ONE

The Buddhist Culture of

Prayer and Play

As the apt expression "be born Shinto and die Buddhist" indicates, Bud~
dhists enjoy a monopoly over death rituals in the Japanese cultural tradi~
tion.1 In contrast, Shinto priests are so hypersensitive to the slightest
hint of pollution that they try to distance themselves from death~related
religious services. Unlike their counterparts in China and Korea, Japa~
nese Confucianists, even during the T okugawa period when their influ~
ence was at its apex, avoided death rituals and ancestor worship and in~
stead devoted themselves to political economy and social engineering.
This vacuum left the field open to the Buddhists, who concentrated on
matters relating to death rituals and the afterlife. For this reason, scholars
often employ the term "funerary Buddhism" (soshiki Bukkyo) to indicate
the primary function ofJapanese Buddhism.
In fact, during the T okugawa period Buddhists were successful in
making funerary rites and memorial services their exclusive domain.
Mortuary rituals and memorial services became the major sources oflive~
lihood for most Buddhist institutions and their priests, whatever their
sectarian affiliation. This is partly attributed to the bakufu's policy on
registration of the populace. By the mid~seventeenth century, on the
pretext of hunting down Christians, the T okugawa bakufu (which had
no extensive administrative apparatus of its own) utilized the nationwide
network of Buddhist temples as quasi~official agents to help it register

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32 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

and monitor the entire population. Under this surveillance system, each
individual was required to register at a Buddhist funerary temple, which
would then issue a certificate attesting that he or she was not a Christian;
the temple would then submit its funerary patron registry to the gov~
ernment. This evolved into the danna house system, which further de~
termined the functional scope of T okugawa Buddhism. Taking advan~
tage of their quasi~official status, the functionaries of the Buddhist
temples sometimes abused the registry system to promote their private
interests. 2
Sensoji was, somewhat tangentially, part of this system. Sensoji's cen~
tral administration, represented by the Main Hall of the Asakusa Kan~
non, did not conduct funerals and hence did not maintain a danna regis~
try. But some of its thirty~four subtemples were deeply involved in the
business of death rituals, claiming more than Boo households on their
danna registers in total. Through these subtemples, Sensoji had a far
greater number of such households than did the average Buddhist temple
during the T okugawa period. When Matsudaira Kanz;an edited Sensoji
shi in 1813, Enmei~in, one of Sensoji's subtemples, boasted as many as 256
danna households; Hoz;en~in had 132; and T okuo~in 123.3 Funerary Bud~
dhism was the major religious function of these subtemples and the
source of their livelihood. Even though the Main Hall had no funerary
patrons and did not conduct funerals, Sensoji's central administration
had to collect the danna registries of the subtemples under its jurisdiction
and submit them to the Kan' eiji for transmission to the bakufu once a
year.
No matter how seriously some subtemples devoted themselves to
death rituals and memorial services, funerary Buddhism at Sensoji was
overshadowed by visitors heading for the Main Hall of the Asakusa
Kannon in search of something else. As far as Sensoji Buddhist culture
was concerned, the role of the Main Hall was so detached from funerary
Buddhism that the funerary patrons of subtemples were hardly noticed.
According to one estimate, in the late T okugawa period Sensoji was vis~
ited by more than 10,000 people a day in fine weather and no fewer than
3,ooo or 4,000 on rainy days. 4 Endowed with neither funeral danna pa~
trons nor a cemetery behind it, the Main Hall and its precinct held no
appeal as places for religious services for the deceased. If funerary Bud~

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 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play 33

dhism was not visitors' main concern, what then brought them to Sen~
soji? As I suggest in the Introduction, the attraction was the opportunity
for prayer and play.
Takizawa Bakin (1767-1848), author of the popular novel Nanso Sa-
tomi Hakken den (A tale of Hakken [the samurai Hakken with eight
Confucian virtues) of the Satomi House in Nanso [Kazusa]), was,
throughout his life, a frequent visitor to Sensoji. Bakin had deep faith in
the Asakusa Kannon and other deities and often turned to them for help
when he encountered difficulties. The compassion and sympathy of the
Sensoji deities was, indeed, the final court of appeal for his misfortune~
stricken family. He also enjoyed many happy moments in the Sensoji
precincts, eating with his family at the outdoor teahouses, strolling
around the playgrounds, and shopping at the street markets. To Bakin,
Sensoji was a place not only to placate sorrow but also to enjoy leisure
time. 5 It is not hard to imagine thousands of other Bakins who appeased
their misfortunes or sought moments of pleasure at Sensoji. Prayer and
play, not bound to funerary Buddhism, were the driving forces behind
the prosperity of Sensoji in the late T okugawa period.
How did the culture of prayer and play prosper in Sensoji? What
kinds of prayer activities did people conduct there? Was a regular annual
or seasonal schedule of prayer rituals offered to the general public? Or
did individual visitors perform prayer rites on their own? How did visi-
tors engage in prayer? What about play? What kinds of play activities
were available and popular at Sensoji? Did they have any particular char~
acteristics? How did visitors spend their time at Sensoji? By focusing on
these questions, I will attempt to describe the popular Buddhist culture
of prayer and play at Sensoji.

Sensoji as a Prayer Temple

During the early T okugawa period, when Sensoji was a prayer hall for
the shogunal house-the political entity that represented public author~
ity (kogi)-it was expected, through Buddhist prayers, to provide spiri~
tual protection for the T okugawa regime and to ameliorate the misfor~
tunes of the nation. After the shogunate gave it a soo-koku land grant,
Sensoji immediately went about establishing itself as a dutiful public re-

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 34 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

ligious institution dedicated to protecting the nation and placating the

spirits. It soon set up an annual schedule of religious events (nenju gyoji)
with a focus on promoting the public good. Once this annual schedule,
which featured prayer rituals, was firmly established, Sensoji held to it
even after its affiliation with the T okugawa house was officially discon~
tinued. Although Sensoji as a prayer temple devoted to public religious
duty (a devotion that had abated considerably by the late T okugawa pe~
riod) is not the primary concern here, its annual public prayer rituals do
provide a way of understanding the salvational mechanism of Sensoji
Buddhism-a mechanism that conditioned its later popular prayer cul~
ture.
Sensoji's annual public prayer rituals were concentrated in the first
month of the new year: the shusho ritual (the New Year nation~protecting
rite, which lasted from the final day of the twelfth month to the sixth day
of the first month), the Goo kaji ritual (an invocation of the power of the
Goo deities, on the fifth day of the first month), and the onza darani rit~
ual (the "warm~ seat" mantra recitation, from the twelfth to the eight~
eenth day of the first month). In addition, a series of prayer rituals was
held throughout the year (for example, the nehan [nirv:i.I).a] ceremony to
celebrate the Buddha's enlightenment on the fifteenth day of the second
month, the kan~Butsu [bathing the Buddha] ceremony to celebrate the
birth of the Buddha on the eighth day of the fourth month, the Dengyo
memorial service to honor Dengyo Daishi Saicho, the founder ofTendai
Buddhism, on the fourth day of the sixth month, the seikai ceremony to
renew vows of adherence to Buddhist precepts on the twelfth day of the
eighth month, and the T endai ritual to perform a T endai prayer for the
public on the twenty~fourth day of the eleventh month). 6
Among these, the shusho prayer ritual was specifically designed to en~
sure the safety and peace of the nation at the beginning of a new year?
The Sensoji shusho ritual focused, in its initial stage, on the recitation of
the three nation~protecting sutras (Hokekyo, Ninnokyo, and Konkomyokyo),
followed by a question~and~answer ceremony. But with the rising popu~
larity of the Asakusa Kannon among Edoites, Sensoji soon abandoned
this conventional T endai formula for Buddhist ritual and, instead, con~
structed a Kannon ritual of its own, the Kannon~ho (the dharma of Ava~
lokitesvara), in order to appeal to the Asakusa Kannon's power of salva~

