With the conclusion of the hit mini-series Shogun,1 it seemed like good time to delve into what a Shogun was. I talked a lot about the firstfew Shoguns of the Kamakura Period, and the Shoguns of the late Edo Period, but there’s a lot more to the story.
In early Japanese history (a.k.a. Japanese antiquity), the government was modeled on a Chinese-style, Confucian-influenced bureaucracy. This is epitomized in the Ritsuryo Code which started in 645, under the Taika Reforms, and continued (nominally) in some form all the way until 1868.
This imperial bureaucracy elevated the Emperor of Japan to the first rank, and other officials and nobility were allocated ranks below this. The ranks dictated all kinds of things: salaries, colors to wear at the Court, other rights and responsibilities, etc. There were bureaucratic offices for all sorts of government functions: land management, taxes, religious functions, military and so on.
The imperial court did not rule all of Japan as we know it today. The north and eastern parts of Japan in particular were dominated by “barbarian” groups called Emishi whose origins are somewhat obscure but are probably ethnically different than early Japanese people.
To subdue these people, certain military commanders in the Imperial bureaucracy were granted a temporary title of sei-i taishōgun (征夷大将軍), or “Supreme Commander of Barbarian-suppressing Forces”. Since a military force needs a clear chain of command, someone had to be made the supreme commander, and this was what the Shogun was meant to do.
But everything changed after the Genpei War, and the fall of the Heike Clan.
After the Genji clan (a.k.a. the Minamoto) crushed the Heike clan, they assumed military control of Japan. The head of the Genji clan, Minamoto no Yoritomo, was granted the title of sei-i taishōgun by the Emperor permanently, and given the task pacifying the rest of Japan. The title became hereditary, not temporary, and thus created a new system of government in Japan.
The original Imperial Court, and its institutions, remained in place in Kyoto. However, practical control of Japan was managed through the new bakufu (幕府) government headquartered in the eastern city of Kamakura. This began a period of history called the Kamakura Period of 1185–1333.
From here, Japan’s history and its bakufu governments can be divided like so:
Period
Capitol
Notes
Kamakura Period (1185–1333)
Kamakura
After Minamoto no Yoritomo‘s death, plagued with infighting and power-plays by vassals. Minamoto line died with Sanetomo’s untimely death, further heirs drawn from obscure Hojo relatives.
Southern Court Insurrection (1336 – 1392)
Yoshino
Emperor Go-Daigo attempts to reassert authority of the Imperial line. Kamakura Bakufu dispatches Ashikaga Takauji to suppress rebellion, but is betrayed by Takauji.
Muromachi Period (1336 to 1573)
Kyoto
First 3 shoguns were strong rulers, but quality of rulership slowly declines, culminating in 8th shogun Yoshimasa, and the disastrous Onin War. High point of Kyoto culture, ironically.
Warring States Period (1467 – 1615)
Kyoto (barely)
After Onin War of 1467, Ashikaga Shoguns still nominally rule until 1573, but country descends into civil war. Almost no central authority.
Oda Nobunaga (1573 – 1582)
Kyoto
After driving out last of Ashikaga Shoguns, Oda Nobunaga reaches deal with reigning Emperor and conferred titles of authority. Almost unifies Japan. Later betrayed and murdered by a vassal.
Azuchi-Momoyama Period (1585 – 1598)
Kyoto
After unifying Japan after Oda Nobunaga’s demise, vassal Toyotomi Hideyoshi unifies, and then rules Japan as the Sesshō (摂政, “regent to Emperor”) then Kampaku (関白, “chief advisor”). Dies in 1598, and son is too young to rule. Country falls into civil war again.
Edo Period (1600 – 1867)
Edo (Tokyo)
Tokugawa Ieyasu, a former vassal of Oda Nobunaga, then unifies Japan for the final time, and moves capitol to a newly fortified town of Edo (modern Tokyo). Effective policies by Ieyasu and his early descendants avoids many problems of past Shogunates, and provides stable rule for 268 years until Meiji Restoration of 1868. Similar to Muromachi period, quality of rulership gradually declines, but effective policies help maintain stability far longer.2
The last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, relinquishes authority back to Emperor at Osaka Castle in 1867.
