Yeondeunghoe (Lotus Lantern Festival)

Lighting a lantern

Yeondeunghoe means “lighting lanterns”, and is often translated as the Lotus Lantern Festival. It celebrates the birth of the Buddha, and the lanterns stand for light, hope and unity; lighting them is meant to enlighten the minds of individuals, communities and society through the Buddha’s wisdom. The festival is thought to have grown out of Palgwanhoe, begun in 551 under King Jinheung, and records mention it at Hwangnyongsa temple in Gyeongju in 866. In Silla the lantern festivals combined Buddhist lantern offerings with rites to the dragon god for the protection of farmers and the nation.

The celebration begins with the ritual bathing of a statue of the baby Buddha: water is poured over its head and shoulders with a ladle. Then come public processions in which people carry lanterns they have made, followed by games and recreation. UNESCO, which inscribed the festival in 2020, noted that it is a time when social boundaries are temporarily erased, and that in hard times it has helped hold communities together.

How the lanterns are made

The lotus is the most common design, a Buddhist symbol of dignity and awakening, but lanterns also take the shape of drums, cranes, fish, dragons, tigers, historical figures and ships. Large lanterns have a frame of split bamboo or wire covered in hanji, the strong traditional paper made from mulberry bark, or in silk, and are lit from inside — once with candles, now usually with LEDs. Simple lotus lanterns are made at home and in community workshops by twisting tissue-paper petals onto a white paper globe.

The festival in Jongno, home to Jogyesa, the chief temple of the Jogye Order, is the best known. It has been cancelled only a handful of times in modern history, most recently in 2020 because of the pandemic.