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tion. At the same time, the question~and~answer ceremony was replaced

by a dramatic ritual known as tsuina, which portrayed the expulsion of
evil spirits from the nation. 8
The revised shiisho ritual started around three o'clock in the after~
noon of the last day of the year, with the first performance of the Kan~
non ritual. After that, eight monks repeated the same Kannon ritual once
a day at the same time until the sixth day of the new year. The Kannon
ritual, which was esoteric, took about an hour. Even though the public
was never allowed to watch the ritual itsel£ people believed that its an~
nual performance ensured the safety of the nation and their well~being
for the new year. 9 The protection~oriented symbolism of the Kannon
ritual was complemented by the purification~oriented tsuina ceremony,
which was conducted in the middle of the first performance. 10 Against an
ebullient background of monks chanting mantras, scattering paper flow~
ers, and beating on gongs, drums, and wooden blocks, a monk donned
the mask of a devil and ran around the altar while being chased by a
monk holding the twig of a Japanese apricot tree. When the monks re~
turned to their seats after completing three circuits of the altar, the ritual
master completed the rite as other priests chanted in unison the twenty~
fifth chapter of the Lotus Sutra.U As this skit illustrates, tsuina was a pu~
rificatory ceremony designed to expel evil spirits and forces from the na~
tion and, thereby, to ensure its safety for the new year.
The protective power of Sensoji deities was more graphically ex~
pressed to the general public through the Goo kaji ritual, which was per~
formed on the fifth day of the first month-near the end of the shiisho
ritual. Sensoji's Goo kaji was an esoteric prayer designed "to grasp" (kaji)
the divine power of the Sensoji "Goo deities," represented by Sanja Dai~
gongen (the "three great deities" of the Senso Shrine) and the Asakusa
Kannon.
Nine officiants performed the first stage of the ritual in the curtained
inner sanctum of the Sanja (Senso) Shrine around six o'clock in the
morning. The ritual format was simple. One of the officiants conducted
the secret Goo kaji ritual at the center of the sanctum, while other monks
chanted mantras and scattered paper flowers around the altar. At the
completion of the ritual, an assistant took nine flat bowls from the altar
and distributed one to each of the nine participants. Another assistant

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 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

filled those bowls with sacred sake, and the monks drank it. The ritual
stage then moved to the Main Hall of the Asakusa Kannon, where the
officiants, who were empowered by Sanja Daigongen, invested prepared
talismans with the divine power of the Asakusa Kannon. After the pre-
siding monk completed a Goo kaji prayer, a ritual assistant took the tal-
ismans from the altar and distributed one to each of the nine priests. An-
other assistant imprinted each talisman with the Sensoji Goo seal (SN, 2:
371-72; 12: 313). After the completion of the ritual procedure, the talis-
mans were sold to the general public in the Main Hall until the eleventh
day of the first month. Sensoji Goo talismans, which symbolized the em-
bodiment of the combined power of the Asakusa Kannon and the Sanja
Daigongen, were very popular with the public.
Unlike the shusho and Goo kaji rituals, which incorporated a number
of indigenous religious elements, the onza darani, the most renowned
annual prayer ritual at Sensoji, is imbued with Buddhist esotericism. As
the tide onza darani (literally, "warm-seat dharal).i") indicates, the ritual
was composed of the nonstop performance of r68 rounds of Kannon
rituals, along with the continuous chanting of mantras over the space of
156 hours from the twelfth through to the eighteenth day of the first
month. 12 The attending priests took turns occupying the presiding seat,
keeping it "warm" day and night throughout the ritual period. In addi-
tion to the chief priest, who officiated at these around-the-dock Kannon
rituals, about twenty assistant monks were assigned to chant the Senju
dharal).i (mantras for praising the compassion of Sahasrabhuja or the
Senju Kannon), which helped to maintain the ritual's esoteric aura. Be-
cause the massive labor required for such intensive mantra chanting ex-
ceeded what was available at the temple, Sensoji usually hired ritual
monks from other temples. The religious efficacy of the onza darani was
believed to increase in proportion to the magnitude and quantity of the
repetitions of the Kannon ritual and of the recitation of esoteric spells.
For this reason, after completion of the ritual, Sensoji posted the number
of Kannon rituals that had been performed and the number of times the
Senju dharal).i had been recited during the ritual period. 13
Despite the esoteric foundations of the onza darani, the final round
was concluded with a non-Buddhist, indigenous ritual formula known as
jinku okuri (sending off divine offerings). While the chief priest conducted

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the last round of the Kannon ritual, two assistant priests collected rice
cakes, incense, flowers, and other offerings at the altar and carried them
to the backyard of the temple. There they dug a hole, threw the collected
objects into it, scorched them with a pine torch, and then filled up the
hole. Meanwhile, in the Main Hall ritual priests disassembled the onza
darani altar, extinguished the 108 lanterns, and drew down the curtains of
the sanctum. Then the chief priest offered blessings to the four directions
and to the worshippers. The rite ofjinku okuri dramatized the expulsion
of negative forces that might bring misfortune upon the nation. In this
case, the items offered at the onza darani and then buried symbolized
grudge~bearing spirits and evil forces. By permanently burying these
items at the intersection of the vertical and horizontal boundaries of their
Buddhist sanctuary, Sensoji officials convinced the public that all the
causes of misfortune had been removed and that national safety for the
new year was ensured.
In addition to these regular annual prayer rituals for the well-being of
the public and the state, Sensoji responded to the occasional national cri-
sis with its own prayer formulas. Whenever bad crops or natural disas-
ters hit the nation, Sensoji, as a beneficiary of public funding, offered re-
ligious countermeasures, sometimes urged on by shogunal order. For
example, when the nation suffered a series of disasters in 1787 and 1788 (a
massive fire at Mount Fuji, famines and epidemics in the Dewa region, a
flood in the Kanto area, and a big fire in Kyoto), the shogunate ordered
all temples and shrines to mobilize their spiritual power to overcome
vengeful spirits that might be causing the misfortunes. It designated six
temples, including Sensoji, to conduct special prayer rituals to placate
these spirits (SN, 6: n7-18). When a wildfire destroyed the Great Image
of Buddha at Mount Atago in Kyoto in 1801 and shortly thereafter light-
ning destroyed Shitennoji in Osaka, Sensoji was again ordered to
perform a massive prayer ritual to prevent further disasters. On both
occasions, Sensoji officials conducted the Kannon ritual and/ or the Dai-
Hannya (a ritual chanting of the Mahaprajiiaparamitii Sutra [Dai-
Hannyakyo]) (SN, 9: 455). Sensoji's role as a public prayer temple thus
took various forms.
Whether annual or occasional, most of Sensoji's public prayer rituals
appealed to the divine compassion of the Asakusa Kannon through the

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 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

Kannon ritual and possibly the recitation of the Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra

(which incorporated a number of indigenous ritual elements). The ritual
formulas of Sensoji prayer were even more prominent during private
prayer services for individual patrons. Compared with other Edo tem-
ples, Sensoji attracted a large number of prayer patrons (kito danna)
thanks to the fame of Asakusa Kannon. During most of the late T oku-
gawa period, five prayer patron households of daimyo rank (the Matsu-
daira of Echizen, the Hosokawa of Nagato, the Mori of Suo, the
T sugaru of Etchii, and the Rokugo of Sado) and thirteen prayer confra-
ternities composed of commoners were affiliated with the Main Hall of
the temple. Its subtemples, according to a survey in the early 1810s,
claimed more than 450 prayer patron households, mostly commoners. 14
Since the Main Hall of Sensoji did not solicit daimyo patrons and since
daimyo households usually maintained their own Buddhist prayer halls
in their Edo residences, Sensoji's special relationship with these five pow-
erful daimyo households testifies to its religious prominence in To-
kugawa Buddhism. Because of the privilege it bespoke, the private prayer
service that Sensoji offered individual patrons attracted the keen interest
of the general populace ofEdo. Sensoji's private prayer services provide a
glimpse into yet another dimension of Sensoji prayer culture.
Sensoji's prayer services for daimyo patrons were conducted on a
contractual basis and assumed mutual obligations. Sensoji conducted
prayer rituals designed to ensure the welfare of its daimyo patrons on a
regular basis (usually three times a year), and its daimyo patrons paid
prayer service fees (usually three to ten silver chogin ). 15 In addition to
these regularly scheduled prayer rituals, the Main Hall of Sensoji duti-
fully responded to the special requests of patrons who sought divine help
on the occasion of such mundane events as disease, childbirth, or an
"ominous" year (yakudoshi). Sensoji officials usually performed their spe-
cialty, the Kannon ritual or the recitation of the Mahaprajnaparamita Su-
tra, and then sent ritual products (talismans and votive offerings) to the
daimyo family on its completion (along with such well-wishing gifts as
nori [edible dried seaweed] and money). After receiving the ritual prod-
ucts and gifts, prayer patrons were expected to remit their prayer fees to
Sensoji.16

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 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play 39

