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Shiga is an inland prefecture appropriately known as the ‘Lake Country’ in both senses of the word. Shiga prefecture completely encompasses Lake Biwa (Biwako) which covers about one-sixth of the prefecture’s total area. It is also sparsely populated, with only 1.35 million people spread over the prefecture’s 4,000 square kilometers, many of whom are engaged in a rural lifestyle. Some are truly unique, such as the few hundred people who live on the small fishing village on Okishima – an island on the lake. The region’s natural setting, historical attractions and culture draw more than 40 million visitors every year, but the pace remains laid back.
Despite it’s inland position and sparse population, Shiga has always been an important location throughout Japan’s history. Lake Biwa and the Tokaido, Nakasendo, and Tokuriku roads comprised a vital transport network between Western and Eastern Japan, all going through Shiga. The region’s fertile grounds and rich natural resources also helped to provide for the imperial courts in nearby Kyoto and Nara.
These attributes were all important in the development of the Omi Shonin, or Omi Merchants who were traders who developed a base in Omi Hachiman during the Edo Period from where they organized a branch location product distribution system in major centers such as Kyoto, Osaka and Edo (now Tokyo). These merchants were the forefathers of many of today’s major Japanese trading houses, department stores and other businesses.
In addition to the strategic advantages, the beauty of the region’s natural environment may have been the reason why the prefecture has been able to attract some very important historical figures:
*For a brief period (567 to 572), the city of Otsu located on the southwestern shore of Biwako was Japan’s capital during the reign of Emperor Tenchi and is currently the capital of Shiga Prefecture.
*Oda Nobunaga built his grand castle in Azuchi from where he had intended to rule the country. The man who would follow him in that title, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, built his first castle in Nagahama and was the lord over three provinces in the northeastern region of Biwako.
*Ishida Mitsunari, the man who lost his bid for control of Japan to Tokugawa Ieyasu at the Battle of Sekigahara, was based in Sawayama, now known as Hikone. Hikone Castle, one the country’s oldest and most beautiful, was built in the battle’s aftermath. It is now listed and protected as a national treasure.
While its natural resources and transport networks made the region important from a military standpoint, Shiga’s natural beauty and proximity to Kyoto and Nara also inspired many outstanding cultural achievements. There are many famous temples and treasure in the prefecture, so much so that Shiga possesses the fourth highest number of designated cultural assets in the nation. Chikubu Island, inside the northern waters of Biwako, is a fine example of the impressive and unique religious destinations in the region. The island is home to several ancient buildings including Hougonji Temple and Tsukubusuma Shrine set on a hill overlooking Lake Biwa. The island is one of the 33 stops on the Temple Pilgrimage route of the western country as is Ishiyama Dera near the Seta River.
Ishiyama-dera was also where Murasaki Shikibu created the plot of the literary masterpiece Genji Monogatari (the Tale of Genji) which is now recognized by many to be the world’s first novel. Nearby Otsu city was a favourite of haiku master, Matsuo Basho, who chose to be buried at Gichu-ji, one of its historic temples. At the other end of the vast lake, is the beautiful town of Nagahama.
Of course, the natural setting offers many recreational opportunities, from cruising Biwako, to hiking the surrounding shore and mountains, or skiing in winter at resorts such as Mount Ibuki. Shiga is bordered by mountainous areas in every direction: Nosaka Mountains form its northern border with Fukui, Ibuki Mountains constitute the eastern border with Gifu, the Suzuka Mountains (including Gozaisho-dake) form the south-eastern border with Mie, and the Hira and Hiei Mountains constitute the western border with Kyoto. Shiga prefecture also shares a border with Nara.
Eastern Lake Biwa area – Hikone, Hikone Castle and Genkyu-en, Chikubu Island, Mount Ibuki, Mount Ibuki Skiing, Nagahama, Daitsuji, Hakodate-yama Skiing, Kunizakai Skiing
Ohmi Hachiman area – Choumeiji, Okishima, Suigo Meguri, Azuchi Castle Ruins, Taga Taisha
Western Otsu area – Ishiyama-dera, Hiei-zan
Disclaimer and Request:
Do you have good photographs or a story to share about this destination? If so, please share it with us, our community and our many visitors. Aichi and Central Japan have so many beautiful places, and culturally and historically important destinations. We hope that as many people as possible can enjoy and experience what it has to offer. Japan Discovery and the weekend field trips visit this destination regularly.
For visitors and independent travelers, please note that opening hours, prices, booking procedures, schedules etc are subject to changes beyond our control. This site is just a guide, and we advise that you always check and confirm in advance.
Also, please note that suggestions, additions and correction of errors are always welcome. Please contact us. | <urn:uuid:a150e18d-03e9-4af5-a99d-adbcb6b9b456> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | https://www.nihongo.cc/guide/shiga | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247479967.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20190216065107-20190216091107-00557.warc.gz | en | 0.959858 | 1,219 | 3.53125 | 4 |
Myth of Honno-ji no hen is history learning App of Oda Nobunaga(Famous Samurai) who were killed in Incident at Honno-ji in June 21, 1582.
This app include history and background of [Incident at Honno-ji] which is most mysterious incident occur in Japan History.
The Incident at Honno-ji (Honno-ji no Hen) refers to the forced suicide on June 21, 1582 of Japanese daimyo Oda Nobunaga at the hands of his samurai general Akechi Mitsuhide. This occurred in Honno-ji, a temple in Kyoto, ending Nobunaga's quest to consolidate centralized power in Japan under his authority.
This app include photo gallery of World Heritage Sites in Kyoto with 105 photos and movies.
Honno-ji is a temple of the Nichiren branch of Buddhism located in Kyoto, Japan. Its honzon is mandara-honzon from Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.
Honno-ji is most famous for the Incident at Honno-ji. Oda Nobunaga lodged there before his invasion of the west. However on the morning of June 21, 1582, the traitorous forces of Akechi Mitsuhide surrounded the temple and set it on fire. Knowing there was no way out for him, Nobunaga committed seppuku along with his attendant Mori Ranmaru. Ranmaru's brothers also perished at Honno-ji.
The rebuilt Honno-ji stands on a different site in Kyoto, near Kyoto Shiyakusho-mae Station.
You can also enjoy World Heritage Sites in Kyoto with photos and YouTube movies.
(Language:text is Japanese only. )
You can also view pictures with Slide show function!
Please enjoy Traditional Kyoto Photo and YouTube gallery!!
Photo data include various pictures of Kyoto.
UNESCO World Heritage Sites are said to "represent a masterpiece of human creative genius" and have "outstanding universal value." The variety, historical span and sheer number of World Heritage Sites in Kyoto is unrivaled in Japan. Nijo-jo Castle and the sixteen temples and shrines below were selected as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 1994. For over thirty five years the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, has sought to name, catalog, and preserve the natural and man-made treasures of humanity.
8)Mt.Hiei-zan Enryaku-ji Temple
9)Saiho-ji Temple (Koke-dera Temple)
14)Kinkaku-ji Temple (Golden Pavilion)
This photo gallery app is good for learning history and background of [Incident at Honno-ji]
and World Heritage Sites in Kyoto.
Please enjoy Myth of Honno-ji no hen(Japan), the photo gallery of Kyoto with 105 photos and movies.
Tags: battle at kiyomizu temple mitsuhide oda nobunaga , nam myoho renge kyoto , samurai armor nam myoho renge kyo pic , mitsuhide akechi photos , nobunaga myths | <urn:uuid:e289f573-619f-4dd3-b6f4-92b4da1f1775> | CC-MAIN-2016-30 | http://www.appszoom.com/android_applications/photography/myth-of-honno-ji-no-hen_bzbne.html?nav=related | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-30/segments/1469257827791.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160723071027-00079-ip-10-185-27-174.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.882143 | 656 | 2.96875 | 3 |
|Lord of Kaga|
|Succeeded by||Maeda Toshinaga|
January 15, 1538|
|Died||April 27, 1599 61)(aged|
|Parents||Maeda Toshimasa (father), Nagayowai-in (ja) (mother)|
Maeda Toshiie (前田 利家, January 15, 1538 – April 27, 1599) was one of the leading generals of Oda Nobunaga following the Sengoku period of the 16th century extending to the Azuchi–Momoyama period. His father was Maeda Toshimasa. He was the fourth of seven brothers. His childhood name was "Inuchiyo" (犬千代). His preferred weapon was a yari and he was known as "Yari no Mataza" (槍の又左), Matazaemon (又左衛門) being his common name. The highest rank from the court that he received is the Great Counselor Dainagon (大納言).
Toshiie was born in the village of Arako (present-day Nakagawa-ku, Nagoya), the fourth son of Maeda Toshimasa, who held Arako Castle. Toshiie served Oda Nobunaga from childhood (first as a page) and his loyalty was rewarded by being allowed to be the head of the Maeda clan, very unusual for a fourth son with no apparent failures among his elder brothers. Just like Nobunaga, Toshiie was also a delinquent, usually dressed in the outlandish style of a kabukimono. It is believed he also became a friend to Kinoshita Tokichiro (later Toyotomi Hideyoshi) in their youth. Just as Hideyoshi was known as Saru, 猴 or "monkey," it is believed that Toshiie was called Inu, 犬 or "dog" by Nobunaga. Due to a long-standing belief that dogs and monkeys are never friendly to each other, Toshiie is often depicted as reserved and stern, in contrast to Hideyoshi's talkative and easy-going nature.
Toshiie began his career as a member of the akahoro-shū (赤母衣衆), the unit under Oda Nobunaga's personal command. He later became an infantry captain (ashigaru taishō 足軽大将) in the Oda army. During his military career, Toshiie made the acquaintance of many important figures, such as Hashiba Hideyoshi, Sassa Narimasa, Akechi Mitsuhide, Takayama Ukon, and others. Toshiie also was a lifelong rival of Tokugawa Ieyasu. After defeating the Asakura clan, Maeda fought under Shibata Katsuie in the Hokuriku area. He was eventually granted a han (Kaga Domain) spanning Noto and Kaga Provinces. Despite its small size, Kaga was a highly productive province which would eventually develop into the wealthiest han in Edo period Japan, with a net worth of 1 million koku (百万石); thus, it was nicknamed Kaga Hyaku-man-goku (加賀百万石).
Toshiie benefited from a core group of very capable senior vassals. Some, like Murai Nagayori and Okumura Nagatomi, were retainers of long standing with the Maeda.
After Nobunaga's assassination at Honnō-ji (本能寺) by Akechi Mitsuhide and Mitsuhide's subsequent defeat by Hideyoshi, he battled Hideyoshi under Shibata's command in the Battle of Shizugatake. After Shibata's defeat, Toshiie worked for Hideyoshi and became one of his leading generals. Later somewhere during this time he was forced to fight another of his friends, Sassa Narimasa. Narimasa was greatly outnumbered and felled by Toshiie, following the major Maeda victory at the Battle of Suemori Castle. Before dying in 1598, Hideyoshi named Toshiie to the council of Five Elders to support Toyotomi Hideyori until he was old enough to take control on his own. However, Toshiie himself was ailing, and could manage to support Hideyori for only a year before he died as well.
Toshiie was succeeded by his son Toshinaga.
- Father: Maeda Toshimasa (d. 1560)
- Maeda Toshihisa (d. 1583)
- Maeda Yasukatsu (d. 1594)
- Maeda Toshifusa
- Sawaki Yoshiyuki (d. 1572)
- Maeda Hidetsugu (d. 1585)
- Maeda Masa (given in marriage to Takabatake Sadayoshi)
Toshiie's wife, Maeda Matsu, was famous in her own right. Strong-willed from childhood, she was well-versed in the martial arts and was instrumental in Toshiie's rise to success. After her husband died, Matsu, then known by her Buddhist nun name of Hoshun-in, assured the safety of the Maeda clan after the year 1600 by voluntarily going as a hostage to Edo, capital of the new shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, whom she loathed throughout her life as she watched him, her husband, and Hideyoshi compete for power.
Their sons all became daimyo in their own right. Their daughters married into prestigious families; the eldest, Kō, married Maeda Nagatane, a distant relative of Toshiie who became a senior Kaga retainer; Ma'a, was a concubine of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Gō was adopted by Hideyoshi and became the wife of Ukita Hideie, and Chise, who was first wedded to Hosokawa Tadaoki's son Tadataka, later married Murai Nagayori's son Nagatsugu.
In popular culture
He is a playable character in video game Sengoku Basara 2 (PS2) and an unplayable character in video game Sengoku Basara 4 (PS3). He wields a large Nodachi. He is a playable character in the video game "Samurai warriors 2 Extreme legends " (ps2) and appears in every major samurai warriors title following his first appearance . He wields a single sword and twin spears.
- Junior First Rank (24 March 1599; posthumously)
- Hanagasaki Moriaki 花ケ前盛明, ed. Maeda Toshiie no Subete 前田利家のすべて. Tokyo: Shin Jinbutsu Ōraisha 新人物往来社, 2001.
- Iwasawa Yoshihiko 岩沢愿彥. Maeda Toshiie 前田利家. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan 吉川弘文館, 1966.
- Kitamura Saburō 北村三郎. Maeda Toshiie monogatari: Kaga hyakumangoku no so 前田利家物語:加賀百万石の祖. Kanazawa: Hokkoku Shuppansha 北国出版社, 1978.
- Maeda Toshiyasu 前田利祐. Omatsu to Toshiie: Kaga hyakumangoku wo tsukutta hitobito おまつと利家:加賀百万石を創った人びと. Tokyo: Shūeisha 集英社, 2001.
- Tsumoto Yō 津本陽. Maeda Toshiie 前田利家. Tokyo: Kōdansha 講談社, 1994.
- Turnbull, Stephen (2005). Samurai Commanders (2). Osprey Publishing. pp. 23–27. ISBN 9781841767444. Retrieved 22 October 2014.
- Frédéric, Louis (2002). Japan Encyclopedia. Harvard University Press. p. 601. ISBN 9780674017535. Retrieved 22 October 2014.
- Women in the Lusophone World in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Baywolf Press. 2007. p. 434. Retrieved 22 October 2014.
- Buke-kaden page on the Maeda clan (in Japanese)
- Maeda Genealogy (in Japanese)
- Genealogy of Kanazawa-han daimyo, including Toshiie (in Japanese)
- Biography (in Japanese)
|Lord of Kanazawa
| Succeeded by| | <urn:uuid:1233c07f-55c7-4991-8d13-d86dec91b3fb> | CC-MAIN-2021-49 | https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Maeda_Toshiie.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964363659.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20211209030858-20211209060858-00499.warc.gz | en | 0.955638 | 2,097 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Niwa Nagahide (October 16, 1535 – May 15, 1585)
Nagahide participated in most of the major battles of his time, except for the Battle of Nagakute, (1584) when illness kept him from the fighting.
Nagahide was well considered by Nobunaga. He was married to Nobunaga’s adopted daughter, while his son, Nagashige, married Nobunaga’s fourth daughter. As such, he was granted Wakasa Province (now southern Fukui Prefecture) and Sawayama Castle in Omi (Shiga Prefecture). Nobunaga had recognized his leadership abilities, and entrusted him with the construction of Azuchi Castle.
As a further honor, Niwa Nagahide was chosen to lead a grand military parade staged by Nobunaga in 1581 as both a show of authority and as a public entertainment for the Emperor, the Imperial Court, foreign missionaries and the people of Kyoto.
In 1582, Nagahide accompanied Oda Nobutaka as second in command on a campaign to quell Shikoku as ordered by Nobunaga, however just after commencing the campaign, Nobunaga was felled by Akechi Mitsuhide in the Honno-ji Incident. Nagahide quickly abandoned the campaign and joined the forces of Toyotomi Hideyoshi in avenging their fallen master. Nagahide further supported Hideyoshi at the Kiyosu Kaigi, a meeting held at Kiyosu Castle to decide the future of the Oda clan.
He later fought against Shibata Katsuie at Shizugatake under Hideyoshi’s command, and was awarded Echizen and Kaga Provinces (Fukui and Ishikawa Prefectures) bringing him to daimyo status and an income of 1,230,000 koku.
Unfortunately, Niwa Nagahide died not long after on May 15, 1585. According to some records, he died of illness. Other reports claim he committed seppuku, from guilt that he had unwittingly been a major part of Hideyoshi’s usurping of Oda clan power.
Stone marker at Niwa Nagahide’s birthsite in Nishi-ku, Nagoya City | <urn:uuid:409ad609-3055-408d-bb02-7bbbed3e7422> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://samurai-world.com/niwa-nagahide/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320303385.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220121131830-20220121161830-00491.warc.gz | en | 0.981316 | 480 | 2.875 | 3 |
H: 14cm D: 18cm
By Nishimura Dōnin (1504-1555)
Muromachi period, Early to middle 16th century
Nishimura Dōnin (Kuniji) lived in Sanjō Kaman-za, Kyoto. Oda Nobunaga – a powerful samurai daimyo who initiated the unification of Japan - gave him the title of tenka-ichi (best in the world). It is said that he was one of the kamashi (kettle master) served to Oda Nobunaga and the famous tea ceremony master Takeno Jōō. He was the first to establish the Kyōgama (Kyoto iron kettle).
This kettle is certified by Ōnishi Jōju (1808-1876) who succeeded the name of the kamashi family, Ōnishi Seiwemon the eleventh.
It has rough skin and there are paulownia patterns. This crest, originally used by the imperial family, was given to Oda Nobunaga by Ashikaga Yoshinori, the 6th shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate in the Muromachi period, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi used it as his family crest.
The body shape is hiramaru, the ears for ring handle are shell shaped. The lid is emyō-buta, made of karakane (copper alloy) which gives this beautiful rusty vermilion colour. | <urn:uuid:8c3cb1d2-d2d5-4444-9e43-69e3afeb35de> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://mingei-arts-gallery.com/works/metal/gama | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320304798.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220125070039-20220125100039-00646.warc.gz | en | 0.930392 | 325 | 3.109375 | 3 |
“His name was Yasuke. His height was 6 shaku 2 sun” — roughly six feet, two inches — “he was black, and his skin was like charcoal.” Those words come from the 16th-century samurai Matsudaira Ietada, and they describe one of his colleagues. Though we don’t know much detail about his life itself, we do know that there once lived a black samurai called Yasuke, a version of the name he had in Africa, probably the then Portuguese Mozambique. Brought to Japan in 1579 by an Italian Jesuit named Alessandro Valignano on a mission-inspection tour, Yasuke’s appearance in the capital drew so much attention that thrilled onlookers clambered over one another to get so much as a glimpse at this strange visitor with his unfathomable stature and skin tone.
“His celebrity status soon piqued the curiosity of Oda Nobunaga, a medieval Japanese warlord who was striving to unify Japan and bring peace to a country racked by civil war,” writes Ozy’s Leslie Nguyen-Okwu. “Nobunaga praised Yasuke’s strength and stature, describing ‘his might as that of 10 men,’ and brought him on as his feudal bodyguard.”
As many foreigners in Japan still discover today, the foreigner’s outsider status there also has its benefits: “Nobunaga grew fond of Yasuke and treated him like family as he earned his worth on the battlefield and on patrol at Azuchi Castle. In less than a year, Yasuke went from being a lowly page to joining the upper echelons of Japan’s warrior class, the samurai. Before long, Yasuke was speaking Japanese fluently and riding alongside Nobunaga in battle.”
The legend of Yasuke ends soon after, in 1582, with Nobunaga’s fall at the hands of one of his own generals. That resulted in the first and only black samurai’s exile, probably to a Jesuit mission in Kyoto, but Yasuke has lived on in the imaginations of the last few generations of Japanese readers, all of whom grew up with the award-winning children’s book Kuro-suke (kuro meaning “black” in Japanese) by Kurusu Yoshio. This illustrated version of Yasuke’s life story, though told with humor, ends, according to a site about the book, on a bittersweet note: the defeated “Nobunaga kills himself, and Kuro-suke is saved and sent to Namban temple. When he sleeps that night, he dreams of his parents in Africa. Kuro-suke cries silently.”
What the story of Yasuke lacks in thorough historical documentation (though you can see a fair few pieces briefly cited on the site of this documentary project) it more than makes up in fascination, and somehow Hollywood, nearly fifteen years after Tom Cruise’s high-profile turn as a white samurai, has only just awoken to its potential. In March, Hollywood Reporter announced that the film studio Lionsgate “has tapped Highlander creator Gregory Widen to script Black Samurai,” a “period action drama” based on the Yasuke legend. Widen’s considerable experience in the outsider-with-sword genre makes him an understandable choice, but one has to wonder — shouldn’t Quentin Tarantino’s phone be ringing off the hook right about now?
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities and culture. He’s at work on a book about Los Angeles, A Los Angeles Primer, the video series The City in Cinema, the crowdfunded journalism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Angeles Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook. | <urn:uuid:f695b74f-2044-4292-a3a3-f830374227ba> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://www.openculture.com/2017/05/meet-yasuke-japans-first-black-samurai-warrior.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320303779.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20220122073422-20220122103422-00218.warc.gz | en | 0.961789 | 825 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Italian navigator who discovered the New World in the service of Spain while looking for a route to China (1451-1506). Landed in the eastern Bahamas in 1492 and thought he was in the East Indies and thought he was on an outer island of Japan.
German monk. father of the Reformation. posted the ninety-five theses on the door of a church, protesting the selling of indulgences. proclaimed the idea of justification by faith alone.
wrote Institutes of the Christian Religion. believed in predestination (God knew if you were going to heaven or hell the day you were born). started Calvinism.
Married Catherine of Aragon, but could only have a girl. He fell in love with Anne Boleyn, but couldn't divorce Catherine without the consent of the pope Charles V. So he started the Reformation Parliament and so had control of all spiritual matters along with temporal matters. Married Anne.
Catherine of Aragon's nephew. The Holy Roman Emperor that called for the Diet of Worms. He was a supporter of Catholicism and tried to crush the Reformation by use of the Counter-Reformation. Also known as Charles I of Spain.
Spanish explorer and conquistador who took over the Aztec empire (including Tenochtitlan) and captured Moctezuma. Wanted the gold. Proclaimed the Aztec empire the New Spain.
inspired by Cortés's conquest, he went to South America to capture and conquer the Inca empire.
Bartolome de Las Casas
a Dominican who said that conquest was not necessary for conversion for the Native Americans. his ideas inspired the Black Legend.
Aztec emperor who orginally thought Cortés was a god. Welcomed Cortés (a little wary) and offered him gold. Taken prisoner by Cortés and died in unexplainable circumstances
a Muslim from Yunnan and the third Ming emperor in China. Commanded maritime expeditions that sailed to Southeast Asia, India, the Arabian Gulf, and East Africa between 1405 and 1433. The expeditions ended abruptly.
General under Nobunaga; succeeded as leading military power in Japan; continued efforts to break power of daimyos; constructed a series of military alliances that made him the military master of Japan in 1590; died in 1598. froze social classes:
samurai were prohibited from quitting the service of their lord, peasants were barred from abandoning their fields to become townspeople.
emperor during Tokugawa Japan. He was very patient. established his headquarters in Edo (todays Tokyo), took title of shogun and called his government the bakufu. confiscated lands of defeated enemies & gave it to vassals & allies as rewards. shuffled domains. imposed legal codes, hostage system, and national policy of seclusion.
monarch in Korea during Choson era. He reformed land taxes, made loans of grain to farmers during spring planting, and encouraged the spread of better agricultural technology. Established Hall of Worthies. Created hangul (alphabetic script).
Also known as James VI of Scotland, he took over the English throne when Elizabeth I died without children and passed it onto him. The first of the Stuart dynasty.
King of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1625-1649). His power struggles with Parliament resulted in the English Civil War (1642-1648) in which Charles was defeated. He was tried for treason and beheaded in 1649
Habsburg ruler. Had no male heir, and didn't want the throne and king to be taken away from his daughter Maria Teresa, so he created the Pragmatic Sanction.
Frederick II (the Great)
King of Prussia. He followed his father, Frederick William's military policies when he came to power. However, he also softened some of his father's laws. With regard to domestic affairs, he encouraged religious toleration and legal reform. According to his theory of government, he believed that a ruler should be like a father to his people. Supported religious freedom, reduced censorship, promoted education, challenged the powers of the junkers (Russian nobility), called himself the "first servant of the state"
Peter the Great
Became the ruler of Russia and known for Westernzing the country in order to be successful. He made Russia come out of their isolation and created the first navy. He soon moved his capital to St. Petersburg, where he expanded the size of Russia.
"the Conqueror", who conquered Constantinople in 1453, and opened it to citizens of many religions and backgrounds. True founder of the Ottoman order.
ruled for 46 years, spread the empire, many cultural interests, expanded military, millet system, devshirme system. known as "the lawgiver" and the Ottomans best ruler
ruler of Safavid empire; tolerant of other religions/ groups; ruled during "Golden Age of the Safavids"
The son of Shah Jahan who did not have such religious toleration as his father or Akbar the Great. He persecute non-Muslims, destroyed Hindu temples, reimposed the poll tax and alienated Rajput leaders.
the spiritual father of the Sikh movement. Preached faith and devotion to one loving and merciful God. Opposed narrow allegiance to particular creeds or rites and excessive pride in external religious observance
Italian astronomer and mathematician who was the first to use a telescope to study the stars
English mathematician and scientist who invented differential calculus and formulated the theory of universal gravitation, a theory about the nature of light, and three laws of motion. His treatise on gravitation, presented in "Principia Mathematica" (also known as "The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" (1687), was supposedly inspired by the sight of a falling apple.
French philosophe who wrote Candide., Wrote Philosophic Letters on the English & Treatise on Toleration. He admired the English freedom of the press, and religious toleration. He criticized France because of its royal absolutism and lack of freedom of thought.
Baron de Montesquieu
wrote The Spirit of the Laws : developed the idea of the separation of powers into three branches of government
This was the ruler of the Habsburgs that controlled the Catholic Church closely, granted religious toleration and civic rights to Protestants and Jews, and abolished serfdom
King of England during the American Revolution; wished to keep the Americans as a loyal colony; instituted many taxes on the colonists to boost revenue for England
This French king ruled for the longest time ever in Europe. He issued several economic policies and costly wars. He was the prime example of absolutism in France. Ruled during the French Revolution. "divine right of kings"
A French general, political leader, and emperor of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He rose swiftly through the ranks of army and government during and after the French Revolution and crowned himself emperor in 1804. He conquered much of Europe but lost two-thirds of his army in a disastrous invasion of Russia. After his final loss to Britain and Prussia at the Battle of Waterloo, he was exiled to the island of St. Helena in the south Atlantic Ocean.
was an important leader of the Haïtian Revolution and the first leader of a free Haiti. In a long struggle again the institution of slavery, he led the blacks to victory over the whites and free coloreds and secured native control over the colony in 1797, calling himself a dictator.
aka the "Liberator of Venezuela"; a member of the Creole elite. The most important military leader in the struggle for independence in South America. Born in Venezuela, he led military forces there and in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
Italian nationalist and patriot who defined nationalism. Said that the nation is derived from God and is part of God's will. Heart of Italian unification.
He replaced Charles X. His reign was known as the July Monarchy. He was called the king of the French rather than king of France. Had to cooperate with the Chamber of Deputies.
leader of the movement for home rule (more Irish control of local government) in Ireland.
Otto von Bismark
Prussian prime minister, he led the unification of Germany and the creation of the German empire. hated the German Social Democratic party
emperor of Austria and King of Hungary; he helps create and reform new type of country called Austria-Hungary
wrote a Vindication of the Rights of Man and then wrote a Vindication of the Rights of Women. wanted equality for women. one of the first feminists.
lead of group of radical (violent) British feminists. Founded the Women's Social and Political Union.
Georgii Plekhanov's chief disciple. Also known as Vladimir Illich Ulyanov. Wrote "What Is to Be Done?". Russian founder of the Bolsheviks and leader of the Russian Revolution and first head of the USSR (1870-1924)
wrote "On the Origin of Species" and "The Descent of Man". He and Russel Wallace explained how evolution could occur. Discovered the principle of natural selection (survival of the fittest). said natural selection applied to humans and that's why we are who we are, not because of God. (he still believed in God though). | <urn:uuid:405db94d-f413-4386-97fd-0d3a95dc333b> | CC-MAIN-2016-30 | https://quizlet.com/3797673/world-history-since-1500-final-1-important-people-flash-cards/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-30/segments/1469257832939.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160723071032-00195-ip-10-185-27-174.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961922 | 1,942 | 3.5 | 4 |
Nara Prefecture region is considered one of the oldest regions in Japan spanning thousands of years. The present-day Nara Prefecture as it exists now officially was created in 1887, making it independent of Osaka Prefecture.
Historically, Nara Prefecture was also known as Yamato-no-kuni or Yamato Province.
Up to Nara Period
It is certain that there was a political force established at the foot of Mount Miwa in the east of Nara Basin, seeking unification of most parts in Japan from the third century until the fourth century, though the process was not well documented. At the dawn of history, Yamato was clearly the political center of Japan.
Ancient capitals of Japan were built on the land of Nara, namely Asuka-kyō, Fujiwara-kyō (694–710) and Heijō-kyō (most of 710–784). The capital cities of Fujiwara and Heijō are believed to have been modeled after Chinese capitals at the time, incorporating grid layout patterns. The royal court also established relations with Sui and then Tang Dynasty China and sent students to the Middle Kingdom to learn high civilization. By 7th century, Nara accepted the many immigrants including refugees of Baekje who had escaped from war disturbances of the southern part of the Korean peninsula. The first high civilization with royal patronage of Buddhism flourished in today's Nara city (710–784 AD).
Nara in the Heian period
In 784, Emperor Kammu decided to relocate the capital to Nagaoka-kyō in Yamashiro Province, followed by another move in 794 to Heian-kyō, marking the start of the Heian period. The temples in Nara remained powerful beyond the move of political capital, thus giving Nara a synonym of "Nanto" (meaning "South Capital") as opposed to Heian-kyō, situated in the north. Close at the end of Heian period, Taira no Shigehira, a son of Taira no Kiyomori, was ordered by his father to depress the power of mainly Kōfuku-ji and Tōdai-ji, who were backing up an opposition group headed by Prince Mochihito. The movement has led into a collision between the Taira and the Nara temples in 1180, when eventually Kōfuku-ji and Tōdai-ji were set on fire, resulting in the vast loss of its architectures.
At the rise of the Minamoto to its ruling seat and the opening of Kamakura Shogunate, Nara enjoyed the support of Minamoto no Yoritomo toward restoration. Kōfuku-ji, being the "home temple" to the Fujiwara since its foundation, not only regained the power it had before but became a de facto regional chief of Yamato Province. With the recovery of Kōfuku-ji and Tōdai-ji, there was a town growing near the two temples.
The Nanboku-chō period, starting in 1336, brought more instability to Nara. As Emperor Go-Daigo chose Yoshino as his base, a power struggle arose in Kōfuku-ji with a group supporting the South and another siding the North court. Likewise, local clans were split into two. Kōfuku-ji recovered its control over the province for a short time at the surrender of the South Court in 1392, while the internal power game of the temple itself opened a way for the local samurai clans to spring up and fight with each other, gradually acquiring their own territories, thus diminishing the influence of Kōfuku-ji overall.
The Sengoku and Edo periods to present
Later the whole province of Yamato got drawn into the confusion of the Sengoku period. Tōdai-ji was once again set on fire in 1567, when Matsunaga Hisahide, who was later appointed by Oda Nobunaga to the lord of Yamato Province, fought for supremacy against his former master Miyoshi family. Followed by short appointments of Tsutsui Junkei and Toyotomi Hidenaga by Toyotomi Hideyoshi to the lord, the Tokugawa Shogunate ultimately ruled the city of Nara directly, and most parts of Yamato province with a few feudal lords allocated at Kōriyama, Takatori and other places. With industry and commerce developing in the 18th century, the economy of the province was incorporated into prosperous Osaka, the commercial capital of Japan at the time.
The economic dependency to Osaka even characterizes today's Nara Prefecture, for many inhabitants commute to Osaka to work or study there. | <urn:uuid:d88df748-20cb-409c-a789-6456c5e2d0b9> | CC-MAIN-2016-30 | http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Place:Nara%2C_Japan | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-30/segments/1469257824226.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160723071024-00151-ip-10-185-27-174.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964531 | 975 | 3.671875 | 4 |
Takatori ware and the Kuroda Domain
I admit, it may look like a rather dry subject to start with, but this book on the Takatori kiln by Andrew Maske weaves together many of the most importance themes of Japanese ceramic production. It touches on history, economics, the tea ceremony, aesthetics and technical aspects of ceramic production in clear and lucid prose.
The Takatori family is a fine example of a traditional potting dynasty in Japan and a few peculiarities means that it makes for a rewarding study. For example, the Raku family and the senke tea houses still guard a lot of their sources (although Pitelka’s book on Raku Culture is an equally absorbing and fascinating read), whereas the Takatori family is still unattached to a particular senke and there has been slightly less mythologizing around the family name. Even so, part of the fun is following the author as he gently questions many of the assumptions and stories that have built up over the years around some of the stories and attributions.
Many of the basic components of the story are well-known: the family was ‘encouraged’ to move to Japan from Korea; they produced fine tea ceremony wares, especially tea caddies for the Kuroda domain; and they became one of the seven kilns of Kobori Enshu.
The Move to Japan
But there is more nuance to all these parts of the story. Kuroda Nagamasa returned with the founders of the Takatori family, father and son Hachizou and Shinkurou, from the disastrous Korean campaign around 1598. It is unclear whether the Takatori family was compelled to go to Japan with him or not. It is also unclear in general why so many Korean craftsmen and women were brought back to Japan. After all, as Maske points out, it would perhaps have been easier to bring Japanese potters from Seto or Bizen. This question isn’t answered in the book, but presumably the daimyo (feudal lords) may have been unwilling to share expertise from a potentially lucrative revenue source in their domain. Maske also suggests that Koreans kidnapped by Japanese pirates had proven to be useful craftsmen which could have inspired the daimyo to kidnap their own during the campaign. Whatever the situation in Japan, even Hideyoshi himself ordered that his commanders return with suitable craftspeople. The Takatori family have asserted that it was a voluntary relocation to Japan, but all other evidence suggests otherwise. And, no matter the benefits of employment with a Japanese feudal lord, after a brutal campaign of occupation it seems unlikely that a Korean family would voluntarily leave for Japan. So why would a family record not record the truth of their arrival in Japan?
Kuroda Nagamasa, the founder of the Kuroda clan
About 25 years after coming to Japan, in around 1624 the Takatori family applied to the new daimyo, Kuroda Tadayuki, to return to Korea. Tadayuki was notorious for his temper and he immediately banished the Takatori family to an unproductive part of his domain and cut their stipend. Whether or not it was intended as such, this perceived challenge to Tadayuki’s authority was a major faux pas. It is no stretch to believe that the family record was created to assuage any accusations of disloyalty from their employer.
More so than the Raku family for example, where the mythology exists to create a brand, the Takataori founding myths speak to the human cost of the disastrous Korean invasion and as a result is more poignant and more relevant today given continuing diplomatic conflict between Japan and South Korea.
Production of High Quality Ware
Maske takes us through all the iterations of kiln locations, styles and techniques, and the different heads of families and collaborators. Throughout nearly all phases of production, the Takatori kiln was renowned for “delicate construction, fine clay and vibrant glazes”, as it still is today! But what is interesting is the extent to which definitive attribution of some pieces to the Takatori kiln is so tricky. This seems to be for two reasons: both the Takatori and the Kuroda family collection have been widely dispersed after the Meiji Restoration; and such a wide variety of styles and shapes were attempted through the lifetime of the Takatori kilns. News about popular techniques, shapes and styles flowed across Japan, from the old potteries at Seto, Mino and Bizen through Kyoto to the newer centres on Kyushu and vice versa. Maske finds evidence of Oribe style kutsugata wares and celadon and porcelain alongside the traditional finely glazed Takatori ware. The commonly-held theory is that agents would design and commission specific kilns across Japan to make new wares to market in Kyoto. These marks have been found on Takatori, but only on Oribe style items produced at the kiln. This flow of information and techniques makes identification and attribution for items without a cast-iron provenance extremely difficult.
Oribe style Kutsugata tea bowl with a warped rim and split foot made by at the Takatori kiln.
(Fukuoka Art Museum, Photo by Fujimoto Kenpachi, From: Potters and Patrons)
As the quality of Takatori got better, the Kuroda reserved the wares only for their use: either for personal use, or for use as gifts outside the domain, but also for use as gifts within the domain too. The importance of gift giving in the long 16th Century should not be under-estimated and for the Kuroda this represented not only an aesthetic and economic achievement, but also a political achievement. The warlords who united Japan: Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Tokugawa, all used the tea ceremony and associated utensils to bolster their claim to legitimacy and to reinforce social, hierarchical bonds across elite samurai society. The exchange of gifts and participation in the tea ceremony was more than a side-effect of this process, in many ways it embodied and created these hierarchies of power and the accompanying alliances. For the Kuroda to have developed a source of tea ceremony utensils which could play into this ecosystem was of great value to them.
Interestingly, by 1779 the Kuroda launched an investigation into why older Takatori ware was of a better quality that recent pieces. The potters agreed, and it was all down to economics. Cost-saving had increased the quantity of ‘good’ wares to roughly sixty to seventy percent of each firing but had decreased the amount of excellent pieces. By making each firing more predictable and not taking risks with kiln construction and the amount of fuel used for example, the domain had reduced the unexpected contingencies which produced some of the most unusual effects. Then in the later Tokugawa period and into the Meiji era, lineage and heritage became even more important within Japanese society as a whole and quality again suffered as bloodlines supplanted skill as the arbiter of quality.
Takatori Hassen realised some of these problems and built a special wood-fired Tangama: a single chamber wood-fired kiln which had deliberate asymmetries in its design to encourage unusual heat and air currents. Although it is more expensive and time-consuming to fire, with a relatively high failure rate, it produces some of the most interesting and sophisticated effects.
The long 16th Century was both a time of turmoil and conflict, but also of huge artistic awakening as a national aesthetic language came to prominence through the wabi style tea ceremony. Takatori has always been associated with the tea master Kobori Enshu as one of the Seven Kilns of Enshu (Zeze, Shidoro, Asahi, Akahada, Kosobe, Agano, & Takatori), but we had always assumed that Kobori Enshu had chosen Takatori ware. Maske reveals the very opposite! The Kuroda family wanted the endorsement of a famous tea master and Kuroda Tadayuki asked Kobori Enshu to contribute by naming some tea caddies which had yet to be made.
Two tea caddies both named Somekawa by Kobori Enshu, which started the Takatori rise to fame
(L: Idemitsu Museum, Photo by Fujimoto Kenpachi R: Private Collection, Photo by Takaku Ryouichi From: Potters and Patrons)
This seems to be breath-taking chutzpah from Kuroda Tadayuki. Why would Kobori Enshu participate without ever having seen these tea caddies? Or any Takatori ware for that matter? And seemingly with no regular correspondence between him and the Kuroda daimyos? What matters is that he agreed and the Kuroda were a further step on the way to promoting their ceramics. Maske’s hypothesis is that it was only when Takatori Hachizou and his son Hachirouemon presented works to Kobori Enshu in Kyoto that Takatori ware even came to be called Takatori ware rather than Chikuzen ware (Chikuzen was the name of the Kuroda domain). It is entirely believable that up until that point these wares had been more associated with the Kuroda domain in Enshu’s mind rather than the actual makers. At a stroke, the Kuroda had transformed their ceramics from a regional brand, to a named brand restricted to one family, admired and promoted by the pre-eminent tea master of the day. As an aside, it also shows how the tea masters had already started to monetize their positions as arbiters of taste.
The Takatori brand was later identified with the Marutaka mark, still in use today
However, by the Meiji Restoration, large family domains were less lucrative and many families had had to sell off their collections. Once the modern prefectural system was established and the age of the samurai family was over, nearly every high-quality craft across Japan felt this decline in patronage. Without the bureaucrats of the domain, the workshops were pushed into the market with little to no experience in marketing their wares.
As a whole, this engaging book is measured and extremely well-researched presenting balanced conclusions and gently trying to separate myth from fact. But as a vivid portrayal of the ebb and flow of relations between a major craft family and their daimyo through the 17th century it is unrivalled. Add to this our interest in the Takatori family specifically and it is a treasure trove! | <urn:uuid:6f3cc513-d0be-45ce-839e-ebdb2695cfe1> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://sansho.com/blogs/news/book-review-takatori-ware-and-the-kuroda-domain | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320304570.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20220124124654-20220124154654-00038.warc.gz | en | 0.972443 | 2,211 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Sumo Wrestling Museum Kehayaza
2 Mar 2020
The historic Katsuragi City, is the birthplace of the Japanese spirit
In the midwest region of Nara Prefecture, Katsuragi City lies at the base of Mt. Nijo and its impressive double-peaks. Japan's oldest road Takenouchi Kaido has ancient myths connected and legends related to the Emperor of Japan, is home to historic Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. There is a historical enchantment to the area that shows Nara used to be the capital. It is also said to be the region where Japan-specific cultural elements, such as sumo wrestling and the Tanabata festival, originated, making it the birthplace of the Japanese spirit.
Experience Japan's national sport, sumo wrestling, where it was created
In one section of the city, you will find the Sumo wrestling Museum Kehayaza, a rarity even in Japan. Inside, you will find valuable exhibits, as well as a full-scale sumo wrestling ring, which you can enter. Everyone gets a chance to enjoy what it feels like to be a sumo wrestler.
Taima no Kehaya, an ancient, local strong man, invented sumo wrestling
The history behind Katsuragi City being where sumo wrestling originated is in the "Nihon Shoki," Japan's oldest history book. It states that at the start of the 4th century, the local strong man Taima no Kehaya was known for his superhuman strength, and he competed in a strength competition in front of the Emperor with Nomi no Sukune, who similarly boasted great strength. This is the first account of sumo wrestling, as well as that of sumo wrestling being performed in the presence of the Emperor, and has been handed down to later generations. At the end of a long struggle with neither man backing down, Taima no Kehaya was defeated, and died. Later, the Taima no Kehaya-zuka memorial tower was constructed in remembrance of him as a local hero; his name is etched in history as the originator of sumo wrestling. It is in front of the Sumo Wrestling Museum Kehayaza, so please visit it and offer a prayer.
Taima no Kehaya-zuka. It is still cherished and maintained by the locals.
See exhibits and videos to learn about the history and culture of sumo wrestling
Head inside while thinking about Taima no Kehaya, the local who invented sumo wrestling. They have about 12,000 items in their exhibits on sumo wrestling. On the second floor, there are a lot of valuable exhibits centered around its history and local sumo wrestlers. There are sure to fascinate anyone who comes inside. Sit in one of the box seats around the sumo ring, and relax while you watch the jumbotron. There are guide tablet computers with support for six languages that include explanations for the exhibits, an overview of the facility, and explanations on the history and culture of sumo wrestling, to help you get an in-depth understanding.
A drawing of a sumo wrestling match that took place in front of Oda Nobunaga, a wartime general representative of Japan.
You can sit in one of the box seats, which are unique to professional sumo wrestling, and watch a video about sumo wrestling.
The guide tablet computers support six languages: Japanese, English, French, Chinese (simplified, and traditional), and Korean.
Stepping onto a real sumo ring for an unforgettable experience
After learning about sumo wrestling from the exhibits and videos, it's finally time to head to the ring. This is a real sumo wrestling ring with an usher who calls out the names of the wrestlers at tournaments, and this is faithfully reenacted here. In the world of sumo, the ring is seen as a sacred place, and normally only people involved with a match such as the referee and sumo wrestlers are allowed to set foot on one. But this ring was constructed as an "exhibit ring," so anyone can enter it. Once you have actually gotten into it, you will probably feel that it is smaller than you expected. It's easy to get excited here when you imagine sumo wrestlers, who are much larger than you, fighting each other here.
The sumo wrestling ring was made to the same specifications as an actual ring.
Anyone can enter it, shoes and all.
Feel what it's like to be a sumo referee and judge a match by taking hold of the referee's fan!
Putt on a costume and transform. Enjoy what it's like to become a sumo wrestler
Since you're stepping in a sumo wrestling ring, there are sure to be a lot of people who want to feel what it's like to be a sumo wrestler. Look no further! Actually tying a genuine loincloth may be setting the bar a little too high, but with a costume, anyone, man or woman, can easily try it out over their clothes. Putting on a loincloth-style costume and wearing a topknot wig transforms you into a sumo wrestler. Scatter the salt, stomp your legs, and step firmly into the ring like a yokozuna making his entrance. You'll definitely have fun if you compete with friends or family. This is sure to be an exciting sumo wrestling experience that you can't do anywhere else.
Scatter a bunch of salt clasped in your hand to purify the ring.
Try moving like a sumo wrestler by raising and stomping your legs one at a time.
While you're at it, fully embody a sumo wrestler by moving like a yokozuna making his entrance.
You can experience these things here!
Name of facility | Katsuragi City Sumo Wrestling Museum Kehayaza
Name of experience | Be a sumo wrestler and enter the ring in the birthplace of sumo wrestling, Japan's national sport
Address | 83-1 Taima, Katsuragi City, Nara 639-0276
Business Hours |10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Closed | Tuesdays and Wednesdays (open on national holidays), New Year's holiday
Price | Starts at 300 yen (may vary depending on the content)
Payment methods | Cash only
Number of guests accepted (groups)| From 1 person
Telephone number| 0745-48-4611
Multilingual support | Guide tablet computers with support for English, French, Chinese (simplified, and traditional), and Korean
Official Website (Japanese)| http://www.city.katsuragi.nara.jp/index.cfm/17,2985,80,html
Notes | None
Written by GOOD LUCK TRIP | <urn:uuid:cfdda1c4-eb81-46f1-87fa-20e8160061db> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://www.the-kansai-guide.com/en/article/item/16297/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320302715.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20220121010736-20220121040736-00568.warc.gz | en | 0.950497 | 1,425 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Lizard Rock clings to the steep cliff to the northwest of Mt. Washigamine (563 m) in the eastern part of Oki-Dogo Island in the offing of Shimane Prefecture. Clearly, the rock looks like a giant lizard climbing the precipice.
You can get a first view of the rock from the point on the Shizenkaiki-no-mori walking trail, 50 m away from the parking lot located at the end of Nakabayashi Forest Road. The best viewing point is the observation deck further 100 m ahead from there, where a bower and the description board are built.
Lizard Rock was formed by the erosion occurred onto the rock surface of different properties. As the result of such erosion, the lizard-shaped part, about 30 m in total length, remained on the cliff. It is a scientifically precious natural phenomenon.
It is said that one of the forepaws dropped off due to an earthquake some years ago. The lizard will continue changing its shape with the course of time from now on.
Hacchoike is the caldera lake located in a height of 1,180 meters on the south ridge of Mt. Amagi. It was named so because the circumference is 8 cho in the Japanese length units, which is about 870 meters. From its mysterious atmosphere, it is called “the Eye of Izu.” As the lake is surrounded with Suzu-take bamboo trees (Sasamorpha borealis), it is also called “Aosuzu-no-ike (Green Bamboo Pond).”
The lake is also known as the habitat of Forest Green Tree Frogs (Rhacophorus arboreus). This frog is designated as a Natural Monument. Although they are rarely seen in recent years, they have been gradually increasing in number as the result of the efforts for environmental conservation.
The nearby observatory, about 10 minutes’ walk from the lake, offers a spectacular view of Mt. Fuji, the South Alps, the Hakone Mountain Range and Izu Peninsula.
Ono Castle, also called Miyayama Castle, was located at the top of Mt. Seikai in Tokoname City, Aichi Prefecture. The castle was resided first by the Ono clan, the descendant of the Owari-Genji family, then the Isshiki clan, and finally the four generations of the Saji clan.
The Saji clan built up Chita Suigun (the naval forces) and played an important role in promoting maritime trade and controlling marine transportation in Ise Bay. Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi placed great importance on their naval power and Nobunaga’s sister and niece were married off to the Saji clan.
Nobunaga’s niece, Ogo (or Oeyo), whose mother is Nobunaga’s sister Oichi, was married to Saji Kazunari, the 4th head of the Saji clan, by the order of Hideyoshi. However, when Kazunari sided with the Tokugawa and Oda allied forces later, Hideyoshi got angry and made the couple get divorced in 1584. Later in 1595, she remarried Tokugawa Hidetada, the 3rd son of Ieyasu and later the 2nd Tokugawa Shogun, and became the mother of his successor, Iemitsu.
The castle ruins site has been arranged into the park, where the two-story donjon and the castle gate were newly constructed. You can command a wonderful view of Ise Bay from the observatory deck on the donjon. The Saji clan is enshrined at Saji Shrine in the ruins site of the watch tower.
The Kakita River, a tributary of the Kano River, flows in a southerly direction in the centre of Shimizu Town in Shizuoka Prefecture. This river rises about 40 km away from the southeastern base of Mt. Fuji and fed by springs from the underground water table which is maintained by rain and melting snow that was discharged from Mt. Fuji into Mishima Stream of lava formed about 8,500 years ago.
There are several dozen springs which supply the Kakita River with 1 million tons of water each day. The water temperature in the Kakita River is about 15℃ throughout the year. The quality of the spring water is extremely good and it is called “the Last Clear Stream in Japan” or “the Finest Spring Water in the Orient.” It is counted as one of Japan’s 100 Fine Waters selected by the Ministry of Environment.
In 1986, Shimizu Town built the Kakita River Park, where visitors can see the water springs all through the year from the observatory deck.
Momo (Peach) Rock is located in the southern part of longish Rebun Island in the northern part of Hokkaido. The place where the rock is located was on ancient battle field referred to in an Ainu legend.
The rounded huge rock with sharply wringed top really looks like a peach. The green grass that is covering the rock surface looks velvety as if they were real peach skin. The soft feel of peach skin will come to your mind. It stands magnificently against the blue sky.
The area around this huge rock is covered with colonies of alpine plants peculiar to this island such as Rebun-kozakura (Primula modesta var. matsumurae）and Rebun-kinbaiso (Trollius ledebourii var. polysepalus). You can enjoy viewing these cute flowers from the observatory as well as from the promenade. It will be really refreshing to command this exquisite view in the wind from the Sea of Japan.
Choshikei Gorge extends along the upstream of the Denpo River running through Shodoshima Island. Shodoshima Skyline (Prefectural Road 27) connects it with Kankakei Gorge, which is counted as one of Japan’s Three Fine Gorges. Shodoshima Island is famous for wild monkeys, and Choshikei Gorge is also a home to hundreds of monkeys. You could visit Choshikei Monkey Park at the foot of Mt. Sentakubo, where the mode of life of wild monkeys can be observed nearby. Some of them are friendly to human beings because of the food handouts.
Following the trail up the mountain, you will pass by Onote-hime Shrine, a tiny shrine, which enshrines Princess Onote, the founder of Shodoshima Island. At the top of the mountain is the observatory, where you can have a calm and peaceful moment, viewing the panoramic landscape of the Seto Inland Sea.
In fall, trees with crimson foliage beautifully add colors to the clear stream of the gorge.
Heiwa Kannon located in Ohya-machi, Utsunomiya City, Tochigi Pref. is a huge statue of Kannon carved into a wall of Ohya Stone in the old Ohya stone quarry. It was made in hope for world peace and in memory of Japan and U.S. war dead soldiers in the World War II. The statue is 26.93-meter in height and 20-centimeter in circumference of waist. It was made in 1954 by a stone mason, Ryozo Ueno, who did its foundation work, and a sculptor, Asajiro Hida, who hand-carved its calm expression. From the top of the stairs beside the statue, you can command a wide view of the Utsunomiya plain over its shoulder.
On the left side of the Kannon was a tunnel leading to Ohyaji Temple, but it is currently closed for the danger of falling. Ohyaji Temple is also famous for its rock-cut Kannon known as Ohya Kannon. Heiwa Kannon is a symbol of the stone town of Ohya.
Ichigoyama Castle is located at the eastern peak of Mt. Ushibuse (491 m) in Yoshii-cho, Gunma Pref. It is said that the castle was built in the late Muromachi period (1336-1573) as an attached castle of Hirai Castle, which was resided by the Uesugi clan. Located at the top of such a high peak, the castle is thought to have been used as a base to send smoke signals during the Warring States period (1493-1573). The castle fell in 1563 by the attack of Takeda Shingen. It is presumed that several outer compounds separated by dry moats were constructed but there are almost no ruins remaining now. The area was arranged into Ushibuseyama Natural Park to provide citizens with recreation and relaxation. On the castle ruin stands a three-story mock donjon with a commercial museum of Yoshii-cho on the 1st floor, a historical museum on the 2nd floor, and an observatory on the 3rd floor, from which visitors can command a 360°panoramic view. | <urn:uuid:7a7375e6-0303-4de6-b0d6-fb50940bc1fc> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | https://nippon-kichi.jp/article_list.do?kwd=1985&ml_lang=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247512461.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20190222013546-20190222035546-00489.warc.gz | en | 0.966677 | 1,903 | 2.625 | 3 |
Politics and Religion: Politics and Japanese Religions
POLITICS AND RELIGION: POLITICS AND JAPANESE RELIGIONS
One of the most striking photographs of the twentieth century—a kamikaze plane crashing headlong into an Allied ship during the last year of the Pacific war—illustrates dramatically an extreme version of the collusion of religion and politics in Japan. The ideal of dying valiantly to defend or preserve one's sacred homeland is of course found in societies all over the world. However, few societies have combined diverse religious traditions, political will, educational curricula, and coercive social controls to elevate and sustain an ideology of personal self-sacrifice to the extent once found in Japan. Moreover all of these twentieth-century characteristics can be traced to earlier precedents within Japanese social and political history.
The practice of using religious traditions to enhance political power in Japan has a momentum of over eighteen hundred years. And yet the concepts of religion and politics have only recently begun to acquire in Japan some of the same semantic and legalistic meanings with which they are regarded in Europe or North America. The Japanese Supreme Court ruled in 1997 on a case that for the first time clearly upheld a 1947 constitutional distinction between religious and political activities.
The term for religion in Japanese, shukyō, consists of two characters: shu, meaning "sect," and kyō, or "teaching." Originally used in Chinese Buddhism, it was first employed in a treaty in 1869 to translate the German word Religionsübung (religious exercise). This conception of the word is adequate for religions such as Buddhism or Confucianism—both with thousands of texts, teachings, and commentaries—but less appropriate for Japan's premodern oral traditions that venerate local deities connected with healing, agriculture, fertility, defense, and control of the weather.
The earliest recorded period in Japanese history shows clearly a symbiotic interaction of religion and politics. Starting around the sixth century ce, correct governmental administration was based upon the principle of saisei-itchi (a Chinese reading of the Japanese term matsurigoto ), or "unity of ritual and government." Any ruler wanting his or her realm to prosper was obligated to formulate policies reflecting the will of the deities (kami), delivered through oracles at certain ancient, powerful shrines (such as Mount Miwa in the central region or at Usa Hachiman on the island of Kyushu) and manifest also through omens and natural phenomena. There is considerable but not conclusive evidence that powerful women shamans, one identified in Chinese chronicles as Himiko, channeled the will of the kami as the basis of their rule in the second and third centuries ce.
When Buddhism first arrived in Japan in 538, it too became a valuable resource in building a stable political and social order. The emperor Kinmei received a Buddha statue and several volumes of scriptures from King Songmyong of Paekche (Korean Peninsula), who advised him that not only did great people of the past have full knowledge of the Buddhist doctrine but also it had benefited those who built strong states. Some of Kinmei's vassals, who had been displaced and then immigrated from the Korean Peninsula some two to three centuries earlier, were supportive of this new religion, whereas native clans warned that its adoption would anger local kami.
Soon, with religious differences serving to focus other conflicts over title and territory, these two opposing forces met in battle in 587 ce. After the immigrant Soga clan defeated the native Mononobe, religious and political development centered on Buddhism flourished during the seventh century. Some of the patterns established at that time have continued throughout Japanese history: the emperor system, the idea of Japan as a sacred country, state support of Buddhism (and vice versa), regional temples and shrines (as well as the rituals conducted there) designed to protect the state, and venerating (in order to pacify and control) the spirits of the dead.
Shortly after the temporary setback for the native clans mentioned earlier, court nobles were commanded in 593 ce by Suiko, the first of a series of powerful empresses, to support Buddhism. Two important precedents associated with the religion in China and Korea were now to be established in Japan. The first was the Golden Light Sūtra (Suvarna-prabhasa ) and its message of protection for kings, their families, and countries. The other sūtra was the Benevolent Kings' Sūtra (Kārunikā-rāja-prajñāpāramitā ), which in a similar vein assured rulers that by reading and explaining the sūtra they would enact the "Rite of Protecting the Country." Thus the reign of Buddhist law and that of a local king were seen to coincide, benefit, and legitimate each other.
At the same time the regional deities and myths of conquered clans from the recent past were being consolidated into a systematic account, the Kojiki (712 ce), to legitimate what has since become the world's oldest extant imperial system. King Tenmu (r. 673–686 ce) bolstered his imperial position as emperor by co-opting the kind of authority traditionally reserved for clan priests. A four-layered system of kami worship developed: imperial kami were superior to all others, the emperor as a "manifest kami " (akitsukami ) directly descended from the sun deity (Amaterasu) outranked clan chiefs, the most important rituals were conducted by the emperor, and finally the imperial shrine at Ise stood above all other shrines. Tenmu also stationed an imperial princess at Ise to worship on his behalf and created the Council of Kami Affairs to supervise ritual activities of benefit to the state at shrines. The concept of Japan as a "divine nation" (shinkoku ) first appeared in a subsequent chronicle of 720 ce (the Nihonshoki ) and then, as will be evident in a moment, emerges again at various critical moments in Japan's history.
Tenmu's grandson Shōmu further developed Buddhism as a tool of the state. In 741 ce he issued an edict requiring every province to build both a monastery and a nunnery, where rituals aimed at protecting the regime (chingo kokka ) could be held on a regular basis, conducted by priests and nuns certified by the state. "Protect the country [through Buddhism] against all calamity, prevent sorrow and pestilence, and cause the hearts of believers to be filled with joy" (Kōjiro, 1993, p. 255). At the center of power in what is now Nara in central Japan, Shōmu first consulted a kami oracle (at Usa Hachiman in Kyushu) for approval, then constructed the Tōdaiji temple, housing what was at that time the largest seated Buddha in the largest wooden building in the world, dedicated to the peace and prosperity of the state.
In many ways this early period of interactive religious and political development created institutional precedents for subsequent eras. Although the political power of emperors was soon usurped by regional clan chiefs, the structure of the imperial system, though buffeted by centuries of political wrangling, would remain essentially unchanged until 1868. When the capital moved from Nara to nearby Kyoto in 793 ce (in part to escape the meddling influence of powerful Buddhist priests in Nara), its placement followed established "religious" designs strongly influenced by Chinese Daoist principles that now are identified (with varying accuracy) as feng-shui, or geomancy. Before moving into the Kyoto Plain, the court had to negotiate with powerful local shrines (such as Matsuo, Fushimi, and Kamo) and gain the protection of their deities for the stability of the realm. It also established temples (Tōji, Saiji, Enryakuji) located at key directional quadrants of the capital (east, west, northeast, respectively) that would further enhance the court's spiritual defenses.
It would be safe to say that those in power during this time saw political and social change as well as calamities as originating from the willful agency of meddlesome spirits, divine beings, and transhuman forces. For example, a belief in the power of departed spirits (goryō) gained considerable influence during the Heian period (794–1192). These spirits were thought to be responsible for everything from epidemics to earthquakes, as droughts, famines, stillbirths, pestilence, ominous dreams, and so on were "imbued with a strong political coloration: disasters of all kinds were a barometer of political injustices" (McMullin, 1988, p. 272).
When the Fujiwara clan rose to power through intrigue, assassinations, and exile, these moves left in their wake a number of departed and potentially vengeful spirits. The first rite to propitiate six of these spirits in particular, believed responsible for an epidemic of tuberculosis, was held in 863 ce, later developing into one of the nation's three most famous festivals, Kyoto's midsummer Gion Festival. Likewise a court official exiled to Kyushu around this same time, Sugawara Michizane (845–903 ce), was later believed to have returned as a vengeful spirit to wreak havoc via lightning, flooding, and fires upon the city and court. Shrines dedicated to his spirit, known as Tenjin or Tenmangū shrines, are still prevalent in Japan and are thought to be propitious for academic success. Another vivid example of goryō belief will be encountered in the contemporary period.
Following a major battle between supporters of the court (Taira) and a rival faction (Minamoto) in 1185, political power again shifted both to a new clan and location. Not only had the infant emperor drowned in the climactic sea battle at Dan-no-ura, but also one of three imperial regalia—a sword supposedly plucked from the tail of a dragon and given by the kami to the imperial lineage—had also been lost at sea. Although the court held fast to the other two relics (a mirror and a magical jewel) and remained in Kyoto with a newly installed emperor, political power moved to Kamakura, far to the north. New and innovative alignments between religion and politics also ensued.
The turmoil of clan warfare as well as the instability of establishing military and administrative control provided an opening for radically different and highly popular religious movements—Pure Land, True Pure Land, Nichiren—to develop centers of political power during what was considered a time of "degeneration of the Buddhist doctrine" (mappō). Though differing in religious emphasis (Amida's Pure Land paradise versus the magical effects of chanting the Lotus Sūtra ), all three movements were founded by charismatic monks (Hōnen, Shinran, and Nichiren, respectively) whose methods to reach salvation through chanting special prayers appealed to all social classes.
Nichiren in particular promoted his version of the Lotus Sūtra as an exclusive truth that, if adopted by the government, would save the nation from threats he predicted were immanent. Soon after this warning came the first Mongol invasion of 1274. Even though vastly outmanned by the Mongol and Korean forces, a typhoon wrecked their fleet and forced a withdrawal in the first "divine wind" (kamikaze ) intervention, attributed to the deity Hachiman. Incredibly the second Mongol attack in 1281 also met the same fate, but this was not enough to convince the state that Nichiren's theocracy was correct.
Although the new rulers of Japan were from the warrior class, many of their religious affiliations followed established patterns. They rebuilt the clan shrine, Tsurugaoka Hachiman, dedicated to the kami of military power and swift intervention. Also just as King Tenmu had done in the Nara period, the next generation of rulers, the Hōjō, established a ranking system of regional temples as well as "temples for the peace of the nation" (ankokuji). An influential text by Kitabatake (1293–1354) titled Chronicle of the Direct Descent of Gods and Sovereigns argued that Japan is a "divine country" (shinkoku ) and helped to develop further a national consciousness among ruling elites.
The Kamakura government promoted and patronized both Zen and Pure Land Buddhism as favored institutions. Major Zen temples, many of which had head abbots from China or who had studied in China, were organized by the state into the gozan or "five mountain temple" system around 1298. Samurai warriors and their feudal lords found in Zen Buddhism the discipline, self-negation, and nonostentatious aesthetics amenable to their code of loyalty and service (bushidō). Should samurai die in service to their lord, the saints of Pure Land Buddhism (particularly one noted for compassion, Kannon) were ready to usher their souls into the western paradise of the Amida Buddha.
The regional nation-protecting temples established earlier had become centers of enormous wealth and territory, some of which rivaled the central government before and during the Kamakura period. Because of ongoing political conflict, these religious estates (shōen ) became even more autonomous and powerful. Fearful of losing territory to rival estates, shōen administrators began a practice of turning low-ranking monks into security personnel to defend their territorial interests and policies. Over time, these "priest soldiers" (sōhei ) developed into fierce fighting units dressed in the garb of mountain monks.
In Kyoto sōhei monks at Enryakuji temple atop Mount Hiei, home to the Tendai sect of Buddhism, were notorious for descending into the city with sacred regalia at the front of their procession and intimidating the imperial court or battling rival factions. They fought with and burned to the ground at least six times a temple (Mii-dera) north of Mount Hiei whose founder had split from Enryakuji in the tenth century. They clashed with the great Nara temples (in particular Kōfukuji), battled against new Pure Land sects (including destroying the tomb of the founder of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan, Hōnen), burned the headquarters of the Higashi Honganji Pure Land sect in 1465, and destroyed twenty-one Nichiren temples in Kyoto in 1536.
For nearly five hundred years neither the military government in faraway Kamakura, nor the imperial court in Kyoto, nor fragile alliances of regional warlords could control the Enryakuji militias. But in 1571 they finally met their match. Having angered Oda Nobunaga (who was soon to become Japan's first leader of a centralized state after nearly three hundred years of internal wars) by siding with his opponents, he led twenty-five thousand samurai against the mountain monks. His forces not only killed over three thousand priests and monks of all ranks but burned to ashes one of the most sacred religious sites in Japan. After all, the temple was established in 788 ce first as a hermitage and later was reconsecrated for protecting the city from malevolent spirit forces issuing from the northeast. Shortly after Nobunaga was assassinated in 1582, the Enryakuji complex was slowly rebuilt in the same location.
The Modern Period
Despite Nobunaga's razing of the Mount Hiei temples, he was not antireligious and contributed to many important temples and shrines during his short rule. He also permitted contact with foreign Jesuit Catholic missionaries who had first appeared in southern Japan in 1549. They followed three Portuguese adventurers who had traveled aboard a Chinese ship and landed in 1543, making a favorable impression with their matchlock rifles, a technology that would revolutionize clan warfare in Japan. Trade ensued over the next decade, although it was closely linked to the missionaries as translators and middlemen. Through these relations, Christianity established a foundation in western Japan for roughly sixty years, bringing with it European-born missionaries who also conveyed to Japanese scholars ideas about science, engineering, cartography, anatomy, and medicine.
Nobunaga's successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, was still quelling rebellions against his rule and so had less tolerance for a faith thought to shift allegiance away from the shogun toward a foreign notion of transcendent divinity. What had been a system of lucrative trade (as "Black Ships" traveled from Europe to Asia and back again) and a permissive attitude (allowing the building of churches in local fiefs) was now curtailed in 1587 as Hideyoshi accused the missionaries of preaching a "devilish law in the land of the kami," again evoking the sacred nation concept. Throughout the coming decades and after the Tokugawa clan seized firm control of the country in 1600 after Hideyoshi's death, Christianity was both tolerated and reviled, with a final persecution and expulsion of missionaries occurring in 1639. The military government then closed itself off from Western trade and diplomacy for over two hundred years.
The rise of the Tokugawa was credited to the cunning brilliance of its founder, Ieyasu, but he (as well as subsequent Tokugawa leaders) was ably assisted by several Buddhist priests (such as Hayashi Raizan and the abbot of Nanzenji temple, Sūden) as well as by neo-Confucian scholars. After his death in 1615, he was deified (as had been all previous military leaders) and later enshrined in the mountains at Nikkō in a temple-shrine complex (the Tōshōgū) unsurpassed for its ostentatious extravagance.
