Every year on the seventh day of the seventh month (July 7 ) the Japanese celebrate Tanabata – the Star Festival. People write their wishes on little strips of coloured paper known as tanzaku and tie them on sprigs of bamboo and decorate their houses. This is to commemorate the meeting of two star- crossed lovers….
Orihime was a star princess who was the daughter of Tentei, the god of the heavens. The beautiful Orihime was a weaver goddess who spent all her time weaving by the Amanogawa, the heavenly river. You and I know this river as the Milky Way. She was her father’s beloved child and he loved the exquisite patterns that she wove, one more beautiful than the other.
Orihime worked long and hard every day and she barely had time for anything else like other young girls her age. Although her father was full of admiration for her dedication and sincerity towards her career option he was concerned about her. All work and no play was certainly making Orihime a dull girl, he thought and wanted her to have some excitement, some happiness and some love in her life. Princess Orihime herself was overcome by sadness and melancholy as she felt she had missed out on life’s opportunities.
So Tentei decided to find her a suitable young man to marry. And he found Hikoboshi, the cowherd star, who lived on the other side of the Amanogawa, as a suitor for his daughter. When the two met it was love at first sight for the young couple. Orihime was radiant and beautiful as the star that she was. Hikoboshi was equally good looking. Besides he had a kind and gentle manner.
Orihime agreed to the marriage, happy to find someone who could be her life’s companion. She would no longer feel lonely weaving all alone on the banks of the Amanogawa.
And soon the two young stars were married and Orihime finally found happiness. She loved her husband dearly and they spent all their days in the blissful company of each other beside the river Amanogawa. So absorbed were they in each other that they forgot their own responsibilities.
Orihime hardly spent any time weaving, while Hikoboshi’s cows wandered across the Milky Way and into the heavens!
Tentei was livid. What was happening to his dear daughter? Orihime was no longer weaving him any of those marvelous garments. And those silly cows, what were they doing in his part of the world now? How could Hikoboshi allow them to cross the Amanogawa? Tentei regretted his match making. He didn’t think it would come to this and disrupt everything. Order had to be restored. Immediately!
Summoning Orihime, he ordered her return to her duties. “How can you neglect your responsibilities? When was the last time you spent time at the loom? Enough of this now! Go back to your weaving and forget Hikobashi.”
Poor Orihime . What could she do? Obey she did and went back to her assigned place. Hikobashi got a earful from his father-in-law for his errant cows. He too was sent back to his old place. After all, they were stars, remember.
Orihime begged her father to reconsider. “Please, father... Hikobashi is my husband. And it was you who got us married in the first place. Please let me go back to him,” she cried. Tentei was kind of moved by his daughter’s plight but not quite.
“All right, let me see what I can do... I’ll let the two of you meet once a year. That would be on the seventh day of the seventh month. But that is just one day a year, not more not less.” The star couple did not have a choice of course, so it had to be.
So it was that every year, on the seventh day of the seventh month, that is July seventh, Orihime could meet her husband across the Amanogawa river.
On that day every year, the boatman of the moon comes to take Orihime across the Milky Way river to her husband Hikoba’s abode. But if Tentei felt that Orihime had not been weaving to the best of her ability and her skill was found wanting, he would make it rain so that Orihime would not be able to make it across the river to her husband’s home.
But Orihime has friends in the sky too. A flock of magpies would then come to her aid and make a bridge across the Amanaogawa so that she could go to her husband’s home.
In Japan, people pray for good weather and sunshine on Tanabata day so that the star crossed lovers can meet. And if it doesn’t rain Orihime (the star Vega) and Hikoba (the star Altair) shine brightly in the evening sky on that day. And all the wishes and dreams of those who write them on the tanzaku go up to the star goddess Orihime, seeking her benevolence and blessings.