Bathing

Early European visitors to Japan commented on baths and bathing practices there, finding them unusual and surprising, given that Europeans themselves very rarely bathed at that time. Natural hot springs can be found throughout Japan, and baths for relaxation or therapeutic purposes with either geothermally or artificially heated water remain strongly associated with Japan today.

Early Bathing

References to bathing or purification rituals can be found in materials going as far back as the Kojiki. Various purification rituals with cold water may have existed since before the written record, and continued to be practiced by emperors, courtiers, and others down through the centuries, long after the introduction of hot water bathing. Ritual "baths" with cold water, often not involving true immersion in the water, were performed on special occasions, including New Year's, and after a new emperor took the throne, a new imperial consort was named, or a new Crown Prince was named, as well as for a newborn's first bath.

Hot water bathing, meanwhile, came with the introduction of Buddhism in the 6th century. Temples began to install bathing facilities, often with systems for heating water and distributing it to multiple wooden tubs. Notionally these were for the purposes of purification, but true washing and bathing took place here, not mere ritual. Temples also installed steam baths for purification purposes; at Zen temples (introduced to Japan in the late 12th century), steam baths were a site for meditation.

Many temples also had baths (whether these were separate baths from those used by the monks is unclear) where the poor and needy were invited to come and bathe. The terms for these types of baths, including seyoku 施浴, kudoku 功徳, and ryûgan 立願, suggest their religious or virtuous orientation. For the temples, as well as for the Imperial or courtly patrons who sponsored the establishment of these baths, these were seen as religiously meritorious undertakings. Baths were sometimes located within the existing walls of a temple, but other times, patrons would donate land, called yuden 湯田 or furoden 風呂田 (lit. "bath fields") for the construction of bathing facilities. Figures who sponsored the construction or operations of such baths include Empress Kômyô (701-760) and Shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147-1199).

Members of the Imperial Court bathed regularly, from at least the 10th century onwards, if not earlier, however little is known about how they bathed.

Meanwhile, natural hot springs came to be used as therapeutic bathing sites (kusuriburo, lit. "medicine bath"), following a separate, secular historical trajectory from religious baths.

Edo Period

• yuna

References

• Butler, Lee. "Washing Off the Dust: Baths and Bathing in Late Medieval Japan." Monumenta Nipponica 60:1 (2005). pp1-41.