For individual patrons, the privilege of receiving Sensoji's prayer serv,

ice was available only so long as they fulfilled their contractual obliga,
tions. In times of financial strain, daimyo patrons sometimes suspended
their contracts with Sensoji temporarily on the pretext of not violating
sumptuary regulations. Bad crops in their home domains, natural disas,
ters, and even the alternating attendance (sankin katai) system provided
good excuses for such suspensions. Ironically, when religious help was
most badly needed, the privilege of a Sensoji prayer service often turned
out to be too expensive, even for daimyo householdsP In such cases,
Sensoji was never generous enough to confer ftee ritual services.
Within this framework, Sensoji promoted its specialty prayer ritu,
als-the Kannon ritual and the recitation of the Mahaprajfuiparamitii Su-
tra. These highly acclaimed rituals were beyond the means of ordinary
Edoites. Nevertheless, commoners' veneration of Sensoji had much to do
with their belief in the efficacy of the Kannon and Mahaprajniiparamita
Sutra rituals that they could not personally attend. Sensoji diaries and
chronicles contain numerous stories of the miraculous qualities of these
specialty rituals and attribute these qualities to an eveNising folk piety,
which took as its object the Asakusa Kannon. To judge ftom these sto,
ries, the religious interests of Edo commoners were closely tied to the
fame of Sensoji. Did the Asakusa Kannon and Mahiiprajniipiiramitii Sutra
rituals have special qualities that were particularly relevant to the relig,
ious concerns of the general populace? For Sensoji priests, the Kannon
ritual, a ritual dedicated to the worship of their own main deity, would be
a natural choice. For a major T endai temple, the recitation of the Mahii-
prajniipiiramita Sutra, a sutra strongly associated with the chingo kokka tra,
dition ofT endai Buddhism, would also be a natural choice.l8 But why
did the general populace ofEdo, which was not bound to the priestly role
of Sensoji monks, display such a keen interest in these rituals? What
really triggered their veneration of Sensojir Here we need to examine
how the Asakusa Kannon and Mahaprajnapiiramita Sutra rituals nurtured
Edoite respect for Sensoji Buddhism.
The main body of the Kannon ritual basically followed the general
format of a six, stage esoteric prayer ritual, despite its heavy incorporation
of Sensoji's own formulas concerning mudra (inzo or ingei), mantra (shin-

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40 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

gon), and meditation on the main image.19 In any event, lay Buddhists
had no way to comprehend in detail the entire procedure of the Kannon
ritual as it was conducted at Sensoji in the late T okugawa period. Sensoji
priests emphasized secrecy, performing the ritual in the name of "secret
dharma" (hiho). Prayer patrons were never expected to understand the
seemingly unintelligible mystic spells and gestures of the Kannon ritual;
instead, they were reminded that the mystic nature of the ritual was in~
dicative of the salvational power of the secretive Asakusa Kannon. 20 On
the other hand, the Mahiiprajniipiiramitii Sutra ritual was based on the
doctrine that the merit acquired by reciting Buddhist scriptures could be
transferred to prayer patrons. In theory, this ritual was to be conducted
by an assembly of roo or 6oo monks, who would recite assigned chap~
ter( s) of the Mahiiprajniipiiramitii Sutra, which consisted of 6oo fascicles.
But Sensoji practiced a markedly abridged form of recitation-a few
monks read the cover page of the Mahiiprajniipiiramitii Sutra and then pro~
ceeded to a "skipped reading" of the rest, simply opening up and then
folding back the accordion~style text. 21 The performance of the Mahii~
prajniipiiramitii Sutra ritual was extremely formalistic and pedestrian, but
this did not appear to matter to prayer patrons. 22
Prayer patrons never bothered to attempt to understand the mecha~
nisms of the prayer rituals that Sensoji offered them. What they wanted
was material evidence-something that gave tangible proof of Sensoji's
religious fame and efficacy. The Asakusa Kannon was meaningful to
prayer patrons only when they could possess palpable objects that they
believed embodied its mysterious power. Those objects, the end products
of the Kannon ritual, were talismans (fuda) and votive offerings (ku~
motsu). Similarly, the merit derived from reciting the Mahiiprajniipiiramitii
Sutra was obtainable only when prayer patrons received the ritual's mate~
rial products. It was a common belief that these products embodied the
supernatural power of Buddhist deities and that, when properly carried
or placed, they protected their holders from misfortune and helped them
to realize their wishes. 23 To Sensoji prayer patrons, talismans or votive
offerings ensured the protective power of the Asakusa Kannon and, by
extension, of other deities. Buddhist soteriology was effectively wrapped
in material form. In satisfying the strong demand for these prayer prod~

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ucts, Sensoji officials made sure that they were attractive. Sensoji usually
used high~quality paper or flat pieces of wood to make a talisman, on
which was written a Sanskrit letter along with information on the ritual
and its patrons. The Sanskrit letter signified the manifestation of the
Asakusa Kannon. Similarly, votive offerings such as silk cloth, colored
yarn, goose figurines, paper fans, rice, and red and white rice cakes
wrapped in oak leaves were also treated as religious fetishes. 24 Sensoji of~
ficials, aware of their patrons' overriding concern with prayer products,
delivered them to their customers immediately upon the completion of a
ritual; prayer patrons, aware of Sensoji officials' overriding concern with
material compensation, unfailingly provided prayer fees upon receiving
the prayer products.
The material exchange of sanctified religious fetishes for prayer fees
formed the basic framework of Sensoji prayer culture, and it applied to
the general populace as well as to a select group of prayer patrons. Visi~
tors who could not afford Sensoji's costly religious services offered their
own form of worship to the Asakusa Kannon. In this case, Sensoji offi~
cials neither played a priestly role nor collected prayer fees. But this did
not mean that these casual worshippers enjoyed the benefits of Sensoji
Buddhism without paying for them. As indicated in the Introduction,
Sensoji relied on these lay visitors for much of its income. Before con~
ducting their own prayers, they usually tossed a few coins into the offer~
tory box, and on completing their prayers, they often bought talismans or
amulets stamped with the emblem of the Asakusa Kannon. Thus there
existed a voluntary but customary system of exchange between the Asa~
kusa Kannon and lay worshippers.
The religious context within which lay worshippers conducted prayers
at Sensoji did not differ from the one that underpinned the formal prayer
rituals performed for the state or private patrons. Lay worshippers
sought the esoteric power of the Asakusa Kannon but were indifferent to
the esoteric modus operandi of its ritualization. They simply followed
the framework of exchange, offering their coins and receiving ritual
products. Popular prayer at Sensoji in the late Tokugawa period was a
continuation (albeit in abbreviated form) of the specialty ritual formulas
that had been promoted since the early seventeenth century. In other

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words, Sensoji owed its prosperity as a prayer temple to the religious ex-
change between the prestigious Asakusa Kannon and lay Buddhists.
Through the system of monetary offerings (saisen) and the sale of talis-
mans, Sensoji utilized people's reverence for the Asakusa Kannon for its
own financial benefits.
In terms of the folk piety directed toward the Asakusa Kannon in the
late T okugawa period, there was really no distinction between daimyo
and store clerks. Yanagisawa Nobutoki (1724-92), a retired daimyo, pro-
vides a good example of the populace's passionate veneration of the Asa-
kusa Kannon. Nobutoki, who in 1773, at the age of fifty, retired as the
lord of Koriyama in Yamato province and returned to his Edo residence
(Rikugien), was an ardent worshipper of the Asakusa Kannon. After his
retirement, N obutoki visited Sensoji on an average of once every other
week and faithfully venerated the Asakusa Kannon until his death in
1792. According to a diary he began keeping in 1773. known as Enyu nikki,
N obutoki visited the Asakusa Kannon fourteen times in 1775, twenty
times in 1776, twenty-four times in 1777, twenty-nine times in 1778,
twenty-six times in 1779, twenty-five times in 1780, twenty-two times in
1781, nineteen times in 1782, twenty-one times in 1783, and thirty times in
1784-a total of 230 visits over a period of ten years. 25 Nobutoki's ven-
eration of the Asakusa Kannon remained sincere and steady throughout
his life. When he was unable to pay homage to the Asakusa Kannon for
several weeks late in the sixth month of 1781, he found himself "kneeling
toward the Kannon in his early morning dream." 26 N obutoki frequently
visited the deities housed in Gokokuji, Yushima Tenjin, Nezu Gongen,
and other nearby temples and shrines, but, for him, none of these could
match the miraculous power of the Asakusa Kannon.
Matsudaira Kanzan (Ikeda Sadatsune, 1767-1833), a retired daimyo of
the T ottori domain, was also an ardent worshipper of the Asakusa Kan-
non. Kanzan' s faith in the Asakusa Kannon is particularly well known
thanks to his compilation of the two-volume Sensoji shi (Sensoji chroni-
cles). In the preface of the book, he wrote: "There are a lot of Buddhist
temples in Edo. But Sensoji is the only temple that has not changed its
location for approximately 1,200 years. This is truly a sacred place."27 As
far as Kanzan was concerned, everything about Sensoji deserved to be

