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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