Lanterns floating on ocean at sunset Buddhist Lantern Festival Toro Nagashi Honolulu Oahu Hawaii
Tōrō nagashi (灯篭流し) is a Japanese ceremony in which participants float paper lanterns (chōchin) down a river. This is primarily done on the last evening of the Buddhist O-bon festival as a way to guide the spirits of the departed back to the other world. The ceremony may, however, be done on some other days of the year, for similar reasons, such as to commemorate those lost in the bombing of Hiroshima; or in other areas of the world, such as Hawaii, to commemorate the end of World War II. Obon takes place on the thirteenth to sixteenth of August or July, depending on the calendar you go by. The white lanterns are for those who have died in the past year. Some Japanese believe that we come from water, so the lanterns represent our bodies returning to water (the sea).
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