Unlike other big spiritual honchos, the Buddha was not a god. He was just a man, albeit a royal one, the princely son of an admittedly corrupt Brahman monarch. Same 2,500 years ago, in India, a white elephant intimated to the monarch's wife that she had conceived a child. she strode into the palace garden, where according to legend she painlessly birthed a son. As a young man, this Siddhartha Gautama bade farewell to all princely delights and sallied forth seeking and eventually finding enlightenment.
While most Asian Buddhists celebrate the Buddha's birthday according to the lunar calendar, Japanese Buddhists observe it every April 8. The Japanese name for it, Hana Matsuri, means "flower festival," an allusion to the season and to the garden in which he was born. On this day, every Japanese Buddhist temple sports a flower festooned, peaked roofed, portable shrine, a hanamido. Under the peak roof stands a bronze statue of the infant Buddha, pointing up at the sky with his right hand down to earth with his left. He stands in a basin filled with a dark, naturally sweet tea, ama cha, brewed from hydrangea leaves. A ladle lies poised in the basin. After the temple service, the congregants line up at the hanamido, taking turns using the ladle to pour tea over the statue's head.
In Hawai'i, where it is an official state holiday, Hana Matsuri is known as Buddha Day.
