The Autumn equinox - and the flowers of Heaven or Hell

Higanbana on the edges of the fields - photo courtesy of Japundit

Autumn is here already and I feel I have been sadly neglecting this blog - hopefully, I will be a bit more attentive in the next few months. 

One of the most characteristic sights of this time of the year are the higanbana (higan refers to the Autumn equinox; hana/bana is flower - spider lily in English) which sprout up overnight by the sides of the fields from early September onwards. In fact, this flower has a multitude of names, many of them sounding distinctly ominous (hell flower and corpse flower, for example). These probably derive from the fact that the whole plant is poisonous and used to be planted around burial sights to deter animals disturbing the graves. 

They also have a strong connection with Buddhism. Higan means "the other shore" and these flowers (especially the white ones) are also referred to as manjushage (heavenly flower). 

Higanbana from the end credits of 
Kimetsu no Yaiba

The tension between these two extremes, as well as their obvious beauty, makes them ideal as symbols in (dark) fantasy manga and anime - they feature in Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer), for example, the movie version of which became the highest grossing movie of 2020 world-wide. 

September is also the season of typhoons (one is circling in the vicinity as I write), and while Kyoto rarely suffers very badly, they regularly cause great damage and flooding in other areas of the country as well as the time when the sweltering heat of summer eases into something far more comfortable.

To finish with, here is a poem by Melvin Wong, originally written in Japanese, which features higanbana. We worked together when I translated one of his books, and I found his imagery very stimulating. His poems dip into another world underlying the everyday, one with complex roots from his mixed cultural background – yet still very much his own. 

Rice Field                                                                                                                                                    

The autumn light unhesitatingly 

Switched the waving rice 

From the green of summer to its own yellow-brown.         

With the turn of seasons,       

Nothing is forgotten, it seems.        

Like roaring flames come the red flowers.          

The fresh blood of jealousy erupts      

From the multitude of buried dead.                         

What plot is this?                               

In a single night                           

In all the fields around,                                                         

The rice,                    

Before its day of execution, 

Is bent before the violence of the coming storm

Blowing ever more strongly.

At the end of the day - no harvesting 

And fear increasing all the more -    

An eerie sunset 

Melvin Wong (Chris Hellman Trans.) 

p.s. This is an update of a post from October 2010