As their predecessors had done, the Tokugawa used Buddhist temples throughout the land to promote the stability of their regime. Not only were rituals held, but the temples themselves were organized into the terauke system to serve as extensions of state administration: all those residing within a temple's traditional precincts had to register as members of that temple. By doing so the populace entered into a system of religiously based surveillance and moni-toring.
Shrines were also part of the Tokugawa government's system of control. Fearing a resurgence of Christian sentiments in the major port city of Nagasaki, the military government sponsored a revitalization of kami -based rites and institutions. The city's main Shintō shrine, Suwa Jinja, dates from 1614 and enshrines a deity known for its military prowess and vigilance. Like many others, the shrine also hosts on its grounds a subsidiary of the main shrine to the deified Tokugawa founder.
Beginning around 1825, more than two centuries after the Tokugawa clan gained control of the state, serious fissures in their administrative competence were becoming apparent. Critics of the inward-looking and increasingly corrupt feudal system feared Japan would be invaded and colonized by more technologically advanced European and American powers. To avoid a fate shared by China and India, samurai scholars and administrators began a discourse on reform, often at the cost of their careers and sometimes their lives. Klaus Antoni noted in Religion and National Identity in the Japanese Context (2003) that this ideology of a national polity, or kokutai, began to emerge among scholars of "national" (rather than foreign) learning (kokugaku ) who promoted a reexamination and revitalization of Japan's ancient myths and the imperial system they legitimized. National learning scholars developed a "postulated common ethnicity" that promoted a strong and unified imagined community under the emperor's rule.
In ways similar to the formative period of civilization in the early fourth and fifth centuries, Japan was once again exalted as a "land of the kami " whose emperor provided a direct link to the nation's founding deities. By extension the Japanese people, like one big extended family, were also privileged to have something termed the "soul of Japan" (yamato-damashi) running through their blood. Sharing so many commonalities—language, race, culture, ethnicity, respect for kami and buddhas, veneration of ancestors—and with the emperor as both father figure and "deity visible as a human being" (arahitogami), the national learning scholars attempted to influence political policy toward the establishment of a state that could defend itself against colonizing predators.
Over a decade after American gunboat diplomacy forced open Japan's ports beginning in 1853, troops allied with samurai reformers (who wanted a modern state based on European parliamentary models but headed by an emperor) clashed with those of the feudal Tokugawa government, with the former emerging victorious in 1868. This major transition in Japanese history ushered in an age of radical change and innovation in many areas but none more striking than the interaction of religion and politics. One of Japan's founding fathers, Fukuzawa Yukichi, observed, "There is only a government in Japan, but still no nation." It would take a new and oftentimes coercive alignment of religion and politics to produce the national consciousness he sought.
First, the new government legitimated the kokutai ideology described earlier as central to their agendas of modernization, industrialization, education, and socialization. Similar to King Tenmu in the seventh century, the emperor's divinity was emphasized even as the country embarked on an ambitious race to catch up with other industrialized world powers. Because of its association with the feudal regime, Buddhism suffered through a brief but destructive persecution in the 1870s and 1880s but recovered state patronage and influence in the early twentieth century. As in the past Buddhist leaders once again promoted the "unity of royal law and the Buddha-dharma " (ōbō Buppō furi ) and actively participated in Japan's territorial and militaristic expansion.
Of far more utility to the state was the ancient religious and ritual tradition of venerating local and regional kami, known to scholars as Shintō (way of the kami ). Every village had at least one Shintō shrine that could be linked to the state cult of the emperor and the sun goddess. Since Shintō had no sacred texts or a centralized, organizational structure, the Meiji government used shrines in much the same way the Tokugawa had used local Buddhist temples: to register and monitor residents but also to involve them with festivals and rituals that promoted state ideologies. Only two years after the revolution ended, an 1870 attempt to create a codified national religion based on kami worship failed. Nonetheless schools began teaching imperial and national mythology as if it were history, effectively sidestepping the contentious issue of freedom of religion. Domestic and foreign critics of this policy were told that Shintō was not a religion but a matter of social etiquette and long-established custom.
By the late 1880s the Japanese state had the necessary ideologies, laws, and infrastructure to establish itself as a modern nation—which meant in part exploiting political weakness in surrounding countries (China, Formosa, and Korea) in order to appropriate their natural and human resources. With a war almost every ten years, soldiers killed in service to the nation were honored at a special Shintō shrine built by the government—Yasukuni—where their spirits could be propitiated, calmed, and then employed as guardians of the empire. Like the goryō belief established in the tenth century, the "peaceful nation shrine" incorporated potentially vengeful spirits and transformed them via pacifying rituals. Outside Tokyo large upright stones (chukonhi ) served as memorials to the military dead after the Russo-Japanese War (1906–1907) and were likewise sanctified through both Shintō and Buddhist rituals. Community officials, school administrators, and citizen leaders were constantly engaged in these and other plans to promote national ideologies and agendas. Helen Hardacre has shown in her important work Shintō and the State, 1868–1988 (1989) that alternate versions, espoused by new religious movements such as Tenrikyō, Kurozumikyo, Konkōkyō, Sōka Gakkai, and Ōmotokyō, were seen as subversive "pseudo-religions," with some headquarters destroyed and founders harassed and imprisoned.
Even after the Pacific war ended with Japan's defeat in 1945, Yasukuni shrine (and the regional "nation-protecting" shrines established in 1939) were permitted to continue venerating over 2.466 million spirits of the military dead, including (after 1978) officers deemed "class-A" war criminals by the Tokyo War Crimes tribunal. Although the Japanese constitution's Article 20 specifically prohibits any governmental sponsorship of religious activity or institutions, several postwar prime ministers (Miki, Nakasone, Hashimoto, Koizumi) have made official visits to the shrine to pay their respects and to appease political supporters. As might be expected after these visits, both public and diplomatic protests erupt in countries once occupied and ravaged by Japan's military. In 2000 a prime minister used the phrase "kami no kuni," or "land of the kami," to describe Japan and set off a similar furor because of prewar associations fusing religion and politics as the ideology of a nation fighting a divinely sanctioned war.
There is less ambiguity regarding the government's attitude toward religious organizations, especially after the Aum Shinrikyō group's sarin gas attack on Tokyo subways in 1995. With twelve deaths and over five thousand injuries, the Japanese government moved quickly to revise laws on religious organizations. Increased reporting requirements and monitoring, more financial transparency, and greater governmental powers to restrict activities were the result. Taking this case and state reaction as a precedent, one can surmise that the coming years will increasingly reflect worldwide standards among highly industrialized nations in treating religious activity as a private, civil right but that religious organizations must be carefully monitored for antistate activities. At the same time one should not underestimate the historic appeal of religious movements in Japan that promote within a rhetoric of democracy and peace both state stability and a veneration of the imperial household.
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Black History Month has always been a mixed bag of feelings as a black man in the western world. Throughout my schooling experience, the education of black history was often centered on the civil rights movement and the history of slavery in America and Canada.
Thankfully, my mother of Ghanaian descent did a great job of educating my siblings and I about other historical figures and African contributions. I vividly remember her volunteering to teach children in my school about black history. To this day many of them make it a point to remind me of the day they learned that history and how much fun it was.
With the rise of social media, more knowledge has become readily available and it’s important to shine light on black figures that made major contributions to the modern world.
1) Violet King
Violent King became the first black female lawyer in Canadian history. She was born on October 18th, 1929 in Calgary and from a young age King knew she wanted to be a lawyer and she strived to make that dream a reality. She was so confident in her belief that her grade 12 year book featured a caption that read: “Violet wants to be a criminal lawyer.”
She moved on to attend the University of Alberta in 1948. King was the only black female lawyer in her class, and one of three women to enroll in the faculty of Law. During her time as a student she became one of four students to receive an Executive “A” gold ring during an annual event titled “Colour Night”, which celebrated the contributions made by students to the University of Alberta.
King graduated and became the first black person to graduate from law school in Alberta and the only woman in her class to do so. After graduation, she passed the bar in 1954 and became the first black female lawyer to practice law in Canada; a huge milestone for the country.
2) Granville T. Woods
Granville T. Woods was one of the most prominent inventors in American history. Born on April 23rd, 1856 in Columbus, Ohio, Woods took up several engineering jobs as a young man with very little schooling. He eventually moved to New York City in 1876, and took courses in engineering and electricity, realizing they would be the key to a better future.
Woods moved back to Ohio in the summer of 1878 where he worked for the Springfield, Jackson and Pomeroy Railroad Company for eight months, and later as an engineer for the Dayton and Southeastern Railway Company for 13 months. He then moved to Cincinnati to set up his own company to create and sell electronic apparatuses.
His most significant patent was the multiplex telegraph/induction telegraph that allowed men to communicate by voice over telegraph wires, speeding up communication and preventing errors that led to train wrecks. This patent was purchased by Alexander Graham Bell.
Woods also faced a lawsuit filed by Edison in which Woods won, and earned him the title of “Black Edison”. He would go on to invent what was later known as the trolley as well. Woods died on January 30, 1910 in New York City.
3) Yasuke The Samurai
Yasuke was the first African samurai in Japanese history. His birthplace is unknown, but he arrived in Kyoto Japan in 1579. He stood tall at 6 feet and 2 inches (1.88m) at a time where the average height for a Japanese male was 5 feet, 2 inches. His sighting caused such a sensation that onlookers risked their safety to catch a glimpse, according to Lawrence Winkler a historian.
Nobunaga the Warlord was intrigued by his arrival and Yasuke surprised the Warlord with the little bit of Japanese he knew, which granted him favour. Yasuke entertained Nobunaga with his travels across Africa and India.
He was a fan of martial arts and had practiced them for years and was described as an eccentric man with a “warrior’s spirit”. Nobunaga treated Yasuke favourably and grew to liken him as family. Eventually Yasuke was bestowed the title of Samurai.
Courtesy: BBC News
4) Tina Bell
Known as the Queen of grunge, Tina Bell was described as a brilliant song writer, lyricist, and performer and she had a significant presence in the punk and rock scenes. She was the lead singer in a Seattle band called Bam Bam and pioneered grunge music.
She was born on February 5th, 1957 in Seattle Washington and began singing at a young age, first joining the Mt. Zion Choir and had a take charge attitude according to her mother.
Bam Bam was created by combining the initials of Bell and guitarist Tommy Martin’s last names. They, along with other members, performed from 1983-1990. Bell and her band recorded one of the first grunge songs on vinyl in 1984.
Despite having packed out shows and innovating a whole new genre, the lack of major recognition took its toll on Bell and she retired in 1990. She married Martin and had a son TJ Martin, born in 1979. TJ became the first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary for his documentary Undefeated.
On October 10, 2012, Bell passed away.
5) Lonnie Johnson
A former NASA engineer who went on to invent one of the most popular toys in the Super Soaker. Lonnie was born on October 6, 1949, in Mobile Alabama. Jonhson’s father was a handyman who taught Lonnie and five other children how to build their own toys.
One of his most fun creations was a go-kart that he built at the age of 13 from junkyard scraps which had a lawnmower engine attached to it. He rode it along the highway until police pulled him over. Jonhson knew he wanted to be an inventor and spent a lot of his time tearing things apart and learning about them.
In high school, Johnson represented his high school in a 1968 science fair as the only black student. He spent a year creating a robot that he entered into the competition and took home first prize.
After graduating he attended Tuskegee University on a scholarship for mechanical engineering. Two year’s later he received his master’s degree in nuclear engineering.
Johnson first joined the U.S. Air Force and helped develop the stealth bomber program. Eventually he moved on to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1979 working as a system’s engineer before moving back to the Air Force in 1982.
He spent his spare time working on his own projects and created a heat pump that used water to fire a jet stream. After seven years of tinkering and sales pitching he decided to go into the business. He sold his invention to the Larami corporation and the Super Soaker became a huge success gaining $200M in sales in 1991, and ranked among the Top 20 best-selling toys.
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Prefectures of Japan Nara
Nara Prefecture (奈良県, Nara-ken) is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. As of 2020, Nara Prefecture has a population of 1,321,805 and has a geographic area of 3,691 square kilometres (1,425 sq mi). Nara Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the north, Osaka Prefecture to the northwest, Wakayama Prefecture to the southwest, and Mie Prefecture to the east.
Nara is the capital and largest city of Nara Prefecture, with other major cities including Kashihara, Ikoma, and Yamatokōriyama. Nara Prefecture is located in the center of the Kii Peninsula on Japan’s Pacific Ocean coast, and is one of only eight landlocked prefectures. Nara Prefecture has the distinction of having more UNESCO World Heritage listings than any other prefecture in Japan.
Nara Prefecture region is considered one of the oldest regions in Japan, having been in existence for thousands of years, and is widely viewed as the Japanese cradle of civilization. Like Kyoto, Nara was one of Imperial Japan’s earliest capital cities. The current form of Nara Prefecture was officially created in 1887 when it became independent of Osaka Prefecture.
Historically, Nara Prefecture was also known as Yamato-no-kuni or Yamato Province.
Up to Nara Period
From the third century to the fourth century, a poorly documented political force existed at the foot of Mount Miwa, east of Nara Basin. It sought unification of most parts in Japan. Since the historical beginning of Japan, Yamato was its political center.
Ancient capitals of Japan were built on the land of Nara, namely Asuka-kyō, Fujiwara-kyō (694–710) and Heijō-kyō (most of 710–784). The capital cities of Fujiwara and Heijō are believed to have been modeled after Chinese capitals at the time, incorporating grid layout patterns. The royal court also established relations with Sui and then Tang dynasty China and sent students to the Middle Kingdom to learn high civilization. By 7th century, Nara accepted the many immigrants including refugees of Baekje who had escaped from war disturbances of the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The first high civilization with royal patronage of Buddhism flourished in today’s Nara city (710–784 AD).
Nara in the Heian period
In 784, Emperor Kanmu decided to relocate the capital to Nagaoka-kyō in Yamashiro Province, followed by another move in 794 to Heian-kyō, marking the start of the Heian period. The temples in Nara remained powerful beyond the move of political capital, thus giving Nara a synonym of “Nanto” (meaning “South Capital”) as opposed to Heian-kyō, situated in the north. Close to the end of Heian period, Taira no Shigehira, a son of Taira no Kiyomori, was ordered by his father to depress the power of various parties, mainly Kōfuku-ji and Tōdai-ji, who were backing up an opposition group headed by Prince Mochihito. The movement led to a collision between the Taira and the Nara temples in 1180. This clash eventually led to Kōfuku-ji and Tōdai-ji being set on fire, resulting in vast destruction of architectural heritage.
At the rise of the Minamoto to its ruling seat and the opening of Kamakura shogunate, Nara enjoyed the support of Minamoto no Yoritomo toward restoration. Kōfuku-ji, being the “home temple” to the Fujiwara since its foundation, not only regained the power it had before but became a de facto regional chief of Yamato Province. With the reconstruction of Kōfuku-ji and Tōdai-ji, a town was growing again near the two temples.
The Nanboku-chō period, starting in 1336, brought more instability to Nara. As Emperor Go-Daigo chose Yoshino as his base, a power struggle arose in Kōfuku-ji with a group supporting the South and another siding the North court. Likewise, local clans were split into two. Kōfuku-ji recovered its control over the province for a short time at the surrender of the South Court in 1392, while the internal power game of the temple itself opened a way for the local samurai clans to spring up and fight with each other, gradually acquiring their own territories, thus diminishing the influence of Kōfuku-ji overall.
The Sengoku and Edo periods to present
Later, the whole province of Yamato got drawn into the confusion of the Sengoku period. Tōdai-ji was once again set on fire in 1567, when Matsunaga Hisahide, who was later appointed by Oda Nobunaga to the lord of Yamato Province, fought for supremacy against his former master Miyoshi family. Followed by short appointments of Tsutsui Junkei and Toyotomi Hidenaga by Toyotomi Hideyoshi to the lord, the Tokugawa shogunate ultimately ruled the city of Nara directly, and most parts of Yamato province with a few feudal lords allocated at Kōriyama, Takatori and other places. With industry and commerce developing in the 18th century, the economy of the province was incorporated into prosperous Osaka, the commercial capital of Japan at the time.
The economic dependency to Osaka even characterizes today’s Nara Prefecture, for many inhabitants commute to Osaka to work or study there.
The establishment of Nara Prefecture
A first prefecture (briefly -fu in 1868, but -ken for most of the time) named Nara was established in the Meiji Restoration in 1868 as successor to the shogunate administration of the shogunate city and shogunate lands in Yamato. After the 1871 Abolition of the han system, Nara was merged with other prefectures (from former han, see List of Han#Yamato Province) and cleared of ex-/enclaves to encompass all of Yamato province. In 1876, Nara was merged into Sakai which in turn became part of Osaka in 1881. In 1887, Nara became independent again. The first prefectural assembly of Nara was elected in the same year and opened its first session in 1888 in the gallery of the main hall of Tōdai temple.
In the 1889 Great Meiji mergers which subdivided all (then 45) prefectures into modern municipalities, Nara prefecture’s 16 districts were subdivided into 154 municipalities: 10 towns and 144 villages. The first city in Nara was only established in 1898 when Nara Town from Soekami District was made district-independent to become Nara City (see List of mergers in Nara Prefecture and List of mergers in Osaka Prefecture).
Nara Prefecture is part of the Kansai, or Kinki, region of Japan, and is located in the middle of the Kii Peninsula on the western half of Honshu. Nara Prefecture is landlocked. It is bordered to the west by Wakayama Prefecture and Osaka Prefecture; on the north by Kyoto Prefecture and on the east by Mie Prefecture.
Nara Prefecture is 78.5 kilometres (48.8 mi) from east to west and 103.6 kilometres (64.4 mi) from north to south.
Most of the prefecture is covered by mountains and forests, leaving an inhabitable area of only 851 square kilometres (329 sq mi). The ratio of inhabitable area to total area is 23%, ranked 43rd among the 47 prefectures in Japan.
Nara Prefecture is bisected by the Japan Median Tectonic Line (MTL) running through its territory east to west, along the Yoshino River. On the northern side of the MTL is the so-called Inner Zone, where active faults running north to south are still shaping the landscape. The Ikoma Mountains in the northwest form the border with Osaka Prefecture. The Nara Basin, which lies to the east of these mountains, contains the highest concentration of population in Nara Prefecture. Further east are the Kasagi Mountains, which separate the Basin from the Yamato Highlands.
South of the MTL is the Outer Zone, comprising the Kii Mountains, which occupy about 60% of the land area of the prefecture. The Ōmine Range is in the center of the Kii Mountains, running north to south, with steep valleys on both sides. The tallest mountain in Nara Prefecture, and indeed in the Kansai region, is Mount Hakkyō. To the west, separating Nara Prefecture from Wakayama Prefecture, is the Obako Range, with peaks around 1,300 metres (4,300 ft). To the east, bordering Mie Prefecture, is the Daikō Range, including Mount Ōdaigahara. This mountainous region is also home to a World Heritage Site, the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range”.
About 17% of the total land area of the prefecture is designated as National Park land, comprising the Yoshino-Kumano National Park, Kongō-Ikoma-Kisen, Kōya-Ryūjin, Murō-Akame-Aoyama, and Yamato-Aogaki Quasi-National Parks; and the Tsukigase-Kōnoyama, Yata, and Yoshinogawa-Tsuboro Prefectural Natural Parks.
In the Nara Basin, the climate has inland characteristics, as represented in the bigger temperature variance within the same day, and the difference of summer and winter temperatures. Winter temperatures average about 3 to 5 °C (37 to 41 °F), and 25 to 28 °C (77 to 82 °F) in the summer with highest reaching close to 35 °C (95 °F). There is not a single year over the last decade (since 1990, up to 2007) with more than 10 days of snowfall recorded by Nara Local Meteorological Observatory.
The climate in the rest of the prefecture are mountainous, and especially in the south, with below −5 °C (23 °F) being the extreme minimum in winter. Heavy rainfall is observed in summer. The annual accumulated rainfall ranges as much as 3,000 to 5,000 millimetres (120 to 200 in), which is among the heaviest in Japan.
Spring and fall are temperate. The mountainous region of Yoshino has been popular both historically and presently for its cherry blossoms in the spring. In the fall, the southern mountains are equally striking with the changing of the oak trees.
There are twelve cities in Nara Prefecture:
Towns and villages
There are seven districts in Nara, which are further divided into 15 towns and 12 villages as follows:
According to the 2005 Census of Japan, Nara Prefecture has a population of 1,421,310, which is a decrease of 1.5%, since the year 2000.
The decline continued in 2006, with another decrease of 4,987 people compared to 2005. This includes a natural decrease from previous year of 288 people (11,404 births minus 11,692 deaths) and a decrease due to net domestic migration of 4,627 people outbound from the prefecture, and a decrease of 72 registered foreigners. Net domestic migration has turned into a continuous outbound trend since 1998. The largest destinations of migration in 2005 were the prefectures of Kyoto, Tokyo, and Hyōgo, with respectively a net of 1,130,982 and 451 people moving over. The largest inbound migration was from Niigata Prefecture, contributing to a net increase of 39 people. 13.7% of its population were reported as under 15, 65.9% between 15 and 64, and 20.4% were 65 or older. Females made up approximately 52.5% of the population.
As of 2004, the average density of the prefecture is 387 people per km2. By districts, the so-called Yamato flat inland plain holds as much as about 90% of total population within the approximately 23% size of area in the north-west, including the Nara Basin, representing a density of 1,531 people per km2. To the contrast, the combined district Gojō and Yoshino District occupies almost 64% of the land, while only 6% of people lives there, resulting in a density of 39 people km2.
Nara prefecture had the highest rate in Japan of people commuting outbound for work, at 30.9% in 2000. A similar tendency is seen in prefectures such as Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa, all three of them having over 20% of people commuting for other prefectures.
A governor and members of prefectural assembly is elected by citizens in accordance with the Local Autonomy Law.
Shōgo Arai has been governor since 2007, a former LDP member of the national House of Councillors. In the April 2019 gubernatorial election, he was re-elected to a fourth term with major party support (LDP, DPFP, Kōmeitō) with 47.5% of the vote against former Democratic Diet member and vice-minister Kiyoshige Maekawa (32.3%) and independent physician Minoru Kawashima (20.2%).
As of 2019, there are 43 seats in the Nara Prefectural Assembly, elected in 16 constituencies (4 single-member, 12 multi-member). After the April 2019 assembly election, the LDP is by far the largest party with 21 members while no other party won more than four seats, but its members are split between several parliamentary groups; by group, the composition as of May 2019 was: LDP 10, LDP Nara 9, Sōsei Nara [of independents] 5, Shinsei Nara [mainly DPFP] 5, JCP 4, Nippon Ishin no Kai 4, Kōmeitō 3, LDP Kizuna 2.
There was a clear tendency seen through the results of Lower House election in 2005, that the younger generation executes its voting right much less compared to the older. Only 48.8% of citizens age 20–29 voted, whereas all older generations (grouped by decades) votes more than its younger, reaching the highest voting rate of 86.3% at ages 60–69. The only exception was the 72.1% voting right executed by citizens of 70 or older. The overall average of the prefecture who voted was yet higher, at 70.3%, than that of nationwide average, 67.5%.
As of October 2019, Nara’s directly elected delegation to the National Diet is all-LDP, namely:
in the House of Representatives where Nara has lost one district in a 2017 reapportionment
for the 1st district in the North consisting of most of Nara City and Ikoma City: Shigeki Kobayashi (LDP, 2nd term) who narrowly defeated long-time incumbent Sumio Mabuchi in the 2017 House of Representatives election,
for the 2nd district with southern suburbs (and a small part) of the capital: Sanae Takaichi (LDP, 8th term) who has served as minister in several cabinets and was re-elected with 60% of the vote in 2017,
for the 3rd district which covers the less urbanized, central and Southern parts of Nara: Taidō Tanose (LDP, 3rd term), member for the now-abolished 4th district before 2017,
in the House of Councillors where the Nara district is one of the often decisive FPTP single-member districts
in the 2016–2022 class: Kei Satō (LDP, 1st term) who defeated incumbent Kiyoshige Maekawa in 2016 by a twelve-point-margin in a three-way contest with an Osaka Ishin no Kai challenger,
in the 2019–2025 class: Iwao Horii (LDP, 2nd term) who defended the seat 55% to 40% against an “independent”, joint centre-left (CDP, DPFP, SDP) challenger in 2019.
The 2004 total gross prefecture product (GPP) for Nara was ¥3.8 trillion, an 0.1% growth over previous year. The per capita income was ¥2.6 million, which is a 1.3% decrease from previous year. The 2004 total gross prefecture product (GPP) for Nara was ¥3.8 trillion, an 0.1% growth over previous year. Manufacturing has the biggest share in the GPP of Nara with 20.2% of share, followed by services (19.1%) and real estates (16.3%). The share of agriculture including forestry and fishery was a mere 1.0%, only above mining, which is quasi-inexistent in Nara.
Tourism is treated by the prefectural government as one of the most important features of Nara, because of its natural environment and historical significance.
Nara is famed for its Kaki persimmon. Strawberry and tea are some other popular products of the prefecture, while rice and vegetables, including spinach, tomato, eggplants, and others are the dominant in terms of amount of production.
Nara is a center for the production of instruments used in conducting traditional Japanese artforms. Brush and ink (sumi) are the best known products from Nara for calligraphy. Wooden or bamboo instruments, especially from Takayama area (in Ikoma city) are famous products for tea ceremony.
Goldfish from Yamatokōriyama in Nara have been a traditional aquacultural product since the 18th century.
Due to its rich history, Nara is also the location of many archeological digs, with many famous ones being located in the village of Asuka.
The culture of Nara is tied to the Kansai region in which it is located. However, like each of the other prefectures of Kansai, Nara has unique aspects to its culture, parts of which stem from its long history dating back to the Nara period.
There are large differences in dialect between the north/central region of the prefecture, where Nara city is located, and the Okunoya district in the south. The north/central dialect is close to Osaka’s dialect, whilst Okunoya’s dialect favours a Tokyo-style accent. The lengthening of vowels sounds in the Okunoya dialect is not seen in other dialects of the Kinki region, making it a special feature.
Foods particular to Nara Prefecture include:
Narazuke, a method of pickling vegetables
Miwa sōmen, a type of wheat noodle
Chagayu, a rice porridge made with green tea
Kakinoha zushi, sushi wrapped in persimmon leaves
Meharizushi, rice balls wrapped in pickled takana leaves
The following are recognized by the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry as being traditional arts of Nara:
Takayama Tea Whisk (Bamboo item category, recognized in 1975)
Nara Calligraphy Brush (Stationery category, recognized in 1977)
Nara National Museum
Heijō Palace Museum
Nara Prefectural Museum of Art
Kashihara Archaeological Institute Museum
Nara Women’s University
Nara Medical University
Nara University of Education
Nara Prefectural University
Nara Sangyo University (Nara Industrial University)
Nara Institute of Science and Technology
The sports teams listed below are based in Nara.
Nara Club (Nara)
Bambitious Nara (Nara)
Many jinja (Shinto shrines), Buddhist temples, and kofun exist in Nara Prefecture, making it is a centre for tourism. Moreover, many world heritage sites, such as the temple Tōdai-ji and Kasuga Shrine, exist in the capital city of Nara.
World Heritage sites
Buddhist Monuments in the Hōryū-ji Area Hōryū-ji 法隆寺
Hokki-ji (Hōki-ji) 法起寺
Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara Tōdai-ji 東大寺
Kasuga Shrine 春日大社
Heijō Palace remains 平城宮跡
Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range Area
Mt. Yoshino Kinpusen-ji
Yoshino Mikumari Shrine
Mount Omine Ominesan-ji
Buddhist temples Asuka-dera 飛鳥寺
Southern Hokke-ji 南法華寺
Shinto shrines Isonokami Shrine 石上神宮
Kashihara Shrine 橿原神宮
Danzan Shrine 談山神社
Ōmiwa Shrine 大神神社
Ōyamato Shrine 大和神社
Kofun and heritage Monuments of Asuka-Fujiwara, proposed for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List
Ishibutai Tomb 石舞台古墳
Kitora Tomb キトラ古墳
Takamatsuzuka Tomb 高松塚古墳
Hashihaka Tomb 箸墓古墳
Umami Kofun Group 馬見古墳群
Sakafuneishi Heritage 酒船石遺跡
Hot springs Dorogawa 洞川温泉
Mountains Yamato Sanzan* 大和三山
Mount Wakakusa 若草山
* “Three Mountains of Yamato”
Other attractions Nara Park 奈良公園
Yoshino-Kumano National Park 吉野熊野国立公園
Kongō-Ikoma-Kisen Quasi-National Park 金剛生駒紀泉国定公園
Kōya-Ryūjin Quasi-National Park 高野龍神国定公園
Murō-Akame-Aoyama Quasi-National Park 室生赤目青山国定公園
Yamato-Aogaki Quasi-National Park 大和青垣国定公園
Manyo Mahoroba Line
Ikoma Cable Line
Minami Osaka Line
from Nara and Tenri
Tokyo Disneyland in Urayasu
Makuhari, Chiba Prefecture
Osaka International Airport
Kansai International Airport
from Yamato Yagi and Gose
Expressways and toll roads
Second Hanna(Osaka-Nara) Road
South Hanna Road
Route 25 (Osaka-Tenri-Nabari-Yokkaichi)
Route 168 (Hirakata-Ikoma-Kashiba-Gojo-Totsukawa-Shingu)
Route 169 (Nara-Tenri-Oyodo-Yoshino-Shingu)
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Prefectures of Japan Nara
• Japanese 奈良県
• Rōmaji Nara-ken
Prefectures of Japan Nara
Subdivisions Districts: 7, Municipalities: 39
• Governor Shōgo Arai
• Total 3,691.09 km2 (1,425.14 sq mi)
Area rank 40th
Population (December 1st, 2020)http://www.pref.nara.jp/6265.htm
• Total 1,321,805
• Rank 30th
• Density 358.10/km2 (927.5/sq mi)
ISO 3166 code JP-29
Bird Japanese robin (Erithacus akahige)
Fish Goldfish ( Carassius auratus auratus )
Ayu (Plecoglossus altivelis altivelis)
Amago (Oncorhynchus masou ishikawae)
Flower Nara yae zakura
(Prunus verecunda cultivar)
Tree Sugi (Cryptomeria japonica) | <urn:uuid:7b2af37e-4e31-4c07-a6de-5b2596c853fb> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://banzaijapan.jp/prefectures-of-japan-nara/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320303884.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20220122194730-20220122224730-00509.warc.gz | en | 0.930347 | 6,072 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Good questions from a reader -
There are some questions I want to ask you about the shogun era.
Why didn't the generals around Tokugawa Ieyasu aim for more power?
What were their end game?
Can a follower also be great, if so how?
So, we're talking about the Sengoku and post-Sengoku era of Japanese history.
Some really quick background we get to these excellent questions -
From the early 1300's to late 1500's, the Ashikaga family controlled Japan's Shogunate. The "Shogun" was the head of the shogunate and responsible for taxation and military affairs, but was officially the chief servant of the Emperor. In reality, power went back and forth in a number of ways, but the Emperor usually was more of a symbolic figure, with the Shogun ruling. After all, the Shogun had the revenue from taxes and the military authority.
The Ashikaga shogunate slowly declined in power, and like Britain after WWII, once you start closing one military base, you lose all your military bases. It was a tough cycle for the Ashikaga - lower tax revenues due to local feudal lords starting to rebel. When they couldn't reassert authority, they now had to live with less revenues - and thus, less soldiers and officials and equipment. Thus, more rebellion. Thus, less revenues. Thus, less authority. Thus, more rebellion. Thus, less revenues...
It was ugly, and so began "The Warring States" era of Japanese history - Sengoku.
I already wrote a long-ish piece on Sengoku, it's here if you're interested. But do an ultra-quick recap, a civil war broke out with 30+ sides fighting. The Ashikaga were one faction. There were 2 or 3 strong groups of warrior monks that had their own factions. There were 20-30 local warlords or coalitions that fought for territory.
Massive land grab, fighting, chaos. Assassination. Betrayal. Just like the chaos and fighting from the Era of the Italian City-States contributed in part to the Renaissance, Sengoku contributed to massive advances in Japanese art, culture, governance, trade, language. A lot of great people came out of the era.
Out of this came three "Great Unifiers" -
The short version is - Ieyasu won. Want to know why? I wrote about it in the article "Studying Patience" - worth reading if you want to learn more about Tokugawa.
But to answer your question, "Why didn't the generals around Tokugawa Ieyasu aim for more power?" - the answer is the actions of his predecessor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
I think it's fair to say that Hideyoshi is the greatest general in Japanese history. There's 2-3 other generals in the conversation, but none of them had the complimentary ability as lawmakers, diplomats, and statesmen that Hideyoshi. Incredible ability. One of the strongest and most talented men in Japanese history.
Hideyoshi won, conquered and unified all of Japan, and took the title of "Kampaku" - Grand Regent. Because he wasn't of high birth, he wasn't able the take the title of Shogun.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Domestic Consolidation, Crackdown, and Over-Expansion
Hideyoshi was the classical "expansionary leader" - like Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan. The major flaw of an expansionary leader is that they frequently don't know how to stop - thus, they expand broadly, but frequently their empire is built on weak supports and a weak foundation. If the succession to the next leader goes smoothly and the next leader consolidates, then the empire could hold.
He consolidated domestic power quite heavily during his rule - Hideyoshi cracked down on weapons outside of samurai hands, ordering a "katanagari" - a sword hunt.
This disarmed all non-samurai, making it harder for a merchant company or village to lead an uprising. Christianity was starting to spread through Japan at the time, and Hideyoshi cracked down on it too. He made Christianity officially illegal and limited foreign trade to a small number of ports.
Toyotomi made a number of treaties, and arranged it so his most dangerous threat to him - Tokugawa Ieyasu - was sent to provinces far away from the capital. The two strongest men in Japan at the time who weren't Toyotomi loyalists - Date Masamune and Tokugawa Ieyasu - also were rather far away from the most important and wealthiest areas in Japan. Masamune's capital, Sendai, and Ieyasu's capital, Edo (modern day Tokyo) were both small and relatively non-wealthy at the time, especially compared to Osaka, Kyoto, and the south/southwestern ports where the foreign trade occurred. Masamune and Ieyasu were north/northeast, considerably away from the important parts of Toyotomi's power base.
Hideyoshi had effectively consolidated domestic power, but then he declared war on China and Korea which... seems insane to me. Classic over-expansion. You know, I'm not such an admirer of Alexander the Great - yeah, he had some impressive accomplishments in his short life, but what did it amount to in the end?
If I have any major beef with history, it's that totally stable, peaceful, excellent consolidation leaders don't get much credit. Calvin Coolidge was an exceptionally good American President, but who remembers him? Not many people. Bill Clinton was an exceptionally good American President, but will he be remembered much in the year 2111?
I think we should celebrate consolidation leaders who refine the legal code, govern in prosperity, and are good stewards... but we don't, we lionize expansion-minded leaders - Alexander types. Well, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, for all his brilliance, had the over-expansion flaw. This is perhaps because he was low born. Very successful low born people frequently over-expand - my theory is that because they've done it all themselves with minimal help from those that came before them, they don't trust their descendants to carry on their work. Whereas someone groomed to lead from a young age trusts that he can groom one of his children to do the same.
Anyways, Hideyoshi declares war on Korea and China, and it's a disaster. Hideyoshi dies while his forces are deployed in Korea, and many of his generals don't hear about his death until months afterwards - thus really ticking them off at the wasted resources, death, and lack of respect that entails.
Tokugawa Triumphs, Keeps Most of the Toyotomi System, and Fully Consolidates
We won't go through the full set of conflicts and battles here, but Hideyoshi's Governor-General of Korea - Ishida Mitsunari - winds up commanding the Toyotomi loyalist forces against the Tokugawa forces.
Interestingly, Mitsunari was captured by Tokugawa forces and released... Ieyasu guessed, correctly, that there was lingering hostility against Mitsunari over the failed Korean campaign. He was right - a number of Toyotomi generals defected to the Tokugawa side, including a couple defecting during the decisive battle, leading to Tokugawa victory.
Ieyasu was named Shogun, but then immediately went into consolidation mode.
He kept the basic Toyotomi legal code - Hideyoshi had already disarmed and destroyed many of the most dangerous factions in Japan, and otherwise put limits and constraints against others.
Ieyasu's brilliance was in his ability to consolidate - he only officially reigned as Shogun for three years before retiring and passing the position to his son Hidetada. He lived for 11 years longer - so when he finally died, there was no need for a transition. People were used to listening to Hidetada.
This also free him up from day to day administration to work on further consolidating the legal code. He worked on and released the Buke Shohatto, "Various Points of Laws for Warrior Houses." Here's a partial list from Wikipedia:
1. The samurai class should devote itself to pursuits appropriate to the warrior aristocracy, such as archery, swordsmanship, horsemanship, and classical literature.
2. Amusements and entertainments are to be kept within reasonable bounds and expenses for such activities are not to be excessive.
3. The han (feudal domains) are not to harbor fugitives and outlaws.
4. Domains must expel rebels and murderers from their service and from their lands.
5. Daimyō are not to engage in social interactions with the people (neither samurai nor commoners) of other domains.
6. Castles may be repaired, but such activity must be reported to the shogunate. Structural innovations and expansions are forbidden.
7. The formation of cliques for scheming or conspiracy in neighboring domains must be reported to the shogunate without delay, as must the expansion of defenses, fortifications, or military forces.
8. Marriages among daimyō and related persons of power or importance must not be arranged privately.
9. Daimyō must present themselves at Edo for service to the shogunate.
10. Conventions regarding formal uniform must be followed.
11. Miscellaneous persons are not to ride in palanquins.
12. Samurai throughout the realm are to practice frugality.
13. Daimyō must select men of ability to serve as administrators and bureaucrats.
You'll see a number of consolidation points in there - the traditional ways to arm for war or build alliances are all either forbidden or must be reported to the Shogunate, including marriages and building new fortifications. Interestingly, the code also appeals to samurai honor, by requiring things that samurai held in high esteem anyways - training, being able administrators, and so on. Thus, the code looks less like a set of restrictions only, and more like a way of life... at first there might've been discontent at some of the clauses (especially no expansion of castles or fortifications). But over time, in any nation, the law becomes "the way things are" - the Tokugawa legal codes here aren't too repressive, and mix restrictions with practical good governance and appeal to samurai culture.
Tokugawa also established the sankin kotai policy - every ruling family must spend half their time in the capital and half the time in their home province, and the key family members had to stay in the capital all the time. This did a few things - it limited the ability for a local lord to fight any extended border skirmishes or oversee a buildup, guaranteed instant death/retribution against his family if he rebelled, and cost a significant amount of money for both the travel and maintenance of two residences.
To answer your question, though, I think history could've gone differently. The decisive battle - Sekigahara - was by no means guaranteed to be a Tokugawa success. If Tokugawa Ieyasu had been killed, a number of things could have happened. The Toyotomi clan might've kept power, multi-sided civil war might've broken out again, or someone else might have come to power.
I'm personally of the belief that Date Masamune was exceptionally strong, and if history had gone differently, perhaps he becomes the ruler of Japan. There were a number of other strong clans that could have come to power, but Oda Nobunaga and Hideyoshi Toyotomi systematically destroyed or constrained all opposition... it would be fair to say that after the Toyotomi bloodlines were extinct after the final Osaka campaign, there weren't many candidates left who could oppose the Tokugawa.
Ieyasu was diligent about consolidating though - how many men could come battle and persist their whole lives, come to an illustrious title such as Shogun, but then give it up after only three years? Yes, he was the power behind his son even after that, but most people have far too much arrogance to do such a thing - he officially retired after only three years in the highest office.
Can a follower also be great, if so how?
Obviously I think so, yes - my desired role and profession in life is as a strategist, which is a servant's role, not a ruler's role.
But before I could fully answer that question, you'd have to define what "great" means to you. It's much less likely you'll be famous if you're a follower, unless your cause is exceptionally successful or you personally achieve some incredible feats that also make good stories.
But if you want to be famous, it's less likely you'll be so if you're not at the head of the organization or movement... I don't know, I personally am pretty averse to fame, and see it as an unfortunate requirement for the things I want to do. Ah well, I've come around on it - fame is useful to the extent that it helps me bring the world I want to live in into existence.
It comes with a cost - I haven't written about this yet very much, but there is definitely a burden to command and leadership. When the final decision is yours and yours alone, you take much more control of your destiny, but it induces neurosis like nothing else. It's paradoxical - you're truly free, but once you are truly free and in full command, you see that it's not all it's cracked up to be.
I'd advise anyone who has the slightest, tiniest sliver of an idea that they could lead to try. Even the slightest little twinkle of a thought in the back of your mind... try. But having your own ethics is lonely.
Can a follower become great? Oh, absolutely. My standard baseline for a successfully lived life is having two children and raising them to have more opportunities than you did. If you do that, you've moved humanity forwards. Anything on top of that - any innovation, any excellent service, any creation, any more children - that's just gravy.
Additionally, there's other ways to a successful life, though I'm personally of the opinion that raising a strong and successful family is truly underrated these days. Raising and grooming your kids to be excellent servants of humanity goes a long way in my book, and I respect anyone who does that.
I can't define greatness for you - it's something you define personally. If you want your name in the history books, it becomes harder to do as a follower, but still very possible. Either pick a cause that's headed for immense greatness (if you can predict such a thing) or do exceptional things that also make good stories.
But that's just for the history books, which isn't necessarily true greatness. Depends on your definitions. But it's certainly possible. Leadership and command are exceptionally harder and more burdensome than anyone could imagine and crafting your own ethics is extraordinary lonely... I wouldn't hold it against anyone who decides that it's not for them. But I'd encourage anyone who has the slightest tiniest sliver of a feeling that more is possible - to go for it, and see if you can.
Very good questions. Thanks.
It comes with a cost – I haven’t written about this yet very much, but there is definitely a burden to command and leadership. When the final decision is yours and yours alone, you take much more control of your destiny, but it induces neurosis like nothing else. It’s paradoxical – you’re truly free, but once you are truly free and in full command, you see that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Sorry, one last comment. Thought you might like this quote, from Ursula K. LeGuin's "A Wizard of Earthsea":
As a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower; until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly, what he _must_ do...
I should add that a fundamental reason why Alexander had such an influence was that, unlike many other conquerers, Alexander was extremely good at consolidating, at least in a cultural way. He encouraged his officers to marry, did not decapitate the local leadership but instead integrated them, and thus his empire, on a cultural level, lasted long after his death. The fact that it was broken up into a number of sub-empires does not mean that it was not a lasting legacy.
I encourage you to read more about Alexander :-)
Ok, well, the quotes didn't come out right... each time there are two paragraphs being quoted... it seems the
is not multiline in these comments :-)
You know, I’m not such an admirer of Alexander the Great – yeah, he had some impressive accomplishments in his short life, but what did it amount to in the end?
Woah woah, wait a second here. Alexander, amount to nothing? Alexander pretty much ended the time of the "hellenic period", when greek culture was largely localised in Greece, and instead smeared Greek culture all over the place, where it helped all those nations to thrive for centuries before they were conquered by the Romans (themselves largely a product of Greek culture).
See http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Hellenic+period for a description:
The conquests of Alexander the Great spread Hellenism immediately over the Middle East and far into Asia. After his death in 323 B.C., the influence of Greek civilization continued to expand over the Mediterranean world and W Asia. The wars of the Diadochi marked, it is true, the breakup of Alexander's brief empire, but the establishment of Macedonian dynasties in Egypt, Syria, and Persia (the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae) helped to mold the world of that day into a wider unity of trade and learning.
While the city-states of Greece itself tended to stagnate, elsewhere cities and states grew and flourished. Of these the chief was Alexandria. So great a force did Alexandria exert in commerce, letters, and art that this period is occasionally called the Alexandrian Age, and the end of Hellenistic civilization is generally set at the final triumph of Roman power in Alexandria in the 1st cent. B.C. Pergamum was also prominent, and there were other cities of influence (e.g., Dura).
Basically, Alexander exploded greek culture, which was the most advanced of the time, all over the Mediterranean and the Middle East. It is fair to say that we are all descendants of Greek culture, which has shaped the culture of Europe and then the world in fundamental ways. And we owe that, in great part, to Alexander.
Amount to nothing indeed ;-)
"The strong manly ones in life are those who understand the meaning of the word patience. Patience means restraining one's inclinations. There are seven emotions: joy, anger, anxiety, love, grief, fear, and hate, and if a man does not give way to these he can be called patient. I am not as strong as I might be, but I have long known and practiced patience. And if my descendants wish to be as I am, they must study patience." -Tokugawa Ieyasu
In the late 1400's, the ruling Ashikaga Shogunate of Japan became weak and lost its hold over the country. A many-sided civil war broke out, thus beginning the "Sengoku Period" - known as one of the most bloody and lawless periods in Japanese history, but also an era of some incredibly most heroic leadership.
Eventually, "Three Great Unifiers" came to power and ended the conflict through victory. These three were Oda Nobugana, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu.
In the end, Tokugawa Ieyasu won, and his family ruled Japan for the next 250 years. However, he's probably the least popular of the three great unifiers in Japan.
Nobunaga is popular for having an incredibly fierce, martial, masculine spirit. At one point, the warrior-monks of the Honganji allied themselves against Nobunaga and harried, harassed, and ambushed his armies. The Honganji provided supplies, spies, and information for Nobunaga's enemies and sometimes faced them in direct combat.
Happy new year!
I am hoping you would share your resources for your reading on Japanese history. Book titles and/or urls would be very helpful.
I got that a week ago, and I kind of sat there staring at the email. Japanese history is some of the most confusing to start to learn, because different elements of Japanese history and culture all play on and influence each other. I could run you through the military history of Japan from The Battle of Okehazama to Sekigahara to the Boshin War, from there into Dai Nippon Tekoku Era, from there into defeat and the Occupation under McArthur, and then we could do a little post-war history. | <urn:uuid:37c46c98-ce06-46bc-bdb4-81eeec0b0fe1> | CC-MAIN-2016-36 | http://sebastianmarshall.com/tokugawas-generals-and-being-a-great-follower | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-36/segments/1471982292608.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160823195812-00144-ip-10-153-172-175.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972173 | 4,428 | 2.53125 | 3 |
A preeminent force behind the artistic flowering of 17th-century Japan, Hon'ami Koetsu was born in Kyoto in 1558. In his youth he witnessed the near-destruction of his native city by the invading forces of the warlord Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), who would consolidate his power over Japan and bring an end to a prolonged period of civil strife. Koetsu's father, Kataoka Koji (1524-1603), was a sword specialist, a vital occupation during times of war, and he trained Koetsu in the skills of sword polishing and appraising.
At that time, Kyoto was Japan's only major city, and by the late 16th century it was again a secure and thriving commercial and cultural center, and entered an era marked by experimentation and creative freedom. Like Florence during the Renaissance and Paris in the 1920s, Kyoto was a magnet for a group of extraordinarily talented individuals, and Koetsu was the catalyst for numerous collaborative efforts that redefined Japanese artistic creation. An amateur participant in No theater (a traditional Japanese art form that combines dance, drama, music and poetry), Koetsu became involved in the design of No texts, featuring bold mica-printed covers and his own calligraphy.
Although he would now be considered an art director par excellence, it was his calligraphy that brought Koetsu greatest acclaim in his own day. Collaborating with the painter Tawaraya Sotatsu (died c. 1640) and the papermaker Kamishi Soji (dates unknown) to produce beautiful fans, poetry cards, and handscrolls, Koetsu found inspiration in the classical poetry of the 9th through 12th centuries, which he reinterpreted in striking ways. He produced classical texts as luxury-edition printed books for members of the newly prosperous Kyoto mercantile elite who were eager to share in classical culture. Celebrated by his contemporaries, Koetsu's reputation as a calligrapher was assured soon after his death, when he was designated one of the "Three Brushes of Kan'ei"--that is, one of the three best calligraphers of his era.
So highly esteemed was Koetsu's calligraphy that even his shortest letters were saved for posterity by those eager to have a sample of his work. These letters--more than 300 of which are still preserved--reflect a man of action and intense focus: "Send me enough white and red clay for four teabowls. Please hurry." Many of his letters attest to Koetsu's active participation in tea gatherings, which were the literary and cultural salons of his day.
Koetsu in 1615 received a grant of land in Takagamine, north of Kyoto, where he moved with a group of family and friends who shared religious and artistic ties (the relationship between art and religion in Japan at this time was one of mutual interaction and inspiration, and not a matter of secular versus sacred). A deeply devoted Buddhist, four of his calligraphies of Buddhist texts featured in The Arts of Hon'ami Koetsu, Japanese Renaissance Master (on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from July 29 through October 29, 2000) have been designated Important Cultural Properties.
A life of religious devotion, art, tea and reclusion at Takagamine continued for Koetsu until his death in 1637, at the age of 79 (in his native country, where an individual's first year is counted from birth, he would have been considered 80 years of age at the time of death). Miraculously, many of his works--which are distinguished by lasting beauty and spectacular quality--have survived the nearly four centuries since Koetsu played so vital a role in creating them. An imagined portrait of Koetsu painted in 1915 shows him as an august figure in Buddhist robes. This reverential image of the artist contentedly retired after a lifetime of creative endeavor conveys the high esteem and affection in which Koetsu continues to be held. | <urn:uuid:13cac6d3-c9a1-4a40-8871-06e690aeb903> | CC-MAIN-2016-36 | https://www.philamuseum.org/press/releases/2000/191.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-36/segments/1471982925602.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160823200845-00226-ip-10-153-172-175.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984588 | 816 | 2.625 | 3 |
His restructuring of the state would establish the social and political norms which endured in Japan until the 19th century CE.
By Mark Cartwright
Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598 CE) was a Japanese military leader who, along with his predecessor Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582 CE) and his successor Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616 CE), is credited with unifying Japan in the 16th century CE. Hideyoshi rose from a humble background to become the country’s military supremo, and he then reorganised the class system, instigated tax reforms, built castles, restored temples, and launched two invasions of Korea. Hideyoshi’s foreign ambitions may have met with disaster but his restructuring of the state would establish the social and political norms which endured in Japan until the 19th century CE.
Nobunaga and Taking Power
Hideyoshi, originally named Kinoshita Hiyoshimaru, was born into a peasant family in 1537 CE. As a young man, he joined the army of the military leader/warlord Oda Nobunaga and rose through the ranks to eventually become a general and the most important military commander in Nobunaga’s endeavour to conquer rival feudal lords and so unify Japan. Hideyoshi might have gained his overlord’s respect as a commander but his small physique resulted in Nobunaga giving him the unflattering nickname of Saru or ‘monkey.’
In 1582 CE Nobunaga was betrayed by one of his vassals, Akechi Mitsuhide, and obliged to commit suicide to avoid being handed over to his rivals. Hideyoshi, first killing Mitsuhide, then manoeuvred to gain the support of Nobunaga’s relations and other important daimyo or feudal lords. He was thus able to install himself as the new military supremo in Japan, as yet, still only half of which was unified.
Hideyoshi, now commanding a force of some 200,000 men, successfully combined military campaigns with diplomacy amongst his rival daimyo to establish himself as the ruler of most of Japan in 1590 CE. In a five-year period beginning in 1585 CE, Hideyoshi had attacked western Japan, Kyushu and Shikoku. Success followed success, but there were some troublesome battles, notably the 100-day siege needed to take the castle of Odawara, the seat of the powerful Hojo family. The castle finally fell in 1590 CE and with it the last obstacle to Hideyoshi’s rule. Other enemies had proved more amenable to negotiation and were offered to keep some of their lands. Notable amongst these were the Shimazu of Satsuma and the Mori of Choshu.
As with other military leaders before and after, Hideyoshi might have dominated the field of battle but he still sought legitimacy from the monarchy. To gain royal favour from the emperor who had no real power of his own, he gave money for court ceremonies and rebuilt the palace at the capital Heiankyo (Kyoto). Hideyoshi added another, much more bizarre claim to his legitimacy to rule by stating his belief that he was descended from the Shinto sun god. There were even performances of Noh theatre telling this story which Hideyoshi himself performed in. The cherry on the cake came when Hideyoshi adopted the prestigious family name of Fujiwara, began to call himself Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and ultimately awarded himself the title of Taiko (‘retired regent’), which was higher than that of the shogun, the title his military predecessors had taken.
Castles and Fortifications
To secure his gains and maintain his grip on power, Hideyoshi built several important fortifications and ordered the destruction of any secondary castles that might be used by any rival. Hideyoshi built the first version of Himeji Castle (Hyogo Prefecture) in 1581 CE, which included a three-story keep. The famous castle as it is seen today belongs to the remodelling done by Ikeda Terumasa (1564-1613 CE) in the first decade of the 17th century CE. A second famous castle that Hideyoshi had built was the picturesquely named Momoyama (‘Peach Mountain’) in Heiankyo which gave its name to the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1568-1600 CE). The capital was also given a massive surrounding defensive wall, the Odoi (‘Great rampart’), in 1591 CE. Reaching a total length of some 22.5 km (14 miles), certain stretches of the earth and bamboo wall were 6 metres (20 ft) high and 9 metres (30 ft) thick while the whole was protected by a moat.
A third great castle credited to Hideyoshi’s building mania is Osaka castle in 1586 CE, which was built by the Kiso river and given a seven-storey castle keep and massive stone defensive walls. Finally, a fourth castle was built at Fushimi outside the capital in 1594 CE which was, alas, destroyed by an earthquake a mere two years later but then rebuilt. Fushimi was so lavishly decorated it became known as the ‘golden palace.’ The modern reconstructed version of this castle, built in 1964 CE, today houses a museum dedicated entirely to Hideyoshi.
Hideyoshi is noted for his policies and reforms when he governed Japan. To fund the state he extracted taxes from the peasantry and the commercial activities in Osaka and Sakai. Regional feudal lords were expected to build their own fortifications and assemble their warriors for national service when required. As an added precaution against any rival warlord becoming too powerful, Hideyoshi relocated the estates of some to be more distant from the capital and imposed on them certain restrictions such as forbidding marriages of alliance and collecting hostages to be kept at Heiankyo.
Between 1582 and 1598 CE Hideyoshi, continuing the policies of his predecessor, undertook an extensive land survey and compiled statistics of how much rice was produced and where in order to determine more accurately everybody’s tax liabilities. He also supported greater use of transportation to boost the economy.
In 1591 CE Hideyoshi developed a rigid class system with different levels for a warrior (shi), farmer (no), artisan (ko), and merchant (sho), the often-called shi-no-ko-sho system. Each class was given an importance based on its production value, and no movement between the levels was permitted, meaning that, for example, only a young man born into a samurai family could become a samurai. The other side of the coin was that samurai could not leave the profession either. Another consequence was that samurai could not be both warriors and part-time farmers as they had been in the past and so now had to choose one way of life over the other, making them wholly dependent for their pay on their lord if they did choose to serve as samurai. The system, although a little confused in actual practice and certainly not rigidly imposed everywhere, would remain in place right through the Edo period (1603-1868 CE).
In 1587 CE Hideyoshi passed an edict to expel all Christian missionaries from Japan but it was only half-heartedly enforced. Concerned that the Jesuits were encouraging the persecution of Buddhist and Shinto believers and that Portuguese traders were selling Japanese as slaves, another edict was passed in 1597 CE. This time a more serious intent was established with the mutilation and execution by crucifixion of 26 Christians in Nagasaki which included priests who had defied the first edict. Still, after this brutal beginning, the campaign to rid Japan of this foreign religion was largely abandoned as impractical and, in any case, Hideyoshi did not want to jeopardise the lucrative silk-for-silver trade with Portuguese-controlled Macao. The Japanese leader’s preoccupation with trade is evidenced in his determined campaign to wipe out the wako pirates that plagued East Asian seas. Putting them to his own use, Hideyoshi permitted pirate ships to legitimately trade, provided they carried his own personal red seal, hence their common name of shuin-sen or‘red seal ships.’
Besides the traditional Japanese religious beliefs, Hideyoshi was also a promoter and great patron of the arts, albeit largely to furnish his own impressive collection of castles and palaces. The Taiko even found time and money to help out the odd religious site, notably adding the Senjokaku assembly hall, the largest building at the Itsukushima shrine in Hiroshima Prefecture, and restoring the Buddhist Daigoji temple in Heiankyo.
In 1588 CE Hideyoshi promoted a lasting peace by forbidding anyone but members of the warrior class from carrying weapons, a strategy used by his predecessors. ‘Sword hunts’ ensured that nobody outside his own army possessed swords, bows, spears, or muskets. The confiscated weapons were melted down and cast into a giant Buddha for Heiankyo and several bells to adorn temples. Despite these measures and because of the rigid class system of samurai and the general militarization of Japan, Hideyoshi could still call upon an impressively large army when required, and it was equipped with muskets and cannons. The question was, what to do with it?
In 1592 and 1597 CE Hideyoshi twice attempted to conquer Korea (and so from there move into Chinese territory), neither of which resulted in success. Hideyoshi amassed a huge fighting force which consisted of 158,000 samurai and a navy with 9,200 mariners. In reserve, he had another 100,000 armed men. This army was sent to Korea, but Hideyoshi himself remained in Japan.
Initially, things went well for the Japanese as they met a totally unprepared Korean army, and they captured Pyongyang and got to within 20 days of Seoul, but then logistics became decisive and supplies dwindled. Eventually, the defenders rallied as the Korean navy, thanks to their gifted admiral Yi Sun-sin, won several important engagements. The invaders were reduced to defending a line of coastal forts (wajo), but even these were ultimately abandoned following Hideyoshi’s death.
The failures in Korea meant that mutually beneficial trade relations between the two countries became impossible. The Ming Dynasty of China (1368-1644 CE) had, crucially for the invasion’s outcome, sent military aid to the Koreans, no doubt seeing the longer-term threat to their own borders. Emperor Wanli (r. 1573-1620 CE) had massively overspent on the campaign, though, and it would contribute to the fall of the Ming regime in the middle of the 17th century CE, first when a rebel army took over Beijing and then when the Manchus established the Qing dynasty (1644-1911 CE). The wars had not done Korean agriculture any favours either; production levels would take two centuries to recover. There was one fortunate side effect of the whole debacle which resulted in Hideyoshi’s forcible relocation of Korean potters to the Kyushu region of Japan. The Koreans were world-class experts in ceramics, and this transfer of knowledge helped kick off the Japanese porcelain industry from the 17th century CE.
Besides helping the ceramics industry, Hideyoshi also helped develop the definitive form of the Japanese Tea Ceremony. This was done through his appointment of Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591 CE) as official tea master, and he would establish the tone and setting for the ceremony which was followed thereafter. Unfortunately for Rikyu, he fell out of favour with Hideyoshi for unknown reasons and was obliged to commit suicide. Hideyoshi himself had two teahouses for the ceremony which perhaps illustrate the complexity of the man – one was a traditional rustic house of plain materials and the other a gilded monument to bling and bad taste within Fushimi castle.
Hideyoshi died of natural causes on 18 September 1598 CE but with no viable heir to his position as his son was but 5 years old at the time. Before his son had been born, Hideyoshi had selected his nephew, Hidetsugu, as his official heir, but on the news of his son’s birth, the nephew was cast aside. As a symptom perhaps of the aged leader’s growing paranoia that rivals were conspiring against him, Hidetsugu was compelled to commit ritual suicide and his wife, three young children, and his retainers were all executed.
Hideyoshi arranged for five senior ministers (tairo) to share the role of regent for his young son, but in the end, these men only fought amongst themselves for supremacy. Instead, the new supremo of Japan would be Tokugawa Ieyasu (r. 1603-1605 CE) who won the Battle of Skeigahara against those generals who supported Hideyoshi’s son. Ieyasu thus established the Tokugawa Shogunate which finally saw the complete unification of Japan and which then enjoyed some 250 years of peace. As the old Japanese saying goes, “Nobunaga mixed the cake, Hideyoshi baked it, and Ieyasu ate it” (Beasley, 117).
- Beasley, W.G. The Japanese Experience. (University of California Press, 1999).
- Deal, W.E. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. (Oxford University Press, 2007).
- Ebrey, P.B. Pre-Modern East Asia. (Cengage Learning, 2008).
- Henshall, K. Historical Dictionary of Japan to 1945. (Scarecrow Press, 2013).
- Huffman, J.L. Japan in World History. (Oxford University Press, 2010).
- Mason, R.H.P. A History of Japan. (Tuttle Publishing, 1997).
- Turnbull, S. Japanese Castles 1540–1640. (Osprey Publishing, 2003).
- Turnbull, S. Japanese Castles AD 250-1540. (Osprey Publishing, 2008).
- Yamamura, K. (ed). The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 3. (Cambridge University Press, 2001).
Originally published by the Ancient History Encyclopedia, 06.05.2019, under a Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. | <urn:uuid:4dd174c7-922c-437c-bc23-e6d8232b46b9> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://brewminate.com/toyotomi-hideyoshi-and-medieval-japanese-unification/?shared=email&msg=fail | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320304471.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20220124023407-20220124053407-00369.warc.gz | en | 0.975315 | 3,045 | 4.125 | 4 |
GATE WITHOUT GATE, THE MILITARY STRATEGY OF IEYASU TOKUGAWA
By the middle of the sixteenth century, when the Ashikaga shogunate collapsed, the Japanese resembled a giant battlefield. Warlords fight over power, but out of their midst three great figures appear, as meteors pass through the night sky. The three men were equally aspiring to master and unite Japan, but their attributes striking one another: Nobunaga, rash, firm, brutal; Hideyoshi, simple, smooth, clever, complex; Ieyasu, calm, patient-minded. Their different philosophies had always been immortalized by the Japanese in a poem.
What if a bird does not want to sing?
Nobunaga replied, “Kill it!”
Hideyoshi replied, “Make the bird want to sing.”
Ieyasu replied, “Wait.”
This story is the story of a man who “waits” birds chirping.
Ieyasu is now thirty years old and in its heyday. His province was filled with the hope of prosperity and the desire to expand the region, so great that the followers, both old and young, the peasants, the townspeople were very excited. Mikawa (Ieyasu Tokugawa Province) may not be a match for Kai (Takeda Shingen Province) in terms of wealth but in terms of determination, the province is not in the slightest.
Shingen “The Legs Long” yesterday still fought against the Uesugi clan of Echigo provincial ruler on the northern border of Kai, today he threatens Mikawa. When Kai and Echigo’s borders are covered with snow, his 30,000-strong force is urged to immediately embody his dream of entering the capital. The easiest way is to grind Mikawa.
As threats drew closer. The Tokugawa ally, the head of the Oda family sent a letter to Ieyasu:
“It would be better if you did not have a frontal confrontation with Kai’s army. I hope you are still strong if the situation is critical and you are forced to withdraw from Hamamatsu to Okazaki. Even if we have to wait another day, I’m sure the day will not be long.”
Ieyasu replied, “before leaving Hamamatsu fort, we better break our bow and get out of the samurai group!” Receiving Oda Nobunaga’s courier response and Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s advisory muttering about Ieyasu’s stubbornness. One of the three unknowable friends. In the view of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, Ieyasu province is a line of defense territory. He can be retaken in the future, or adventure trying to reach a new territory. But for Ieyasu, Mikawa is home. Home matters are a matter of the heart, and the heart, especially Ieyasu’s heart, can not be changed as easily as the cloth re-coloring. Ieyasu challenged! Despite the disagreed alliance, Ieyasu does not expect help, no compassion even by a companion!
Ieyasu continued his preparations and set out for the battlefield, without back-line support. “Sometimes I feel too hard on myself, to get rid of guilt for what I do. And this is the saddest of this story.” Ieyasu thought.
One by one, as a comb is broken, reports of defeat come. The Shingen had attacked Totomi, while at the same time the fortresses in Tadaki and Lida had no choice but to surrender, at the forefront of the battle, there was not a piece of land that the Kai troops did not trample on. Things got worse, when Ieyasu’s Heihachiro Honda troop was caught by enemies around the Senryu River, the Tokugawa troops suffered a total defeat and forcibly retreated to Hamamatsu. Reports that make everyone pale in the castle, but not Tokugawa. In the wake of misfortune and suffering at a young age, he becomes a man who does not exaggerate the trivial defeat, (even) assumes it is nothing.
Ieyasu led troops out of Hamamatsu fortress, advanced up to Kanmashi village on the banks of the Tenryu River, and found Kai’s troop camp. Each position corresponds to Shingen’s headquarters, as the fingers surround the nap. Ieyasu stood on the hill with his arms folded and let out a sigh of admiration. Even from the distance, the banners at Shingen’s main camp were clearly visible, the famous words of Sun Tzu’s utterance, known to friends and foes.
“Fast as the wind, the silence of a forest, as passionate as fire, silent as a mountain”
Silent as a mountain, neither Shingen nor Ieyasu took action for several days. With the Tenryu River between the camps, the winter of the twelfth month is getting colder.
Ieyasu is not a mild opponent, though he intends to show it so. But in the ensuing battle, all the forces of the Takeda clan will encounter all the Tokugawa clan forces, they pound each other in a decisive battle throughout the war. The shadow of the battle actually spurred the morale of Kai people, as they did. Shingen ordered his son, Katsuyori to move their troops against Futamata Castle (across the river Tenryu) with a firm order not to waste time. Ieyasu himself oversaw the rearguard, but Takeda’s ever-changing army of formations again formed a new arrangement and began to push from all sides. It seems that once Ieyasu took a wrong step, he was cut off from his Hamamatsu headquarters.
One of the Takeda warriors raised an insult, the Tokugawa army was defeated and raging. Futurama Citadel crashed, Tokugawa troops led by Honda Heihachiro retreat. Thereafter Shingen’s main army crossed the Litani plain and began to enter the eastern part of Mikawa.
“To Litani!” Thus the order of commands that led to differences of opinion in between.
Shingen generals. Some feel anxious that Oda forces have arrived at Hamamatsu, and no one knows their number. Shingen sat among the Generals. His eyes closed, he nodded when he heard the opinions of his men, then said cautiously, “all your words make sense. But I’m sure the reinforcements of the Oda clan will not be greater than four thousand. Even if most of Oda’s troops headed for Hamamatsu, the Asai and Asakura people I had contacted earlier would attack Nobunaga from behind. In addition, the Shogun in Kyoto sent a message to the monk-warrior, urging them to immediately take up arms. The Oda people are not a threat to us.”
He paused, then proceeded calmly, “From the beginning, my desire was to enter Kyoto. But if I pass Ieyasu away now, when we turn to Gifu, Ieyasu will help the people of Oda by blocking us behind us. Would not it be best if Ieyasu was destroyed in Hamamatsu fortress before the Oda people could send enough reinforcements?”
At night, reports about the turn of Kai’s army reach the Hamamatsu fortress. Just as Shingen predicted, there were only three thousand people under Takigawa Kazumasu and Sakuma Nobumori reinforcements from Nobunaga. “The number is meaningless,” disappointed comments by the Tokugawa Generals, Ieyasu shows no joy or dissatisfaction, as report after report arrives, a war meeting begins. Not a few General Ieyasu advocated temporarily retreating to Okazaki, and they had the support of Oda’s commanders.
