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家内安全 kanai anzen Peace and Prosperity in the Household

Japanese Scroll of Peace and Prosperity in the Household (kanai anzen) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
家内安全 Original Scroll by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Abstract

家内安全, kanai anzen, the household kept safe, is a prayer-formula about six hundred years old, first found, in the sources searched, in a Muromachi priest's prayer for a sutra-reading, which survives in a later copy. It is also in an Onmyōdō manual on building a house and in a Kyōgen play, both known from Edo texts, and by the late Edo period it is printed on shrine and temple amulets. It is not found in the Chinese corpora searched, where the wishes for the same thing include 合家平安 and 闔家平安.

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Overview

The sense. 家内安全 is the wish that no one in a family meets accident or illness, that the whole household is well [1]. It is one of the wishes a shrine or temple amulet is issued for, and the amulet is kept on the house-shelf of the gods or in the Buddhist altar, or fixed at the gate or on a pillar [2]; in the record below it stands with 天下太平 and 息災延命 in prayers, with 息災延命 on amulets, and with 商売繁昌 in the thousand-visits prayer of the Shintō encyclopedia.

The words. 家内 is the inside of a house and, by extension, the people in it; a diary of 1096 already pairs a matter of state and of the household, and the big dictionary's first example of the word as a modest name for one's own wife is of 1790. The big dictionary's note on the word is the key to the phrase: until the middle of the Meiji period, 家内 and 家 carried the sense that 家庭 later took over, and a trace of the older word survives in fixed phrases like 家内安全 [3]. 安全 is the absence of danger; until the end of the Middle Ages it was read both ansen and anzen, ansen the commoner at the end, and anzen from the Edo period on; the 平家物語 already has the safety of the realm [4].

The text in English. The dictionaries give the family in peace, family well-being and peace and prosperity in the household; the word itself says safe, and prosperity is not in it.

The historical record

About 1400. 私案抄, the collected prayers of 長弁, a priest of 深大寺 in Musashi. The National Diet Library's manuscript is a copy: the library's record says that its colophon calls its source 長弁's own draft and that it carries the label of the 續群書類従 [5]. On the leaf facing the passage below, an earlier prayer closes with its date and its writer's age, 永徳三年癸亥仲春十八日 金州仏子長弁廿二才, the eighteenth day of the second month of 1383, the Buddhist Chōben of 金州, aged twenty-two — so the collection is the work of a man born in 1362. The passage is a statement of intent for a reading of the six-hundred-scroll Great Wisdom Sutra: by the voice of this reading, every illness swiftly scattered and the realm brought to a settled government; every calamity at once extinguished and the flourishing of the household's safety preserved [5]. On the leaf the space after 衆, every, is blank; calamity is read from the piece that stands between that dated prayer and the passage, on the facing leaf, whose same clause is 諸災忽消滅, all calamities at once extinguished. The statement of intent carries no date of its own. The collection's dated pieces run from that prayer of 1383 through a subscription appeal of 1388, signed at twenty-seven, to one of 1415 [6], so about 1400 is a window of some thirty years. Of the classical books in which the National Diet Library's full-text search finds the phrase, this is the oldest [5]. A 長弁, the temple's fifty-second abbot, repaired its Amida in 1436 [7]; the encyclopedia does not say that he is the prayer's writer. The realm and the household, 天下 and 家内, are already a pair.

1611 and 1632. 簠簋内伝, an Onmyōdō manual attributed to 安倍晴明. The encyclopedia dates the manual to the 南北朝 period (1336–1392), which would put it as early as the prayer or earlier [8]; its wording is known here from the copies opened, a manuscript of 1611 and a print of 1632. Its chapter on building a house: if the belly-pillar is raised, ten thousand blessings come unsought, the seven demons withdraw unbidden, the descendants flourish and the household is safe; therefore the oral teaching of belly, back, head and foot at the raising of the pillar is the one thing that matters [8]. In the sources read, this is where the phrase and the new house first meet.

