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茶の湯 chanoyu Tea Ceremony

茶の湯 (chanoyu) is the tea ceremony, the gathering at which guests are served powdered tea, and the art of holding one. In a war tale of the fourteenth century the word names the hot water for tea, and by 1526 it names the practice. This study follows it into English, from Kaempfer's Tsianoi of 1727 to tea ceremonies.

Japanese Scroll of Tea Ceremony (chanoyu) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Tea Ceremony茶の湯chanoyu

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

茶の湯 is the tea ceremony: the gathering at which guests are served powdered tea, and the art of holding one. The words are 茶, tea, の, a particle joining the two nouns, and 湯, hot water: the hot water for tea, and in the 精選版 日本国語大辞典's earliest example for that sense, the 太平記 of the late fourteenth century, the word names that water; by 1526, written 茶湯 without the particle, it named a practice held in rooms of four and a half or six mats, which was then also called 数寄, and the Jesuits' dictionary of 1603, read in its French translation of 1868, gives the noun 数寄 two senses, inclination, penchant and the art and practice of the Tchanoyou. 茶道, the name of the same art as a way, came later: born as a name in the early Edo period by one account, and in general use from the later seventeenth or the eighteenth century by others. In the English of Kaempfer's History of Japan, 1727, which a survey of the English sources calls the earliest romanization it knows of of terms connected with 茶の湯, the art is call'd Sado and Tsianoi, two names this history reads as 茶道 and 茶の湯; cha-no-yu is a dictionary headword by 1872, tea ceremonies the heading of an entry in Chamberlain's Things Japanese by 1891, and the Way of Tea, in 1933, is the English of 茶道, not of 茶の湯.

Overview

The sense. Today 茶の湯 is the tea ceremony: inviting guests and making powdered tea for them, with its manners and its gathering. Both dictionaries give that sense first, and second the water; the 日国 adds a third, the room. デジタル大辞泉 gives 客を招き、抹茶をたてて楽しむこと。また、その作法や会合, inviting guests, making powdered tea and enjoying it; also its manners, and the gathering, and second 茶をたてるために沸かす湯, water boiled for making tea [1]. The 精選版 日本国語大辞典 enters the word under the spelling 茶湯 and adds a third sense, a room where water is heated and tea made ready [2]. JMdict's English, tea ceremony, renders the first sense, and JMdict gives the word no other [3]; it has nothing for the second, the water itself, which the Japanese dictionaries still list, with two examples between them: the 太平記's of the late fourteenth century, and a line from the 虎明本 kyōgen [1][2]. For the art as a discipline, Japanese has a second word, 茶道. The encyclopedia calls the two 両者はほぼ同義であるが，茶道には精神性や修行性がより強く響く, nearly synonymous, but 茶道 sounds more strongly of the spirit and of training, and says that 茶道 is now the more widely used [1]. JMdict gives 茶の湯 tea ceremony; chanoyu [3], and 茶道 tea ceremony; Way of Tea; sadō [4].

The words. 茶 is read cha, 湯 yu, and の no, the particle that makes the first noun describe the second: the hot water of, that is for, tea. The 精選版 日本国語大辞典 enters the word under the spelling 茶湯, with the particle left to the reader, and so the 1526 line below writes it; prints of the seventeenth century write it with and without the particle on one page and gloss 茶湯 ちやのゆ in kana [2][5][6]. The same two characters also spell a different word, ちゃとう, tea and hot water, and tea offered before a Buddha or before the spirit of the dead, the first of which the dictionary dates from the ninth century and also cites from a Chinese text, 王建's 宮詞 [2]. 茶道 is read ちゃどう or さどう [7].

The text in English. Hepburn's dictionary of 1872 enters CHA-NO-YU, with the characters 茶湯, as A tea party (used only by higher classes) [8]. Satow's English-Japanese dictionary of 1904 enters Tea ceremonies, cha no yu, and gives 茶人 as a votary of the tea ceremonies and 茶道 as the rules of the tea ceremonies [9]. The English word keeps the ceremony and loses the kettle.

The historical record

Late fourteenth century, the 太平記. In book 39 of the war tale, at the flower-viewing party that 道誉 gave at 大原野, the hosts 竹筧ニ甘泉ヲ分テ。石鼎ニ茶ノ湯ヲ立置タリ, drew sweet spring water through a bamboo pipe, and set hot water for tea in a stone kettle [10]. The line is the earliest example the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 gives for the sense of the hot water, dated 14C後, late fourteenth century, and it prints the particle [2]. The particle is written in both witnesses read here, the 参考太平記 print and the collation in the 大日本史料, which compares the 西源院本, the 前田家本 and the 参考太平記 and notes no variant at the word [10][11].

