The Edo Period: Professional Sumo Is Born
The History of Sumo Wrestling
Chapter 5 · The Edo Period: Professional Sumo Is Born
Kanjin-zumo: Wrestling to Pay for a Roof
A new form of public sumo, kanjin-zumo — "encouraging [donations] sumo" — emerged during the Sengoku period and carried into the early Tokugawa shogunate. The purpose was practical and specific: shrines and temples in real, documented need of repair or reconstruction held sumo tournaments as fundraisers, charging spectators to watch and putting the proceeds toward the building itself. The practice spread nationwide, concentrated especially in Kyōto, Ōsaka, and Edo.
A Real Ban, Then a Real Reversal
Kanjin-zumo's own path to legitimacy was not smooth. In the mid-seventeenth century, the shogunate banned public sumo performances outright — even the fundraising kind — on the grounds that they disturbed public morals. The ban held for decades before the government reversed course.
In 1684, the Edo shogunate granted Tomioka Hachimangu Shrine in Fukagawa formal permission to hold sumo tournaments — the decisive reversal that let kanjin-zumo return to public life. Around the same period, sumo depictions from roughly 1673 to 1683 confirm a genuinely new element had appeared alongside the reversal: a real, defined ring. This is the circular dohyō Chapter 4 deliberately declined to trace back to Nobunaga's own temporary 1578 arenas — its real, documented appearance sits exactly here, bound up with the shogunate's own shift from banning sumo to actively permitting and supporting it.
Once permitted again, tournaments resumed on a real, structured basis — eight consecutive fair-weather days, held at specific, named venues across Edo, including Tomioka Hachiman Shrine itself, Ekōin Temple in Honjo, and Yushima Tenjinja Shrine. Around these officially sanctioned events, a genuine professional world began to take shape for the first time: ranked wrestlers, organised stables, and paying crowds — the direct institutional ancestor of the sport Chapter 6 describes in its modern form.
The Banzuke: Ranking Wrestlers on Paper
The other institution born in this period still governs sumo today. The banzuke — the ranking chart listing every professional wrestler by division and standing — traces its own earliest form to the Genroku era (1688–1704), when wooden blocks listed wrestlers and officials divided into East and West sides. By the 1720s, as tournament organisation grew more regular, the practice grew more prominent alongside it.
The earliest known banzuke: wooden blocks listing wrestlers and officials, already split into East and West.
The first printed banzuke, produced by the wrestler Mikawa Jiemon for a real tournament — a one-sheet format recognisably close to the modern document.
The printed banzuke's own form and production method, traceable this far back, had settled into the style that would define Edo sumo going forward.
The structure fixed in this period is still recognisable in the banzuke posted before every modern tournament: wrestlers divided East (printed right) and West (printed left), ranked strictly by their prior tournament results, with the highest division — makuuchi — printed in the largest characters at the top, descending through successive divisions to the smallest characters and lowest ranks at the bottom.
Looking Ahead
Chapter 6 takes this Edo-period foundation — ranked wrestlers, organised stables, a codified ring — and follows it into the real, modern structure of professional sumo: the stable system, the rikishi's own daily life, and how the banzuke's own ranking logic actually determines a wrestler's career.
Questions to Sit With
Kanjin-zumo raised money for shrines and temples by charging the public to watch a fight. What does funding religious infrastructure through paid spectacle suggest about how sacred and commercial purposes have coexisted throughout sumo's own history?
The government banned public sumo for decades, then reversed itself and actively supported it. What kinds of real pressures — social, economic, or otherwise — might push a government to change its mind that completely on the same activity?
The banzuke's basic East/West, results-based ranking structure has survived roughly 300 years largely intact. What does that kind of durability suggest about the design of the system itself, compared to everything else about sumo that has changed across the chapters so far?
Quick Reference — Chapter 5
- Kanjin-zumo ("encouraging [donations] sumo") emerged in the Sengoku period as real fundraising bouts for shrine and temple repair
- A mid-17th-century shogunate ban on public sumo performances held for decades on grounds of public morals
- The real reversal: in 1684, the Edo shogunate permitted Tomioka Hachimangu Shrine to hold tournaments — the decisive turning point
- The formally codified circular dohyō appears in the historical record around 1673–1683, tied to this same period, not to Nobunaga's own earlier arenas
- Post-1684 tournaments ran 8 consecutive fair-weather days at named Edo venues; a genuine professional world (ranked wrestlers, stables, paying crowds) formed around them
- The banzuke ranking chart traces to the Genroku era (1688–1704) as wooden-block listings; the first printed one-sheet version dates to October 1757, with its settled form traceable to 1761