During this entire period of history, the Imperial line, and its Court of noble families in Kyoto never ended. The Southern Court vs. Northern Court briefly split the Imperial family into two competing thrones, but once they reunified, everything continued on as normal. The Emperors reigned, but the military governments ruled.
Once the Meiji Restoration of 1868 came, this changed, and with a new constitution borrowed from the Prussian model, the Emperor’s assumed direct control again until the modern constitution in 1947 when the Emperor returned to a mostly ceremonial role that we see today.
The series of Shogun takes place at the very end of the Azuchi-Momoyama Period to the very beginning of the Edo Period, but as you can see, Japan’s military history was far longer, and its many ruling families each faced different challenges. For the peasants on the ground, who they paid taxes to may have changed, but life overall probably remained somewhat the same.
1 I read the original book by James Clavell back in the day, including his other books: King Rat, Taipan, and so on. Great story-telling, especially King Rat (based on his personal experiences), but older me kind of facepalms now at the bad stereotypes, linguistic mistakes, and so on.
“Abarembo Shogun” Television series set piece, Toei Uzumasa Studios KyotoJapan. Photo by fg2, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
2 It’s also why, today, many historical dramas, comics and stories take place in the Edo Period. My father-in-law likes to watch one Japanese TV show called Abarenbo Shogun (暴れん坊将軍, “Unfettered Shogun”), which is a mostly fictional drama about the unusually talented 8th Shogun of the Edo Period, Tokugawa Yoshimune (1684 – 1751). In the drama Yoshimune, often traveling in disguise, solves mysteries and fights crime. It’s campy, but also a fun show to watch. The “Megumi” lantern shown on the right is a set piece from the show.
Visiting the city of Tokyo is not complete without taking a stop at the iconic Tokyo Tower. But what a lot of visitors might not know is that right next to Tokyo Tower is a Buddhist temple of great historical and cultural value: Zojoji
The temple of Zōjō-ji (増上寺) was the family temple for the Tokugawa shoguns who ruled Japan from 1600 to 1868 (e.g. the Edo Period), and many of the shoguns are interred here. The temple is also one of two main temples of the Jodo-shu sect of Buddhism. Jodo-shu Buddhism really helped me find my foundation back in the day, so I am more than a little fond of it. I have also visited the other main temple, Chion-in, in Kyoto a couple times. My first visit in 2005 is what really started me on the path to Buddhism back in the day. So, it’s no exaggeration that without the Honen the founder and Jodo Shu sect, I wouldn’t have found my path. I am always grateful.
In any case, wife (who’s Japanese) and I both like to come to Zojoji whenever we can. We joke it’s our “power spot”.1
The prestige and political power of Zojoji meant that it has been a very important temple in the Tokyo area for centuries, probably more so than Sensoji / Asakusa Temple (which I am also quite fond of).
The English website for Zojoji is actually pretty good, but it leaves out some details found in the Japanese version. Every time I go, I see foreign tourists dropping by, but I suspect some of them are unaware of the history and teachings of the temple, which is a shame because it’s actually a pretty neat place. So, this post is a lengthy tour of Zojoji. If you are reading this through email, you may want to visit the link instead. This post is VERY picture-heavy.
The Japanese site has a nice map of temple. I started at the bottom-center, at the Sangédatsu-mon (三解脱門), which might translate into something like the Three Gates of Liberation:
To the left of the gate is a sign that posts a monthly Buddhist teaching.
This month’s (August 2024) teaching is a quote from the very early Buddhist text, the Dhammapada, verse 54:
Not the sweet smell of flowers, not even the fragrance of sandal, tagara, or jasmine blows against the wind. But the fragrance of the virtuous blows against the wind. Truly the virtuous man pervades all directions with the fragrance of his virtue.
From here, I passed through the gate and took a photo of this statue of the Bodhisattva Kannon:
Next, based on the map linked above, I went clockwise around the perimeter of the temple. The next thing I saw was this pagoda (gojū-no-tō 五重塔 in Japanese) which seems to have been built in 1938:
It sits next to the other gate to Zojoji, the Kuro-mon (黒門, “black gate”) which was built in the 1700’s.
