Born in hell, buried in Jōkanji – what have we done to the thousands of Yoshiwara women?

Essay about women from Yoshiwara and their fate - mass burials in Jokanji - text separator

25,000

The nighttime streets of Yoshiwara were never quiet. Within a labyrinth of wild screams, the jubilant laughter of drunkenness, and the heavy aroma of incense, sake, and cheap hair oil, an eternal game of illusion unfolded. Men came in pursuit of an illusion – a promise of beauty, love, and devotion. The women, sold here even as children, knew neither their own worth nor any life beyond this. They had no names; they bore only a choking debt. The longer they labored here, the greater that debt grew. The perfidious system allowed no escape.

Nights were spent working with drunken samurai; days were endured in a cage. In the cramped, stifling rooms, amid the shifting shadows of latticework and screens, life slowly ebbed away. Bodies ravaged by disease, pale beneath a layer of leaden powder, and eyes in which hope had long since died—there was no escape. Yoshiwara was encircled by an unyielding wall.

Many of these women perished slowly, ravaged by diseases as pervasive in Yoshiwara as the scent of old powder and sex—seeping into the skin, indelible and unforgettable. Syphilis, tuberculosis, typhus—scarcely any escaped these fates. Others chose death themselves, unable to bear their lot. Perhaps suicide was even more common than death at the hands of a drunken client or from lungs ruined by disease.

The truth is merciless—these women's lives were transformed into hell, and their deaths into inconsequential events. The Jōkanji Temple is known as “Nagekomi-dera” (投込寺)—the “Temple of the Thrown Away”—and this label is no metaphor. The naked bodies of the nameless women, deemed no longer necessary, were wrapped in straw mats, carried along peripheral paths through the rice paddies, hidden from the eyes of clients, and discarded in the field behind Jōkanji.

There were no mourners, no funeral rites. There were not even names—only mounds of bodies, which the monks would shroud with earth in communal graves before they began to decay in the sweltering heat.

25,000 women.

This is a number that should not exist. Twenty-five thousand lives that vanished without names, without memories, without a trace in history.

The only remnant left for them is the stone tower, Shin-Yoshiwara Sōreitō, erected at Jōkanji in 1902.

地獄に生まれ、浄閑寺に葬られる。
“Born in hell, buried in Jōkanji.”

The silence at Jōkanji is overwhelming. And rightly so. It ought to be overwhelming.

Where is Jōkanji located and what does it look like today?

Amidst the concrete labyrinth of Tokyo, in the Arakawa district, stands a temple—somewhat forgotten, yet clearly cared for by a devoted group who regularly visit to honor those interred within. Jōkanji does not stand out—it is one of those places you pass by without realizing its significance. Behind the modern temple building, where contemporary Tokyo residents pray for prosperity, lies a special place—a cemetery of nameless women, forgotten and cast aside by history.

The narrow pathway winding between the tombstones is lined with fine gravel that softly crunches underfoot, as if hushed by time. The air here is unlike that on Tokyo’s busy streets—heavier, imbued with the moisture of incense kindled each day. Old tales can be heard here, tales of those who had no voice in life.

Between the memorials and moss-covered mounds stands the Shin-Yoshiwara Sōreitō (新吉原總霊塔 – literally “Tower of All the Souls of New Yoshiwara”)—a towering stone structure commemorating the women of Yoshiwara.
25,000 souls.
Each had a name, a face, dreams and, unfortunately, a tragic tale that went unheard. No one held funerals for them; no one wept over their bodies wrapped in straw mats and discarded into a trench beneath the temple—nameless, without ceremony.

Nearby the monument, along the temple wall, slender wooden plaques—sotoba—bear prayers or the names of the departed, though here most remain unnamed. The wind stirs these plaques, causing them to gently clatter against one another like a soft lament. In a secluded corner of the cemetery, almost hidden in shadow, stands a statue of the Buddha. He holds a staff crowned with six rings—a symbol of the soul’s journey and liberation from suffering. These women, who in life never knew peace, now rest under his guardianship in death.

Thus we, the living, console ourselves, even though the truth is ruthless—these women's lives were turned into hell, and their deaths into insignificant events. But after death? They were no longer alive. Though the heart may scream in fury, there is no justice here; no redress ever came. This is palpably felt—there was, and will never be, any restitution. It is a lesson: to see suffering and break it, to act while there is still time—not to wait for some grand historical justice. For people simply die—in suffering, in solitude, in disdain—and nothing that follows can restore the time lost on this earth.