1472, the 大乗院寺社雑事記 (as the dictionary files it). The 精選版 日本国語大辞典 gives as its first example of the sense of the gathering a line in the diary of the abbots of 大乗院 for the eighth day of the second month of 文明四年: 茶湯等事樋坊ニ仰付之了, the 茶湯 and the like were entrusted to the 樋坊 [2]. In the diary the line stands in the preparations for a party going into retreat at the 二月堂, among the provisions and gifts [12]. I read the words there as the tea and the hot water supplied to the party, the dictionary's ちゃとう, tea and hot water, and the line does not show a gathering or an art.

1526, the 宗長手記. The linked-verse master 宗長 records, under the diary's year 大永六年, a visit to lower Kyoto, 下京: 下京茶湯とて此ころ数寄なといひて四畳半敷六畳鋪をの〳〵興行, what is called the 茶湯 of 下京, which they lately call 数寄 and the like, each of them holding it in rooms of four and a half or six mats [13]. The word is written 茶湯, and it is now a practice held in rooms of a set size, with a second, fashionable name, 数寄. An encyclopedia takes this line as showing that by the early sixteenth century 数寄 had come to mean 茶の湯 [14].

1564, the 分類草人木 (reported). A tea book of 1564, as quoted in a dictionary of Japanese history: 近代茶ノ湯ノ道ヲ数寄ト云ハ, that in recent times the way of 茶の湯 is called 数寄 [14].

1603, the Jesuits' 日葡辞書. The Japanese-Portuguese dictionary of the Jesuit mission, printed at Nagasaki in 1603, as translated into French by Léon Pagès: under Souki, the verb 好く, Icousa, tchanoyou nadoni soucou, to have an inclination for war, for the Tchanoyou, and under the noun two senses, Inclination, penchant, an inclination, a liking, and Art et exercice ou pratique du Tchanoyou. Soukiwo sourou, Pratiquer l'art du Tchanoyou, the art and exercise or practice of the Tchanoyou; to do 数寄, to practise the art of the Tchanoyou [15]. On the same page Soukicha, 数寄者, is a person given to the practice and the art of the Tchanoyou [15].

1615–1644, the 仙伝抄, by the library's record. An undated movable-type print of the flower manual, which the National Diet Library's record places in the 元和 and 寛永 years, writes the word in kana, with the particle, for the tea things set out when the shogun visits: ちやのゆをは公方さま御成の時御らむなされ候とほりに, the ちやのゆ, as the shogun saw it at his visit [16].

1643, the 新増犬筑波集. Matsunaga Teitoku 松永貞徳's book of haikai links a verse on a garden of 数寄 with a charming bridge across it to one on 茶の湯の桶, the bucket of the chanoyu, and the comment on the pair says 今ハ数寄と云へハ茶湯の事…きこゆるまゝ茶湯とハ付べからず, now, when one says 数寄, it is heard as 茶湯, so one should not link it to 茶湯, where 茶湯 is glossed ちやのゆ in kana [5]. One small cursive character after 事, a particle, is not secured at the page image and is left out; the sentence's own conclusion, that a 数寄 verse should not be linked to 茶湯, is what carries heard as 茶湯. The word is written both ways on the one page.

1646, the 太閤記, in a print of that year. Oze Hoan 小瀬甫庵's life of Hideyoshi heads a chapter ○北野大茶湯之事, the great tea gathering at 北野, with 茶湯 glossed ちやのゆ, and in the text writes 茶の湯を御興行有て, he held a 茶の湯 [6].

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 茶道. The dictionaries agree that 茶道 came into use as the art's name after 茶の湯 and 数寄, and disagree on when. The encyclopedia entry on 茶の湯 says the words 数寄道 and 茶道 were born 江戸時代初期に芸道意識が強まって, in the early Edo period, as awareness of the art as a way grew stronger [1]; the entry on 数寄 says 17世紀末に茶道の称がおこり，元禄年間（1688-1704）ころからは数寄道は茶道と呼ばれるようになる, the name 茶道 arose at the end of the seventeenth century, and from about the Genroku years, 1688 to 1704, 数寄道 came to be called 茶道 [14]; another encyclopedia puts its becoming general 江戸中期、17世紀後半、18世紀に下ってから, in the mid-Edo period, the later seventeenth century, or down into the eighteenth [7]; and the dictionary of Japanese history says 江戸中期以降, from the mid-Edo period on [7]. An earlier word read さどう, written 茶頭 or 茶道, named the officer in charge of tea, from 1457; and the 日国 gives one late-Muromachi use of 茶道, read さだう, for the art itself, in the 酒茶論, while noting that さどう for the art was rare until the Edo period [7]. The range, then, is the early seventeenth century to the eighteenth, with no agreed year.