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 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play 43

recorded and made known to future generations. His devotion to the

temple may have been extraordinary, but Kanzan was just one of Sen~
soji's innumerable celebrity visitors.
The Sensoji diaries contain countless mentions of visits by daimyo
and other high bakufu officials throughout the T okugawa period.
Women from the shogunal harem in the Edo Castle were also frequent
visitors to the Asakusa Kannon. These ooku ( [dwellers) in the great deep)
women, whose lives were otherwise strictly confined to the shogunal cas~
de, sought to alleviate the monotonous cycle of daily routines by con~
ducting prayer rituals to the Sensoji deities. 28 As custom dictated, all
these casual visitors first worshipped the Asakusa Kannon, next bought
talismans bearing its emblem, and only then proceeded to do whatever
else they had in mind.
By the mid~eighteenth century, Sensoji was the favorite destination in
Kanto for Buddhist worshippers. The Bando Kannon reijo ki (A record of
the miraculous places ofKannon in the Kanto region), published in 1771,
flatly declares: "Sensoji is a temple unrivaled by any other in the Bando."
The Asakusa Kannon Hall had been, to some extent, known to the
populace in the past. For example, the Kaikoku zakki (Miscellanea of trav~
eling about the country), written in 1486, remarks: "This is the temple
called Sensoji that enshrines a miraculous Buddha that has no peer." Ap~
parently, Sensoji had captured the attention of travelers by the early sev~
enteenth century. The Heishin kiko (An account of a journey in the year
heishin) of 1617 informs us: "There seem to be more crowds of men and
women swarming [to Sensoji) than to Kiyomizu in Kyoto." 29 But Sen~
soji's reputation blossomed fully only in the late T okugawa period, when
it clearly outranked other Buddhist temples in Kanto in popularity. Edo's
other famous deities (for example, Kameido T enjin [Kameido Ten~
mangu], Shinobazu Benzaiten, and Meguro Fudo) were popular with
Edo Buddhists, but none of them rivaled the Asakusa Kannon.
Miraculous stories of the Asakusa Kannon inundated the ears of the
populace through rumors, tour guidebooks, storybooks, poems, religious
chronicles (engi), temple leaflets, ukiyo paintings, and kabuki plays. Con~
sequently, the Japanese of the late Tokugawa period were well ac~
quainted with Sensoji as a national center of folk piety. Hokkei (d. 1850 ),

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44 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

a disciple of the renowned ukiyoe painter Katsushika Holmsai (r760-

r849), created a bird's~eye view of the Sensoji area in the Tenpo era
(r830-43; see Fig. 4). The crowds milling around Sensoji capture our
immediate attention.30 This would have been a typical scene during
Hokkei's days at Sensoji.
Those innumerable folk on the streets were what nurtured and sus~
tained Sensoji as a popular prayer center. Sutejiro, a shop assistant at
Shiroki~ya in Nihonbashi, was one of those common folk. The Asakusa
Kannon was the only god Sutejiro had known before his arrival in Edo.
When, as a young teenager, he left his home village of Omi in Kansai to
work at the Shiroki~ya, his anxious parents told him about the Asakusa
Kannon and assured him of its divine compassion and protective power.
Hundreds of miles from home (he would not be given time off to visit his
parents until his ninth year of employment), Sutejiro, who was often ex~
hausted from cleaning the shop, checking inventories, collecting out~
standing bills, and running errands day and night, made it his daily habit
to chant the name of the Asakusa Kannon in the hope of invoking its
protectionY Edo became home to tens of thousands of such transplants
at the lower end of the social scale. To them, tutelary deities like the
Asakusa Kannon were a daily spiritual comfort.
Some commoners even worshipped daily at the site of the Asakusa
Kannon. A story dating from 1834 about an Edo merchant and his relig~
ious companion (found in ]ijiroku [A record of various happenings],
compiled by an anonymous editor) provides a typical example. The mer~
chant meets a faithful worshipper of the Asakusa Kannon at Sensoji.
This man runs a drugstore called Kinokuni~ya, and he soon becomes the
merchant's close friend. Both of them offer daily early~morning prayers
to the Asakusa Kannon, even though the round~trip means a walk of
seven to eight kilometers. One day they make an appointment to meet in
front of the Main Hall to have a cup of tea and a chat after the usual
morning service to the Asakusa Kannon. When the faithful friend does
not show up, the merchant suspects that something unusual has hap~
pened. He calls at his friend's drugstore to see what is wrong. The friend
is about to be poisoned by his shop assistant and his estranged wife, who
have conspired to kill him and to take over the store. Just as the servant is

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 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play 45

Fig. 4 · A scene at the Sensoji complex. From Hokkei, Toto Kinryusan Sensiiji zu,
Tenpo era (1830-43) (from Henry Smith, Ukiyoe ni miru Edo meisho). Reproduced by
permission ofl wanarni Shoten.

poised to carry out this plan, the merchant walks in and rescues his
friend. Thanks to this friendship, mediated by the daily worship of the
Asakusa Kannon, the merchant is able to save his friend's life. Both men,
of course, greatly appreciate the care of the Asakusa Kannon, and their
faith becomes even deeper.32
There are many other stories of the miraculous powers of the Asakusa
Kannon. Saito Gesshin's Buko nenpyo (Annual chronicles ofEdo), edited
in 1806, tells of an Osaka traveler named Akashiya Shinzo. Upon being
accosted by a robber in Edo, the traveler prays to the Asakusa Kannon
for help. Suddenly the robber becomes helpless, and the traveler is able to
escape. Afterward, out of gratitude, the traveler donates to Sensoji a
painting of Asakusa Kannon rescuing him from the robber. 33
People's expectations of the Asakusa Kannon were literally limit-
less-from the curing of disease to rescue from disasters to the granting
of wishes. Saito Gesshin himself implored the Asakusa Kannon when-

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 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

ever he faced unyielding difficulties. 34 As mentioned above, for the cele~

brated novelist T akizawa Bakin and his family, the compassion of the
Asakusa Kannon was their last hope. While he was struggling to restore
his family's fallen status at the turn of the 183os, Bakin endured, one after
the other, the deaths of his only son, his son~in~law, and his wife. His
only hope, his grandson Taro, was too young and too sickly to be of any
help. Until his death in 1848, the blind Bakin dictated his novels to his
daughter~in~law in order to make a living; one of these novels was Nanso
Satomi Hakken den. Bakin's diary tells us that, four days before his death,
his two granddaughters, Otsugi and Osachi, "prayed to the Asakusa
Kannon for the family one hundred times," while he himsel£ being en~
feebled, bowed toward the four directions in lieu of visiting Sensoji.
When Taro became sick in 1849, his mother visited the Asakusa Kannon
every month to pray for his quick recovery. 35
As can be seen from these and other examples, the Asakusa Kannon
was the focal point for the religious sentiments of Edo commoners. The
prayers they directed toward the Asakusa Kannon are filled with a deep
faith in its compassion and ability to provide divine help. Transcending
the borders of wealth, power, gender, age, and social status, the Asakusa
Kannon was a great source of hope and comfort to the Edo populace. No
wonder that thousands of people visited Sensoji every day. As noted in
the Introduction, the income from casual offerings accounted for over
half of Sensoji's entire annual income of about 3,ooo gold pieces. I£ on
average, a visitor tossed five copper coins into the offertory box (the price
of a cup of tea at a teahouse),3 6 then Sensoji had more than 1.2 million
paying visitors per year during the late T okugawa period. These visitors
were also the major buyers of religious products, another important
source of income. The demand for these products was so high that Sen~
soji consumed large amounts of paper. For example, in 1813 Sensoji spent
about sixteen gold pieces on paper. This is a significant amount of money
in light of the fact that one gold piece was enough to provide basic sup~
port for one adult for one year (SN, 12: 464). But these sixteen gold
pieces, with the blessing of the Asakusa Kannon, would have been multi~
plied tens of times over upon the sale of these paper products.
Clearly, Sensoji owed much of its prosperity as a prayer temple to the
fame of the Asakusa Kannon. Whether in formal organized prayer ritu~

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 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play 47

als or individual prayers, the Asakusa Kannon was a source of religious

inspiration and hope for its worshippers. But the role of Sensoji was not
limited to alleviating suffering. As the misfortune~ridden Bakin some~
times found when he and his family enjoyed happy outings at Sensoji, the
blessing of the Asakusa Kannon stretched beyond the domain of prayer
into the domain of play.

