A shukubo is a temple lodging in Japan that allows visitors to stay overnight within a Buddhist temple. Originally, these facilities were designed to accommodate only monks and worshippers, but nowadays, in response to declining numbers of monk visitors, most facilities accept general tourists. Some temples, such as

Mount Kōya is a large temple settlement in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan to the south of Osaka. In the strictest sense, ''Mount Kōya'' is the mountain name ( sangō) of Kongōbu-ji Temple, the ecclesiastical headquarters of the Kōyasan sect of Shingon Bud ...

, have open-air baths with

onsen In Japan, are the country's hot springs and the bathing facilities and traditional inns around them. As a volcanically active country, Japan has many onsens scattered throughout all of its major islands. There are approximately 25,000 hot ...

. Shukubo are now considered semi-secularized and in many towns are the only accommodations available.

History

Originally, shukubo were used by

bhikku A ''bhikkhu'' (Pali: भिक्खु, Sanskrit: भिक्षु, ''bhikṣu'') is an ordained male in Buddhist monasticism. Male and female monastics (" nun", ''bhikkhunī'', Sanskrit ''bhikṣuṇī'') are members of the Sangha (Buddhist ...

and confraternities, and later by lay practitioners of ''

Shugendō is a highly syncretic religion, a body of ascetic practices that originated in the Nara Period of Japan having evolved during the 7th century from an amalgamation of beliefs, philosophies, doctrines and ritual systems drawn from local fo ...

'' and

mountain worship Mountain worship (sangaku shinko, ) is a faith that regards mountains as sacred and objects of worship. Description Mountain worship is a form of Nature worship that seems to have evolved from the reverence that ethnic groups closely associate ...

, and played major roles in the development of the latter two. At the foot of

Mount Haguro is one of the Three Mountains of Dewa in the city of Tsuruoka, the ancient province of Dewa (a domain consisting of modern-day Yamagata Prefecture and Akita Prefecture), Japan. As the lowest of the three mountains, standing at , it is the only ...

there were once 336 shukubo all linked to ''

''. Networks of shukubo began to develop in

Ise Ise may refer to: Places *Ise, Mie, a city in Japan **Ise Grand Shrine, a Shinto shrine located in Ise, Mie *Ise Ekiti, a city in Nigeria *Ise, Norway, a village in Norway *Ise Province, an ancient province of Japan *River Ise, a tributary of the R ...

, Shima, Toba, and

Futami-ura Futami-ura is a sub-bay or inlet of Ise Bay in Japan, where the Isuzu River enters the bay. Futami-urasa Geonames.org (cc-by) post updated 2013-10-07; database download sa 2017-02-07 It is located in Mie prefecture, in the southern part of the co ...

in a decades long construction boom. In the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional ''daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

, visits to temples and shrines became popular, including visits to Ise,

Kotohira-gū (also known as , , or Konpira Shrine in English) is a Shinto shrine in the town of Kotohira in Kagawa, Japan. This shrine is patron of sea ship transport and sailors. Located at halfway to the top of Mount Zōzu, the shrine stands at the end ...

, and

Zenkō-ji is a Buddhist temple located in the city of Nagano, Japan. The temple was built in the 7th century. The modern city of Nagano began as a town built around the temple. Historically, Zenkō-ji is perhaps most famous for its involvement in the ...

. Lodging houses were built at major temples and shrines in each area to accommodate ordinary pilgrims and tourists, forming a kind of

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism ...

business, with specific areas connected to specific lodging houses. In modern times, some shukubo have been converted into traditional inns and ryokan for tourists who want to experience the atmosphere of a temple. Many modern-day operators of shukobo are descendants of families that ran shukubo when they were a purely religious matter. Originally, they only operated for one

kosha A ''kosha'' (also ''kosa''; Sanskrit कोश, IAST: ), usually rendered "sheath", is a covering of the ''Atman'', or Self according to Vedantic philosophy. There are five ''koshas'' (Panchakoshas; ; the five sheaths), and they are often v ...

but opening to the general public has substantially increased amounts of people staying at shukubo.

Gallery

File:Sakura-honbo Yoshino Nara01n4272.jpg, Sakuramotobō File:Saikan2.jpg,

Shōjin ryōri The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often ...

at Hagurosan

Saikan Saikan (斎館, ''Saikan'') is a sprawling temple lodging atop Mt. Haguro (羽黒山 ''Haguro-san''), part of the Three Mountains of Dewa (出羽三山 ''Dewa Sanzan'') in Yamagata Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōho ...

File:Saikan3.jpg, Hagurosan Saikan Room File:Saikan4.jpg, Inside the Hagurosan Saikan lodging house (corridor and rooms)

References

External links

* {{Commonscat-inline Shinto Shugendō Buddhist temples

History

Gallery

See also

References

External links