Just north of this (still going clockwise), you can see the Sutra Storehouse (kyōzō 経蔵):
This is something major temples often have: a large store house that contains the vast corpus of Buddhist literature (sutras): the Tripitaka. Sadly, I came too early in the day, and so the doors were closed. If you click on the map above, and look in the bottom left for 経蔵 you can see photo of the interior. It contains a full copy of the Taisho Tripitaka, in three different versions, in a rotating shelf.
The left area of the map mostly contained meeting halls and offices, so I kind of skipped past this quickly, and headed toward the main hall (hondō 本堂). This is in the very center of the map. Just to the left of the stairs is a nice statue of the 12th century founder of the Jodo-shu sect, Honen, in his youth:
There are some famous stories about his life (somewhat embellished, I believe), including his piousness at a young age. Hence, you often see Jodo-shu temples with status of young Honen. That said, Honen is a cool guy, and he gets my respect any day.
Next is the main hall itself:
This place is pretty amazing inside. Also, unlike many temples, you do not need to remove your shoes at the door and you are welcome to take photos (except during funeral services, obviously):
The main altar is to Amida Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Light, and the devotion of all Pure Land Buddhists across traditions. The gold color and lotus artwork are all taken from descriptions of the Pure Land, as described in the Sutras. It is said all beings reborn in the Pure Land will have the color of gold, just like Amida, and will be born from lotus buds. The Taima Mandala, not related to Zojoji, provides a nice visual representation.
To the left and right of the main altar are Honen, mentioned above, and Shan-dao the Chinese Pure Land master who inspired Honen back in the day, respectively. They lived centuries apart, but both are revered for their contributions to the tradition.
To the right of the main hall you have two choices: one you go down the stairs to the Museum. Or go to the Ankokuden Hall:
We’ll talk about the museum a bit later. For now let’s focus on the hall. Inside is both a gift shop and another altar to Amida Buddha:
This statue of Amida Buddha is historically significant though: it was the same statue venerated long ago by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first Shogun of the Edo Period, and final unifier of Japan. This black-colored Amida statue had been a central devotional figure of the Tokugawa Shoguns for generations, so while it’s not the “main attraction” for tourists, from a historical standpoint, it is. I’ve seen it multiple times, and I never get tired of being here.
As alluded to earlier, there are shrines to the left and right of the Amida Buddha. The one on the left is of the founder of the Tokugawa shoguns,2 Tokugawa Ieyasu described above. The one on the right is less clear. It enshrines someone named Princess Kazunomiya. I had to do a bit of research and it turns out that Kazunomiya was a member of the Imperial family (not the Tokugawa family), but had been wed to Tokugawa Iemochi the 14th Shogun as a political marriage intended to heal the centuries old breach between the two families. The arranged marriage had a rocky start, but in the end proved to be a surprisingly happy and successful marriage at a time when Japan was in the waning days of the Shogunate. So, within the Tokugawa family temple, she is enshrined as an important matriarch.
We’ll see more monuments to Princess Kazunomiya shortly, so remember the name.
Anyhow, after picking up some nice incense and another seal in my pilgrimage book, I left the Ankokuden Hall. To its right is a line of statues.
The statue in the front is Bodhisattva Kannon, similar to what we saw earlier.3 There is a small altar to the right as well with another statue of Kannon that is often overlooked:
This is the “Western-facing Kannon”. The western-direction in Mahayana Buddhism is strongly associated with the Pure Land of Amida Buddha (by contrast, the eastern direction is associated with the Medicine Buddha’s own Lapis Lazuli Pure Land), and since Kannon is an attendant of Amida Buddha, this tracks.
But what about the little statues with red bibs?
These statues represent another Bodhisattva named Jizō. I haven’t talked about Jizo as much in this blog, but he’s very important in Japanese religion as a kind of protector deity, especially of children. Each statue adorned with a bib represent a child that was lost in pregnancy or in childbirth, and so the grieving parents pray to Jizo to protect their child in the life beyond. The clothing is an offering to Jizo, perhaps to pass on to the child?
While the statues are very cute, there is a tragic meaning behind them as well.
The line of statues continues back behind the Ankokuden and Hondo (main hall). It is here that you come upon the mausoleum of the Tokugawa Shoguns.