1792. The Kyōgen 禰宜山伏. The dictionary dates the play to the end of the Muromachi period or the start of the Edo, and cites its line from the text the Ōkura master 大蔵虎寛 wrote down in 1792 [1][9]. An Ise shrine-priest on his yearly round of his patrons rests at the teahouse of one of them, praises the keeper's tea, asks after his household and, told that nothing has changed, says: I too, every day before the god, offer the prayer for your household's safety [10]. The big dictionary cites this line as the phrase's first [1]; the prayer of about 1400 is older. A yamabushi arrives next, and the two pray against each other to Daikoku.

Edo: the amulet, the hearth, the sermon, the joke. From the seventeenth century the witnesses read are of every kind. The trades encyclopedia of 1690 says under the hearth-makers that the world calls the hearth Kōjin, the guardian god of household safety and wealth [11]. A nenbutsu tract prefaced 1756 lists what people ask for: recovery from illness, household safety, and various other this-worldly practices [12]. A 1786 morality tract, for its example, imagines a man who offers 1,200 monme of silver for a great kagura and prays the whole formula, peace in the realm, the five grains ripened, the household safe, calamity averted, life prolonged [13]. A comic book of 1793 parodies a shrine legend: believe in the god and household safety, freedom from calamity, long life and every wish are beyond doubt; doubt him and you get household unsafety, no freedom from calamity, and nothing but shortfall [14]. Two picture-books wear it as a title, 振鷺亭's Theater-mad Household Safety of 1815 and 十返舎一九's Household Safety Collection of 1829 [15]. In 1824 the 精進頭人, the heads of the abstinence at the Kamo shrine, close a norito that prays first for the emperor's health and then, for themselves, the household safe, calamity averted, life prolonged, the prayer answered [16]. A gazetteer of the Sensōji by 池田定常, with a preface dated 1813, copies the donors' names on the temple's stone fence, among them that of 三河屋新八 of Nihonbashi, 為先祖代々家内安全, for the ancestors of every generation, and the household's safety [17]. A sermon of the Shingaku teacher 布施松翁 (born in the last month of 享保10, which ブリタニカ gives as 1725 and the 日本人名大辞典 as 1726; died 1784), printed from 1816 on, promises that minding the family trade brings household safety and the long continuance of your line [18]. A dictionary of 1827 lists it as a headword [19]. Two proverb dictionaries index the senryū household safety: being in love with your wife, and the national dictionary of 1919 quotes it from the 柳樽; the 俚言集覧 records its prose twin, in love with your wife, and the house prospers, and notes that it is also said with 家内安全 [20]. A verse in the 柳多留 of 1809, とは知らず家内安全などゝしやれ, has a man say household safety who does not know what goes on at home: Blyth reads him as complacent; Kern renders him as unknowingly thanking someone for keeping his wife unmolested [21][22]. By the late Edo period the phrase is printed on amulets. An album of shrine and temple amulets that the National Diet Library dates to the late Edo period keeps the charm of the 鈴鹿権現 in Ise, which asks for safety from arrows, bullets, swords, fire, water and thieves; long fortune in war; the household safe, calamity averted, life prolonged, every wish granted, and the slip of the Aoyama Zenkōji in Musashi's Toshima district for its perpetual nenbutsu, 家内安全祈攸, household safety, the thing prayed for, 攸 standing for 所 [23]. An undated album at the same library keeps a slip from the 喜光寺 at Sugawara for a ritual reading of the six-hundred-scroll Great Wisdom Sutra, the reading the prayer of about 1400 was written for, for household safety, freedom from calamity and long life [24].

