300 years ago.
Most of the cucumbers here were provided by JA Shuso, which is an agricultural cooperative in the cummunity with the largest cucumber shipment in the prefecture. Only at this time of the year, the JA accepts the cucumbers that grew too big for regular shipment. A 39-year-old farmer, Shinji Aono, said, “I’m glad that our non-standard products are of some use.”