Everything here speaks of loss, of solitary suffering and misunderstanding, of the soullessness of the world around. The stones are cracked, and some graves lie askew, as if bowing under the weight of the past, even though the entire place is maintained with care. The cemetery is not visited by throngs, yet daily someone leaves flowers—often chrysanthemums, symbols of mourning and remembrance. Perhaps it is historians, perhaps someone from a family tied to Yoshiwara, or perhaps random passersby touched by the tale of women meant to be forgotten.

Jōkanji is a temple, but also a testament to collective guilt. In the shadow of modern Tokyo, the memory of those whose lives ended in the darkness of Yoshiwara endures.

What is Jōkanji and where did the designation “Temple of the Abandoned” come from?

Jōkanji—the temple that was meant to bring solace to souls—became a place of oblivion and solitude. Even its name, 常寛寺 (Jōkanji), suggests calm and tranquility. “Jō” (常) means “constancy” or “unchanging,” and “kan” (寛) can be translated as “gentleness” or “magnanimity.” The final character, “ji” (寺), simply means “temple.” In theory—a place of serenity and care for the souls of the departed. But was Jōkanji truly a temple of tranquility? Did the women who ended up here finally find solace after lives filled with suffering?

No. In reality, this temple became something entirely different—a collective cemetery for the women of Yoshiwara, who in life were invisible and even in death remained nameless.

Temple of Abandoned Souls (“Throw-Away Temple”)

Among the people of Edo, this temple was never recognized as a place of tranquility or Buddhist compassion. It acquired another, grim moniker: “Nagekomi-dera” (投込寺) – the “Temple of the Thrown Away,” the “Temple of the Abandoned.” This term was no metaphor—the bodies of these women were literally discarded here, without ceremony, without respect, like refuse.

In Yoshiwara, death was an everyday affair.
Women died from venereal diseases, tuberculosis, exhaustion, an alarmingly high number of suicides, and in the tragic disasters that plagued this place. Brothels did not cover the cost of funerals – the bodies were a problem that had to be disposed of as quickly as possible. And so, Jōkanji became the cemetery for the undesirable dead.

Ansei Edo Jishin (1855)

The most symbolic moment in Jōkanji’s history came on November 11, 1855, when the mighty Ansei Edo Jishin (安政江戸地震) earthquake shook the city. The tremors measured 6.9 on the Richter scale, but they were not the most deadly element—the real tragedy arrived with the fire.

Edo was a city built of wood. Houses, temples, and commercial buildings were all engulfed in flames within a few hours. The fire consumed Yoshiwara as well, where the women were trapped behind the district’s walls with nowhere to escape. Death came swiftly—many burned alive, while others suffocated in the smoke. In other districts, although the death toll was equally staggering, people could fight for their lives—run, try to outpace the flames. In Yoshiwara, however, that was impossible. The women left behind (as the wealthy owners of the brothels had largely managed to evacuate) had nowhere to flee—the wall was impenetrable, and despite the all-consuming blaze, they could not leave this pleasure district. They could only wait—wait until they burned along with all of Yoshiwara.

At that time, thousands of women worked in Yoshiwara. They had no families to claim their bodies. And even if they did, it was the very families that had originally sold them into Yoshiwara. Thus, the brothel owners simply dumped their corpses onto a heap and carted them off to Jōkanji. Over 600 women were thrown into a mass grave that week, without coffins, without prayers, without any respect. People said they were discarded like trash. And so, the name “Temple of the Thrown Away” – Nagekomi-dera – was born.

Abandoned in Life, Abandoned in Death

Ansei Edo Jishin was only one of many tragedies. Over more than three hundred years of Yoshiwara’s existence, Jōkanji received the bodies of those who had nowhere else to go—women condemned to a fate in which only death could bring their sorrowful relief.

Not every one of them died in a catastrophe. Most perished in solitude, in misery, and in oblivion, in a world that saw them only as merchandise—goods to be bought, used, and discarded. Many died slowly, ravaged by diseases that were as common in Yoshiwara as the scent of old powder and cheap hair oil—ingrained in the skin, impossible to wash away, impossible to forget. Syphilis, tuberculosis, typhus—almost none escaped these verdicts. Others chose death themselves, unable to bear their fate, but even taking their own life elicited no sympathy—their bodies were unceremoniously dumped into a ditch beneath Jōkanji, like unwanted objects.