Sensoji as a Play Center

Sensoji administrators occasionally conducted land surveys (kenchi) and
drew maps in order to verify the territorial boundaries of their highly ur~
banized territory. Internally, Sensoji land, which consisted of the inner
precincts of the Main Hall, subtemples, front districts, agricultural fields,
and other support facilities, was so disorderly and mixed up that it was
sometimes not easy to locate all taxable sources. A 1798 land~survey map,
which was perhaps drawn for taxation purposes, identifies all commercial
business locations in the inner precincts (SN, 4: appendix).
This map delineates the density of Sensoji's business stations (mise).
Among the commercial enterprises in Sensoji's inner precincts were ap~
proximately a hundred teahouses, four vegetable~rice teahouses, four
dumpling teahouses, one sweet liquor store, ninety~three toothpick
shops, nineteen papier~mache stores, twelve archery booths, seven sundry
goods shops, three candy shops, three painting paper shops, three flo~
rists, one tobacco shop, and a couple of shibai theaters and street~show
places.37 In a space of 9,166 tsubo (30,248 square meters), there were about
250 commercial spots in addition to numerous Buddhist and Shinto
halls, stupas, and other religious facilities. By 1822, the number of street
mise increased to as many as 292, of which 180 had attached kitchens
(SN, 15: 55-58). The inner precincts ofSensoji would have been seen as a
prosperous commercial district had visitors not been most impressed by
such imposing religious structures as the Main Hall, a five~story pagoda,
and the Sanja Daigongen Shrine.
In Japanese Buddhism, the inner precincts (keidai) of the temple,
which were separated from the secular world, were a place where one
could feel the sacred aura of intense solemnity. And indeed, Sensoji's in~
ner precincts, which accommodated the Main Hall of the Asakusa Kan~

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 The Buddhist Culture ofPrayer and Play

non and other major religious structures, were certainly its sanctum
sanctorum. But this seemingly sacred space was also full of commercial
booths and shops. Wherever space was available, profiHeeking mer~
chants could be found. In particular, the rear ground of the Main Hall,
known as Okuyama ("deep mountain"-in theory, a sacrosanct retreat
for Buddhist monks), offered a spectacular scene of hustle and bustle,
with entertainers, merchants, and crowds of customers. Without a
doubt, in the late T okugawa period commercialism prevailed in Sensoji's
inner precincts.
Commercial activities at Sensoji were, however, not confined to the
inner precincts. They spread out into the outer precincts (the sannai, or
"inner mountain"), where subtemples were located, as well as into front
districts (monzen machi). The major approach to the Main Hall, stretch-
ing approximately 130 meters in the buffer zone of outer precincts be-
tween the Kaminari Gate (the entrance to the sannai) and the Nio Gate
(the entrance to the keidai), was particularly famous for the "inner stores"
(nakamise) lining both sides of the street. This street formed a sort of
shopping m~ll for Sensoji visitors, who had to traverse it to reach the
Main Hall after passing through the Kaminari Gate, which separated the
Sensoji Buddhist complex from the secular world. Unlike many tempo-
rary business setups in the inner precincts, this street boasted dozens of
well~established permanent stores specializing in such goods as tobacco,
tobacco pipes, sandals, products made of bamboo, eggplants, cookies,
toys, umbrellas, artificial flowers, buckwheat noodles, soybean pastes,
and other local staples.38
Well aware of the benefits that this kind of permanent market gener-
ated, some subtemples, such as Io~in, Jisso~in, Konzo-in, and Choju-in,
encouraged merchants to develop market streets along their entrance
paths. In fact, those subtemples able to lure shops and teahouses to their
front streets usually attracted more visitors to their Buddhist halls and, at
the same time, received sizable rental incomes from shop owners. Ni-
chion~in, Kanchi~in, and Choju~in even rented out small spaces within
their precinct boundaries-spaces usable only for attached temporary
"suspended shops" (kakemise). 39 All this effort to raise more income
helped transform Sensoji' s precincts into a prosperous commercial
pocket of Edo. Some visitors even complained that the streets were too

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 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play 49

crowded with vendors and that commercial stalls blocked the pathway to
the Main Hall (SN, 7: 736-37).
Outside the Kaminari Gate were twenty front districts under Sensoji's
jurisdiction. Although this monzen area was primarily given over to
housing for townspeople (chonin), entrepreneurs could not pass up the
commercial opportunities offered by the area. For example, Namiki
Street, which had been a quiet neighborhood (as its name, Namiki (a
row of trees], indicates), had become a busy commercial zone by the mid~
eighteenth century.40 Visitors could find a variety of stores, teahouses,
and restaurants (more than roo by the 18ros) along Namiki Street and
other neighboring front districts.41 As Matsudaira Kanzan noted in his
Sensoji chronicles, visitors were delighted to find the well~known staples
of the Sensoji area, such as Asakusa seaweed, Asakusa sake (called moro-
haku and famous for its pure taste), Asakusa rice cakes, and buckwheat
noodles.42
By the late T okugawa period, the Sensoji area had been transformed
into a commercial center that boasted permanent as well as occasional
markets. In particular, special fairs, held three times annually, amused
visitors and shoppers: the ennichi (day for connection) fair held on the
tenth day of the seventh month, the Bon fair held on the twelfth and
thirteenth days of the seventh month, and a year~end fair called toshi-no-
ichi (fair of the year) held on the seventeenth and eighteenth days of the
twelfth month. Among these, the ennichi fair created a spectacular scene,
with the display and sale of colorful Japanese ground cherries (hozuki) on
every corner of the temple precincts. According to a Sensoji chronicle, an
Atago deity appeared in a dream to a man living in Shiba and told him
that drinking ground~cherry tea on the tenth day of the seventh month
would eradicate dysentery in adults and intestinal parasites in children.
During the Meiwa era (1764-71), opportunistic merchants began to sell
the plant (an antipyretic in Chinese medicine) in Sensoji on this "day for
connection." The ground cherry soon came to represent the ennichi fair
itsel£43 The Bon fair, held two days after the ennichi fair, was an occasion
for Edo families to purchase ritual items to decorate their Bon altars and
to prepare seasonal foods to offer to ancestral spirits during the Bon fes~
tival. The year-end fair was similar to the Bon fair, but its magnitude and
popularity far exceeded that of other fairs.

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50 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

The Toto saijiki (A record of annual observance in the eastern capital)

of Saito Gesshin vividly describes the crowded scene at the toshi~no~ichi
fair (see Fig. 5 for an illustration from his Edo meisho zue [Illustrations of
famous places in Edo ]):
Not to mention the precinct, the fair stretches to the Komakata Hall in the
South, to the Ueno area in the West, and even to a gravel yard in Yamanojuku~
cho in the East, Riling the streets with stall shops that sell decorative items for
the New Year, foods for sacrificial offering, worship service equipment, seasonal
toys, and gifts. The noisy clamor of traders f1lls the streets throughout the da.y
and night.44

In the late T okugawa period, the fair was, by and large, driven by sheer
commercialism. According to a Sensoji chronicle, this fair had originally
been held in an Ebisu shrine (allegedly a branch oflse Shrine) near Sen~
soji's Kaminari Gate on the ninth and tenth days of the twelfrh month.
But merchants, who were confident of greater commercial growth in
Sensoji, moved the fair to Sensoji's inner precincts in the early eighteenth
century. The Sensoji administration welcomed this relocation and even
allowed merchants and shoppers to use the Nio Gate, the inner gate of
Sensoji, until two o'clock in the morning (the usual closing time was at
sunset).45 In the long run, the commercial streets and special fairs estab~
lished at Sensoji proved a powerful magnet for the general populace.
The Sensoji area also offered a variety of entertainments. As Yanagi~
sawa N obutoki noted, he was attracted by the fame of the Asakusa Kan~
non, but religion was not the sole reason for his frequent visits to Sensoji.
When he stopped by Sensoji, N obutoki often idled the time away, from
morning to evening, or sometimes from late afternoon to the middle of
the night, sipping tea at a teahouse, chatting with friends, or just strolling
around Okuyama. There were plenty of circus shows, archery booths,
street performances, and other pastimes, all of which occupied his leisure
time to one degree or another. After enjoying Matsui Gensui's top~
spinning tricks and ball~juggling demonstrations, Nobutoki would take a
rest and sip a cup of tea at the Sakai~ya teahouse, while his companions
shopped for toothpicks, hair strings, ornaments, combs, and candies.
Sensoji was a pleasant place for Nobutoki's lighthearted outings. When

