280px, Main Hall of Renge-ji in Banba-juku was the sixty-second of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō highway connecting

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

with

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

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 characteriz ...

Japan. It was located in the present-day city of Maibara, Shiga Prefecture,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

History

Banba-juku has a very long history, and was located on the ancient

Tōsandō is a Japanese geographical term. It means both an ancient division of the country and the main road running through it. It is part of the ''Gokishichidō'' system. It was situated along the central mountains of northern Honshu, specifically th ...

highway connecting the capital of

Heian-kyō Heian-kyō was one of several former names for the city now known as Kyoto. It was the official capital of Japan for over one thousand years, from 794 to 1868 with an interruption in 1180. Emperor Kanmu established it as the capital in 794, mov ...

with the provinces of eastern Japan from the

Asuka period The was a period in the history of Japan lasting from 538 to 710 (or 592 to 645), although its beginning could be said to overlap with the preceding Kofun period. The Yamato polity evolved greatly during the Asuka period, which is named after t ...

. The road runs parallel to Lake Biwa between Banba and neighboring

Toriimoto-juku 280px, Arikawa Akadama Jinkyokan in Toriimoto-juku (ICP) was the sixty-third of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō highway connecting Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. It was located in the present-day city of Hikone, Shiga Prefecture, ...

, but Banba-juku is in a valley separated from the lake by a range of low hills. During the

Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle bet ...

, Kujō Yoritsune is recorded as having stayed in Banba-jku in 1246. According to the medieval ''

Taiheiki The (Chronicle of Great Peace) is a Japanese historical epic (see ''gunki monogatari'') written in the late 14th century and covers the period from 1319 to 1367. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Taiheiki''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', pp. 923� ...

'' chronicle, during the 1333

Kenmu Restoration The was a three-year period of Imperial rule in Japanese history between the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period from 1333 to 1336. The Kenmu Restoration was an effort made by Emperor Go-Daigo to overthrow the ruling Kamakura Shogunate a ...

, the final '' Rokuhara Tandai'',

Hōjō Nakatoki Hojo or Hōjō may refer to: Hojo or HoJo: *Howard Johnson's, a U.S. chain of restaurants and hotels *A nickname for Howard Johnson *A nickname for Howard Jones *A nickname for Howard Jones *MGR-1 Honest John, the first nuclear-capable missile ...

committed ''

seppuku , sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese people ...

'' together with 430 of his family and retainers at the temple of Renge-ji in Banba-juku after their defeat at the hands of Sasaki Takauji, who was acting under the authority of Emperor Go-Daigo to assist the Ashikaga clan in overthrowing the

Kamakura shogunate The was the feudal military government of Japan during the Kamakura period from 1185 to 1333. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Kamakura-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 459. The Kamakura shogunate was established by Minamoto no Y ...

. In the early

, the system of post stations on the Nakasendō was formalized by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

in 1602, and it was a stopping place for traveling merchants () who originated from Ōmi Province. It was also on the ''

sankin-kōtai ''Sankin-kōtai'' ( ja, 参覲交代/参覲交替, now commonly written as ja, 参勤交代/参勤交替, lit=alternate attendance, label=none) was a policy of the Tokugawa shogunate during most of the Edo period of Japanese history.Jansen, M ...

'' route by many western ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and n ...

'' to-and-from the Shogun's court in

. In 1611 a cutting through the hills to Maibara port on Lake Biwa made travel by boat to Ōtsu-juku possible. This cut travel time by two days, but was expensive and only the wealthier travelers could afford it.Maibara city official site
/ref> Banba-juku served as a warehousing and transshipment point for goods brought by water to Maibara. Per the 1843 guidebook issued by the , the town had a population of 808 people in 178 houses, including one ''

honjin The ''honjin'' at Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku.">Ōhara-shuku.html" ;"title="Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku">Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku. is the Japanese word for an inn for government officials, generally located in post stations (''shukuba'') dur ...

'', one ''waki-honjin,'' and 10 ''

hatago were Edo period lodgings for travelers at '' shukuba'' (post stations) along the national highways, including the Edo Five Routes The , sometimes translated as "Five Highways", were the five centrally administered routes, or ''kaidō'', that ...

'', and was thus one of the smallest of the stations in Ōmi Province. Banba-juku is 468 kilometers from Edo and 64 kilometers from Kyoto.

Banba-juku in ''The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō''

Utagawa Hiroshige's ''

ukiyo-e Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...

'' print of Banba-juku dates from 1835 -1838. The print depicts the post station at dawn. On the left is a mound, possibly an ''

ichirizuka are historic Japanese distance markers akin to milestones. Comprising a pair of earthen mounds (''tsuka'' or ''zuka'') covered in trees and flanking the road, they denoted the distance in '' ri'' () to Nihonbashi, the "Bridge of Japan", erected ...

'', in front of which three men with packhorses are discussing the day's business. On the opposite side of the road a man observes a traveller dressed with a stray hat and a green cloak depart. A '' kago'' (palanquin) is parked in front of the building, which is presumably a ''

'' or restaurant. All of the buildings are single-story, but some have roofs with wooden shingles held in place with stones, whereas others have thatched roofs. The names of "Hiroshige", "Utagawa" and that of his publisher "Kinjudo" and "Iseya" are disguised in various signposts and hanging lanterns.

Neighboring post towns

;Nakasendō :

Samegai-juku Samegai-juku in Maibara from Ōmi-meisyo-zue (1814) was the sixty-first of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō highway connecting Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. It was located in the present-day city of Maibara, Shiga Prefecture, Ja ...

- Banba-juku -

References

* * * *

External links

Hiroshige Kiso-Kaido seriesBanba-juku on Kiso Kaido Road
*

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banba-Juku Stations of the Nakasendō Stations of the Nakasendō in Shiga Prefecture Maibara, Shiga