As youth faded, the body grew weak and beauty waned, and with it, in the eyes of Yoshiwara, a woman’s value. Few patrons were willing to buy their freedom, and if they were unlucky or lacked a wealthy protector, they ended up on the streets. “Their contracts were terminated,” which in practice meant they were cast out of the pleasure house to die in solitude, in hunger and cold, within the walls of a supposedly joyful Yoshiwara.

Sometimes, some did not die of natural causes. If they attempted to escape, deceive their clients, engage in forbidden relationships, or break the rules of Yoshiwara, punishment awaited them—often death. Some were strangled, others killed by a blow from a sharp instrument, and still others simply “disappeared” without a trace. In fact, no justifiable reason for punishment was necessary—it was enough if a client—a drunken samurai—happened to have a bad day.

None of these deaths mattered. They had no families to bury them; there were no mourners, no lamentations. Their bodies were merely a problem to be solved, yet another unwanted obstacle in the smoothly operating mechanism of Yoshiwara. Just as they did not belong to themselves in life, so in death they had nothing of their own—not even a grave.

Why Jōkanji?

One might ask—why did this particular temple become the burial site for Yoshiwara’s courtesans?

It was not the nearest temple. To reach Jōkanji, one had to traverse rice fields, and on rainy days the earth turned into sticky mud. But perhaps that was precisely the point.

Local brothels were keen to have the bodies carried as far away as possible so that clients would not see the end of life of the women who, just the day before, had enticed them behind intricately painted fans.

It was also a way to hide the filth of that world, to pretend that Yoshiwara was a place of beauty and entertainment, not one of death and suffering. Or perhaps Jōkanji simply assumed that role because no one else wanted them.

Either way, Jōkanji became the cemetery for forgotten women—those who in life were mere commodities, and in death nothing more than a problem to be disposed of.

Yoshiwara – The Land of Pleasures, Joy, and Dreams

As night fell over Edo and the city’s streets emptied, in one place the light never went out. Behind the massive walls of Yoshiwara, along alleys illuminated by paper lanterns, a performance unfolded—a dazzling illusion of beauty, desire, and luxury. Clients came here to momentarily forget the harsh rules of a society under the iron grip of the Tokugawa shogunate, to escape the burdens of duty and hierarchy. But for the women who lived there, there was no escape—no day or night, no future. There were only long corridors lined with silk, timid whispers, drunken shouts, barred windows, and no promise that one day their fate might change.

The Beginnings of Yoshiwara – The Segregated City of Sin

In 1617, the Tokugawa shogunate made a decision that would change the fate of hundreds of thousands of women for generations to come. The “places of pleasure” were officially legalized and segregated—districts where prostitution was to be controlled and taxed. Previously, brothels were scattered throughout Edo, which, according to the authorities, led to chaos and disrupted social order. It was decided to confine them to one place—and thus Yoshiwara was born.

Originally located near Nihonbashi, in 1657 the Great Meireki Fire consumed a significant part of the city, forcing the district to be relocated northward, to the marshy lands near Asakusa. The new location was named Shin-Yoshiwara (新吉原, New Yoshiwara), but over time everyone simply began to call it “Yoshiwara.”

Although officially part of Edo, Yoshiwara was not a city like any other. It was a place removed from ordinary rules—still under strict control, but operating by its own brutal laws. A separate world, enclosed behind walls.

A City Within a City – A Prison Where Another Life Beat

Yoshiwara had its own rhythm, its own laws. One could neither enter nor leave it freely – there was only one gate leading to it: the Yoshiwara Ōmon (吉原大門), the grand gate of the district. Anyone wishing to cross its threshold had to do so during designated hours. Even samurai had to surrender their swords.

Beyond that gate lay a city within a city – a labyrinth of narrow alleys aglow with the light of oil lamps and the radiance of hundreds of lanterns. Along the main thoroughfare, Nakai-chō (仲之町), the oiran – high-ranking courtesans – strolled with a slow, dignified gait that conveyed far more than mere pride (more about them here: ………………………………………………). Their very walk was an art form to be mastered, dictated by the burden of kimonos, the intricacy of meticulously styled hairdos, and wooden okobashi that elevated their figures above the crowd while bending their spines.

Everything here was a spectacle – from the elegant teahouses where clients negotiated the terms of meetings, to the brothels from which young girls peered through wooden lattices, revealing only a fragment of their face – enough to ignite desire, but nothing more… not until the client paid.

Yet the lantern light did little to dispel the shadow lurking in the backstreets of this district. Behind the façade of beauty lay something far darker.