Only Ieyasu is unmoved, stubbornly hard to fight. “Do we retreat without releasing an arrow while the enemy insulted my province?” Ieyasu understood enough that he could not rely on allies altogether, he could only risk his fate on his own strength, not others.
In the Hamamatsu area, there is a land higher than the surrounding area, more than two miles wide, three miles long-Mitagahara. At dawn Ieyasu’s troops leave Hamamatsu and take the position to the north, a steep cliff. There they are waiting for Takeda’s troops.
The Tokugawa Forces form a wing formation of cranes, at first glance they look like big troops, but in reality, the second and third lines have no power. Ieyasu was escorted by a handful of soldiers who barely meant anything. Their regiment looks chaotic, plus clearly visible reinforcements Oda did not want to fight. Opponents know it! Shingen’s voice thundered, unmoved by Tokugawa’s bluff forming a fish-like formation, and moving forward toward the Tokugawa army, accompanied by a war drum.
Ieyasu was amazed to see the Shingen troop movement, and how the troops reacted to every word given, pinched in his condition, “if I had reached the age of as old as Shingen, I wished to be able to move a large army as skilled as he once was. After seeing his talent as a troop leader, I was reluctant to see him killed, even though someone offered to poison him.”
Dust flown by enemies and their people reach the sky. Only the sun’s reflections at the ends of the spears are visible. Mikawa and Kai’s armies have advanced, facing each other. Fighting broke out and chaos. Within minutes alone Sakai Tadatsugu’s defense line was destroyed by Kai’s forces. Proudly Kai’s troops released the triumphant shouts. Ieyasu stood on a hill, watching his troops. We lose, he realizes a crushing defeat.
“Sakuma Nobumori from the Oda clan is rolled out. Takigawa Kazumazu was forced to retreat, and Hirate Kazumasa was wounded. Stay Sakai Tadatsugu who still fought valiantly. Takeda Katsuyori combines his forces with the Yamagata corps and surrounds our left wing. Ishikawa Kazumasa was injured and Nakane Masateru and Aoki Hirotsugu were killed. Matsudaira Yasuzumi spurred his horse into the midst of the enemy and met his death there. Honda Tadamasa and Naruse Masayoshi forces targeted Shingen followers and successfully penetrated deep into enemy lines. But then they were surrounded by several thousand soldiers, and none of them returned alive.”
Suddenly Tadahiro grabbed Ieyasu’s arm, and with the help of the other generals, raised him on the horse. “Get out of here,” after Ieyasu sat in the saddle and the horse ran away, Tadahiro and the other followers on their horses, then followed their lord. The snow began to fall, making it difficult for the troops to retreat. Kai troops aimed at escaping enemy soldiers, firing a shot amid falling snow. Like a tidal wave, the Tokugawa forces retreated to the North. But because they lost their way, their victims fell back. Eventually, everyone began to push in one direction, to the South.
Ieyasu, who had just escaped the danger of looking back, and suddenly stopped the horse. “Fling the banner. Raise the banners and gather people,” he ordered. The night began to close, and the snow was heavier. The Ieyasu followers crowded around him and rang the trumpet. Waving, slowly the defeated soldiers began to gather.
But the corps under Baba Nobufusa and Obata Kazusa from Kai knew the main enemy troops were there, then pushed with arrows on one side and shotgun on the other. They were about to cut off Ieyasu’s retreat.
“This place is dangerous, my lord. You should retreat immediately, “Mizuno Sakon urges Ieyasu, then turns to the people, he orders,” protect the noble, I will attack the enemy. Anyone who wants to sacrifice life for the noble, follow me.”
Sakon immediately hit the enemy, without turning around. About thirty soldiers followed, spurring their horses to challenge death. Almost instantly the lament, the shouts, the clash of swords and spears mixed with the roar of the wind that blew snow, formed a gigantic vortex.
“Sakon can not die!” Ieyasu shouted. His attitude was unusual. The followers tried to prevent him and grabbed his horse’s bridle, but he shook off them and as they rose, Ieyasu had plunged into the center of the vortex. His appearance resembles a demon.
Bearing the burden of defeat, Ieyasu’s troops marched and returned to the snow-covered city of the fort. One rider entered, one after another, then the next and Ieyasu’s own eighth man. When their Lord has seen the troops inside the castle jumped up and down for joy.
Ieyasu blood stuck to his cheek, and his hair was disheveled. He ordered the ladies to prepare the food, after the food presented he immediately grabbed the chopsticks but did not immediately eat instead said, “Open all doors to the porch.” After the room opened, vaguely visible figures of soldiers who were unwilling to be at the porch, so Ieyasu finished He ordered Amano Yasukage and Uemura Masakatsu to get ready for the enemy’s attack. The other commanders started the main gate until the main door into the living room, Ieyasu’s mind branched off. He lacks experience with Shingen, as well as strength. Usually, he overcame his limitations by making a conspiracy. And Shingen is a mature general, will not work.
On the verge of Ieyasu’s death remembering that since I was five years old, Ieyasu lived with the Oda clan, then with the Imagawa people, moved in exile in the enemy provinces. As a hostage, he had never known freedom at that time. The eyes, ears, and soul of the hostage are closed, and if he does not work alone, there is nothing to reprove or encourage him. Nevertheless, or precisely because of being confined since childhood, Ieyasu became very ambitious. He does not understand the feelings of affection that people often talk about. She tries to find her feelings of empathy, and only finds that feeling not just a bit, but really thin. When Oda Nobunaga defeated Yoshimoto Imagawa, he felt the moment had come. Break away from Imagawa and fellowship with Oda, today Takeda Shingen is coming, he can not afford to flee again, not wanting him to repeat the bitter journey of life and suffering as before. But how? “If I do not get what I want, then I’d better not have anything.”
Ieyasu came out, the commanders though with a tense voice trying to calm Ieyasu and encourage him. He understood and nodded vigorously. But when they were about to hurry back to their posts, he called them, “Let every door from the main gate to the sitting room open.”
What kind of reckless strategy is this? The command is contrary to the most basic principles of defense, the iron doors at all gates have been closed tightly. Enemy troops have approached the fortress city, urging forward to destroy them. Ieyasu added with a laugh, “and I do not just want the gate of the castle to be opened. I want five or six fires to be lit in front of the gate. In addition, the fire also must be blazed inside the wall. But make sure we stay fully alert. Do not sound and watch the enemy’s advance.”
They run the order as Ieyasu wishes. After observing the scene, Ieyasu went back inside.
Shortly thereafter, Kai’s troops under the leadership of Baba Nobufusa and Yamagata Masakage arrived near the sewer, ready to launch the night raid. Yamagata looked astonished. Baba was suspicious and stared at the enemy gate. There, in the distance, he saw the flame of the fire, both inside and outside. And all the gates are wide open. They face a gate without a gate. This situation raises a nagging question.
Yamagata said. “Let’s just kill them. The enemy is so confused, so they do not have time to close the gate.”
“No, wait,” Baba interrupted. “Ieyasu is a man full of tactics, of course, he is waiting for us to attack in haste. All his attention was only on this fort, and he was sure of his victory. He was young, lacking experience, but he was Tokugawa Ieyasu. It is better that we do not act recklessly, so as not to bring disgrace to the Takeda clan and instead become a laughingstock in the future.”
They had pushed so far, but eventually, the two generals withdrew their troops.
Inside the castle Ieyasu’s dream was broken by one of his assistants. He stood up immediately. “I’m not dead!” He exclaimed and jumped happily. Instantly he sends troops to chase the enemy. But, in keeping with their reputation, Yamagata and Baba remain self-controlled amidst the chaos. They staged resistance, lit a fire around Naguri, and ran a number of brilliant maneuvers.
The Tokugawa suffered great losses, but it is not wrong to say that they have shown courage. Not only that, they managed to thwart Shingen’s plans to advance to the capital, and force him to retreat to Kai. Many are victims. Compared to the four hundred casualties on Takeda’s side, the Tokugawa forces lost far more troops. The victims on their side numbered one thousand and eighty souls.
The wise man who cultivates wisdom can drown in it. Having many traces (would) be more vulnerable than those with many weaknesses, scattered traces will be mapped, re-traced. Yet the great trailer might have forgotten what was left behind. Urge so much, but in the end (forced) to withdraw everything. Gate without gate.
Translated from Istana Kosong | <urn:uuid:6426a773-eb3a-469c-b997-dad6561f12f8> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | https://tengkuputeh.com/2017/06/10/gate-without-gate-the-military-strategy-of-ieyasu-tokugawa/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247481428.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20190217010854-20190217032854-00352.warc.gz | en | 0.971275 | 3,953 | 3.171875 | 3 |
* DEVELOPMENT OF THE MIND BODY SPIRIT *
Sekiguchiryu originated & was developed over 458 years ago.
Around the 1560 era Thus, it was "born in a baptism of fire" during the peak of the bloodiest Wars
known as The Age of Warring States period "Sengoku Jidai".
SEKIGUCHI FAMILY NAME
RYU MEANING FLOW OF THE TRADITIONAL SYSTEM
This system was developed by a man named Sekiguchi
He was more widely known as Sekiguchi, same person as above picture
Sekiguchi Family was part of the famous Seiwa Genji
descendants from the Minamoto's bloodline 12th Century
Sekiguchi that served Imagawa Clan during the Sengoku Jidai 1467-1603
Age of Warring states. When the once powerful Imagawa family fell to the conquests of Oda Nobunaga at the Battle of Okehazama in June 1560.
Sekiguchi devoted his life to martial arts.
He left the castle of his lord for the Atago Mountains located just outside of Kyoto region, where he underwent intense physical and spiritual training in Shugendo religion, A form of Esoteric Buddhist practice's and nature worship. The result of that training became known as Sekiguchiryu = Rumours of this wanderer and his unique art rang out throughout the country.
Therefore Sekiguchiryu remains close in connection to the Tokugawa regime.
When Tokugawa Yorinobu, head of the Kishu Han
(modern day Wakayama Prefecture) heard about Sekiguchi and after meeting him,
he was asked to become a permanent guest at Wakayama castle and to teach his Sekiguchiryu
to the Samurai-retainers there. Even the 8th Shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune (1684–1751)
was a practitioner of Sekiguchiryu he had attained (Menkyo -Kaiden) in the system.
Sekiguchiryu is most known for its Ju-Jutsu; Jujutsu focus is on perfection of effortless technique, over brute strength thus allowing for a smaller and weaker person to control a physically stronger person.
According to scrolls the word Jujutsu and fighting skills -
was the invention of Sekiguchi himself, before this unarmed techniques were referred to as Yawara or Kumi-uchi or Taijutsu also the term and concept "Ukemi" evasion / reversal of techniques when applied all involved from Sekiguchi observations of a cat falling down from a roof
the cat always seems to land safely on its feet, because of its ability to tumble in mid air.
Today the word Ju-Jutsu is widely used as a name for "unarmed fighting methods"
for many systems of the Martial Arts.
At its peak Sekiguchiryu contained all aspects of Samurai Warfare, however now a lot of Sekiguchiryu fighting methods are contained only within handed-down historical scrolls.
SEKIGUCHIRYU - RANK STRUCTURE
Shoden Menjo Certification / Entry Foundation Level
Chuden Menjo Certification / Intermediate Level
Okuden Menjo Certification / Inner Secrets Level
Menkyo Kaiden Certification / Full Transmission
Complete flow of knowledge transmitted directly to student from Shihan
Menkyo is a Japanese term meaning " License " it refers to the permission level of education & dates as far back as the 8th Century.
The "Hanko" signature seals is the proof and recognition from the Shihan = Head of Family for a Monjin member to represent that level of competency,
for it is the formal recognition & approval for a "Mon-jin" member to pass on the knowledge to another person with the consent and support of the Shihan.
Traditional Japanese culture for other arts such as (Sumi-e) painting, (Chado) tea ceremony, (Ikebana) flower arranging and (Shodo) calligraphy all share this Menkyo system although this Menkyo Kaiden system is commonly associated with the study of Martial Arts in Japan, for various Classical Japanese Koryu Bujutsu Traditions = This ancient system is a way to maintain the order of skill sets within the tradition, 'Quality control" of Each individual
Menjo Certification / licence is a portion of knowledge contained within the overall curriculum.
A Special document Presented to me directly from 17th Shihan Yamada
This my Authority & License to teach Sekiguchiryu Battoujutsu -
which is a unique system of Koryu Bujutsu this supporting document has been Signed & formally sealed with custom Historical Hanko signature seals. | <urn:uuid:185a1448-243c-4426-bd52-3f77cb48d0f2> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | https://www.fukurou-dojo-sgr.com/what-is-sekiguchi-ryu | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247495001.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20190220125916-20190220151916-00135.warc.gz | en | 0.946603 | 1,008 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Located in the middle of Japan, Aichi is known for its rather healthy economy. Its capital city – Nagoya is one of the three major cities in Japan. Aichi is also home to Toyota Motor Corporation. Hence, it has had the highest export value of manufactured products for more than 40 years! The importance of Aichi is not just recent, many military rulers of Japan in the Muromachi and Edo periods came from Aichi, including Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu etc. Nagoya castle, constructed in that time, was one of the most important castles too. All of Japans castles are so much more beautiful and opulent than the ones we have here in England. Nagoya Castle was destroyed in 1945 during the bombing of Nagoya in World War II and the reconstruction and repair of the castle has been undergoing since 1957.
Looking at the cultural importance, Aichi is the origin of a pottery style called Tokonameyaki. Tokoname is one of the ancient kilns of Japan and presently Tokonameyaki is known for Japanese teapots – Kyusu being the most well known.
Aichi also has a long history of tea cultivation. The main story is that in 1271 a Buddhist monk Seiichi Kokushi brought tea seeds from Japan to China and planted them around Jissoji temple. Then in 1872 the chief priest of Kojuin temple introduced tea making technology from Uji, and that gave the start to matcha production in the region. In 2020, Aichi produced 744t of tea and currently ranks No. 11 in tea production in Japan. The largest tea producing area in the prefecture is Shinshiro city, but Nishio city and Toyota city are quite well known too.
The main tea made in Aichi is Matcha, and about 90% of it is used for food production (I never knew this and it’s so interesting to learn these little facts about each prefecture, it give you a little bit more of an insight into the decisions made within the tea industry doesn’t it). Most of the Matcha comes from Nishio city and in 2009 Nishio Matcha was registered as a trademark – the first trademark in Japan to apply specifically for Matcha. In addition to Matcha, Aichi also makes some Sencha and Kabusecha.
The first tea producer we spoke to today was Masamitsu Akahori is a 5th generation tea farmer and president of Akabori Seicha, a tea farm in Nishio region of Aichi prefecture. The Akahori family started tea farming in Meiji period about 150 years ago. Now they manage a tea farm, tea factory and cafe. All of their tea is cultivated organically, and they use driven farming machines; Their Matcha however is handpicked.
The main product of Akahori Seicha is Matcha, but they produce other popular Japanese teas as well. This tea producer provided a Matcha for this session and this is the process it goes through in their factory. Light steamed, blown up and down in big nets, conveyer with 5 layers inside furnace, then the leaves go through a machine that separates the leaves from the stems (becoming Tencha), it is then ground and becomes Matcha. Their organic Tsuyuhikari Matcha is what was prepared during during this session, they prepared this tea in the following way: 1g of Matcha, water 10ml at 20c and then 50ml at 100C, whisk until prepared to your liking.
Tea lovers in today’s session described the aroma and taste of this matcha in the following ways: Strong pistachio aroma like a chocolate pistachio cake or rocky road bars. No bitterness at all, creamy like milk, spinach, nutty, with clean astringency. Vanilla undertones, naturally very sweet and soft. Light, smooth, sweet lingering gentle finish. It is surprisingly light, no plant taste at all until perhaps the last drop. Sounds like a fantastic matcha to me. This matcha is shaded for 45 days making it a triple shaded Matcha which is something I have personally never heard of before, triple shading achieve a better aroma and a bright color, but it can not be done with all bushes and all cultivars. It takes them a lot of hard work and effort but it is clear from what the people in today’s session has to say that it definitely paid off.
The second producer we spoke with today was Yoshimasa Yamauchi is the 5th generation tea farmer and president of Hekien Ocha no Junpei, a small family tea farm in Toyota region of Aichi prefecture. The Yamauchi family started tea production in 1870, Yamauchi-san worked at an established specialty tea shop for some time before returning to take over the family business. The main teas made by the Yamauchi family include Matcha, Kabusecha and Hojicha. They have a tea farm size is about 4ha and they use conventional and organic methods. His great grandfather Junpei Yamauchi invented the Mikawa style Tencha furnace in 1920. Before then everything was done by hand, even in other regions as well. A lot of their tea is still hand picked including the Kabusecha provided by them for today’s session.
When hand picking they use Shigoki picking method which is unique to Aichi which involves bending the stem and trying to make sure that only the leaves come off, but Yamauchi-san did say that sometimes the younger newer stems can break off because they are not as hard as the lower parts where the darker leaves are. Their tea leaves are sorted by hand in the traditional way rather than by machine. The leaves are then also inspected and sorted by hand simply using tweezers to make sure any contaminated or bent leaves that are not the correct shape are removed. Double layer shading for 32 days takes place, which is long for Kabusecha as it’s normally 14 days. This makes the tea very similar to gyokuro. Yamauchi-san says that a lot of people who try his tea end up falling in love with it and then they want to become a part of producing it so they will often come and volunteer at his farm to help them produce the teas.
The Yabukita (the king cultivar of Japanese tea) Kabusecha provided for today’s session was processed in the following way in their factory: hand picked, steamed, rolled by a machine, sorted by hand, final sorting by two people using tweezers to remove anything that may have been missed previously. 5g 50ml of water at 40C, steeped for 2 minutes in a flat Kyusu, the reason for using a kysus like this is that because the leaves are flat and needle like, it gives them more chance to open up.
Tea lovers in today’s chat had the following things to say about this teas aroma and taste: aroma notes of nori, edamame, thick umami, round, zucchini and melon. rich in umami, fresh broad beans, dry leaf smells like seaweed cookies. Taste notes: sweet with a touch of astringency, velvety, very viscous texture, smooth, velvety, umami bomb, almost salty, very sweet, zucchini braised in butter, later on honeydew melon, salted butter, vegetable stock, garlic fried in butter (not browned). very long after taste and sweet, chestnut sweetness. The empty cup aroma is like sweet milky rock melon.
Such different notes compared to yesterday Kabusecha, lots of people in the chat said they didn’t expect such a punch of flavor from this tea and were quite taken back by how complex it was. That’s because this tea was produced to taste like Gyokuro but look like Kabusecha. I’m seriously going to have the longest tea wish list by the time this marathon is over because almost everything that has been features bar one or two that were only made for the marathon is now on my wish list. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my hands on them and feature them further on my blog in the future.
Another fantastic session today filled with opportunities to learn new things about Japan, Japanese tea and just how much work goes into producing the teas that we all love so much. To me it’s so interesting learning all the in’s and out of the tea world and just how different production methods change dependent on location, knowing that just slight differences in picking methods and fertilizers and enlivenment really can effect the tea so much. Tomorrow will be day 12 of the marathon and for that session we will be travelling to and learning more about Saitama prefecture.
Until tomorrow, Happy Steeping – Kimberley | <urn:uuid:ee289b29-fecc-4798-ae48-534bd1a17ca3> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://kimberleyskyusu.com/2021/08/05/the-global-japanese-tea-association-japanese-tea-marathon-day-12-aichi/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320301341.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20220119125003-20220119155003-00346.warc.gz | en | 0.965537 | 1,859 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The red circle iabove ndicate the time we discuss in this section
The Muromachi period began after Ashikaga Takauji (足利尊氏) and several other prominent leaders ended the Nanboku-cho period. (discussed in 17|Nanboku-cho Period History (1333-1393).
The grandson of Ashikaga Takauji, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (足利義満：often called Shogun Yoshimitsu), built a new beautiful palace at Muromachi (室町) area in Kyoto. The palace became the center of the government called the Muromachi Bakufu (室町幕府: Muromachi Government). This is the beginning of the Muromachi period. Ashikaga Yoshimitsu built the famous “Kinkaku-ji Temple* (Golden Pavilion)” in Kyoto as his second house.
Kinkaku-ji Temple* (金閣寺: Golden Pavillion) ————- Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (足利義満) built Kinkaku-Ji Temple in 1397. Later, it became Rinzai-shu (臨済宗) school Buddhist temple, but it was initially built as the second house for Ashikaga Yoshimitsu as well as a state guesthouse. Today, it is designated as a world heritage site. This temple was burnt down by an arsonist in 1950 but was rebuilt in 1955. The novelist Mishima Yukio wrote the novel “Kinkaku-ji” related to the Golden Pavillion and the arsonist. The famous quote in the book is, “The Ho-oh (A mythic golden bird, a Chinese version phoenix) on the roof of the Kinkaku-ji Temple is stationary, but it flies through the time eternally.”
In the Muromachi period, the emperor’s power became declined. The Shogun (将軍) held all the political power. Little by little, several groups of Samurai who were officially appointed as a Shugo Daimyo (守護大名: high-ranking officials) started to gain political and economic power by holding the critical positions in the Muromachi Bakufu. They also owned a large land. A couple of powerful Shugo Daimyo were the Hosokawa (細川) family and the Yamana (山名) family.
The Ashikaga family made a great effort to make the Muromachi Bakufu sound and powerful through politics. The beginning of the Muromachi period was peaceful and prosperous. Yet by the time Ashikaga Yoshimasa (足利義政) became the 8th Shogun, the Muromachi Bakufu was corrupted very severely. Shogun Yoshimasa did not pay much attention to his job, governing the country as a shogun. Instead, he was chasing women (his mother had to scold him for that), spent a large amount of money on building the Silver Pavilion called “Ginkaku-ji Temple (銀閣寺),“ and retreated himself there. Shogun Yoshimasa did not have an heir. Therefore, his brother, Yoshimi (義視), was named to the next Shogun.
However, later, Yoshimasa’s wife Hino Tomiko (日野富子)* had a son, Yoshihisa (義尚). Now, brother Yoshimi (義視) allied with a family of a high-ranking official, the Hosokawa’s (細川) while the son, Yoshihisa, tied with another powerful family, the Yamana’s (山名), and several other smaller groups of Samurai allied with either side and the war broke out. This war is called Onin-no-Ran (応仁の乱) in 1467. It spread out all over the country and continued for 11years.
Hino Tomiko (日野富子)*——————The wife of Shogun Yoshimasa. She took advantage of her political privileges to make a large amount of money by investing in the rice commodity market to control rice prices and sold with a high profit. Then she loans the money to the high ranking officials at a high-interest. The corruption reached an uncontrollable level.
As a result of Onin-no-Ran, beautiful Kyoto was burnt down to ashes. The authority of the Muromachi Bakufu only reached the vicinity of the small surrounding area of Kyoto. Onin-no-Ran caused the next period called the Sengoku period (戦国時代), that is the Warring States period. During the Sengoku period, Japan was divided into 30 or so small independent countries and fought each other until Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Iyeyasu united Japan as one country.
The photo was taken in May 2019, a family trip to Kyoto | <urn:uuid:54939cde-832a-4e00-a8ef-98bc3c1f6952> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://studyingjapaneseswords.com/2018/04/07/21muromachi-period/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320305494.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20220128104113-20220128134113-00018.warc.gz | en | 0.96534 | 1,102 | 3.6875 | 4 |
Duplicity must be decried when used to justify the attainment and exercise of power. However, sometimes, even principled leaders must put on an act to realize noble ends—infuse optimism to surmount hopelessness, win followers’ devotion to audacious new ideas, for example.
In the Zen parable that follows, a warrior motivates his followers in the face of desperate odds. He persuades his outnumbered army by flipping an unfair coin and proclaiming that they are fated to win the battle.
A great Japanese warrior named Nobunaga decided to attack the enemy although he had only one-tenth the number of men the opposition commanded. He knew that he would win, but his soldiers were in doubt.
On the way he stopped at a Shinto shrine and told his men: “After I visit the shrine I will toss a coin. If heads comes, we will win; if tails, we will lose. Destiny holds us in her hand.”
Nobunaga entered the shrine and offered a silent prayer. He came forth and tossed a coin. Heads appeared. His soldiers were so eager to fight that they won their battle easily.
“No one can change the hand of destiny,” his attendant told him after the battle.
“Indeed not,” said Nobunaga, showing a coin which had been doubled, with heads facing either way.
Idea for Impact: Moral Leadership Relates to the Integrity of Leaders and Their Intentions
A wise leader must be open to bringing deception into play to smooth the way to sound decisions and noble results.
As long as leaders use these methods to respectable purposes, and until people wise up to their methods, certain ends can justify certain means.
Postscript: The quoted Zen parable is sourced from the celebrated compilation Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings, Shambhala Edition (1961) by Paul Reps. This book traces its roots to the thirteenth-century Japanese anthology of Buddhist parables Shasekishū (Sand and Pebbles) compiled by the Kamakura-era monk Mujū. | <urn:uuid:644fcbc1-b0aa-4763-91f1-d02d5016e15a> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://www.rightattitudes.com/2018/04/12/shrewd-leadership-deception/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320304810.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20220125100035-20220125130035-00339.warc.gz | en | 0.970539 | 442 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Azuchi Castle was a castle, like no other in Japanese history. It was built by one of Japan’s most powerful warlords, and first conqueror of Japan, Oda Nobunaga. This castle was the perfect representation of Nobunaga himself, grandiose, ambitious, larger-than-life, and sadly doomed.
Azuchi castle was built on the shores of Lake Biwa, Japan’s largest lake, just outside of Kyoto in 1579. Nobunaga chose to build it outside of Kyoto, the then capital so that he could keep an eye on the goings on of the royalty. Also, were Kyoto to be attacked the whole city might go up in flames, so he wanted to keep his own palace safe.
Azuchi was more than a regular castle. Most castles in Japan were purely military buildings, efficient and beautiful in their own right. But Nobunaga wanted something more. Most probably influenced by the retinue of European priests he kept with him, he chose to create a castle that would serve a military function, as well as being a palace worthy of the most powerful man in the country.
Three things set Azuchi Castle apart from other castles at the time. First was the sheer scale of the construction. The walls of the castle alone were anywhere from 18 feet (5.4 meters) to 21 feet (6.4 meters) thick! Secondly, the castle used a lot more stone than was normal for construction at the time. Huge blocks of granite were carefully arranged and built without using any mortar! And finally, while most castles were dark and gray, the main keep of Azuchi castle was brightly colored with gold and red, and pictures of tigers and dragons. Also the top floor was octagonal.
Like Nobunaga himself, Azuchi would fall before its time. After Nobunaga’s death in 1582, the castle was attacked by one of Nobunaga’s chief rivals. In the ensuing sacking, the castle burned to the ground. All that remains today are the original base stones.
While we can’t see the original palace in its splendor, there are a few places we can see reconstructions at. Ise Azuchi Momoyama Bunka Mura in Ise, Mie prefecture has a full reproduction of the castle, with different shows and fun tours.
Furthermore, you can find a to-scale reproduction of the top level of the keep in Omi, Shiga prefecture. Seeing this will give you an insight to the actual size of the castle.
You can also visit the foundations of the castle. | <urn:uuid:219c8a1e-d1ea-4d1b-b3ee-6865929ff7e9> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | https://jpninfo.com/8053 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912201922.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20190319073140-20190319095140-00268.warc.gz | en | 0.973917 | 542 | 3.609375 | 4 |
Battle of Motobuto Castle
Dates: Eiroku 11 (1568); Genki 2 (1571)
Location: Motobuto Castle on Kojima – an island in the Seto Inland Sea that was part of Bizen Province
Synopsis: The first battle between the Murakami and the Kōzai (backed by the Miyoshi) was resolved through mediation by the Ōtomo clan. In the second battle, Kobayakawa Takakage (the third son of Mōri Motonari) toppled the castle defended by the Murakami (backed by the Uragami).
Motobuto Castle was the site of multiple battles owing to its strategic location on Kojima between Shikoku and Honshū. The first conflict, occurring in 1568, was waged between the Murakami and the Kōzai clans (backed by the Miyoshi) and settled through mediation. The second conflict occurred in 1571 between the combined forces of the Murakami and Uragami against the Mōri. Although details of these conflicts are scant, the records highlight the complex and shifting alliances between and among the clans vying for power in the vicinity of the Seto Inland Sea, including the Murakami (who were famous for their navy), in addition to (i) the Hosokawa, the Miyoshi, the Kōzai and the Shinohara from provinces in Shikoku, (ii) the Mōri, the Uragami, the Ukita, the Nose, and the Mimura from provinces in Honshū, and (iii) the Ōtomo and the Bessho from provinces in Kyūshū.
During the Muromachi period, Kojima was a separate island that served as a gateway from Awa and Sanuki provinces in Shikoku to Bizen Province on the main island of Honshū. Although Kojima was a part of Bizen Province, the island was controlled by the Hosokawa clan who served as the military governors of Awa and Sanuki provinces. During the latter part of the Eiroku era (1558 to 1570), a majority of Kojima was governed by Mimura Iechika after he nearly unified Bitchū Province by joining forces with Mōri Motonari who held Bingo Province,
First battle at Motobuto Castle
Motobuto Castle stood as an impregnable fortress on the western shores of Kojima, protected by the sea and mountainous terrain. In 1568, a conflict arose at Motobuto Castle between the Kōzai clan (kokujin, or provincial landowners, in Sanuki) and Murakami Takeyoshi of the Murakami navy of Nōshima. On the side of the defenders, a retainer of the Murakami named Shima Yoshitoshi killed Kōzai Matagorō.
After counterattacks initiated by the Kōzai clan with the backing of the Miyoshi placed them in difficult circumstances, the Murakami settled with the Kōzai through the mediation of the Ōtomo clan. Having made contributions as a messenger, Shima Yoshitoshi became the lord of Motobuto Castle. From around this time, Murakami Takeyoshi established friendly relations with the Ōtomo and Miyoshi who were enemies of the Mōri clan.
Developments in Bizen Province
In Bizen, while Uragami Munekage expanded his base of power, his retainer, Ukita Naoie, assassinated Mimura Iechika. In 1567, at the Battle of Myōzenji, Naoie defeated Iechika’s son, Mimura Motochika and, in 1568, decimated the Matsuda clan of Bizen. In 1569, after Naoie separated from the Uragami, Munekage subdued him and became a daimyō in control of most of Bizen, in addition to portions of Mimasaka, Bitchū, and Harima provinces.
In the tenth month of 1569, Munekage colluded with Ōtomo Yoshishige and Amago Katsuhisa to oppose the Mōri clan. Mōri Motonari and the Mimura found themselves surrounded, in conflict with not only the Uragami (in Bizen), the Ōtomo (in Bungo and Chikugo), and remnants of the Amago clan (in Izumo), but also the Miyoshi (in Awa and Sanuki), the Miura (in Mimasaka), and the Yamana (in Hōki and Inaba). In the tenth month of 1570, Munekage joined with the Miyoshi clan in opposition to Oda Nobunaga and Motonari to attack Miki Castle in Harima. That same month, Ukita Naoie also came into conflict with the Mōri and attacked Kōzan Castle in Bizen.
Second battle at Motobuto Castle
In the second month of 1571, Murakami Takeyoshi combined with Munekage and separated from the Mōri family. Kobayakawa Takakage immediately gathered troops with the intention to capture Motobuto Castle, and, in the fourth month, Motobuto Castle fell.
At this time, the Shinomiya clan (a kokujin from Hibi on the Kojima Peninsula) along with Kōzai Mototoshi of Sanuki, joined with Kobayakawa Takakage and landed in Kojima. Mototoshi attacked Kaya Castle and his retainer, Uematsu Yukimasa, killed Yoshida Uemon-no-jō who led the castle garrison. However, after next attacking Motobuto Castle, Mototoshi was killed in the midst of a fog-enshrouded battlefield.
Battle between the Mōri and the combined forces of the Miyoshi and Ukita clans
In the fifth month of 1571, Shinohara Nagafusa, a senior retainer of the Miyoshi family, responded to appeals from Uragami Munekage and Ukita Naoie to lead naval forces from Awa and Sanuki to attack Kojima. Kobayakawa Takakage assigned soldiers to Awaya Narikata and sent them to Kojima as reinforcements. In the ensuing battle, however, the Mōri suffered a bitter defeat to the Uragami army and the forces led by Shinohara Nagafusa who swiftly arrived as reinforcements. In Bitchū, Shō Katsusuke occupied the base of the Mimura clan at Matsuyama Castle and colluded with Ukita Naoie, and, at the same time, Ukita forces invaded the Mimura territory and recaptured Kōzan Castle.
During this time, attacks tied to the encirclement of the Mōri intensified while Mōri Motonari laid ill. Motonari then dispatched Ankokuji Ekei as a messenger to meet Ashikaga Yoshiaki in Kyōto and to request assistance in forging a settlement with the Ōtomo, the Uragami, and the Miyoshi. However, Yoshiaki rejected a settlement involving the Miyoshi so the proposal failed. On 6/14 of Genki 2 (1571), Motonari died before Ekei returned, and the clan was inherited by his eldest grandson, Mōri Terumoto.
In the ninth month, an armed clash occurred again at the Saita Castle in Bitchū between the combined forces of the Uragami and Ukita who served as reinforcements for Ueki Hidesuke (Hidenaga’s son) and the combined forces of the Mōri and Mimura, but the Uragami and Ukita prevailed while the elder son of Mimura Motochika, Shō Motosuke, was killed in battle. Motobuto Castle was granted to Nose Yoriyoshi, a retainer of the Ukita.
Demise of the Mimura and separation of the Ukita from the Mōri clan
At the end of 1573, Munekage reconciled with Bessho Nagaharu through the devices of Nobunaga, whereupon Munekage received a letter from Nobunaga recognizing Munekage’s governance of Bizen, Harima, and Mimasaka provinces. At this point, Munekage surpassed his former lords, the Akamatsu, earning a status equivalent to his former role of military governor, and realized the peak years of prosperity for the Uragami clan. In the third month of 1574, Ukita Naoie separated from Munekage, and allied with the Mōri. Indignant at this outcome, Mimura Motochika separated from the Mōri and joined forces with Munekage.
In the fifth month of 1575, Matsuyama Castle fell to an assault by the Mōri clan and Mimura Motochika killed himself. In the sixth month, Tsuneyama Castle in Kojima defended by Ueno Takanori (the son-in-law of Mimura Iechika) was also toppled and the Mimura clan eliminated in the Bitchū Conflict. In the ninth month, Ukita Naoie captured Tenjinyama Castle defended by Uragami Munekage, causing Munekage to flee for safety to the Kyōto area in an event known as the Siege of Tenjinyama Castle.
In the tenth month of 1579, Ukita Naoie separated from the Mōri family and pledged allegiance to Oda Nobunaga. At the end of 1581, Naoie died of illness at Okayama Castle. In the second month of 1582, a battle broke out between the Ukita clan and the Mōri clan at Hachihama in the Kojima District of Bizen in which Ukita Motoie was killed in action. The Ukita forces fled in defeat, but, owing to the valorous acts of the Seven Spears of Hachihama (including Nose Yoriyoshi, the lord of Motobuto Castle), the Mōri forces were narrowly stopped. Ukita forces holed-up in Hachihama Castle, leading to the Battle of Hachihama. Motobuto Castle remained until 1580. The timing of its abandonment is uncertain. | <urn:uuid:df26f755-e148-4f8d-b2a5-0db9dd1d2ec8> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://sengokujidai.org/battles%E3%80%8C%E5%90%88%E6%88%A6%E3%80%8D/battles/battle-of-motobuto-castle%E3%80%8C%E6%9C%AC%E5%A4%AA%E5%9F%8E%E5%90%88%E6%88%A6%E3%80%8D/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320303385.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220121131830-20220121161830-00107.warc.gz | en | 0.946199 | 2,190 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Here’s a list of Japanese historical periods that can help you understand the cultures of modern Japan!
The beautiful country of Japan is one of the fastest developing countries in the world. Known for its rich history, amazing technology, and colourful culture, Japan has evolved over many centuries.
The first signs of human inhabitation in Japan can be traced back to around 30,000 BC. Archeologists found ancient relics like axes in Kyushu and Honshu and these were evidence of human life.
To understand the different historical periods that Japan went through, we have put together this list.
List of Japanese Historical Periods
This period spanned from around 13,000 BC to 1,000 BC. At the beginning, Japan was home to mostly hunters, gatherers, and fishers.
In 1877, Edward S. Morse, an American scholar named this period as Jomon, meaning “cord-marked”. This was in reference to the pottery that the hunter-gatherers decorated with cords made of rope on wet clay. Jomon pottery has been accepted to be some of the oldest in East Asia and the world.
Some popular Shintoism creation myths suggest that the Japanese Imperial Family was founded during the Jomon period.
In most versions of Japanese history, the Yayoi period is seen overlapping the final years of the Jomon period. It is often called the Iron Age of Japan and spanned from around 900 BC to 300 AD).
Besides witnessing much agricultural development, there was quite a bit of weapon and tool import to Korea and China. There was also unembellished pottery found in a district of modern day Tokyo that dates back to this period.
During the analysis of Yayoi remains found in Southern Japan, many similarities were found with remains found in Jiangsu, China. This gave rise to the belief that the yayoi people immigrated from China.
The population of Japan began to rapidly increase during this time. The Yayoi tribes eventually came together to form a number of kingdoms.
Spanning from 250 AD to 538 AD, the Kofun period saw most of Japan coming together under a single kingdom. One of the most prominent aspects of this period was the burial mounds called kofun. Many were of enormous sizes and were used to bury Japan’s rulers.
Yamato in the Kinai region of central Japan was the center of the unified state. The rulers of the Yamato state were a hereditary line of emperors.
They extended their power all through Japan through military conquest but preferred to convince local authority to exchange power roles for influential posts in the government.
The Auska period began in 538 and lasted till around 710. Th eBuddhist religion was introduced by the Korean kingdom of Baekje and it was practiced along with the native Shinto religion.
The Buddhist Soga clan began controlling Japan from behind the scenes. Prince Shotoku is known to have played a big role in promoting Chinese ideas. He came up with the seventeen article constitution. This was a code of conduct for citizens and officials that was inspired by Confucianism.
In 645, the Soga clan were overthrown in a coup launched by Prince Naka no Ōe and Fujiwara no Kamatari, the founder of the Fujiwara clan. The aim of the reform was to bring great centralization and to enhance the power of the imperial court.
After the Jinshin War, the reforms changed and created the ritsuryo state, which is a system of Chinese style centralized government. This stayed in place for around five hundred years.
Buddhism was a prominent theme for the art from this period. One of the most famous works from this period is the Buddhist temple of Horyu-ji which was commissioned by Prince Shotoku.
In 710, the first permanent Japanese capital was established in Nara. It was during this period that the first two books produced in Japan appeared- Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. These books contained accounts of Japan and myths revolving around its creation.
Japan fell victim to many natural disasters during this period, including disease, drought, wildfires, and famines. The Japanese nation experienced a decline in population that continued into the next period.
There was a very serious attempt to overthrow the Imperial house. Monk Dokyo, with the help of Empress Shotoku, tried to establish his own dynasty but couldn’t after her death.
Spanning from 794 to 1185, the Heian period saw the capital being moved to modern Kyoto. A smallpox epidemic broke out in 812 and killed almost half of Japan’s population.
The Imperial court declined through this period. The Fujiwara family controlled the political scene over several centuries by intermarriages with the Imperial family.
The 12th century saw the rise of two aristocratic families to power. They were Minamoto (or Genji) and Taira (or Heike). After the Heiji Rising of 1159, Taira Kiyomori emerged as the leader of Japan. After the death of Kiyomori, the Taira and Minamoto clans fought the Gempei War for supremacy. Minamoto succeeded and established a new government in his home town.
During this period, literary accomplishments included the poetry collection Kokinshu and the Tosa Diary. There was a rise in the development of native Japanese art forms and poetry.
This period began in 1192 and saw the introduction of the Zen sect. Minamoto Yoritomo established the Kamakura government in Kamakura in 1992.
In 1221, the Jokyu War was instigated in an attempt to restore political power to the court. The samurai armies of the entire nation were mobilized in 1274 and 1281 to confront two full scale invasions by Kublai Khan of the Mongol Empire.
Around 1250, Japan saw a period of prosperity and population growth. Cities began to grow and commerce boomed. Buddhism which was then considered a religion for the elites, was now brought to the masses by prominent monks.
This period a gets its name from the Muromachi district of Heian-kyo. This was the residence of Yoshimitsu, the best performing Ashiaga Shogun.
Commerce continued to flourish during this period and there was much trade with China and Korea. Some of Japan’s most representative art forms developed. These included ink wash painting, ikebana flower arrangement, tea ceremony, Japanese gardening, bonsai, and Noh theatre.
Towards the end of this period, The Europeans arrived in the country. Francis Xavier and Catholicism reached the shores of Japan in 1559.
This period began in 1573 and went on till 1603. Three names that define this period are Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Oda Nobunaga was a ruthless warlord who was known for his brilliant strategies. He is known for his string of victories in Japan’s bloodiest civil war. After his abrupt death by ritual suicide, there was apower vaccum created.
Popularly known as the son of a lowly foot soldier, Toyotomi Hideyoshi was a shrewd and resourceful person. He came to be known as medieval Japan’s most powerful warlord. His stronghold, Osaka Castle remains as one of the country’s symbols.
The most devious of the lot, Tokugawa was appointed the chief advisor of Hideyoshi’s young heir. He became the ultimate victor of this period after the Battle of Sekigahara.
This period saw the art of tea flourishing. Nobunaga and Hideyoshi were enthusiastic collectors of tea ceremony utensils.
Also known as the Tokugawa Shogunate, this period was during the pre modern centuries when Japan was under the de facto rule of Tokugawa Shoguns.
Although the laws were harsh and brutal, the country enjoyed peace and saw economic growth. Japanese art forms like Kabuki flourished.
With the arrival of the Black Ships and American Commodore Matthew C. Perry, Japan realized how backwards they were when compared to the West.
Following the Boshin War, Emperor Meiji was restored to nominal supreme rule. Under his rule, Japan became a leading international power. Japan came to be known as one of the Great Powers of the world.
There was also a rise of State Shintoism. Here Shinti rites were used to endorse radical nationalism.
Prewar Showa Period and World War II
Named after Emperor Showa, the period is divided into three phases. These were the years before the war, the war itself, and the post war years.
This period lasted from 1926 to 1945. The Marco Polo Bridge incident at Wanping, China, caused the outbreak of the Second Sino Japanese War. While Japan was victorious numerous times, the United States imposed harsh sanctions and Japan formed an alliance with Germany and Italy.
Almost all Southeast Asian colonies of the European powers were conquered by 1942. But the victory was short lived. The Japanese military suffered many bloody defeats after the Battle of Midway. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 led to Japan announcing an unconditional surrender.
Post War Showa Period
Following the surrender, Emperor Hirohito was stripped of his wartime territorial gains. However, Japan remained largely intact.
After the end of the Allied Occupation, the Japanese economy ade a quick recovery. By the 80s, Japan became one of the richest nations in the world and was praised for its economic and technological developments.
After the death of Emperor Hirohito, Japan was in a struggle with a stagnant economy, rapidly aging population and strained relations with regional neighbours.
This period is marked by two devastating earthquakes. They are Kobe of 1995 and Tohoku of 2011.
One of the world’s most isolated and underdeveloped nations has now become one of the most powerful nations and a vacation destination for millions.
List of Japanese Historical Periods: FAQs
What is the oldest Japanese period?
The Jomon Period is the oldest Japanese period.
How many eras did Japan have?
Japan has four eras- Meiji, Taisho, Showa and Heisei.
Hiya! I’m the main author of Japan Truly. I love everything Japan and love testing out Japanese products, be it skincare and makeup or gadgets! You’ll find reviews of some of the best selling Japanese products (tried and tested) right here! | <urn:uuid:ca0d39d9-e67f-470d-a239-bbf16ba8f79d> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://japantruly.com/japanese-historical-periods/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320301730.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20220120065949-20220120095949-00338.warc.gz | en | 0.97051 | 2,262 | 3.859375 | 4 |
There are many folk stories and anecdotes related to this shrine, such as the waka poem by Kino Tsurayuki, and the story of a filial lieutenant general, which was introduced in "The Pillow Book" by Sei Shonagon.
Kino Tsurayuki made a waka poem to ask for the deity's forgiveness about 1100 years ago.
Sei Shonagon wrote an essay about the story of Aritoshi Shrine in her famous book, Makura no soshi "The Pillow Book."
1.The Great Noh master, Zeami, who was an exclusive Noh performer for Shogunate, wrote a Yokyoku (song for Noh play), titled "Aridoshi."
2.The shrine was destroyed when the famous warlord, Oda Nobunaga, attacked Saiga, but later it was rebuilt by Toyotomi Hideyori.
This area as well as the shrine was included in the territory of Kishiwada Domain in 1640.
The lord of Kishiwada Domain patronized Aritoshi Shrine as an important shrine to pray for rain.
Shrine structures, such as the main hall, Kagura dance hall, and the votive tablet hall, were donated by the lord.
1.Meiji: Sofukuin Temple, a Miyaji temple (an affiliated temple) of Aritoshi Shrine was abandoned due to the national government's policy of "Separation of Shinto and Buddhism."
2.Taisho: in 1917, the rank of the shrine was raised to "Gosha" from "Sonsha." | <urn:uuid:d47456b6-9cb9-4d56-ad08-2c5d2ad90b5d> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | http://www.aritooshi.org/about.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320306181.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20220129122405-20220129152405-00597.warc.gz | en | 0.978399 | 336 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Being a warrior in feudal Japan was more than just a job. It was a way of life. The collapse of aristocratic rule ushered in a new age of chaos — appropriately called the Warring States period (c.1400-1600) — in which military might dictated who governed and who followed.
The samurai warriors, also known as bushi, took as their creed what later became known as the "Way of the Warrior" (Bushidô), a rigid value system of discipline and honor that required them to live and die in the service of their lords.
If commanded, true bushi were expected to give their lives without hesitation. Any form of disgrace — cowardice, dishonor, defeat — reflected poorly on the lord and was reason enough for a bushi to commit suicide by seppuku, or ritual disembowelment. In return for this devotion, the lord provided protection, financial security, and social status — in short, a reason to live.
The bushi swore unwavering loyalty to their immediate masters in the chain of command. But this wasn't always easy. Frequently, switched loyalties and shifting alliances forced the bushi to decide between obeying the daimyô (baron) or following their more immediate lord.
The daimyô reported to the shôgun, more out of political and military necessity than out of loyalty. The shôgun became the most dominant feudal lord by subduing the other daimyô and receiving from the emperor the impressive title "Barbarian-Quelling Generalissimo." Not that the emperor wielded any sort of political power — the awesome military might of the shôgun often left the emperor little choice but to grant the title.
The shogunal rule of the bakufu, (tent government) began in earnest with the Kamakura period (1185-1333), when the Minamoto clan defeated its bitter rival, the Taira family.
When Mongol invaders tried to land in western Japan, they were repelled by the Kamakura bakufu — with the help of kamikaze, powerful storms thought to be of divine origin. Despite this seeming divine favor, though, the bakufu could not withstand the unstable political situation on the domestic front.
The next to ascend to power were the Ashikaga, who established the Muromachi bakufu (1336-1573). The third Ashikaga shôgun, Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), was a patron of the arts and oversaw such cultural achievements as the construction of the picturesque Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion) and the flowering of Nô drama as the classical theater of Japan. The greatest figure in Nô was Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443), whose aesthetic and critical theories defined the genre and influenced subsequent performing arts.
The downfall of the Ashikaga came about with the rise of the first of three "Great Unifiers" who sought to consolidate power. Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) was a minor daimyô who embarked on a ruthless campaign for control that culminated in the removal of the last Ashikaga shôgun.
It was under Nobunaga's watch that Europeans first arrived in Japan, and he took full advantage of their presence. Part of his military success came from his use of firearms, brought to Japan by the Portuguese, which allowed him swift and complete dominance.
Nobunaga's hostility toward Buddhism, which he expressed by burning countless monasteries and slaughtering monks, made him receptive to the influx of Jesuit missionaries from Spain and Portugal.
When Nobunaga's tenure ended in betrayal and death, the next leader who rose from the ensuing chaos was Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598), one of Nobunaga's loyal vassals.
Originally a peasant of humble origins, Hideyoshi surged through the ranks to become a leading general. His hunger for power knew no bounds. He organized two invasions of Korea (both failed) and schemed to make the Spanish Philippines, China, and even India part of his empire.
Hideyoshi's obsession with complete control pushed him to execute Christian missionaries and even to order the great master of the tea ceremony, Sen no Rikyû (1522-91), to commit suicide for no apparent reason. But because of his peasant origins, Hideyoshi was never able to become shôgun, and instead he became regent to the emperor.
After Hideyoshi's death, another power struggle ensued, in which two factions battled over the realm. The side led by the powerful daimyô Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616) prevailed, and within a short time the mighty Tokugawa bakufu was established in Edo — now known as Tokyo. Centuries of strife were finally over; for the next 300 years, peace and order would rule the land.
|Tennô (Emperor)||Symbolic ruler of Japan, descended from and representative of Shintô deities; during the feudal period, mostly a figurehead.|
|Shôgun (Generalissimo)||Head of bakufu military government, with the power to oversee national affairs; receives title from emperor; usually the strongest daimyô.|
|Daimyô (Lord of a domain)||Powerful warlord with control over territories of varying size; strength frequently determined by the domain's kokudaka (tax based upon rice production).|
|Kerai or Gokenin (Vassal)||Loyal to the daimyô; receives fiefs or rice stipends from the daimyô; some comparable in strength to lesser daimyô.|
|Bugyô (Magistrate)||Appointed by the shôgun to oversee a specific government post (e.g., finance, construction), a large city (e.g., Edo, Nagasaki), or a region.|
|Daikan (Intendant)||Appointed by the daimyô or the shôgun to collect taxes and oversee administration of local regions.|
|Shôya (Village headman)||Commoner appointed by the daimyô or the shôgun to represent the bakufu at the village level.| | <urn:uuid:92a46046-b9aa-49ca-aa79-30ae17bf6400> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://www.ushistory.org/civ/10c.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320306181.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20220129122405-20220129152405-00667.warc.gz | en | 0.956479 | 1,325 | 3.796875 | 4 |
Lifespan: 1531 (?) to 1521 of Tenshō 3 (1575)
Title: Assistant for the Imperial Guards
Clan: Hara (a branch of the Mino-Toki clan)
Lord: Takeda Shingen → Takeda Katsuyori
Father: Hara Masatoshi
Children: Masahide, Masahiro, Sadatane
Hara Masatane served as a bushō during the Sengoku period. Masatane was a retainer of the Kai-Takeda clan and one of the Twenty-Four Generals of the Takeda.
Masatane was born as the eldest son of Hara Masatoshi. The Hara from which Masatoshi and Masatane originated were a branch of the Toki clan of Mino Province. Hara Toratane, a commander of the ashigaru, or foot soldiers, in the Takeda family originated from a branch of the Chiba clan – a separate lineage from Masatoshi and Masatane.
In 1550, Masatane inherited the headship of the family and served as a director of a cavalry of 120 mounted soldiers as a senior figure in the Takeda clan.
Masatane’s name first appears on a document for deployment to the Shimoina District under the Koike clan of Kai for the invasion of Mino in the eleventh month of 1556. As a close associate of Takeda Shingen, Masatane performed official duties including the issuance of licenses with seals under the provincial laws. In 1561, during an invasion of the western portion of Kōzuke Province, Masatane joined Atobe Katsusuke, Sone Toranaga, and Tsuchiya Masatsugu as intermediaries with influential clans in Kōzuke.
Masatoshi served as an intermediary between the Ichinomiya-Nukisaki Shrine and the Takayama, Obata and Takada clans. In a written pledge for Shimonogo from 1567, he was responsible for the pledge from the Kōzuke clans.
In the seventh month of 1569, during the Invasion of Suruga and after two earlier attempts, the Takeda finally captured Ōmiya Castle which had been held by the Fuji clan on the side of the Imagawa. Masatane, along with Ichikawa Masafusa, governed shrines and temples including the Fuijsan-Hongū Sengen Grand Shrine and the Shizuoka Sengen Shrine. Given that Masatane was active in the area around Ōmiya Castle, he may also have served as the chamberlain of the castle. He further served as an intermediary between Asahina Nobuoki and Matsui Munetsune.
Masatane’s name appears along with Yamagata Masakage on licenses with seals to provide assorted exemptions from levies and for military conscription to the citizens of townships and villages in Kai Province. His name further appears on verdicts and other documents related to the resolution of disputes.
Although the timing and details are unclear, he temporarily lost his position and, between 1570 and 1572, was pardoned through the mediation of Kankura Hyōgo-no-suke, a retainer of the Hōjō under the command of the Usui-Hara clan. On 5/21 of Tenshō 3 (1575), Masatane was killed in action at the Battle of Nagashino against the allied forces of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu. | <urn:uuid:61fd41b2-478c-4dd9-80bd-2e041a98ffdd> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://sengokujidai.org/characters-and-clans%E3%80%8C%E4%BA%BA%E7%89%A9%E3%83%BB%E6%B0%8F%E3%80%8D/characters/25243-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320300849.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220118122602-20220118152602-00569.warc.gz | en | 0.948408 | 786 | 3.046875 | 3 |
“Honnō-ji incident” refers to an event that took place on 21 June 1582 in Kyoto, Japan.
Akechi Mitsuhide, a prominent general under the great Oda Nobunaga, had turned on his lord and launched a surprise attack that led to a forced suicide by Nobunaga and his son Nobutada. This was an important event, because Nobunaga, at heights of his powers, was well on his way to unify Japan and become its warlord.
The name comes from 本能寺の変, Honnō-ji no Hen, Honnō-ji being the temple, no being the possessive case, meaning “at”, and 変 – hen meaning… incident? But 変 means “odd, weird, strange”, therefore we could translate the name as “The weird thing that happened at Honnō temple.” Calling a bloody coup an odd, weird thing is truly strange. | <urn:uuid:1e758952-aa85-4ada-b30b-e10ec335cc1e> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://petersfrontier.com/2020/05/10/philology-of-the-day-honno-ji-incident/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320304954.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20220126131707-20220126161707-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.981895 | 210 | 2.96875 | 3 |
The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the Tokugawa bakufu (徳川幕府) and the Edo bakufu (江戸幕府), was a feudal Japanese military government which existed between 1600 and 1868. The heads of government were the shoguns, and each was a member of the Tokugawa clan. The Tokugawa shogunate ruled from Edo Castle and the years of shogunate became known as the Edo period. This time is also called the Tokugawa period or pre-modern (Kinsei).
- 1 History
- 2 Government
- 3 Institutions of the shogunate
- 4 Late Tokugawa Shogunate (1853–1867)
- 5 List of the Tokugawa shoguns
- 6 See also
- 7 Notes
- 8 References
- 9 Further reading
- 10 External links
Following the Sengoku Period of "warring states", central government had been largely reestablished by Oda Nobunaga during the Azuchi-Momoyama period. After the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, central authority fell to Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Society in the Tokugawa period, unlike the shogunates before it, was supposedly based on the strict class hierarchy originally established by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The daimyo, or lords, were at the top, followed by the warrior-caste of samurai, with the farmers, artisans, and traders ranking below. In some parts of the country, particularly smaller regions, daimyo and samurai were more or less identical, since daimyo might be trained as samurai, and samurai might act as local rulers. Otherwise, the largely inflexible nature of this social stratification system unleashed disruptive forces over time. Taxes on the peasantry were set at fixed amounts which did not account for inflation or other changes in monetary value. As a result, the tax revenues collected by the samurai landowners were worth less and less over time. This often led to numerous confrontations between noble but impoverished samurai and well-to-do peasants, ranging from simple local disturbances to much bigger rebellions. None, however, proved compelling enough to seriously challenge the established order until the arrival of foreign powers.
Toward the end of the 19th century, an alliance of several of the more powerful daimyo, along with the titular Emperor, finally succeeded in the overthrow of the shogunate after the Boshin War, culminating in the Meiji Restoration. The Tokugawa Shogunate came to an official end in 1868, with the resignation of the 15th Tokugawa Shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu and the "restoration" (Ōsei fukko) of imperial rule. Despite this, the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate brought Japan the longest period of peace and stability in its history, lasting well over 200 years.
Shogunate and domain
The bakuhan taisei (幕藩体制) was the feudal political system in the Edo period of Japan. Baku, or "tent," is an abbreviation of bakufu, meaning "military government" — that is, the shogunate. The han were the domains headed by daimyo.
Vassals held inherited lands and provided military service and homage to their lords. The Bakuhan Taisei split feudal power between the shogunate in Edo and provincial domains throughout Japan. Provinces had a degree of sovereignty and were allowed an independent administration of the Han in exchange for loyalty to the Shogun, who was responsible for foreign relations and national security. The shogun and lords were all daimyo: feudal lords with their own bureaucracies, policies, and territories. The Shogun also administered the most powerful han, the hereditary fief of the House of Tokugawa. Each level of government administered its own system of taxation.
The Shogun had the military power of Japan and was more powerful than the emperor, who was a religious and political leader.
The shogunate had the power to discard, annex, and transform domains. The sankin kōtai system of alternative residence required each daimyo would reside in alternate years between the han and attendance in Edo. In their absence from Edo it was also required that they leave family as hostages until their return. The huge expenditure sankin-kotai imposed on each han helped centralize aristocratic alliances and ensured loyalty to the Shogun as each representative doubled as a potential hostage.
Tokugawa's descendants further ensured loyalty by maintaining a dogmatic insistence on loyalty to the Shogun. Fudai daimyo were hereditary vassals of Ieyasu, as well as of his descendants. Tozama, or "outsiders", became vassals of Ieyasu after the battle of Sekigahara. Shinpan, or "relatives", were collaterals of Tokugawa Hidetada. Early in the Edo period, the shogunate viewed the tozama as the least likely to be loyal; over time, strategic marriages and the entrenchment of the system made the tozama less likely to rebel. In the end, it was the great tozama of Satsuma, Chōshū and Tosa and to a lesser extent Hizen that brought down the shogunate. These four states are called the Four Western Clans or Satchotohi for short.
The number of han (roughly 250) fluctuated throughout the Edo period. They were ranked by size, which was measured as the number of koku that the domain produced each year. One koku was the amount of rice necessary to feed one adult male for one year. The minimum number for a daimyo was ten thousand koku; the largest, apart from the shogun, was a million.
Shogun and emperor
Despite the establishment of the shogunate, the emperor in Kyoto was still the legitimate ruler of Japan. Regardless of the political title of the emperor, the "shoguns of the Tokugawa family controlled Japan." The administration (体制 taisei ) of Japan was a task given by the Imperial Court in Kyoto to the Tokugawa family, which they returned to the court in the Meiji Restoration. While the emperor had the prerogative of appointing the shogun, he had virtually no say in state affairs . The shogunate appointed a liaison, the Kyoto Shoshidai (Shogun's Representative in Kyoto), to deal with the emperor, court and nobility.
Towards the end of the shogunate, however, after centuries of the emperor having very little say in state affairs and being secluded in his Kyoto palace, and in the wake of the reigning shogun, Tokugawa Iemochi, marrying the sister of Emperor Komei (r. 1846-1867), in 1862, the imperial court in Kyoto began to enjoy increased political influence. The emperor would occasionally be consulted on various policies and the shogun even made a visit to Kyoto to visit the emperor.
Shogun and foreign trade
Foreign affairs and trade were monopolized by the shogunate, yielding a huge profit. Foreign trade was also permitted to the Satsuma and the Tsushima domains.
The visits of the Nanban ships from Portugal were at first the main vector of trade exchanges, followed by the addition of Dutch, English and sometimes Spanish ships.
From 1603 onward, Japan started to participate actively in foreign trade. In 1615, an embassy and trade mission under Hasekura Tsunenaga was sent across the Pacific to Nueva España (New Spain) on the Japanese-built galleon San Juan Bautista. Until 1635, the Shogun issued numerous permits for the so-called "red seal ships" destined for the Asian trade.
After 1635 and the introduction of Seclusion laws, inbound ships were only allowed from China, Korea, and the Netherlands.
Shogun and Christianity
Followers of Christianity first began appearing in Japan during the 16th century. Oda Nobunaga, however, embraced Christianity and the Western technology that was imported with it, such as the musket. He also saw it as a tool he could use to suppress Buddhist forces.
Though Christianity was allowed to grow until the 1610s, Tokugawa Ieyasu soon began to see it as a growing threat to the stability of the Shogunate. As Ogosho ("Cloistered Shogun"), he influenced the implementing of laws that banned the practice of Christianity. His successors followed suit, compounding upon Ieyasu's laws. The ban of Christianity is often linked with the creation of the Seclusion laws, or Sakoku, in the 1630s.
Institutions of the shogunate
Rōjū and wakadoshiyori
The rōjū (老中) were the senior members of the shogunate. They supervised the ōmetsuke, machibugyō, ongokubugyō and other officials, oversaw relations with the Imperial Court in Kyoto, kuge (members of the nobility), daimyo, Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, and attended to matters like divisions of fiefs. Normally, four or five men held the office, and one was on duty for a month at a time on a rotating basis. They conferred on especially important matters. In the administrative reforms of 1867 (Keiō Reforms), the office was eliminated in favor of a bureaucratic system with ministers for the interior, finance, foreign relations, army, and navy.
In principle, the requirements for appointment to the office of rōjū were to be a fudai daimyo and to have a fief assessed at 50 000 koku or more. However, there were exceptions to both criteria. Many appointees came from the offices close to the shogun, such as soba yōnin, Kyoto shoshidai, and Osaka jōdai.
Irregularly, the shoguns appointed a rōjū to the position of tairō (great elder). The office was limited to members of the Ii, Sakai, Doi, and Hotta clans, but Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu was given the status of tairō as well. Among the most famous was Ii Naosuke, who was assassinated in 1860 outside the Sakuradamon Gate of Edo Castle (Sakuradamon incident).
The wakadoshiyori were next in status below the rōjū. An outgrowth of the early six-man rokuninshū (1633–1649), the office took its name and final form in 1662, but with four members. Their primary responsibility was management of the affairs of the hatamoto and gokenin, the direct vassals of the shogun.
Some shoguns appointed a soba yōnin. This person acted as a liaison between the shogun and the rōjū. The soba yōnin increased in importance during the time of the fifth shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, when a wakadoshiyori, Inaba Masayasu, assassinated Hotta Masatoshi, the tairō. Fearing for his personal safety, Tsunayoshi moved the rōjū to a more distant part of the castle. Some of the most famous soba yōnin were Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and Tanuma Okitsugu.
Ōmetsuke and metsuke
The ōmetsuke and metsuke were officials who reported to the rōjū and wakadoshiyori. The five ōmetsuke were in charge of monitoring the affairs of the daimyo, kuge and imperial court. They were in charge of discovering any threat of rebellion. Early in the Edo period, daimyo such as Yagyū Munefuyu held the office. Soon, however, it fell to hatamoto with rankings of 5000 koku or more. To give them authority in their dealings with daimyo, they were often ranked at 10 000 koku and given the title of kami (an ancient title, typically signifying the governor of a province) such as Bizen-no-kami.
As time progressed, the function of the ōmetsuke evolved into one of passing orders from the shogunate to the daimyo, and of administering to ceremonies within Edo Castle. They also took on additional responsibilities such as supervising religious affairs and controlling firearms. The metsuke, reporting to the wakadoshiyori, oversaw the affairs of the vassals of the shogun. They were the police force for the thousands of hatamoto and gokenin who were concentrated in Edo. Individual han had their own metsuke who similarly policed their samurai.
The san-bugyō ("three administrators") were the jisha, kanjō, and machi-bugyō, which oversaw temples and shrines, accounting, and the cities, respectively. The jisha bugyō had the highest status of the three. They oversaw the administration of Buddhist temples (ji) and Shinto shrines (sha), many of which held fiefs. Also, they heard lawsuits from several land holdings outside the eight Kantō provinces. The appointments normally went to daimyo; Ōoka Tadasuke was an exception, though he later became a daimyo.
The kanjō bugyō were next in status. The four holders of this office reported to the rōjū. They were responsible for the finances of the shogunate.
The machi bugyō were the chief city administrators of Edo and other cities. Their roles included mayor, chief of the police (and, later, also of the fire department), and judge in criminal and civil matters not involving samurai. Two (briefly, three) men, normally hatamoto, held the office, and alternated by month.
Three Edo machi bugyō have become famous through jidaigeki (period films): Ōoka Tadasuke and Tōyama Kinshirō as heroes, and Torii Yōzō as a villain.
The san-bugyō together sat on a council called the hyōjōsho. In this capacity, they were responsible for administering the tenryō, supervising the gundai, the daikan and the kura bugyō, as well as hearing cases involving samurai.
Tenryō, gundai and daikan
The shogun directly held lands in various parts of Japan. These were known as bakufu chokkatsuchi; since the Meiji period, the term tenryō has become synonymous. In addition to the territory that Ieyasu held prior to the Battle of Sekigahara, this included lands he gained in that battle and lands gained as a result of the Summer and Winter Sieges of Osaka. By the end of the seventeenth century, the shogun's landholdings had reached four million koku. Such major cities as Nagasaki and Osaka, and mines, including the Sado gold mine, also fell into this category.
The gaikoku bugyō were administrators appointed between 1858 and 1868. They were charged with overseeing trade and diplomatic relations with foreign countries, and were based in the treaty ports of Nagasaki and Kanagawa (Yokohama).
Late Tokugawa Shogunate (1853–1867)
The Late Tokugawa Shogunate (Japanese: 幕末 Bakumatsu) was the period between 1853 and 1867, during which Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy called sakoku and modernized from a feudal shogunate to the Meiji government. It is at the end of the Edo period and preceded the Meiji era. The major ideological and political factions during this period were divided into the pro-imperialist Ishin Shishi (nationalist patriots) and the shogunate forces, including the elite shinsengumi (newly selected corps) swordsmen.
Although these two groups were the most visible powers, many other factions attempted to use the chaos of the Bakumatsu era to seize personal power. Furthermore there were two other main driving forces for dissent; first, growing resentment of tozama daimyo (or outside lords), and second, growing anti-Western sentiment following the arrival of Perry. The first related to those lords who had fought against Tokugawa forces at Sekigahara (in 1600 AD) and had from that point on been exiled permanently from all powerful positions within the shogunate. The second was to be expressed in the phrase sonnō jōi, or "revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians". The turning points of the Bakumatsu were the Boshin War and the Battle of Toba-Fushimi, when pro-shogunate forces were defeated.
List of the Tokugawa shoguns
|Shogun From||Shogun Until|
Over the course of the Edo period, influential relatives of the shogun included:
- Tokugawa Mitsukuni of the Mito domain
- Tokugawa Nariaki of the Mito domain
- Tokugawa Mochiharu of the Hitotsubashi branch
- Tokugawa Munetake of the Tayasu branch.