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 The Buddhist Culture ofPrayer and Play 51

he became bored with Sensoji, he sometimes ventured to the nearby

Yoshiwara brothel area or to other teahouses rumored to have hired
pretty servers. His adventurism and curiosity were not, however, always
satisfied. An entry in his diary for the twenty~second day of the tenth
month of 1783 expressed disappointment: "A girl at the Naniwa teahouse
had been the talk of the town for her beauty. I soon checked that place
out, only to find that she fell far short of the gossip."46
Saito Gesshin's diary also regales us with stories of the amusements he
enjoyed at Sensoji. The pursuit of recreation in the Sensoji area was ap~
parently as meaningful to him as was the paying of homage to the Asa-
kusa Kannon. Gesshin's enthusiasm for spending his leisure time at Sen~
soji resulted in the development of a warm friendship with Matsui
Gensui, probably the most prominent street-art performer at Sensoji
during the r83os and r84os.
As a place of leisure and entertainment, Sensoji was open to anyone.
Saito Gesshin's Edo meisho zue again provides us with vivid illustrations.
Upon entering Sensoji's inner precincts through the Nio Gate, it was al-
most impossible for anyone to ignore the seemingly limitless opportuni-
ties for entertainment. Sensoji's inner precincts were a world of street
asobi (play). The center of the right~hand panel of the drawing repro~
duced here as Figure 6 shows a shibai theater, a storytelling hall called ko-
shaku (preaching the Buddha), toothpick stalls, and a row of teahouses
known as Nijikken chaya (twenty teahouses). In Figure 7, in the far left
corner, a circus called Gensui (in honor of the main performer) attracts a
crowd of onlookers circling Matsui Gensui's performance, as well as
other business booths and stalls. Okuyama, the grounds behind the Main
Hall, was far more prosperous, as is illustrated in Figure 8. Couched in
the woody land behind the protective shield of the Asakusa Kannon and
inside the walls that separated it from the agricultural fields to the north
and from Y oshiwara, Okuyama seemed an ideal space for providing
Edoites with moments of relief from their daily routines.
Because of the considerable contribution of commerce to Sensoji's
revenues, it is not surprising that its land-survey registries paid a great
deal of attention to the businesses located within its precincts. A 1778
(text continues on p. 6o)

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Fig. 5· A bustling scene at the year-end fair (from Saito Gesshin, Edo meisho zue).

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Fig. 6. A scene at Sensoji centering around the Ni6 Gate and the five-story pagoda
(from Saito Gesshin, Edo meisho zue).

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Fig. 7· A scene at Sensoji centering around the Main Hall (from Saito Gesshin,
Edo meisho :we).

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Fig. 8. A scene at Sensoji Okuyama (from Saito Gesshin, Edo meisho :we).

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6o The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

roster of renters called Keidai so mise unjo cho (A rental list of all shops in
the precinct) in the Sensoji shi indicates the magnitude of business activi~
ties at Sensoji.47 This registry lists a total of 280 shops and their tenants,
including n2 teahouses, ninety~one toothpick shops, sixteen toy shops,
seven archery booths, six candy shops, and six storytelling halls (Taiheiki),
as well as space for circuses, exotic exhibitions, and the sale of homemade
medications. The convenient concentration of various commercial busi~
ness and entertainment attractions must have been a tremendous draw
not only for Asakusa Kannon worshippers but also for ordinary Edoites.
Among the wide range of entertainment opportunities at Sensoji, the
misemono (display of things) spectacle was the perfect choice for those
thirsty for the exotic. In the misemono booths, Sensoji visitors could
view wonders that would otherwise have remained unknown to them.
Misemono merchants, who set up exhibition booths called yoshizubari
(loquat leaf enclosures) in the Sensoji precinct, competed with one an~
other to lure customers. The following list of some notable misemono
exhibitions at Sensoji in the late T okugawa period gives some idea of the
range of attractions available to Edoites.
1769 A girl with only two fingers, referred to as kani musume (crab girl); a
giant toad
1813 A karakuri ningyo (contraption doll) installed in a pond near the
Benten Hall and a spring~driven automaton that was capable of a
limited range of repetitive motions
1814 A self~ boiling pot
1816 A giant porcupine
1819 Bamboo~wicker replicas of birds, beasts, plants, and historical fig~
ures made by the renowned basketry artisan Ichide Shoshichiro
and his disciples; karakuri that moved around in the water
1820 Scenic constructs depicting the secret lives of courtesans, climactic
scenes from well~known novels, and legendary Japanese and Chi~
nese figures-all positioned against a background of refined repli~
cas of animals, plants, and landscapes
1829 Puppets jerking on their strings
1835 Lifelike dolls
1836 A "diamond ship" made of glass, featuring the Tang emperor
Hsiian~tsung and his eunuchs and entertainers at a party

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 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play 61

1841 Grandiose tableaux of scenes from popular novels, kabuki favorites,

legendary heroes and deities, and imaginary animals
1847 A "diamond ship" in subtle motion, featuring Dutch traders
1848 A four~season flower garden
1855 Breathing dolls with foreign faces; "living figures"; and a lifelike ef~
figy of the kabuki actor Ichikawa Danjiiro (who committed sui-
cide) on his way to Paradise48
1862 Models of an open womb showing the growth of a fetus 49

The objects displayed in misemono exhibitions included any item,

natural or artificial, that was wondrous, rare, fascinating, or sensational
enough to attract a crowd and bring profit. Among the popular natural
objects were exotic birds (parrots and peacocks), scary beasts (tigers,
bears, porcupines, and wolves), tame wild animals, tropical fish and sea
animals, exotic flowers, wondrous topiary and bonsai, and even human
prodigies.50 The exhibitions of human freaks and deformities, which
were often touted as object lessons in the Buddhist principles of karmic
reward and punishment, offered a graphic demonstration of Buddhist
commercialism. Often displayed demonstrating odd skills, disabled hu~
mans were exploited to underscore one of the best-known Buddhist
teachings-a sinful act in this life will result in deformity in the next.
Such exhibitions of humans continued until the Meiji government
banned them in I873. 51
On the other hand, handiworks offered misemono merchants great
opportunities to create their own prolific worlds of wonder and exoti~
cism. Using straw, bamboo, mother-of~pearl, ceramics, papier-mache,
and other materials, misemono entrepreneurs competed with one an-
other to reproduce traditional cultural themes, popular actors and he~
roes, the world of Yoshiwara courtesans, and the daily lives of Edoites.
No matter what subjects they chose, success depended on achieving a
level of creativity and attraction that would capture the curiosity and
imagination of the Edo populace. With the introduction of peep shows
(nozoki) and contraption dolls in the mid~nineteenth century, the sophis~
ticated misemono world of lively artifacts further elevated the popular
taste for novel delights. Sometimes misemono wandered into depicting
the pleasure quarters or sex scandals, and sometimes they were tainted by
exaggeration and hoax. 52 But the challenge of the business lay in over~

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62 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

coming the relatively static nature of exhibitions as such. Anyone who

came up with more animated diversions for pleasure~seeking patrons
could dominate the world of Sensoji entertainment for some time.
Among the many lively entertainments at late T okugawa Sensoji, story~
telling, which enjoyed a great popularity among Edoites, deserves our
attention.
Storytellers, who conducted "lectures on the Buddha" (koshaku), en~
tertained members of their audience by making them burst into laughter,
by saddening or exciting them, or by leading them into a wondrous
imaginary world. In the mid~eighteenth century, Fukai Shidoken (1679-
1765), who opened his "lecture" hall in front of Sanja Daigongen (Senso
Shrine), was without peer in the Edo storytelling world. Hiraga Gennai
(1728-79), a disciple of Shidoken, left this description of the funny ap~
pearance and reputation of his master:
He attracts crowds with stories of heroic soldiers. Holding a funny-looking
wooden pointer resembling the shape of a phallic matsutake mushroom in his
hand and moving it along the lines [of a storybook], he convulses an audience
with laughter.... My master, who is slim and close to ninety years old, is superb
in mimicking even the subtleties of gestures and voices of a female.... There
used to be two popular characters. One was Ebizo (a kabuki actor), and the
other Shidoken. After Ebizo died, there is only one left who deserves the moni~
ker "Edo meibutsu" (famous person ofEdo).53

Until 1765, when he died at the age of eighty~six in a shabby apartment in

the Sensoji district, Shidoken pioneered the yose (vaudeville theater)
business at Sensoji and nurtured the cultural spirit of "silly works" in
Edo.
Other storytellers soon followed the path that Shidoken had paved.
They rented space &om Sensoji, set up their walled storytelling halls
whose kido (wooden doors) opened to the outside, charged entrance fees,
and competed with one another in displaying their lecturing talents. As
we can determine &om a typical placard (which read T aiheiki) erected to
advertise the storytelling halls, storytellers usually took their topics &om
traditional military tales (gunki monogatari) and often related them to
Buddhist didacticism. Some storytellers amused audiences with erotic
material, and others ventured to touch on sensitive political gossip. Baba
Bunko (1718-58), another renowned storyteller in the mid~eighteenth

