Jōkan-ji () is a

Buddhist temple A Buddhist temple or Buddhist monastery is the place of worship for Buddhism, Buddhists, the followers of Buddhism. They include the structures called vihara, chaitya, stupa, wat, khurul and pagoda in different regions and languages. Temples in B ...

Arakawa, Tokyo is a Special wards of Tokyo, special ward in the Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis in Japan. The ward takes its name from the Arakawa River (Kantō), Arakawa River, though the river does not run through or touch the ward. Its neighbors are the wards of Ada ...

, Japan. Its

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...

houses the remains and spirits of about 25,000

prostitute Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-pe ...

s and fire victims of the

Yoshiwara was a famous ( red-light district) in Edo, present-day Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1617, Yoshiwara was one of three licensed and well-known red-light districts created during the early 17th century by the Tokugawa shogunate, alongside Shim ...

quarter of the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

. A

memorial A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects such as home ...

to the dead was consecrated in the

Meiji era The was an Japanese era name, era of History of Japan, Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feu ...

History

The temple was opened in 1655. The dead bodies of prostitutes of the

quarter who were too poor, which was the vast majority of them, were tucked into a hay mat and brought to the back entrance of the temple and left there. This is frequently and incorrectly claimed as the reason that the temple became popularly known as ''Nage-komi-dera'' (Throw-away temple).

References

External links

Homepage of Jōkan-ji

A ride on the darker side of Tokyo's history
at ''

The Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Jokan-ji Buddhist temples in Tokyo Jōdo-shū temples

History

See also

References

External links