Not all shoguns are interred here. Some are interred in a shrine called Toshogu up north in Nikko. I would estimate that roughly half of the shoguns are interred here. I won’t show them all, since the map and pamphlet you receive at the ticket booth shows a full list. But to give a few examples…
The second shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada and his wife are interred here. Edo (Tokyo) was greatly expanded during his administration from a tiny fishing village to the city we know today.
From the mausoleum entrance, if you were to go further left you will see this statue:
Without getting too bogged down in details, the four statues here represent four major Bodhisattvas in the Mahayana-Buddhist tradition. From left to right with Sanskrit (and Japanese) names:
Manjushri (Monju)
Avalokitesvara (Kannon)
Ksitigarbha (Jizo)
Samanthabhadra (Fugen)
It’s actually quite rare to see all four arrayed like this. I was kind of impressed. It is said these statues were created in the year 1258 according to the plaque.
Further left:
If you go up the stairs and turn right…
You can find the tea house of Princess Kazunomiya called the Teikyōan (貞恭庵):
Since Princess Kazunomiya took tonsure as a Buddhist nun in her final years, she took the ordination name Teikyo, so the name of the place is basically “Princess Kazunomiya’s hearth”. The sign said that it was refurbished in 1980 and is used for some public functions. It was closed when I came so I didn’t get to see much.
Facing the tea house is another statue of Kannon Bodhisattva in a more motherly form.
Past the tea house and up some stairs is this place, which is the upper part of the map:
It turns out that this is a columbarium: a storage house for the bones of the deceased after cremation. This is common in Buddhist temples. This columbarium in particular houses the bones of those who are somehow connected to the temple across the generations. Beyond that, the website didn’t provide an explanation.
By this point I wanted to see the museum but again I had arrived too early so I stopped by a local McDonald’s for brunch:
On the way out, I also took photos of the Buddhist bell (bonshō 梵鐘) as well:
And a small Shinto shrine to the right of the main entrance:
This Shinto shrine, called the Yuya (熊野) Shrine, was founded in 1624 by the 13th head priest of Zojoji, one Shoyo Kurayama, to protect the north-east corner of the temple from disasters. The north-east is seen as a particularly dangerous direction in Chinese geomancy (a.k.a. feng-shui), so the kami here provide protection. It is not unusual to see small Shinto shrines within Buddhist temples, and many Shinto deities are viewed as manifestations of Buddhist deities (gongen 権現) by Japanese in medieval times. The sign next to the shrine states that 3 kami reside here:
Ketsumiko-no-ōkami
Ōnamura-no-mikoto
Izanagi-no-mikoto (as in Izanagi from early Japanese mythology? I am not sure)
These three kami all seemed to have been imported from a trio of Shinto shrines called the Kumano shrines, which have a strongly syncretic Buddhist-Shinto worship. I didn’t even know the Kumano shrines existed until I wrote this article. Side note: the Chinese characters for Kumano (熊野) can be alternately read as “Yuya”, hence “Yuya Shrine”.
Anyhow, having satiated myself on McD’s, it was time to go back and visit the Museum…
Much of the museum doesn’t allow photography, but showed the history of Zojoji. As it is being restored from earlier destruction, there wasn’t actually that much in the museum.
However, what the museum also had (and OK to photograph) was a genuine relic of the Buddha, as in Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical founder. It also contains relics of Rahula, the Buddha’s son before his enlightenment, and Ananda, his trusted retainer. As the sign shows above, the relics were uncovered at Sanchi, which is an important Buddhist archeological site. The relics were given to Japan as a gift in 1955 and enshrined right under Zojoji. You can see
A display to the right shows the contents, and the letter from India to Japan. In addition to fragments of the bones of Shakyamuni Buddha, Rahula and Ananda, the contents included recovered copies of Buddhist sutras that were inscribed on palm leaf at the time, and a seed descended from the original Bodhi Tree.
In my nearly 20-25 years as a Buddhist, I had never come face to face with a relic of the Buddha before, so I was kind of awestruck. The small wooden plaque just in front of the small statue of the Buddha contained a small prayer that reads:
Recite 3 times: namu shaka muni bu (praise to Shakyamuni Buddha)
I don’t have a translation of this hymn, but after a bit of late night sleuthing, I suspect it’s a verse from a Buddhist text called the Humane King Sutra. I don’t think there’s an English translation anyway.
