Hana-matsuri
(the anniversary of the birth of Buddha)
April 8th is the anniversary of Buddha's birth. Japanese people have great respect for Buddha, and he is often respectfully called o-shaka-sama. The prefix o and the suffix sama are both polite expressions that show respect. The shaka in the middle of o-shaka-sama is interpreted as Sakyamuni which is another name for Buddha. Buddhists call Buddha's birthday kanbutsue. They visit temples and pour special tea onto the statues of the newborn Buddha on kanbutsue. The tea prepared for kanbutsue is called amacha. It tastes a little sweet. People in the later Meiji era, around 1900, confused the kanbutsue with another event called hana-matsuri that literally means flower festival. Both kanbutsue and hana-matsuri were popular then and were held in the same season every year. Since then, April 8th, Buddha's birthday, has been known as hana-matsuri.
Temple sanctuaries are decorated with many flowers on kanbutsue, the Buddhist hana-matsuri. The sanctuaries full of flowers are called hana-mido, and statues of the newborn Buddha are placed there. The statues of Buddha are placed in basins that contain special tea (amacha) or perfume. People pour amacha or perfume onto the statues of the newborn Buddha with bamboo ladles. This comes from the legend that a ryu in the heavens poured perfumed warm water onto Buddha when he was a newborn baby. Some temples also have imitation white elephants placed on their grounds on that day.
The other hana-matsuri comes from a belief that was propagated among people in ancient times. People believed that a god came from the mountains to the villages in spring to protect their rice fields and then returned to the mountains in autumn to protect the mountains. People put up tall bamboo poles on their land on the day of hana-matsuri to welcome the god coming to their villages. The tops of the bamboo poles are decorated with flowers picked in the mountains. This event was not originally held on a specific day. It has probably been held on April 8th since this hana-matsuri and the Buddhist kanbutsue were confused.
ryu
A ryu is a gigantic imaginary beast that resembles a snake. It has four legs with sharp claws and two horns, and it can fly. Ryu usually live in the water, and they sometimes fly into the heavens to cause clouds, rain, and thunder. The word ryu is translated into English as dragon, but the dragon imagined by Western people is quite different from the ryu that is imagined by Asian people. The dragon symbolizes evil in Christian countries whereas the ryu symbolizes happiness in China.