Japanese Lanterns: chōchin, andon, tōrō — Between Light, Death and Legend
There is something in the flame of a Japanese lantern that no electric bulb can ever replicate: a presence. A flicker. As if the light itself were breathing. In Japan, this presence is no metaphor — it is a cosmological reality. For over a thousand years, lanterns and spirits have shared the same territory: the threshold, the fragile boundary between the world of the living and the world of the dead.
This article invites you to cross that threshold — from the earliest paper lanterns of Buddhist temples to the luminous specters of Hokusai's prints, through the alleyways of Edo where the glow of a single andon was enough to keep yōkai at bay — or draw them closer.
I. The Birth of a Light: Origins and Typologies
The Chōchin — the lantern that travels
The word lantern covers a remarkably diverse family of objects in Japanese. The most celebrated among them, the chōchin (提灯), first appears in written sources during the Muromachi period (14th–16th century). Its structure is a triumph of functional elegance: a spiraled bamboo skeleton wrapped in washi — Japanese mulberry paper — oiled to make it semi-translucent and moisture-resistant.
The chōchin is, above all, a mobile object. It is carried by hand, hung from temple gates, borne in procession. Its soul is nomadic. It accompanies pilgrims, lights palanquins, guides funeral processions. Some models are collapsible, their accordion-like frame folding neatly into a kimono sleeve — a feat of artisanal engineering.
The Andon — the lantern that stays
At the opposite end of the spectrum sits the andon (行灯), the fixed lantern of interior spaces. The andon is a domestic presence, set on its lacquered wooden stand in the alcove or by the hearth. Its paper casts a soft, amber glow, quintessentially associated with the Edo period (1603–1868). By the light of an andon, scholars wrote, geisha arranged their hair, and children heard their first ghost stories.
The Tōrō — an offering in stone and bronze
The tōrō (灯籠) are the large fixed lanterns found lining the pathways of shrines and temples. Carved from stone or cast in bronze, some centuries old, they are not everyday objects but permanent offerings to the divine. On the night of great ceremonies, their flames are lit simultaneously, turning the grounds of a shrine into a terrestrial galaxy.
II. Obon: When Lanterns Guide the Dead
If Japanese lanterns have a soul, it reveals itself most fully during the Obon festival — celebrated each year in August — the time when the spirits of ancestors return to visit the living.
Mukae-bi and okuri-bi: welcoming fires, farewell fires
The Obon tradition rests on a double ritual of heartbreaking beauty. When the spirits arrive, mukae-bi — 'welcoming fires' — are lit in front of homes and in cemeteries. These flames serve as beacons for the souls of the departed, who can no longer see the world as the living do. Three days later, to accompany them back, okuri-bi — 'farewell fires' — are lit, and floating lanterns are set upon rivers and bays.
Tōrōnagashi: lanterns on the water
Tōrōnagashi (灯籠流し) — literally 'letting lanterns drift' — is one of Japan's most hypnotic rituals. Thousands of small paper lanterns, each carrying a flame and sometimes a message to a loved one, are placed on the water at nightfall. They float downstream, drift out into bays, and vanish into the dark. The city of Hiroshima has given this ritual a particularly poignant resonance: every August 6th, thousands of lanterns are released onto the Motoyasu River in memory of the victims of the atomic bomb.
III. Lanterns and Yōkai: Light as a Boundary
If lanterns guide benevolent spirits, they also signal the presence of something neither living nor dead: the yōkai, the supernatural entities of Japanese folklore that have populated the imagination for centuries.
The Chōchin-obake — the lantern that comes to life
The chōchin-obake (提灯お化け) belongs to the category of tsukumogami — objects that, after a hundred years of existence, awaken and acquire a soul. An old, torn, abandoned lantern: its paper splits open to reveal an enormous eye, a long tongue, sometimes two arms emerging from its sides. The chōchin-obake is generally not dangerous — more mischievous than malevolent. Its presence in the Japanese bestiary says something essential: in Japan, even the most humble objects deserve respect.
Hitodama and the fires of the beyond
The boundary between lanterns and supernatural phenomena blurs further with hitodama — bluish or reddish fireballs believed to represent the souls of the dead moving through the night. In the darkness of the Edo era, any flame without a visible source became instantly supernatural.
Kaidan: ghost stories by lantern light
The kaidan genre — tales of ghosts and wonders — reached its golden age during the Edo period. Kaidan-kai were gatherings where participants would light a hundred candles, each person telling a ghost story before extinguishing one candle. As darkness closed in, spirits were said to draw near. This practice, the hyakumonogatari kaidankai, perfectly illustrates the role of light in Japanese cosmology: it does not banish spirits — it governs the boundary.
IV. The Art of Washi Lanterns: A Living Tradition
Behind the poetry of lanterns lies an artisanal craft of extraordinary precision. Making a traditional chōchin involves multiple specializations: the bamboo weaver who creates the spiral frame, the washi maker who prepares the paper, the calligrapher or painter who adorns its surface, the lacquerer who finishes the wooden base. The washi used is handmade using techniques unchanged since the 7th century, inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2014.
Several cities are associated with distinctive lantern styles: the chōchin of Gifu, prized for the fineness of their paper and the sophistication of their painted motifs, and those of Kyoto, often bearing the mon — heraldic emblem — of the great geisha houses of the Gion district.
🏮 Going further: bringing a washi lantern home
If reading this article has made you want to bring this light into your home, know that authentic, high-quality washi lanterns remain rare in France. Kimonoya is one of the few serious addresses: founded over 40 years ago by a Japanese fashion designer, this Parisian house offers a carefully curated selection of authentic Japanese artisanal objects — including washi lanterns that hold their own against anything found in the boutiques of Kyoto.
V. Lanterns in Japanese Art and Literature
In ukiyo-e printmaking
The masters of ukiyo-e made lanterns one of their most cherished motifs. Hiroshige weaves them into his nocturnal views of the old Tōkaidō Road. Hokusai plays with the silhouette of tōrō against the whiteness of snow. In Yoshitoshi's work, lanterns and ghosts coexist in compositions of startling modernity.
Hiroshige, Kinryūsan Temple at Asakusa (One Hundred Famous Views of Edo)
In literature
In The Tale of Genji (11th century), the light of a lantern suddenly reveals a character's face — a founding scene of a narrative device that Japanese fiction has never ceased to use. More recently, Kawabata, in Snow Country, uses the reflection of a flame in a train window as a metaphor for the superposition of the real world and the inner world.
Conclusion: The Lantern as World-Object
A washi lantern is not merely a decorative object. It is a concentrated expression of Japanese cosmology: the idea that light is a boundary, that the dead deserve to be guided, that old objects deserve respect, that beauty can emerge from the simplest of materials — bamboo, water, mulberry, flame.
To place a chōchin lantern in a Parisian living room is to invite something of that threshold territory inside. That light which, for centuries, kept the living company and guided the dead through the darkness of nocturnal Japan. — Wallango
Sources & References
• Noriko Brandl, Lanterns and Light in Japanese Culture (2009)
• Michael Dylan Foster, The Book of Yokai (2015), University of California Press
• Patricia Fister, Japanese Women Artists (1988), Spencer Museum
• UNESCO — Washi, traditional Japanese hand papermaking (2014)
• Kimonoya.fr — French reference in authentic Japanese craftsmanship