Meiji: the formula fixed, the dictionaries slow. An essay in 福沢諭吉's collected writings of 1878 has the master of a house, in his talk, always putting 家内安全 first, and making frugality and honesty his rule [25]; a norito formulary of 1880 prints a prayer under that heading [26]. A manual of capped verse of 1893, arranged as a dictionary, lists among the words for a celebration peace in the realm, the five grains abundant, the four seas calm, the household safe, the state secure, wealth and long life, the sovereign's reign [27]. 伊沢棠軒 greeted the New Year of 1875 at his house in Yoshizu village with a Chinese quatrain whose four lines begin with 家, 内, 安 and 全, written, 森鷗外 says, in jest [28]. Yet the national dictionaries of 1893 and 1915, in the entries opened, give the phrase only as an example under other words, the first under 延命, the second under 家内 with the Kyōgen line [29]; the dictionary of 1827 had listed it as a word, and the national dictionaries came to it later. The Shintō encyclopedia of 1937 lists it among the kinds of amulet a shrine issues and describes the thousand-visits custom that survives at the shrines of the Kansai, each praying for his own household's safety and his trade's prosperity [30].

The dictionary today. デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版日本国語大辞典 both carry the phrase, with the sense given in Overview above [1].

What is not a source. The phrase is not found in the Chinese texts searched: Chinese Wikisource has 家內安全 nowhere, and the CBETA Buddhist canon does not have it either. Among the Chinese wishes there for the same thing are 合家平安, peace to the whole family, on an undated stele the 全唐文 files as Tang; 闔家平安, the same wish, in addresses of the presidents of the Republic of China, most of them for the New Year [31].

The word in English

1894 to 1900. The prayer and the paper figure. Lafcadio Hearn, writing of Buddhist household worship, gives it first among his examples of the prayers to the family's long dead, always said under the breath: Kanai anzen, glossed (Vouchsafe) that our family may be preserved [32]. Frank Brinkley's Japan of 1897 has it on the miniature paper surcoats cast into the stream at the purification of the sixth month, bearing the legend, "Peace be on this household" (kanai anzen) [33], and Karl Florenz in 1900, from the report of the magazine 風俗画報, has the paper kata-shiro of the Tokugawa period inscribed with kanaianzen, "peace for my house" [34].

1900 to 1941. Five dictionaries. A student's dictionary of 1900 gives the family is happy and peaceful [35]; a 1906 dictionary gives (Vouchsafe) that our family may be preserved, which is Hearn's gloss word for word, the parenthesis included [36]; a 1918 dictionary has peace and prosperity to the family and the family in peace [37]; a 1941 dictionary has offer prayers for peace and prosperity to the family under 安全 and the family in peace; family well-being under 家内 [38]; 竹原常太's Standard dictionary gives, for the prayer, to pray for the well-being of the family by 1928, and its abridgment of 1941 to pray for the well-being of one's family [39].

1938. The amulet. D. C. Holtom describes the wooden shrine amulet marked "security within the home" (kanai anzen), placed on the god-shelf or nailed beneath the eaves [40].

Today. JMdict gives safety (well-being) of one's family and peace and prosperity in the household, close to the 1918 and 1941 dictionaries' peace and prosperity to the family [41]; prosperity is not in 安全.

A reading

家内安全 is an old prayer: six hundred years old, the words a priest says before the god, a family says under its breath before its own altar, and an amulet says on the house-shelf, the household kept safe. Its tie to a new house is old too: the Onmyōdō manual ties the phrase to the raising of the pillar, and the hearth-god carries it. The word says safe; prosperity is its neighbor in the thousand-visits prayer of the Kansai shrines, 家内安全商売繁昌, and not in the word.

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Peace and Prosperity in the Household (kanai anzen) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
家内安全VB5CBlock
Japanese Scroll of Peace and Prosperity in the Household (kanai anzen) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
家内安全VC5BCursive
Japanese Scroll of Peace and Prosperity in the Household (kanai anzen) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
家内安全VD5BEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of Peace and Prosperity in the Household (kanai anzen) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
家内安全VS5CSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

『私案抄 : 深大寺住僧長弁の文集』, 調布市市史編集委員会, 1985 and 1993, the edited text of the prayer-book; its apparatus may date the sutra-reading prayer itself.

深澤靖幸, 「『私案抄』にみる卒都婆の造立」, 府中市郷土の森博物館紀要, 2013, a study of the collection's texts for raising stupas.

沼田頼輔, 「私案抄と僧長弁」, a study of the collection and its writer, which may say whether the abbot of 1436 is the same 長弁.