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 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

century, sometimes satirized contemporary politics and poked fun at

factional disorders (known as oie soda [household disturbances]) among
certain daimyo houses. Bunko had a critical turn of mind and could not
come to terms with Shidoken's rather straightforward commercialism; he
labeled the latter's art "an evil way." Baba's audience found his tone and
wit so poignant and cathartic that it was as if "their dissatisfaction had
been washed out."54 But his courage cost him his life. He was eventually
put to death by the bakufu, leaving behind laughter and cynicism.
In contrast to storytelling, which amused an audience with masterly
words, street,art performances amused audiences with dexterous actions.
As one of the most popular centers for circus performances in Edo, Sen,
soji had generated its own unique circus culture since the mid,eighteenth
century. Sensoji visitors could easily find, here and there in the precinct,
crowds surrounding oval enclosures, where acrobats and clowns pre,
sented a variety of entertainments known as misemono-gei (arts that show
things). Some notable examples of the late T okugawa period include:
1742 Acrobatic feats of a man, horse (performer: Kirinnosuke)
1769 Acrobatics (karuwaza), martial arts, and superhuman muscular
skills (performers: Hayakawa T oraichi, Haruyama Utanosuke, and
others)
1770s Juggling with beans and sake bottles ( tokuri) (performer: Keshino,
suke)
1773 An off,season sumo tournament (hanazumo) and equestrian feats
1780 A comic drama performed by children
1805 A comic drama performed by children to promote the sale of
"wonder" drugs
1807 Sumo wrestling matches and acrobatics performed by a man of
great strength
r8o8 Matsui Gensui's top spinning; a puppet show
r8n Sumo wrestling matches
I8I6 A ballad drama sung to the accompaniment of a samisen voruri);
acrobatics by a boy (performer: Yamamoto Kojima)
1819 Equestrian feats
r82os Flying paper butterflies and an exhibition of sleights of hand per,
formed while playing with ghostly puppets (performers: Yanagawa
Itchosai and T anigawa Sadakichi)

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 64 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

1828 Power competition (kakuryoku) in the form of sumo

1829 Dance performances by children; a puppet play in Okuyama
1841 Nineteen ball~juggling tricks (kyokumari) (perfor_mer: Kikukawa
Kunimaru)
1844 A composite show consisting of top~spinning tricks (kyokugoma)
and dancing
1846 Acrobatics, tightrope walking, and falconry dancing (performers:
Yamamoto Kojima and his group)
1847 Ise dance to the beat of samisen
1853 An equestrian circus
1855 An acrobatic variety show (performers: Masukagami and his
group)
1857 Ten acrobatic feats (performers: Sakurazuna Komaju and Ha~
yatake T orakichi)
1862 Eleven acrobatic feats (performer: Hayatake T orakichi) 55

The misemono business in Sensoji exploited the popular taste for

ephemeral and sometimes illusory stunts. Acrobatics, top~spinning
tricks, and ball~juggling formed the core of this popular repertoire, often
complemented by magic tricks, equestrian circuses, and demonstrations
of sleights of hand, martial arts, swordsmanship, and muscular skills.56
Visitors to Sensoji enjoyed watching displays of these skills, which were
never in short supply. Circus performers, who entertained for free or
charged an entrance fee of only a few copper coins, competed to lure
' customers into buying their "wonder" drugs after a prelude~performance.
Among the dozens of misemono performers who sold nostrums pre~
pared according to secret family recipes, for generation after generation
the members of the Matsui family ranked number one thanks to their
superb top~spinning skills. In particular, the thirteenth heir, Matsui
Gensui, was so adroit that he was often called to amuse the shogun and
other high officials.57 In 1866, in Matsui Gensui's final days, he even un~
dertook a two~year tour abroad with other popular entertainers.58 Kiku~
kawa Kunimaru, famed for his ball~juggling skills in the 184os, attracted
5,ooo to 6,ooo spectators a day. His lavish spending in the neighboring
Yoshiwara pleasure quarters, however, eventually cost him his career,
when he was expelled from Edo by the bakufu. However, his legendary
success long echoed in the world ofSensoji misemono arts. 59

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 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

Not only individual performers, but also troupes were often the talk
of the town. Comic dramas performed by child prodigies as a prelude to
the selling of"cure~all" lotions attracted crowds, as did acrobatics and cir~
cus groups featuring feats of tumbling, illusionary tricks, dancing, and
martial arts. Troupes of acrobats preferred to charge somewhat high en~
trance fees rather than to sell "magic" medications, for the income from
entrance fees usually proved quite lucrative once a walled enclosure, sur~
rounded by tiers of gallery benches (sajiki) and ground seats, was welles~
tablished. 60 Puppet theaters also attracted a large number of spectators,
as did monkey shows. This amalgam of performing artists transformed
Sensoji into a sort of entertainment melting pot. Entertainers and mise~
mono merchants never hesitated to display, adjust, transform, or even
counterfeit their talents and skills in the pursuit of profits. As long as
commercial interests were involved, Sensbji's play culture, whether in the
form of performing arts or traditional sports, knew no restraints.
Sumo wrestling is a case in point. After the shogunate recognized
sumo as a leisure profession and a legitimate means of achieving a liveli~
hood (tosei) in 1744, the Yoshida Zenzaemon family claimed licensing
rights over sumo wrestlers and organized them into a professional asso~
dation. Yoshida Oikaze, who was officially recognized as the iemoto
(proprietor) of the sumo profession when he successfully staged a sumo
show for Shogun Ienari at Edo Castle in 1791, began to exercise tight
control over the approximately 150 sumo wrestlers of Edo, Osaka, and
Kyoto. Yoshida's sumo organization annually held "four seasons," or
sumo competitions (shiki kanjin sumo): two in Edo and one each in Osaka
and Kyoto. 61 For commercial reasons, Yoshida organizers favored
Ryogoku, a plaza beside the Sumida River, as the stage for the show
when it was held in Edo, but sometimes, for a change, they chose temples
or shrines (including Sensoji). Over time, the "four seasons" kanjin sumo
show, which enjoyed an explosive popularity, evolved into a national
pastime. Needless to say, the Yoshida family and its sumo wrestlers en~
deavored to tighten their monopolistic rights over sumo and the sizable
income from this popular sport.
Entertainers and misemono merchants, however, could not resist the
temptation of such a potentially lucrative source of income. In an at~
tempt to evade the bakufu's regulations on sumo, some misemono mer~

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66 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

chants began to mimic sumo shows, often featuring theatrical matches

consisting of "surprise" raw power or unusual physical skills at crowded
intersections or at temples and shrines. These entrepreneurs, who could
not mobilize "licensed" wrestlers, instead attempted to create an exoti~
cized form of sumo, often in combination with sideshows involving
singing, dancing, or dramatic performances. Thanks to its reputation as a
prosperous amusement center, Sensoji naturally attracted many sumo
entertainers in the late T okugawa period, and visitors to Sensoji often
encountered "peculiar" sumo matches involving female wrestlers with
distinctive physical marks.
Beyond the sumo misemono, visitors to Sensoji could enjoy more
participatory forms of asobi, such as archery (yokyu). The 1778 Sensoji
land survey listed seven archery booths within the temple precincts, and
the Kansei map of 1798 shows twelve. Archery, which had originated in
T'ang China and had become popular among Kyoto court nobles in the
Muromachi period, had evolved into a popular leisure pastime by the late
T okugawa period and was easily available for a few coins. The format
was simple: shoot a twenty~ or thirty~centimeter~long arrow toward a
ten~centimeter target at a distance of approximately thirteen and a half
meters. Traditionally, arrow shooting was believed to drive away evil
spirits or to aid in divination. Some people played archery for stakes.62
The female attendants who served the mostly male patrons were an
added attraction. Among the many archery booths in Edo, those at Sen~
soji were especially famous for the colorful views provided by the "young
girls who pick up the arrows" (yatori onna).
The handful of archery booths at Sensoji were far outnumbered by
toothpick shops. Ninety~one toothpick shops were in business in 1778,
ninety~three in 1798, and an astonishing 220 in 1807. First~time visitors
must have been surprised to encounter hundreds of similar shops scat~
tered all around the grounds of Sensoji. As Figure 9 shows, a toothpick
shop usually consisted of a vending stall formed of one or two wooden
panels (portable and foldable) and sold toothpicks, dentifrice, beans for
pigeons, toys, and other miscellaneous items. In a society in which tooth
decay and toothaches were rampant and medical knowledge to prevent or
lessen them almost nonexistent, dental care was a universal concern.

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Fig. g. Toothpick shops on the grounds ofSensoji (from Saito Gesshin, Edo meisho zue).