In any case, I recited the verses of praise to Shakyamuni Buddha and finally went home.4
But that concluded the trip to Zojoji. Usually, I go with the family, and we can’t afford to spend half a day there, but this time I had some free time and was able to really take in all the sites of Zojoji. As a historical site, Zojoji is very dense and fascinating. It’s hard to imagine centuries of history, all closely tied to the Tokugawa shoguns and the Jodo-shu sect all in one place. The relic of the Buddha alone is pretty amazing too.
This post was pretty long, but I hope you enjoyed.
P.S. I didn’t really provide a lot of links to Jodo Shu Buddhism, since I talkaboutitquiteabit in the blog already, and many of the English sites have sadly atrophied or disappeared over time. I would definitely recommend various books such as A Raft from the Other Shore or Traversing the Pure Land Path, but these are mostly out of print now. I have done what I could over the years to distill many of these lost sources into an accessible format here, but there’s still plenty to find if you know where to look.
1 This is actually a slang phrase in Japanese too, taken from English: pawaa supotto (パワースポット), meaning any place that inspires you spiritually.
2 Without getting too bogged down in history, think of a shōgun (将軍) as the Imperial-appointed “General Commander of the Armed Forces”. The role has changed and evolved over generations, but suffice to say if you were the shogun, you were the real, not symbolic, authority in Japan.
3 The astute might be wondering why a temple devoted to Amida Buddha also contains so many statues to another figure like Kannon. In Mahayana Buddhism, the two share a close relationship. It is described in the sutras who Amida Buddha is attended to by two Bodhisattvas: Kannon and another named Seishi. Kannon has an outsized following of their own, but the two are frequently depicted together, as both embody the universal goodwill and compassion that are hallmarks of Mahayana Buddhism. Seishi, admittedly, isn’t described much in the Buddhist texts, and thus isn’t revered much on their own.
4 Actually, I stopped along the way at Akihabara because I had never been there. That place was … not for me. Nerdy, but in a very different way. I did have some good fries at a Turkish cafe in Akihabara for dinner, thanks to Mustafa the chef. Very nice fellow. If you are in Akihabara, stop by his cafe and get some good Turkish food.
After finishing the Japanese historical drama, The Thirteen Lords of the Shogun,1 I managed to buy the Blu-ray from Amazon JP before it was taken off shelves due to controversy with one of the actors. Lately, as life has finally calmed down a little, I have been watching it again. With the benefit of rewatching, and Japanese subtitles, I have picked up a lot more from the show including this tragic bit of history.
One of the climatic turnings points early in the drama is Minamoto no Yoritomo’s execution of one of his vassals, Kazusa Hirotsune in front of everyone. Hirotsune was made the scapegoat for a failed rebellion among local retainers, while the rebellion was appeased, Yoritomo had him killed to teach a lesson. Hirotsune’s innocence was only confirmed after his death.
Apparently, some version of this really happened.
Woodblock print of Kazusa Hirotsune by Utagawa Yoshitora, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
According to the end of the episode, the incident was recorded in a historical record called the Gukanshō (愚管抄). In that document, it states that Hirotsune was a big player of a dice game called Sugoroku and while he was playing with some other vassals, he was suddenly attacked and slain by another vassal, Kajiwa Kagetoki, on Yoritomo’s orders. Later, Kagetoki, was said to have purified and washed the blood off his sword at the waters of a holy spring nearby. Hirotsune was evidentially abrasive and butted heads with Yoritomo at times, but nonetheless he was innocent of provoking the rebellion. Nonetheless, the damage was done: the clan property was broken up and given to other vassals for their loyalty, and the Kazusa clan disappeared from history.
Eight hundred years later the lands of the Kazusa family are now part of a local orchard in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan called the Juniso Kajuen (十二所果樹園). You can see it on Instagram here. It’s a very nice looking orchard, but visitors walking through that orchard would probably never guess that long ago this was once the domain of a powerful and influential warlord.
I guess what I find fascinating and tragic about all this is how someone powerful and wealthy can be struck down, possibly through no fault of their own, and with the passage of centuries very little trace of their legacy remains.