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

References

  1. 「家内安全」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典・四字熟語を知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/家内安全-465008
  2. 「御札」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ) and 世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/御札-452149
  3. 「家内」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/家内-465006
  4. 「安全」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/安全-29237
  5. 長弁, 私案抄, National Diet Library manuscript, scan 7, the oldest of the classical books the NDL Lab full-text search returns for 家内安全; the catalogue record, 書写資料, 奥書に「花光坊長弁自筆之稿案」とあり, 「續羣書類従」の刷題簽貼付. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2533513/1/7
  6. 『新編武蔵風土記稿』, 内務省地理局, 1884, scan 61 (the appeal of 嘉慶二年, 長辨廿七才); 小山田与清, 『国鎮記』, 1817, scan 23 (the appeal of 応永廿二年). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/763989/1/61 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2536082/1/23
  7. 「深大寺」, 日本歴史地名大系, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/深大寺-538304
  8. 三國相傳陰陽輨轄簠簋内傳金烏玉兎集 (簠簋内伝), 1632 print, scan 66; manuscript copy of 1611, scan 57; 「簠簋内伝」, 世界大百科事典 (旧版), at kotobank (in its entry 陰陽道: 南北朝には晴明に仮託された《簠簋内伝》がつくられ). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2533009/1/66 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2532305/1/57 · https://kotobank.jp/word/簠簋内伝-1415003
  9. 「大蔵虎寛」, 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/大蔵虎寛-1060091
  10. 禰宜山伏, in 『狂言全集』, 1903, scan 119; and in 笹野堅 校訂『能狂言』中 (大蔵虎寛本), 岩波書店, 1943 (the colophon, scan 272: 昭和十八年七月二十六日 第一刷發行), scan 232. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/876515/1/119 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1129318/1/232
  11. 『人倫訓蒙図彙』, 巻六, 1690, scan 17. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2592444/1/17
  12. 『念仏百万遍祈祷弁抄』, with a preface of 1756 (the catalogue: 宝暦6(1756)序), scan 4. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2599682/1/4
  13. 『丙午さとしばなし』, 1786, scan 28. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2539772/1/28
  14. 『尾張御用心』, 黄表紙, 和泉屋市兵衛, 1793, scan 3. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/9892768/1/3
  15. 振鷺亭, 『芝居好家内安全』, 仙鶴堂, 1815, scan 4; 十返舎一九, 『家内安全集』, 永寿堂, 1829, scan 3. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/9893223/1/4 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10301788/1/3
  16. 『賀茂社記録』, 1824, scan 7. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2540592/1/7
  17. 池田定常 (松平冠山), 『浅草寺志』, manuscript, scan 28 (the stone fence); preface by 市橋長昭, 文化癸酉 (1813), in the first volume, scans 4–5. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2551830/1/28 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2551828/1/5
  18. 布施松翁, 『松翁道話』, 第二編 巻之中, 1892 print, scan 39; 「布施松翁」, ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 and 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/758773/1/39 · https://kotobank.jp/word/布施松翁-124831
  19. 『大全早引節用集』, 1827, scan 129. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2536906/1/129
  20. 藤井乙男, 『諺語大辞典』, 1910, scan 650; 中野吉平, 『俚諺大辞典』, 1933, scans 104 and 112; 『大日本国語辞典』, 第4巻, 1919, scan 29; 『俚言集覧』, 中巻, 1899, scan 439. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/650 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1453041/1/112 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/954648/1/29 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991570/1/439
  21. 『誹風柳多留』 四十七篇, 川柳評, credited ヤマキ, in 『近世文芸叢書』 第9 (川柳 第2), 国書刊行会, 1911, p. 270, scan 140; R. H. Blyth, Japanese Life and Character in Senryu, Hokuseido Press, 1960, p. 234. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993462/1/140
  22. Adam L. Kern, The Penguin Book of Haiku, Penguin, 2018, p. 303 (Yamaki, in Yanagidaru 47, 1809).
  23. 『神佛一帖』, an album of amulets, late Edo period (the catalogue: 江戸後期, 神仏の守札を貼り交ぜたもの), scans 13 (the 鈴鹿権現 charm) and 14 (the Aoyama Zenkōji slip). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2542934/1/13 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2542934/1/14
