The greatest event in October is the commemoration of the death of Nichiren, the founder of the Buddhist sect of that name, who died in 1282 at the temple of Honmonji, a few miles south-west of Tokyo. On the evening of the twelfth, the votaries leave Tokyo in parties chanting prayers and beating flat drums; and they sit up all night in the temple or, if they cannot get lodging anywhere, lie down in the extensive temple-grounds. On the thirteenth, the anniversary of Nichiren’s death, mass is held in great state in the temple. Even those who do not profess the Nichiren doctrines visit the temple to look at the crowds gathered there. The only other religious celebration of the kind that can compare with it is the commemoration of the death of Shinran, the founder of the Shin sect, which takes place on the twenty-eighth of November in the two great temples of Honganji in Tokyo.
On the seventeenth of October, the newly-harvested rice is offered at the great Shrine of the Sun-Goddess in the province of Ise; and in a country where rice is the most important food, such an occasion is naturally celebrated as a national holiday. On the twentieth, the fête of Daikoku and Ebisu, the two gods of fortune, is celebrated in many merchants’ houses with a great feast to which friends and relatives are invited.
The third of November is the Emperor’s birthday. His Majesty reviews the troops early in the morning and holds a banquet at noon, to which the Imperial Princes, high government officials, and the foreign ambassadors and ministers are invited. A salute of a hundred and eight guns is fired in the bay; and in the evening the minister for foreign affairs gives a ball to high officials, the diplomatic corps, and other persons of rank and position, Japanese and foreign. In this month the chrysanthemums are in full bloom; at Dangozaka, not far from Uyeno Park, are exhibited scenes from well-known plays or representations of passing events, in which the figures are clothed with chrysanthemum flowers of various colours. They attract large crowds; but the finest flowers are to be seen in the palace-grounds at Akasaka, where the Imperial chrysanthemum party is given, and at the mansions of noblemen and men of wealth. This month is also noted for the maple-leaves, which, when they become crimson, are highly admired; and many people make pilgrimages to the banks of the Takinogawa, a few miles north of Uyeno Park, where they are to be seen in great profusion.