Yoshiwara was a prison. A raucous, music-filled, laughter-laden, and vividly kimoned prison from which one could not escape. Here, women (and even girls) were sold as children, often as young as six or eight years old. Families, mired in poverty, handed them over to human traffickers in exchange for money to help the rest of the household survive. Their lives were priced, their futures sealed.

It was said that courtesans could buy their freedom, but that was a myth. The prices were astronomical, and every expense incurred in Yoshiwara – the cost of food, clothing, cosmetics, even the very air they breathed – was added to their debt. The longer they stayed and the more they toiled, the greater the debt grew. One could hardly imagine a system more devious, even if one were to let the imagination run wild.

They were the property of the brothels. They had no right to decide anything. They could not fall in love, nor leave the district’s walls; they could only play the role imposed upon them.

The deceptive glow of Yoshiwara faded all too quickly. Behind the veneer of luxury lurked disease, exhaustion, and death. Almost every woman working in this district suffered from syphilis or tuberculosis. Pain was a daily companion – hidden beneath a thick layer of powder, masked by red lipstick, and concealed behind a polite smile. Courtesans rarely lived to see their thirties. More often than not, their bodies could not withstand the infections, the depletion, and the unending toil.

Yoshiwara was hell. There was no happy ending – only extinguished lantern light, the silence of nocturnal alleys, and the narrow path leading to Jōkanji – the temple of those whose names no one remembered.

Burial in Yoshiwara

Death in Yoshiwara was like life itself. No rites of passage were performed. The cold body of a courtesan held no value for the owners of the brothels. There were no coffins. There were no sutras or Buddhist prayers. There wasn’t even a name – a woman who died lost it just as she had lost her freedom in childhood.

Women of the lowest status, the ordinary yūjo (遊女), were wrapped naked in simple straw mats and carried out of Yoshiwara at night. This was not done through the main gate – no one wanted clients to see the fate awaiting their “merchandise.” More often, they were smuggled out along side paths, through rice fields, in order to reach Jōkanji as quickly as possible. There, they were thrown at the foot of the temple onto a pile with other bodies.

Monks interred them en masse in communal graves, often only after several days when the heap of corpses had already begun to decay. Some of these bodies were never even covered with earth – over time, their bones simply crumbled to dust, scattered by wind and rain.

Some of the women from Yoshiwara did not even receive such a burial. It was believed that if they were interred like ordinary people, they might return in wrath, becoming onryō (怨霊) – vengeful spirits (see also: ……………………………………………….).

For centuries, a belief had persisted in Japan that the souls of those who died in suffering, treated unjustly, would not find peace in death. And can one imagine a more cruel end than that suffered by the women of Yoshiwara? Sold as children, stripped of their names, imprisoned behind walls, ravaged by disease, and discarded like refuse.

Some were hurled into the ground like animals – without Buddhist rites, without sutras, without a funeral name. It was believed that unless a ceremony was performed for them, their souls would not gain the strength to return and haunt those who condemned them to such a fate. There was no respect in it – only a fearful desire to avoid the wrath of the dead.

Among the thousands of women who vanished without a trace in the soil of Jōkanji, very few received individual graves. The oiran (花魁), courtesans of the highest rank, were the only ones for whom death was sometimes marked with a modicum of respect.

The best-known grave in Jōkanji is that of Wakamurasaki (若紫). She was one of the most beautiful and talented oiran of her era. She captured the heart of a wealthy patron who resolved to buy her freedom – she was to leave Yoshiwara and begin a new life as his wife. But she never left the district’s confines. She was murdered just before the day of her liberation.

Whether her patron was deceived or someone else wished to keep her in Yoshiwara remains unknown. All that is certain is that her death was resounding, and the memory of her so powerful that she received her own gravestone in Jōkanji. But how many were there like her – who died quietly and vanished into anonymous mass graves?

25,000 Women – A Number That Should Not Exist

Today it is said that approximately 25,000 women were buried in Jōkanji. But whence comes this number?

There is no complete documentation. It is an approximate figure, based on temple records and historical testimonies. The monks of Jōkanji kept only fragmentary registers, and many bodies were never recorded – they were anonymous in life, and even more so in death.

Today, when someone visits Jōkanji, they see neatly maintained gravestones and sotoba plaques. Every day, someone leaves chrysanthemums; every day, incense is lit. But is that enough to atone for what happened? There was no justice for them—no words of apology, no one held accountable. In their name, only one phrase remains, carved in stone:

地獄に生まれ、浄閑寺に葬られる。
"Born in hell, buried in Jōkanji."