  24. 『神仏御影張交帖』 (a title the catalogue supplies), an album of amulets, undated, scan 60 (the 喜光寺 slip). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2532461/1/60
  25. 福沢諭吉, 『福沢文集』, 1878, scans 15–17. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/903877/1/15
  26. 『諸祭祝詞文例』, 1880, scan 18. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/815464/1/18
  27. 夢廼舎半狂史 (柴垣馥), 『風俳冠吟独習自在 : 作例五万 一名・冠附いろは字典』, 盛文館, 1893, scan 51. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/876221/1/51
  28. 森鷗外, 『伊沢蘭軒』, その三百六十四, at Japanese Wikisource. https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/伊沢蘭軒
  29. 山田美妙, 『日本大辞書』, 1893, scan 164 (s.v. えんめい); 上田万年・松井簡治, 『大日本国語辞典』, 第1巻, 1915, scan 448 (s.v. かない). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/902835/1/164 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/954645/1/448
  30. 『神道大辞典』, 第1巻, 平凡社, 1937 (the colophon, scan 293: 昭和十二年七月十九日初版第一刷發行; the copy digitized is the second printing, 昭和十六年七月卅日), scans 168–169. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1913333/1/168
  31. Chinese Wikisource, searches for 家內安全, 合家平安, 闔家平安, 家宅平安 and 家內平安, and 張珂造尊勝經石幢詞 in 全唐文 卷0988; CBETA, search for 家內安全. https://zh.wikisource.org/w/index.php?search=%22家內安全%22&ns0=1 · https://zh.wikisource.org/w/index.php?search=%22闔家平安%22&ns0=1 · https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/張珂造尊勝經石幢詞（並序） · https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/search?q=家內安全
  32. Lafcadio Hearn, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, vol. 2, Houghton Mifflin, 1894, p. 414 (The Household Shrine). https://archive.org/details/glimpsesofunfami02hear
  33. F. Brinkley, Japan: Described and Illustrated by the Japanese, vol. 8, J. B. Millet, 1897, p. 270. https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008616290
  34. Karl Florenz, Ancient Japanese Rituals, Part IV, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 27, 1900, p. 27. https://archive.org/details/transactionsasi09japagoog
  35. 『学生用和英字典』, 1900, scan 234. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/870126/1/234
  36. 『実用和英新辞典』, 1906, scan 12. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/903029/1/12
  37. 武信, 『武信和英大辞典』, 1918, scans 27 and 426. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/925665/1/27
  38. 『研究社新和英大辞典』, 1941, scan 24 (s.v. anzen, 家内安全を祈る) and scan 414 (s.v. kanai, 家内安全). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126818/1/24 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126818/1/414
  39. 竹原常太『スタンダード和英大辞典』, first published 1924; the copy read is the thirty-fifth printing of 1928, of the revised and enlarged edition of 1926, by its colophon, scan 246 (p. 474, s.v. kanai, 家内安全を祈る). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126806/1/246 · 竹原常太『スタンダード和英辭典』, the abridged edition, first published 1941; the copy read is the twenty-first printing of 1946, by its colophon, scan 197 (s.v. kanai, 家內安全ヲ祈ル). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126792/1/197
  40. D. C. Holtom, The National Faith of Japan: A Study in Modern Shintō, E. P. Dutton, 1938, pp. 168–169. https://archive.org/details/nationalfaithofj0000holt
  41. 「家内安全」, JMdict, at jisho.org. https://jisho.org/search/家内安全

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Sonnet 5 and Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

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

Checked · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-15, citations — every claim tested at its address; nearly all resolve; several resolve but differ — the machine-read text against the manuscript, settled by hand at the leaf for our research notes, and one book-identifier note wrong on the check's side; one unclear, settled at the leaf; the rest not openable

Research depth: step 3 of our 10-step ladder, foundation complete · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 家内安全 (kanai anzen)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/kanai-anzen.