A Funeral Ceremony in Japan

In general, Japanese people are likely to be less conscious about religion than other people in the world. We have a mixture of religious events. More and more people are having their wedding ceremony in a Christian way. Many people go to a Buddhist temple on the night of New Year's Eve and go to a Shinto shrine just after leaving the temple in the early morning of January 1st.

However, we have a unique and traditional custom for a funeral ceremony in Japan. Most Japanese have a funeral ceremony in a Buddhist way because of the history of Buddhism connecting it to our daily life. In the Edo era, (in 17th-19th Century) all citizens were said to belong to the nearest temple to be controlled. In addition, we have another calendar based on the Chinese idea of dates which consists of six days in a week. We avoid having a funeral ceremony on certain days, so we sometimes postpone it to a suitable day. This is also an interesting point.

We have a small ceremony called Tsuya, which means through a night, on the night before the main ceremony. Relatives used to have to keep fires burning through the night, but now it lasts only in a few hours. At a typical main funeral ceremony, a Buddhist priest chants Buddhist sutra for hours and after the ceremony the body is cremated. We gather and invite a priest, every 7 days for 7 weeks and on the 49th day after the death, we have a big ceremony again and it signifies the completion of the mourning period. Then the ashes are set in a tomb.