- Matsudaira Katamori of the Aizu branch.
- Matsudaira Sadanobu, born into the Tayasu branch, adopted into the Hisamatsu-Matsudaira of Shirakawa.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tokugawa shogunate.|
- Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Tokugawa-jidai" in Japan Encyclopedia, p. 978.
- Nussbaum, "Shogun" at pp. 878-879.
- Nussbaum, "Tokugawa" at p. 976.
- Nussbaum, "Edo-jidai" at p. 167.
- Nussbaum, "Kinsei" at p. 525.
- Nussbaum, "Satchotohi" at pp. 826-827.
- Jansen 2002, p. 144-148.
- Keene, Donald Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912(2005, Columbia University Press) pg. 62
- Chie Nakane and Shinzaburou Oishi (1990). Tokugawa Japan - The Social and Economic Antecedents of Modern Japan. University of Tokyo Press. pp.12.
- Nussbaum, "Ogosho" at p. 738.
- Chie Nakane and Shinzaburou Oishi (1990). Tokugawa Japan - The Social and Economic Antecedents of Modern Japan. University of Tokyo Press. pp.24-28.
- Nussbaum, "Kanjō bugyō" at p. 473.
- Nussbaum, "Tenryō" at p. 961.
- Shinsengumi, The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps, Romulus, Hillsborough, Tuttle Publishing, 2005
- Last Samurai - The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori, Mark Ravina, John Wiley & Sons, 2004
- Nussbaum, "Tokugawa Mitsukuni" at p. 979.
- Nussbaum, "Tokugawa Nariaki" at p. 979.
- Nussbaum, "Tayasu" at p. 954.
- Nussbaum, "Matsudaira Katamori" at p. 616.
- Nussbaum, "Matsudaira Sadanobu" at p. 617.
- Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005). Japan Encyclopedia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 10-ISBN 0-674-01753-6; 13-ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5; OCLC 48943301
This article incorporates public domain material from the Library of Congress Country Studies website http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/.
- Bolitho, Harold. (1974). Treasures Among Men: The Fudai Daimyo in Tokugawa Japan. New Haven: Yale University Press. 10-ISBN 0-300-01655-7/13-ISBN 978-0-300-01655-0; OCLC 185685588
- Totman, Conrad. The Collapse of the Tokugawa Bakufu, 1862-1868. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1980.
- Totman, Conrad. Politics in the Tokugawa Bakufu, 1600-1843. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967.
- Waswo, Ann Modern Japanese Society 1868-1994
- The Center for East Asian Cultural Studies Meiji Japan Through Contemporary Sources, Volume Two 1844-1882
- Tokugawa Political System
- SengokuDaimyo.com The website of Samurai Author and Historian Anthony J. Bryant
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Masashige was the 4th son of Honda Toshimasa and a younger brother of Honda Masanobu. He at first served Tokugawa Ieyasu and became known for his bravery in combat, to the extent that Oda Nobunaga himself made mention of Masashige's prowess. Yet, not long after serving at the battle of Nagashino and assisting in the recapture of Futamata castle in 1575, Masashige left the Tokugawa and took up service with Oda retainer Takigawa Kazumasu. In 1583 Masashige left Takigawa to serve Maeda Toshiie and led troops for the latter against Sassa Narimasa. Not one to settle down for long, it would seem, Masashige next entered the employment of Gamô Ujisato and fought with distinction in the Kyushu Campaign (1587). Masashige next came into some sort of dispute with the Gamô and departed their service. Finally, in 1596, Masashige returned to the Tokugawa and fought under their standard at the Battle of Sekigahara (1600). He was afterwards given a fief in Shimôsa province but retired in 1616 and went to Kyoto, where he died the following year.
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Inuyama Castle is often said as the oldest castle of Japan. It was built in 1440 by Oda Nobunaga, one of Japan's most famous war lords, for his war base. However, the castle was destroyed during the earthquake in 1891. The owners, Naruse family, managed its restoration until it was given to the government in 2004. As such, it was also the only privately-owned castles in Japan.
A warning : the castle is a steep climb, however the view from the top is really impressive.
Need immediate assistance? Choose your plan. Enjoy 10% discount until July 10th.**
You're purchasing for ¥ | <urn:uuid:7a826d5e-c267-4167-8d6f-2589364e4959> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | https://lev-art.com/location/26631.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912203448.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20190324124545-20190324150545-00202.warc.gz | en | 0.988012 | 134 | 2.65625 | 3 |
|Part of the Sengoku period|
Location of Kaga Province in Japan
|Commanders and leaders|
|Togashi Masachika †|
The Kaga Rebellion or Chōkyō Uprising was a large-scale revolt in Kaga Province (present-day southern Ishikawa Prefecture), Japan, in late 1487 through 1488. Togashi Masachika, who ruled Kaga Province as shugo, had been restored to power in 1473 with aid from the Asakura clan as well as the Ikkō-ikki, a loose collection of lesser nobility, monks, and farmers. By 1474, however, the Ikkō-ikki grew discontent with Masachika, and launched some initial revolts, which were easily quelled. In 1487, when Masachika left on a military campaign, between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand Ikkō-ikki revolted. Masachika returned with his army, but the Ikkō-ikki, backed by several disaffected vassal families, overwhelmed his army and surrounded him in his palace, where he committed seppuku. The former vassals of Masachika granted the position of shugo to Masachika's uncle Yasutaka, but over the next several decades, the Ikkō-ikki increased their political hold on the province, which they would effectively control for almost a century.
Background and initial revolts
During the 15th century in Japan, peasant revolts, known as ikki, became much more commonplace. During the turmoil of the Ōnin War (1467–1477) and subsequent years, these rebellions increased in both frequency and success. Many of these rebels became known as Ikkō-ikki, a collection of peasant farmers, Buddhist monks, Shinto priests, and jizamurai (lesser nobles) who all espoused belief in the Jōdo Shinshū sect of Buddhism. Rennyo, the Hongan-ji abbot who led the Jōdo Shinshū movement, attracted a large following in Kaga and Echizen Province, but distanced himself from the political goals of the ikki, advocating violence only for self-defense or defense of one's religion.
During the mid-15th century, a civil war broke out among the Togashi clan over the position of shugo. Togashi Masachika had been driven out of Kaga by his younger brother, Kochiyo. When the Ōnin War broke out in 1467, Masachika sided with Hosokawa and Kochiyo with Yamana. In 1473, Masachika requested aid from Asakura Toshikaga, the lord of Echizen and ally of Hosokawa, as well as from the priests of Yoshizaki, who were associated with Rennyo. Masachika promised the ikki that if restored to power, he would lift his supporters out of their poverty. Further motivating the ikki to support Masachika were the religious policies of Kochiyo: Kochiyo patronized the Takada school of Jōdo Shinshū, a fierce rival to the Hongan-ji for control of the Shinshū sect, and persecuted followers of the Hongan-ji. Toshikaga pledged his support, as did the Yoshizaki priests, the latter prior to any approval from Rennyo. Rennyo eventually granted his approval to the actions of the Yoshizaki priests, and with Toshikaga providing military aid and the Ikkō-ikki rioting throughout Kaga, Masachika quickly overthrew his brother. But Ikkō-ikki support of Masachika was short-lived. By 1474, the Ikkō-ikki were in dispute with Masachika as they claimed that he did not fulfill his promises of economic reward, and they attempted a rebellion. Rennyo refused to support their actions and the rebels were quickly defeated and forced to take refuge in Etchū Province. In 1475, Shimotsuma Rensu, a disciple of Rennyo, falsely claimed that Rennyo supported a renewed uprising in Kaga. The revolt failed, and Rennyo excommunicated Rensu.
Despite the previous revolts having been easily suppressed, unrest continued to simmer in Kaga under Masachika's governance. The Ikkō-ikki who remained in Kaga grew bolder, refusing to pay taxes and even seizing tax revenue and land, despite Rennyo's continued protestations. In 1487, Masachika left with a large army for Ōmi Province in response to a call for aid from shōgun Ashikaga Yoshihisa, who was attempting to suppress the robber baron Rokkaku Tokoyori. In Masachika's absence, the Ikkō-ikki, led by Rengo, Renkō, and Rensei, three sons of Rennyo, launched their revolt and between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand members took up arms. Masachika quickly returned from his military expedition, and defeated the rebels in several battles. However, several vassal families, discontent with Masachika, joined with the rebels. The rebels cut off Masachika from reinforcements from his allies in the bordering Echizen, Etchū, and Noto Provinces, and besieged his castle. Masachika, trapped in a burning castle and faced with certain defeat, committed seppuku. In his place, the vassal families who rebelled against Masachika put forward his uncle and ex-shugo, Yasutaka, as a candidate to be the new shugo.
Following the overthrow of Masachika, Kaga became known as "hyakusho no motaru kuni" ("the kingdom of peasants", or "province ruled by peasants"). Shōgun Yoshihisa, a friend and ally of Masachika, demanded that Rennyo excommunicate the Kaga ikki. However, Hosokawa Masamoto, an influential political figure who was also a close friend and patron of Rennyo, negotiated a deal which permitted Rennyo to merely reprimand the ikki while Masamoto would join the Hongan-ji. In Kaga, Togashi Yasutaka took power as shugo, ruling the province until his death in 1504. Afterward, under the rule of his son, Taneyasu, the ikki began to assert their influence over the vassal families that supported them in the uprising. The ikki soon split into rival political factions and initiated a series of political struggles which culminated in a civil war in 1531. The heads of the three predominant Hongan-ji temples in Kaga, as well as Taneyasu, were defeated when Renjun, a son of Rennyo, brought in Ikkō-ikki troops from Mikawa Province. Upon Renjun's victory, the office of shugo was abolished and the leaders of the opposition were exiled. The Ikkō-ikki would control Kaga until 1580, when forces loyal to Oda Nobunaga defeated them.
- McMullin 2014, p. 38.
- Turnbull 2005, p. 42.
- Davis 1988, p. 239.
- Weinstein 1977, p. 355.
- Solomon 1996, p. 414.
- Weinstein 1977, p. 356.
- Davis 1988, p. 240.
- Solomon 1996, p. 416.
- Weinstein 1977, pp. 356–357.
- Davis 1988, p. 241.
- Blum 2008, p. 161.
- McMullin 2014, p. 39.
- Sugiyama 1994, p. 62.
- Suehiro 2013, p. 92.
- Turnbull 2006, p. 79.
- Blum 2008, pp. 161–162.
- Solomon 1996, p. 417.
- Davis 1988, pp. 241–242.
- Davis 1988, p. 242.
- Davis 1988, pp. 242–243.
- Davis 1988, p. 245.
- Blum, Mark L. (2008). Stone, Jacqueline Ilyse; Walter, Mariko Namba, eds. "Collective Suicide at the Funeral of Jitsunyo: Mimesis or Solidarity?". Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press: 137–174. ISBN 9780824832049.
- Davis, David L. (1988). Hall, John W.; Mass, Jeffrey P., eds. "Ikki in Late Medieval Japan". Medieval Japan: Essays in Institutional History. Stanford: Stanford University Press: 221–247. ISBN 9780804715119.
- McMullin, N. (2014). Buddhism and the State in Sixteenth-Century Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9781400855971.
- Solomon, Michael (1996). Foard, James Harlan; Solomon, Michael; Payne, Richard Karl, eds. "Hoganji under Rennyo: The Development of Shinshū in Medieval Japan". The Pure Land Tradition: History and Development. Fremont, California: Jain Publishing Company: 399–428. ISBN 9780895810922.
- Suehiro, Kitaguchi (2013). An Introduction to the Buraku Issue: Questions and Answers. Translated by Alastair McLauchlan. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781134250691.
- Sugiyama, Shigeki J. (1994). "Honganji in the Muromachi-Sengoku Period: Taking Up the Sword and its Consequences" (PDF). Pacific World. Berkeley, California: Institute of Buddhist Studies. 2 (10): 56–74. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-04-29.
- Turnbull, Stephen (2005). Samurai Commanders: 940–1576. 1. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 9781841767437.
- Turnbull, Stephen (2006). The Samurai and the Sacred. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 9781846030215.
- Weinstein, Stanley (1977). Hall, John Whitney; Toyoda, Takeshi, eds. "Rennyo and the Shinshū Revival". Japan in the Muromachi Age. Oakland: University of California Press: 331–358. ISBN 9780520028883. | <urn:uuid:46ce127d-0d6a-4133-b44f-c4c097387646> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaga_Rebellion | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912203991.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20190325133117-20190325155117-00539.warc.gz | en | 0.913504 | 2,209 | 3.875 | 4 |
1. Meiji Jingu (Tokyo)
Meiji Jingu (明治神宮) enshrines the spirits of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken. Standing within a man-made forest in the heart of Tokyo, the strongest power spot here is said to be Kiyomasa's Well (清正井・Kiyomasa no Ido) in the Inner Garden, said to have been dug by famed castle-builder Kato Kiyomasa. Perfectly transparent water wells up from a natural spring to flow out toward the shrine's south pond. The entrance to the Inner Garden is hidden just off the main path, and requires a fee for entry.
2. Mount Asahidake (Hokkaido)
At 2,291 meters (7,516 ft), Mount Asahidake (旭岳) is the highest peak in Hokkaido, and the pinnacle of the central Daisetsuzan mountain range. The indigenous Ainu people called this area Kamui Mintara, meaning "Playground of Gods." The central power spot is believed to be found right at Asahidake's smoke-spewing peak, which can be accessed via a short climb from the top of the Asahidake Ropeway.
3. Nikko Toshogu (Tochigi)
The mountains of Nikko were considered sacred even before Nikko Toshogu (日光東照宮) was erected in the 17th century to enshrine the first Tokugawa shogun. While Toshogu is the best-known power spot here, don't overlook nearby Futarasan Shrine (二荒山神社・Futarasan Jinja), where the surrounding mountain deities have been worshiped since the eighth century.
4. Yakushima (Kagoshima)
Located about 50 kilometers (31 mi) south of Kyushu, the island of Yakushima (屋久島) is in itself considered a major Japanese power spot, with the Shiratani Unsuikyo Ravine, the 7,200-year-old Jomon Cedar, and Ogawa Falls standing out for specific recognition. The island's spiritual atmosphere served as inspiration for the mystical forest in Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke, and it was one of Japan's first four World Heritage sites inscribed in 1993.
5. Mount Aso (Kumamoto)
Mount Aso (阿蘇山・Aso-san) is the largest active volcano in Japan and a significant power spot. Its caldera has a circumference of some 128 kilometers (80 mi), within which lie three municipalities and five additional peaks, including the active Mount Naka (中岳・Naka-dake), the summit of which can be reached by ropeway. Of particular note are the Oshitoishi (押戸石), literally "Push-door Stones," groups of stones up to 10 meters (33 ft) high located on the vast northern caldera wall. While geologists say these formations are entirely natural, some believe markings on the stones represent evidence of the travels of Sumerian seafarers.
6. Kumano Nachi Taisha (Wakayama)
Kumano Nachi Taisha (熊野那智大社) is one of the Kumano Sanzan, the three central shrines of the Kumano area straddling Wakayama and Mie prefectures (the other two key shrines are Hongu Taisha and Hayatama Taisha). Pilgrim trails called the Kumano Kodo (熊野古道, lit. "Old Road of Kumano") have been traveled in this area for over 1,000 years, and form part of the UNESCO-recognized Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
The shrine stands adjacent to Seiganto-ji Temple (青岸渡寺), which is famous for its three-story pagoda standing before the 133-meter (436-ft) height of Nachi Falls. The original focus of religious worship in the area, the falls are still used for ascetic training by Shugendo mountain monks, and represent a power spot in themselves.
7. Lake Biwa (Shiga)
Lake Biwa (琵琶湖・Biwa-ko) is Japan's largest lake. While the lake is believed to be a power spot in itself, a particular point of focus is Chikubu Island (竹生島・Chikubu-shima), located in the lake's far north. Just 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) in circumference, the island is believed to have the power to grant wishes.
Emperor Shomu, who reigned during the middle years of the Nara Period (710-794), is said to have received a divine message from the sun goddess Amaterasu that Benzaiten—goddess of wealth, eloquence, wisdom and water—had descended upon this island, and that a temple should be built there. Founded in 724, Hogonji Temple (宝厳寺) stands as the oldest of the three most famous temples and shrines dedicated to this goddess (the others are on Itsukushima Island in Hiroshima and Enoshima Island in Kanagawa).
8. Dewa Sanzan (Yamagata)
The Three Mountains of Dewa (出羽三山・Dewa Sanzan)—Mount Haguro (羽黒山・Haguro-san), Mount Gassan (月山・Gassan) and Mount Yudono (湯殿山・Yudono-san)—are said to be the first known site of mountain worship in Japan, dating back some 1,400 years.
Representing birth (Haguro), death (Gassan) and rebirth (Yudono), the shrine at the top of each mountain is believed to be a power spot, with the shrine atop Mount Yudono so holy that no photos are allowed and what occurs there is not to be spoken of. The mountains are particularly sacred to practitioners of the ascetic Shugendo mountain religion.
9. Atsuta Jingu (Aichi)
Atsuta Jingu (熱田神宮) was founded to enshrine the sacred sword Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi (草薙剣), one of the Three Sacred Treasures of Japan (the other two being the mirror Yata no Kagami and the jewel Yasakani no Magatama).
Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi is held to be the embodiment of the sun goddess Amaterasu, who received the blade from her brother Susano-o (who found it in the tail of an eight-headed serpent he defeated). The shrine is said to have been established in the second century A.D. following the death of Yamato Takeru, a legendary hero who was given the sword by the high priestess at Ise Jingu. Even today, the sword is used in the coronation of a new emperor, but since it stays covered and is never shown to the public—and even the ceremonial version is said to be a replica—it remains unclear whether the original sword actually exists.
The shrine grounds are home to a giant camphor tree said to have been planted by Kukai, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, roughly 1,000 years ago. This is another great site for those in search of power spots in Japan.
10. Mount Hiei (Shiga)
Mount Hiei (比叡山・Hiei-zan) straddles Kyoto and Shiga prefectures. In 788, it was chosen as the site for the head temple of the new Tendai sect of Buddhism, erected at the command of Emperor Kanmu to guard Kyoto from evil spirits thought to approach from the northeast. This is a major holy site and a major Japanese power spot.
Today, Enryaku-ji Temple (延暦寺) comprises over 100 structures spread across the mountain—though at its height, these numbered some 3,000, making Mount Hiei one of Japan's premier spiritual centers in its day. Numerous major Buddhist figures, including Honen and Nichiren, studied here before founding their own sects. In time, the temple became so powerful that it had its own army of warrior monks, and it finally became such a threat that it was sacked by Oda Nobunaga in 1571 during his campaign to unify all of Japan.
In 1994, the temple was recognized by UNESCO among the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto. Its main sanctuary, the Konpon-chudo, is home to a light that has burned for over 1,200 years, ever since the temple was founded.
11. Okunoin (Wakayama)
Okunoin (奥の院) is located in the Mount Koya (高野山・Koyasan) region of Wakayama Prefecture. This is the site of a vast religious community founded by the priest Kukai, posthumously known as Kobo Daishi, who lived from the eight to ninth centuries. Kukai was the founder of the Shingon Buddhist sect, and Okunoin is his mausoleum, where is he is believed to be not dead, but in a state of eternal meditation.
With many other notable personages looking to join the famed priest in enlightenment, this has also become Japan's largest cemetery, with over 200,000 tombstones lining the 2-kilometer (1.2-mi) approach to the mausoleum. One of Japan's most sacred places and a key power spot, the various temples and pilgrimage routes are recognized by UNESCO among the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
12. Mount Osore (Aomori)
Mount Osore (恐山・Osore-zan)—literally, "Mount Fear"—stands along with Shiga's Mount Hiei and Wakayama's Koyasan as one of the three most sacred places in Japan. Believed to be the entranceway to the Buddhist afterworld, the smell of sulfur fills the air here at the northern tip of Aomori's Shimokita Peninsula. Here you can find poisonous Lake Usori and small cairns piled up along Sai no Kawara (賽の河原), believed to be the riverbed where the souls of departed children await salvation. The temple here, Bodai-ji (菩提寺), holds festivals in late July and early October where people hope to communicate with lost loved ones through blind mediums called itako. If you're in search of mystic power spots in Japan, this is a big one!
13. Kurama-dera Temple (Kyoto)
Kurama-dera (鞍馬寺) is located in the mountains about 30 minutes north of Kyoto city center. Situated about halfway up Mount Kurama and accessible via cable car, it's said to be the birthplace of reiki, a form of alternative medicine that practices palm healing through "universal energy." It's further believed you will feel a surge of energy if you stand in the center of a hexagram before the temple's main hall.
The temple was built here in the year 770. After switching denomination a few times, it's no longer affiliated with any other Buddhist sect, but now worships a trinity it calls the Sonten, which comprises Bishamonten (one of the Seven Lucky Gods), the Thousand-Armed Kannon, and Maoson, a deity said to have come from Venus 6.5 million years ago.
The mountain is further believed to be home of the king of the tengu, who supposedly taught swordsmanship to the renowned 12th-century warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune. This power spot offers a unique mix of traditional Japanese and more modern occult beliefs.
14. Suwa Taisha (Nagano)
Suwa Taisha (諏訪大社), or Suwa Grand Shrine, is one of the oldest shrines in Japan. Now head of some 10,000 Suwa Shrines, the Nihon Shoki (日本書紀), the second-oldest book of classical Japanese history, dates it to at least the seventh century. The shrine actually consists of four separate structures—each a power spot in its own right—in paired clusters to the north and south of Lake Suwa in Nagano. The precincts of each of the four structures are marked with four giant pillars, which are replaced every six years in a raucous—and sometimes deadly—festival called the Onbashira, next to be held in April and May 2022.
15. Mount Fuji (Shizuoka/Yamanashi)
Mount Fuji (富士山・Fuji-san) is not only Japan's most iconic mountain, it is worshipped as a deity in itself. Located in Fujinomiya City to the southwest of Mount Fuji, Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha (富士山本宮浅間大社) is considered part of the Mount Fuji power spot, while the shrine claims the top of Mount Fuji from the eighth stage up as part of its grounds.
Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha is said to have been established by Emperor Suinin, the 11th emperor of Japan, believed to have reigned from the first century B.C. to the first century A.D. He enshrined Asama no Okami, wife of Ninigi no Mikoto, at the foot of Mount Fuji to calm its eruptions, and the top portion of the now-quiescent volcano is believed to be a manifestation of her heavenly incarnation.
16. Ise Jingu (Mie)
Ise Jingu (伊勢神宮), also called Ise Grand Shrine or simply Jingu, is the holiest Shinto shrine in Japan, enshrining the sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami. It is also believed to house the sacred mirror, Yata no Kagami (八咫鏡), used to lure the sun goddess out of a cave in which she had hid herself away, depriving the world of light. Long a site of pilgrimages for Japanese people, the shrine is often visited by the imperial family, and the upper echelons of the priesthood are largely of imperial lineage. A power spot that calls on the power of the sun goddess—what more could you ask for?
17. Togakushi Shrine (Nagano)
Togakushi Shrine (戸隠神社・Togakushi Jinja) actually consists of five shrines separated by several kilometers of wooded trails. Here you'll find another power spot that traces its origins to the nation's creation myths: when the stone door to the sun goddess' cave was tossed away, it's said to have flown all the way from Miyazaki Prefecture to this spot in Nagano. It landed at the site of what is now Togakushi's upper shrine, or oku-sha (奥社). Togakushi literally means "hidden door."
18. Izumo Taisha (Shimane)
Izumo Taisha (出雲大社), or Izumo Grand Shrine, is generally considered the second-holiest shrine in Japan after Ise Jingu. It is also possibly the oldest shrine in Japan, dating back to at least the seventh century. Izumo Taisha enshrines Okuninushi no Mikoto, son-in-law of Amaterasu's brother Susano-o. Okuninushi is said to have founded the ancient kingdom of Izumo and, in some tellings, may even have contributed to the formation of the islands of Japan.
In the old Japanese calendar, October was known as Kannazuki or Kaminashizuki (神無月), literally "the month without gods," because at this time the myriad gods of the Shinto pantheon were believed to assemble in Izumo. Conversely, October was known in Izumo as Kamiarizuki (神在月 or 神有月), "the month with gods."
This ancient shrine is famous for its giant shimenawa (注連縄) sacred rope, and known as a powerful matchmaking spot. Visitors should clap their hands four times rather than two when praying—twice for themselves, and twice for their (prospective) partners.
19. Amanoiwato Shrine (Miyazaki)
Hidden away in the mountain town of Takachiho in Miyazaki Prefecture, the Nishihongu (West Main Shrine) of Amanoiwato Shrine (天岩戸神社・Amanoiwato Jinja) venerates the cave where the sun goddess is said to have hid herself away. After participating in a Shinto purification ritual, you can step onto an observation deck behind the shrine’s main building to catch a glimpse of the cave itself, though visitors are allowed no closer to this particular power spot. It can be seen—just barely—across the gorge over the small Iwato River. No pictures of the cave are allowed.
20. Kirishima Jingu (Kagoshima)
Kirishima Jingu (霧島神宮), or Kirishima Grand Shrine, was originally built around the sixth century at the foot of Mount Takachiho-no-mine (not to be confused with the Takachiho area of Miyazaki, which is located some 100 kilometers/62 mi to the northeast). However, after repeatedly burning down due to volcanic eruptions, the shrine was moved to its present location roughly 5 kilometers (3.1 mi) to the southwest, and the current construction dates to 1715.
Sitting right on Miyazaki Prefecture's western border with Kagoshima, Takachiho-no-mine is said to be the site where Ninigi no Mikoto, grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu, descended to earth to establish the line of Japanese emperors. The shrine is also believed to be a power spot granting family safety and career success, and an 800-year-old cedar on the site is said to have the power to answer prayers.
We hope that's enough power for you! Japan has many more power spots—every tourist location seems to want one now—but these are some of the biggest you could hope to find! | <urn:uuid:6566539d-15e4-4a66-ac30-c26b880cdb03> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | https://allabout-japan.com/en/article/5484/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912203947.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20190325112917-20190325134917-00124.warc.gz | en | 0.946188 | 4,013 | 2.75 | 3 |
This document reflects emerging clinical and scientific advances as of the date issued and is subject to change. The information should not be construed as dictating an exclusive course of treatment or procedure to be followed.
Approximately 11,000 new spinal cord injuries (SCIs) are reported per year in the United States. More than 50% occur in persons between the ages of 16 and 30 years, with women constituting approximately 18% of these cases. Effective rehabilitation and modern reproductive technology may increase the number of these patients considering pregnancy.
Ideally, women with SCIs who are considering pregnancy should have a preconceptional evaluation. Chronic medical conditions and the woman's adaptation to her disability must be evaluated. Baseline pulmonary function and renal studies may be appropriate. Also, it should be recognized that fertility in these patients usually is not affected, and family planning should be discussed.
It is important that obstetricians caring for such patients acquaint themselves with the problems related to SCIs that may occur throughout pregnancy. Common complications affecting women with SCIs include urinary tract infections, decubital ulcers, impaired pulmonary function, and autonomic dysreflexia. Additional potential complications include anemia, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary emboli, and unattended delivery.
Urinary Tract Infections
Asymptomatic bacteruria occurs in a majority of patients with SCIs during pregnancy. The incidence of lower urinary tract infections and pyelonephritis also is increased. Incomplete bladder emptying, neurogenic bladder, urinary diversions, and indwelling catheters contribute to this risk. Frequent urine cultures or antibiotic suppression are indicated.
Decubital ulcers are a frequently preventable complication in women with SCIs. During pregnancy, women with SCIs should have routine skin examinations, frequent position changes, adequate padding, and appropriately sized medical equipment (eg, wheelchairs). Weight gain and edema also may contribute to decubital ulceration.
Impaired pulmonary function may be present in women with high thoracic or cervical spine lesions. For patients with borderline function, ventilatory support and meticulous attention to pulmonary care is necessary during pregnancy and delivery. Supine positioning may further impair pulmonary function. Serial assessments of vital capacity will help assess the need for ventilatory assistance.
Autonomic dysreflexia is the most significant medical complication occurring in women with SCIs (85% of patients with lesions above T5 through T6 level). This condition is attributed to a loss of hypothalamic control of sympathetic spinal reflexes and occurs in patients with viable spinal cord segments distal to the level of injury. It can occur in patients with incomplete transections. In susceptible patients, afferent stimuli from a hollow viscus (eg, the bladder, bowel, or uterus) and from the skin below the level of the lesion or of the genital areas ascend in the spinothalamic tracts and posterior columns, which causes reflex sympathetic activation unmodified by the supraspinal centers. The resultant catecholamine release and vasoconstriction lead to hypertension associated with headache, bradycardia, tachycardia, cardiac arrhythmia, sweating, flushing, tingling, nasal congestion, piloerection, and, occasionally, respiratory distress. Uteroplacental vasoconstriction may result in fetal hypoxemia.
It is important to avoid stimuli that can lead to autonomic dysreflexia, such as distension or manipulation of the vagina, bladder, urethra, or bowel. During labor, the symptoms of autonomic dysreflexia are commonly synchronous with uterine contractions. The severity of the syndrome during labor ranges from unpleasant symptoms to hypertensive encephalopathy, cerebrovascular accidents, intraventricular and retinal hemorrhages, and death. Therefore, continual hemodynamic monitoring during labor is mandatory in all at-risk patients.
Although patients with SCIs may perceive no pain during labor, anesthesia should be used to prevent autonomic dysreflexia. Spinal or epidural anesthesia extending to the T10 level is the most reliable method of preventing autonomic dysreflexia by blocking stimuli that arise from pelvic organs. Therefore, antepartum consultation with an anesthesiologist and the establishment of a plan for induction of epidural or spinal anesthesia at the onset of labor is imperative. If autonomic dysreflexia occurs before a regional anesthetic is available or occurs despite regional anesthesia, hypertension may be treated with antihypertensive agents that have a rapid onset and short duration of action (eg, sodium nitroprusside or nitroglycerin), ganglionic blocking agents (eg, trimethaphan), adrenergic blocking agents (eg, guanethidine), or a direct vasodilator (eg, hydralazine).
If there is evidence of autonomic dysreflexia during the second stage of labor, delivery can be expedited by forceps or vacuum assisted delivery with adequate anesthesia. If autonomic dysreflexia during labor cannot be controlled by any means, cesarean delivery may be necessary. Adequate anesthesia, spinal or epidural if possible, is needed for cesarean deliveries in all patients with SCIs.
Ascertainment of Labor
Women with SCIs may give birth vaginally. Women with spinal cord transection above the T10 segment may have painless labor. In a patient with total transection at a lower thoracic level, labor pain may be so reduced that the patient is unaware of uterine contractions, especially during sleep. However, symptoms under the control of the sympathetic nervous system (eg, abdominal or leg spasms, shortness of breath, increased spasticity) concurrent with uterine contractions may make patients aware of labor. Patients should be instructed in uterine palpation techniques to detect contractions at home.
Excess weight gain may increase the difficulty of moving and transporting pregnant women with SCIs. Muscle-strengthening exercises may be recommended for the upper extremities of nonquadriplegic patients. For all patients, elevation of the legs and range-of-motion exercises may be implemented as pregnancy advances. The possibility of an increased need for social support services also should be addressed.
American Society of Anesthesiologists. Standards for basic anesthetic monitoring. In: ASA standards, guidelines and statements. Park Ridge (IL): ASA; 2000. p. 5–6.
Atterbury JL, Groome LJ. Pregnancy in women with spinal cord injuries. Nurs Clin North Am 1998;33:603–13.
Baker EB, Cardenas DD. Pregnancy in spinal cord injured women. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 1996;77:501–7.
Baker EB, Cardena DD, Benedetti TJ. Risks associated with pregnancy in spinal cord-injured women. Obstet Gynecol 1992;80:425–8.
Hambly PR, Martin B. Anaesthesia for chronic spinal cord lesions. Anaesthesia 1998;53:273–89.
Nobunaga AI, Go BK, Karunas RB. Recent demographic and injury trends in people served by the Model Spinal Cord Injury Care Systems. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 1999;80:1372–82.
Paonessa K, Fernand R. Spinal cord injury and pregnancy. Spine 1991;16:596–8.
Verduyn WH. Spinal cord injured women, pregnancy and delivery. Paraplegia 1986;24:231–40. | <urn:uuid:4d8e9460-7fb7-4b2b-b06c-6c6a15704f86> | CC-MAIN-2016-40 | http://www.acog.org/Resources_And_Publications/Committee_Opinions/Committee_on_Obstetric_Practice/Obstetric_Management_of_Patients_with_Spinal_Cord_Injuries | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-40/segments/1474738663308.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160924173743-00135-ip-10-143-35-109.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.885968 | 1,556 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Fukui prefecture is one of the great places where you can find rich history and traditions in Japan. Many historical monuments such as castles in Fukui are either in ruins or were renovated after being under different regimes or during second world war. Below are three of the amazing castle ruins in Fukui.
Fukui castle is now in ruins and the Fukui prefectural office stand on the site. The castle was terribly destroyed by firebombing during World War II. It was built north of the older castle of Kitanosho in the early 17th century by Yuki Hideyasu, the daimyo of Fukui domain. The name ‘Fukui’ comes from the well located here named ‘Fukunoi’ which means ‘good luck well’. The well can be seen even today along with the moat that guarded the original castle grounds.
Ichijodani Asakura are the historic ruins situated in Kidonouchi district of Fukui. It has been a castle town and was founded in 1471 by the Asakura Family during the Sengoku period. The family ruled the area for more than one hundred years and it was a major cultural and military center with a population of around 10,000 at that time.
The town was destroyed after the defeat of the Asakura family by Oda Nobunaga in 1573. The town was excavated in the late 1960s revealing different houses of merchants, lords, samurais, workers and others. It also had a 200-meter long street with four gardens ( Suwa Yakata-ato Garden, Asakura Yakato-ato Garden, Yudano-ato Garden, and Nanyoji-ato Garden) and a mighty mountaintop castle called Ichijodani Castle.
The Obama Castle is also known as ‘Unpin Castle’ and is located in the city of Obama in Fukui prefecture. It was constructed in the year 1601 by Kyogoku Takatsugu and later went into the hands of Sakai Tadakatsu in 1634. Sakai increased the castle height of the tower, which after its increase reached an impressive height of 29 meters. The Sakai family held the possession of the castle until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. It was destroyed due to fire later and now only the stone walls remain today. The castle also has a shrine, Obama-jinja on the grounds currently.
Do pay a visit to these amazing castle ruins of Fukui. Although they may not be much to look at now, visitors can certainly learn something interesting about the medieval-age history of this prefecture. | <urn:uuid:9540056f-577d-445a-ad45-8500fa394342> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | https://jpninfo.com/41403 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912202924.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20190323181713-20190323203713-00340.warc.gz | en | 0.9836 | 546 | 2.9375 | 3 |
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While martial suicide is a practice found in a lot of cultures, the act of seppuku, or ritual self-disembowelment, is peculiar to Japan. The earliest known acts of seppuku were the deaths of samurai Minamoto Tametomo and poet Minamoto Yorimasa in the latter part of the 12th century. Seppuku is known in the west as hara-kiri. However, the term seppuku is considered a more elegant usage.
As the human spirit was believed to reside in the stomach, slitting the stomach open was considered to be the most straightforward, and bravest, way to die. Therefore, this act was a privilege reserved for the samurai. Commoners were allowed to hang or drown themselves, and samurai women could slit their own throats, but only a male samurai was allowed to commit seppuku.
Onodera Junai's wife (one of the 47 ronin) preparing for jigai (female version of seppuku) to follow her husband in death : legs are bound as to maintain a decent posture in agony ; death is given by a tanto cut at the jugular vein. Kuniyoshi woodcut, Seichu gishin den series ("Story of truthful hearts"), 1848. ( Public Domain )
By committing seppuku , a samurai would be able to maintain or prevent the loss of honor for himself and his extended family. Therefore, a samurai who committed seppuku was often revered after his death. Defeated or dishonored samurai who chose to surrender rather than commit suicide often found themselves reviled by society.
The Ritual of Seppuku
By the Edo Period, the act of seppuku had become a fully developed ritual. Emphasis was placed on a strict adherence to the ceremony. In a typical seppuku, a large white cushion would be placed and witnesses would arrange themselves discreetly to one side. The samurai, wearing a white kimono, would kneel on the pillow in a formal style. Behind and to the left of the samurai knelt his kaishakunin (his “second” or assistant).
The seppuku ritual, circa 1900.
The duty of the kaishakunin was to prevent the samurai from experiencing prolonged suffering by cutting the samurai’s head off once he had slit his stomach. Contrary to popular belief, the ritual of seppuku for a samurai did not technically involve suicide, but inflicting fatal injury, leaving the kaishakunin to strike the death blow.
The kaishakunin needed to strike the samurai’s hard enough to sever the spine but also delicate enough to still leave the head attached. As severing the head completely dishonored both the samurai committing seppuku and the kaishakun, the role of “second” was given only to men who possessed superior control of their swords .
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A servant would place a wooden table before the samurai, which would contain a sake (rice wine) cup, a sheaf of washi (paper handmade from mulberry bark) and writing utensils, as well as the kozuka (disemboweling blade) - although the samurai would be allowed to use his own sword if he preferred. The sake cup was then filled from the left by an attendant. The samurai emptied the cup in two drinks of exactly two sips each, as one sip would show greed , and three or more sips would show hesitation. This would make a total of four sips (the character shi, which means “four”, also means “death”).
The Importance of the Death Poem
Before committing seppuku, a samurai would write a jisei (death poem) - which was considered important as a person facing imminent death was believed to have special insight into the nature of death and the value of life. The poem should be graceful and natural, usually in the theme of transient emotions. Mentioning the samurai’s impending death in the poem would be considered poor form and uncouth.
This was also important for the samurai as the poem would serve as a written glimpse into his nobility of character and how he wished to be remembered after his death. Asano Naganori, for example, whose seppuku precipitated the famous incident of the “ forty-seven ronin ”, is said to have written a particularly poor death poem, possibly because he implied the impending end to his life, thereby showing his immaturity and lack of character.
Asano Naganori (September 28, 1667–April 21,1701)
Completing the Death Ritual of Seppuku
According to tradition, when he felt ready, the samurai would loosen the folds of his kimono, exposing his stomach. He would then lift the knife with one hand and unsheathe it with the other, setting the sheathe to one side. After mentally preparing himself, he would drive the knife into the left side of his stomach, then draw it across to the right. He would then turn the blade in his wound and bring it upward.
Most samurai did not have to endure this last agony, as the kaishakunin would sever the neck at the first sign of pain. The cut in seppuku carried out to its finish was known as the jumonji (crosswise cut), and to perform it in its entirety was considered a particularly impressive seppuku.
A samurai must keep his composure even on the brink of death, showing strength and full control of his mind and body in his last moments. Any previous reputation of a samurai would be meaningless if he were to die in an unseemly manner. However, although a calm and composed state was ideal for the samurai committing this act, the eighteenth century book Hagakure and other Edo works relate stories of samurai losing their composure just before committing seppuku, and in some cases they had to be forcibly decapitated.
Different Reasons for a Samurai to Commit Suicide
Of course, there were circumstances where there was not enough time for the samurai to undergo the whole ritual of seppuku. Therefore, acts such as cutting his own throat, throwing himself from a running horse with a sword in his mouth, or throwing himself off cliffs were also allowed.
There were a few reasons for a samurai’s suicide. The first is Junshi, an act of suicide by following one's lord in death, which was common in the days of open samurai warfare. With the final confrontation of the Gempei War imminent and all hope lost, general Taira Tomomori resolved to end his life.
He summoned his foster brother, who then assisted Tomomori into a second suit of armor and donned another himself. Hand in hand, they jumped into the sea. Seeing this, at least 20 samurai then put on their heavy armor, bore weighty objects on their backs to make sure they would sink, took one another by the hand, and jumped, determined not to stay behind after their master was gone.
Funshi is an act of suicide to express one’s indignation at a situation. A well-known occurrence was in 1970, when the novelist Mishima Yukio disemboweled himself in protest against what he believed was the loss of traditional values in his country. However, as the act of seppuku was abolished in 1873, his suicide was mostly seen as anachronistic and something of a national embarrassment.
General Akashi Gidayu preparing to commit Seppuku after losing a battle for his master in 1582. He had just written his death poem, which is also visible in the upper right corner.
Kanshi is an act of suicide due to remonstration. A samurai would commit suicide to state his case or make his point to a lord when all other forms of persuasion had proven ineffective. This was done by Hirate Nakatsukasa Kiyohide in 1553. He committed suicide to make his master Oda Nobunaga change his ways.
Nobunaga’s behavior as a young man was said to be disgraceful. Hirate wrote a letter urging Nobunaga to change his ways and then committed Kanshi. His death is said to have had a dramatic effect on Nobunaga. He did mend his ways, and built the Seisyu-ji in Owari to honor Hirate.
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Finally, Sokotsu-shi is an act of suicide as a means for an offending samurai to make amends for his transgression. An example of a transgression is striking his fellow retainer with a sword in anger, which was punishable by death, and often the option of suicide was given. A samurai would also commit suicide due to his failure in his duty of protecting his lord from being killed in battle, or by an assassin.
A scene of seppuku.
What is Seppuku?
Often called “hara-kiri” in the West, “seppuku” is a form of ritual suicide that originated with Japan’s ancient samurai warrior class. The grisly act typically involved stabbing oneself in the belly with a short sword, slicing open the stomach and then turning the blade upwards to ensure a fatal wound. Some practitioners of seppuku allowed themselves to die slowly, but they usually enlisted the help of a “kaishakunin,” or second, who would lop off their head with a katana as soon as they made their initial cut. The entire process was accompanied by great ceremony. Among other rituals, the doomed individual often drank sake and composed a short th poem” before taking up the blade.
Seppuku first developed in the 12th century as a means for samurai to achieve an honorable death. Swordsmen performed the ritual to avoid capture following battlefield defeats, but it also functioned as a means of protest and a way of expressing grief over the death of a revered leader. Beginning in the 1400s, seppuku evolved into a common form of capital punishment for samurai who had committed crimes. In each case, it was considered an act of extreme bravery and self-sacrifice that embodied Bushido, the ancient warrior code of the samurai. There was even a female version of seppuku called “jigai,” which involved cutting the throat using a special knife known as a “tanto.”
Seppuku fell out of favor with the decline of the samurai in the late-19th century, but the practice didn’t disappear entirely. Japanese General Nogi Maresuke disemboweled himself in 1912 out of loyalty to the deceased Meiji Emperor, and many troops later chose the sword over surrender during World War II. Perhaps the most famous case in recent history concerns Yukio Mishima, a renowned novelist and Nobel Prize nominee who committed ritual seppuku in 1970 after leading a failed coup against the Japanese government.
Seppuku – Honorable Suicide
A staged version of the Japanese ritual suicide known as Seppuku or Hara-Kiri, circa 1885. The warrior in white plunges a knife into his belly, while his second stands behind him, ready to perform the decapitation. (Photo by Sean Sexton/Getty Images)
As an anime fan, one thing that I have grown to love and appreciate is the diversity and uniqueness of both modern and traditional Japanese culture. One practice that does stand out to me is the practice of the honorable death known as Seppuku. Seppuku, death by self-disembowelment, became a ritualized and institutionalized form of suicide among the Samurai in Feudal Japan and it was seen has a form of honor and courage reserved for the Samurai, the traditional Japanese military. I was interested in learning a little bit more about this practice especially with our recent class discussions of what constitutes a “good” death or a “bad” death.
The deaths of Minamoto Yorimasa, a poet, and Minamoto Tametono, a samurai, describes the earliest known acts of Seppuku. Seppuku, which describes a process of slicing the stomach open, was considered the most courageous, straightforward and bravest way to die because the stomach was considered to be where the human spirit resided. In these practices, witnesses would sit discreetly to the side while the samurai, dressed in white, would kneel on large white cushion. The Samurai would then inflict the fatal injury to his stomach and his Kaishakuin, second in command or assistant, would make sure the Samurai did not experience prolonged suffering and ensured a honorable death.
Seppuku’s adoration and inspiration in Japanese culture has remained even today and can be seen depicted in movies, plays, novels, anime and more. During WWII, in the Pacific Islands, American soldiers witness Japanese militia committing this ritual right before their very eyes. After losing the war, some men and women performed the ritual in order to serve as an apology to the Emperor of Japan. But for people who are not Japanese the practice has been held with horrid fascination.I think this is because each individual has their own qualms about the topic of death and even more so suicide. So for me, it is interesting to see how understanding death is highly influenced by the culture, the society and the time and how they all play a major role in determining what constitutes a “good” or “bad” death.
Fusé, Toyomasa. “Suicide and culture in Japan: A study of seppuku as an institutionalized form of suicide.” Social Psychiatry 15.2 (1980): 57-63.
The practice of “seppuku” was an extremely important ideology in ancient Japan. Essentially ritual sacrifice, seppuku was carried out by a samurai by stabbing, and gutting, oneself with a short sword. Developed in the 12th century, the practice had multiple uses. One of the times seppuku was carried out were when a samurai dishonored their master. Seppuku was seen as a way to get that honor back. Another common use of the ritual sacrifice was during a loss in the battlefield if things are looking bleak for one side, the samurai would usually kill themselves as to avoid capture from the enemy.
By the start of the Edo period (period under control by the Tokugawa shogunate), seppuku was widely practiced and a routine for the ritual was developed. Typically, a servant would place sake (rice wine) in front of the samurai. They were expected to drink it in four sips, as to not be greedy and not show hesitation. They would then write a death poem to reflect on their life and to remember their life by. Then the samurai would stab themselves, drawing the sword horizontally across their body, ending with a twist to prove fatal. Commonly, to prevent a long death, a person would be standing by with a sword called kaishakunin to deliver the final blow. It was expected that that sword breaks the spine, but not completely sever the head.
Why Did Japanese People Stop Performing Seppuku?
Seppuku, a highly ritualized form of suicide that involved cutting one’s own stomach, was once part of the bushido samurai code, and considered an honorable way to die and, until the 20th century, was quite common. So what happened? Why did this practice die out?
Now, this is not to say that suicide is not still a relatively common practice in Japan, nor that some people don’t attach rituals to their suicide. But, while martial suicide is a practice found in numerous cultures, the act of ritual self-disembowlment is peculiar to Japan. However, after World War II, the act of seppuku has become so rare as to be shocking. The seppuku of famed author Yukio Mishima in 1970 was seen as anachronistic and something of a national embarrassment, and judoka Isao Inokuma’s 2001 death by seppuku was an anomaly. But in the 19th century, seppuku was not only a relatively common practice, it was a much-desired death among members of the samurai class.
The End of Judiciary Seppuku
For two centuries, Japan existed in relative isolation. It was forbidden for Japanese citizens to leave the country, and trade with the outside world was limited to Chinese and Dutch ships, which were permitted to enter Nagasaki harbor. But in the mid-19th century, all that changed when Americans and Russians invaded Japan, taking trading rights by force. What resulted was a period of major social upheaval for Japan.
Many members of the samurai class resented the government reforms that came with reopening the ports and the appearance of foreigners on their shores. The imperial household had long held a largely symbolic position in Japan, but with the appearance of these foreigners came a kind of cultural fundamentalism, with many Japanese recommitting to the Emperor against the Japanese government. It was also a period that saw a number of killings of foreigners and those who made treaties with foreigners by members of the samurai class. Some of these samurai (who, in order to avoid bringing punishment down on their lords, would sometimes renounce their lords and become rōnin) would commit voluntary seppuku following these killings. Others were arrested and, if they were fortunate, permitted to commit obligatory seppuku as a judiciary punishment.
Matters were not helped by the Emperor Kōmei, who in 1863 issued an order to “expel all barbarians.” While the government was passing reforms to modernize Japan, many samurai took this as moral permission to kill foreigners. Westerners who made the mistake of pushing their ways through samurai processions (something considered extraordinarily rude) or violated Japanese laws, might find themselves on the wrong end of a samurai’s blade.
It was during this period that the Western fascination with seppuku (known by the somewhat more lurid term “hara-kiri” by Western writers). British diplomats Ernest Satow and Algernon Mitford witnessed incidents of judiciary seppuku and published detailed accounts of what they saw back home. Far from believing seppuku to be a barbaric practice, these writers stressed the nobility (and impressively quiet decorum) with which the condemned conducted themselves, and deemed it an honorable act of chivalry.
But things changed with the 1868 Incident at Sakai. Sakai is a costal town, which at that time was still closed off to foreigners, but in March of 1868, thirteen French sailors rowed to shore. There is some disagreement about what they did while they were there some claimed that the sailors were a bit rowdy while eyewitnesses reported that they had only purchased some fruit. But the samurai of the Tosa clan took this small foreign invasion quite seriously, killing eleven of the unarmed sailors. Japan’s French consul, Léon Roches, insisted that the culprits be executed. Twenty samurai, mostly chosen by lots, were sentenced to death by obligatory seppuku.
Roches sent one of his captains, Bergasse du Petit-Thouars, to witness the execution, which they had anticipated would be by beheading. Much to Du Petit-Thouars’ surprise, the first samurai, Minoura Inokichi, marched out, shouted insults at him (saying, “You won’t want to eat meat after this, Frenchmen!”) and disemboweled himself. This was actually a particularly aggressive and grisly seppuku ceremony, lacking much of the reserved decorum that Satow and Mitford had written about. On top of that, the kaishaku, whose job it was to chop off the head of the seppuku practitioner once he had finished cutting his stomach, were particularly incompetent, hacking through the samurais’ necks rather than slicing them off with a single cut.
After eleven samurai had cut their stomachs, Du Petit-Thouars declared that the ceremony was over. Eleven samurai had died for the murders of eleven soldiers, and the captain decided that was sufficient. Believing he was performing an act of mercy, Du Petit-Thouars left over the objections of his Japanese hosts. This actually proved a grave mistake, with the official Japanese reports calling the Frenchman a coward. The Westerners were little kinder, with Satow shaking his head at Du Petit-Thouars’ actions, saying that he made it seem that the French were more interested in revenge than justice.
Other Western diplomats living in Japan learned something very important from this incident: judiciary seppuku was not a deterrent to killing Westerners. A glorious and honorable martyrdom was hardly a punishment to the more xenophobic samurai. The British consul general petitioned the government to outlaw judiciary seppuku, and by April 8th, an imperial decree had been handed down, saying that any samurai who killed a foreigner would “be stripped of their rank, and will meet with a suitable punishment.” Translation: even if a samurai is the one who kills a foreigner, judiciary seppuku would be out of his reach. That did, in fact, prove a deterrent to killing foreigners. There was one incident in 1870 when a battle between two rival samurai factions did result in a final judiciary seppuku, but otherwise, the practice was dead in the courts.
The Meiji Restoration
While judiciary seppuku may have ended with the imperial decree, martial seppuku continued as a dying cry of the samurai class. In 1868, a return to imperial rule under Emperor Meiji was announced. This was the proceeded by the resignation of Tokugawa Yoshinobu as shogun and the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate — which, in turn, initiated the decline of the samurai.
Many samurai who remained loyal to the shogunate were displeased with the new direction that the country was taking, and anti-imperial samurai rebellions raged in the following decade. Perhaps the most famous to Western readers is the Satsuma Rebellion, led by Saigō Takamori, whose final stand against the Meiji government provided the historical basis for The Last Samurai.
Takamori didn’t have the opportunity to commit seppuku himself he died from bullet wounds during the Battle of Shiroyama in 1877. But so certain were his supporters that he would take control of his own death that commemorative prints of his imagined seppuku appeared immediately, and it took years for people to understand how Takamori really died.
But there were other famous incidents of seppuku during this period. During an 1868 battle in Aizu during the Boshin War, the youngest brigade of soldiers was known as the Byakkotai the “White Tiger Force.” The brigade was supposed to consist of 16 and 17-year old sons of the Aizu samurai, but some of the boys were even younger. During the battle, 20 members of the squad looked over the castle town and believed that they saw a fire. Thinking that their force had been defeated and their lord was dead, the boys decided to commit suicide. One read a death poem, in accordance with the samurai tradition. They then proceeded to kill themselves and each other in a number of ways, some of them driving their blades into their stomachs. One boy, Iinuma Sadakichi, survived his wounds and learned the terrible truth: the smoke they had seen was from cannon and rifle fire. The castle was not on fire and the battle had not yet been lost. The boys’ tragic adherence to the samurai code immortalized them, however. When Italian dictator Benito Mussolini heard the story, he donated a column from Pompei to stand by the boys’ graves.
In 1876, the Meiji government put a major nail in the coffins of the samurai class and seppuku by banning the carrying of swords. Only commissioned army officers and certain security officials, it decreed, could carry swords. Supporters of the samurai were incensed. The sword was a symbol inherently tied to the samurai, and a ban on swords made anti-reformist outrage even stronger.
Kaya Harukata, a Shinto priest, and his former classmate Ōtagurō Tomō founded a new Shinto faction, called Keishin-tō, the Party of Divine Reverence. It became more commonly known, however, as Kumamoto Shinpūren, the Kumamoto League of the Divine Wind. Harukata and Tomō recruited the sons of samurai families and students from the Shinto schools, many of them teenagers. Others were men outraged by what they saw as the decline of Japanese culture. In the end, the force was less than 200 men strong, but they decided to attack Kumamoto, where an Imperial Japanese Army was stationed. It was 173 samurai against some 2000 armed troops. And, to make the odds even worse, the Shinpūren fought only with swords, a symbol of their commitment to the samurai way of life.
Although the samurai made an impressive showing against the superior manpower and firepower of the Imperial Army force, they were eventually beaten back. A few dozen made it back to their shrine, where they decided to disband and say their farewells to the living world.
The suicides went on for days, with the defeated fighters disemboweling themselves to avoid capture. Some performed seppuku while on the run from the army and police. Others made it to their homes, where they were able to speak with their family members before slicing their bellies. Still others went to relatives, friends, and temples to find a venue for their suicide. All told, 87 of the rebels died by suicide. The tale of the Shinpūren Rebellion would inspire other anti-reformists, but samurai culture eventually lost out the Meiji government was victorious and the emperor remained in power until his death in 1912.
Modernization, it seemed, had killed seppuku.
Seppuku in the 20th Century
Thirty-five years after the Shinpūren Rebellion, former Commander of the Imperial Third Army General Nogi Maresuke begged off the funeral of Emperor Meiji and was later found dead from two crossed wounds gut across his stomach. Nogi was himself a member of the samurai class, but during the early Meiji period, he took the side of the imperial government, crushing the very rebels that his friends and family were often sympathetic to. In fact, Nogi’s younger brother was killed fighting for the rebels during an insurrection in Hagi.
Nogi may have become suicidal after an incident involving the Satsuma Rebellion, during which he lost the regimental flag presented to him by Emperor Meiji. A fellow officer, Kodama Gentarō reported that, after the flag was lost, he discovered Nogi about to disembowel himself and ended up confiscating the man’s sword. After the emperor died in September 1912, Nogi put his affairs in order, rewriting his will and visiting his friends. Then, on the day of the funeral, he and his wife went into a large windowed room in their residence where Nogi stabbed his wife (this appears to have been consensual on her part) and then sliced his own abdomen.
The Japanese reaction to Nogi’s death speaks volumes about how the Japanese viewed seppuku at the time. This sort of death was anachronistic, and some commentators were actually quite outraged by it. Nogi had committed a violent act from Japan’s past while Japan was enjoying a more modern image in the world. It struck some as selfish, sullying the national character for his own samurai ego. The message was clear: seppuku was not an act that belonged in modern Japan.
Martial suicide would see a resurgence during World War II, including acts of seppuku. And when World War II found the Allies victorious, many officers decided to kill themselves rather than surrender. But in the wake of World War II, Japan underwent another great upheaval. The Allied forces occupied Japan and forced the country to abolish the Meiji Constitution in favor of the Constitution of Japan. The Emperor became a figurehead once again as Japan adopted a parliamentary-based government. And when, in 1970, Yukio Mishima barricaded himself in an office of the Eastern Command of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, delivered a speech demanding that power be returned to the emperor, and then disemboweled himself, the reaction from embarrassed Japanese commentators was non unlike the response to Nogi’s suicide: that seppuku was simply not an act that belonged to modern Japan.
If you struggle with suicidal thoughts please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255.
Is seppuku a voluntary act?
There are actually 2 kinds of seppuku: voluntary or obligatory.
Voluntary seppuku was often committed to restore honour for a misdeed or a failure, or else to avoid capture by an invading army. Some samurai also chose to end their lives by seppuku after their daimyo died: a practice called oibara. Japanese people care about their image in society even after death. Disgraceful death in the hands of an enemy would be shameful “haji.”
Obligatory seppuku, was used as a means of capital punishment for disgraced samurai who had committed acts of treason or violent crimes. Obligatory seppuku could be requested by the victor of a conflict as a term of surrender and subsequent peace. In such cases, the leader(s) of the losing side were compelled to commit seppuku, thus removing all further political and military opposition to the victor. The type of forced seppuku against the will of the samurai is called tsumebara. Ordinary criminals’ heads were chopped without any ceremony, only the samurai were given the chance of cutting their own belly. Obligatory seppuku was prohibited in 1873.
In general, having the ability to do a seppuku was seen as an honor rather than a punishment. In the case of the “47 samurai” the harakiri was obligatory handed by the shogunate. During the obligatory harakiri, the blade without the “handle” wrapped with a piece of fabric or white paper is given to the samurai to make sure he does not fight back.
The scene of an obligatory harakiri
Seppuku : A History of Samurai Suicide
The history of seppuku -- Japanese ritual suicide by cutting the stomach, sometimes referred to as hara-kiri -- spans a millennium, and came to be favored by samurai as an honorable form of death. Here, for the first time in English, is a book that charts the history of seppuku from ancient times to the twentieth century through a collection of swashbuckling tales from history and literature. Author Andrew Rankin takes us from the first recorded incident of seppuku, by the goddess Aomi in the eighth century, through the "golden age" of seppuku in the sixteenth century that includes the suicides of Shibata Katsuie, Sen no Riky? and Toyotomi Hidetsugu, up to the seppuku of General Nogi Maresuke in 1912.
Drawing on never-before-translated medieval war tales, samurai clan documents, and execution handbooks, Rankin also provides a fascinating look at the seppuku ritual itself, explaining the correct protocol and etiquette for seppuku, different stomach-cutting procedures, types of swords, attire, location, even what kinds of refreshment should be served at the seppuku ceremony. The book ends with a collection of quotations from authors and commentators down through the centuries, summing up both the Japanese attitude toward seppuku and foreigners’ reactions:
"As for when to die, make sure you are one step ahead of everyone else. Never pull back from the brink. But be aware that there are times when you should die, and times when you should not. Die at the right moment, and you will be a hero. Die at the wrong moment, and you will die like a dog." -- Izawa Nagahide, The Warrior’s Code, 1725
"We all thought, ‘These guys are some kind of nutcakes.’" — Jim Verdolini, USS Randolph, describing "Kamikaze" attack of March 11, 1945
Samurai committed seppuku for a number of reasons, in accordance with bushido, the samurai code of conduct. Motivations could include personal shame due to cowardice in battle, shame over a dishonest act, or loss of sponsorship from a daimyo. Often times samurai who were defeated but not killed in battle would be allowed to commit suicide in order to regain their honor. Seppuku was an important act not only for the reputation of the samurai himself but also for his entire family's honor and standing in society.
Sometimes, particularly during the Tokugawa shogunate, seppuku was used as a judicial punishment. Daimyo could order their samurai to commit suicide for real or perceived infractions. Likewise, the shogun could demand that a daimyo commits seppuku. It was considered far less shameful to commit seppuku than to be executed, the typical fate of convicts from further down the social hierarchy.
The most common form of seppuku was simply a single horizontal cut. Once the cut was made, the second would decapitate the suicide. A more painful version, called jumonji giri, involved both a horizontal and vertical cut. The performer of jumonji giri then waited stoically to bleed to death, rather than being dispatched by a second. It is one of the most excruciatingly painful ways to die.
The Honorable Death move, also known simply as suicide, and called Self-Determination in Japan (自決 Jiketsu) is a recurrent special finisher move which debuted in Samurai Shodown IV: Amakusa’s Revenge, followed by Samurai Shodown V and Samurai Shodown V Special.
During any moment of a round, the player can perform this move (the character must be armed):
Then the character he is controlling will make a move with his weapon or a special move to kill himself certain characters uses nonviolent means, like show a posture of surrender or run away. Each character has its own way to commit suicide.
As can be expected, the suicide move means the Life Gauge will be totally depleted and the player forfeits the round. Because of this, use of Honorable Death is not convenient during a round three or round two if the opponent previously won round one. The best moment to perform this move is during round one.
In Samurai Shodown IV, Honorable Death provides a benefit to the player: at the next round (if any) the character will start in Rage Mode. For Samurai Shodown V, the player receives either only a portion or a full Rage Gauge, depending on the character. Conversely, in Samurai Shodown V Special the player receives no rage energy.
Seppuku, also called Hara-kiri (“belly-cutting”), the honorable method of taking one's own life practiced by men of the samurai class in feudal Japan. Seppuku (only outsiders reffered to it as "hari-kari") is a highly ritualized performance, as complicated as chado (a tea ceremony). The principle difference is that at the end of chado, one is merely nauseated from too much green tea, whilst at the end of seppuku, one is dead. Throughout history, many cultures of people from around the world have committed ritualistic suicide. And yet, none have done it quite like the ancient Japanese. The first thing to do is to recruit an assistant, a kaishkunin. Contrary to what is thought, almost all forms of seppuku do not technically involve suicide, but merely inflicting fatal injury upon oneself. The kaishakunin does the actual killing. “The way of ritual seppuku came up probably during the period of the civil wars in the 15th and 16th century.” (Seppuka,1) The art of seppuku mainly comes from a battlefield tactic used by many other clans or countries and is used to evade capture. Rather than being captured and revealing secrets or strategies, the defeated warrior in question would take a small to medium sized blade and thrust it into their lower abdomen. This sounds very hard to do, but that’s not the half of it. While the blade is inserted into the lower abdomen, the warrior would cut a “Z” shape up his stomach to insure no survival. When the circumstances allowed it, the ritual suicide was executed in a formal, procedural manner. If one is ordered to commit seppuku by the shogunal government, it will generally appoint its own kaishakunin (personal assistant). “Obligatory hara-kiri was abolished in 1868, but its voluntary form has persisted. It was. | <urn:uuid:b599f840-bdf9-42cb-9f71-0832d277b757> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://ss.mdeena.com/13101-the-honorable-death-samurai-and-seppuku-in-feudal-ja.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662531779.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20220520093441-20220520123441-00328.warc.gz | en | 0.978682 | 7,866 | 3.90625 | 4 |
Crests 7. Mon (emblem) Mon (紋?)
, also monshō (紋章?) , mondokoro (紋所?) , and kamon (家紋?) , are Japanese emblems used to decorate and identify an individual or family. While mon is an encompassing term that may refer to any such device, kamon and mondokoro refer specifically to emblems used to identify a family. Mon may have originated as fabric patterns to be used on clothes in order to distinguish individuals or signify membership in a specific clan or organization. Japanese traditional formal attire generally displays the mon of the wearer. Rules regulating the choice and use of mon were somewhat limited, though the selection of mon was generally determined by social customs. There are no set rules in the design of a mon. Similar to the blazon in European heraldry, mon are also named by the content of the design, even though there is no set rule for such names. The degree of variation tolerated differ from mon to mon as well.
Virtually all modern Japanese families have a mon. Mon add formality to a kimono. Mozilla Firefox. 家紋100種. Japan Creative Center - Find Your Something Cool about Japan. Hidaka Family Emblems. Offering Japanese family crest EPS files for free. Retrievable in Japanese, alphabet and English. This flash is powered by sato38.Click the mark in the center (be carefull with sound volume). introduction All materials we offer here are EPS data.
It's editable with no degradation called vector data. But you need Adobe Illustrator application(upper than ver.10) to edit. If you are Macintosh user, you can convert into pdf data through PREVIEW application. Click thumbnails and you can download Japanese family crest. 283 items are dowloadable now. last update:26/10 About copyright All datas here are made by myself by real tracing jpeg data or pictures. Mon (emblem) Taira clan. Taira clan (平氏, Hei-shi?)
Was a major Japanese clan of samurai, extremely skilled in the art of jujitsu in historical Japan. In reference to Japanese history, along with Minamoto, Taira was a hereditary clan name bestowed by the emperors of the Heian period to certain ex-members of the imperial family when they became subjects. The Taira clan is often referred to as Heishi (平氏? , literally "Taira clan") or Heike (平家? , literally "House of Taira"), using the character's Chinese reading hei.
Offshoots of the imperial dynasty, some grandsons of Emperor Kammu were first given the name Taira in 825 or later. The Kammu Heishi line, founded in 889 by Taira no Takamochi (a great-grandson of the 50th Kammu tenno, reigned 781–806), proved to be the strongest and most dominant line during the late Heian period with Taira no Kiyomori eventually forming the first samurai-dominated government in the history of Japan. Mon: Family Crests of Samurai Clans. The picture above is a parade of the Top Ten among Japanese family crests, i.e. their basic designs have been most often used in cranking up other family crests since before the first thousand years.
Besides the 18-petalled golden chrysanthemum, which is the Imperial Family's crest, the most widespread crest designs consist of the following (the clans that are mentioned first are those whose crests are shown as examples of each category in the main picture above): Some used dots to form flowers and such -- like the famous clans under Oda Nobunaga's overlordship: Maeda, Kuki, Tsutsui, Hosokawa. The Chiba clan also used dots as flower petals.
The Rusu, Nasu, and Kusunoki clans incorporated a chrysanthemum in their crests, signifying the imperial DNA in their ancestors' veins. A few unimaginatively used kanji, such as the mighty Mori, the blunderer Ishida, and a number of well-known warrior clans like Honda, Ukita, Hara, Inoue, and Murakami. Why did the Japanese bother to find family crests? Design guide "MON" (Japanese Culture) eBook: Momoyo Nishimura, Myanna Lennon, Reiko Nishida: Amazon.de: Englische Bücher. Samurai Heraldry (Elite): Amazon.de: Stephen Turnbull, Angus McBride: Englische Bücher. Snow, Wave, Pine: Traditional Patterns in Japanese Design: Amazon.de: Motoji Niwa, Sadao Hibi, Jay W. Thomas: Englische Bücher. Elements Of Japanese Design: Handbook Of Family Crests, Heraldry & Symbolism: Handbook of Family Crests, Heraldry and Symbolism: Amazon.de: John Dower: Englische Bücher. Traditional Japanese Family Crests for Artists and Craftspeople Dover Pictorial Archives: Amazon.de: Isao Honda: Englische Bücher. | <urn:uuid:6af41e2e-18ea-4d3f-b741-cafb9f9f2df2> | CC-MAIN-2016-40 | http://www.pearltrees.com/osmanibnmasoud/mon/id2852925 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-40/segments/1474738661023.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160924173741-00175-ip-10-143-35-109.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910565 | 1,104 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Sorry about the female samurai article missing but here is another great article:
One of the best-known non-Japanese samurais was the 16th-century African slave who went by the name of Yasuke. He was reportedly the first African man to come to Japan, and because of his origin, many people gathered around him after he arrived to take a closer look.