The word in English

1727, Engelbert Kaempfer, The History of Japan, translated by J. G. Scheuchzer. In the appendix on tea: It is a particular art to make the Tea, and to serve it in company, which however consists more in certain decent and agreeable manners, than in any difficulty as to the boiling or preparation. This art is call'd Sado and Tsianoi. As there are people in Europe, who teach to carve, to dance, to fence, and other things of the like nature, so there are masters in Japan, who make it their business to teach children of both sexes, what they call Tsianosi, that is, to behave well, when in company with Tea-drinkers, and also to make the Tea, and to present it in company, with a genteel becoming and graceful manner [17]. Kaempfer was in Japan for three years from 1690, and a survey of the English sources calls Sado and Tsianoi the earliest romanizations in English, that it knows of, of terms connected with 茶の湯 [18]. I read the two as 茶道 and 茶の湯 (Notes); read so, the art's two names enter English together.

1867 and 1872, J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary. The first edition enters CHA-JIN, 茶人, A master in the art of preparing powdered tea, and has no entry for the word [19]. The second edition adds CHA-NO-YU, 茶湯, A tea party (used only by higher classes) [8], a headword the first edition did not have, and CHA-DŌ, 茶道, as A professor of the art of making tea: the officer, not the art [8].

1875, The Japan Weekly Mail, 27 February.* An unsigned column of notes on Japanese pastimes: Cha-no-yu. Drinking powdered tea is performed with many ceremonies, which differ for the usuie (thin) and the koie or thick [20]. The column describes the ante-room, the tea-room, the thick tea drunk from one bowl each person taking three sips, and ends Women and servants are always excluded from this form of entertainment* [20].

1891, Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese, second edition, p. 404. The headword is English: Tea Ceremonies. Few things have excited more interest among collectors of Japanese curios than the cha-no-yu, or tea ceremonies, of which so many of the highly prized little "japanosities" in their collections are in one way or another the implements [21]. The first edition of 1890 carries the entry, as the survey reports [18]. Here the English name heads the entry.

1899, Lafcadio Hearn, In Ghostly Japan, "Incense", pp. 30–31, read in a printing of 1911. The young lady of pre-Meiji days learned the art of ceremonial tea-making (cha-no-yu or cha-no-è), and a footnote says Girls are still trained in the art of arranging flowers, and in the etiquette of the dainty, though somewhat tedious, cha-no-yu [22].

1933, A. L. Sadler, Cha-no-yu: The Japanese Tea Ceremony. The Introduction opens: For the last four hundred years there has existed in Japan a very definite point of view or way of life associated with the ceremonial drinking of tea. It is called Cha-no-yu, literally Hot Water for Tea, or Chado, the Way of Tea, and those who follow it are known as Chajin or Tea-men [23]. The earliest print of the Way of Tea the shelf's index finds (no work it dates before 1933 carries the phrase), and it renders 茶道; Sadler gives the literal sense of 茶の湯 in the same sentence. On the same page he calls Okakura Kakuzō's The Book of Tea the best description of its spirit and 'Teaism,' the word he coined to describe it [23].

Today. JMdict: 茶の湯 tea ceremony; chanoyu; 茶道 tea ceremony; Way of Tea; sadō [3][4]. The design is sold as Tea Ceremony (chanoyu), the house's title, which gives the English name of the art and the Japanese word; this history renders the word hot water for tea, because that is what its parts say and what Sadler gave as its literal sense [23]. The Way of Tea is the English of 茶道, the art's other name, and names the same practice.

A reading

As I read it, the art is named after its most ordinary thing. In the 太平記 茶の湯 is the water in the kettle at a party [10]; by 1526 it is the practice itself, held in rooms of four and a half or six mats [13]; and the Jesuits' dictionary of 1603, in its French of 1868, speaks of the art and practice of the Tchanoyou and of a person given to it [15]. In the dictionaries the water did not lose the name when the art took it: 大辞泉 still gives it as a second sense, with an example from the 虎明本 kyōgen [1]. I read this as a word that grew by keeping its first thing in view.

The three names answer to three ways of looking. 茶の湯 names what is on the fire; 数寄, from the verb 好く, named the liking for it, and the Jesuits' dictionary gives the noun inclination before it gives the art [15]; 茶道 names the discipline [1][14][7]. The dictionaries do not agree when 茶道 took over, and I do not settle it here. Kaempfer's Sado and Tsianoi, from a stay that began in 1690, suggests both names were in use by then [17][18]. In the English read here the art's names are Japanese in Kaempfer, 1727, and in Hepburn's headword, 1872, and English names of the writers' own follow: tea ceremonies, under which Chamberlain filed it in 1891; Teaism, Okakura's coinage as Sadler calls it; and the Way of Tea, Sadler's English for 茶道 in 1933 [21][23].

Notes

Sources not seen

The 分類草人木 of 1564, in the 茶道古典全集 edition, which has no open copy; the line above is quoted from the dictionary of Japanese history [14].