And then, silence. The stillness at Jōkanji is dreadful. And rightly so—it should be dreadful.

Remnants of Memory – How Do We Remember the Women of Yoshiwara Today?

The deaths of the women of Yoshiwara were meant to mark the end of their story. Yet their memory has not completely vanished. Even though most were cast into the earth without names or ceremonies, traces of that dark past remain at Jōkanji.

Among the gravestones and winding alleys of the cemetery, amid the sotoba—wooden plaques inscribed with prayers and the Buddhist names of the departed—one monument stands out: the Shin-Yoshiwara Sōreitō (新吉原總霊塔), the "Tower of All the Souls of New Yoshiwara." Today, it is the central point of remembrance for those who were invisible in life.

Erected in 1902, at a time when Yoshiwara still existed as a pleasure district (though its golden age had long passed), the monument was an attempt—however partial—to restore dignity to the women buried here. It was a testament that, even in death, their fate was not ignored.

However, the original monument did not survive intact. In 1923, when the great Kantō earthquake nearly obliterated Tokyo, the monument was severely damaged. It was rebuilt in 1929, this time in a larger, more monumental form.

This is no ordinary gravestone. Its design carries deep symbolism—at its summit stands the figure of a seated Buddha holding a staff capped with six rings, symbolizing the journey of souls and their passage into peace. Beside the Buddha rises a stone stele inscribed with the words:
“新吉原總霊塔”
Shin-Yoshiwara Sōreitō
"Tower of All the Souls of New Yoshiwara"
This is all that was offered to them after years of silence.

Among the inscriptions on the monument is one sentence that remains the most poignant testimony to the fate of these women:

"Born in hell, buried in Jōkanji."

These are the words of Hanamata Kasui, a poet of brief senryū verses who could, in a few syllables, convey the bitter irony of life in Yoshiwara.

There is no metaphor in this verse, no exaggeration. Hell was not an illusion—it truly existed beyond the walls of Yoshiwara. The women who ended up there were born a second time—not into life, but into suffering. They could not break free from it; only death brought them freedom. That single phrase is all that remains for them. And the incense, lit every day—yet does society truly remember? Jōkanji is not a place frequented by throngs. There are no grand pilgrimages, no official tributes, no pompous ceremonies. Still, every day a solitary passerby stops here.

Is that enough? Does it mean that Japanese society truly remembers the fate of the women of Yoshiwara? Can burning incense make up for centuries of silence?

The history of Yoshiwara still lingers at the margins of official historical narratives. It is not taught in textbooks, nor does it feature in major historical debates. Modern Japan is reluctant to revisit the subject—because Yoshiwara does not fit the romantic vision of the Edo era, it does not belong to the image of old Japan as a land of honor, loyalty, and beautiful traditions. It is a stain on the conscience.

One of the few who had the courage to speak of Yoshiwara at a time when Japan preferred to forget was Nagai Kafū (永井荷風, 1879–1959).
He was a writer fascinated by old Edo—its colorful yet brutal history. He knew Yoshiwara intimately, having spent time there as a young man, observing the lives of its women.

In 1963, four years after his death, his students and admirers erected in Jōkanji the "Brush Mound" (筆塚, Fudezuka)—a symbolic monument containing his pen and two teeth.
His literature—steeped in nostalgia and sincere sorrow—became one of the few testimonies of those times, reminding us not only of a celebrated culture but also of those who were consumed by it.

Do We Remember Yoshiwara?

Time flows on. Tokyo changes. Yoshiwara no longer exists; its streets no longer throb with life, and the oiran no longer stroll slowly along its cobbled alleys.

Yet Jōkanji remains. The Shin-Yoshiwara Sōreitō still stands, and Hanamata Kasui's words are still carved into stone. But what do we really remember? And what will we remember a hundred years from now?

Perhaps someday, one day, the last person will light incense, the last hand will leave a chrysanthemum on the stone, and then—silence.

Perhaps then their story will truly be over.

Let us conclude on this somber note, while remembering that the history of Jōkanji is not solely about the sins of Japan. Were such places created only in Japan, where women were condemned to such a fate? Or is it that while we are outraged by the Japanese collective forgetfulness, we might be neglecting something crucial from our own histories—of Europe? Of Poland? Surely we remember something, don’t we?

Born in hell, buried in Jōkanji – what have we done to the thousands of Yoshiwara women?

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Mike Soray

(aka Michał Sobieraj)

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Mike Soray

(aka Michał Sobieraj)

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