Yasuke was in the service of the Italian Jesuit Alessandro Valignano, the man appointed to inspect the Jesuit missions in the Indies. Later, he was made a samurai by the ruler and hegemon Oda Nobunaga, who wanted Yasuke as his bodyguard. The Japanese were so unused to Africans, the warlord ordered him to take off his clothes to have servants try to wash out the “black ink” from his skin.
The records for this event can be found in a letter from 1581 by the Jesuit Luis Frois to Lourenco Mexia, as well as one of the annual reports of the Jesuit Mission in Japan from 1582 written by the same man. His original name is not known; Nobunaga named him Yasuke, and until today, no one knows if that is a Japanese rendering of his real name or a completely new name given by the warlord.
According to a book written in 1627 by Francois Solier (“Histoire ecclésiastique des isles et royaumes du Japon”), Yasuke might have been from Portuguese Mozambique. However, this account was written long after the events that involve Yasuke.
Some scholars claim that he was a Makua named Yasufe, which is derived from a Mozambican name. Others suggest that he was an Ethiopian from the Habshi people.
He was made a samurai in 1581 and served Nobunaga at one of his first fortresses, the Azuchi Castle. The warlord became very attached to Yasuke, even inviting him to dine and carry his sword, which was an unusual privilege for a samurai. In the book The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga, the meetings of Yasuke and Nobunaga are described, with Yasuke depicted as six feet tall with the strength of ten healthy men.
It is believed that when Yasuke came into the Azuchi Castle, his lord made him a nobleman. He spoke Japanese fluently, and it is not known if he learned the language from Nobunaga or from Valignano, who wanted all of his missionaries to adapt to the culture that they were visiting. He became the only non-Japanese samurai in Nobunaga’s army and maybe even a very close friend.
The warlord gave him a private residence and a ceremonial katana. After Nobunaga had been forced to commit seppuku in 1582 by Akechi Mitsuhide’s army, Yasuke continued to fight Mitsuhide’s troops. Seconds after his lord’s death, he joined the heir of Nobunaga, Oda Nobutada. Unfortunately, after a long fight, he had to surrender to Mitsuhide’s men.
When they asked their warlord what to do with him, he ordered them to take him to the temple of southern barbarians (which was a Japanese reference to the Jesuit church) because he was not one of them. Mitsuhide didn’t seek his death; it is said that he took pity on Yasuke, and that is why he sent him into the church. Another version of this story is that the lord sent him to the church because he didn’t want to have any problems with the Jesuits, believing that in a time of trouble he would need all the friends he could get.
Although his samurai career was short-lived (1581–1582), he became a famous hero in the historical fiction novel Kuro-suke, written by Yosio Kurusu and published in 1968. In the story, Yasuke is presented not only as a samurai but also as a man who is far away from home, finding himself in a world of strangers. In the end, the thing what makes him a hero is not his sword, but the sacrifice that he makes for his lord.
In 1969, the novel received the Japanese Association of Writers for Children Prize. Later, Yasuke appeared in dramas and movies made about Nobunaga, and most recently is a featured character in the video game Nioh, from Koei Tecmo. | <urn:uuid:e3d29108-24e2-42d0-978e-221de3489dc2> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/01/27/female-samur/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578760477.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20190426053538-20190426075538-00457.warc.gz | en | 0.989854 | 929 | 2.921875 | 3 |
■A brief History of Domyoji Temple
Located in the of Fujiidera, Osaka Prefecture, this is a nunnery of the ancient Shingon Buddhism dedicated to the eleven-faced Goddess of Mercy,a national treasure elaborately hand-carved by Sugawara Michizane,845-903,a noted scholar and politician in the early Heian era.
When Shotoku Taishi, a pious Buddhist himself, decided to build a nunnery in this place, Haji, a local hereditary propagandist of Buddhist cultures, donated his vast land, and the seven buildings including a five-storied pagoda and a golden pavilion were completed.
This cathedral was first called Haji Temple, and was later renamed as Domyoji after the death of Sugawara Michizane.
It was a treasure house of numerous images of Buddha, scriptures, arts and crafts, medicines, etc.
In the age of civil wars in the medieval period in the Japanese history, the temple was burnt down, but it was missed by many people, and restored by the efforts of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and protected and authorized by the shogunate of Tokugawa generation after generation.
In 1872, by the order of separation of Buddhism and Shintoism, Buddhist edifice and halls were removed from the Shinto shrine, and moved to the expanded grounds of the temple, and in 1919, Main Pavilion was erected, and Treasure Tower was later added to complete the present from.
Domyoji is one of the few nunneries surviving the history of 1300 year since establishment, and we are very proud of the religious spirit of all the people who supported this temple. | <urn:uuid:1de8a02e-bf21-4b38-bc8a-f462685a7146> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | http://www.domyoji.jp/ryakuenki_e.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578529962.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20190420180854-20190420202854-00482.warc.gz | en | 0.973837 | 356 | 3.609375 | 4 |
|Battle of Sekigahara|
|Part of the Sengoku period|
Edo period screen depicting the battle.
|Forces loyal to Toyotomi Hideyori, many clans from Western Japan||Forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Clans of Eastern Japan|
|Ishida Mitsunari, Mōri Terumoto, others||Tokugawa Ieyasu, others|
|Casualties and losses|
|Unknown; but not
|Commanders of Eastern Army (Tokugawa Force)|
|Tokugawa Ieyasu: 30,000 men|
|Katō Kiyomasa: 3,000 men|
|Fukushima Masanori: 6,000 men|
|Hosokawa Tadaoki: 5,000 men|
|Asano Yukinaga: 6,510 men|
|Ikeda Terumasa: 4,560 men|
|Kuroda Nagamasa: 5,400 men|
|Katō Yoshiaki: 3,000 men|
|Tanaka Yoshimasa: 3,000 men|
|Tōdō Takatora: 2,490 men|
|Yamauchi Katsutoyo: 2,058 men|
|Honda Tadakatsu: 500 men|
|Terasawa Hirotaka: 2,400 men|
|Ikoma Kazumasa: 1,830 men|
|Ii Naomasa: 3,600 men|
|Matsudaira Tadayoshi: 3,000 men|
|Oda Nagamasu: 450 men|
|Tsutsui Sadatsugu: 2,850 men|
|Kanamori Nagachika: 1,140 men|
|Furuta Shigekatsu: 1,200 men|
|Arima Toyouji: 900 men|
|Commanders of Western Army (Ishida Force)|
|Mōri Terumoto (official head of the alliance) (not present)|
|Maeda Toshimasa (Brother of Maeda Toshinaga)|
|Ukita Hideie: 17,000 men|
|Shimazu Yoshihiro: 1,500 men|
|Kobayakawa Hideaki (defected): 15,600 men|
|Ishida Mitsunari (de facto head of the alliance): 4,000 men|
|Konishi Yukinaga: 4,000 men|
|Ogawa Suketada (defected): 2,100 men|
|Otani Yoshitsugu: 600 men|
|Wakisaka Yasuharu (defected): 990 men|
|Ankokuji Ekei: 1,800 men|
|Chōsokabe Morichika: 6,600 men|
|Kutsuki Mototsuna (defected): 600 men|
|Akaza Naoyasu (defected): 600 men|
|Kikkawa Hiroie (defected): 3,000 men|
|Natsuka Masaie: 1,500 men|
|Mōri Hidemoto: 15,000 men|
|Toda Katsushige: 1,500 men|
|Shima Sakon: 1,000 men|
The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: 関ヶ原の戦い; Kyūjitai: 關ヶ原の戰ひ Sekigahara no Tatakai ), popularly known as the Realm Divide (天下分け目の戦い Tenka Wakeme no Tatakai ), was a decisive battle on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) which cleared the path to the Shogunate for Tokugawa Ieyasu. Though it would take three more years for Ieyasu to consolidate his position of power over the Toyotomi clan and the daimyo, Sekigahara is widely considered to be the unofficial beginning of the Tokugawa bakufu, the last shogunate to control Japan.
Even though Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified Japan and consolidated his power following the Siege of Odawara in 1590, his Japanese invasions of Korea (1592-1598) significantly weakened the Toyotomi clan's power as well as the loyalists and bureaucrats that continued to serve and support the Toyotomi clan after Hideyoshi's death. Hideyoshi's and his brother Hidenaga's presence kept the two sides from anything more than quarreling, but when both of them died, the conflicts were exacerbated and developed into open hostilities. Since the Toyotomi clan was known to be descended from peasant stock, neither Hideyoshi nor his heir Hideyori would be recognized or accepted as Shogun.
Most notably, Katō Kiyomasa and Fukushima Masanori were publicly critical of the bureaucrats, especially Ishida Mitsunari and Konishi Yukinaga. Tokugawa Ieyasu took advantage of this situation, and recruited them, redirecting the animosity to weaken the Toyotomi clan.
Tokugawa Ieyasu was no longer rivaled in terms of seniority, rank, reputation and overall influence within the Toyotomi clan after the death of Regent Maeda Toshiie. Rumors started to spread stating that Ieyasu, at that point the only surviving ally of Oda Nobunaga, would take over Hideyoshi's legacy just as Nobunaga's was taken. This was especially evident amongst the loyalist bureaucrats, who suspected Ieyasu of agitating unrest amongst Toyotomi's former vassals.
Later, a supposed conspiracy to assassinate Ieyasu surfaced, and many Toyotomi loyalists, including Toshiie's son, Toshinaga, were accused of taking part and forced to submit to Ieyasu's authority. However, Uesugi Kagekatsu, one of Hideyoshi's appointed regents, defied Ieyasu by building up his military. When Ieyasu officially condemned him and demanded that he come to Kyoto to explain himself before the emperor, Kagekatsu's chief advisor, Naoe Kanetsugu responded with a counter-condemnation that mocked Ieyasu's abuses and violations of Hideyoshi's rules, in such a way that Ieyasu was infuriated.
Afterwards, Ieyasu summoned the help of various supporters and led them northward to attack the Uesugi clan, which at that moment were besieging Hasedō, but Ishida Mitsunari, grasping the opportunity, rose up in response and created an alliance to challenge Ieyasu's supporters, also seizing various daimyo as hostages in Osaka Castle.
Ieyasu then left some forces led by Date Masamune to keep the Uesugi in check and marched west to confront the western forces. A few daimyo, most notably Sanada Masayuki, left Ieyasu's alliance, although most, either bearing grudges against Mitsunari or being loyal to Ieyasu, stayed with him.
Mitsunari, in his home Sawayama Castle, met with Ōtani Yoshitsugu, Mashita Nagamori, and Ankokuji Ekei. Here, they forged the alliance, and invited Mōri Terumoto, who actually did not take part in the battle, to be its head.
Mitsunari then officially declared war on Ieyasu and lay siege to the Fushimi Castle, garrisoned by Tokugawa retainer Torii Mototada on July 19. Afterwards, the western forces captured various Tokugawa outposts in the Kansai region and within a month, the western forces had moved into the Mino Province, where Sekigahara was located.
Back in Edo, Ieyasu received news of the situation in Kansai and decided to deploy his forces. He had some former Toyotomi daimyo engage with the western forces while he split his troops and marched west on the Tōkaidō towards Osaka Castle.
Ieyasu's son Hidetada led another group through Nakasendō. However, Hidetada's forces were bogged down as he attempted to besiege Sanada Masayuki's Ueda Castle. Even though the Tokugawa forces numbered some 38,000, an overwhelming advantage over the Sanada's mere 2,000, they were still unable to capture the strategist's well-defended position. At the same time, 15,000 Toyotomi troops were being held up by 500 troops under Hosokawa Fujitaka at Tanabe Castle in Wakayama Prefecture. Some among the 15,000 troops respected Hosokawa so much they intentionally slowed their pace down. Both these incidents resulted in a large number of Tokugawa and Toyotomi troops not to show up in time at the battlefield of Sekigahara.
Knowing that Ieyasu was heading toward Osaka, Mitsunari decided to abandon his positions and marched to Sekigahara. On September 15, 1600 (Keichō 5, 8th day of the 8th month), the two sides started to deploy their forces. Ieyasu's eastern army had 88,888 men, whilst Mitsunari's western army numbered 81,890. There were about 20,000 arquebusers and other forms of hand-held gunners deployed in the battlefield, corresponding to over 10% of all troops present.
Even though the western forces had tremendous tactical advantages, Ieyasu had already contacted many daimyo on the western side, promising them land and leniency after the battle should they switch sides. This led some western commanders holding key positions to hesitate when pressed to send in reinforcements or join the battle that was already in progress.
Mōri Hidemoto and Kobayakawa Hideaki were two such daimyo. They were in such positions that if they decided to close in on the eastern forces, they would in fact have Ieyasu surrounded on three sides. Hidemoto, shaken by Ieyasu's promises, also persuaded Kikkawa Hiroie not to take part in the battle.
Even though Kobayakawa had responded to Ieyasu's call, he remained hesitant and neutral. As the battle grew more intense, Ieyasu finally ordered arquebusiers to fire at Kobayakawa's position on Mount Matsuo in order to force Kobayakawa to make his choice. At that point Kobayakawa joined the battle on the eastern side. His forces assaulted Yoshitsugu's position, which quickly fell apart as he was already engaging Tōdō Takatora's forces. Seeing this as an act of treachery, western generals such as Wakisaka Yasuharu, Ogawa Suketada, Akaza Naoyasu, and Kutsuki Mototsuna immediately switched sides, turning the tide of battle.
The western forces disintegrated afterwards, and the commanders scattered and fled. Some, like Ukita Hideie managed to escape, while others, like Sakon was shot and wounded by a rifle though it's unknown if he died from it, Ōtani Yoshitsugu committed suicide. Mitsunari, Yukinaga and Ekei were some of those who were captured and a few, like Mōri Terumoto and Shimazu Yoshihiro were able to return to their home provinces. Mitsunari himself would be executed.
Tokugawa Ieyasu redistributed the lands and fiefs of the participants, generally rewarding those who assisted him and displacing, punishing, or exiling those who fought against him. In doing so, he gained control of many former Toyotomi territories. Following the public execution of Ishida Mitsunari, Konishi Yukinaga and Ankokuji Ekei, the influence and reputation of the Toyotomi clan and its remaining loyalists drastically decreased.
At the time, the battle was considered only an internal conflict between Toyotomi vassals. However, after Ieyasu later became Shogun, a position that had been left vacant since the fall of the Ashikaga shogunate 27 years earlier, the battle was perceived as more important event. In 1664, Hayashi Gahō, Tokugawa historian and rector of Yushima Seido, summarized the consequences of the battle: "Evil-doers and bandits were vanquished and the entire realm submitted to Lord Ieyasu, praising the establishment of peace and extolling his martial virtue. That this glorious era that he founded may continue for ten thousands upon ten thousands of generations, coeval with heaven and earth."
This change in official rankings also reversed the subordinate position of the Tokugawa clan, thus making the Toyotomi clan subordinates of the Tokugawa instead.
While most clans were content with their new status, there were many clans, especially those on the western side, who became bitter about their displacement or what they saw as a dishonorable defeat or punishment. Three clans in particular did not take the aftermath of Sekigahara lightly:
The descendants of these three clans would in two centuries collaborate to bring down the Tokugawa shogunate, leading to the Meiji Restoration.
According to tradition, the legendary kensei Miyamoto Musashi was present at the battle among the ranks of Ukita Hideie's army. Supposedly, he fought well and escaped the defeat of Hideie's forces unharmed. Whether this is fact or myth is unknown, considering that Musashi would have been around 17 years of age at the time. Several books on Japanese history, martial arts and the biography proceeding a translation of the 'Go Rin no Sho' (see source) mention Musashi joining the ranks of the Ashikaga army and escaping the hunting down and massacre of the vanquished army. More curious is the fact that he joined Tokugawa in both winter and summer campaigns of 1614 and 1615 when Ieyasu laid siege to Osaka castle where supporters of the Ashikaga family gathered in insurrection, thereby fighting against those he had originally fought for at Sekigahara. According to legend, he had already killed in self defense at 13 and again at 16 defeating Tadashima; he then left home on his 'Warrior pilgrimage' which saw him victorious in scores of contest and which took him to war before he was 17. Sources:=='Go Rin No Sho'Miyamoto Musashi== Complete version (intro by Musashi and all five books or rings) with extra chapters, added by the editor, explaining the historical background, typical terms and Japanese words, a biography of M.M., articles on related subjects e.g. kendo, zen, the samurai class. | <urn:uuid:01782580-a733-4dd5-8949-37e8acfd42a6> | CC-MAIN-2016-40 | http://www.thefullwiki.org/Battle_of_Sekigahara | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-40/segments/1474738660158.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20160924173740-00299-ip-10-143-35-109.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948346 | 3,103 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Discover the wonders of
The overall concept of Solaniwa Onsen comes from Japan's Azuchi Momoyama era. Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified all of Japan from Osaka Castle. The short 30 years from 1573 to 1603 saw the people in the whole country go through prosperous times.
- The architecture of Azuchi Momoyama revolves around the Daimyo and merchants in Sengoku but also Osaka Castle. It is characterized by the majestic Tenshuokaku, as well as the luxurious decorations on the Azuchi Castle which are all very eye-catching.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi's favorite color was "gold" and it comes as the most characteristic of the Azuchi Momoyama era.
Gold is everywhere. In the teahouse and tea sets, the armors, the feather weaving, the rubble, even the slippers are plated with gold. This is so to transport you in a luxurious and gorgeous era. Now, why don't you take a stroll in Osaka's "Golden Age" markets.
- There were so many businessmen and craftsmen in the Anzuchi Momoyama era. During this time a variety of new arts flourished. We could give as an example, the puppet show-Bunraku accompanied by shamisen, as well as the songs and dances imagined by a witch named Izumo no Okuni from Izumo-taisha.
Oda Nobunaga initiated Rakuichi·Rakuza, which injected vitality into the city as never seen before.
At the same time the overseas Namban culture quietly came ashore and crossed the oceans.
Portugal, Great Britain and other prosperous European countries thrived thanks to their Navy. Their cultures converged and blossomed in rich and colorful ways.
The Popular Culture has dramatically changed. Bright red clothes and gorgeous designs began to be popular among women, while unique Japanese and foreign mixed clothes were favored by men.
- Foodies seeked new ingredients, such as watermelon, pumpkin, and onion. All recently appearing in the market, fried as the new custom wanted it.
Bread, honey cakes and wines were also introduced to Japan during this period. What is seen today as the most ordinary foods, actually found their roots in the country at that time.
- Luxury was back then appreciated, but the Sen no Rikyū philosophy has seen that the tea ceremony would take an artistic form. It also advocated a calm way of life, welcoming guests with the spirit of "Once in a lifetime".
Nowadays, the phrase "Once in a lifetime" is still widely used, and Osakans' "hospitality" was born and evolved from this phrase traveling through time to meet us.
Have you been moved by the Azuchi Momoyama culture?
The more you understand it, the more you will feel that the Azuchi Momoyama era is full of charm. If you learn the historical background and visit Solaniwa Onsen, you will better appreciate this Grand World of Wonders.
We invite you to experience the origin of contemporary Osaka, the world of Azuchi Momoyama, full of vitality and happiness.
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Christian missionaries were known as bateren (from the Portuguese word padre, “father”) or iruman (from the Portuguese irmão, “brother”). Both the transcriptions 切支丹 and 鬼利死丹 came into use during the Edo Period when Christianity was a forbidden religion. The Kanji used for the transcriptions have negative connotations. The first one could be read as “cut off support”, and the second as “devils who profit from death”.
Portuguese ships began arriving in Japan in 1543, with Catholic missionary activities in Japan beginning in earnest around 1549, mainly by Portuguese-sponsored Jesuits until Spanish-sponsored mendicant orders, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, gained access to Japan. Of the 95 Jesuits who worked in Japan up to 1600, 57 were Portuguese, 20 were Spaniards and 18 Italian. Francis Xavier, Cosme de Torres (a Jesuit priest), and João Fernandes were the first to arrive to Kagoshima with hopes to bring Christianity and Catholicism to Japan. At its height, Japan is estimated to have had around 300,000 Christians. Catholicism was subsequently repressed in several parts of the country and ceased to exist publicly in the 17th century.
The line of demarcations between Portugal and Spain
Religion was an integral part of the state and evangelization was seen as having both secular and spiritual benefits for both Portugal and Spain. Indeed, Pope Alexander VI’s Bulls of Donation commanded the Catholic Monarchs to take such steps. Wherever Spain and Portugal attempted to expand their territories or influence, missionaries would soon follow. By the Treaty of Tordesillas, the two powers divided the world between them into exclusive spheres of influence, trade and colonization. Although at the time of the demarcation, neither nation had any direct contact with Japan, that nation fell into the sphere of the Portuguese.
The countries disputed the attribution of Japan. Since neither could colonize it, the exclusive right to propagate Christianity in Japan meant the exclusive right to trade with Japan. Portuguese-sponsored Jesuits under Alessandro Valignano took the lead in proselytizing in Japan over the objection of the Spaniards. The fait accompli was approved inPope Gregory XIII’s papal bull of 1575, which decided that Japan belonged to the Portuguese Diocese of Macau. In 1588, the diocese of Funai (Nagasaki) was founded under Portuguese protection.
In rivalry with the Jesuits, Spanish-sponsored mendicant orders entered into Japan via Manila. While criticizing Jesuit activities, they actively lobbied the Pope. Their campaigns resulted in Pope Clement VIII’s decree of 1600, which allowed Spanish friars to enter Japan via the Portuguese Indies, and Pope Paul V’s decree of 1608, which abolished the restrictions on the route. The Portuguese accused Spanish Jesuits of working for their homeland instead of their patron. The power struggle between Jesuits and mendicant orders caused a schism within the diocese of Funai. Furthermore, mendicant orders tried in vain to establish a diocese on the Tohoku region that was to be independent from the Portuguese one.
The Roman Catholic world order was challenged by the Netherlands and England. Theoretically, it was repudiated by Grotius’s Mare Liberum. In the early 17th century, Japan built trade relations with the Netherlandsand England. Although England withdrew from the operations in ten years under James I due to lack of profitability, the Netherlands continued to trade with Japan and became the only European country that maintained trade relations with Japan until the 19th century. As trade competitors, the Protestant countries engaged in a negative campaign against Catholicism, and it subsequently affected shogunate policies toward the Iberian kingdoms.
Portugal’s and Spain’s colonial policies were also challenged by the Roman Catholic Church itself. The Vatican founded the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide in 1622 and attempted to separate the churches from the influence of the Iberian kingdoms. However, it was too late for Japan. The organization failed to establish staging points in Japan.
The Jesuits believed that it was better to seek to influence people in power and then allow the religion to be passed downwards to the commoners later. They tried to avoid suspicion by not preaching to the commoners without permission from the local rulers to propagate Catholicism within their domains. As a result, several daimyo became Christians, soon to be followed by many of their subjects as the Dominicans and Augustinians were able to begin preaching to the commoners. After the edict banning Christianity, there were communities that kept practicing Catholicism without having any contact with the Church until missionaries were able to return much later.
When Xavier disembarked in Kagoshima, the principal chiefs of the two branches of the Shimazu family, Sanehisa and Katsuhisa, were warring for the sovereignty of their lands. Katsuhisa, adopted Takahisa Shimazu who in 1542 was accepted as head of the clan having previously received the Portuguese merchants on Tanegashima Island, learning about the use of firearms. Later, he met Xavier himself at the castle of Uchiujijo and permitted the conversion of his vassals.
Having a religious background, Takahisa showed himself to be benevolent and already allowed freedom of worship but not helping the missionaries nor favoring their church. Failing to find a way to the centre of affairs, the court of the Emperor, Xavier soon tired and left to Yamaguchi thus beginning the Yamaguchi period. Xavier, stayed in Yamaguchi for two months on his way to an abortive audience with the Emperor in Kyoto. Yamaguchi was already a prosperous and refined city and its leaders, the Ouchi family, were aware that Xavier’s journey to Japan had begun after the completion of his mission in India.
They took Catholicism for some sort of new sect of Buddhism and were curious to know of the priest’s doctrine. Tolerant but shrewd, their eyes less on baptism than the Portuguese cargoes from Macao, they granted the Jesuit permission to preach. The uncompromising Xavier took to the streets of the city denouncing, among other things, infanticide, idolatry and homosexuality (the last being widely accepted at the time). Misunderstandings were inevitable.
Christian books were published in Japanese from the 1590s on, some with more than one thousand copies and from 1601 a printing press was established under the supervision of Soin Goto Thomas, a citizen of Nagasaki with thirty Japanese working full-time at the press. Liturgical calendars were also printed after 1592 until at least 1634. Christian solidarity made also possible missionary mail delivery throughout the country until the end of the 1620s.
Nature of early Christian community
These groups were fundamental to the mission, and themselves depended on both the ecclesiastical hierarchy as well as the warlords who controlled the lands where they lived. Therefore, the success of the Japanese mission cannot be explained only as the result of the action of a brilliant group of missionaries, or of the commercial and political interests of a few daimyo and traders.
At the same time the missionaries faced the hostility of many other daimyo. Christianity challenged Japanese civilization. A militant lay community, the main reason for missionary success in Japan, was also the main reason for the anti-Christian policy of the Tokugawa’s bakufu.
The Jesuits in Japan had to maintain economic self-sufficiency because they could not expect stable and sufficient payment from their patron, the King of Portugal, the king allowing the Jesuits to engage in trade with Japan. Such economic activity can be found in the work of Francis Xavier, the pioneer of Catholic missions in Japan, who covered the cost of missionary work through merchant trading. From the 1550s to the 1570s, the Jesuits covered all necessary expenses with trade profits and bought land in India.
Their officially recognized commercial activity was a fixed-amount entry into the Portuguese silk trade between Macau and Nagasaki. They financed to a certain amount the trade association in Macau, which purchased raw silk in Canton and sold it in Nagasaki. They did not confine their commercial activity to the official silk market but expanded into unauthorized markets. For the Macau-Nagasaki trade, they dealt in silk fabrics, gold, musk and other goods including military supplies and slavery. Sometimes, they even got involved in Spanish trade, prohibited by the kings of Spain and Portugal, and antagonized the Portuguese traders.
It was mainly procurators who brokered Portuguese trade. They resided in Macau and Nagasaki, and accepted purchase commitments by Japanese customers such as the shogunate daimyo and wealthy merchants. By brokerage, the Jesuits could expect not only rebates but also favorable treatment from the authorities. For this reason, the office of procurator became an important post amongst the Jesuits in Japan. Although trade activities by the Jesuits ate into Portuguese trade interests, procurators continued their brokerage utilizing the authority of the Catholic Church. At the same time, Portuguese merchants required the assistance of procurators who were familiar with Japanese customs, since they established no permanent trading post in Japan. Probably the most notable procurator was João Rodrigues, who approached Toyotomi Hideyoshiand Tokugawa Ieyasu and even participated in the administration of Nagasaki.
Such commercial activities were contrary to the idea of honorable poverty that the priests held. But some Jesuits at this time placed the expansion of the society’s influence before this ideal. Mendicant orders fiercely accused the Jesuits of being corrupt and even considered their activity as the primary reason for Japan’s ban on Catholicism. Mendicant orders themselves were not necessarily uninvolved in commercial activities.
Missionaries were not reluctant to take military action if they considered it an effective way to Christianize Japan. They often associated military action against Japan with the conquest of China. They thought that well-trained Japanese soldiers who had experienced long civil wars would help their countries conquer China. For example, Alessandro Valignano said to the Philippine Governor that it was impossible to conquer Japan because the Japanese were very brave and always received military training but that Japan would benefit them when they would conquer China. Francisco Cabral also reported to the King of Spain that priests were able to send to China two or three thousand Japanese Christian soldiers who were brave and were expected to serve the king with little pay.
The Jesuits provided various kinds of support including military support to Kirishitan daimyo when they were threatened by non-Kirishitan daimyo. Most notable was their support of Omura Sumitada and Arima Harunobu, who fought against the anti-Catholic Ryuzoji clan. In the 1580s, Valignano believed in the effectiveness of military action and fortified Nagasaki and Mogi. In 1585, Gaspar Coelho asked the Spanish Philippines to send a fleet but the plan was rejected due to the shortness of its military capability. Christians Arima Harunobu and Paulo Okamoto were named as principals in an assassination plot to murder the magistrate in charge of the Shogunate’s most important port city of Nagasaki.
Early policy toward Catholicism
When the Jesuit priest Francis Xavier arrived, Japan was experiencing a nationwide civil war. Neither the emperor nor the Ashikaga shogun could exercise power over the nation. At first, Xavier planned to gain permission for building a mission from the emperor but was disappointed with the devastation of the imperial residence. The Jesuits approached daimyo in southwestern Japan and succeeded in converting some of these daimyo. One reason for their conversion may have been the Portuguese trade in which the Jesuits acted as brokers. The Jesuits recognized this and approached local rulers with offers of trade and exotic gifts.
The Jesuits attempted to expand their activity to Kyoto and the surrounding regions. In 1559, Gaspar Vilela obtained permission fromAshikaga Yoshiteru to teach Christianity. This license was the same as those given to Buddhist temples, so special treatment cannot be confirmed regarding the Jesuits. On the other hand, Emperor Ogimachi issued edicts to ban Catholicism in 1565 and 1568. The orders of the Emperor and the Shogun made little difference.
Christians refer positively to Oda Nobunaga, who died in the middle of the unification of Japan. He favored the Jesuit missionary Luis Frois and generally tolerated Christianity. But overall, he undertook no remarkable policies toward Catholicism. Actually, Catholic power in his domain was trivial because he did not conquer western Japan, where the Jesuits were based. By 1579, at the height of missionary activity, there were about 130,000 converts
Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the Christian Daimyo
The situation was changed when Toyotomi Hideyoshi reunified Japan. Once he became the ruler of Japan, Hideyoshi began to pay attention to external threats, particularly the expansion of European power in East Asia. The turning point for Catholic missions was the San Felipe incident, where in an attempt to recover his cargo, the Spanish captain of a shipwrecked trading vessel claimed that the missionaries were there to prepare Japan for conquest. These claims made Hideyoshi suspicious of the foreign religion. He attempted to curb Catholicism while maintaining good trading relations with Portugal and Spain, which might have provided military support to Dom Justo Takayama, a Christian Daimyo in western Japan. Many Daimyos converted to Christianity in order to gain more favorable access to saltpeter, used to make gunpowder. Between 1553 and 1620, eighty-six Daimyos were officially baptized, and many more were sympathetic to the Christians.
By 1587, Hideyoshi had become alarmed, not because of too many converts but rather because the hegemon learned that Christian lords reportedly oversaw forced conversions of retainers and commoners, that they had garrisoned the city of Nagasaki, that they participated in the slave trade of other Japanese and, apparently offending Hideyoshi’s Buddhist sentiments, that they allowed the slaughter of horses and oxen for food. After his invasion of Kyushu, Hideyoshi Toyotomi promulgated the Purge Directive Order to the Jesuits (バテレン追放令 bateren tsuihō rei?) on July 24, 1587. It consists of 11 articles: “No. 10. Do not sell Japanese people to the Namban (Portuguese).”Among the contents were a ban on missionaries.The Jesuits in Nagasaki considered armed resistance, but the plans did not come to fruition. Led by Coelho, they sought help from Kirishitan daimyo, but the daimyo refused. Then they called for a deployment of reinforcements from their homeland and its colonies, but this plan was abolished by Valignano. Like the Kirishitan daimyo, he realized that a military campaign against Japan’s powerful ruler would bring catastrophe to Catholicism in Japan. Valignano survived the crisis by laying all the blame on Coelho, and in 1590, the Jesuits decided to stop intervening in the struggles between the daimyo and to disarm themselves. They only gave secret shipments of food and financial aid to Kirishitan daimyo.
However, the 1587 decree was not particularly enforced. In contrast to the Jesuits, the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians were openly preaching to the common peoples; this caused Hideyoshi to become concerned that commoners with divided loyalties might lead to dangerous rebels like the Ikkō-ikki sect of earlier years; this led to Hideyoshi putting the 26 Martyrs of Japan followers to death in 1597 on his order. After Hideyoshi died in 1598, amidst the chaos of succession there was less of a focus on persecuting Christians.
By the end of the 16th century, the Japanese mission had become the largest overseas Christian community that was not under the rule of a European power. Its uniqueness was emphasized by Alessandro Valignano since 1582, who promoted a deeper accommodation of Japanese culture. Japan was then the sole overseas country in which all members of those confraternities were locals, as was the case with Christian missions in Mexico, Peru, Brazil, the Philippines, or India, in spite of the presence of a colonial elite.
Most Japanese Christians lived in Kyushu, but Christianization was not a regional phenomenon and had a national impact. By the end of the 16th century it was possible to find baptized people in virtually every province of Japan, many of them organized in communities. On the eve of the Sekigahara battle, fifteen daimyo were baptized, and their domains stretched from Hyuga in Southeast Kyushu to Dewa in North Honshū. Hundreds of churches had been built throughout Japan.
Accepted on a national scale, Christianity was also successful among different social groups from the poor to the rich, peasants, traders, sailors, warriors, or courtesans. Most of the daily activities of the Church were done by Japanese from the beginning, giving the Japanese Church a native face, and this was one of the reasons for its success. By 1590, there were seventy native brothers in Japan, fully one half of Jesuits in Japan and fifteen percent of all Jesuits who were working in Asia.
In June 1592, Hideyoshi invaded Korea; among his leading generals was Christian daimyo Konishi Yukinaga. The actions of his forces in the massacre and enslavement of many of the Korean people were indistinguishable from the non-Christian Japanese forces that participated in the invasion.After Konishi’s loss in the battle of Sekigahara, Konishi would base his refusal to commit seppuku on his Christian beliefs; instead of taking his own life, he chose capture and execution.
The 1592 war between Japan and Korea also provided Westerners with a rare opportunity to visit Korea. Under orders of Gomaz, the Jesuit Gregorious de Cespedes arrived in Korea with a Japanese monk for the purposes of administering to the Japanese troops. He stayed there for approximately 18 months, until April or May 1595, thus being on record as the first European missionary to visit the Korean peninsula but was unable to make any inroads. The ‘Annual Letters of Japan’ made a substantial contribution to the introduction of Korea to Europe, Francis Xavier having crossed paths with Korean envoys dispatched to Japan during 1550 and 1551.
The Japanese missions were economically self-sufficient. Nagasaki’s misericórdias became rich and powerful institutions which every year received large donations. The brotherhood grew in numbers to over 100 by 1585 and 150 in 1609. Controlled by the elite of Nagasaki, and not by Portuguese, it had two hospitals (one for lepers) and a large church. By 1606, there already existed a feminine religious order called Miyako no Bikuni (nuns of Kyoto) which accept Korean convents such as Marina Pak, baptized in Nagasaki. Nagasaki was called “the Rome of Japan” and most of its inhabitants were Christians. By 1611, it had ten churches and was divided into eight parishes including a specifically Korean order.
Following Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s death in 1598, Tokugawa Ieyasu assumed power over Japan in 1600. Like Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he disliked Christian activities in Japan but gave priority to trade with Portugal and Spain. He secured Portuguese trade in 1600. He negotiated with Manila to establish trade with the Philippines. The trade promotion made his policies toward Catholicism inconsistent. At the same time, in an attempt to wrest control of the Japan trade from the Catholic countries, Dutch and British traders advised the Shogunate that Spain did indeed have territorial ambitions, and that Catholicism was Spain’s principal means. The Dutch and British promised, in distinction, that they would limit themselves to trading and would not conduct missionary activities in Japan.
It seems that the Jesuits realized that the Tokugawa shogunate was much stronger and more stable than Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s administration, yet the mendicant orders relatively openly discussed military options. In 1615, a Franciscan emissary of the Viceroy of New Spain asked the shogun for land to build a Spanish fortress and this deepened Japan’s suspicion against Catholicism and the Iberian colonial powers behind it. The Jesuits and the Mendicant Orders kept a lasting rivalry over the Japanese mission and attached to different imperial strategies.
The Tokugawa shogunate finally decided to ban Catholicism. In the statement on the “Expulsion of all missionaries from Japan”, drafted by Zen monk Konchiin Suden (1563–1633) and issued in 1614 under the name of second shogun Hidetada (ruled 1605-1623), was considered the first official statement of a comprehensive control of Kirishitan.It claimed that the Christians were bringing disorder to Japanese society and that their followers “contravene governmental regulations, traduce Shinto, calumniate the True Law, destroy regulations, and corrupt goodness”. It was fully implemented and canonized as one of the fundamental Tokugawan laws. In the same year, the bakufu required all subjects of all domains to register at their local Buddhist temple; this would become an annual requirement in 1666, cementing the Buddhist temples as an instrument of state control.
The immediate cause of the prohibition was a case of fraud involving Ieyasu’s Catholic vavasor, but there were also other reasons behind it. The Shogunate was concerned about a possible invasion by the Iberian colonial powers, which had previously occurred in the New World and the Philippines. Domestically, the ban was closely related to measures against the Toyotomi clan. The Buddhist ecclesiastical establishment was made responsible for verifying that a person was not a Christian through what became known as the “temple guarantee system” (terauke seido). By the 1630s, people were being required to produce a certificate of affiliation with a Buddhist temple as proof of religious orthodoxy, social acceptability and loyalty to the regime.
In the mid-17th century, the shogunate demanded the expulsion of all European missionaries and the execution of all converts This marked the end of open Christianity in Japan. The bakufu erected bulletin boards nationwide at crossroads and bridges; among the many proscriptions listed on these boards were strict warnings against Christianity.
The systematic persecution beginning in 1614 faced stiff resistance from Christians, despite the departure of more than half the clergy. Once again, the main reason for this resistance was not the presence of a few priests but rather the self-organization of many communities. Forced to secrecy, and having a small number of clergymen working underground, the Japanese Church was able to recruit leadership from among lay members. Japanese children caused admiration among the Portuguese and seem to have participated actively in the resistance. Nagasaki remained a Christian city in the first decades of the 17th century and during the general persecutions, other confraternities were founded in Shimabara, Kinai and Franciscans in Edo.
The number of active Christians is estimated to have been around 200,000 in 1582. There were likely around 1,000 known martyrs during the missionary period. In contrast, Christians attach a great importance to martyrdom and persecution, noting that countless more people were dispossessed of their land and property leading to their subsequent death in poverty.
The Japanese government used Fumie to reveal practicing Catholics and sympathizers. Fumie were pictures of the Virgin Mary and Christ. Government officials made everybody trample on these pictures. People reluctant to step on the pictures were identified as Catholics and then sent to Nagasaki. The policy of the Japanese government (Edo) was to turn them from their faith. If the Catholics refused to change their religion, they were tortured. Many of them still refusing to abandon their faith were executed onNagasaki’s Mount Unzen.
The Shimabara Rebellion, led by a young Christian boy named Amakusa Shiro Tokisada, took place against the shogunate in 1637. The Rebellion broke out over economic desperation and government oppression but later assumed a religious tone. About 27,000 people joined the uprising, but it was crushed by the shogunate after a sustained campaign. The reigning shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu, who had already issued the Sakoku Edict, restricting trade and effectively isolating Japan, two years earlier, came down hard on the Christians. Many Japanese were deported to Macau or to the Spanish Philippines. Many Macanese and Japanese Mestizos are the mixed-race descendants of the deported Japanese Catholics. 400 were officially deported by the government to Macau and Manila, but thousands of Japanese were pressured into moving voluntarily. About 10,000 Macanese and 3,000 Japanese were moved to Manila.
The Catholic remnant in Japan were driven underground and its members became known as the “Hidden Christians”. Some priests remained in Japan illegally, including eighteen Jesuits, seven Franciscans, seven Dominicans, one Augustinian, five seculars and an unknown number of Jesuit irmao and dojuku. Since this time corresponds to theThirty Years’ War between Catholics and Protestants in Germany, it is possible that the checking of Catholic power in Europe reduced the flow of funds to the Catholic missions in Japan, which could be why they failed at this time and not before. During the Edo period, the Kakure Kirishitan kept their faith. Biblical phrases or prayers were transferred orally from parent to child, and secret posts (Mizukata) were assigned in their underground community to baptize their children, all while regional governments continuously operated Fumie to expose Christians.
Christian view of Kirishitan History
Those who participated in the Shimabara Revolt are not considered to be martyrs by the Catholic Church since they took up arms for materialistic reasons.
Drawn from the oral histories of Japanese Catholic communities, Shusaku Endo’s acclaimed novel “Silence” provides detailed accounts of the persecution of Christian communities and the suppression of the Church.
Rediscovery and return
Japan was forced to open to foreign interaction by Matthew Perry in 1853. It became possible for foreigners to live in Japan with the Harris Treaty in 1858. Many Christian clergymen were sent from Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Churches, though proselytizing was still banned. In 1865, some of the Japanese who lived in Urakami village nearNagasaki visited the new Ōura Church which had been built by the Paris Foreign Missions Society (Missions étrangères de Paris) barely a month before. A female member of the group spoke to a French priest, Bernard Thadee Petitjean, and confessed that their families had kept the Kirishitan faith. Those Kirishitan wanted to see the statue of St. Mary with their own eyes, and to confirm that the priest was single and truly came from the pope in Rome. After this interview, many Kirishitan thronged toward Petitjean. He investigated their underground organizations and discovered that they had kept the rite of baptism and the liturgical years without European priests for nearly 250 years. Petitjean’s report surprised the Christian world; Pope Pius IX called it a miracle.
The Edo Shogunate’s edicts banning Christianity were still on the books, however, and thus the religion continued to be persecuted up to 1867, the last year of its rule. Robert Bruce Van Valkenburgh, the American minister-resident in Japan, privately complained of this persecution to the Nagasaki magistrates, though little action was taken to stop it. The succeeding government under Emperor Meiji, who took over from the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868, initially continued in this vein and several thousand people were exiled (Urakami Yoban Kuzure). After Europe and the U.S. began to vocally criticize the persecution, the Japanese government realized that it needed to lift the ban in order to attain its interests. In 1873 the ban was lifted. Numerous exiles returned and began construction of the Urakami Cathedral, which was completed in 1895.
It was later revealed that tens of thousands of Kirishitan still survived in some regions near Nagasaki. Some officially returned to the Roman Catholic Church. Others remained apart from the Catholic Church and have stayed as Kakure Kirishitan, retaining their own traditional beliefs and their descendants asserting that they keep their ancestors’ religion. However, it became difficult for them to keep their community and rituals, so they have converted to Buddhism or Shinto eventually. When John Paul II visited Nagasaki in 1981, he baptized some young people from Kakure Kirishitan families, a rare occurrence. | <urn:uuid:8633e34d-e50c-4e82-a7c9-38a7874856da> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | http://www.worldheritageofportugueseorigin.com/2015/07/26/hidden-christians-of-japan/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578733077.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20190425193912-20190425215912-00368.warc.gz | en | 0.976162 | 6,040 | 4.0625 | 4 |
Nagasino was a castle in Mikawa built on a naturally strong position where the Taki and the Ono rivers joined to form the Toyo. At the time of the civil war in Japan Nagasino had changed hands several times. In May 1575 it was held for Oda Nobunaga, one of the greatest Japanese warlords, by a samurai named Okudaira Sadamasa. On June 16 the castle was attacked by Takeda Katsuyori, the son and heir of the famous Takeda Shingen, the principal adversary of the Oda clan. After his attempts to take it by storm had failed, Katsuori besieged the castle trying to starve the defenders out. One of the Oda samurai managed to slip through the enemy ranks at night and took a message to Nobunaga. Soon considerable reinforsements commanded by Nobunaga and his vassals were on the way. Nobunaga saw in the relief of Nagasino an opportunity to crush finally the Takeda clan. He brought with him about 35000 men, twice as much as the besieging Takeda force. The old retainers of Shingen (Baba and Naito) advised their lord to withdraw, but Katsuyori was for fighting. Then they suggested an all-out assault on the castle so they could occupy it before the arrival of Nobunaga\'s troops, but Katsuyori turned this suggestion down. He was too sure of his excellent cavalry and he knew, that Nobunaga\'s larger army was much less reliable and not so well trained as his own.
Nobunaga took a strong position on a high ground behind a stream a mile from the Takeda lines and built a loose palisade of stakes and ropes. He detached 3000 musketeers (the principle Japanese fire-arm was a matchlock arquebus, its drawbacks were its short range and slow loading) and lined them in three ranks. They were ordered to fire each rank alternately in volleys.
The battle began at dawn on June 29 1575. The ground was uneven and muddy. As soon as the Takeda horsemen approached the edge of the stream, a devastating volley of a thousand arquebuses tore into them. Volley after volley followed every 20 seconds. Soon most of the Takeda commanders lay among the dead. Katsuyori personally led the final assault on the stockade but was beaten off. At that moment the garrison of the Nagasino castle attacked him in the rear, and the Oda main body left the palisade and joined in hand-to-hand fighting.
Now you have a chance to re-write the history of Japan. In this game you play for the Takeda clan against the much larger army of Oda Nobunaga and his generals - Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugava Ieyasu, Honda Tadakatsu, Oda Nobutada, etc.
“1575_Nagasino” is a campaign based in Japan where you take control of a small army lead by Katsuyori.
Playability: This campaign’s playability was good, it was fun to play and the choices were great. Not only this but through an impressive group of Ai files you could control when an ally sent his army into combat which was truly original. This was inventive and felt like you were really taking charge without controlling them. For the most part this campaign playability is good, the only thing that irritated me once was when I sent them to attack but the bamboo had not been removed so the Ai looked everywhere and got stuck. So they all went attacked in small groups and as a result were massacred.
I feel this is a minor bug and down to my willingness to attack straight away rather than the design flaw.
Balance: The balance in this campaign was a tad hard. This was because the sheer number of enemies you have to fight. It took me several times before I realised how to effectively use my army and my ally’s army effectively. I won’t spoil this for you because that’s what makes this campaign fun, in that it provides a strong challenge. If you like micro-management this campaign is definitely worth a look.
Creativity: 1575 Nagasino’s creativity was strong. It provided another solid part of a good all round campaign. The most creative feature of this campaign I feel has to be the ability to tell your ally to attack when you want and with the units of your choices. This is a great spark of originality and the Ai was great.
Map Design: The map design of ENOTH’s latest creation was well crafted and was good. Some parts of the map seemed a little odd though, there was desert near bamboo and this did not look right. Most of the map was beautiful although the use of gaia flowers was perhaps over-used on the farm land areas. On the whole though the map was good to look at and was attractive.
Story/Instructions: The story is based around the “what if” question in the sense that you are trying to change previous historical events outcome. This is ok and can add to the fun knowing you could have brought about a drastic change in events in Japan’s history. The story was portrayed well, I think it would all-ways be hard to make an alternate history scenario and the author has done well in this respect. The instructions were clear and seemed ok but a few times I saw instructions just seem to vanish before I finished reading them.
Overall: A good campaign and with a good playability and a great Ai. For anyone looking for an interesting challenge this is recommended. | <urn:uuid:5342d907-7a06-4d73-b045-c7b67d8438f2> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | http://aok.heavengames.com/blacksmith/showfile.php?fileid=738&f=2&ci=4d77cb3f57219dde4d00962bcf84464bYToxOntpOjA7YToyOntpOjA7czoxMDoiQmVzdCBGaWxlcyI7aToxO3M6Mzg6ImJlc3Rfb2YucGhwP3N0YXJ0PTYyMCZhbXA7cz1vciZhbXA7bz1kIjt9fQ== | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578544449.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20190422055611-20190422081611-00511.warc.gz | en | 0.987332 | 1,183 | 3.546875 | 4 |
►The story of the celebrated “Samurai for Christ” — Dom Justo Ukon Takayama (1552-1615) — is of enduring interest for all people of faith. Why has this Japanese Christian of heroic virtue resonated so well among so many devotees?
Here’s a summary
►One of the greatest heroes of the martyr Church of Japan is undoubtedly the Catholic lay apostle, Justus Ukon Takayama (1552-1615), or Justus Ucondono, as he was usually called by missionaries. Although he greatly desired to shed his blood for Christ, he was not granted this honor, yet he sacrificed everything on three separate occasions for his Divine Master, was exiled to a foreign land (the Philippines) for the sake of his Faith, and died in Manila as a result of the hardships endured on the voyage to his exile.
Ukon Takayama was one of the greatest men of his era. He was an able ruler (as Daimyo, or governor of Takatsuki and later, of Akashi), a great general, an ingenious strategist, a master of the tea ceremony, a harmonious personality, and above all, an exemplary and saintly Christian.
He preached the Gospel among Japanese Buddhists — (which the Takayama family professed until their conversion and baptism in 1564) –better than many of the Jesuit missionaries. His amiable and attractive personality and, more striking, his blameless life, attracted numerous souls to the fold of the Good Shepherd. Not only did he convert his vassals and subjects to the Catholic Faith, but a number of the greatest personalities of his era were also won over by his entreaties and example to the cause of Christ. Gamo Ujisato, Kuroda Yoshitaka, Hosokawa Gracia were the most outstanding of them, but there were many others whose number and identity is known to God alone.
Ukon’s unblemished chastity was so generally admired even his enemy, Hideyoshi (who ruled Japan 1583-1598) could not but admire it.
‘Samurai for Christ’
As a samurai-daimyo devoted to Christ, Ukon Takayama professed his Faith openly — fighting his battles under the Sign of the Cross.
When the hegemon Oda Nobunaga (r. 1574-1582) threatened to massacre all the Christians and destroy their churches unless Ukon handed over to him the strategic castle of Takatsuki (in Osaka prefecture), the heroic champion of Christ, without hesitation, renounced his domain and betook himself to Nobunaga, with shaved head — ready to die with the missionaries and Christians. Doing this, he fully realized the terrible danger to which he exposed the lives of his only son and his little sister, who were hostages held by his suzerain Araki Murashige. God took the will for the deed, saved Ukon’s life, spared his hostages and secured for him Nobunaga’s admiration and good graces.
When Toyotomi Hideyoshi (who succeeded Nobunaga) suddenly turned persecutor in 1587, Ukon Takayama was called upon either to deny his Faith, or lose his fief, and he gladly gave up everything rather than turn traitor to his Divine Master.
For several years, he was in fear of his life; even after Hideyoshi’s wrath had cooled, he never again became a ruling daimyo but lived in relative obscurity as a guest samurai-general of the Maeda rulers at Kanazawa.
In 1614, Tokugawa Ieyasu resolved to exterminate Christianity — “that evil religion” — and Ukon Takayama was again among the first victims. Since the tyrant could not hope to make him apostatize, he exiled him to a foreign land, calculating that he would not long survive the rigors and hardships of the voyage. The fact that Ukon died a few weeks after his arrival at Manila shows most clearly that Ieyasu’s calculation has been only too correct. Thus Ukon Takayama had the satisfaction of giving up his life for the Divine Master.
In the estimation of his contemporaries, Ukon Takayama was a saintly man. After he had been deposed as Lord of Akashi (in 1587), he was now freer to preach the Gospel — ready to be killed for his Faith. When he visited Kyushu, the Christians there venerated him as a martyr.
Exiled to Manila
In Manila, he was welcomed with religious enthusiasm, for everyone was well aware of the honor of giving hospitality to a renowned Confessor of the Faith. His premature death on February 3, 1615 caused general mourning and regret that Manila had been deprived of the presence of a man of God. His funeral in Intramuros, accorded by Church and State, was a great tribute to him, underscoring that an outstanding Servant of God had passed to a better life.
‘Son of Manila’
The Archdiocese of Manila (as the diocese where Takayama died (or was “born to Heaven”) first presented to the Pope a petition for the beatification of Ukon Takayama in 1630 — only 15 years after he died. This was the FIRST EVER petition for sainthood sent to the Vatican from the Philippine Church!
Many who have remembered this heroic champion of Christ across the centuries continue to pray fervently that Ukon Takayama would someday be raised to the honors of the Altar, and thus be set as a model for young people.#
Dr. Ernesto de Pedro | <urn:uuid:6094e9d4-f0fc-4c2f-b55b-0336524bb6e5> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | https://takayamaukon.com/2019/02/06/who-was-ukon-takayama-a-brief-write-up/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578675477.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20190424234327-20190425015521-00033.warc.gz | en | 0.98476 | 1,184 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Yasuke the black samurai stood about a foot taller than his peers and was said to have the strength of ten men. Japan wasn't ready for what was about to hit them.
In the 16th century, Japan was internally divided and externally isolated. Split into provinces under the rule of various local feudal lords known as daimyōs, the island nation had remained relatively closed off to the outside world, until the Age of Exploration that brought European explorers to every corner of the globe brought a mix of fascinating new outsiders to Japan.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in Japan and they brought with them their language, religion, and their institution of slavery. Ripped from their homelands in Africa and sold into servitude aboard Portuguese ships, these slaves followed their new masters in their travels across the globe.
One of these slaves taken to Japan eventually rose through the ranks to become a samurai and attain a position of the highest honor in his new home. This man is now known as Yasuke the black samurai.
As is so often the case with slaves, little is known about the origins of Yasuke. He may have been from Mozambique before coming to Japan in the late 16th century in the company of a Jesuit missionary named Alessandro Valignano. This man was one of the first Europeans to bring Christianity to the Far East and the letters of his fellow Jesuit, Luis Frois, provide much of the written account of the extraordinary story of Yasuke the black samurai.
Yasuke would have been one of the first Africans ever seen in Japan (and the first African samurai); Frois recounts how Yasuke’s appearance caused such a stir amongst the people that they broke down the door of the Jesuit residence just to catch a glimpse of him and that several people died during the ensuing ruckus. Word of this exotic, dark man eventually reached a daimyō who would change the entire course of Yasuke’s life.
Lord Oda Nobunaga had a great interest in European culture; he extended his protection to the Jesuits and helped them build a church in Kyoto. He played an extremely important role in paving the way for the total unification of Japan and by the time of his death, nearly half the country’s provinces were under his control.
When Yasuke was first presented to Nobunaga, he was described as a tall young man whose “strength surpassed that of ten men” and who stood more than six feet tall (a height at which he would have towered above most Japanese men at the time).
The fascinated daimyō was convinced that the African’s skin must have been dyed by ink, so he ordered the slave to strip to his waist and scrub his body thoroughly. Then, although Yasuke was able to speak only a little Japanese, he greatly impressed Lord Nobunaga, who reportedly enjoyed talking with him.
Nobunaga then brought the former slave into his service, granting him a sum of money, a house, and a katana. From that point on, Yasuke remained an important member of the daimyō’s retinue, loyally serving him as an honored samurai. He had gone from being a piece of Portuguese property to a member of the Japanese elite.
Nobunaga’s story came to an abrupt end in 1582 when he was betrayed by Akechi Mitsuhide, one of his associates. Yasuke reportedly fought bravely during the final confrontation, helping to defend his master’s castle from Mitsuhide’s forces.
Ultimately, when a wounded Nobunaga saw that there was no escape, he committed seppuku rather than face surrender and dishonor.
Yasuke battled on long after all was lost, before finally handing over his sword to the enemy’s men. Because he was not Japanese, he was spared death and sent back to the Jesuits, with whom he supposedly spent the rest of his days after making his mark on history.
After this look at Yasuke the black samurai, read up on Onna-Bugeisha, Japan’s badass female samurai. | <urn:uuid:2ef8140d-f722-4e25-8dd7-d88cebcb6ac5> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | https://allthatsinteresting.com/yasuke-black-samurai | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578526228.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20190418181435-20190418203435-00092.warc.gz | en | 0.986707 | 856 | 3.859375 | 4 |
“Buddhism” is a Western term for the immensely diverse system of beliefs and practices centered on the teachings and person of the historical Buddha, who enunciated his message of salvation in India over two millennia ago. The general concept easily lends itself to a false sense of empirical unity remote from the complex history of the tradition and the varied faiths of the individual believers. In the centuries following the promulgation of the original teaching and the formation of the earliest community, Indian Buddhism underwent a massive process of missionary diffusion throughout the Asian world, assimilating new values and undergoing major changes in doctrinal and institutional principles. Today, under the impact of conflicting ideologies and of science and technology, Buddhism, like all the great religions, finds itself, amid the acids of modernity, undergoing vast internal changes which further prohibit simplistic stereotypes and definitions.
The traditional distinction between the major historical forms of Buddhism has centered on a threefold typology, based on doctrinal and institutional differences which seem to fall within relatively homogeneous geographical areas. They are (1) The Theravada (“teaching of the elders”), located in the lands of southeast Asia—most importantly in Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia; (2) the Mahāyāna (“great vehicle”), in Nepal, Sikkim, China, Korea, and Japan; and (3) the Tan tray āna (“esoteric vehicle”), formerly prevalent in Tibet, Mongolia, and parts of Siberia. However, this classification is crosscut with atypical variations. The Theravāda, as it exists today, represents the sole survivor of the numerous ancient Indian schools. It has a fixed body of canonical literature, a relatively unified orthodox teaching, a clearly structured institutional distinction between the monastic order and laity, and a long history as the established “church” of the various southeast Asian states.
The Mahāyāna, on the other hand, is a diffuse and vastly complex combination of many schools and sects, based on a heterogeneous literature of massive proportions from which no uniform doctrinal or institutional orthodoxy can ever be derived. There are certain key scriptures which are sometimes regarded as typifying the more universal thrust of Mahāyāna principles over against Theravāda teaching, and Theravāda has traditionally been stigmatized as Hīnayāna (“small vehicle”) by Mahāyānists; but Mahāyāna itself is also to be found on the southeast Asian mainland, in syncretistic fusion with Theravāda. In China and Japan its literature ranges from the most abstruse philosophy to popular devotional theism and magic, and it includes the Hīnayana sources as well. Institutionally it has appeared both in monastic and in radically laicized forms, and it has occasionally served in well-defined church-state configurations.
Tantrie Buddhism, dominantly identified with Tibetan Lamaism and its theocracy, is equally ambiguous. The esoteric Tantrie teachings, which originated in India, persisted in several so-called Mahāyāna schools in China and Japan. In its Tibetan form Tantric Buddhism was richly fused with a native primitivism, and it underwent important and very divergent sectarian developments. The Tibetan monasteries contain (or did contain) superb collections of Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna sources in addition to the Tantric literature.
The statistics of Buddhist membership are even more deceptive. The total given has frequently ranged from 150,000,000 to 300,000,000—with the variation based principally on the fact that in Mahāyāna lands “orthodox” commitment to one religious faith was never a significant cultural characteristic. The populations of China and Japan could not be categorized as Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, or Shintoist in the same way that Western religious history seems to lend itself to relatively clear confessional divisions between Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. In Japan, for example, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto have frequently formed a single interlocking system for the specialized satisfaction of a wide range of personal and social needs. The same family that takes an infant to a Shinto shrine for a baptismal ceremony will, without any sense of conflict, have funeral rites conducted by Buddhist monks and maintain family ancestral worship and ethical standards largely dominated by Confucian values.
In southeast Asia approximately 90 per cent of the total population is Buddhist, monastic and lay. In China, just prior to 1949 less than one-fifth of the popular cults were recognizably oriented to Buddhism in some form, and only a small fraction of the total population (under 1 per cent) were specifically affiliated with the monastic orders. Since 1949 this percentage has been further reduced, as it also has, most recently and drastically, in Tibet, where over one-fifth of the total population once lived in the monasteries. In Japan more than three-quarters of the population have Buddhist affiliations, while in India and Pakistan— after an absence of many centuries—Buddhism has only recently, during the past few decades, begun to return in strength; however, it still numbers less than 1 per cent. Since the eighteenth century, with the first Asian emigrations to the West, Buddhism has found its way into Europe, Great Britain, South America, and the United States. The number of conversions among the populations of these countries is small in total number but is of considerable cultural significance, since conversions frequently reflect dissatis-faction with Western values and goals.
Amid this diversity there are a few central elements, which may be taken as generally characteristic of Buddhism throughout the larger part of its history. First, for all Buddhists the common point of unity has been in the symbol of the Buddha—whether revered chiefly as a human teacher, as in Theravāda, or worshiped as a supreme deity, as in certain forms of theistic Mahāyāna. In all cases the element of personal commitment in faith is present in some form. Second, Buddhism is one of the three major religions of the world which defines the human situation with sufficient universality for all mankind to fall within the scope of its message of salvation without prior criteria of social, ethnic, or geographic origin. The voluntary act of personal conversion in response to the teaching was from the very beginning and still remains one of the most decisive symbols of its missionary scope. Third, from the very beginning Buddhism was dominated by a religious elite for whom the monastic ideal and pursuit of a mystical, otherworldly goal were overriding concerns, frequently to the exclusion of consistent focus on mundane socioeconomic and political problems. However, even here there are many exceptions which must be noted and which require that Buddhism be “defined” with careful regard for its discrete historical forms.
The systematic study of Buddhism in full critical perspective began with the Enlightenment and the advent of Western colonialism in Asia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The arduous translation of Buddhist scriptures and basic historical and institutional reconstructions were sufficiently well advanced by the end of the nineteenth century to provide raw material for bolder attempts at comparative evaluation.
In general it may be said that today the major obligations of study include, first, the basic Buddhist literature, doctrines, and institutions considered internally—that is, within the community itself and among individual believers, as they understand it; second, the external relationship and exchange between Buddhism and the larger cultural environments of which it has been a part— including its relation to the goals of the state and its confrontation with other religions and ideologies; and third, what can be very broadly called the therapeutic contributions of Buddhist teaching to the human situation—both personal and social.
Historically, ancient Indian culture during the sixth century b.c. was to much of Asia what Hellenistic culture was to the West, and Buddhism was the missionary bearer of many of its values. The conditions underlying the emergence of Buddhism in ancient India were those generally characteristic of the wider process of sociocultural transition which took place during the first millenium b.c. across the face of the civilized world, from Greece to China. In the principal centers of the high cultures, archaic social and religious institutions were breaking down under the pressure of more complex forms of economic and political activity, associated with the urban revolution and the territorial expansion of new imperial states. In all cases, apparent economic and political advances were mixed with serious social disorders, hardship, and the loss of traditional religious moorings.
In this process of transformation, new philosophical and religious solutions were sought and attained by the formative thinkers whose teachings still lie behind the institutions and ways of life characteristic of the major civilizations of the world today. Socrates, the prophets of Israel, Confucius, and the Buddha were among the great innovators who, in distinctive ways, offered systematic critiques of the older values and redefined the meaning of existence and the nature of man and society within a more universal, transcendent framework, which became the basis for new cultural reconstruction.
In India during the seventh and sixth centuries b.c. there were significant developments in agricultural productivity, urban commerce based on a money economy, a new and increasingly affluent middle class, and the beginnings of rational bureaucracy. But these advances were offset by protracted power struggles between warring states for territory and economic resources. They resulted in the uprooting and extirpation of political minorities and the corrosion of the traditional forms of communal solidarity and religious legitimation— a situation that provoked a deep spiritual malaise and intensified earlier innovating speculations about the meaning of the self and the world. The value of all worldly activities and of life itself was questioned with unparalleled sharpness.
The new religious and philosophical teachers in India—most significantly those whose doctrines are embodied in the Upanisads, in Buddhism, and in Jainism—began their reconstructive enterprise quite paradoxically with a radical devaluation of the phenomenal world and the simultaneous affirmation of an otherworldly realm of absolute transcendence which alone is worthy to be the goal of all human striving. The normative religious problem emerged as one of personal salvation from bondage to phenomenal existence. The process of salvation was defined by a transmigrational metaphysic which forms an almost airtight theodicy: the soul (ātman) undergoes an endless cycle of rebirth (samsāra), in which the individual assumes a new physical form and status in the next life depending on the ethical quality of deeds (karma) in this life. The individual may attain salvation from this process by practicing the Yoga—an autonomous, ascetic discipline of the inner self, of body, mind, and motivations, designed to eliminate the karmic source of the transmigratory process.
Although this basic metaphysic was presupposed by many of the major schools, there were sharp sectarian disputes on the theoretical particulars. This conflict was heightened by disagreements over the prevalent theory of social stratification, the caste system. From the brāhman perspective all means of salvation were contained in the Vedas, and the law of karma was tied rigidly to the caste system: one is born in a particular caste as a result of deeds in the former life, and conformity to caste rules is the precondition of salvation or at least improvement in caste status in the next life. The non-brāhmaṇic schools, like Buddhism and Jainism, denied the ultimacy of the Vedas and the ritual significance of caste. Their messages of salvation were preached openly. Admission was based on personal conversion, usually without ascriptive limitations of caste, class, or sex. Their teachings found rich soil among upwardly mobile urban commercial groups, who held that both soterio-logical and social status should be based on achievement criteria rather than on hereditary right.
The Buddha and his teachings
Efforts to reconstruct the life and teachings of the Buddha and the institutions of the earliest Buddhist community run aground on many refractory critical problems. But the Buddha’s life story, overlaid in its many versions with legend and myth, is nevertheless persuasive in basic outline. The historical Buddha (“enlightened one”), named Siddhārtha Gautama, was born a prince of an indigenous Indian clan in northern India about 550 b.c. In his early youth he displayed unusual sensitivity to the pressing enigmas of human existence. His family endeavored unsuccessfully to distract him from these concerns and to insulate him from the signs of human finitude—suffering, contingency, and death. But at the age of 29, still preoccupied with the ultimate questions, he left to search for a means of salvation. For some years he tested and rejected radical physical asceticism and abstract philosophy. Finally, in a single night of intensive meditation he achieved enlightenment and evolved his own unique diagnosis and teaching (Dharma). He then embarked on a missionary career, preaching his message of salvation openly to all “without a closed fist.” He formed an ever-widening community (Sangha) of mendicant disciples from all castes, including women and lay devotees, and after a long ministry he died at the age of 80.