1 not to be confused with the American series “Shogun”. The “Thirteen Lords” series was for Japanese TV only, and based on an entirely different historical event. Sadly, there is no English subtitles available which is a shame because I would argue that Thirteen Lords of the Shogun is a really fine drama and would be a huge hit overseas.
In a recent post I talked about how Zen imported from Song-Dynasty China found patronage with the elite samurai families of the city of Kamakura. Sometimes this was due to the cultural prestige of Zen among “country bumpkin samurai”, but also the new Zen monastic community drew sincere students as well, helping it take root. Zen still had a very small presence, compared to other Buddhist institutions in medieval Japan, but it was definitely the “up and coming” sect.
By the 14th century, and with the destruction of the Hojo Family (ending the Kamakura Period of history), the seat of government shifted back to Kyoto under the new Ashikaga Shogunate (a.k.a. the Muromachi Period of Japanese history). The Ashikaga Shoguns, many of whom were avid Sinophiles, further cultivated the Rinzai Zen institutions from China, and created a new hierarchy of temples called the Five MountainsSystem. The same system existed in China, where “mountain” was synonymous with “Buddhist monasteries”, but the Chinese version was a looser organization and not strictly related to Zen Buddhism.
The Japanese version organized Rinzai Zen temples (and some Soto Zen temples) across the country into one of three administrative “ranks” with the “five mountains” (gozan, 五山) at the very top. These temples, as we’ll see later, functioned less as Buddhist temples and increasingly as bureaucratic hubs for the rest of the temples in Japan. They enjoyed much patronage and prestige, but the monastic life greatly suffered.
The three ranks were:
Gozan (五山) temples, the top-tier
Middle-tier jissatsu (十刹) temples, and
Shozan (諸山) temples at the bottom.
Confusingly, many Rinzai Zen temples existed outside this temple structure, either by choice, or just lacked prestige, and were derisively called rinka (林下, “the forest below”) to distinguish from more prestigious temples “up on the mountain”. I briefly mentioned rinka temples in this old post.
Anyhow, let’s look more closely at each.
The Gozan Temples
The list of gozan temples varied over time, usually whichever temples the current Shogun patronized. Further, there were actually two sets of gozan temples, one for Kyoto and one for the former capitol of Kamakura. Which one was more important depending on who was in power.
For example, in 1341, under guidance from Tadayoshi, the ranks were as follows (homepages linked where possible):
And by 1386, also under Yoshimitsu, the rankings switch in favor of the Kyoto temples, but also Nanzenji gets elevated to a “superior gozan temple”. Plus, a new temple built on Yoshimitsu’s orders, Shōkokuji, was slotted into the Gozan temple ranks.
The Gozan temples were the top of a large administrative bureaucracy that managed the many other Rinzai Zen temples, and as such enjoyed much patronage and influence. However, as we’ll see later, this came at a heavy cost.
Middle Rank Temples: Jissatsu
The ten temples of the middle rank, the jissatsu (十刹), were major temples in the provinces that served as middle-management. They managed other temples in the provinces and were subordinate to the gozan temples, but also held much influence too. Eventually, the jissatsu temples were also split up into 10 temples under the Kyoto gozan temples, and 10 more under the Kamakura gozan temples.
The list of temples moves around a lot, and sometimes temples were promoted to gozan temples, or downgraded.
Lower Rank Temples: Shozan
The shozan temples are the lowest-ranking, but also the largest group by far. At any time, up to 250 temples were ranked as shozan temples. As with the jissatsu temples, the shozan temples were usually provincial temples that simply didn’t have the prestige or political influence that the jissatsu had. However, they were still important in extending Shogunal control over the provinces, and thus still had ranking.
What Happened to the Gozan System?
As we saw in an old post, whenever the Buddhist establishment developed close ties with the ruling regime, this worked as long as the regime was powerful, but began to collapse easily when the regime was weak.
In the case of the Gozan system, the Zen temples never maintained huge standing armies that other, older temples such as Enryakuji (Tendai) or Kofukuji (Hossō sect) did, and so they relied on the Ashikaga shoguns for protection. As the Ashikaga shogunate started to weaken, local warlords in the provinces and the rival temple armies began to assert their power, and the Gozan temples suffered.
