商売繁盛 shōbai hanjō Thriving Business

商売繁盛 (shōbai hanjō): a thriving business, trade that goes well and earns a good profit.

商売繁盛 says that a business is thriving: trade goes well and the profit is good. Two words make the phrase: 商売, trade or business, and 繁盛, flourishing. In use the phrase is also a wish. It is a blessing said over a shop, and a prayer at shrines and on charms. One Japanese dictionary gives the prayer as its example of the word 繁盛: to pray for the household's safety and a thriving trade. Whether it is for your own business or for someone else's is yours.

A primer of 1784 lists what people pray for when they go to the gods and Buddhas. 商売繁盛 is in it: the household safe, health and long life, a thriving trade, and no misfortune or disaster. A survey of the Hagi domain's towns, ordered in 1841, describes the Ebisu feast in the market town of Miyaichi. The merchant houses set out offerings and sacred wine and invite friends and acquaintances. The houses entertain their guests lavishly and pray for a thriving trade.

In 1894 Lafcadio Hearn set 商売繁盛 among the prayers said under the breath to a family's ancestral dead. He gave it in English as That our business may prosper. A missionary's letter quoted in a magazine of 1920 describes the morning service at a bank. The staff stand together and say Shobai Hanjo, Success to the business. Until 1946 the phrase was written 商売繁昌 almost everywhere. Japanese dictionaries today head the phrase 商売繁盛, and one notes that it is also written 商売繁昌. The scroll writes 盛.

The two words are older, but the four characters together are Japanese and of the early eighteenth century: in the full texts searched for this history (the National Diet Library's and the National Institute of Japanese Literature's), they first stand in the puppet plays of Chikamatsu Monzaemon, in 1705 and 1715, as a blessing spoken or sung over merchants, once in a New Year song in which the young Ebisu appears as the god of trade and guards it.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 商売繁盛.

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The scrolls are 12 1/4" W × 43" H (31 × 109 cm) with real silk borders and Japanese paper that are layered so the scroll hangs straight and will not warp over time. The scrolls themselves are made by Sankō (株式会社三幸) in Gifu prefecture, which has been making high quality scrolls since 1947, and we have worked with Sankō for over two decades.

Eri Takase was born and raised in Osaka, Japan, and holds the rank of Shihan, the highest rank in Japanese calligraphy, from the Bokuteki-kai and the Bunka-shodo. About Master Takase