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68 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

Picking the teeth after a meal was common, and brushing with dentifrice
or powered gallnuts was very fashionable, even though their sanitary ef~
fects rested largely in the verbal promises of toothpick merchants. Still,
one wonders how so many toothpick shops could stay in business. The
competition between them was understandably intense. Like those who
ran archery stalls, the owners of these shops found that the major way to
survive the heavy competition was to hire attractive salesgirls.63 For many
visitors to Sensoji, the voyeuristic enjoyment of watching these salesgirls
and chatting with them was a form of asobi that was otherwise hard to
come by in feudal society.
The teahouse business was neither less voyeuristic nor less oriented
toward asobi than the toothpick business. As the Sensoji chronicles note,
the precursor of the many teahouses found at Sensoji in the late To~
kugawa period, referred to as the "Nara chaya" (Nara teahouse), which
sold meals as well as tea, first appeared in Namiki~cho in the Tenna era
(1681-83). But it was not until the Horeki era (1751-63) that teahouses
selling only tea began to spring up along the eastern side of the nakamise.
At this early period, the famous Nijikken chaya (twenty teahouses),
which would later move to the inner precincts, were most conspicuous.64
The number of teahouses in the Sensoji precincts, both inner and outer,
eventually increased to about a hundred (there were III in 1778 and 104 in
1798). These teahouses were temporary structures, walled and parti~
tioned by reed screens, in which two or three tables were placed. Visitors
to Sensoji were attracted to these teahouses by the lanterns or placards
bearing such words as "a place for resting" (or the name of the shop)
hung at the entrances. People patronized these shops for several rea~
sons-to meet with friends or acquaintances, to drink a cup of tea, to
hold business talks, or just to rest their sore feet. Sometimes sake was
also available on special order.
Most teahouse customers were male, and most of these crowded tea~
houses hired young and attractive women, known as chakumi onna (women
who scoop up tea), and "displayed" them in order to lure male clientele.
These teahouse girls offered male Edoites the exotic pleasure of watching
an attractive woman or talking with her. For the women, the teahouse was
a place where they could display their personal beauty and dress while

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 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

making money. Although the shogunate stipulated that teahouse wait~

resses could wear only cotton cloth, these young women had no com~
punction about donning silk and black satin sashes. Colorful aprons were
special accessories that added to their stylish appearance. 65 At the cross~
roads of commercialism and male voyeurism, the Sensoji teahouses ere~
ated and nurtured an erotic culture that gave birth to such legendary tea~
house belles as Okita of the Naniwa teahouse and Oroku of the Minato
teahouse. Their beauty dominated the curiosity and gossip ofEdoites.
Okita was "so beautiful and lovely that nobody treated her lightly,"
and "there was no one who had not heard of her fame." It is even said
that so many people once swarmed in front of the Naniwa teahouse just
to catch a glimpse of her that the owner had to spray water to scatter
them away. Okita even became a model for the ukiyo painter Kitagawa
Utamaro (1753-1806; see Fig. ro). And Oroku was so renowned for her
trussed hairstyle that everyone tried to copy it. It was as if Oroku
"trussed Edo ladies" through her fashionable hairstyle.66 Obviously, the
"exhibitory" presence of teahouse waitresses was a major force behind the
"tea~selling" business and Sensoji's asobi environment.
Clearly, it would be ludicrous to characterize Sensoji during the late
T okugawa period solely as a Buddhist center of prayer: it was also a Bud~
dhist center of play and entertainment. For Edoites, as Komori T akayoshi
aptly puts it, Sensoji was a place for taberu (eating), kau (buying), miru
(watching), and, eventually, asobu (playing).67 Visitors to Sensoji were fas~
cinated by the abundant choices of pastimes, which ranged from street
m:,1rkets, noodle shops, restaurants, storytelling halls, theaters, circuses
and other street arts, and archery halls to the attractions of toothpick
shops and teahouses. There were also scenic buildings of unusual signifi~
cance. Taking advantage of such opportunities, visitors were easily ab~
sorbed into this sphere of play and relaxation. The play culture of Sensoji
was never in short supply (as long as it was not being hindered by the ba~
kufu).
From an economic perspective, Sensoji's prosperity depended to a
great extent on this popular play culture-even though it had nothing to
do with the Buddha's original teachings. Throughout the late T okugawa
period, the rental income that this play culture provided to the coffers of

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Fig. 10. Okita of the Naniwa teahouse. An ukiyo painting by Kitagawa Utamaro
(1753-I8o6) (from Unno Hiroshi, Edo no sakariba).

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 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play 71

Sensoji remained steady and significant, yielding hundreds of gold pieces

every year. More significant, however, was the ripple effect of this culture.
Play culture converted the whole area of Sensoji into a sort of amuse-
ment park (sakariba), and this magnet attracted crowds that benefited the
entire Sensoji operation, both religious and nonreligious.

Late T okugawa Sensoji culture was based on two core functions: prayer
and play. People from all walks oflife visited Sensoji to pray to the Asa-
kusa Kannon, to enjoy the pastimes found on the spacious grounds of
the temple, or (most often) both. In a society in which daily life was often
vulnerable and insecure, people dealt with their anxieties through prayer
(kito). For those who sought a "miraculous" solution to a problem, Sen-
soji's Asakusa Kannon was essential. Sensoji was Edo's mecca for prayer
worship. By the same token, in a society in which daily life was dictated
by feudal order, Sensoji provided an ideal place for relaxation, through
the various forms of asobi offered there. For Edoites who had to deal
with the hectic tempo of urban life and the stresses caused by a rigid class
system, Sensoji offered a breathing space that dispensed with social ine-
qualities. Along with the Ryogoku area, the precincts of Sensoji emerged
as one ofEdo's most popular amusement centers.
The rise of Sensoji as a center for both popular prayer culture and
popular play culture, however, did not please the T okugawa bakufu.
From the standpoint of the bakufu, Sensoji deviated from normative fu-
nerary Buddhism into a form of Buddhism premised on the commer-
cialization of prayer and play. The bakufu's unhappiness with the sprawl-
ing Sensoji culture was, in fact, expressed in a series of countermeasures
that aimed to deprive Sensoji of the right to manage its hefty income as
well as of the right to its lands. As noted in the Introduction, the magis-
trate of temples and shrines 0isha bugyo) expelled Sensoji's head monk,
Chuun, from office in 1685, demolished the post of head monk in 1740,
and then appointed a deputy administrator chosen from outside the Sen-
soji community. Furthermore, Kan' eiji assumed control of Sensoji's fi-
nances by appointing two or three treasurers from among its own offi-
cials. As a result, the sizable cash income of Sensoji fell into the hands of
Kan' eiji officials. For Sensoji, which had vigorously promoted its sources
of income, this was a smashing blow. Worse yet, in 1745 the bakufu put

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72 The Buddhist Culture of Prayer and Play

all 2o,ooo or so residents of the twenty-two units in the Sensoji front

districts under the direct jurisdiction of the city magistrate (machi bugyo).
This deprived Sensoji of its proprietary power over the monzen resi-
dents, the major suppliers of its culture.68 Nonetheless, Sensoji culture
never slowed: cultural trends are not easily reversed by administrative
measures.
In many ways, Sensoji's prosperity reflected the rising power of com-
moner consumers, who strove to expand their cultural space in the com-
mercialized and diversified society of Edo. In the late T okugawa period,
Edo society was less and less guided by the principles of a status-oriented
feudal system. Firmly root~d in the crisscrossing currents of folk piety
(prayer) and entertainment (play), the popular culture ofSensoji posed a
potential threat to the T okugawa system, which aimed to cement social
order and harmony on the dictates of Confucian moral distinctions. In
the eyes of Confucian critics, popular Buddhist culture was nothing but
corruption and decay. Buyo Inshi, the pseudonymous author of Seji ken-
bun roku (An account of events seen and heard), written in r8r6, lamented
that Buddhist priests were preoccupied with prayer activities that gener-
ated income and had abandoned the way of Buddhist Law. He charged
that in capitalizing on the fervor of popular worship, "Buddhism [had
fallen J into the business of carnal desires."69 And, he continued, temple
lands had been turned into "a hell that violates the minds of people and
robs them of their money" through the operation of so many restaurants
selling meat and fish, crowded teahouses, and a variety of other forms of
entertainment-all within the sacred Buddhist sanctuary.70 All these
commercial elements, which he viewed as antithetical to the teachings of
the Buddha, led him to conclude that "Buddhism [had become] an en-
emy of the nation." 71
Bakufu leaders appreciated neither the popular prayer culture nor the
popular play culture at Sensoji. Yet they could not easily change this
Buddhist culture through administrative measures that were blind to the
cultural reality of Edo society. For the populace, the culture of folk piety
and popular entertainment was part of their daily lives. Sensoji, blessed
with the Asakusa Kannon as well as with a sakariba environment, be-
came Edo's center of popular Buddhist culture. At Sensoji, the conjunc-
tion of prayer and play blossomed.

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