, from 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 ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

onwards, was the public exhibition of religious objects from

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

temples, usually relics or statuary, that were normally not on display. Such exhibitions were often the bases for public fairs, which would involve outdoor entertainment activities, market trading, and

misemono During the Edo period, , "shows" or "exhibitions", were an important part of Japanese urban culture. Many of the shows were put on hurriedly and were characterized by their crudeness. The term ''misemono'' dates from the Edo period, although plaus ...

. In the period from 1654 to 1868, in Edo city there were 1566 kaichō. ''Kaichō'' literally means "the opening of the curtain", and the purpose of keeping such icons hidden from public view except on special occasions was twofold. First, it upheld the sanctity of the objects that were displayed, where making them viewable to the public all of the time would otherwise serve to devalue their religious impacts. Second, it served as both advertisement and as a fund-raiser for the temple — primarily, but not solely, to pay for building repair. Accounts of such kaichō being held in

Kamakura , officially , is a city of Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan. It is located in the Kanto region on the island of Honshu. The city has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 people per km2 over the tota ...

and

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

can be found dating from before the Edo period, but they only became truly popular during the 17th century. The occurrence of kaichō outside of temple grounds were primarily an Edo city phenomenon. The first such exterior kaichō in Edo was in 1676. Many kaichō were also degaichō, where the activities broadened into the opening of an entire area of the temple, turning it into a form of carnival, with entertainments, food vendors, and even

freak show A freak show is an exhibition of biological rarities, referred to in popular culture as "Freak, freaks of nature". Typical features would be physically unusual Human#Anatomy and physiology, humans, such as those uncommonly large or small, t ...

s, or with the religious objects being transported on a tour around the country. Technically, a ''degaichō'' is a kaichō outside temple grounds, and an ''igaichō'' is a kaichō where the display is within temple grounds. In theory, attendance at a kaichō was free of charge. In practice, attendees were expected to pay a fee upon entry, and to donate an extra gratuity upon viewing the object displayed. A kaichō would create an economic boom for the businesses around the temple, and were widely advertised and promoted. Kaichō were organized with the permission of the state. Much of the information on the kaichō in Edo, for example, is recorded in ''Bukō nenpyō'', a diary kept by Edo Kanda town official Saitō Gesshin, and in the ''Kaichō sashi yuyushichō'', the

bakufu , officially , was the title of the military rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, except during parts of the Kamak ...

record of the government-approved kaichō. Bakufu approval for degaichō comprised a meeting of the bakufu officials to assess the fundraising case for the proposed kaichō, which would grant permission for a kaichō lasting up to 60 days from the date that the approval was granted. Much of this regulation was imposed in order to eliminate competition for business. However, state regulation was not entirely motivated by this. Although the bakufu in Edo in the 18th century granted only five permits per season, limited to a maximum of sixty days, it was readily prepared to grant extensions to length and to grant special permits. The government saw kaichō as a means for combatting its

budget deficit Within the budgetary process, deficit spending is the amount by which spending exceeds revenue over a particular period of time, also called simply deficit, or budget deficit, the opposite of budget surplus. The term may be applied to the budg ...

, by eliminating the grants that it had theretofore provided to temples in favour of temples organizing kaichō to raise their own funds. The association of kaichō with non-religious activities, and the secularization of the event, led to the name becoming a slang appellation, in 19th century Edo, for any activity where a person indulged in revelry and frolics in an unusual or inappropriate place, or, further, for a crowd caught up with gambling fever or a person lost the heat of sexual passion.

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