In fact, the disastrousŌnin War in the 15th century practically destroyed many of these monasteries along with most of Kyoto city. Some of these temples never to rebuilt, or became greatly diminished. By this point, the Ashikaga “shoguns” had no real power outside of the Kyoto area, and thus couldn’t protect or influence other temples anyway.
However, probably the biggest reason for their decline was that spiritual practices at these temples declined and atrophied as they became more and more important politically. In the book Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution in Medieval Japan by Professor Martin Collcutt, Collcutt shows how records and journals at these temples showed that they had a very active social scene: banquets, religious functions, public rituals, and so on, but very little actual Zen practice as we know it. Monastic discipline greatly declined, and while they flourished culturally, the religious practices suffered. The famous Zen monk, Ikkyu, at the time lamented the decline in monastic discipline. Then again, he was a bit of an eccentric curmudgeon anyway.
Ironically, Rinzai Zen temples that existed outside the Gozan system, gained lasting prominence instead. The modern lineages in Rinzai derive from two temples that were not in the Gozan system: Daitokuji and Myōshinji. Both had reputations for maintaining austere Zen practices, and enjoyed patronage from wealthy merchants, and the increasingly powerful provincial warlords. Under Hakuin (mentioned here), the two temples became the basis for Rinzai Zen today.
Admittedly, both Daitokuji and Myoshinji suffered from corruption as well, as they gained social prominence, but Hakuin’s reforms later fixed this.
So, repeat after me: religion and politics should not mix.
I am back from my trip to Japan, and while jet-lag is keeping me up at odd hours, I wanted to post some photos from certain places we visited. This year, we visited Kyoto and Nara for the first time since 2010. This was the first visit by my son, who was born after 2010, and his first chance to ride the Bullet Train (e.g. the Shinkansen in Japanese).
I’ve talked about the Golden Pavilion before, but this post uses more updated photos, and more detailed information.
The Golden Pavilion, known as Kinkaku-ji (金閣寺) in Japanese, is technically speaking a Buddhist temple called Roku-on-ji (鹿苑寺). The property of the Golden Pavilion has a long history, first as a villa for the nobleman Fujiwara no Kintsune (who wrote poem 96 in the Hyakunin Isshu, by the way), then centuries later purchased by the Shogun (military dictator) of the time, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu as a personal villa. More on that later. In any case, Yoshimitsu eventually retired and took tonsure as a monk, living at the villa. When he died, the villa was converted to a Rinzai-sect1 Zen Buddhist temple in his honor.
1 Why Rinzai Zen? This is a topic that’s too long to go into here (I should probably make a post about it someday), but during the Ashikaga Shogunate, Rinzai Zen enjoyed a booming popularity in Kyoto the capitol, but also it was organized in a network of temples called the Five Mountains system (modeled after Song-Dynasty China).
Anyhow, let’s take a look. When you first enter the pavilion grounds you see a plaque like so:
The Five Precepts (gokai 五戒)
This plaque shows the Five Precepts of Buddhism, which is something you don’t normally see in Japanese-Buddhist temples.
After this, you see a moss garden like so:
If you keep moving onward, you’ll see the pavilion itself to the right:
If you look up close…
The gold leaf on the temple has been reapplied since the past, as the original sheen peeled off over the centuries, and the pavilion itself was also damaged by an act of arson in 1949.
Our tour guide pointed out that the three levels of the pavilion use different architecture intentionally: demonstrated the Shogunate’s triumph over his political rivals (notice how the first floor is not covered in gold leaf). The bird at the very top is a Chinese phoenix bird, not to be confused with the Western version. The Shogun wasn’t being subtle.
The back half of the pavilion grounds is a long garden walk with a waterfall among other things:
Culminating in the famous tea house:
The tea room, called the sekka-tei (夕佳亭), was actually built centuries later when the temple was revived, and visited by the reigning emperor, Go-Mizu-no-o and indirectly inspired by the first tea house of the Silver Pavilion, ironically by Yoshimitsu’s grandson Yoshimasa.
The Sekka-tei includes some interesting architectural design choices as well:
All in all, the Golden Pavilion is an interesting mix of noble aesthetics, history, and Zen influence, and of course a monument to the Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu.
1 Why Rinzai Zen in particular? During the Ashikaga Shogunate, the Rinzai Zen sect had a boom in popularity due in part from influence by Song-Dynasty China. This led to the Five Mountains system for organizing temples into a state-sponsored system. More on that in a future post.