The major forms of the tradition represent the Buddha as teaching an exoteric, practical Yoga which followed the so-called “middle path”—a mean between the extremes of bodily indulgence, self-mortification, and speculative philosophy. This is a qualitative, not merely an expedient, mean. It is based on the conviction that neither ritual manipulation of external physical forms—including radical asceticism (e.g., Jainism)—nor abstract intellectualism can touch the real core of the human problem—the habitual errors of the mind and the inward perversion of the will and motivational processes. The Buddha’s unique diagnosis and soteriology are embodied classically in the “four noble truths.” (1) All creaturely existence is marked by duhkha (“pain,” “anguish”), an agonized bondage to the meaningless cycle of rebirths amid a transitory flux which is impermanent (anitya) and without essential being (anātman). (2) The cause of this agony is ignorance (avidyā) of the illusory nature of phenomenal existence and particularly the pernicious notion of the eternality of the soul, which ironically perpetuates the desire (tṘṣṇā) for life. As individual consciousness is dissolving in death, this residual ignorance and desire once again—in an inexorable causal sequence—form the empirical self from heterogenous phenomenal elements and chain it to the process of rebirth. (3) The removal of ignorance about and desire for phenomenal life will break the causal sequence and so precipitate final salvation. (4) For this purpose the proper Yoga is the “eightfold path,” an integral combination of ethics (śīla) and meditation (samādhi), which jointly purify the motivations and mind. This leads to the attainment of wisdom (prajñā), to enlightenment (bodhi), and to the ineffable Nirvāṇa (“blowing out”), the final release from the incarnational cycle and a mystical transcendence beyond all conceptualization.
The Yoga is radically autosoteriological—an autonomous performance by the self-reliant individual. It demands total commitment, adequately expressed only in the role of the mendicant monk who has abandoned the aspirations of the everyday world and has undertaken a life devoted to full-time pursuit of the religious goal. Although the lay householder might practice the Yoga and originally was not excluded from the ultimate goal (the Buddha said only that it was “harder” for the householder to attain Nirvāṇa), it was inevitable that full spiritual perfection should be dominantly reserved for those whose deeper concern for salvation was institutionally defined by complete monastic commitment.
The rudiments of the teaching outlined here give only the barest suggestion of its innovatory and therapeutic potential. Always foremost is the paradigmatic grandeur of spiritual transcendence and renewal represented by the Buddha himself. His withdrawal from the givenness of the everyday world and his negation of it was the first step in gaining a new critical leverage over it. The principal symbols of world rejection and negation are not pessimism or nihilism. They negate and displace the archaic religious practices and forms of social organization in the name of a transcendent goal that places all men in a universal context of religious meaning through which the whole human situation can be comprehended and managed. Correlatively, it is possible to inculcate universal standards of conduct which establish expectations of interpersonal and intergroup relationships without particularistic, ascriptive limits of space or time.
The initial act of conversion, expressed in commitment to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, not only allows for the dramatization of personal dissatisfaction with one’s present life situation but projects a longrange program of spiritual recovery and maturation, including the cathectic transformation of the whole personality and the internalization of new values, which can be publicly acted out. Enlightenment is not only the result of incessant meditation on the truths and on the transitoriness of life, which will ultimately eradicate desire for it; it requires motivational purification through the practice of universal virtues, in addition to monastic poverty and continence, love (maitrī), and compassion (karuṇā) toward all living creatures, the elimination of a host of specific vices, and the obligation to promote friendship and concord. Within the community the ritual divisions of caste and all ascriptive divisions are obliterated before the universal force of love and the knowledge of the common condition of all men.
The solidarity of the earliest mendicant community was centered on the charisma and teaching of the Buddha himself, but the growing number of converts, the addition of lay devotees, and the settlement of a number of cenobitic communities around major cities in the Ganges valley forced the routinization of discipline and teaching. By the end of the Buddha’s long ministry the Sangha was differentiated along several characteristic lines; most important was the class distinction between the monastic elite and the lay devotees. The tradition relates that after the Buddha’s death a council was convened at Rājagrha to regularize the teachings and monastic rule. The actual accomplishments of the council are uncertain, but it is apparent that a substantial body of the scriptures found in the present Theravādin canon and the residuals of other early schools already existed in oral form— including the nuclear disciplinary code (Prātimokṣa) of the later full monastic rule (Vinaya) and much of the soteriological teaching embodied in the Buddha’s discourses (Sūtra). The major ceremonials of communal life were in practice, most importantly the bimonthly uposatha—a congregational assembly and confessional recital of the Prātimoksa. As a result of the increasing generosity of the laity, the various monastic centers soon possessed extensive properties and dwelling places, with a highly differentiated system of specialized roles for administration and teaching.
By the third century b.c. the Sangha was in the process of sectarian proliferation, ultimately forming a number of schools, each of which emphasized different philosophical and doctrinal features of the received tradition. Their distinctive doctrinal positions were embodied in commentaries on the early teachings, finally forming—to take the Theravādin case—the Abhidhamma—the third part of the threefold Pāli canon (Tipitaka). According to uncertain tradition, a second council was convened at Vaiśālī one hundred years after the Buddha’s death. There a series of sharp disagreements about the inner meaning of the teaching, the status of the laity, and the rigors of the monastic rule brought on the “great schism,” a split chiefly between the conservative forerunners of the Theravāda and the more liberal Māhasaๅghika, whose doctrines were significantly related to the rise of Mahāyāna Buddhism in the following centuries.
The apparent failure of the first councils to unite the Sangha has to be gauged against the basic values of the teaching itself, the nature of monastic constitution, and the conception of internal authority. The early Saṅgha was never a “church” under one centralized control or subscriptionist orthodoxy. At Rājagṛha, after the Buddha’s death (and supposedly at his own request), the idea of routine patriarchal succession was deliberately rejected. In keeping with autosoteriology, the primary function of the monastic rule was to protect the spiritual independence of each monk. It contains typically stringent rules and penalties dealing with sexual offenses, abuse of material possessions, and interpersonal disturbances and outlines legal–rational procedures for dealing with internal disagreements. But the over-riding aim was to provide optimum conditions for pursuit of the ultimate religious goal, not to enforce ecclesiastical unity. Issues were discussed openly and decided by majority vote, with all ordained monks having equal franchise. The constitution of a monastery allowed free dissent in “good faith,” and if controversies could not be resolved, the rules governing schism allowed the dissenters to depart and form their own monastic center. Formal routinization finally included a status system based upon degree of spiritual perfection, knowledge and capacity to instruct, and seniority reckoned in a sequence of three decades from the date of ordination. There was a preceptor system for the guidance of novice monks, but the authority of the senior monks was in principle strictly advisory. The novice joined the Sangha by confessing his inward spiritual intention, but not within the framework of a system of bureaucratic office-charisma, as in the Roman and Byzantine churches, or of monastic obedience, such as we find in the Benedictine rule.
Social and political ethic
For the laity and for all secular spheres of social reality, the leadership of the Sangha developed a highly differentiated secondary soteriology, based on a merit-making ethic rationally oriented to the economic and political needs of the urban mercantile and artisan classes. In joining the Sangha, the lay devotees promised to conform to the “five precepts” (no killing, stealing, lying, adultery, or drinking of alcoholic beverages). By support of the monastic order and by their personal morality they could accumulate karmic merit and so be assured of better rebirth opportunities. By contrast with the archaic sacrificial rites which still persisted, Buddhism provided less-expensive religious media. The Buddhist laity were expected to make donations to the Saṅgha, but the soteriology stressed the autonomy of the self as the sacrificial agent.
In the Theravādin Sigālovāda Sutta, sometimes called the householder’s Vinaya, the layman is exhorted to pursue a lifetime of ethical self-discipline, for the sake of a well-being in “this world and the next,” including the maximization of economic efficiency. He must eliminate self-indulgent and wasteful vices which impair effective economic action: sensuality, hate, fear, and slothfulness. Undesirable business associates include those who lack self-discipline and waste human and physical resources. Slave trading and other dehumanizing practices are prohibited. The householder must train his children in socially useful occupations and carefully observe contractually defined ethical relationships with his family, servants, and business associates.
The lay theory of social stratification undercut caste criteria because it denied the religious ultimacy of the brāhmaṇs, the Vedas, and the ritual significance of caste divisions. The Buddha is represented as arguing that caste has no inherent sanctity because it arose historically as the result of occupational differentiation—“quite naturally, and not otherwise.” The social status of women was much improved, and in theory women and men were equals within the Saṅgha. Political theory, though basically patrimonial, asserts that the power of the state is based on a historically evolved contractual relationship between the king and the people which requires that the king earn his keep by his executive skill and moral example.
By the end of the third century b.c., popular lay piety had begun to find its center of gravity in a semitheistic cult entailing the merit-making worship (pūjā) of saintly relics and of the Buddha himself—now exalted to a supramundane plane and surrounded with symbols of his previous incarnations. The places of cultic worship (stūpas and caityas) signify the pressure of the laity for religious means increasingly remote from the monastic autosoteriology. These cultic developments were accompanied by civilizing rationalizations of many indigenous archaic resources which facilitated missionary activity—myths, cosmologies, gods, demons, heavens, hells, and magic—all subjected to the overarching power of the Buddha and the monastic order and tied to higher educational and socializing aims.
From the viewpoint of the expanding state in ancient India, Buddhism was from the very beginning a potentially valuable asset. The organized clergy—sworn to poverty—was a powerful and relatively inexpensive medium for building social solidarity where traditional collectivities had been disrupted by force, and they could assist in more subtle forms of pacifist teaching where force was impractical. This was also particularly meaningful in an expanding economy dependent on a stable and pacified environment for efficient production and exchange. The Sangha could provide the legitimation for political leaders and bureaucrats who either did not have suitable ascriptive status or desired to increase their innovatory power against some traditional elite.
The supportive relationship between Buddhism and the developing state reached a climax in the third century b.c., with an event which determinatively affected the subsequent history of Buddhism. The expansion of the state of Magadha, which had begun in the sixth century b.c., culminated in the founding of the Mauryan empire, a patrimonially governed centralized bureaucracy which dominated the subcontinent. The third ruler of this empire, King Aśoka, who acceded to the throne about 270 b.c., converted to Buddhism after completing the military consolidation of his territorial holdings. He then issued a pacifistic ideology grounded on the universal achievement-based principles common to the Buddhist lay ethic and most of the other Indian religions. This ecumenical ideology, along with an autobiography of his own spiritual transformation from military coercer to pious layman, was inscribed on stones and pillars and promulgated by emissaries throughout the Indian subcontinent and beyond. Its goal was clearly not only to legitimize the innovatory authority of the royal house but also to provide a wider cultural base for a more viable social system. It exhorts all men in the empire to cooperative pursuit of socially and economically efficient virtues. It discourages the practice of archaic sacrificial and magical ceremonials, thus undercutting traditional religious customs that reinforced politically troublesome local solidarities and supported an entrenched class of archaic religious practitioners. The ideology makes no specific mention of brāhmaṇ caste criteria for social integration, urging only that brāhmaṇs be shown the same respect as other religious leaders.
Although Aśoka did not institute Buddhism as the state religion, he promoted Buddhist missionary movements, which spilled over the borders into other lands—most importantly into southeast Asia. Several of his edicts indicate that he tried to unify the Sangha and stem schismatic tendencies which threatened its effective support of the goals of the state. He may have instituted a doctrinal reform by convening a third council at the capital city of Pātaliputra, which then became the basis for the Theravādin orthodoxy that was carried to Ceylon and the southeast Asian mainland. But sectarian schisms in India persisted, for the doctrinal and institutional reasons noted above.
Within fifty years after Aśoka’s death the Mauryan empire collapsed under a multitude of pressures—barbarian invasions, economic decline, internal political conflict, and a resurgence of brāhmaṇ power. Subsequently, the ascriptive principles of the caste system were further rationalized. The king’s responsibility was increasingly tied to the maintenance of the social order in accordance with caste criteria, thus forming the permanent social base for the emergence of normative Hinduism. The specifics of Buddhist nonascriptive social theory remained only peripherally influential—allowing for occasional nontraditional legitimation of invading monarchs and their courts— most notably among the Greeks, the Sákas and Pahlavas, and the Kuṣāṇas.
Mahāyāna Buddhism did not emerge identifiably as a self-conscious movement with its own distinctive literature and institutions until the first century a.d. Its earliest sūtras—held to contain the true and restored teachings of the Buddha—cannot be dated with certainty before the beginning of the Christian era, and there is some indication of Western and Iranian influence on their doctrine and symbolism. However, many prominent Mahāyāna principles have their roots in the issues raised at the second council of Vaiśāī, which culminated in the schism of the Mahāsarighika school. Its doctrines and those developed by other forerunners of the Mahāyāna represented liberalizing solutions to cumulative tensions which had been present within the Sangha almost from the very beginning. Particularly controversial were the hardened dichotomy between the laity and the monastic elite and disagreements regarding the right of lay access to the full religious goal.
The issues at stake centered on the traditional conservative conception of monastic perfection, ideally embodied in the Arhant, the fully perfected monk who attains complete enlightenment only at the end of the long and arduous pursuit of self-perfection demanded by the Yoga. This ideal was held by liberals to be a “selfish” distortion of the original teaching, violating the Buddha’s compassion for all men. In its place they introduced a new conception of spiritual perfection—the ideal of the Bodhisattva (being of enlightenment). The term, which was originally used chiefly to denote previous incarnations of the historical Buddha, was universalized. In its new configuration it means one who, although worthy of Nirvana, sacrifices this ultimate satisfaction in order to help all sentient creatures with acts of love and compassion. All men are inherently capable of filling this role. It is not necessarily a monastic category, and the Arhant is lower on the scale of perfection.
This innovation significantly undercut the rigidities of the class distinction between monk and layman. Although monasticism continued as a central institution, the Bodhisattva ideal opened the soteriology to new symbolic forms, beliefs, and practices. It facilitated popular diffusion and provided the basis for new theistic and philosophical developments, reflected in the principal Mahāyāna sūtras and schools. Equally important was the doctrinal affirmation of the divinity of the Buddha. He is not only the historical teacher; he is an omnipresent deity, an eternal spiritual being and force. This allowed for further rationalizations of the popular theistic movements.
The Perfection of Wisdom sūtras are among the most important theoretical formulations of Mahāyāna soteriology. The Bodhisattva’s distinctive marks are loving compassion and wisdom. This wisdom and its perfection are related not only to self-sacrificing love but also to a more accurate understanding of the real nature of Nirvāṇa. It is not an otherworldly goal, in polarity with the phenomenal world. This is a Hinayāna distortion, which ironically reduces Nirvāna to an empirical spatiotemporal object and reinforces the desire inimical to salvation. Nirvāna is beyond all phenomenal and conceptual polarities—void and empty (śūya). As one approaches inward realization of this truth and experiences enlightened insight, all distinctions between Nirvāna and the world are obliterated. One lives with pure, egoless compassion.
The “emptiness” motif in the Wisdom sūtras was developed by the philosopher Nāgǎrjuna, founder of the Mādhyamika school. He evolved a negational logic designed to break the inveterate tendency of the finite human mind to impose spatiotemporal categories on the supreme spiritual ideal. The other major philosophical school—the Vijn̄ānavāda (or Yogācāra)—based its teachings on sūtras developed around idealistic conceptions: all objective perceptions are illusory projections of the mind. Salvation is achieved by exhausting the source of dualistic consciousness and sensory perception through a Yoga which leads to union with the purity of being.
The philosophical schools reached extraordinary heights of exaltation and subtlety. They liberated the mystical ideal and soteriology from their scholastic bondage, attracted many intellectuals, and provided new principles for theoretical development of Mahāyāna universalism. But the bulk of Mahāyāna practice found its popular social base through theistic means. The heavens were filled with saving Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, who transferred their own merit to the believer in response to prayer, provided richly differentiated objects for cultic worship, and satisfied a wide range of personal affective needs. Theistic piety inspired important artistic achievements, beginning perhaps as early as the second century b.c., in the friezes of the Bhārhut and Sānchī topes, and culminating in the Buddha statuary produced by the Mathurā and Gandhāra schools—the latter clearly influenced by Greco–Roman art forms.
Among many efforts to systematize this theistic profusion one of the most important was the formulation of the Trikāya (“three bodies”) Buddhology. Here the Buddha exists in his eternal essence as a supreme heavenly deity and in worldly manifestations. He is both the absolute ground of being and the actional agent of salvation. He interpenetrates all discrete phenomena, assuring the universal presence of the Buddha-nature among all creatures, without distinction. This theory provided an integral basis for formal and functional differentiation of symbolic resources, and it was at the same time a dynamic metaphysic which could be adjusted to new social and cultural pressures.
Within the immensely rich theistic literature of Mahāyāna there are several important sūtras which became the basis of the most popular cults and schools in China and Japan. The Lotus of the Good Law purports to reveal the ultimate teaching of the Buddha Śākyamuni, the transcendent father of all worlds, whose love bridges all finite limitations. The devotee is saved by faith in this sūtra itself. There is a suggestion of sectarian exclusiveness in the dogma that this sūtra alone embodies the ekayāna (“one vehicle”)—the only efficacious means of salvation, which thus exhausts all other doctrines.
More radical are the Land of Bliss sūtras. Here Amitābha Buddha presides over a heavenly paradise—the “pure land”—available to the faithful through the power of his grace. Eschatological and sectarian motifs appear, stressing the utter uselessness of all techniques of self-salvation in a world of utter degeneracy and emphasizing the need to rely absolutely on Amitābha.
Though Mahāyāna produced little in the way of systematic economic or political theory, there are some exceptions which deserve mention because of their demonstrable influence in China and Japan. The Exposition of Vimalakīrti glorifies the virtues of a paradigmatic layman who not only pursues a life of rational economic gain and sophisticated worldly well-being but simultaneously achieves a spiritual perfection excelling that of the most distinguished monks. In the area of political theory the Sūtra of the Excellent Golden Light, written some time prior to the expansion of the Gupta empire (319–540), outlines a modified doctrine of divine kingship. The king is called devaputra (“son of the gods”), a designation current in the Hindu theory of kingship, but he has no insulated cultic status. He stands under the Buddha’s law and is obliged to promote universal peace and social order or by judgment of the gods forgo his right to rule—obviously a sanction for revolt. The patrimonial theory of kingship remained dominantly contractual. Only rarely did the incarnational Bodhisattva principle lend itself to caesaropapist or theocratic pretensions in India. Problems of social stratification receive only passing attention. Caste is presupposed as an institutional reality, and one looks in vain for a systematic critique comparable to that found in the scriptures of the early schools.
The missionary diffusion of Mahāyāna was greatly facilitated by a remarkable principle of rationalization which allowed for almost unlimited adaptability to given conditions. This was the idea of the Buddha’s upāyakauśalya (“skill-in-means”) —the ability to adjust teachings and institutions to the needs of all sorts and conditions of men through any means available. It was identified with the Buddha’s universal love, and, combined with the conviction that all phenomenal forms are illusory and void, it allowed for expedient use of new techniques to further the message of salvation. It cut through traditional boundaries, textual literalism, orthodox formulations, and monastic regulations with remarkable innovatory power and carried the teaching forward, however adumbrated and transformed.
The assimilative diversity of popular Mahāyāna did not mark the end of the development of Buddhism in India but rather led almost imperceptibly to a metamorphosis. Beginning recognizably in the sixth and seventh centuries a.d. there took place an upsurge of a vast new repertoire of magical, ritualistic, and erotic symbolism, which formed the basis for what is commonly called Tantric Buddhism. Its distinguishing institutional characteristic was the communication through an intimate master–disciple relationship of doctrines and practices contained in the Buddhist Tantras (esoteric texts) and held to be the Buddha’s most potent teachings, reserved for the initiate alone.
In content, Tantric Buddhism is fused in many areas almost indistinguishably with Mahāyāna doctrines and archaic and magical Hinduism. Cryptic obscurities were deliberately imposed on the texts to make them inscrutable except to the gnostic elite. But it took a number of identifiable forms, the most dramatic of which was Vajrayāna (“thunderbolt vehicle”). Vajrayāna had its metaphysical roots in the supposition that the dynamic spiritual and natural powers of the universe are driven by interaction between male and female elements, of which man himself is a microcosm. Its mythological and symbolic base was in a pantheon of paired deities, male and female, whose sacred potency, already latent in the human body, was magically evoked through an actional Yoga of ritualistic meditations, formulas (mantra), and gestures (mudrā) and frequently through sexual intercourse, which occasionally included radical antinomian behavior. The inward vitality of the sacred life force is realized most powerfully in sexual union, because there nonduality is experienced in full psychophysical perfection.
The philosophical justification for these developments was derived from adaptations of Yogācāra and Mādhyamika theory: since the objective phenomenal world is fundamentally identical with the spiritual universe of emptiness or is at most an illusory projection of the mind, the conclusion was drawn that all forms are not only devoid of real moral distinctions but, also, may serve as expedient means to an undifferentiated spiritual end: the overcoming of the illusory sense of duality between the phenomenal and spiritual world. For the adept it is not only necessary to say that there is no good or evil; it must be proved in an active way. The traditional morality is violated as behavior formerly regarded as reprehensible is found to speed the realization of nonduality.
Many Tantric sects practiced these rites only symbolically and in certain cases—most notably in the Sahajayāna (“innate vehicle”) school— produced works of great ethical exaltation. The Mantrayāna (“true-word vehicle”) school, which became influential in China and Japan, remained a rational paragon of restrained magico-religious esotericism. The social origins and class stratification of Tantric Buddhism are almost impossible to determine. Tantric Hinduism, also, was in vogue during this period, and its popularity suggests that a wide-ranging democracy of magical esotericism had broken through stereotyped pressures resulting from the development of state-controlled orthodox institutions during the Gupta era. In the sixth and seventh centuries there were sporadic persecutions of Buddhism, which may have promoted esoteric withdrawal.
After the tenth century a.d. Buddhism began a perceptible decline, for reasons which are still far from clear. The Mahāyāna philosophical schools became increasingly preoccupied with abstruse theoretical issues and hairsplitting polemics. In time theistic Mahāyāna and Tantric Buddhism became hardly distinguishable from the increasingly luxuriant garden of Hinduism. The great medieval Hindu philosopher Śaṅkara successfully incorporated the strong points of Buddhist philosophy in a decisive synthesis. Buddhist monasteries, schools, and cults began to lose their popular foundation, and we can see the slow but sure absorption of its symbolism, intellectual leadership, and laity into the richness of what étienne Lamotte has called I’hindouisme ambiant. The Buddha was represented as one among many incarnations of the Hindu god Visnu. The final blow came with the Turko–Muslim invasions in the twelfth century. Offended by monasticism in principle, shocked by polytheistic Mahāyāna and Tantrism, and coveting the wealth of the monasteries, the invaders systematically extirpated Buddhism by force. It was not to return as a significant institutional reality for eight hundred years.
Despite their stark contrast in doctrine and practice, the divergent missionary movements of Theravāda Buddhism into the lands of southeast Asia and of Tantric Buddhism into Tibet hide similarities which reveal the deeper potency of Buddhist universalism. In both cases Buddhism became the official state “church” and provided the religious base not only for evolutionary advances but also for long-lasting and relatively stable societies. In both cases Buddhism was introduced under favorable ecological, cultural, and political circumstances by rulers who controlled relatively small, homogeneous land areas and polities grounded on primitive and archaic religions. They saw in Buddhism an opportunity to innovate and to provide a broader religious base for legitimation and social integration.
With respect to the church–state relationship however, in Tibet this evolutionary movement finally took the form of a theocracy based on a unique rationalization of Mahāyāna and Tantric incarnational theology; while in southeast Asia the Theravāda—with its class division between celibate monk and layman and its highly routinized, orthodox version of the classical tradition—was able to maintain a structural distinction between church and state which had important consequences for later institutional developments.
In coordination with Aśoka’s political and ideological universalism, Theravāda missions had penetrated southeast Asia by the end of the third century b.c., most importantly in Ceylon, where Theravāda was instituted as the official religion of the state. Ceylon became the chief citadel for Theravādin orthodoxy and its continued diffusion throughout the mainland. In all cases the introduction of Theravāda facilitated the development of more highly differentiated polities by freeing societal resources from their embeddedness in limited traditional and ascriptive ties. Moreover, the two-class system had certain advantages. The king was a lay “defender of the faith,” working cooperatively with the superior charismatic and educative power of the monastic order, which provided state chaplains, missionaries, and teachers who crossed traditional boundary lines and created a new cultural milieu. The specialized performance of these tasks by the Sangha and the structural distinction between church and state also allowed for the formation of secular bureaucracies.
This rational rapprochement between the secular authorities of the state and the monastic leadership of Theravāda in southeast Asia did not take place without significant changes in the values and institutions of the ancient Indian Saṇgha, particularly in those factors which had precipitated its earlier sectarian instability. The radical soteriological independence of the individual monk was placed under routine controls by the introduction of a hierarchy of scholastic distinctions that marked out a chronological path through which the monk progressed toward the ultimate goal. This included grades of perfection based on seniority and routine acquisition of appropriate knowledge. Many of these modifications already appear in later portions of the Vinaya and in the Theravādin Abhidhamma and commentaries. This provided more real space and time for the individual monk to perform worldly tasks without being stigmatized as a spiritual weakling. In addition, in Ceylon the structure of monastic authority was redefined in a way which sets it off strikingly from the early mandate interdicting all forms of centralized ecclesiastical control. We find new rationalizations of the legitimacy of patriarchal authority. A uniform line of charismatic successors to the Buddha’s authority was used to justify hierarchical control of the monastic orders, approaching that of a unified church backed up by the power of the state. Finally, a doctrinal orthodoxy was established. The key text is the Kathāvatthu, reputedly promulgated under King Aśoka’s supervision and contained in the Abhidhamma. It simply declares 252 non-Theravādin teachings “heretical,” with minimal discussion of the issues at stake. These relatively new dogmas and lines of authority now allowed for the definition of other essential forms. The councils at RājagṘha, Vaiśāllī, and Paṭaliputra were approved as officially binding. At the fourth Theravādin council, in 25 b.c., the threefold canon of scriptures was established as the basis for a uniform ecclesiastical law.
In this newly stabilized form Theravāda was located on solid institutional and doctrinal ground, from which it could more effectively serve the goals of the state. The “four noble truths,” the precepts, and the other rational socioeconomic and political teachings set generalized standards for interpersonal and intergroup relations at all levels of society.
In Ceylon the Sangha was partially fused with existing feudal institutions, forming a monastic landlordism pre-empting more than one-third of the land. But it also taught necessary technical skills and norms and provided a wider sphere for social consensus and the religious legitimation of the polity.
On the mainland—to take Thai as an example —the monarchs of some of the early Thai kingdoms which emerged in the mid-thirteenth century supported the Theravādin Saṇgha not only for internal integration but also for the acculturation of conquered non-Thai groups. The structurally differentiated status of the Sangha later facilitated the formation of a civil bureaucracy, which became the basis for Thai administration up to modern times. Specialized departments were set up under the titular rule of royal princes, with the actual administration performed by civilian officials. The Sangha was headed by a state-appointed patriarch, who coordinated the activities of the Sangha with the needs of the state, maintaining an important sphere for the management of tensions and the mediation of conflicting pressures from both sides. Although hereditary ascription, including discriminatory laws and penalties, remained an important integrative principle, the system was considerably opened to individual achievement because access to the civilian bureaucracy and the religious hierarchy was based on free education, provided by village monks. In addition, all young males were expected (as they still are) to spend at least several months living as novices in training with the monastic community. In general the Theravādin system represented a qualitative advance over the primitive and archaic systems which preceded it.
In Tibet, Buddhism provided equally important evolutionary guidance and ecclesiastical support, chiefly through the medium of Mahāyāna and Tantric values and under cultural conditions which resulted in a unique synthesis. The economy was agricultural and pastoral, with little in the way of commercial exchange and mobility. The native religion was a primitive magical animism (Bönism), marked by a labyrinthian demonolatry and controlled by Bönist shamans, who specialized in manipulatory magic, necromancy, divination, and exorcism. In the early seventh century a.d. Yogācāra teaching was introduced to the royal court by the monarch of a newly formed patrimonial state, but it was not until the eighth century, when Tantric missionaries arrived from Bengal, that the real cultural breakthrough occurred. Tantric success was due in part to the inherent grass-roots appeal of its theistic cosmologies and magical practices to those already steeped in the native religion. But compared with Bönism it provided a more highly differentiated and psychologically liberating system of beliefs and practices. The literate Buddhist clergy were armed with a charisma which overwhelmed local chiefs, sorcerers, and demons alike. The native deities were subordinated to the superior power of the Buddhist pantheon, and in time ethical standards were at least partially reformed and universalized through the karmic theodicy. Typically, many primitive indigenous practices were assimilated and placed under a suitable socializing hierarchy. Religious resources soon included a wide range of additional Indian Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna materials, and the monasteries became centers for the systematic translation and study of texts.
Authority was maintained by patriarchal succession, and the noncelibate Vajrayāna tradition, with its sexual-sacramental rationale, encouraged the monks to take spouses. This resulted in the institution of a hereditary “monastic” elite, which undermined and finally destroyed the secular monarchy itself. By the thirteenth century Tibet was controlled by lamas (“elders”), who ruled from their fortified lamaseries and dominated all political, economic, and religious activities. Theocratic power was hardened by an alliance with the emerging Mongol empire.
However, with the collapse of the Mongol empire in the fourteenth century, the inner resources of Buddhism found new creative outlets and produced a remarkable reforming movement. The monk Tsoh-Kha-pa, who initiated this reform, emerges as a genuine prophetic figure. He was a specialist in Mādhyamika negational philosophy and in the rules of the Vinaya, and he aimed at the elimination of Vajrayāna abuses and the restoration of monastic celibacy, discipline, and rational ethics. He organized the Ge-lug-pa (“virtuous sect”), the “yellow church.” The color yellow signified his purifying reforms against the Vajrayāna practices of the traditional “red church,” which soon lost its position of political power.
The reassertion of monastic celibacy in combination with the theocratic principle of political organization precipitated another series of innovations in the fifteenth century. Since patriarchal authority could no longer be defined by hereditary succession, charismatic legitimacy was maintained through a unique rationalization of incarnational theory: each of the chief lamas in the clerical hierarchy was held to be a worldly incarnation of a divine Bodhisattva, reborn as an infant in a lay household shortly after the preceding lama died. His spirit transmigrated into the newborn child, whose legitimacy was determined through elaborate rites of divination. The child was then trained in the monastery, under rigorous supervision. Theocratic authority was distributed between the Dalai Lama, who served as temporal ruler, and the Panchen Lama, who was authoritative in all doctrinal matters.
The metaphysical base of this system was further routinized by an emanational theology in which an original creator Buddha (Ādibuddha) produced and controlled all subdeities and discrete empirical forms. This was not only a soteriological hierarchy but a paradigm for the organization of the state, representing the order of the ecclesiastical bureaucracy and the organic participation of various subsects and all the people in the spiritual power of the chief lamas.
The decisive factor affecting the history of Buddhism in China was its confrontation with the religious values and institutions of a high civilization that differed markedly from the ascetic, otherworldly orientation of Indian Buddhism. The Buddhist world view made its own unique contributions to Chinese culture, while at the same time undergoing acculturation—a process that produced a new if not always stable synthesis of Indian and Chinese values.
In China during the first century a.d., Buddhism was confined mainly to foreign communities in the northern commercial cities. The Buddha was worshiped popularly as one among many deities considered worthy of petition and propitiation, and it was not until the end of the second century, with the arrival of Mahāyāna missionaries and texts, that systematic propagation was undertaken. Buddhism’s deeper values and institutions began to assume relatively clear definition and to find a social base among members of the gentry.
The penetration of Buddhism was enhanced by the severe political and economic disorders which occurred at the end of the Later Han dynasty (a.d. 25–220). In this situation of general social breakdown, Buddhism provided therapeutic answers to pressing questions about the meaning of the times and of life itself, unanswerable within the indigenous religious framework. Han Confucianism formed the basis for a highly rational political system, and its ethic had immense integrative strength. However, its cosmological metaphysic was designed to reinforce worldly institutions, obligations, and goals. Awareness of the meaning of the self and the world and of the ambiguities of life was sometimes profound, as with Mencius and Chuang-tzu, but self-reflection and inward cultivation were aimed at better performance of the li (proper social action), rather than at personal salvation.
Taoism, with its naturalistic mysticism, provided an important outlet for the socially induced tensions and the pressures of conventional civilization. Equally significant was the hsüen-hsüeh (“mysterious learning”), an esoteric gnosis with a comparatively sophisticated metaphysic. But hsüen-hsüeh appears as a metaphysical capstone to Confucianism; and cultic Taoism was dominantly shamanistic—providing magical techniques and recipes for immortality in this world, not the next. Buddhism was something very different. With its devaluation of phenomenal life and rich repertoire of otherworldly symbolism and soteriologies, it placed infinite worth on the legitimacy of personal striving for salvation at the cost of all worldly concerns. By comparison the indigenous religions and philosophies were eminently life-affirming and naturalistic.
The Buddhist monastery, however worldly in fact, served as the institutional setting for fulltime pursuit of an otherworldly goal. Despite important similarities between them, the Buddhist monk and the Taoist recluse, the “retired gentleman,” could not be mistaken for each other. Even more striking was the stark contrast between the monk and the ideal Confucian gentleman, the chün-tzu. The decisive and ultimately victorious opponents of Buddhism in China were the Confucian literati. Their categorical affirmation of the inherent value of the phenomenal world and of the need for clearly structured human obligations and rational social order was deeply violated by the ideal of the celibate, ascetic monk who abandons the world, his family, and the principle of filial piety for the sake of an unknown, incomprehensible reward. The monastic ideal was regarded by many Confucians as an immense threat to the family, to the state, and to every sacred value.
The social disturbances at the end of the Han dynasty extended into the period of the Three Kingdoms and Six Dynasties (220–589). In the early part of the fourth century there were a series of barbarian invasions and settlements in the north which provoked a mass migration of Han gentry to the south. This long-lasting cultural split was important for the subsequent development of Buddhism in China. In the north, amid the chaos of the times, Buddhism was a relatively calm oasis of religious and social stability. The Hunnic warlords found in Buddhism the means of religious legitimation and of establishing their own political identity on a wide cultural base which broke through traditional social fissures. The meritmaking ethic and magical therapy were valuable for expiating past sins, gaining practical ends, and sanctioning desired social standards, which still remained profoundly Confucian in depth despite the decimation of the literati.
Under state sponsorship a systematic and remarkably disciplined translation of Buddhist texts was undertaken, introducing many new sūtras and commentaries, around which schools and cults began to form. Among the first were the Tien-t’ai, based on the Lotus Sūtra, and the San-lun, which centered on the Perfection of Wisdom sūtras and Mādhyamika materials. Popular theistic cults included the worship of many Bodhisattvas. However, by the fifth century the entrenched status of the monastic orders—free from taxation and corvée—had resulted in internal abuses which, from the viewpoint of the state, destroyed their rational cultural and integrative functions. Many of the monasteries had accumulated vast wealth and properties. They were regarded as sanctuaries for those who wanted to avoid secular obligations —including the transfer of land titles to avoid taxation—and as hotbeds of immorality and political subversion. As a result, efforts were made to break the power of the Sangha and to place it more directly under state control. A caesaropapist fusion of church and state was contemplated by the emperor of the Northern Wei. It was suggested that he declare himself an incarnate Buddha and thus pre-empt the charismatic authority and power of the order. The Sangha was able to resist this effort because the northern dynasties were inherently too unstable for a theocratic synthesis.
More successful was the effort to control the Sangha by systematic reorganization and occasional persecution. A clerical bureaucracy in the Confucian pattern was superimposed on the monastic orders to guarantee rational internal regulation; and persecutions initiated in a.d. 446 and 574 deprived the monasteries of much of their property, wealth, and personnel. However, these acts of coercion had important consequences for the development of the Pure Land cult—intensifying the emphasis on eschatological symbolism and the need for salvation through faith in Amitābha’s grace alone and deepening its social grounding and universalism.
In the south the dynasties remained Chinese, and political and economic conditions were more stable. The primary cultural and ideological leader-ship remained dominantly in the hands of the Confucian literati, although Neo-Taoism was strongly represented at court. The leading Buddhist monks were for the most part learned, Confucian-trained intellectuals prepared to deal with Taoist and Confucian teachings in depth. They deliberately sought to maintain the political independence of the Sangha, while at the same time synthesizing and enrichening its soteriology in an endeavor to meet the spiritual and social needs of the laity. This independence of mind and synthetic flexibility are best typified by Hui-yüan (334–416). His monastery was a richly Sinified center of Buddhist—Confucian teaching. He was both an expert in the Confucian li—especially the mourning rites—and the traditional founder of the Pure Land school. In order to stabilize the lay ethic, he stressed the moral efficacy of the karmic metaphysic and insisted that the laity observe the five relationships and the law of land. Paradoxically, his rational accommodation of Buddhist teaching to Confucian norms was mixed with a strong sense of the independent dignity of the monk in contrast to the claims of the state cult. With remarkable courage he refused to conform to the traditional court ritual venerating the sacredness of the emperor. In a superb quasi-prophetic treatise entitled “A Monk Does Not Bow Down Before a King,” he argued that the monk does not lack loyalty or filial piety but has a higher loyalty to the universal Buddhist law, to which all men are subject.
On the whole, however, the bifurcation between the soteriological status of monk and layman prevented the formation of a principle of secular or lay social criticism. Lay patrons were expected to conform humbly to the given political values of the state, and in the last analysis the Sangria’s power in both the north and south was dependent on the attitude of the patrimonial monarch, which might range from pious support to savage persecution, depending on utilitarian need or personal whim.
The conquest of the south and’ the unification of China in a.d. 589 under the Sui dynasty was followed by a deliberate effort on the part of the Sui rulers to use the three major religions coordinately to attain a higher level of cultural unity. Buddhism not only supplied the religious imagery but also the ideology behind the conquests of the founder of the Sui. He deliberately drew on the Buddhist traditions about King Aśoka and justified the use of force by infusing it with cultic imagery: “… we regard the weapons of war as having become like the offerings of incense and flowers presented to the Buddha… .” Also of value was the psychological conditioning of the army through Buddhist-inspired emphasis on the otherworldly paradise and the trivial consequences of bodily wounds and death itself.
The Buddhist monasteries, patronized by wealthy aristocratic families, were important links between upper and lower status groups. They implemented a pietistic economic justice by distributing the wealth among the poor—a rational contribution in a time of low economic mobility. State supervision was tight. Monks were required to hold government-approved certificates of ordination and to submit to the supervision of a state-appointed Vinaya master.
In this situation of new political stability, which extended into the T’ang dynasty (a.d. 618–907), Buddhism underwent a remarkable institutional flowering. The T’ang capital was a great center of Sino-Buddhist art and ceremonial, gilding the power of the royal Son of Heaven with suitable charismatic and aesthetic beauty. The provinces and villages were dominated by Buddhist temples and staffed with clergy who tended to the personal affairs of the faithful, simultaneously reinforcing wider social solidarity.
By the eighth century the diffusion of Buddhism had in many ways broken through many of the old particularisms and created a relatively unified Buddhist culture, moderating the severity of the ferocious penal codes and promoting many charitable works. The major Buddhist philosophical schools—now emerging in full strength—provided varied outlets for personal choice and intellectual and soteriological satisfaction. These schools did not develop primarily out of institutional schism or sectarian dissent. Instead, they were formed around the teachings of one or more of the Indian sūtras, commentaries, and doctrinal systems expounded in China by a master and his designated successors. Confronted as the scholars were with the immense profusion of source materials, their practical goal was to reconcile and harmonize the texts. Some of the schools were based dominantly on the literature of the major Indian philosophical schools, Mādhyamika and Vijn̄ānavāda. But others, like T’ien-t’ai and Hua-yen, had no specific Indian institutional counterpart except that implied by the existence of their key sūtras, around which they catalogued the other sources. Membership in the philosophical schools was necessarily limited to a relatively select literate group, although Tient’ai had an extensive lay following, and Pure Land —for the reasons noted above—was inherently capable of wide popular diffusion.
The most remarkable synthesis of Chinese and Indian values was achieved in the Meditation school of Ch’an (Zen). While it was based on the autosoteriological principles of yogic action, its leadership developed a unique meditative technique, which stressed practical, nondiscursive, and naturalistic media for attaining enlightenment. Its teaching was conveyed through a master-disciple relationship founded rigidly on the principle of patriarchal succession, but the school split into two main sects in the seventh century. The Ts’aotung emphasized a gradual approach, including routine textual study in the traditional fashion, while the Lin-chi adopted an approach in which all residuals of abstract intellectualism, received texts, and dogmas were abandoned in favor of new techniques. Most notable was the “public case” (kōan in Japanese), a method of question and answer designed to shock the routine patterns of thought that inhibit intuitive insight and the realization of the Buddha nature latent in every man.
Although the Meditation school retained much of the traditional monastic discipline, the essential teaching was communicated largely without ecclesiastical or textual encumbrances. This proved helpful not only in facilitating missionary mobility but also in surviving persecutions which destroyed the edifices, property, and literature of the more traditional schools. The Meditation masters frequently required their disciples to do manual labor, and the antinomian potentials of the teaching were held in check by adherence to the Confucian ethic. In its practicality and its validation of the natural world by the very act of transcending it, there is much of native Chinese naturalism and mystical Taoism. The school exercised considerable influence on the arts and aesthetic values by stressing the inner spiritual depths of the natural form and act.
Buddhism reached its zenith in China during the eighth century. But in the latter part of the Tang it began to weaken. The main factors in this decline were the rise of Taoist political power in the royal court and the renewed importance of Confucianism among the gentry, including the restoration of the bureaucratic examination system under new Confucian leadership. Internal rebellions and barbarian pressures on the frontiers contributed to the collapse of the great family systems on which Buddhism had relied. Equally important was the fact that once again the Buddhist temples and monasteries had become entrenched centers of irrational economic and political power, which from the viewpoint of the state outweighed their cultural contributions. In a.d. 845 a massive persecution was instituted during which—according to the Emperor Wu—over 44,000 temples and monasteries were demolished and their properties confiscated, releasing millions of acres of land and their laborers. Monks and nuns were compelled to return to productive lay occupations.
This disastrous deinstitutionalization of Buddhism in the late T’ang was capped in the Sung (960–1279) by the Neo-Confucian reform, which effectively broke the back of Buddhist intellectual pre-eminence in philosophy and placed Confucianism on a new and metaphysically satisfying base. It represents an attack on the Buddhist world view, while at the same time appropriating from Buddhism not only much of its deeper philosophical orientation but also a new concern for the individual and questions of personal meaning. In the philosophical perspective of the great Neo-Confucian thinker Chu Hsi (1130–1200), understanding leads to a salutary enlightenment. This new image of the Confucian sage encroached on the unique role of the Buddhist monk.
Specifically, the Neo-Confucian attack on Buddhism was in two directions. First, there was an assault on the idea that, since the world is in constant change and flux, it is nothing but meaningless suffering and illusion. On the contrary, all change shows order and permanence in the larger process if not in particular things. Second, there was an attack on the idea that the world is empty and that one should turn away from outer sensations and progressively realize the artificiality not only of the world but also of the mind’s assertion of the independent reality of the world and the mind. On the contrary, instead of turning from the world, one must investigate its principles and discover its norms, as the basis for the active correction of worldly imperfection.
By the end of the Sung dynasty Buddhism lost much of its intellectual social grounding. The Mongols supported Tibetan Lamaism and Tantrism, as did the Manchus (1644–1911), for political reasons, but the long association of Buddhism with barbarian dynasties contributed to the general revulsion against it which characterized much of later Chinese intellectual thought. Monasticism continued, but under the closest government supervision. The Buddhist clergy were relegated to the service of popular religious needs and competed with the Taoist shamans for pre-eminence in magical therapy. Their main role was to pray for the souls of the dead, while the Taoists were specialists in the exorcism of demons and sickness. Individuals seeking their aid were not classified as Buddhists or Taoists but simply as Chinese consulting specialists who were essentially without congregations. A residue of Buddhist lay piety remained in several secret societies—most notably the White Lotus Society, which served largely as a low-level Gemeinschaft organization with little in the way of real devotional fervor or religious universalism.
Japan had not participated independently in the cultural revolutions of the first millennium b.c. For Japan, like Tibet and southeast Asia, this transition occurred much later, in the sixth and seventh centuries a.d., under the impact of Sino-Buddhist values and institutions imported from Korea.
At first Buddhism was valued primarily for its magical power and its prestige as the symbol of the great civilization of China. The real breakthrough to its deeper resources was initiated by one of the greatest figures in Japanese history, Prince Shōtoku (573–621). Shōtoku assumed the regency at a time when there was growing strife between the leading clans over imperial succession. He converted to Buddhism as a layman and, with the assistance of Korean monks, began to reconstruct his society on the broader ethical and cultural base provided by the new values. The innovatory significance of this conversion is suggested by a passage in one of the sūtra commentaries attributed to him: “The world is false—only the Buddha is true” In this ecstatic affirmation of the fundamental principle of world rejection, he appears to have taken the first step in the process of liberating his society from the burden of the archaic institutions which surrounded him. His reconstructive enterprise was spelled out in a new ideology, embodied in a 17-article constitution —a fusion of Buddhist universalism and Confucian ethics.
Shōtoku actually ruled from the monastery, availing himself of its legitimation and the leverage provided by the monastic order. He sent embassies to China to bring back knowledge of Chinese civilization, which became the basis for the later Taika reform and codes based on Tang law, land systems, and bureaucratic principles.
In the Nara period (709 to 784) Buddhist doctrine found institutional expression in newly imported schools, representing both Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna teachings, including the Mādhyamika (Sanron) and Vijn̄ānavāda (Hossō). Buddhism dominated the religious life of the royal court and was patronized through the building of temples and monasteries and in other acts of merit-making piety. It provided important ceremonial media for reinforcing court solidarity. Significant contributions to state ideology were made by some of the more politically useful sūtras: The Lotus of the Good Law not only represented the unity of all forms of soteriological action in the “one vehicle” but also had a potential affinity for symbolizing national unity, which gave it a permanent place in Buddhist political theory. In 741 Emperor Shōmu ordered copies of the Sūtra of the Excellent Golden Light sent to all the provinces. He directed the building of provincial temples, staffed them with suitable personnel, and built a central shrine to house the immense statue of the Lochana Buddha. By the mid-eighth century Buddhism was the cultic center and metaphysical base of state authority.
However, the Sangha itself began to gain new political power—a process which culminated in an effort to institute a Buddhist theocracy under a master of the Hossō sect. This was finally blocked by opposing forces in the royal court, and at the close of the Nara and the beginning of the Heian period (794 to 1185) the Nara clergy was significantly discredited. Emperor Kammu deliberately undertook to dissociate the court from the Nara schools by moving the capital bodily to Kyoto and adopting the term heian (“peace,” “tranquillity”) to express his new political and cultural goals. He also encouraged the formation of a new Buddhist monastic order, under the leadership of Saichō (767–822), a reforming monk who had earlier withdrawn in disgust from the worldly meshes of Nara Buddhism. Saichō established his own charismatic and doctrinal independence by studying with Tien-t’ai (Tendai) monks in China. He centered his teaching on the Lotus Sūtra and required his monks to undergo 12 years of study and discipline under the rules of the Vinaya. His specific social aim was to prepare them to assume positions of responsible leadership in joint support of the monastic order and the state.
With Kammu’s death in a.d. 806, the new emperor asserted his own patrimonial independence by promoting a new teaching, expounded by Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi), a monk of aristocratic Japanese lineage who had studied in China and returned with Tantric doctrines culled from the Mantrayāna (Chen-yen) school. Kūkai, unquestionably a man of immense intellectual and artistic abilities, founded Shingon—the Japanese version of this school. Its esoteric teachings, rich ceremonial, and aesthetically satisfying symbolism appealed to the royal court. Shingon claimed to incorporate not only all the major Buddhist doctrines but also Confucianism, Taoism, and Brahmanism, forming a hierarchial system arranged in ten stages of perfection and capped by the esoteric mysteries. It thus provided an eclectic system of beliefs and practices capable of wide-ranging social penetration, which could be accommodated to the given social hierarchy through extension of the highest esoteric privileges to the elite. Shingon’s synthetic potential also found one of its most important expressions in “dual” Shinto, in which Shinto gods were designated Bodhisattvas in an effort to form a unified cultic framework.
The syncretic power and popularity of Shingon moved Saichō and his successor, Ennin (794– 964), to institute a Tendai esotericism, based chiefly on Ennin’s studies in China. But Tendai itself was victimized by a sectarian disruption stemming principally from a dispute over the right of patriarchal succession which developed when the emperor selected a blood relative of the aristocratic Kūkai as abbot of the order. The conflict produced one of the most tragic periods in the history of Japanese Buddhism. The two camps not only split into hostile religious sects but also, in coordination with dominant clan-based feudal developments, formed fortresses of warrior-monks, who engaged in violent internecine warfare. During the medieval period this became a widespread characteristic. These hostilities were exacerbated by the fact that personal prestige and political status depended jointly on education in one of the monasteries and the monastery’s respective position vis-à-vis royal or clan approval. Clan conflict was frequently defined along sectarian lines, with the great families supporting one feudal monastery against another. Equally important was the freewheeling legitimation allowed by the syncretic richness of the esoteric teachings—including suitable Shinto deities to signify the solidarity of each monastic fortress. The esoteric repertoire also gave rise to the Vajrayāna sexual sacramentalism of the Tachikawa school—a “heretical” movement bitterly opposed by Shingon leaders and ultimately suppressed by imperial order.
In all of this the resurgent Buddhism of the early Heian seemed to have undergone a compromising worldly domestication. However, toward the end of the Heian period, amid increasingly violent clan wars and social disruptions, there were countervailing forces at work. In the Heian court, clearly under the influence of Buddhism, we find the emergence of a self-reflective poetry, literature, and drama marked by an extraordinary sophistication of mood and expression. Awareness of the transience of life and the melancholy of impermanent beauty was coupled with symbolism of withdrawal and a nostalgia for the tranquillity of the past. This easily degenerated into sentimentality and became a sign of courtly refinement, but nevertheless it signified a growing uneasiness and a renewed sense of human finitude and guilt.
The feudal wars finally resulted in the overthrow of the old Kyoto aristocracy and the installation of military rule under the Kamakura shōgunate (1192–1333). However, effective stabilization of the society did not take place until the Tokugawa period, and during the intervening four centuries Japan continued to be devastated by protracted warfare. In this situation of deepening gloom and pessimism the energies of Buddhism were once again restored, in a new breakthrough which touched all social strata. Liberated from aristocratic ties to the defunct Kyoto court, it expressed its inherent universalism in ways which still dominate Japanese religious life today. The most important new movement was Pure Land Buddhism. The soteriology was basically the same as in the Chinese case. Self-salvation is impossible. The single efficacious act is the Nembutsu, the invocation and fervent repetition of Amida’s (Amitābha’s) name—a practice already introduced earlier by Ennin.
The institutionalization of Pure Land in Japan was promoted by three unorthodox Tendai priests, Kuya (903–972), Genshin (942–1017), and Ryōnin (1071–1132). Kūya left the monastery to preach to the masses and promote charitable public works. His missionary zeal even moved him to try to evangelize the primitive Ainus. Genshin popularized Pure Land in his book The Essentials of Salvation. Ryōnin expounded the teaching in songs and liturgy, intoning the Nembutsu and urging the unity of all men in the faith. His converts included monks, aristocrats, and common laity alike. Subsequent developments were even more radical. Ippen (1239–1289) followed the tradition of personal evangelism, preaching and singing in Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples about the omnipresence of Amida’s compassion with a universalism which transcended all sectarian differences.
The sudden increase in the popularity of Pure Land during this period of hardship suggests that for the first time the meaning of the human situation—not merely the immediate conditions of personal well-being—was called into question on a large scale. There was an increasing obsession with the idea that the world is hell and the human situation totally corrupt. Although it is clear that for many the heavenly paradise of the “pure land” was an affirmation of worldly pleasures, there were practices symptomatic of deeper stresses. People of all classes practiced ascetic vigils and fasts while concentrating on Amida’s compassionate image. There were radical acts of physical self-mortification—for example, gifts of a finger, hand, or arm to Amida or religious suicides by burning or drowning—all indicative of deep disturbance.
Hōnen (1133–1212) and Shinran (1173–1262) were responsible for the major forms of Pure Land, which still exist today. Prior to their efforts the images of Amida were to be found in the temples of almost every sect, and the Nembutsu had no orthodox exclusiveness. But Hōnen insisted on the inherent superiority of Pure Land. His radical sectarianism and his success in winning converts resulted in persecution and exile. His disciple Shinran went further: man’s total sinfulness means that calling on Amida’s name is a useless effort toward merit making unless it is done out of grace-given faith and gratitude. Suffering and sin are the preconditions for personal salvation: “If the good are saved, how much more the wicked.” Monastic celibacy and the precepts are ineffectual and must be abandoned. The warrior, hunter, thief, murderer, prostitute—all are saved through faith alone. Shinran held that monastic celibacy was not required, and he formed the True Pure Land sect (Jōdo Shin) in reaction to some of the more conservative members of Hōnen’s group, who still held to the celibate ideal and other traditional vows. The new sect was organized around Shinran’s lineal descendants.
One of the consequences of Pure Land radicalism was that it provoked a counterreformation which brought new rigor to the Nara sects and reform movements within Shingon and Tendai. The most important reformer was Nichiren (1222–1282), a Tendai monk born the son of a fisherman, who took deep pride in his low birth and prophetic role. His reforming message was based on a call to return to the teaching of the Lotus Sūtra. The goal of his mission was a paradoxical combination of evangelical universalism, radical sectarianism, and fierce nationalism, demanding the cultural and political unification of Japan around Buddhism through faith in the Lotus alone. His position was sufficiently radical for him to form a new school, and his criticism of the incumbent regime resulted in the imposition on him of the death sentence, which was finally commuted to exile. His suffering he interpreted as inherently in keeping with the Buddha’s message, and his disciples continued missionary activity despite continuous persecution, particularly during the Tokugawa shōgunate.
Zen Buddhism was the third major movement to emerge out of the Kamakura matrix, although it did not reach full strength until the Ashikaga shōgunate (1338–e1573) and after. In its soteriology it was the reverse of the Pure Land and Nichiren sects, and it did not become equally popular, although it was immensely appealing to many individuals for whom neither otherworldly theism nor ascetic withdrawal were meaningful forms of religious action. It was successfully transplanted to Japan by Eisai (1141–1215) and Dōgen (1200–1253). Dissatisfied with the condition of Tendai Buddhism, Eisai left for Sung China, where he studied with a Lin-chi (Rinzai) master. After returning to Japan he settled in Kamakura, where his practical teaching found popular acceptance among the new warrior aristocracy. Later he went to Kyoto, with the intention of blending both Shingon and Tendai esotericism with his doctrine. His alliance with the new political order and his compromise with the other sects were major factors in the successful institutionalization of Zen in Japan.
Dōgen, a Tendai monk of aristocratic birth and Confucian training, studied with a master of the Ts’ao-tung (Sōtō) school. He tried to strike a balance between the patriarchal and scriptural traditions, approving both Hīayāna and Mahāyāna sources and minimizing the importance of the kōan. His soteriology stressed rational modes of self-perfection through meditation and ethical and intellectual striving. He retained a strong sense of the dignity of physical labor and the discipline of work in the world, rejecting an easy accommodation of moral standards to given conditions.
Though Dōgen refused to lend open support to the incumbent political regime, Zen teaching in general provided a remarkably creative base for coordination with the secular needs and cultural goals of the state. Zen monks assisted the emperor in many tasks and helped to cement diplomatic and economic relations with China. They were instrumental in establishing a state-sponsored Buddhist church during the Ashikaga shōgunate, which imported and promulgated Sung Neo-Confucianism, provided educational services, and printed textbooks. Equally important was the liberalizing influence of Zen in the arts, including the military art of swordsmanship (stern discipline, selflessness, and spontaneity), the classical tea ceremony, and many aesthetic refinements which became part of the vital mainstream of Japanese cultural life.
The egalitarian thrust of these new religious movements initiated during the Kamakura period contributed richly to the moral and religious health of Japanese culture, but they were not basically reformist. They did not undercut the feudal or patrimonial basis of the society. Although at first they broke through the social boundaries of the old aristocracy, they later supported the ethic of the new warrior class, in many direct and indirect ways, by reinforcing the feudal leader-follower nexus. The demand for unswerving loyalty to the lord had structural and psychological parallels with the authority of the Zen master and the Pure Land hereditary patriarch. The early prophetic-critical tension was also siphoned off in other ways—through the aesthetic life, which Zen promoted by affirming the inner spiritual validity of the natural world as it is given, and in the otherworldly piety of the Pure Land devotee, which did not give rise to rational social criticism but rather to discrete philanthropies.
In the late medieval period, as the rationalization of state Shinto and the first glimmerings of a real national ideology began to emerge, Buddhism was increasingly regarded as a political menace because it reinforced clan particularism and, with the exception of Zen, seemed to add little to political or economic reason. In 1571 the military unification of Japan by General Oda Nobunaga was dramatized by the deliberate destruction of the Tendai establishments, including the razing of over 3,000 buildings and the massacre of all their inhabitants. His pretext was that Tendai had provided sanctuary for political rebels, but the more general reason given was that it obstructed “the maintenance of law and order in the country,” a notion which presaged subsequent events affecting the fate of Buddhism in Japan during the next two centuries.
The advent of European colonialism in the eighteenth century and the diffusion of Western values and institutions throughout Asia precipitated far-reaching strains and innovations, which have significantly modified the traditional social role and teachings of Buddhism. Under the impact of Western imperialism and acculturation, the major modernizing pressures took the form of resurgent nationalism, democratic aspirations, the development of rational science, and industrialization—all of which placed new pressures on the Sangha for critical self-reflection and reform.
In southeast Asia—to take the Thai case once again—an initial positive response by the royal house to French colonialism and Catholicism was followed by a conservative reaction, approved by the Sangha, resulting in usurpation of the throne. The fear of political and economic domination was directly tied to the fear of a loss of religious identity. The Theravādin base of national unity against Western encroachments has persisted and intensified, although it has been modified by modernizing rationalizations allowing for the introduction of Western political institutions and technical means which at the same time have been used to reinforce the central national role of the Sangha. These innovations were effected not only by external pressures from the royal house and a Westernized laity but also, occasionally, by movements within the Buddhist Sangha itself, which liberalized traditional values and educational techniques held to be incompatible with rational science and modernization.
Characteristically, throughout Theravādin lands the Buddha is now often represented as the first modern “psychologist” and “scientist,” concerned with the analytical understanding of the human situation and the need for innovation and progress. The monastic leadership was placed under new pressures to jusify the immense drain on the economy which state support of the Sangha represented and to bridge the gap between its traditional values and the modernizing goals of the state. The principles of love and noninjury are now regarded as basic axioms for organized social action and reform, particularly in the new Buddhist youth movements and missionary activity. The value of the merit-making metaphysic has been refocused on the need for support of national ideology and new economic and technological goals.
The Sangha also sees itself as a harbinger of international peace, apparently unattainable in Christendom, and as a bulwark against the erosions of Western secularism and materialism. For the fifth Theravādin council, in 1871, the canonical scriptures were inscribed in stone partly to symbolize the permanency of the teaching in the face of Western values. At the assembly of the sixth council, in Rangoon, Burma, in 1954–1956, there was a new stress on the international solidarity of all Buddhists with respect to the missionary goals of Buddhism in the modern world.
The Western-educated laity and certain members of the monastic elite have been the most influential factors in bringing about internal political reforms. Constitutional monarchies and the franchise were both introduced in the early 1930s, undermining the entrenched relationship between the traditional monastic order and the aristocracy. Many of the new reforming movements were initiated by native civil servants who had worked for the British and French bureaucracies. In this regard Ceylon represents a particularly interesting case because it is the only one of the principal Theravādin nations which did not institute Buddhism as the national religion following political independence. The refusal to support the Sangha at state expense is significantly related to a deep split between the bulk of the educated laity and the more conservative members of the monastic leadership. One finds evidence of protesting lay movements publicly excoriating the leadership of the Sangha for its backwardness.
With respect to the encroachments of communism in southeast Asia, Buddhism has played an ambiguous role. Buddhist hostility to the former Catholic regime in South Vietnam has added to political instability in that country, but on the whole Buddhist leadership has found communist materialism and aggression repugnant to its spiritual ideals.
Prior to the communist take-over in China, there were several indications of Buddhist resurgence, including lay social welfare services and various youth movements with social reform programs. Most striking was the work of the monk T’ai-hsü, who joined the revolutionary forces against the Manchus and founded voluntary lay groups for the promotion of democratic institutions, educational services, and Buddhist missions. He conceived of Buddhist universalism as the basis for internal social reform and ecumenical restoration of world peace and moral standards. The communist regime has not extirpated Buddhism but rather placed it under ideological controls. Many of the monastic orders ostensibly retain their traditional customs, edifices, and property, but most of the inmates are compelled both to work productively and to support a cultural image of pacifistic tolerance which serves the goals of the state. The Buddhist Association of China in Peking has encouraged the study of Buddhism as a culturally valuable asset, and it has maintained ideologically useful contacts with Buddhists in other lands. The present results of communist domination in Tibet are uncertain. The economically unproductive aspects of monasticism appear to have been eliminated, but residuals of the traditional theocracy have been retained to facilitate hierarchical distribution of ideological propaganda and lines of authority from Peking. Marx and Mao are now the supreme charismatic figures.
In India, Theravāda Buddhism has returned, partly under government sponsorship of a more general program of cultural restoration. King Aśoka is a key symbol of India’s new national self-awareness. One of the most notable contributions which Buddhism has made in India is its emergence, under the leadership of the late B. R. Ambedkhar, as a social-protest movement against caste discrimination. As leader of the Untouchables in their bid for equal political and religious rights, Ambedkhar saw in Buddhism the innovating potential for formation of a new caste-free solidarity, and in 1956 he led a mass conversion of outcaste groups to the new faith. Buddhist anticaste polemic continues as an important element in the larger effort to break through the entrenched caste-oriented mentality, which persists despite official deinstitutionalization in the new constitution.
In Japan, following Oda Nobunaga’s short-lived dictatorship, the Tokugawa shōguns forced Buddhism into a utilitarian alignment with state policy. Through mandatory temple registration for all citizens, it was used to reinforce social controls against the encroachments of Christianity. After the Meiji restoration in 1868, it was further subordinated to the imperial Shinto−Confucian ideology. Shinto deities were divested of their “dual” association with Bodhisattvas, and Buddhism in general was briefly regarded as a foreign depredation on the purity of the indigenous religion.
There is some indication that Pure Land devotionalism, together with Confucian and Shinto values, may have contributed to the psychological ethos which facilitated later rapid industrialization. A functional analogue has been established between the work ethic of ascetic Calvinism and certain forms of self-sacrificing Amida devotionalism found among businessmen of the Tokugawa and Meiji periods. In the later Meiji and the early decades of the twentieth century the state promoted Buddhism extensively in Korea, for the purpose of pacifying the conquered territory, while at the same time it intensified state Shinto teaching at home, in support of nationalist aims. During the prewar military take-over and the subsequent events leading to World War II it is difficult to find significant examples of systematic political criticism from Buddhist leaders.
However, in philosophy the fusion of Western categories with the Buddhist world view produced some remarkably creative syntheses, as exemplified in the works of such men as Nishida Kitarō and Tanabe Hajime. Equally significant has been the influence in the West of D. T. Suzuki’s interpretations of Zen teachings, particularly in correlation with certain dimensions of existentialist philosophy and psychology. Japan in the postwar situation is an extremely complex matrix of cultural ferment, within which Buddhism appears in many new forms. It ranges from the radical sectarianism of Soka Gakkai, which blends intense devotionalism with militant political goals, to the subtle historical reflection and self-criticism of intellectuals like lenaga Saburō. lenaga sees in the history of Japanese Buddhism—particularly in Shōtoku and Shinran—evidence of its transcendent universalism and capacity to cut through traditional forms with innovating power; but this is paradoxically mixed with an easy accommodation to the givenness of the world and a loss of critical tension, with worldly institutions regarded as inherently illusory and unreal. lenaga’s powerful critique of Buddhist tradition is itself a manifestation of the pristine ideals of prophetic negation, self-reflection, and reconstruction which the earliest teaching conveyed. For Buddhism throughout the world, it suggests the presence of the power of spiritual renewal and transcendence which continues to speak therapeutically to the human situation even as it seeks to recreate itself to meet the pressing challenges confronting all the major religions.
Peter A. Pardue
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"Buddhism." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 1968. Encyclopedia.com. (October 1, 2016). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3045000145.html
"Buddhism." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 1968. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3045000145.html
Buddhism, the only truly "world" religion of Asia, was founded in the fifth century b.c.e. in northwest India by a prince named Gautama, who was also called Siddhartha ("He who has reached his goal"), Shakyamuni ("Silent sage of the Shakya clan"), and eventually the Buddha, or "Enlightened One." The religion spread throughout northern India during the next centuries, becoming a major competitor with Hinduism for popular support and royal favor. The traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism mutually influenced each other, sharing many of the same assumptions but also differentiating themselves doctrinally and, to a lesser degree, socially and ritually.
The three major forms of Buddhism—Theravada ("The Speech of the Elders"), Mahayana ("The Great Vehicle"), and Vajrayana ("The Diamond Vehicle")—all were born in India and were given their characteristic stamp in that country. By the end of the first millennium c.e., however, Buddhism was more or less defunct in the land of its origin, in part as a result of invading Muslims who especially targeted Buddhist temples and monasteries and in part because Buddhist doctrines and deities were increasingly assimilated into Hinduism.
Long before it ceased to be a religion of India, however, Buddhism had become a pan-Asian religion. By the middle of the third century b.c.e. the great Mauryan emperor Ashoka consolidated most of the Indian subcontinent under his rule. While Ashoka may or may not have been himself a Buddhist convert, tradition gives him credit for spreading the religion not only throughout India (his "edicts" posted on pillars throughout the subcontinent are often read for their Buddhist or crypto-Buddhist messages) but also into Sri Lanka to the south, where it soon became the state religion. From there Buddhist monks brought the religion to Burma, Thailand, and other parts of Southeast Asia, where it has survived as the predominant faith of that region.
Other monks, starting from points in northern India, followed the trade routes into Central Asia and eventually into China, where Buddhism entered by the first century c.e. Although initially regarded with suspicion as a foreign and "barbarian" faith, over the course of several centuries Buddhism was gradually blended with Chinese culture until it joined Confucianism and Taoism as one of the principal religions of that region. By the middle centuries of the first millennium c.e., Buddhism had become the religion of choice of the newly re-unified Chinese empire, and indigenous doctrinal and philosophical schools of Buddhism arose. By the seventh century, Buddhism had converts in China from all strata of society, from the imperial family down to the peasantry, and monasteries flourished throughout the empire. The popularity of Buddhism in China would not last, however, and by the ninth century the religion began to decline.
From China, Buddhism entered Korea by the third century c.e. Missionaries from Korea brought the religion to Japan in the sixth century, where it developed into the dominant religion of that country and exerted a huge influence on Japanese national culture. It was not until the seventh century that Buddhism came from India to remote Tibet where, after a few centuries of ups and downs, it became firmly entrenched by the eleventh century and was the state religion until the Chinese invasions in the 1950s. Tibetan Buddhism was exported to Mongolia originally as a result of the close relations between one of the ruling khans and the first Dalai Lama.