The 日葡辞書 in its Portuguese original of 1603.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 「茶の湯」, デジタル大辞泉; 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 (熊倉功夫), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/茶の湯-96782
  2. 「茶湯」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, s.v. ちゃ‐の‐ゆ and ちゃ‐とう, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/茶湯-566866
  3. 茶の湯, JMdict, at jisho.org. https://jisho.org/search/茶の湯
  4. 茶道, JMdict, at jisho.org. https://jisho.org/search/茶道
  5. 松永貞徳『新増犬筑波集』, 野田弥兵衛, 1643 (寛永廿 in the colophon, scan 62), 下, scan 41. National Diet Library pid 2541201. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2541201/1/41
  6. 小瀬甫庵『太閤記』, 林甚右衛門, 1646 (正保三年 in the colophon of the set's last volume, which also carries a postface dated 寛永三年, 1626), 巻七, scan 28. National Diet Library pid 2546245. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2546245/1/28
  7. 「茶道」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, s.v. さ‐どう; 日本大百科全書; 山川 日本史小辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/茶道-69303
  8. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, second edition, American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai, 1872, p. 44, s.v. CHA-NO-YU and CHA-DŌ. Internet Archive japaneseenglishe00hepb_0. https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishe00hepb_0
  9. E. M. Satow and Ishibashi, An English-Japanese Dictionary of the Spoken Language, third edition, revised by E. M. Hobart-Hampden and H. G. Parlett, Kelly and Walsh, 1904, p. 875, s.v. Tea. Internet Archive englishjapanesed00satouoft. https://archive.org/details/englishjapanesed00satouoft
  10. 今井弘済 考訂『参考太平記』, 小川多左衛門, 巻三十九, scan 27. National Diet Library pid 2563074. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2563074/1/27
  11. 『大日本史料』 第六編之二十七, 1935, pp. 348–349, scan 205. National Diet Library pid 3450573. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3450573/1/205
  12. 『大日本史料』 第八編之六, 1920, p. 171, quoting 大乗院寺社雑事記 文明四年二月八日, scan 97. National Diet Library pid 3450588. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3450588/1/97
  13. 宗長『宗長手記』, in 『群書類従』 巻三百廿六下, scan 79; the year heading 大永六年 at scan 67. National Diet Library pid 2559199. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2559199/1/79
  14. 「数寄」, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 (日向進); 山川 日本史小辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/数寄-540939
  15. Léon Pagès, Dictionnaire japonais-français, traduit du Dictionnaire japonais-portugais composé par les missionnaires de la Compagnie de Jésus et imprimé en 1603 à Nangasaki, Firmin Didot, Paris, 1868, p. 725, s.v. Souki and Soukicha. Internet Archive dictionnairejap00japagoog. https://archive.org/details/dictionnairejap00japagoog
  16. 『仙伝抄』, movable-type print, undated (元和–寛永年間 in the library's record), scan 38. National Diet Library pid 2532151. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2532151/1/38
  17. Engelbert Kaempfer, The History of Japan, together with a Description of the Kingdom of Siam, 1690–92, translated by J. G. Scheuchzer, London, 1727; James MacLehose and Sons reprint, Glasgow, 1906, vol. III, p. 239. Internet Archive historyofjapanto03kaem. https://archive.org/details/historyofjapanto03kaem
  18. 櫻庭美咲「福喜多靖之助著『CHA-NO-YU TEA CULT OF JAPAN』―海外へ伝えられた近代数寄者の茶の湯」, 神田外語大学日本研究所紀要 12, 2020, § 2.2–2.3. https://kuis.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/1722
  19. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary; with an English and Japanese Index, American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai, 1867, p. 37, s.v. CHA-JIN. Internet Archive japaneseenglishd00hepb. https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishd00hepb
  20. The Japan Weekly Mail, 27 February 1875, pp. 180–181, "Fu So Mimi Bukuro. A Budget of Japanese Notes. Pastimes." Internet Archive jwm-bound-1875. https://archive.org/details/jwm-bound-1875
  21. Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese: Being Notes on Various Subjects Connected with Japan, second edition, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, London, 1891, p. 404, s.v. Tea Ceremonies. Internet Archive thingsjapanesebe00cham_0. https://archive.org/details/thingsjapanesebe00cham_0
  22. Lafcadio Hearn, In Ghostly Japan, Little, Brown, Boston, copyright 1899; read in the printing of 1911 (title page 1911, copyright page 1899), "Incense", pp. 30–31. Internet Archive cu31924014202687. https://archive.org/details/cu31924014202687
  23. A. L. Sadler, Cha-no-yu: The Japanese Tea Ceremony, J. L. Thompson, Kobe, and Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, London, 1933; Charles E. Tuttle, Rutland and Tokyo, first Tuttle edition 1963, third printing 1970, Introduction.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Not yet reviewed.

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 茶の湯 (chanoyu)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/chanoyu.