Size difference makes human cleaners of the Daibutsu statue look like tiny little spirits.

If you had a bunch of people about to come visit your home, you’d want to clean yourself up before they arrived, right? It’s just common courtesy.

So with Japan’s Obon summer vacation period just about to start, and a whole lot of travelers planning to visit Nara’s Todaiji Temple soon, it’s important for the building’s most prominent resident to look his best. Said resident, however, is the Daibutsu, or Great Buddha statue, which is a towering 14.98 meters (49.15 feet) tall, so this once-a-year cleaning session is no simple task, but it’s definitely a compellingly surreal sight to see.

The annual event is called ominugui, literally “wiping the body.” It takes place every year on the morning of August 7, and begins with a ritual of purification for the participants, plus a ceremony to symbolically and temporarily remove the soul of the Daibutsu, so as not to desecrate it by climbing and stepping all over it while cleaning.

Because of how tall the statue is, an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys is used to lift cleaners up and suspend them in mid-air to dust and wipe off the Great Buddha’s face, forehead, and complexly contoured hairdo.

Ordinarily, of course, visitors are not allowed to climb up on the statue like this, and the images of the ominugui ceremony drive home just how big it is. At the same time, from certain angles where there aren’t any other objects visible in the shot for comparison, it almost looks like the Daibutsu is human-sized, and the people are a group of little spirit folk.

▼ The ominugui ceremony in 1957

Roughly 170 people took part in this year’s event, with both monks and non-monk volunteers grabbing brooms and dusters to get the job done. If you’re interested in pitching in next year, Todaiji usually posts a volunteers-wanted notice on its website as the ominugui date draws near.

Related: Todaiji official website
Source: MBS News, Visit Nara
Top image: Pakutaso
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