Buddhism has been known in the West since at least the time of Alexander the Great and possibly influenced some forms of Greek philosophy, the Gnostics, and early Christians. In modern times, as a result initially of immigration of Asians to Western countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and increasingly because of interest among Westerners themselves, Buddhism can no longer be regarded as an exclusively Asian religion.
The Buddha and the Fundamental Doctrines
The historical details of the life of the Buddha, like those of the lives of many of the world's religious founders and saints, are probably unrecoverable, buried under layers and layers of mythology and doctrinal revisionism. While there is little doubt that at the origin of Buddhism lies a strong, charismatic founder, the particular contours of the person and life of that founder can only be purely speculative. The oldest Pali and Sanskrit texts do not relay a sustained narrative about the Buddha's life but rather give only snippets and fragmentary references that seem to emphasize his human features. This has led some to argue that Buddhism is fundamentally an "atheistic" religion, although for a variety of reasons this is a distortion of Buddhist belief. There are indications that even in his lifetime Gautama was accorded great respect and veneration and soon after his death was worshipped in the form of relics, pilgrimages to sites of significance in the Buddha's life, and eventually in images that became the centerpieces of devotion.
The first known formal biography or hagiography of Gautama Buddha was the Buddhacarita, written in Sanskrit probably around the first century c.e. by Ashvaghosha. Over subsequent centuries other life stories were produced in India and Sri Lanka incorporating more and more legendary and mythical materials. The later texts in the hagiographical tradition in Buddhism increasingly stress the miraculous and supernatural elements of the founder. Indeed, in many of them Shakyamuni is portrayed as this era's Buddha, the latest in a string of many prior Buddhas and the forerunner of a future Buddha known as Maitreya. By the time of the rise of Mahayana Buddhism in the early centuries c.e. the historical Gautama was wholly eclipsed by a complex "Buddhology" that elevates the Buddha to cosmic and, for most ordinary Buddhists, divine stature.
While there are a variety of understandings of who the Buddha was among the various adherents and sects of Buddhism, all are agreed on the basic outline of his life story. He was supposed to have lived sometime during the period from the sixth to the fourth centuries b.c.e., born into a family of the Kshatriya, or warrior-king, class in the clan called the Shakyas in northeastern India. Many accounts say his birth was attended by miracles and that he was born with signs on his body indicating a destiny either as an enlightened Buddha or as a world-conquering emperor. His parents, preferring the latter career path, kept him isolated from the outside world and educated him to be a prince. Gautama grew up under these pampered circumstances, married, and had a son he named Rahula ("Fetter").
This sheltered life of royal luxury came to an end when the young prince was taken by his charioteer on four excursions outside the confines of the castle. On these trips he saw, for the first time, the suffering nature of a life where sickness, old age, and death are inevitable. On his last tour he also saw a mendicant who was attempting to find an alternative to such a life. These "four sights" provided the impetus for the future Buddha to immediately leave the householder way of life and go in search of the means to liberation from suffering.
The middle centuries b.c.e. in North India were a time of great religious and intellectual ferment and experimentation. Many of the religious assumptions prevailing at that time were integrated into the Buddha's teaching and subsequent Buddhism, including the belief in karma and rebirth, the cyclical nature of time, the pervasiveness of suffering, and the positing of an alternative to suffering and rebirth.
Upon leaving his previous life as a prince, Gautama is said to have joined several of the many different groups of world renouncers living in the wilderness areas of India, including one group of radical ascetics. The future Buddha perfected the methods taught in this group, learning how to live on but a grain of rice a day, until he became skeletal and weak—but not enlightened. According to legend, Gautama abandoned the way of radical asceticism, just as he had early renounced the life of hedonistic pleasure in the castle, and soon discovered a "middle way" between these two extremes. In deep meditation under a "tree of enlightenment," the Buddha reached his own enlightenment and nirvana, the "extinguishing" of ignorance, suffering, and rebirth.
The first sermon or teaching of the newly enlightened Buddha was, according to the legends, given at the Deer Park in Sarnath in northeast India to members of the group of ascetics with whom Gautama had associated earlier. This first "turning of the wheel of dharma" encapsulates the fundamental tenets of all forms of Buddhism and consists of what are called the Four Noble Truths.
The first of these is the universal fact of suffering and dissatisfaction (duhkha ). A standard formula declares that "birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are suffering; association with what one dislikes is suffering; separation from what one likes is suffering; not getting what one wants is suffering." Such unhappy circumstances are sometimes called "obvious suffering" and are also bound up in another central doctrine of all forms of Buddhism: the insistence that there is no "self" or "essence" to things and beings (an-atman ). This belief directly contradicts the concept in Hinduism of an atman, or fundamental and underlying self (which was not conceived of, however, as the ego or temporary persona that undergoes rebirth). In the Hindu texts known as the Upanishads, realization of one's true nature, one's true self or atman, as identical to the ultimate ground of the cosmos (the Brahman), was the end of the mystical pursuit. In contrast, the positing of an-atman became one of the distinctive, even unique, features of the Buddhist religion. Suffering occurs in part by grasping and clinging to a self that does not, according to Buddhism, exist.
According to Buddhist doctrine, what we call the "self" is merely a composite of five "aggregates" or "heaps" (skandhas ). These are "form" (the body in particular and physical and material form in general), feelings (pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral), discrimination (that which processes and categorizes sensory and mental information), karmic predispositions (including, among many other mental factors, will or volition), and consciousness (meaning not only mental awareness but also the "consciousnesses" associated with the five senses). The "self" is but an ever-changing conglomeration of these five aggregates—a process rather than an essential entity.
Another dimension of the first Noble Truth of universal suffering is called the "suffering of change." Even the pleasant things and circumstances of life are not lasting, and when they are lost we suffer. Thus a second central concept of Buddhist metaphysics also tied up with the truth of suffering is that of impermanence, or anitya. Buddhism posits the impermanence and changing nature of all caused and compounded or composite things and beings. Suffering occurs when one mistakes impermanence for permanence and, again, becomes ignorantly attached to things and beings in the false belief that they will last.
A third dimension of suffering is sometimes identified: the "pervasive" suffering that accompanies birth in "samsara"—a word that literally means "to wander or pass through a series of states or conditions." Samsara describes the beginningless cycle of cosmic or universal death and rebirth and the fact that phenomenal existence is transient and ever-changing. "Pervasive" suffering points to the recurring experience of birth, life, death, and rebirth in such a universe.
The second Noble Truth states that suffering has a cause and is not therefore eternally and hopelessly hard-wired into the nature of things. Suffering, according to Buddhism, is created by our own ignorant and habitual responses to life. The chief cause of suffering is variously identified as "thirst" (tanha ), "craving" (trishna ), or the "three poisons": "desire" or "attraction" (raga ), "aversion" or "hatred" (pratigha ), and "ignorance" (avidya ).
Suffering occurs because of a series of interrelated causal factors that are summarized in another important Buddhist doctrine, that of "dependent origination." In essence this doctrine declares "that being, this comes to be; from the arising of that, this arises; that being absent, this is not; from the cessation of that, this ceases" (Samyuttanikaya 2.28). In its classical form, dependent origination consists of twelve conditioned and conditioning links: (1) ignorance, (2) formations (the construction of new karma), (3) consciousness, (4) mind and body, (5) the six sense fields, (6) contact of the senses with the sense fields, (7) feeling, (8) craving, (9) grasping, (10) becoming, (11) birth (i.e., rebirth), and (12) aging and death. Each link depends on the one before it. Aging and death (12) depend on birth (11), for if one were not perpetually reborn one would not repeatedly grow old and die. Birth depends on becoming (10, in the sense of the ripening of karma created in the past); becoming depends on grasping or clinging (9), which in turn depends on craving (8). Craving arises due to pleasant and unpleasant feelings (7), which depend on the contact of the senses (6) with the objects or "fields" of the senses (5), which could not exist without a mind and body (4). Mind and body depend on the consciousness of the six sense fields (3, the five senses with the mind as the sixth), which are determined by the volitional forces (2) that come into play due to ignorance (1). When ignorance ceases, karma is no longer produced, and all other links in the chain are stopped, right up through old age and death.
This brings us to the third Noble Truth, which declares that there is an alternative to suffering, the state called nirvana. The term literally means an "extinguishing" or "blowing out" and has sometimes been misunderstood as some kind of nihilism. Nirvana is indeed often described in negative terms: the permanent cessation or extinction of suffering and its causes (craving and the three poisons), of the false idea of and attachment to self, of mistaking the impermanent for the permanent, and of rebirth in the world of samsara. But nirvana is also depicted in positive form, as a state of absolute peace, serenity, tranquility, happiness, and bliss. One who achieves such a state is known as an arhat, or "worthy one," and various important milestones along the way are also delineated. One who has had the experience of penetrating into the true nature of reality is called an arya (noble one) and a "stream-enterer," for he or she is from that time forward moving inexorably toward nirvana. A "once-returner" has only one more lifetime before achieving the goal, and a "non-returner" will attain nirvana in this lifetime. A distinction is also sometimes made between "nirvana with remainder" (indicating that the person has reached the goal but is still embodied) and "nirvana without remainder," or "final nirvana" (parinirvana ), which the arhat enters after the death of the body.
The fourth Noble Truth is the declaration that there is a path or method for achieving the state of nirvana. Just as suffering has its causes, so too can the end of suffering be brought about by entering and perfecting the "Eightfold Path," which are sometimes also grouped into what are called the "Three Trainings." The first "training" is in wisdom and covers the first two steps of the Eightfold Path: (1) right view (meaning, among other things, a proper understanding of the Four Noble Truths) and (2) right resolve (the determination to end one's suffering). The second training is in ethics and includes (3) right speech (abstaining from lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, and idle speech), (4) right action (abstaining from killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct), and (5) right livelihood (abstaining from professions that involve harming other beings). The third training is in meditative concentration and covers (6) right effort (persistence in the training of meditation), (7) right mindfulness, and (8) right concentration. Given the crucial importance and centrality of meditation to the Buddhist path, texts go into great detail about the increasingly subtle states of mind associated with right mindfulness and right concentration.
After the first sermon at the Deer Park, the Buddha is said to have traveled and taught in India for many decades. During the Buddha's lifetime, he also apparently inaugurated one of the central institutions of Buddhism, monasticism, the most ancient continuous institution in history. From the earliest period of Buddhism, the community, or sangha, consisted of laymen and laywomen on the one hand and monks and nuns on the other. But it was especially the monastics who were encompassed in the term sangha. The monastic rules of discipline, or vinaya, may go back to the Buddha himself but were in any case codified in a series of councils held after the Buddha's passing away. Being a Buddhist traditionally means that one "takes refuge" in what are called the three jewels—the Buddha, the dharma (i.e., the teachings and the attainments those teachings lead to), and the sangha (sometimes meaning exclusively the monastics and sometimes meaning the whole of the Buddhist community).
The Buddha was said to have lived to the age of about eighty, at which time he "passed into his parinirvana." According to the texts, relics from his body were distributed and subsequently buried at the base of distinctively Buddhist places of worship called stupas, which, together with the monasteries and pilgrimage sites, formed the spatial centers of the new religion.
Formation of Theravada Buddhism
According to legend, the first of the Buddhist councils, where monks from all over North India met to collate the Buddha's teachings, occurred just after the Buddha's passing away, and several more were held in the years following. In these councils, the earliest forms of the Buddhist canon were developed. Texts, originally orally recited by monks, were divided into three main divisions or "baskets" (pitakas ): vinaya (rules for monastics), sutra (discourses), and abhidharma (metaphysics). While different traditions have different recensions (in different languages) and even different texts in their canon, all follow this basic division of the sacred scripture into the "three baskets."
It was in the second of these councils, held some one hundred years after the Buddha's parinirvana, that sectarian differences led to a division between a group of monks called the "Elders" (Sthaviras) and a breakaway set of groups known collectively as the "Great Assemblists" (Mahasanghikas). While the exact reason for the schism is not known with certainty, it seems as though the Mahasanghikas were the more liberal of the two groups while the Sthaviras were the more conservative, preserving what they regarded as the original purity of the Buddha's teachings. Other schisms and divisions into schools and subschools also occurred, but the Sthaviravadins survived as the "Theravadins" (the Pali name for "teachings of the elders") in South India, especially Sri Lanka, and from there into Southeast Asia.
Prior to the eleventh century, Theravada was but one of the several forms of Buddhism practiced in Sri Lanka. While it, like all other forms of Buddhism, represents itself as "pure" and "original," it is in fact a syncretistic blend of a variety of elements and practices. Various reforms sponsored by royal patrons have attempted to recover the "original purity" of Theravada, and among the monastics movements of conservative "forest monks" have at various times insisted on going back to the meditative base of the tradition. As the form of Buddhism that came to predominate in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, Theravada is sometimes also called "southern" Buddhism.
Mahayana Buddhist Doctrines and Traditions
The origins of the second major division within Buddhism are shrouded in uncertainty. What was to be called Mahayana, or the "Great Vehicle," did not originate with any one reforming individual or emerge at any specific time. It at least partially had its roots in a pan-Indian devotional movement (bhakti) that also had a dramatic impact on the Hindu traditions of India around 150 b.c.e. and in the centuries following. Mahayana is also sometimes traced back to the "Great Assemblists," or Mahasanghikas, but it seems that for many years, even centuries, monks who eventually became Mahayana lived and studied in the same monasteries as others. Perhaps the best way to envision Mahayana Buddhism in its earliest years was as a set of new texts that introduced new doctrinal elements into Buddhism. Those who accepted the canonical legitimacy of these new texts were Mahayana.
The doctrines put forward in these new texts were not, however, represented as new. Rather, they too were supposed to originate with the Buddha; they were regarded as "turnings of the wheel of dharma" that taught the deeper meanings of the Buddha's message for disciples who were more capable.
Chief among the distinctive teachings of Mahayana was a new conceptualization of the goal of Buddhism. In early Buddhism as well as in the subsequent Theravada tradition, the attainment of nirvana was theoretically possible for anyone. But Buddhahood itself remained the unique feature of Gautama. The Mahayana Buddhists posited enlightenment and Buddhahood itself as the ultimate goal for all practitioners and regarded nirvana as a lower attainment for those of a "lesser vehicle" (Hinayana).
With this new idea regarding the goal of Buddhism came a radically different understanding of Buddhology. Gautama, for the Mahayana Buddhists, was but one of an innumerable set of Buddhas who populated the cosmos. Each Buddha ruled a region, or "heaven" or "pure land," which was also populated with highly evolved spiritual beings known as Bodhisattvas. These Buddhas and Bodhisattvas were thought to be filled with compassion and with certain abilities and powers to help those who asked for it. One of the chief features of Mahayana Buddhism is its devotional quality, consisting of the worship of and prayers to these celestial Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
Integral to the new Buddhology that distinguishes the Mahayana is the doctrine of the "three bodies" or "three forms" (rupa s) of the Buddha. The first is the "transformation body" (nirmana kaya ), which refers to the physical emanations the Buddha sends out to this and other worlds. The historical Buddha, Gautama, was one such emanation according to Mahayana Buddhism—a notion that also assumes that Gautama was always and already enlightened, being merely an earthly incarnation of a previously enlightened cosmic Buddha. Under this conception, Buddhas have the capability of sending out virtually infinite numbers of transformation bodies out of their compassion and urge to help all sentient beings everywhere.
Each Buddha also has what is called an "enjoyment body" (sambhoga kaya ), a subtle body of light that appears in that Buddha's heaven or pure land, a paradisiacal world populated with advanced practitioners and Bodhisattvas. Conditions in such a land are highly conducive for the attainment of Buddhahood; one form of Mahayana Buddhist practice is to pray and perform other devotional activities in the hopes that one or another of the Buddhas will admit the devotee into his or her pure land after death.
Finally there is what is called the "dharma body" of the Buddha, which refers to the ultimate nature of the Buddha's mind and to reality itself in its ultimate form. The dharma body includes the omniscience or perfect realization of wisdom in a Buddha's mind. It also includes the ultimate nature of reality itself, its "thusness" or "suchness."
Another innovation in Mahayana Buddhism was the superseding of the Eightfold Path with a new method (leading to a newly reconceived goal). This was what became known as the "Path of the Bodhisattva." The first step on this path was to attain what was termed bodhicitta, the "mind of enlightenment" or the motivating wish to attain Buddhahood out of compassion for all sentient beings. A key ingredient to bodhicitta and, indeed, a virtue that takes center stage in Mahayana Buddhism, is compassion (karuna ), which, together with "loving kindness" (maitri ) and wisdom (prajna ), form a triad of the distinctive virtues characteristic of the Bodhisattvas ("beings of enlightenment," the ones who have attained bodhicitta ) and the Buddhas as conceived by Mahayana.
Out of this driving wish for enlightenment, impelled by the altruistic intention to help end the suffering of others, the Mahayana practitioner takes various vows, swearing to live a life guided by compassion, and then engages in the "six perfections," each associated with a progressively higher stage of the Bodhisattva path. The first of these "perfections" (paramitas ) is generosity, including the giving of material things, protection from fear, and the giving of dharma teachings themselves. In its most advanced form, the perfection of giving includes the willingness of the Bodhisattva to give up his or her own body if necessary. Also included under this perfection is giving in the form of what is known as "transfer of merit" (parinamana ), the perpetual turning over to the benefit of others any karmic merit done by any meritorious act.
The second perfection is ethics (shila ) and consists largely of avoidance of the ten basic misdeeds of body, speech, and mind (killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle speech, coveting, ill will, and wrong views). Third is the perfection of patience (kshanti ), specifically combating anger with compassion and loving kindness. The fourth perfection is joyful effort or "vigor" (virya ), defined as taking joy in doing meritorious and compassionate acts. Fifth comes meditative concentration (dhyana ) followed by the sixth perfection, wisdom (prajna ).
The "perfection of wisdom" consists of realizing the truths of the distinctive metaphysics that also defines Mahayana Buddhism. Especially associated with the great philosopher Nagarjuna (c. 150–250 c.e.) is the important doctrine of "emptiness," or shunyata. Nagarjuna argued that, as a sort of universal extension of the earlier doctrine of "no-self," all phenomena are "empty" of inherent nature or self-existence. Persons and phenomena exist only dependently, not independently. Emptiness is thus not the ultimate ground of being but rather the insistence that there is no such ultimate, irreducible ground. Emptiness is not some thing but the absence of intrinsic existence to all things. But neither, argued Nagarjuna, does this mean that "nothing exists." Things do exist, but only dependently. The philosophical school associated with Nagarjuna's thought was called the "Middle Way" school (Madhyamika), positing neither nihilism nor eternalism but a median between the two.
Another important philosophical tenet of Mahayana Buddhism is the identity of samsara and nirvana. Liberation is not "outside" or "apart from" a world of suffering; they are not two separate realities. Both are equally "empty" of self-nature and exist, as all things, only dependently.
While other traditions and schools of Buddhism also went from India to China, Korea, and Japan, it was Mahayana Buddhism that flourished and was further developed in those regions. Mahayana is thus sometimes called "northern Buddhism" in contrast to the predominantly Theravada traditions of "southern Buddhism."
Mahayana Buddhism in China was heavily influenced by the preexisting religious philosophies of Confucianism and Taoism and by the presuppositions of a culture already ancient, literate, and sophisticated by the time Buddhism was brought to it in the early centuries c.e. Among the difficulties Buddhism faced in China were monasticism and celibacy, which were understood to be in opposition to the Chinese emphasis on filial piety and ancestor worship. Conversely, the Chinese readily embraced and further elaborated the Mahayana concept of all beings having a "Buddha nature," or the potential to achieve Buddhahood and enlightenment.
By the fifth century c.e. different schools of Buddhism arose in China. Some of these were simply Chinese equivalents of Indian Buddhist schools. San-lun, or the "Three Treatises" school, was the Chinese version of Madhyamika, and Fa-hsiang, or "Characteristics of the Dharma" school, was the equivalent of the Indian philosophical tradition known as Yogacara. But also at about this time, distinctively Chinese schools of Buddhism arose that reflected indigenous cultural and religious emphases. The importance of harmony, for example, produced schools like the T'ien-t'ai ("Heavenly Terrace"; Tendai, in Japan), which placed one text (in this case the Lotus Sutra) above all others and then organized the rest of the diverse Buddhist tradition into a hierarchically ordered synthesis. The T'ien-t'ai philosophy embraced the idea that Buddha nature exists in all things and that the absolute and phenomenal world are not ultimately different. Another school that attempted to harmonize the teachings of Buddhism into a syncretistic whole was the Hua-yan (Kegon, in Japan) school, which elevated the Avatamsaka Sutra to the highest place and oriented the rest of Buddhist texts and teachings around it.
Of special importance, however, were two other schools that arose in China, spread to neighboring regions from there, and survive to the present. The first of these was the "Pure Land" school (Ch'ing-t'u), a devotional and faith-based sect centering on the figure of Amitabha Buddha. Pure Land became the most popular form of the religion in China, Korea, and Japan, especially among the laity. Pure Land promises an easy path to salvation in the guise of rebirth into the heaven or pure land of Amitabha, where one will quickly become enlightened. The principal practice of this form of Buddhism has been to call upon the grace of this Buddha through repeating a formula known as nien-fo (nembutsu in Japanese). In its more radical forms, Pure Land has insisted that one must rely totally on the "other-power" of the Buddha and not at all on one's own efforts.
The second of the two most important schools that arose initially in China was that known as Ch'an, or Zen as it was termed in Japan. Deriving from a Sanskrit word for "meditation," the Ch'an/Zen tradition offers a stark contrast to the devotionalism of Pure Land. Traced back to an Indian monk-missionary named Bodhidharma, whose radical and uncompromising meditational techniques become legendary, the Ch'an/Zen tradition developed a simple but disciplined and demanding set of methods for directly intuiting one's own Buddha nature and achieving various levels of awakening (wu, or satori in Japanese). These methods included meditation, the "direct transmission" of wisdom from the mind of the enlightened teacher to that of the student, and the contemplation of riddles known as koans.
Vajrayana or "Tantric" Buddhism
The third major form of Buddhism, like that of Mahayana, was the particular Buddhist expression of a pan-Indian religious movement. Whereas Mahayana became the Buddhist form of the bhakti, or devotional movement, Vajrayana ("Diamond Vehicle") was the Buddhist expression of what has been called Tantrism, an esoteric, sometimes antinomian, and often controversial form of religious belief and practice that became influential throughout India beginning in the middle centuries of the first millennium c.e.
Here too, as with Mahayana, this apparently new form of Buddhism is not represented as new at all. Vajrayana claims to be the secret doctrines and practices taught by the Buddha in his guise as Vajradhara (the "Holder of the diamond") to only his most advanced disciples. It also portrays itself as the quick way to enlightenment in this very lifetime through the attainment of "accomplishments," or powers (siddhis ), that speed up the process. The tantric master (mahasiddha ) appropriates to him-or herself the powers of one or another of the Buddhas, who is invoked through the practice of meditative visualizations, symbolic gestures (mudras), and the recitation of sacred words called mantras (indeed, such is the importance of the latter that sometimes this form of Buddhism is called Mantrayana or the "Vehicle of the Mantra").
One key to this form of Buddhism is the emphasis on initiation and the important place of the tantric master, or guru. It is the teacher who is the gateway to the powers of the tantric deity or Buddha and their secret world, or mandala. The techniques and wisdom are to be scrupulously guarded from the uninitiated, and as a result the texts of Vajrayana Buddhism are often encoded in a symbolic or metaphorical language (sometimes called "twilight speech") not easily decipherable by outsiders. Once initiated, the practitioner forms a special connection, even identity, with the tantric deity or Buddha into whose sphere one has entered. By attempting to recognize the union with that deity through meditation and, in more advanced cases, ritual and yogic practices involving a partner of the opposite sex, the practitioner tries to "short-circuit" the mind into a realization of enlightenment and the perception of all things and beings as pure.
Tantric forms of Buddhism perhaps originated among the laity but by the eighth century had been taken up by monastic scholars and brought increasingly into the mainstream of Buddhist thought and practice. By and large the great tantric practitioners who brought this form of Buddhism to Tibet had originally been trained in the monasteries. And while Vajrayana Buddhism spread also to Southeast Asia, Japan, and elsewhere, it was primarily in Tibet and Nepal where this form of Buddhism was preserved after it was extinguished in India.
Later Developments: Modern Buddhism in Asia
and Buddhism in the West
Buddhism, like all other religions, has been influenced by the forces of modernity. These forces—including scientific materialism, secularism, technological advances, and the ideologies of democracy, equality, Marxism, and so on—arrived in the traditionally Buddhist Asian countries in the forms of Western imperialism and colonialism and the Christian missionary movement that often accompanied them. In Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, China, and Japan, the coming of Western influences disrupted the traditional structural alliances between Buddhist monastic institutions and the government. Buddhist revivals in places like Sri Lanka and Thailand resulted in what has been called a new "Protestant" form of Buddhism that emphasizes rationality and deemphasizes the split between monastics and laity. Buddhism also often became associated with cultural and emerging national pride in the battle against the colonial powers and their impact. In Japan and Korea, Buddhist influences combined with modern concepts and in some cases Christian influences to give rise to a slew of new religious movements. And in China and Tibet, where Chinese Communist regimes have not often been favorably disposed to Buddhism, the religion survives in a much-weakened condition in comparison to its earlier influence.
Buddhism in the modern West comprises two very different kinds of groups. On the one hand, it has come to North America and Europe as the religion of Asian immigrants. For these new arrivals, Buddhism provides a sense of cultural community, continuity, and tradition in new and often challenging circumstances. Often over time the Buddhism practiced in these immigrant communities increasingly takes on the shape of Christian church worship, with the introduction of scripture reading, sermons, and youth education ("Sunday school").
The other form of Buddhism in the West is made up of Western converts who are almost always attracted not to the devotional or even the communal element of Buddhist religion as much as to the philosophical and especially meditative component. For these Western lay practitioners (there are at present very few Western Buddhist monastics), the practice of Buddhism means first and foremost meditation, a dimension of the religion formerly in Asian contexts confined almost exclusively to the monastics.
See also Asceticism: Hindu and Buddhist Asceticism ; Chinese Thought ; Communication of Ideas: Asia and Its Influence ; Consciousness: Chinese Thought ; Cosmology: Asia ; Daoism ; Heaven and Hell (Asian Focus) ; Hinduism ; Meditation, Eastern ; Mysticism: Chinese Mysticism ; Religion: East and Southeast Asia ; Sacred Texts: Asia ; Yin and Yang ; Zen .
Conze, Edward. A Short History of Buddhism. London and Boston: Unwin, 1980.
Harvey, Peter. An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History, and Practices. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
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Smith, Brian. "Buddhism." New Dictionary of the History of Ideas. 2005. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3424300088.html
"Decay is inherent in all compounded things, so continue in watchfulness." The last recorded words of Siddhartha Gautama (Gotama), the founder of Buddhism, might be taken to mean, "Work out your own salvation with diligence" (Bowker 1997, p. 169).
From its inception, Buddhism has stressed the importance of death because awareness of death is what prompted the Buddha to perceive the ultimate futility of worldly concerns and pleasures. According to traditional stories of the life of the Buddha, he first decided to leave his home and seek enlightenment after encountering the "four sights" (a sick person, an old person, a corpse, and someone who had renounced the world). The first three epitomized the sufferings to which ordinary beings were and are subject to, and the last indicates that one can transcend them through meditation and religious practice. The greatest problem of all is death, the final cessation of all one's hopes and dreams. A prince of the Shakya family in what is modern Nepal, Gautama became dissatisfied with palace life after witnessing suffering in the nearby city of Kapilavastu. At the age of 29, he renounced his former life, cut off his hair and started to wear the yellow robes of a religious mendicant. Buddhism, the faith he created through his teaching, thus originated in his heightened sense of suffering, and begins with the fundamental fact of suffering (dukkha ) as the human predicament: "from the suffering, moreover, no one knows of any way of escape, even from decay and death. O, when shall a way of escape from this suffering be made known—from decay and from death?" (Hamilton, 1952, pp. 6–11).
Origins of Buddhist Faith
The Buddhist faith originated in India in the sixth and fifth centuries b.c.e. with the enlightenment of Gotama (in Sanskrit, Gauatama), the historical founder of the faith (c. 566–486 b.c.e.). The teaching of Gotama Buddha, also known as Buddha Sakyamuni (that is, "the Wise One" or "Sage of the Sakya Clan") is summarized in the Four Noble Truths: the truth of suffering (existence is suffering); the truth of suffering's cause (suffering is caused by desire); the truth of stopping suffering (stop the cause of suffering (desire) and the suffering will cease to arise); and the truth of the way (the Eightfold Path leads to the release from desire and extinguishes suffering). In turn, the Eightfold Path requires right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. There is also a twelve-step chain of cause. This chain of conditions consists of (1) spiritual ignorance; (2) constructing activities; (3) consciousness; (4) mind-and-body; (5) the six sense-bases; (6) sensory stimulation; (7) feeling; (8) craving; (9) grasping; (10) existence; (11) birth; (12) aging, death, sorry, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair. This chain of cause or Doctrine of Dependent Origination explains the dukka that one experiences in his or her life. Finally, there is the continuing process of reincarnation. "If, on the dissolution of the body, after death, instead of his reappearing in a happy destination, in the heavenly world, he comes to the human state, he is long-lived wherever he is reborn" (Nikaya 1993, p. 135). Disillusioned with the ascetic path, Gotama adhered to what he called "the middle way." He chose to sit beneath a Bo or Bodhi Tree (believed by scholars to now be situated at Bodhgaya, Bihar), concentrating on "seeing things as they really are" and passing through four stages of progressive insight (jhanas ), which led to enlightenment (scholars believe this stage was achieved in c. 535 b.c.e.). The rest of his life was spent wandering in the area of the Ganges basin, gaining adherents and probably spending the rainy months in a community of followers, the beginnings of the Buddhist monastic establishment (vihara ). The Buddha is said to have made no other claim for himself than that he was a teacher of transience or suffering (dukkha or duhkha ), the first of his Four Noble Truths.
Two and a half centuries after the Buddha's death, a council of Buddhist monks collected his teachings and the oral traditions of the faith into written form, called the Tripitaka. This included a very large collection of commentaries and traditions; most are called Sutras (discourses). Some twelve centuries after the Buddha's death, the faith spread from India into Tibet and from the early seventh century c.e. onward, Buddhism became firmly entrenched in all aspects of Tibetan society.
The significance of the conversion of Tibet lies in the exceptionally rich early literature that survives: The original Sanskrit texts of the Sutra on "Passing from One Existence to Another" and the Sutra on "Death and the Transmigration of Souls" are no longer extant and are known only through their Tibetan versions. Buddhism spread also to central and southeast Asia, China, and from there into Korea (c. 350–668 c.e.) and Japan (c. 538 c.e.). Although there have been conversions to Buddhism in modern times, especially the mass conversion of dalits (or untouchables) following the leadership of Dr. Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, the dispersion of the centers of Buddhist learning led to a dwindling of the faith in most of India during the centuries of Islamic predominance.
Buddhism has two (or in some interpretations, three) main divisions, or traditions: Mahayana and Hinayana. Those Buddhist adherents in Mongolia, Vietnam, China, Korea, and Japan follow Mahayana, the so-called Great Vehicle tradition, and those in Sri Lanka and southeast Asia, except Vietnam, where the Mahayan tradition was brought by Chinese settlers, follow Hinayana, also known as Theravada, the so-called Lesser Vehicle tradition. More controversial is whether Vajrayana (the "Diamond Vehicle" or Tantric tradition emanating from Mahayana, now dominant in Tibet and the Himalayas) constitutes a distinctive and separate tradition or not.
Mahayana emphasizes, among other things, the Sutras containing the developed teaching of the Buddha, and recognizes the Buddha-nature (Buddhata, or Buddha-potential) in all sentient beings (and not exclusively humans). Mahayana emphasizes the feeling of the suffering of others as one's own, which impels the soul to desire the liberation of all beings and to encourage adherence to the "enlightenment" (bodhisattva ) path. A bodhisattva is defined as one who strives to gain the experience of things as they really are (as in the experience of Gautama under the tree, hence the name bodhi ) and scorns nirvana "as he wishe(s) to help and succour his fellow-creatures in the world of sorrow, sin and impermanence" (Bowker 1997, p. 154). An early Buddhist, Candrakirti, calls nirvana "the cessation of every thought of non-existence and existence" (Stcherbatsky 1965, p.190).
In contrast, Hinayana or Theravada (the latter term meaning "teaching of the elders") emphasizes the aspect of personal discipleship and the attainment of the penultimate state of perfection (arhat ). The followers of Mahayana view it as a more restricted interpretation of the tradition. There is also a basic disagreement on how many Buddhas can appear in each world cycle. In Theravada, there can only be one, the Buddha who has already appeared; hence only the penultimate state of perfection can be attained and Buddha-nature is not recognized. There are also other differences between the traditions, particularly with regard to the status of women (which is somewhat higher in the Mahayana tradition). Buddhism in its various manifestations is the world's fourth largest religion with about 362 million adherents in 2000, or about 6 percent of an estimated world population of 6 billion.
The Sutra on "Passing from One Existence to Another" relates that during the Buddha's stay in Rajagriha a king named Bimbisara questioned him on the transitory nature of action (karma ) and how rebirth can be effected by thoughts and actions, which are by their very nature momentary and fleeting. For the Buddha, an individual's past thoughts and actions appear before the mind at the time of death in the same way that the previous night's dreams are recalled while awake; neither the dreams nor past karma have any solid and substantial reality in themselves, but both can, and do, produce real effects. An individual's past karma appears before the mind at the final moment of death and causes the first moment of rebirth. This new life is a new sphere of consciousness in one of the six realms of rebirth (the worlds of the gods, demigods, humans, hungry ghosts, animals, and hell-beings) wherein the person experiences the fruits of his or her previous actions.
The discourse on "The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo" is one of a series of instructions on six types of liberation: liberation through hearing, wearing, seeing, remembering, tasting, and touching. It is a supreme example of Tibetan esoteric teaching on how to assist in the "ejection of consciousness" after death if this liberation has not happened spontaneously. If the body is present, the guru or dharma-brother, that is, the fellow-disciple of the guru, should read the text of the Sutra close to his ear three or seven times. The first bardo, or intermediate state between life and death, is called "the luminosity of the essence of reality (dharmata )"; it is a direct perception of the sacredness and vividness of life (Fremantle and Trungpa 1975, p. 36). The work is thought to have been written by Padmasambhava, known by his followers as "precious teacher" (Guru Rinpoche), a great eighth-century Tantric master and founder of the Nyingma school. He is considered by Tibetans to be a second Buddha. He describes in detail the six bardos, or intermediate states, three of which comprise the period between death and rebirth and three which relate to this life: the bardo of birth; the bardo of dreams; the bardo of meditation, in which the distinction between subject and object disappears (samadhi, or meditation); the bardo of the moment before death; the bardo of the essence of reality (dharmata ); and the bardo of becoming.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
The German Tibetologist and scholar of comparative religion Detlef Lauf regarded the Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bar-do thos-grol or Bardo Thodrol, or Thötröl ) as an example of "yoga-practice" (Yogacara) or Vijnanavada idealism, "which proceed(s) from the premise that karmically laden awareness by far outlasts the earthly life span of the individual." This branch of Mahayana philosophy "places above all conceptualisation emptiness, suchness [sic], pure buddha-nature, or the crystal clear diamond nature of human awareness, which is of imageless intensity. . . . Therefore the Tibetan Book of the Dead can first proclaim the philosophical reality of the buddhas and their teachings, and after these have been grasped and penetrated, it can then say that these are only illusory images of one's own consciousness, for the pure world within needs no images of external form" (Lauf 1977, pp. 225–226).
Mind or pure awareness is, in Vijnanavada theory, "the indispensable basis and essence of reality and is therefore absolute. Because nothing is imaginable without mind, it is called the absolute, or allpervading emptiness, or simply nirvana " (ibid., p. 221). Although appearing to be an instruction manual for the guidance of human awareness after death, Lauf argued that the Bardo Thodrol was in reality "primarily a book of life, for the knowledge of the path through the bardo must be gained 'on this side' if it is to be put into practice 'on the other side'" (ibid., p. 228).
Lauf also generalized from the various Tibetan texts the duration of the bardo state: "It is generally accepted that the total time of the intermediate state between two successive earthly incarnations is forty-nine days. The various cycles of emanation of the deities divide this time into a rhythm that is always determined by the number seven. . . . From the fourth to the eleventh day there is the successive emanation of the forty-two peaceful bardo deities from out of the fivefold radiant light of the buddhas. From the twelfth until the nineteenth day the fifty-eight terrifying deities take shape out of the flames, and the journey through the [bardo and the experience of the worlds of hell] Srid-pa'i bardo lasts . . . twenty-one days in all. The last seven days are dedicated to the search for the place of rebirth which is supposed to take place on the eighth day . . ." (pp. 95–96).
Two modern approaches to the Tibetan Book of the Dead deserve mention. Based on lectures presented at his own Buddhist institute in Vermont, the charismatic Tibetan teacher Chögyam Trungpa (1939–1987) published his own edition of the work in 1975 with Francesca Fremantle. His highly individualized commentary to the translation certainly owes a debt to the psychoanalyst Carl Jung. In Chögyam Trungpa's view, the bardo experience is an active part of every human being's basic psychological makeup, and thus it is best described using the concepts of modern psychoanalysis, such as ego, the unconscious mind, neurosis, paranoia, and so on. This view was popularized in Trungpa's Transcending Madness: The Experience of the Six Bardos (1992).
A second approach is that of Robert Thurman, a professor at Columbia University, the first American to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk and president of Tibet House in New York City, who sets out to produce an accessible version of the Tibetan text for those who might wish to read it at the bedside of their dying friend or relative. In this way, Thurman's Tibetan Book of the Dead is presented clearly as an "easy-to-read" guidebook for contemporary Americans. It is "easy for bereaved relatives to read and for lost souls to hear in the room where they anxiously hover about their corpses and wonder what has happened to them . . ." (Sambhava and Thurman 1994, p. xxi).
Buddhism and Death and Dying
Robert Thurman's text leads to a consideration of the relationship of Buddhism to modern clinical medical ethics and attitudes to death and dying in particular as well as to the pastoral care of the terminally ill. The Swiss-born psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross interviewed over 200 dying patients better to understand the psychological aspects of dying. She illustrates five stages that people go through when they know they are going to die. The stages include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. While a sequential order is implied, the manner is which a person comes to terms with impending death does not necessarily follow the order of the stages. Some of these phases are temporary; others will be with that person until death. The stages will exist at different times and can co-exist within each other. Denial and feelings of isolation are usually short lived. Isolation is related to the emotional support one receives. If a person feels alone and helpless he or she is more likely to isolate. During the anger stage, it is important to be very patient with the dying individual, who acts in apparent anger because of an inability to accept the reality of the diagnosis. Bargaining describes the period in which the ill person tries to bargain with doctors, family, clergy, or God to "buy more time."
When the denial, anger, and bargaining come to an end—and if the ill person continues to live— depression typically arises. Kübler-Ross talks about two forms of depression (reactive and preparatory). Reactive depression comes about from past losses, guilt, hopelessness, and shame. Preparatory depression is associated with impending loss. Most ill persons feel guilty for departing from family or friends, so require reassurance that life will change in the absence of the dead person but will nevertheless continue. The acceptance stage is a product of tiredness and numbness after the various preceding stages with their struggles. The model has been criticized and may not be applicable to the majority who die in old age, where a terminal diagnosis may be more acceptable to the individual. Many of the aged have experienced a gradual diminution of health and abilities that predates any knowledge of impending death. Such a diagnosis may be better accepted by the elderly both because of gradual infirmity and because approaching death is not viewed as a "surprise," but rather as part of a long and total life experience. For all the caveats, there are important resonances between the Kübler-Ross model and the stages of liberation in the bardo experience described above.
Julia Ching writes that "the central Mahayan insight, that Nirvana is to be found in the samsara, that is, in this life and this world, has made the religion more acceptable to the Chinese and Japanese" (Ching 1989, p. 217). She questions the content of Buddhist belief in East Asia: ". . . it appears that many Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Buddhists are less than clear about their belief in the cycle of rebirth. Their accounts of samsara include the presupposition of a wandering soul, which is not in accord with strict Buddhist teaching, and they tend to perceive life in linear terms. Besides, they frequently equate Nirvana with the Pure Land [named after Sukhavati, a Sanskrit word representing an ideal Buddhist paradise this side of Nirvana, believed to be presided over by the Buddha Amitabha, the Buddha of infinite life and light], and the Buddhas with the bodhisattvas" (1989, p. 220).
Ch'an and Zen, the respective Chinese and Japanese transliterations of the Sankrit word for meditation (dyhana ) are a distinctively East Asian development of the Mahayana tradition. Zen teaches that ultimate reality or emptiness (sunya ), sometimes called "Buddha-nature," is, as described by Ching, "inexpressible in words or concepts and is apprehended only by direct intuition, outside of conscious thought. Such direct intuition requires discipline and training, but is also characterized by freedom and spontaneity" (Ching 1989, p. 211). Japanese Buddhism, she contends, "is so closely associated with the memory of the dead and the ancestral cult that the family shrines dedicated to the ancestors, and still occupying a place of honor in homes, are popularly called the Butsudan, literally 'the Buddhist altars.' . . . It has been the custom in modern Japan to have Shinto weddings . . . but to turn to Buddhism in times of bereavement and for funeral services" (Ching 1989, p. 219).
The tradition of death poems in Zen accounts for one way in which the Japanese regard Buddhism as a funerary religion. Minamoto Yorimasa (1104–1180 c.e.), lamented that "Like a rotten log / half buried in the ground— / my life, which / has not flowered, comes / to this sad end" (Hoffman 1986, p. 48). Shiaku Nyûdo (d. 1333) justified an act of suicide with the words: "Holding forth this sword / I cut vacuity in twain; / In the midst of the great fire, / a stream of refreshing breeze!" (Suzuki 1959, p. 84). At what would be considered the relatively youthful age of fifty-four, Ota Dokan (1432–1486) clearly considered himself in decline already by the time of death: "Had I not known / that I was dead / already / I would have mourned / my loss of life" (Hoffman 1986, p. 52). For Ôuchi Yoshitaka (1507–1551) it was the extraordinary event that was significant: "Both the victor / and the vanquished are / but drops of dew, / but bolts of lightning—thus should we view the world" (1986, p. 53). The same image of dew, this time reinforced by dreams, was paramount for Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598): "My life / came like dew / disappears like dew. / All of Naniwa / is dream after dream" (Berry 1982, p. 235). Forty-nine years had passed as a dream for Uesugi Kenshin (1530–1578): "Even a life-long prosperity is but one cup of sake; /A life of forty-nine years is passed in a dream / I know not what life is, nor death. Year in year out—all but a dream. / Both Heaven and Hell are left behind; / I stand in the moonlit dawn, / Free from clouds of attachment" (Suzuki 1959, p. 82). The mists that cloud the mind were swept away at death for Hôjô Ujimasa (1538–1590): "Autumn wind of eve, / blow away the clouds that mass / over the moon's pure light / and the mists that cloud our mind, / do thou sweep away as well. / Now we disappear, / well, what must we think of it? / From the sky we came. / Now we may go back again. / That's at least one point of view" (Sadler 1978, pp. 160–161).
The death poems exemplify both the "eternal loneliness" that is found at the heart of Zen and the search for a new viewpoint, a new way of looking at life and things generally, or a version of enlightenment (satori in Japanese; wu in Chinese). Daisetz Suzuki writes: ". . . there is no Zen without satori, which is indeed the alpha and omega of Zen Buddhism"; it is defined as "an intuitive looking into the nature of things in contradistinction to the analytical or logical understanding of it." This can only be gained "through our once personally experiencing it" (1963, pp. 153, 154).
See also: Chinese Beliefs; Hinduism; Islam; Last Words; Moment of Death
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BONNEY, RICHARD. "Buddhism." Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (October 1, 2016). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3407200039.html
BONNEY, RICHARD. "Buddhism." Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying. 2003. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3407200039.html
Buddhism, one of the world's major religious traditions, originated, as did Jainism, in northeastern India in the sixth century b.c.e. Both religious movements arose in response to discontent with the prevailing religion of Hinduism. Buddhism derives its name from its founder, Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha. Buddha is not a name, but an earned title meaning Enlightened or Awakened One. Following the Buddha's death, Buddhism developed into two major traditions, Theravada and Mahayana. Over the next several centuries, Buddhism spread throughout Southeast and Central Asia and Japan. During the late nineteenth century, it was introduced into Europe and North America through immigration, missionary activity, and a growing interest among Westerners in Eastern religions.
Buddhist History and Overview
The life of Siddhartha Gautama. Although precise dates for Siddhartha Gautama's life are disputed, most scholars accept 560–480 b.c.e. as rough approximations. Siddhartha was the son of a local ruler of the Sakyas clan, located on the Indian-Nepalese border. At his birth, it was prophesied that he would fulfill one of two destinies. Either he would become a great conqueror and unite all of India into one kingdom, or he would assume a religious vocation and become a world redeemer. Siddhartha's father preferred the destiny of a great conqueror and encouraged his son toward this destiny by surrounding him with worldly pleasures and shielding him from all of life's suffering.
Siddhartha grew up in luxury, married a beautiful princess, and fathered a son. Then, in his late twenties, on three successive trips into the city, Siddhartha saw an elderly man, a diseased person, and a corpse. Shocked by life's afflictions, Siddhartha fell into despair until a fourth excursion into the city when he encountered a monk seeking enlightenment. These confrontations with old age, disease, death, and the monastic life are known as the Four Passing Sights. They culminated in the Great Going Forth, a night in Siddhartha's twenty-ninth year when he abandoned his princely and family life for the religious pursuit of enlightenment.
Siddhartha spent the next six years seeking to understand suffering and the nature of existence. Initially, he studied under two prominent Hindu sages. After extensive learning from these teachers, he joined a band of wandering ascetics and assumed practices of extreme self-mortification, depriving his body of food and comfort. After reaching the point of death, yet without achieving enlightenment, he abandoned his companions and seated himself beneath a pipal tree to meditate, vowing not to rise until attaining enlightenment. For forty-nine days, Mara, an evil deity embodying death and desire, tempted Siddhartha to abandon his quest. Resisting all temptations, Siddhartha conquered Mara and awoke to the true nature and meaning of life. For the next forty-five years, until his death at the age of eighty, he taught others the path to enlightenment.
Basic Buddhist teachings. Buddhism's basic teachings are properly understood in light of several prevailing Hindu beliefs, that is, samsara, karma, and nirvana. Samsara is the Wheel of Life and refers to the cyclical stages of existence that are characteristic of reincarnation or transmigration: birth-death-rebirth. Integral to samsara is the role of karma, or the consequences of one's deeds and actions. Committing good acts merits one good karma that results in a higher rebirth in the realms of existence. Committing evil acts, however, accrues bad karma and subjects one to rebirth in a lower level of existence. Six realms of existence compose samsara. The three higher realms are the realms of the devas (gods), of the asuras (jealous gods), and of humans. The three lower realms are the realms of animals, of the pretas (hungry ghosts), and of hell. Of these six realms, only the human realm offers the possibility of achieving nirvana and escaping the continuous cycle of rebirths. Nirvana is the extinction of all desire and corresponds to the liberation of the individual from the Three Marks of Existence: suffering, impermanence, and the doctrine of no-self. Achieving nirvana is the Buddhist goal.
Siddhartha preached his first sermon at Deer Park near Benares (Sarnath). Known as the First Turning of the Wheel of the Dharma (Dharma is the Sanskrit word for truth or law and refers to the Buddha's teachings), the Buddha proclaimed to his former band of ascetics the Four Noble Truths: The Truth of Suffering, The Truth of the Origin of Suffering, The Truth of the Cessation of Suffering, and The Truth of the Path to the Cessation of Suffering.
The First Noble Truth is the Buddha's observation that life is fundamentally characterized by suffering (dukkha). This should not be mistaken as a pessimistic interpretation of life; rather it displays a realistic awareness that life is filled with sorrow. Sorrow results from life's impermanence (anicca). Life is transitory, continually traversing the processes of change and becoming. Since humans are trapped in the continual cycle of birth-death-rebirth, the Buddha taught the doctrine of no-self (anatta), meaning that there is no abiding, enduring essence, such as a self or a soul, inherent in human existence. Instead of a permanent self or essence, human beings consist of five aggregates: (1) matter or form, (2) sensation or feeling, (3) perception, (4) mental formations, and (5) consciousness.
The Second Noble Truth identifies the origin or cause of suffering. Suffering is the result of human cravings or desires for fulfillment and contentment. These desires give rise to suffering not because the desires are evil, but because of life's impermanence, they are never sated. Although humans do experience moments of happiness or pleasure, these moments are necessarily fleeting, leaving people mired in a continual state of desire and suffering.
The first two Noble Truths describe and diagnose life. The Third Noble Truth prescribes a cure for life's dis-ease. To overcome suffering and desire, one must control and ultimately eliminate all cravings and attachments to worldly matters. The extinction of cravings or desires produces a state free from attachments to the world and therefore free from suffering. This state is nirvana.
The Fourth Noble Truth, also known as the Middle Way, teaches one how to extinguish desire and achieve enlightenment by avoiding the extremes of self-indulgence (hedonism) and self-mortification (asceticism). Traveling the Middle Way requires practicing the Eightfold Path. This path consists of eight practices that one must master to awaken to the true nature of the world and enter nirvana. These practices are organized into three categories: (1) wisdom, which includes the practices of right view/understanding and right intention/thought; (2) ethical conduct, which includes right speech, right action, right livelihood, and right diligence/effort; and (3) mental discipline, which includes right mindfulness and right concentration. These categories are interdependent, requiring one to practice wisdom, ethical conduct, and mental discipline simultaneously. By deliberately engaging in these practices, one travels the Path of Liberation to nirvana.
Development and diversity of Buddhist traditions. Following the Buddha's death, a council was called at Rajagrha to codify his teachings. Five hundred monks attended the meeting. The council produced two authoritative, oral traditions of the Buddha's teachings, the Vinaya and the Sutta. The Vinaya described disciplines and rules for the monastic life, and the Sutta contained the Buddha's basic teachings. Over the course of the next several centuries, several other great councils were held. Each council addressed the gradual development of diverging ideological interpretations and religious practices within Buddhism. The result was a process of fragmentation that eventually produced eighteen different Buddhist schools. One of the first, and most prominent, schools to emerge was the conservative school of Theravada (Way of the Elders). Theravada contains the earliest collection of Buddhist scriptures, the Pali Tipitaka (The Three Baskets). The elements of the Pali canon are the Vinaya (monastic codes), Sutta (basic teachings), and Abhidhamma (philosophical doctrines).
Theravada Buddhism emphasized the monastic lifestyle. The Theravada ideal was the arhat, an accomplished monk who achieved nirvana through wisdom, meditation, and self-effort. Within this tradition, the laity's primary purpose was to provide for the physical and material needs of the monastics. This arrangement produced a symbiotic relationship in which monastics carried on the Buddha's spiritual work while the laity supported the religious community. Theravada Buddhism flourished in India, reaching its zenith under the patronage of King Ashoka in the third century b.c.e. During Ashoka's reign, Buddhist missionaries introduced Theravada to Sri Lanka. Eventually, Theravada Buddhism spread throughout all of Southeast Asia. It remains the dominant Buddhist tradition in these countries. Geographically, it is designated Southern Buddhism.
The second major Buddhist tradition is the more diverse and liberal Mahayana (Great Vehicle). Mahayana developed in India in the first century b.c.e. Its adherents, competing with Theravada Buddhism for legitimacy, pejoratively dubbed the Theravada tradition, Hinayana, meaning the Lesser Vehicle. For the Mahayana, the ideal Buddhist was the bodhisattva, one who, having reached nirvana, chooses to return to the world to assist others on the path to enlightenment. The example of the bodhisattva promotes compassionate actions toward others. Eventually, both the Buddha and the bodhisattva came to be regarded as beings worthy of devotion. The bodhisattva model of compassion toward others and the development of acts of devotion towards the Buddha and the bodhisattvas empowered the laity to work towards nirvana through acts of compassion and devotion.
The Mahayana tradition spread from India northward and eastward into China, Tibet, Korea, and Japan. Geographically, this tradition is known as Northern Buddhism. As it encountered new cultures and pre-existing religious and philosophical traditions, such as Taoism, Confucianism, and Shinto, it generated several different forms of Mahayana. This religious diversity produced a vast quantity of sacred texts recognized by various Mahayana schools. Three of the more well-known Mahayana schools are Pure Land Buddhism, Chinese Ch'an or Japanese Zen Buddhism, and Tibetan Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism. Amongst Western Europeans and North Americans, Ch'an/Zen and Tibetan/Tantric Buddhism are more commonly known and practiced.
Originating in China in the fifth and sixth centuries c.e., Pure Land Buddhism differed from other Buddhist schools by emphasizing faith as the means of entering the Pure Land, a "salvific paradise," or "paradise of salvation" where one could be saved and free from suffering. Ch'an or Zen Buddhism developed in China and Japan in the sixth century c.e. and sought enlightenment through practicing seated meditation (zazen) on paradoxical problems (koan) under a master's guidance (sanzen). Often considered a third Buddhist tradition, Vajrayana (Thunderbolt or Diamond Vehicle) or Tantric Buddhism developed in India and Sri Lanka in the seventh century c.e. and spread into Tibet. Vajrayana is also known as Esoteric Buddhism because it claims it originated with secret teachings of the Buddha that were passed down orally. Vajrayana teaches rapid and sudden enlightenment by using all of the body's latent energy. This is accomplished through the use of carefully choreographed body movements and posturing (mudras), repetitive recitation of chants and formulas (mantras), and meditation on religious icons and symbols (mandalas). The use of these methods earned this school yet another name, Mantrayana (Vehicle of the Sacred Formula).
Buddhism and the Family
Marriage and family relationships. Buddhism is not a family-centered religion. For a variety of reasons, it does not possess doctrinal standards or institutionalized models of the family. Some of these reasons include the role of renunciation, detachment, and the individual's pursuit of enlightenment. The virtue of renunciation derives from Siddhartha's Great Going Forth, at which point he forsook his family and familial obligations as son, husband, and father. The monastic lifestyle and the role of the religious community (sangha) formalized the renouncing of familial relationships. The goal of detachment also impinges negatively upon family life. The inherent nature of families and family relationships produces attachments that constitute formidable obstacles to achieving detachment from worldly affairs and desires. Finally, the practices for pursuing enlightenment are adult-oriented disciplines requiring significant amounts of time and effort in solitary study and meditation. Although these three factors adversely affect the role of family life, the vast majority of Buddhists are lay people with immediate and extended families.
Because Buddhism does not espouse any particular form of the family or family relationships, Buddhist family life generally reflects pre-existing cultural and religious values, customs, and socially sanctioned modes of expression. Within Asian Buddhist cultures, this typically translates into a traditional, patriarchal family structure with clearly defined familial roles. Buddhism's primary contribution to the family consists of five ethical prescriptions that inform all aspects of family life, including marriage, roles and expectations, sexuality, children, and divorce. Originally composed by the Buddha for families and laity not capable of adopting monasticism, the Five Precepts are binding ethical mandates promoting personal virtues. They are (1) abstaining from harming living beings; (2) abstaining from taking what is not given; (3) abstaining from sexual misconduct; (4) abstaining from false speech; and (5) abstaining from intoxicants. Although none of these precepts directly addresses the family, by governing social and interpersonal relationships they provide an ethical framework for family life.
Buddhism does not regard marriage as a religious act, duty, or obligation. Instead, marriage is viewed as a civic or secular matter. Therefore, wedding ceremonies are not considered religious events, and Buddhist monks do not officiate during the service. Monks may, however, attend weddings, and they often pronounce blessings and recite protective rites for the couple. Depending upon cultural traditions, marriages are either arranged between two families, as in many Eastern cultures, or decided upon and entered into between two consenting adults, as in the West. While monogamy is the principle form of marriage, Buddhism does not prohibit other forms, such as polygamy, polyandry, and group marriages. In fact, although not common, marriages of each of these types have existed within Asian cultures. Again, it is important to remember that the mode of marriage depends not upon a particular Buddhist ideal or teaching but upon pre-existing and prevailing cultural attitudes.
Neither the Buddha nor Buddhist texts give specific instructions on marriage and family life. There is, however, a great deal of commentary offering advice on how marital and family life can be lived happily. The emphasis within family life in Buddhist ethics rests upon the proper roles and responsibilities that characterize the husband-wife relationship and the parent-child relationship. Husbands and wives are to cultivate respect, honor, and faithfulness towards one another. Parents are responsible for inculcating Buddhist ethics and practices in their children and, in turn, children are expected to be obedient and to preserve the traditions of the family.
One of the primary means by which parents teach their children Buddhist beliefs and values is through participation in the life of religious community (sangha). Typically, in Buddhist homes, families erect a small shrine displaying a statue of the Buddha. Some families set aside an entire shrine room. Before the Buddha shrine, families conduct daily, short religious services, especially on full moon and festival days. During these services, members of the family make devotional offerings of food, flowers, candles, and incense to the Buddha. They also, through recitation, commit themselves to the Three Refuges ("I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma. I take refuge in the Sangha.") and to Buddhist ethical precepts. Outside of the home, religious instruction consists of regular attendance at religious services and participation in religious festivals.
Divorce, although uncommon for Buddhists, is not prohibited. It is expected, however, that if a couple enters into marriage and adheres to Buddhism's ethical prescriptions for marital and family life, that divorce becomes a non-issue. If, however, a couple refuses to follow the ethical prescriptions, is unable to live in peace, harmony, and mutuality with one another, or in the event of extreme circumstances, such as adultery or violence, it is preferable for the marriage to be broken than for the marriage to destroy the couple or the family.
Although Buddhism is generally viewed as fairly permissive in terms of marriage, sexuality (non-procreative sex, including homosexuality, is not condemned), and divorce, it is important to note that Buddhism condemns abortion as the taking of life. Although abortion is not absolutely forbidden, Buddhism generally considers life to begin at conception and views terminating pregnancy as a violation of the first ethical principle.
Rites of passage. Buddhism possesses few official rites of passage. Most often such events are cultural rituals with little distinctive Buddhist presence or involvement. Like marriage, this characteristic is due to the perception that many rites of passage are social, civic, or secular affairs. For example, Buddhist monks may attend birthing or naming ceremonies; however their role rarely extends beyond reading sacred texts or making blessing pronouncements. There are two noteworthy exceptions to this general rule: ordination and death.
Buddhist males and females may seek ordination for life or, more commonly, for briefer designated periods of time. Ordination ceremonies and vows serve several purposes. They bestow the ordinand's family with karmic merit and honor, they reflect the highest aspirations of Buddhist life, and they signify entrance into adulthood and the larger society.
No rite of passage, however, is more significant than death. Death and funeral rituals, unlike other rites of passage, are distinctively Buddhist. Death's association with rebirth produced highly ritualistic and elaborate ceremonies to prepare for death and to ensure that the deceased enters into nirvana after death (paranirvana). To prepare for death, monks recite religious texts to the dying, creating and maintaining for them a state of peace and tranquility in which they can enter into death. Funeral rituals also involve reciting sacred texts. They include other religious practices as well, especially merit ceremonies designed to bestow additional karma upon the dead and protective rites to exorcise evil influences. These two features of death and funeral rites are crucial to ensure that the deceased is either liberated from the cycle of reincarnation or receives a meritorious rebirth.
Religious festivals. Religious festivals play important roles in preserving basic Buddhist beliefs, practices, and teachings. Because of Buddhism's vast religious and cultural diversity, there is a multitude of diverse religious festivals. There are, however, three principle festivals within Buddhism that celebrate the Three Jewels of Buddhism: the Buddha, the Dharma (the Buddha's teachings), and the Sangha (the religious community). The Three Jewels are also known as the Three Refuges. Wesak, the most important Buddhist festival, celebrates the Buddha's birth, enlightenment, and death (paranirvana), all of which, according to tradition, occurred on the same day of the year. Wesak is celebrated on the full moon day in late May or early June. Dharma Day, celebrated on the full moon in July, commemorates the Buddha's teachings, particularly his first sermon in which he taught the Four Noble Truths. Finally, Sangha Day, which is held on the full moon day in November, celebrates the founding of the monastic and religious community.
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"Buddhism." International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family. 2003. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3406900056.html
With roughly 400 million adherents worldwide, Buddhism represents one of the world’s largest religious traditions. Originating in India, the majority of Buddhists are now found in China, Japan, North and South Korea, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet, and North and South Vietnam. Buddhism also spread to Western nations such as the United States and Canada beginning in the nineteenth century. Since its inception, Buddhism has developed along numerous trajectories and in different cultural settings. Though certain commonalities historically unite the various Buddhist communities—such as a commitment to the “Three Jewels of Refuge” (i.e., the Buddha, his teachings, and the Buddhist monastic community)—it is difficult to isolate a definitive set of beliefs and practices shared by all Buddhists.
The history of Buddhism begins with the career of Siddhártha Gautama. Scholars generally deem Gautama a historical figure who passed along to his followers the foundations of Buddhist philosophy and practice. Traditionally, Gautama was believed to have lived circa 560–480 BCE, while more-recent scholarship suggests the later dates of circa 485–405 BCE. Though Buddhists maintain that there have been numerous buddhas throughout history, most consider Gautama the Buddha for this age (though some hold that there can be more than one buddha per age). Accurately reconstructing the precise details of the Buddha’s life and teaching, however, proves difficult. The first biographies of his life did not appear until centuries after his death and it is often impossible to ascertain exactly where the biographies reconstruct the Buddha’s life according to ideal patterns as opposed to historical realities.
According to tradition, Gautama’s previous lives prepared him for his final reincarnation before achieving the status of Buddha. At age twenty-nine, Gautama’s life was profoundly altered when he ventured outside the palace and encountered “four signs”: an old man, a sick person, a corpse, and a mendicant (Buddhist sources indicate that the gods orchestrated these events). Troubled by what he saw, Gautama embraced the life of an ascetic for the next several years and searched for an answer to the suffering he had encountered. According to Gautama’s biographers, six years after leaving the palace he finally experienced enlightenment. One night he sat under a bodhi tree, determined not to leave until he found an answer to the perennial problems of suffering and death. Though some traditions differ as to the exact nature of his enlightenment that night, the biographers agree that Gautama achieved the status of a buddha; he eliminated the ignorance that trapped individuals in the suffering (duhkha ) associated with the endless cycle of reincarnation.
Following this experience, the Buddha preached his first sermon, often referred to as the “first turning of the wheel of dharma.” Though it is important to note that many of the Buddha’s teachings reflect the influence of Hinduism, the Buddha thoroughly modified various Hindu concepts and did not embrace the Hindu caste system. The theme of his teaching revolved around the Four Noble Truths. The first Noble Truth stipulated the reality of suffering. Put simply, suffering persists throughout all the various stages of life. The second Noble Truth indicated that desire (trşnā ) originated from ignorance (avidyā ) and inevitably caused suffering. According to the Buddha, humans mistakenly posit the existence of an autonomous, permanent self (ātman). As such, they inevitably experience suffering as they try to maintain a permanent hold on things that are constantly changing and impermanent. Instead, the Buddha’s teachings advanced the doctrine of “no-self” and insisted on the impermanence of all things. The third Noble Truth, the cessation of suffering (nirvāna, literally “blowing out”), claimed it was possible to eliminate desire and ignorance and free an individual from suffering. Finally, the fourth Noble Truth pointed to the path that brings about the cessation of suffering, often referred to as the Eightfold Path. The path includes (1) right view, (2) right intention, (3) right speech, (4) right conduct, (5) right livelihood, (6) right effort, (7) right mindfulness, and (8) right concentration. This “Middle Path” avoids both the extreme of self-denial and the extreme of self-indulgence and leads an individual to recognize the impermanence of all things.
Often, the different parts of the Eightfold Path are grouped under three main headings: moral precepts, concentration, and wisdom. The moral precepts (śila ) usually include basic prohibitions against killing, stealing, lying, sexual promiscuity, and intoxication (these are commonly accepted by most Buddhists, though monks and nuns usually adhere to more stringent guidelines). Concentration (samādhi ) involves various forms of meditation that differ among Buddhist traditions. Generally, however, Buddhist meditation requires careful control of the process of breathing and discipline of the mind. Finally, wisdom (prajñā ) reflects the necessary insights required to eliminate desire and ignorance and achieve enlightenment.
Following his experience of enlightenment, the Buddha continued to teach throughout northeastern India for the next forty-five years. With no named successor upon his death, a council of elders formed and orally perpetuated the Buddha’s teachings. Centuries later, the oral traditions associated with the life of the Buddha were codified in Buddhist scriptures; these scriptures contained material directly attributed to the Buddha (buddhavacana ) as well as authoritative commentaries. The earliest extant canon, the Pāli canon (also referred to as the Tripitaka), consists of Vinaya (monostic law), Sũtras (the Buddha’s discourses), and Abhidhamma (commentaries). The Chinese canon and the Tibetan canon took shape at later dates and incorporated new material.
As Buddhism grew following the Buddha’s death, ritual practices developed along various trajectories. For example, though differences appeared among the various Buddhist traditions regarding their view of the Buddha, he remained a venerated figure for all Buddhists. Devotees lavished gifts on relics associated with the Buddha and annually celebrated his birth, enlightenment, and entrance into nirvana. Sites associated with the Buddha’s life soon became places of pilgrimage. These included his birthplace (Lumbinì), the setting where he achieved enlightenment (Bodh Gayā), the location of his first sermon (Deer Park), and his place of death (Kuśinagara). Beginning in the common era, artists created images of the Buddha. Furthermore, Buddhist monastic communities (sangha ) quickly formed after the Buddha’s death. Ordination ceremonies took shape for both monks and nuns, signaling their abandonment of worldly pursuits. Laypersons also began to venerate monks for their spiritual attainments and frequently showered them with gifts and offerings. Buddhist funeral and protective rites also emerged.
In time, Buddhism spread beyond India and also began to influence the activities of states. Beginning in the third century BCE, for example, Aśoka (c. 300-232 BCE, the emperor in India, took on the title of “righteous king” (dharmaraja ) and formally supported the monasteries. Aśoka’s son, Mahinda (c. 270–c. 204 BCE), then carried the Buddhist message outside his homeland and attracted followers in Southeast Asia. At the beginning of the common era, Buddhist missionaries entered China and spread their message through the efforts of figures such as Bodhidharma (c. early fifth century CE) and Kumárajíva (350–409/413 CE). While early Hindu missionaries also accompanied traders and merchants and helped spread Hinduism to Southeast Asia during the same period, Buddhism had key advantages that facilitated its growth. In particular, unlike Hinduism, Buddhism operated outside of the caste system, allowing its followers to interact freely with others. (This advantage carried over into the twentieth century as the Indian politician B. R. Ambedkar gained a large following among fellow Dalits [“untouchables” within the Hindu caste system]; Ambedkar viewed Buddhism as a solution to the social inequality associated with the Hindu caste system and encouraged Hindus to convert.) Through these missionary efforts, different Buddhist traditions formed as Buddhist practices and beliefs often underwent significant modification as they took root in various cultural contexts.
