F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-198

Engyō-ji Shushō-e Oni-oi Ceremony (Demon-Chasing Rite)

圓教寺 修正会 鬼追い会式えんぎょうじ しゅしょうえ おにおいえしき

The Oni-oi (demon-chasing) ceremony is a tsuina exorcism rite held at Engyō-ji — a Tendai head temple of special rank whose halls crown the summit of Mt. Shosha — as the culmination of the New Year shushō-e service. A red demon (Wakaten, an incarnation of Bishamonten) and a blue demon (Ototen, an incarnation of Fudō Myō-ō), modeled on the two護法 acolyte-deities said to have served the temple's founder Shōkū Shōnin, take up torches, swords, and halberds and stamp through the Maniden hall, performing an "oni dance" to drive out malign spirits and pray for an abundant harvest. Whereas in ordinary tsuina the demons are the ones driven out, here the demons are reversed into guardians of the Buddhist Law who protect people from calamity — a striking inversion of the usual view of demons. In the dim, smoke-filled hall of this ancient mountain temple, two demons in vividly painted masks dancing amid torch-fire and smoke transmit to the present day the form of a Tendai shushō-e service a thousand years old.