◉About Daruma◉

Image source Zen Buddhism

The Jindaiji Temple in Chofu, Tokyo is the second oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo (the first being Sensoji Temple in Asakusa). Every March, Jindaiji holds a Daruma Doll Festival and people from all over come to buy an open-eyed daruma. There are about 300 stalls along and around the temple ground so people are sure to have a good time and find the daruma of their dreams. 

Despite living minutes by bike from Jindaiji, this was our first time going to the festival. This year it was on March 3rd (Sat) and 4th (Sun) from 9am~5pm. We read that if you go around 2pm the Jindaiji monks will do some kind of performance called Oneri Gyoretsu, which is just the temple's monks walking around the temple while traditional music plays. I am more than certain we were there at 2pm, but we must have just not heard the music and missed it. Which is a shame but no big deal since we were just as entertained looking at all the daruma!!

There Were All Kinds of Daruma

I learned that day that even the facial hair has a deep representation. Can you see a couple of images within the facial hair?? They took two animals from the Asian culture that symbolizes longevity and incorporated them into the daruma's facial hair. The eyebrows are supposed to be cranes, and the cheek parts of the beard are tortoises or tortoise shells.🐢 In many Asian cultures they say cranes live for 1,000 years, and turtles for 10,000 years. So by including both represents the desire for a long life. The cranes I can kind of see….but not the tortoise. Then this daruma specifically (in the picture above), the chin part of the beard is Mt. Fuji.🗻

There were also Japanese ceramic bells (土鈴; dorei) painted as daruma.

 Recently was Girls Day, or Hina Matsuri (ひな祭り), so there were even "Hina Matsuri daruma". Not as cute as the real hina dolls but the idea is still cute!🎎

Then for the pure purpose of decoration, there were a whole new version of daruma dolls. Japanese shiba, cute maneki neko, traditional bowl haircut girls… Even daruma representing the Chinese calendar…which were SUPER cute!🐍🐯🐵 However, with their eyes already being filled, it takes away the fun of filling them yourself. We noticed a leopard print daruma though and its eyes were still open like the traditional daruma. Being a lover of leopard print, I was super tempted to buy it but ended up not getting one. 

Are really just like soulless zombies. Their empty eyes with the strong rings around them are actually a bit creepy after a while.

Everywhere you looked were daruma waiting to be sold. It's crazy to imagine each and every single one was handcrafted. What is evern crazier is some of the sizes people bought at the festival. Where do they put a massive daruma that is about the size of their child!?!?!?!

At the festival, if you bought a daruma, you could bring it over to a monk for the Daruma Kaigansho, or "Spiritual Awakening" (lit translated as "Eye Opener") booth. The monk will write the character 阿 (pronounced "ah") on the left eye which stands for the "O" in Oma, a sacred syllable in Buddhism that is said to be known as the beginning of things in life.

For those who had old darumas that they wanted to get their eye filled in because their wish came true, that was an option as well. Just line up and give it to the monks where they fill in the right eye with the character 吽 (pronounced "oon") which stands for the "m" in Om, standing for the end.  Once you got your old daruma's right eye filled in, it's customary to get rid of it. However, you just can't throw it in the trash or anything like that. You have to take it to a temple where they burn it. For that reason, there was a massive "daruma offering place" set up right in front of the temple. There you saw many people getting rid of their old darumas. 

〇Other Things at During the Daruma Festival◉

If buying a daruma isn't really something you're too interested in but want to get SOMETHING as souvenir…then Japanese temples and shrines have a really unique thing where you can get honorable stamps. Many people in Japan own a stamp book, Goshuinchou (御朱印帳), and they take it to temples and shrines all over Japan to get stamped. We have a stamp book too but forgot to bring it with us. So for those who forget or don't have a book, you can just buy the stamp on a sheet of paper. Then if you have a book you can glue it in later. These stamps are normally really cheap, depending on the shrine/temple ranges from 200yen~500yen.

The Jindaiji Daruma Festival is every year on March 3rd and 4th.​

★Jindaiji Temple (深大寺)
 5-15-1 Jindaiji Motomachi, Chofu, Tokyo 182-0017
**Jindaiji Temple Official Site**
From Mitaka Station South Exit, get on the #65 bus towards Jindaiji (深大寺)
Roughly a 20 minute ride, ￥220
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