Recently, I was re-reading an old book in my personal library about the life of the Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa (also mentioned here). The Ashikaga Shogunate, that is the military government in Japan from 14th to 16th centuries,1 started out fairly strong, but quickly ran into a series of succession crises and bad governance that culminated in a very disastrous Onin War. The Onin War was a 10-year urban battle in the heart of Kyoto over a succession crisis that basically flattened the city and caused unimaginable death and starvation there and in the provinces.
In Donald Keene’s book, he talks about the utterly ridiculous income disparity between the typical peasant and the aristocrats in Kyoto, as if they lived in two different worlds. Even as the war was raging, Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa’s exorbitant taxes to pay for this vanity projects further exacerbated this.
One chronicler at the time, a Zen priest residing in Kyoto named Unsen Taikyoku (雲泉大極, 1421 – ??), recounts in his personal diary:2
When the sun went down I set out for home, and as I was passing Rokujo I saw an old woman with a child in her arms. She called the child’s name repeatedly, then began to wail. I looked and saw that the child was already dead. The mother, still wailing, collapsed on the ground. People standing nearby asked her where she came from. She said, “I’ve come all the way from Kawachi. We’ve had a terrible drought for three years, and the rice plants didn’t so much as sprout. The district officials are cruel and greedy. They demand a lot of money in taxes and show no mercy. If you don’t pay, they kill you. That’s why I had to run away to another province. I was hoping to earn food by begging. But I couldn’t get anything to give my baby. I’m starving and I’m worn out, heart and soul. I can’t take any more.”
When she had finished speaking, she again choked with great sobs. I took from my wallet what spare money I had and gave it to her, saying, “Take this money and hire a man to bury the child. I’m going back to my cell where, with help from the Three Treasures [the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha] and the Five Commandments, I shall choose a Buddhist name for the child and offer prayers for his salvation.” The child’s mother was greatly comforted.
While I was still humbly mulling over her sad story, I encountered a group of noblemen out to admire the blossoms. They were escorted by several thousand mounted men, and servants and followers swarmed around them. These gentlemen acted as if they were so superior that nobody could compare with them. Some sneered at the people in the streets; others swore at the menials in the path of their horses; others laughingly stole blossoms; others, drunkenly singing, drew their swords; others still, having vomited food and drink and being unable to walk, lay on the roadside. There were many such sights, and whoever saw them was appalled. Anyone who happened to run into these people was terrified and ran away, intimidated by their high rank.
Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion: The Creation of the Soul of Japan, pages 51-52, translation by Donald Keene
It’s not hard to imagine such things happening in a place like Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, London, Paris and so on. It’s not a question of a particular political faction, it’s a tendency of any society to gradually concentrate wealth over time to a smaller and smaller group, further exacerbating the income disparity. Marx spoke of this in the context of capitalism…
But even as far back as the last days of the Roman Republic, we could see a similar pattern (jump to about 19:30 or so):
In any case, unless this trend is addressed in a sustainable way, it never portends anything good.
1 The Ashikaga military government is unrelated to the earlier Kamakura shogunate which I spoke about elsewhere. Since Japan had a succession of military-samurai governments after the Imperial aristocracy was sidelined, and you can think of them like Chinese imperial dynasties in a historical sense.
2 Criticizing such things openly would have incurred the wrath of the Shogunate of course.
In Professor Donald Keene’s biography about the life of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa (足利 義政, 1436 – 1490), includes a poem composed by Yoshimasa, now retired and living in his villa, the Silver Pavilion, ruminating on his former life as the supreme military commander of Japan:
Ashikaga no Yoshimasa, arguably one of the most influential people in Japanese art and aesthetics, yet ironically one of the worst military leaders in Japanese history, was never a serious student of Buddhism (though he was nominally ordained as a Rinzai Zen monk) but it’s interesting to hear him regret his life of luxury and power. To me, it is a contrast with Miyazawa Kenji’s famous poem Unbeaten By Rain (雨にも負けず).
A life of honesty poverty is probably better than wealthy lifestyle full of discord.
P.S. Photo taken of the Silver Pavilion, by me, in 2010.
Gleanings in Buddha-Fields 
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