The Theravāda (literally “doctrine of the elders”) tradition claims to adhere strictly to the Buddha’s original teachings. It treats the Pāli canon as the only authoritative Buddhist scriptures and perpetuates the Hìnayāna tradition from the earliest days of Buddhism (within Buddhist literature, Hìnayāna, literally the “Inferior Way,” served as a pejorative term directed at more conservative Buddhists in contrast to followers of the later Mahāyāna tradition). Very strong in Burma (now Myanmar), Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, Theravāda first spread to Southeast Asia with the missionary activities of Mahinda in Sri Lanka. Unlike other Buddhist traditions that recognize several present buddhas and bodhisattvas, Theravāda focuses solely on the life of the historical Buddha. Ideally, every individual should imitate the Buddha’s example and achieve enlightenment through self-effort. For this reason, the monastic ideal of achieving personal enlightenment (arhat) serves as the focal point of Theravāda Buddhism. Monastic complexes—often consisting of a bodhi tree and images of the Buddha, as well as stupas where relics associated with the historical Buddha are enshrined—facilitate the veneration of the Buddha. According to tradition, it is impossible for laypersons to achieve enlightenment (in some locales, however, a form of temporary ordination has arisen that serves as a rite of passage into adulthood). For nonelite practitioners, ritual and meditation often provide a means to gain merit and improve their lot in life when reincarnated, or to better their present circumstances.
The Mahāyāna tradition (literally the “Great Way”) developed later than the Theravāda tradition and recast many of the more traditional Buddhist positions; it also eventually attracted a larger following than the Theravāda tradition. Particularly strong in China, Japan, Korea, and Tibet, many scholars date the beginning of Mahāyāna to around the second or first century BCE. Groups within this Buddhist tradition usually focus on particular teachings of the Buddha, referred to as the “second turning of the wheel of the dharma,” believed to have been passed along by a select group of Buddhists for centuries following his death. Unlike Theravāda Buddhism, Mahāyāna allows for the possibility of multiple buddhas to exist at the same time. Not surprisingly, alongside the historical Buddha, a number of other buddhas and bodhisattvas have appeared over the centuries. Accordingly, various Mahāyāna festivals have developed to venerate these figures. In general, Mahāyāna gives a higher priority to the bodhisattva, the person who puts off nirvana to help others achieve enlightenment; it also stresses the virtues of compassion (karunā ) and wisdom (prajñā ). The Buddha’s life is reread as the quintessential model of the bodhisattva ideal that values highly a strong sense of communal responsibility. Usually, the Mahāyāna sense of communal responsibility is read as a reaction to the Theravāda arhat ideal in which Buddhists focus on achieving enlightenment for themselves in an individualistic quest for nirvana. Some scholars, however, have begun to complicate the sharp historical distinctions between the Mahāyāna and Theravāda traditions.
A third major tradition in Buddhism, Vajrayāna (literally the “Diamond Way,” also referred to as tantric Buddhism) emerged around the third or fourth century CE as an amalgamation of Buddhism, Hinduism, and other popular religious practices in the region. According to Vajrayāna teachings, principles in the world that appear to be fundamentally opposed are actually united and one. Enlightenment occurs when individuals grasp this reality. Whereas earlier Buddhist sources emphasized a long path to enlightenment, Vajrayāna offers instead enlightenment in this lifetime through the disciplined practice of meditation. Often, adherents visualize various deities during meditation. Among elite practitioners, these deities are often considered representations of inner states within the individual, though this is less often the case for the average adherent.
Vajrayāna proved very influential in the formation of Tibetan Buddhism, though the two terms are not synonymous. (Tibetan Buddhism is often considered a branch of Mahāyāna Buddhism, as is Vajrayána.) According to Tibetan sources, Buddhism arrived in the region during the reign of the first Buddhist emperor Songtsen Gampo (Tib., Srong-btsan sgam-po, d. 649/650). By the twelfth century various Tibetan Buddhist sects emerged. One particular religious order, the Gelukpa (Tib., Dge-lugs-pa, literally “Virtuous Ones”), began to rule in Tibet by the mid-seventeenth century.
Tibetan Buddhists consider the Dalai Lama (a member of the Gelukpa school) an incarnation of the lord of compassion (Avalokiteśvara) and the rightful spiritual and temporal leader of the state. Each Dalai Lama is believed to be a reincarnation of the first Dalai Lama, Gedun Drupa (Tib., Dge-’dun-grub-pa, 1391–1474). As a result of the Dalai Lama’s role, Buddhism has historically been intimately tied to politics in Tibet more so than in any other state. The current Dalai Lama (b. 1935), however, lives in Dharmsala, India, following the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950 and his exile from there in 1959. Nevertheless, he has gained international recognition for his nonviolent protests against Chinese abuses of Tibetans and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
Various schools within the three main traditions named above (Theravāda, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna) have developed over time. In Japan, for example, the Shingon school represents a form of tantric Buddhism, whereas the eclectic Tendai school adheres more closely to traditional Buddhist practices. Tendai was eventually overshadowed by its more popular offshoots: Pure Land Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, and Nichiren ShŌshū, a particularly mission-oriented form of Buddhism that was reinvigorated beginning in the twentieth century through the SŌka Gakkai organization. Numerous other schools have also formed as distinct Buddhist movements within different Asian countries.
Buddhism has undergone important changes during the modern era. Beginning in the sixteenth century, Buddhist nations for the first time came into contact with Western culture as well as Western imperialism. At times, adherents adapted Buddhist practices to Western—and particularly Christian—ways, as can be seen in the adoption of Sunday meetings and Sunday schools by some Buddhists (in the West, some Buddhist groups also called themselves “churches”). In another sign of changes brought about through globalization, Buddhist societies formed to unite Buddhists worldwide. These include the Maha Bodhi Society (1891), the World Fellowship of Buddhists (1950), and the World Buddhist Sangha Council (1966).
Ultimately, Buddhism spread to the West during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One form of Mahāyāna Buddhism, Pure Land Buddhism, would eventually find a significant following in the United States. One of the most prominent subbranches of the Mahāyāna tradition, Pure Land Buddhism focuses on the figure of Amida Buddha, who was believed to have formed the “Pure Land” once he achieved buddhahood. In turn, individuals who devote themselves to the Amida Buddha are reborn in this Pure Land and achieve enlightenment. In a significant revision of traditional Buddhist teachings, Pure Land Buddhism emphasizes trust in the Amida Buddha as the key to enlightenment and places less stress on self-effort. Scholars often point to the strong similarities between these teachings and aspects of Christianity to help explain the success of Pure Land Buddhism in the West.
Zen Buddhism, another Mahāyāna school, has also been successful in the West. Literally Japanese for “meditation,” the Zen tradition grew out of the Chan school in China and traces its lineage back to the historical Buddha. The movement stresses experience through the disciplined practice of meditation and often plays down the importance of Buddhist scriptures. There are three contemporary schools in Japan—Rinzai, SŌtŌ, and Ōbaku—that perpetuate these highly specialized forms of meditation.
In the West, Rinzai Zen first gained attention when Shaku SŌen (1859-1919) attended the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago, Illinois, in 1893. He wrote books extolling Zen as a rational religion that fit well with modern trends. During the first half of the twentieth century, Shaku SŌen’s disciple, D. T. Suzuki (1870–1966), then continued to promulgate a form of Zen in the United States that was less rigorous than traditional Zen. As awareness of Zen grew in the United States, it eventually became incorporated into popular culture. Though sometimes criticized for promoting a superficial form of Zen, figures such as Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997), Jack Kerouac (1922–1969), Gary Snyder (b. 1930), and Alan Watts (1915–1973) developed what is commonly referred to as “Beat Zen.” Focusing on Rinzai Zen, which stresses sudden enlightenment, these figures embraced a popularized form of Zen during the social upheavals of the 1950s and 1960s in the United States. Here, Zen represented the ideals of liberation and freedom and served as a tool to combat the perceived materialism, imperialism, and consumerism of American society. In addition to Rinzai Zen, Sótó Zen (which lacks Rinzai Zen’s focus on sudden enlightenment and instead emphasizes quiet meditation) has also attracted a significant number of adherents in various parts of the United States as individuals such as Suzuki Shunryū (1904–1971) established meditation centers. The growth and popularity of both Rinzai and SŌtŌ Zen in the United States during the twentieth century reflect the increased awareness of Buddhism in the West.
The very practical, empirical nature of Buddhism has also facilitated various forms of spirituality that intermix elements from other religious traditions with Buddhism. Thomas Merton (1915–1968) serves as a prominent example. Merton, an American Catholic monk, sought to develop a dialogue between Christian and Buddhist forms of meditation during the mid-twentieth century (see, for example, his Mystics and Zen Masters ). Also indicative of combinative trends, many Jews have either embraced Buddhism or sought to combine Buddhist insights with their own heritage (see, for example, Rodger Kamenetz’s The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet’s Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India ). Some individuals have also combined Buddhist concepts with various aspects of Western science. While figures such as Watts sought to explain Zen using the terminology of Western science and psychology, others such as Mark Epstein (b. 1953) have also used Buddhist concepts to inform psychotherapeutic models.
Finally, Engaged Buddhism (sometimes referred to as Socially Engaged Buddhism) also represents a recent development within Buddhism. Initiated by figures such as the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh (b. 1926), the movement is in part a reaction to a perceived passivity in the contemporary practice of Buddhism. Followers attempt to enlist Buddhism on behalf of various causes and address social and ecological ills. Engaged Buddhism has attracted attention from Buddhist laypersons and monks in both the Eastern and Western world, and had an impact on mainstream Buddhism as a whole. Diverse in its forms and dispersed across the globe, Buddhism has shaped the religious sensibilities of countless adherents throughout history.
SEE ALSO Ambedkar, B. R.; Buddha; Caste; Hinduism; Reality; Reincarnation; Religion
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"Buddhism." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. (October 1, 2016). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3045300244.html
"Buddhism." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2008. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3045300244.html
BUDDHISM. Buddhism originated in India in the fifth century b.c.e. and from there spread to many lands. The historic Buddha, born around 563 b.c.e., spent most of his eighty years traveling throughout north India preaching the way to salvation by reaching Nirvana and the cessation of rebirths. In some Buddhist traditions, respect for earth deities continues as a reflection of earlier cults of the soil. Animal sacrifices can still be seen in rituals requesting a boon from deities, ancestral spirits, and guardian spirits of localities. Food offerings may be left at stone monuments often containing relics commemorating the life and teachings of the Buddha. But these food practices are not Buddhist.
Buddhism is divided into several branches or ordination traditions. The Mahayana tradition, based on Sanskrit texts, spread into China, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. The Buddhism of Tibet, Nepal, and Mongolia is also known as Vajrayana. Theravada Buddhism, "the way of the elders," is the form of Buddhism found in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. It is based on Pali texts. More recently, Buddhism has spread to Europe, Australia, and North America, where people are converting in large numbers, partly out of interest in Buddhist meditation practices.
Food rituals transmit collective and individual messages about religious principles. Religion influences dietary intake by prescribing or proscribing certain foods, providing ritual foods or meals, and reinforcing key cultural and social values. Unlike Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, Buddhism has less rigid dietary laws defining what people can eat and with whom they can dine. However, fasting and feasting are integral parts of most religious traditions, and Buddhism is no exception. The special foods used in the annual cycle of Buddhist holidays and festivals differ by country. Food is both a marker of religious affiliation and a marker of ethnic identity. It is therefore impossible to identify foods as specifically Buddhist, as opposed to Thai Buddhist or Japanese Buddhist, for example.
In rice-growing Asian communities where Buddhism is practiced, food in rituals reflects the rhythms of food production, including its scarcity or abundance during the year. In some countries, it is possible to see a contrast between ascetic approaches to food (for example, during the rains' retreat from July to October) and festive excess (for example, after harvest in November and December).
Food rites mark changes in personal status as well, serving as temporal boundary markers through the life cycle. Special foods may be prepared for birthdays, weddings, funerals, tonsures, and ordinations, for example, particularly if monks officiate. In Theravada traditions, some of these rituals are Brahmanic in origin and feature rice and milk-based dishes. Harvest celebrations also make confections from foods such as rice, peanuts, sugar, sesame seeds, and coconut, possibly related to the sweet offerings of South India, called panchakadjaya (five foods). Puffed rice is used at funerals to symbolize rice that cannot be grown again.
Dietary abstinence relates to a very widespread idea that giving up something desirable increases spiritual potency. In many religious traditions, food refusal also represents a denial of social relationships, a denial of sociability. Fasting is not central to Buddhist practice except for the monastic community. Most Theravada monks eat only once or twice a day, in the early morning and just before noon, as a part of monastic discipline and their dedication to following the path of the Buddha. The Sanskrit term sambhogakaya refers to the monastic practice of eating together. Theravada monks fast after noon and all night, often joined by pious laypersons who partially withdraw from the lay life of the householder on special holidays.
Monks are expected to show moderation and control in all things, including eating. They are warned that wrong mental states easily come to the surface when collecting or eating food. When Theravada monks go on begging rounds, giving people an opportunity to put food into their bowls, they are expected to show no interest in the qualities of the food and even mix the food donations together.
Chinese Buddhism regulates communal meals as part of monastic discipline. Rather than food being collected from begging or donations as in Theravada communities, food in Chinese monasteries is often prepared at the temple by lay devotees. Mahayana monasteries used to grow their own food to provide vegetables for simple meals with rice or rice porridge. Occasionally lay donors might provide a vegetarian feast to celebrate Buddha's birth, enlightenment, and death, or parinibbana, in order to gain merit.
Zen cooking (shojin ryori ) is a style of vegetarian cooking developed by Zen monks that acts as an aid to meditation and spiritual life. Food is prepared as a spiritual exercise with attention to balance, harmony, and delicacy. Some Zen and Chinese Mahayana temples practice the three-bowl eating style, making eating a ritual training. The three bowls contain rice, vegetables, and soup. In fact, eating can be a kind of meditation—remembering to let go of evil, to cultivate good deeds, and to save sentient beings—as each food is put into one's mouth. In such events, food is consumed according to need with no waste and no overconsumption.
Theravada Buddhists believe that by feeding monks they obtain religious merit that assures them of a good rebirth. Laypeople advance on the path to Nirvana by striving for moral purity and doing good works, especially by giving food to the monks. People also believe that giving food to the monks transfers merit to the dead. By going to the temple on the holy day and giving food to the monks, people hope to help their dead relatives who may be wandering the earth as hungry ghosts or living in hell.
Food as Metaphor
Food is often used in Buddhist texts to explain complex ideas in an easily understood manner. Buddhism rejects the asceticism of fasting and denial found in many religious traditions. After the Buddha fasted for six years, he rejected the extreme of starvation as a route to salvation. Instead, he used the experience of eating and digesting food as a means to understand the instrumentality of food. The element of heat transmutes food into body during the process of digestion. Thus, eating is an important metaphor for understanding bodily existence and the transformation of matter and substance. Eating literally makes us human and embodies us.
The Buddhist path is the middle way requiring monks and laity to eat to maintain life and nourish the body but not to cling to the sensual pleasures of eating. In this philosophical interpretation, it is not material substances such as food that block salvation but the craving for them. When Buddhists gain right understanding, they can use this analytical knowledge to guide daily life, as well as for meditation. Food as an object of meditation is a metaphor for the foulness of the body. Monks concentrate on the repulsiveness of food in order to reduce their craving for food. The cessation of craving food is equated with the cessation of the body and the end of the cycle of rebirths.
For the laity, eating, particularly eating rice, is a means of orienting oneself in relation to all sentient beings whose lives are sustained by food and religion. Reciprocal food giving sustains lay communities as well as the monastic community. In general, Buddhist rituals imbue food with sanctity; the sanctity remains in the food after it has been received by the monks. Communal eating is one means of experiencing Buddhist precepts and concepts in a direct and sensory way.
In some Buddhist communities, members of the laity serve monks and the community by preparing and serving food from a communal kitchen. Mahayana services and ritual events are likely to be vegetarian. Most Chinese gods and goddesses are presumed to be vegetarian, but they may be offered meat in an attempt to provide the best, most valued food. Chinese Buddhism honors a number of deities, such as Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. A home altar might contain incense, flowers, tea, and fruit to be consumed later. The Kitchen Goddess helps one eat and drink healthily, and representations of her may be seen in household and restaurant kitchens.
Food given to Chinese deities is considered blessed; its essence is consumed by gods and Buddhas before it is eaten by the worshipers. Following chanting services in many temples, a communal meal is served, which may include beans, bean sprouts, vegetables, fruit, and always rice for prosperity.
Food Distribution in Theravada Communities
Four times in the lunar month, or weekly, the following practices might be seen repeated in Theravada communities throughout the rural areas of Southeast Asia. On a holy day, people bring such food as rice and dishes to eat with rice to the temple. Although the food is the best a household can prepare, people bringing the food cannot taste or even smell the food. A true gift that will gain religious merit must be well intentioned, and only by denying themselves even the smell of the food will the offering bear fruit. The monks chant to accept the food and confer blessings on those who have given food.
At the end of the morning service, after the monks have eaten, the laypeople consume the remaining food offered to the monks. By giving to monks who must follow rules of celibacy and denial, religious merit is increased at a greater rate. Generally, everyone who participates in the service shares in consuming the food that has been accepted or blessed by the monks. Even those who have not contributed food are actively encouraged to share the meal, as if the sharing of food may cause the intention to give generously to arise among all partaking of the meal. Following the meal, participants share the merit accrued from feeding monks with all sentient beings.
Buddhism and Vegetarianism
Buddhism in North America is widely associated with vegetarianism, although not all Buddhists are vegetarian and vegetarianism is not part of canonical Buddhism. This association with Buddhism developed because the key principles of Buddhism include ahimsa, or nonviolence and the avoidance of suffering. Theravada Buddhists in Southeast Asia are not generally vegetarian, although their daily meals may not include much meat. Meat dishes are even given to monks since meat is not explicitly forbidden to them by the rules of monastic conduct. Buddhist texts such as the Majjhirma Nikaya refer to the Buddha eating the proper proportion of curry to rice, experiencing flavor but not greed for flavor.
As more Westerners become Buddhist and as more Buddhist immigrants and refugees settle in North American and European cities, Buddhist vegetarian restaurants have prospered, offering devotees and secular vegetarians an opportunity to consume food exemplifying the Buddhist principle of nonviolence. Practicing Buddhist chefs prepare vegetarian feasts for events such as meditation retreats and cater meals for vegetarian practitioners and health-conscious diners. They may also perform dana, or selfless giving, by providing free food to the hungry.
Values of reciprocity and sharing are extremely important to Buddhists. In the strongly individualized and materialistic communities of North America, it is particularly difficult to maintain models of generosity and reciprocity. Commensality—the shared meal of Buddhist merit makers—is a model of reciprocity, redistribution, and generosity. The act of eating together and sharing each other's food is a concrete and reliable means of establishing a moral community where people know they can develop relations of trust with others and cooperate in joint activities within the domain of religion and in other domains.
See also Fasting and Abstinence: Hinduism and Buddhism; Feasts, Festivals and Fasts; Hindu Festivals; Hinduism; Metaphor, Food as; Religion and Food; Rice; Sensation and the Senses; Southeast Asia; Vegetarianism.
Khare, Ravindra S. The Eternal Food: Gastronomic Ideas and Experiences of Hindus and Buddhists. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.
McLellan, Janet. Many Petals of the Lotus: Five Asian Buddhist Communities in Toronto. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1999.
Van Esterik, Penny. "Feeding Their Faith: Recipe Knowledge among Thai Buddhist Women." Food and Foodways 1 (1986): 197–215.
Van Esterik, Penny. Taking Refuge: Lao Buddhists in North America. Tempe: Arizona State University, Program for Southeast Asian Studies; Toronto: York Lanes Press, Centre for Refugee Studies, York University, 1992.
Warren, Henry Clarke. Buddhism in Translations. New York: Atheneum, 1969. Original ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1896.
Penny Van Esterik
Van Esterik, Penny. "Buddhism." Encyclopedia of Food and Culture. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (October 1, 2016). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3403400098.html
Van Esterik, Penny. "Buddhism." Encyclopedia of Food and Culture. 2003. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3403400098.html
Buddhism (bŏŏd´Ĭzəm), religion and philosophy founded in India c.525 BC by Siddhartha Gautama, called the Buddha. There are over 300 million Buddhists worldwide. One of the great world religions, it is divided into two main schools: the Theravada or Hinayana in Sri Lanka and SE Asia, and the Mahayana in China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. A third school, the Vajrayana, has a long tradition in Tibet and Japan. Buddhism has largely disappeared from its country of origin, India, except for the presence there of many refugees from the Tibet region of China and a small number of converts from the lower castes of Hinduism.
Basic Beliefs and Practices
The basic doctrines of early Buddhism, which remain common to all Buddhism, include the "four noble truths" : existence is suffering (dukhka); suffering has a cause, namely craving and attachment (trishna); there is a cessation of suffering, which is nirvana; and there is a path to the cessation of suffering, the "eightfold path" of right views, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Buddhism characteristically describes reality in terms of process and relation rather than entity or substance.
Experience is analyzed into five aggregates (skandhas). The first, form (rupa), refers to material existence; the following four, sensations (vedana), perceptions (samjna), psychic constructs (samskara), and consciousness (vijnana), refer to psychological processes. The central Buddhist teaching of non-self (anatman) asserts that in the five aggregates no independently existent, immutable self, or soul, can be found. All phenomena arise in interrelation and in dependence on causes and conditions, and thus are subject to inevitable decay and cessation. The casual conditions are defined in a 12-membered chain called dependent origination (pratityasamutpada) whose links are: ignorance, predisposition, consciousness, name-form, the senses, contact, craving, grasping, becoming, birth, old age, and death, whence again ignorance.
With this distinctive view of cause and effect, Buddhism accepts the pan-Indian presupposition of samsara, in which living beings are trapped in a continual cycle of birth-and-death, with the momentum to rebirth provided by one's previous physical and mental actions (see karma). The release from this cycle of rebirth and suffering is the total transcendence called nirvana.
From the beginning, meditation and observance of moral precepts were the foundation of Buddhist practice. The five basic moral precepts, undertaken by members of monastic orders and the laity, are to refrain from taking life, stealing, acting unchastely, speaking falsely, and drinking intoxicants. Members of monastic orders also take five additional precepts: to refrain from eating at improper times, from viewing secular entertainments, from using garlands, perfumes, and other bodily adornments, from sleeping in high and wide beds, and from receiving money. Their lives are further regulated by a large number of rules known as the Pratimoksa. The monastic order (sangha) is venerated as one of the "three jewels," along with the dharma, or religious teaching, and the Buddha. Lay practices such as the worship of stupas (burial mounds containing relics) predate Buddhism and gave rise to later ritualistic and devotional practices.
India during the lifetime of the Buddha was in a state of religious and cultural ferment. Sects, teachers, and wandering ascetics abounded, espousing widely varying philosophical views and religious practices. Some of these sects derived from the Brahmanical tradition (see Hinduism), while others opposed the Vedic and Upanishadic ideas of that tradition. Buddhism, which denied both the efficacy of Vedic ritual and the validity of the caste system, and which spread its teachings using vernacular languages rather than Brahmanical Sanskrit, was by far the most successful of the heterodox or non-Vedic systems. Buddhist tradition tells how Siddhartha Gautama, born a prince and raised in luxury, renounced the world at the age of 29 to search for an ultimate solution to the problem of the suffering innate in the human condition. After six years of spiritual discipline he achieved the supreme enlightment and spent the remaining 45 years of his life teaching and establishing a community of monks and nuns, the sangha, to continue his work.
After the Buddha's death his teachings were orally transmitted until the 1st cent. BC, when they were first committed to writing (see Buddhist literature; Pali). Conflicting opinions about monastic practice as well as religious and philosophical issues, especially concerning the analyses of experience elaborated as the systems of Abhidharma, probably caused differing sects to flourish rapidly. Knowledge of early differences is limited, however, because the earliest extant written version of the scriptures (1st cent. AD) is the Pali canon of the Theravada school of Sri Lanka. Although the Theravada [doctrine of the elders] is known to be only one of many early Buddhist schools (traditionally numbered at 18), its beliefs as described above are generally accepted as representative of the early Buddhist doctrine. The ideal of early Buddhism was the perfected saintly sage, arahant or arhat, who attained liberation by purifying self of all defilements and desires.
The Rise of Mahayana Buddhism
The positions advocated by Mahayana [great vehicle] Buddhism, which distinguishes itself from the Theravada and related schools by calling them Hinayana [lesser vehicle], evolved from other of the early Buddhist schools. The Mahayana emerges as a definable movement in the 1st cent. BC, with the appearance of a new class of literature called the Mahayana sutras. The main philosophical tenet of the Mahayana is that all things are empty, or devoid of self-nature (see sunyata). Its chief religious ideal is the bodhisattva, which supplanted the earlier ideal of the arahant, and is distinguished from it by the vow to postpone entry into nirvana (although meriting it) until all other living beings are similarly enlightened and saved.
The bodhisattva is an actual religious goal for lay and monastic Buddhists, as well as the name for a class of celestial beings who are worshiped along with the Buddha. The Mahayana developed doctrines of the eternal and absolute nature of the Buddha, of which the historical Buddha is regarded as a temporary manifestation. Teachings on the intrinsic purity of consciousness generated ideas of potential Buddhahood in all living beings. The chief philosophical schools of Indian Mahayana were the Madhyamika, founded by Nagarjuna (2d cent. AD), and the Yogacara, founded by the brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu (4th cent. AD). In this later Indian period, authors in different schools wrote specialized treatises, Buddhist logic was systematized, and the practices of Tantra came into prominence.
The Spread of Buddhism
In the 3d cent. BC the Indian emperor Asoka greatly strengthened Buddhism by his support and sent Buddhist missionaries as far afield as Syria. In succeeding centuries, however, the Hindu revival initiated the gradual decline of Buddhism in India. The invasions of the White Huns (6th cent.) and the Muslims (11th cent.) were also significant factors behind the virtual extinction of Buddhism in India by the 13th cent.
In the meantime, however, its beliefs had spread widely. Sri Lanka was converted to Buddhism in the 3d cent. BC, and Buddhism has remained its national religion. After taking up residence in Sri Lanka, the Indian Buddhist scholar Buddhaghosa (5th cent. AD) produced some of Theravada Buddhism's most important scholastic writings. In the 7th cent. Buddhism entered Tibet, where it has flourished, drawing its philosophical influences mainly from the Madhyamika, and its practices from the Tantra.
Buddhism came to SE Asia in the first five centuries AD All Buddhist schools were initially established, but the surviving forms today are mostly Theravada. About the 1st cent. AD Buddhism entered China along trade routes from central Asia, initiating a four-century period of gradual assimilation. In the 3d and 4th cent. Buddhist concepts were interpreted by analogy with indigenous ideas, mainly Taoist, but the work of the great translators Kumarajiva and Hsüan-tsang provided the basis for better understanding of Buddhist concepts.
The 6th cent. saw the development of the great philosophical schools, each centering on a certain scripture and having a lineage of teachers. Two such schools, the T'ien-t'ai and the Hua-Yen, hierarchically arranged the widely varying scriptures and doctrines that had come to China from India, giving preeminence to their own school and scripture. Branches of Madhyamika and Yogacara were also founded. The two great nonacademic sects were Ch'an or Zen Buddhism, whose chief practice was sitting in meditation to achieve "sudden enlightenment," and Pure Land Buddhism, which advocated repetition of the name of the Buddha Amitabha to attain rebirth in his paradise.
Chinese Buddhism encountered resistance from Confucianism and Taoism, and opposition from the government, which was threatened by the growing power of the tax-exempt sangha. The great persecution by the emperor Wu-tsung (845) dealt Chinese Buddhism a blow from which it never fully recovered. The only schools that retained vitality were Zen and Pure Land, which increasingly fused with one another and with the native traditions, and after the decline of Buddhism in India, neo-Confucianism rose to intellectual and cultural dominance.
From China and Korea, Buddhism came to Japan. Schools of philosophy and monastic discipline were transmitted first (6th cent.–8th cent.), but during the Heian period (794–1185) a conservative form of Tantric Buddhism became widely popular among the nobility. Zen and Pure Land grew to become popular movements after the 13th cent. After World War II new sects arose in Japan, such as the Soka Gakkai, an outgrowth of the nationalistic sect founded by Nichiren (1222–82), and the Risshokoseikai, attracting many followers.
See H. C. Warren, Buddhism in Translations (1896, repr. 1963); D. T. Suzuki, Zen Buddhism (1956); A. Wright, Buddhism in Chinese History (1959, repr. 1979); E. Conze, Buddhism (1953, repr. 1959), Buddhist Scriptures (1959), and Buddhist Thought in India (1962, repr. 1967); E. Zürcher, Buddhism (1962); K. S. S. Ch'en, Buddhism in China (1964, repr. 1972); W. T. de Bary, The Buddhist Tradition in India, China, and Japan (1969); T. Ling, The Buddha (1973); R. Lester, Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia (1973); W. Rahula, What the Buddha Taught (2d ed. 1974); D. and A. Matsunaga, Foundations of Japanese Buddhism (1974–76); S. J. Tambiah, World Conqueror and World Renouncer (1976); L. Hurvitz, Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma (1976); R. H. Robinson, The Buddhist Religion (3d ed. 1982); and R. Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism (1988); J. Ishikawa, The Bodhisattva (1990).
"Buddhism." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2016. Encyclopedia.com. (October 1, 2016). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Buddhism.html
"Buddhism." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2016. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Buddhism.html
BUDDHISM. By 2002 Buddhism had become highly visible in many countries outside of Asia. Although it never became nearly as popular as in Asia, by the 1990s Buddhism's influence on America was visible in the arts, in the steadily increasing number of converts and Buddhist institutions, and in the growing recognition of Buddhist groups as participants in the multireligious composition of U.S. society. In each Asian culture, it generally took many centuries for Buddhism to acculturate. In contrast, in the West, attempts to create adapted, regionalized forms of Buddhism occurred at a much faster pace. New schools and lineages additionally pluralized the spectrum of Buddhist traditions present in Western countries.
The origin of Buddhism in America can be traced to Chinese immigrants who began to appear on the West Coast in the 1840s. By 1852, around 20,000 Chinese were present in California, and within a decade, nearly one-tenth of the state's population was Chinese.
Japanese Buddhism developed more slowly in America than the Chinese form, but had much greater impact. By 1890, the Japanese population in the United States was barely 2,000. The World Parliament of Religion, held in 1893, radically changed the landscape for Japanese Buddhism in America. Among the participants was a Rinzai Zen monk, Shaku So[UNK]en, who returned to America in 1905, lecturing in several cities, and establishing a basic ground for the entry of Zen. Upon his return to Japan in 1906, three of his students were selected to promote Rinzai in America: Nyo[UNK]gen Senzaki, Shaku So[UNK]katsu, and Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki.
Rinzai was one of several Zen traditions to develop in America. So[UNK]to[UNK] Zen began to appear in America in the 1950s, and by the mid-1950s, Soyu Matsuoka Ro[UNK]shi had established the Chicago Buddhist Temple. Shunryu Suzuki Ro[UNK]shi arrived in San Francisco in 1959, founding the San Francisco Zen Center shortly thereafter. His (mostly Western) successors continued the So[UNK]to[UNK] lineage. Another form of Zen that took root in America attempts to harmonize the major doctrines and practices of each school into a unified whole. Proponents of this approach include Taizan Maezumi Ro[UNK]shi (who arrived in 1956), Hakuun Yasutani Ro[UNK]shi (who first visited the United States in 1962), and Philip Kapleau. Also significant are Robert Aitken Ro[UNK]shi, who founded the Diamond Sangha in Hawaii in 1959, Eido[UNK] Shimano Ro[UNK]shi, who first came to the United States as a translator for Yasutani Ro[UNK]shi, and Joshu Sasaki Ro[UNK]shi, who founded the Cimarron Zen Center in Los Angeles in 1968 and the Mt. Baldy Zen Center three years later.
Zen was not the only Japanese Buddhist tradition to make an appearance in America before the turn of the twentieth century. In 1899 two Japanese missionaries were sent to San Francisco to establish the Buddhist Mission of North America, an organization associated with the Pure Land school of Japanese Buddhism. Reincorporated in 1944 as the Buddhist Churches of America, it remains one of the most stable Buddhist communities in North America.
In the 1960s, another form of Japanese Buddhism, now known as So[UNK]ka Gakkai International-USA, appeared on the American landscape, and by 1974 it boasted over 200,000 members. This group grew out of the So[UNK]ka Gakkai movement in Japan, a nonmeditative form of Buddhism that based its teachings on the thirteenth century figure Nichiren (1222–1282). Although the group splintered in the late twentieth century, it remained a formidable Buddhist presence in America, having become extremely attractive to European American and African American Buddhists.
At the same time the Chinese were once again making their presence visible in American Buddhism. One notable addition was a largely monastic group known as the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, created by a venerable monk named Hsüan-Hua. Of even larger size was the Hsi-Lai Temple outside Los Angeles, founded in 1978, and eventually offering a wide variety of Buddhist teachings and services. By 2002 Chinese Buddhist groups could be found in virtually every major metropolitan area.
The Buddhist culture to enter America most recently is the Tibetan. Although a few Tibetan Buddhist groups appeared in the West prior to 1960, the majority came after China's invasion and occupation of their country. Communities from each of the four major Tibetan sects can now be found in America. The Tibetan groups were the most colorful of all the Buddhist groups prospering in late twentieth century America, possessing a rich tradition of Buddhist art and a powerful psychological approach to mental health. In the early 2000s they continued to grow rapidly.
The final sectarian tradition to be considered is that of the Therava[UNK]da. Most recently, groups from Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar migrated to the United States to escape the economic and political uncertainty of their native countries. Therava[UNK]da temples sprang up in the Southeast Asian enclaves of major cities. The Therava[UNK]dabased Vipassana[UNK] movement became the most attractive form of this tradition among Euro-Americans.
Five areas of institutional concern can be outlined in the American Buddhist tradition: ethnicity, practice, democratization, engagement, and adaptation. Two questions help to contextualize these mutually influencing issues: first, how Buddhist identity is determined, and finally, the degree to which ecumenicity might play a role in providing a unifying instrument for the exceedingly diverse spectrum of Buddhist traditions in North America.
Who is a Buddhist? Identifying and quantifying American Buddhists has been an important issue. By the mid-1990s, scholars estimated the American Buddhist population to be four to five million. Although there were many possible methods of determining Buddhist identity in America, the most accepted approach was that of self identification. This approach allowed each group to be counted regardless of how they interpreted and practiced Buddhism.
Ethnicity. One late twentieth century attempt to quantify the American Buddhist population estimated that of the total Buddhist population in the United States, perhaps 800,000 were Euro-American convert Buddhists. This suggested that the vast majority of Buddhists in America were Asian immigrants. The relationship between Asian American Buddhists and converted Buddhists was tenuous.
Practice. There was no disagreement among researchers that Asian immigrant Buddhist communities and American convert communities engaged in significantly different expressions of Buddhist practice. The general consensus was that American converts gravitate toward the various meditation traditions, while Asian immigrants
maintain practices consistent with ritual activity or Pure Land observance.
Democratization. While Asian Buddhism was, for the most part, primarily hierarchical and highly authoritarian, the forms of American Buddhism that developed in the late twentieth century underwent a process of democratization. It could be observed in changing patterns of authority in the various Buddhist sanghas, or communities, highlighted by a reevaluation of the relationship between the monastic and lay communities. Second, democratization could be witnessed in changing gender roles in American Buddhism, especially in the prominence of women. Finally, it could be seen in the manner in which individuals pursuing a nontraditional lifestyle, particularly with regard to sexual preferences, found a meaningful role in American Buddhist communities.
Engagement. "Socially engaged Buddhism" has application to a wide variety of general human rights issues, such as antiviolence and environmental concerns, but also to the lives of individual Buddhists. The greatest challenge for socially engaged Buddhism in the West is organizational. In the early 2000s, it was far less developed in its organizational patterns and strategies than its Christian or Jewish counterparts. Nonetheless, an exciting array of activities could be documented in the records of the individual American Buddhist communities.
Adaptation. Perhaps the one issue that dominated the early comprehensive books on American Buddhism was adaptation or acculturation. As one early researcher asked, "Is there a characteristically American style of Buddhism?" Some North American Buddhists were concerned about the implications of altering the Buddhist tradition in the name of adaptation. American Buddhism has created, in addition to its distinct practices, a series of enterprises that Asian Buddhism never imagined: residential communities, businesses, farms, hospices, publishing companies, meditation products, cottage industries, and the like. Critics worried that these innovations represented a distraction from the purpose of Buddhist practice.
Ecumenicism. In each of the issues cited above, it is possible to discern the need for cooperative discussions between American Buddhists of all traditions. In July 1987, a conference on world Buddhism in North America was sponsored by the Zen Lotus Society in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It included a wide variety of talks, panel discussions, and meetings in an effort to bring together representatives of the Buddhist traditions in America to work together toward common goals. In the end, they sought to create a protective umbrella under which the issues of ethnicity, practice, democratization, engagement, and adaptation could be addressed productively, ushering in a successful future for the Buddhist movement in America.
Morreale, Don, ed. The Complete Guide to Buddhist America. Boston: Shambhala, 1998.
Prebish, Charles S. Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
Prebish, Charles S. and Kenneth K. Tanaka, eds. The Faces of Buddhism in America. Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1998.
Seager, Richard. Buddhism in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Williams, Duncan Ryu[UNK]ken and Christopher S. Queen, eds. American Buddhism: Methods and Findings in Recent Scholar-ship. Surrey, U.K.: Curzon Press, 1999.
See alsoReligion and Religious Affiliation .
"Buddhism." Dictionary of American History. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (October 1, 2016). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3401800579.html
"Buddhism." Dictionary of American History. 2003. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3401800579.html
The Buddhists of Southeast Asia are not considered here in a detailed article, since many of the longer articles in this volume deal with specific Buddhist cultural groups. Buddhism is, after all, a world religion with several hundreds of millions of adherents; and so, as with any other major and widespread faith, considerable diversity may be found in cultural practices.
The form that Buddhism has taken in Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and the delta of the Mekong, as in Sri Lanka, is called Theravada. Vietnam, on the other hand (except for the Mekong delta), can be grouped with China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, and Mongolia, all countries that follow the Mahayana form of Buddhism, a form that derives from the late Indian schools of Buddhism and their interaction with Tantrism. All forms of Buddhism of course take their origin from the teachings of Gautama the Buddha (also called Sakyamuni, c. 560-480 b.c.).
Buddhism was slow to spread to Southeast Asia. By the middle of the third century b.c. it had reached Sri Lanka, and from there, after some centuries, it was carried to Burma, at the latest by the fifth century a.d. In Thailand there is little trace of the religion before the thirteenth century a.d., while in Cambodia it can be traced back to the third century a.d. But this was probably not, in the latter case, Theravada Buddhism, but rather another form called Sarvastivada. It was only in the fourteenth century a.d. that Theravada appeared in Cambodia and Laos. For some centuries following the third century a.d. other parts of Southeast Asia were Buddhist, although they have not been so in recent centuries. Java and Sumatra, in particular, were strong centers of the faith, as were, to a lesser extent, Malaya and Borneo. Buddhism remained in much of this insular area until the massive conversion to Islam in the fifteenth century. A vast canon of the text in Pali, collectively known as the Tripitaka and covering a span of nearly two millennia, forms the basis for the Theravada sect. These texts and commentaries contain the orthodox doctrine and rules for the highly important monastic life, which can be traced back to the first Buddhist schism of the fourth century b.c., and the "doctrine of the elders" that was formulated, if not written down, at the time. This doctrine recognized three alternative paths for the devotee: (1) arahat; (2) paccekabuddha; and (3) fully awakened Buddha. An arahat was a worthy one who had achieved the goal of Buddhist life by gaining insight into the true nature of things; a paccekabuddha is one who, having gained enlightenment, lives alone as an "isolated Buddha" without trying to teach others. The cult of Theravada Buddhism broke away from Brahmanic ritual and also from Mahayana forms.
The Mahayana sect, though at one time present in Cambodia, alongside Hinduism, in modern Southeast Asia occurs only in Vietnam, and then not in the southernmost parts. This sect had its origin around the first century a.d., and entailed a reinterpretation of the Theravada discipline for monks, which in turn freed them to travel freely and even settle in distant lands. As a result it was the Mahayana form of Buddhism that reached China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. One important feature of Mahayana doctrine was the concept of bodhisattva, essentially an idea that certain almost heavenly personages have the potential to become future Buddhas. This idea allowed for the assimilation of numerous popular local cults in the countries just mentioned, and goes a long way toward explaining why Mahayanists are very much more numerous than Theravadists in Asia.
Returning to the Theravada sect, we must note the importance of the monastery (often called a pagoda). In former times all adolescent Buddhist boys were expected to spend some months there; many still do. The monastery was a central institution, to be found in very many of the Buddhist towns and villages. It was attached to a temple (called a vihara or pagoda), which contained several statues of the Buddha. Local forms of the temple were architecturally diverse. Other buildings commonly found within the precincts of a temple were a prayer hall, perhaps a school or library, and huts or cells for the monks, students, and some other elderly residents.
The monastic community was a moral community, bound together by its observance of the five basic commandments (Panch Sila) of Buddhism; but monks and nuns would observe three (sometimes five) additional restrictions. Some monks would remove themselves from the main community of their monastery to live in caves or remote huts as hermits, either alone or as a small group. Those more active in the community would teach the youths and young monks, or might preach to the faithful, study texts, or simply meditate.
Even within the Theravada sect, there was no overarching theocratic structure, and certainly no person analogous to a pope or Dalai Lama. In keeping with the fact that in each country of Southeast Asia Theravada Buddhism had a distinct history, the organization of the sect does not reach beyond a national level. Local temples and monasteries are essentially self-sufficient, for they depend on their own lands and the offerings of the faithful. Property belongs either to the community or, to a lesser degree, to the Buddha or to the monks.
The broad appeal of Buddhism throughout history can be attributed to the strongly universalistic content of its ethical teachings, which were first expounded and elaborated upon by the Buddha himself in a lifetime of sermonizing. The essence of these teachings is summarized as the "Noble Eight-fold Path," which prescribes: (1) right understanding, (2) right aspiration or purpose, (3) right speech, (4) right bodily action, (5) right means of livelihood, (6) right endeavor, (7) right mindfulness, and (8) right concentration. Against this were set the five proscriptions, or Panch Sila: (1) refrainment from injuring any living things; (2) refrainment from taking that which has not been given; (3) refrainment from excessive sensuality; (4) refrainment from false or harmful speech; and (5) refrainment from any drink or drug that clouds the mind. Perhaps overlooked in these dual formulations is the great Buddhist emphasis on generosity, especially the giving of alms. Overall it must be admitted that Buddhism provided a code of conduct, a direction to both one's thoughts and one's actions, that could pervade the entire fabric of a peaceable society. If the perfect Buddhist society has not yet emerged, it is still a fervent hope for hundreds of millions in East and Southeast Asia.
Bareau, André (1976). "Le bouddhisme à Ceylan et dans l'Asie du Sud-est." In Histoire des religions, edited by Henri-Charles Puech. Vol. 3, 330-352. Encyclopédie de la Pléiade. Paris: Éditions Gallimard.
Lafont, Pierre-Bernard (1976). "Le bouddhisme vietnamien." In Histoire des religions, edited by Henri-Charles Puech. Vol. 3, 353-370. Encyclopédie de la Pléiade. Paris: Éditions Gallimard.
Spiro, Milford E. (1970). Buddhism and Society: A Great Tradition and Its Burmese Vicissitudes. New York: Harper & Row.
Hockings, Paul. "Buddhist." Encyclopedia of World Cultures. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (October 1, 2016). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3458000770.html
Hockings, Paul. "Buddhist." Encyclopedia of World Cultures. 1996. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3458000770.html
Originating with the life of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, born in present-day Nepal in the sixth century b.c.e., varieties of Buddhism have developed and spread across the globe for the past 2,500 years. Though Buddhism by no means presents a uniform face in all cultures and time periods, Buddhist traditions do reveal certain common experiential contours, doctrinal themes, and ritual practices. Speaking experientially, Buddhism emphasizes disciplined introspection through a combination of meditative, recitative, and gestural sequences. Doctrinally, Buddhist teachings call attention to four primary themes: suffering, liberation, emptiness, and interdependence. And in terms of ritual practice, Buddhists engage in a combination of devotional offerings, initiatory rites, and other ceremonies to mark important spiritual and life-cycle transitions.
Buddhist history reflects three primary "vehicles" of Buddhist thought and practice: Nika¯ya (Individual Tradition, of which Therava¯da Buddhism represents one strand); Maha¯ya¯na (Great Vehicle); and Vajraya¯na (Diamond Vehicle, also known as Tantric Buddhism). However, from a contemporary perspective, it remains difficult to know the extent to which these traditions operated autonomously from one another. It seems likely that a great degree of overlap existed between Buddhist traditions, as, for example, when a practitioner espousing Maha¯ya¯na precepts also may have engaged in Tantric practices. Adherents of all three traditions exist throughout the world, though one traditionally associates Nika¯ya (primarily Therava¯da) Buddhism with Southeast Asia; Maha¯ya¯na Buddhism with historical India, China, and parts of Southeast Asia; and Vajraya¯na Buddhism with historical India, Tibet, Japan, and, since the late nineteenth century, the West.
Buddhism concerns itself with science in, for example, its Tantric Vehicle. Tantric Buddhist texts occupy themselves with questions of cosmology, astronomy, embryology, and physiology, and they concisely weave religion and science together into a seamless fabric. An eleventh-century Sanskrit Buddhist Tantric text, the Śri¯laghu Ka¯lacakratantra (or Śri¯ Ka¯lacakra [Auspicious short Ka¯lacakra Tantra] ), constitutes a primary example of a religious text oriented toward meditative practice that also serves as the repository for highly developed scientific observations of the time. Divided into five chapters, the Śri¯ Ka¯lacakra and its corresponding twelve-thousand-verse Vimalaprabha¯ti¯ka¯ commentary contain five chapters in both Sanskrit and Tibetan redactions: (1) cosmology, the realm-space section; (2) physiology, the inner-self section; (3) initiation, the empowerment section; (4) generation stage, the practice section; and (5) completion stage, the gnosis section.
More specifically, the first chapter of the Śri¯ Ka¯lacakra, sometimes referred to as Outer Ka¯lacakra, presents a cosmological alternative to traditional Buddhist cosmology as articulated in the fourth century in Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośa (Treasury of manifest knowledge) and its Auto-commentary, the Abhidharmakośabha¯sya. The second chapter, sometimes referred to as Inner Ka¯lacakra, outlines the physiology of the "subtle body" (Sanskrit, śuksmadeha ), including its structure and function. This chapter also addresses the time cycle of breaths taken by a person during a day. According to this system, the vital-wind processes, which Tantric practitioners seek to control, situate the temporal divisions of the universe in the body. The third to fifth chapters of the Śri¯ Ka¯lacakra, sometimes referred to as Alternative Ka¯lacakra, include an explanation of the qualifications necessary for both guru and disciple and also describe the activities that precede empowerment, which include examining the initiation site, accumulating ritual materials, taking control of the site, creating a protective circle, and constructing the Ka¯lacakra mandala. This third chapter also describes disciples' progress through the mandala, the guru's conferral of empowerment, and the concluding rituals that follow the empowerment ceremony. The fourth and fifth chapters of the Śri¯ Ka¯lacakra focus on the practice of Ka¯lacakra's six-limbed yoga. These practices include both generation stage and completion stage yogas.
See also Buddhism, Contemporary Issues in Science and Religion; Buddhism, History of Science and Religion
dwivedi, vrajavallabh, and bahulkar, s. s., eds. vimalaprabha'ti¯a¯ of kalki śri¯ pundari¯ka on śri¯ laghuka¯lacakratantrara¯ja by śri¯ mañjuśri¯yaśas, vol. 2. sarnath, varanasi, india: central institute of higher tibetan studies, 1994.
sopa, geshe lhundub. "the kalachakra tantra initiation." in the wheel of time: the kalachakra in context, by geshe lhundub sopa, roger jackson, and john newman. madison, wis.: deer park books, 1985.
zahler, leah. "meditation and cosmology: the physical basis of the concentrations and formless absorptions according to dge-lugs tibetan presentations." journal of the international association of buddhist studies 13, no.1 (1990): 53–78.
ANDRESEN, JENSINE. "Buddhism." Encyclopedia of Science and Religion. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (October 1, 2016). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404200063.html
ANDRESEN, JENSINE. "Buddhism." Encyclopedia of Science and Religion. 2003. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404200063.html
The teaching of the Buddha is summarized in the Four Noble Truths (the truth of dukkha and how to escape it), the Eightfold Path (aṣṭangika-mārga) (the route to escape or enlightenment), and paticca-samuppāda (the analysis of the twelve-step chain of cause which gives rise to entanglement in saṃsāra, the continuing process of reappearance (punabhāva).
Buddhist commitment can be summarized in the Three Jewels or Refuges: I take refuge in the Buddha; I take refuge in the Dhamma (Pāli for Skt., dharma); I take refuge in the Saṅgha. The saṅgha is the communal organization of the bhikṣus (bhikkhus), or monks.
The Buddha's teaching was gathered, over a long period, into canonical collections, especially the Tripiṭaka and the Sūtras, though the status, particularly of the latter, may be disputed (see BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES). From about the end of the 4th cent. BCE, different interpretations of the teaching were leading to different schools, and especially to the major difference between Theravāda (‘teaching of the elders’), with its eighteen schools, and Mahāyāna (‘great vehicle’, hence their derogatory reference to Theravāda as Hīnayāna, ‘minor vehicle’), with its innumerable styles and divisions; for these, see BUDDHIST SCHOOLS. The spread of Buddhism was greatly accelerated during the reign of Aśoka (3rd cent. BCE).
Under this endorsement, popular Buddhism flourished, especially in pilgrimages, in the development of stūpas and the rituals and beliefs associated with them, and in the proliferation of art and image-making. But philosophy (abhidhamma) also began its quest for more exact analysis of Buddhist concepts: three major schools emerged in the 3rd cent. BCE): Puggalavāda (Skt., Pudgalavāda), Sarvastivāda (Pāli, Sabbatthivāda), and Vibhajjavāda (Skt., Vibhajyavāda). Later, and even more important, came the development of ‘the Great Vehicle’, Mahāyāna, between the 2nd cent. BCE and 1st CE. It was not a single school or movement, but a drawing out of elements of practice and belief which had been in Buddhism from the outset, but without formal elaboration. Nevertheless, as the implications of these elements were elaborated, a new style of Buddhism began to emerge. In particular, the emphasis was no longer on making one's own way as near to enlightenment as possible (arhat), but on attaining what the Buddha promised and then turning back from selfish attainment in order to help others (bodhisattva). This led to entirely new cosmologies, as the whole spectrum of buddhas and bodhisattvas was mapped into its place. But even more disjunctively, new philosophical realizations were achieved of what the true buddha-nature must be, and how there cannot be other than that nature which is empty of self and of all differentiation (buddhatā; bussho; śūnyatā). A key figure here was Nāgārjuna and the Mādhyamaka school.
The reasons for the decline and virtual disappearance of Buddhism in India remain a matter of academic dispute. Long before the decline, Buddhism had begun to expand, in three different geographical directions, which produced very different versions of Buddhism (for which see following articles and TIBETAN RELIGION): north into Tibet; east into China, Korea, and Japan; and south-east into Śri Lankā, Burma, and Thailand. For the development of Buddhism through schools/sects, see BUDDHIST SCHOOLS.
JOHN BOWKER. "Buddhism." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Encyclopedia.com. (October 1, 2016). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O101-Buddhism.html
JOHN BOWKER. "Buddhism." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O101-Buddhism.html
See also 183. GOD and GODS ; 267. MEDITATION ; 285. MYSTICISM ; 349. RELIGION ; 392. THEOLOGY .
- the religion of the followers of Gautama Buddha, whose 6th-century b.c. doctrines strongly opposed the formalized, mechanical rituals of the Brahman sect in Hinduism; Buddha’s teachings offered escape from endless reincarnation, a method of spiritual attainment through correct views and actions (The Eight-Fold Path), and a spiritual goal (Nirvana): a soul free from craving, suffering, and sorrow. See also Eight-Fold Path, The. —Buddhist , n. —Buddhistic, Buddhistical , adj.
- Eight-Fold Path, The
- the method of spiritual attainment outlined in Buddha’ s sermons on the Four Noble Truths: pain, the cause of pain, the cessation of pain, and the path that leads to this cessation, emphasizing, in the last, right view, thought, speech, action, livelihood, efïort, mindfulness, and concentration.
- Fohism, Foism
- the predominant Chinese form of Buddhism, Foh being the Chinese name for Buddha. —Fohist , n.
- the earliest development of Buddhism after Buddha’s death, emphasizing doctrines and practices originally formulated by Buddha and reflected in the “School of the Elders” (Theravada) of the Pali tradition; called the “lesser vehicle,” it found followers in southern India and Ceylon. —Hinayana , n., adj.
- a reformation of Buddhism in Tibet intended to bring about stricter discipline in the monasteries; the dominant sect is Gelup-Ka (The Virtuous Way), with the patron deity Chen-re-zi (the Bodhisattva of Great Mercy), who is reincarnated as the successive Dalai Lamas. Also called Gelup-Ka . —Lamaist , n. —Lamaistic , adj.
- a form of Mahayana Buddhism marked by its complex organization and elaborate rituals. —Lamanist , n.
- the “greater vehicle” or second development of Buddhism after the death of its founder as a reaction against the orthodox and conservative ideas of the Hinayana, asserting that Gautama is one of many manifestations of one primordial Buddha and emphasizing good works illustrating the six virtues of generosity, morality, patience, vigor, concentration, and wisdom necessary to ideal Buddhism; its tenets are preserved in Sanskrit texts, later translated into Chinese and Japanese. —Mahayana , n., adj.
- the principles, doctrines, and tenets that concern or are believed by all Buddhists. —Pan-Buddhist , n.
- the mixed form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, adding to ideas from both major Buddhist developments doctrines and practices from Hindu Tantric sects and the native Tibetan religion of nature worship and magic called Bönism; it combines the Hinayana concept of emancipation through self-discipline and the Mahayana concept of philosophical insight into reality for the sake of others with uniquely Tibetan magical rites and mystical meditation. —Tantrayanic , adj.
- Zen Buddhism, Zenism
- an outgrowth of Mahayana, the “meditation” sect, developed in Japan from its earlier Chinese counterpart and divided into two branches: Binzai, an austere and aristocratie monasticism emphasizing meditation on paradoxes; and Sōtō, a benevolent monasticism with great popular following, emphasizing ethical actions and charity, tenderness, benevolence, and sympathy as well as meditation on whatever occurs as illumination. —Zen , n. —Zenic , adj.
"Buddhism." -Ologies and -Isms. 1986. Encyclopedia.com. (October 1, 2016). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2505200070.html
"Buddhism." -Ologies and -Isms. 1986. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2505200070.html
Today, two main types of Buddhism survive, the Theravada and the Mahayana. The former is found in Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka; the latter in Nepal, Tibet, China, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Missionaries and immigrants have carried both throughout the world in modern times. Theravada Buddhism is the more conservative form: it has few and simple rituals and focuses on the worship of the Buddha itself. Mahayana Buddhism is a slightly later development, having more elaborate ritual, a baroque pantheon of saints (bodhisattvas), more numerous scriptures, and (sometimes) a married clergy. Mahayana Buddhists believe that their form of Buddhism offers an easier route to salvation than that provided by Theravada Buddhism.
Although Buddhism is a form of religious individualism, it has always accepted spiritual hierarchies, the most dramatic of which was the Mahayana theocratic state, under the Dalai Lama, which ruled Tibet for many centuries. In the modern world, new forms of Buddhism have arisen which combine it with nationalism, socialism, rationalism, and even social welfare activities.
GORDON MARSHALL. "Buddhism." A Dictionary of Sociology. 1998. Encyclopedia.com. (October 1, 2016). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-Buddhism.html
GORDON MARSHALL. "Buddhism." A Dictionary of Sociology. 1998. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-Buddhism.html
"Buddhism." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. (October 1, 2016). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O142-Buddhism.html
"Buddhism." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O142-Buddhism.html
Bud·dhism / ˈboōdizəm; ˈboŏd-/ n. a widespread Asian religion or philosophy, founded by Siddartha Gautama in northeastern India in the 5th century bc. DERIVATIVES: Bud·dhist n. & adj. Bud·dhis·tic / boōˈdistik; boŏd-/ adj. Bud·dhis·ti·cal / boōˈdistikəl; boŏd-/ adj.
"Buddhism." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com. (October 1, 2016). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-buddhism.html
"Buddhism." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-buddhism.html
"Buddhist." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Encyclopedia.com. (October 1, 2016). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O233-Buddhist.html
"Buddhist." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Retrieved October 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O233-Buddhist.html | <urn:uuid:52bbf410-fb1b-438d-98ca-9b1c7b2ac678> | CC-MAIN-2016-40 | http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Buddhism.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-40/segments/1474738662882.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160924173742-00146-ip-10-143-35-109.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947883 | 56,744 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Campaigns of the Mōri clan
The Mōri clan (毛利氏 Mōri-shi) was a family of daimyō, descended from Ōe no Hiromoto and established themselves in Aki Province. Their name was derived from a shōen in Mōri, Aikō District, Sagami Province. The generation of Hiromoto began to name themselves Mōri.
After the Jōkyū War, Mōri was appointed to the jitō office of a shoen in Aki Province. During the Kamakura period Mōri was one of prominent Gokenin family due to the fame of their ancestor Hiromoto. At the end of Kamakura Shogunate, Mōri was distant from the Shogunate and showed a favorable attitude to Ashikaga Takauji.
During the war with the Oda clan and the Ikkō-ikki clan, the Mori helped the Ikkō-ikki clan by establishing a naval trade route between each others' provincial docks and harbours, the Oda eventually nullified this by laying siege to the trade ships between the two clans and went to further disrupt trade by attempting to destroy the Mōri fleet, failing on their first encounter in 1571, the second battle took place in 1579 with the Oda sending eight O' Ataka Bune (heavily armoured ships with iron-clad plating) warships to finally destroy the Mori naval threat.
After a struggle between Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who led his army as a general of Oda Nobunaga, the two sides made peace and Mori remained as a daimyo who kept five provinces in Chūgoku. In 1600 Mōri Terumoto led the West Army in the Battle of Sekigahara nominally. The West Army lost the battle and the Mōri clan lost three eastern provinces and moved their capital from Hiroshima to currentday Hagi, Yamaguchi. The newer fief, Mōri han consisted in two provinces: Nagato province and Suo province. Derived from the former, Mōri han was referred often Chōshū han.
Taken from Wikipedia | <urn:uuid:9160794b-43bc-4961-ae25-527a787d7c23> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | https://www.commandsandcolors.net/samuraibattles/maps/campaigns-of-the-mori-clan.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578527720.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20190419121234-20190419142052-00015.warc.gz | en | 0.966881 | 460 | 3.25 | 3 |
Ishikawa Goemon: Was he Really the Robin Hood of Japan?
Ishikawa Goemon was something of a legendary figure in Japanese history. One of his most notable exploits was the stealing of gold from rich nobles which he would then distribute to the poor. In a sense, you could say that he was the Japanese Robin Hood. He was born sometime around 1558, but the historical information about Ishikawa Goemon can be a little fragmentary, making him seem at times to be more like a folk hero than anything else. There’s credible evidence to prove that the man did indeed exist however, as in Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s biography written in 1642, he mentions Goemon, though in a less than flattering light, referring to him as a mere thief.
It’s also suggested that Goemon once tried to assassinate Oda Nobunaga, the first unifier of Japan. This can’t necessarily be proven, but it does seem like something Goemon would wind up doing, considering he was said to have tried to assassinate Toyotomi Hideyoshi, that which would lead to his death. There are many accounts of Geomon’s life however. One incident states that he was born as Sanada Kuranoshin in 1558 to a family of samurai serving the Miyoshi clan in the Iga province. But when his father was killed by members of the Ashikaga shogunate, the fifteen year old Sanada would swear revenge. In some tales, his mother was also murdered by the Ashikaga shogunate during a struggle, where Sanada would watch his parents die.
But revenge wasn’t something he could just go and take as a fifteen year old orphan, so he began training in the secret ninja art of ninjutsu under a master named Momochi Sandayu, the man who would begin the ninjutsu school in the Iga province. Momochi would adopt him, and begin to raise him as his own. During the harsh ninjutsu training though, Sanada would find himself drawn to Momochi’s wife, and before long, one thing led to another. Outraged by the revelation, Momochi would banish Sanada from his home, and he’d be forced to flee from his master’s temper. To make matters worse, he would steal Momochi’s legendary sword before leaving. In another version of this tale, Sanada steals gold from Momochi and also takes his wife with him when he fled. However, it should also be noted that Sanada had a violent temper and a terrible attitude in general. It’s likely because of this, that he would become impatient with Momochi’s wife in the first place, who he would eventually murder, for she was in his words, slowing him down. This is quite a stark contrast to the man who would be stealing from the rich to give to the poor, as surely someone so selfish could not be so charitable. This leads to a second version of Goemon’s life.
In this version, Ishikawa Goemon was named Gorokizu and was from the Kawachi province, and therefore not a runaway ninja at all. Gorokizu would move to the Kansai region and would form a band of thieves and bandits, where he would adopt the name Ishikawa Goemon. It’s here he would establish an operation to rob the rich feudal lords, merchants, clerics, samurai, and just about anyone with something worth having. It’s said that he would give his takings to the poor. The theft was mostly conducted at night, for during the day they would pretend to be merchants, and infiltrate social groups and businesses to find things worth stealing.
Goemon and his bandits would also scatter a lot of their loot among civilians so as to throw the authorities off their scent, or to cause confusion in order to vindicate themselves of thievery. This is a very important part of Ishikawa Goemon’s legend, as it challenges the idea as to whether he was a charitable Robin Hood type hero, giving riches to the poor, or merely a sneaky trickster who was using the poor as a scapegoat. It wouldn’t be til the Edo period that Goemon’s antics were romanticized, fast making him into a pious hero, even though that may not have been the case at all.
One of the most interesting accounts about Goemon is in the way that he died. It’s said that he was brought to the main gate of the Buddhist temple in Nanzen-ji in Kyoto, where he would be punished for his crimes of robbery and attempted assassinations. But like most things from Japanese history, there are some conflicting accounts. In the first instance, Goemon was said to have tried to kill Toyotomi Hideyoshi, because his wife had been killed in one of Hideyoshi’s bloody conquests. Goemon blamed Hideyoshi for the death of his wife, and so snuck into Fushimi Castle, the home of Hideyoshi, and entered his room. However, he made a large blunder and knocked a bell off a shelf which caught the attention of the guards. Goemon was quickly captured and sentenced to death, though his death would not be the quick beheading that we’re used to seeing. He would be publicly burned alive in an iron cauldron along with his toddler son. But he was able to save his son by holding him up high above his head, whereby he was rescued by onlookers.
In another version, Goemon would again be caught entering Hideyoshi’s room, only this time by a supposedly magical incense burner who would alert the guards to the presence of intruders. In typical Hideyoshi fashion, he had Goemon’s entire family burned alive with him. In the final version, Goemon would try to save his son from the heat of the cauldron by holding him high above his head as he did in the first instance, however he would then suddenly plunge him deep into the bottom of the cauldron, killing him instantly so as to save him from the pain. He would then hold the body of the boy high above his head in defiance of the Hideyoshi regime until he eventually sunk to the bottom of the pot himself. When facing Hideyoshi during his death, he was apparently said to have confessed that he indeed was a thief and that he had stolen a fortune, however he would also accuse Hideyoshi of being a thief himself, for in Goemon’s words, Hideyoshi had stolen Japan. Before he died, Goemon penned a famous poem that states, regardless of how the world turns out, there will always be thieves. A tombstone is dedicated to him in the Daiunin temple in Kyoto. In fact, large iron bath tubs in Japan are now called Goemonburo, meaning Goemon bath. The question is, was Ishikawa Goemon a regular moral hero who was aiding the poor, or was he a bit of a scoundrel, using the poor to maintain his facade as a merchant and to facilitate his getaways? | <urn:uuid:6d902062-c566-4c63-b641-3322d39eb859> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://www.swordsofnorthshire.com/ishikawa-goemon-was-he-really-the-robin-hood-of-japan | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662595559.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20220526004200-20220526034200-00138.warc.gz | en | 0.992167 | 1,494 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Early Japanese History
We often get emails asking things like, "How was Japan founded?" or "Who founded Japan?" or even "How was Japan formed?" Well, the latter is more of a geological question, but let's look at the others...
Although legend has it that Japan was founded in 660BC, archaeologists agree that settlement in the Japanese archpelago dates back as far as 100,000 years. The Jomon Period (8000-c.300BC) is the earliest that has been studied. It is named after the 'jomon' or cord-marked pattern style of pottery of the period. Evidence suggests the people may have had links with South East Asia at that time.
Agricultural development began in the Yayoi Period (300BC-3rd century AD), with the appearance of bronze and iron tools and ornaments. The division of labour resulting from the development of tools strengthened the ruling/subject class system.
The country was made up of many small states but was unified under the Yamato clan early in the Kofun Period (c.300-710). The region known as Yamato is modern-day Nara Prefecture.
The Nara Period (710-794) saw the first signs of a tangible culture and it was during this time that the first historical records were kept. The city of Nara was the capital and was considerably larger than the city of today.
Under Prince Shotoku, the country acquired a constitution and a centralized Imperial state system. The culture of the Imperial court was heavily influenced by Chinese culture, which arrived via Korea and passed through the capital to the rest of the country. This included such things as weaving, metalworking, tanning and shipbuilding as well as Confucianism, medicine, astronomy and kanji, the Chinese ideographic form of writing.
The main attraction for visitors to Nara today are the many temples, which were established following the arrival of Buddhism from India in the mid-6th century, again via China and Korea. In fact, it was because these temples grew too powerful for the liking of then ruler Kammu that caused him to move the capital to Kyoto in 794, the start of the Heian Period. The new capital was built using the Chinese capital as its model.
Early in the Heian Period (794-1185), the Imperial court received cultural delegations from China and was further strengthened by the conquest of the north of the main island, Honshu. This was a time of great artistic development and saw the evolution of a more 'Japanese' culture.
For example, scholars created two sets of phonetic alphabets or kana from the imported Chinese kanji. This led to the development of a uniquely Japanese style of literature ('Tale of Genji' written by Murasaki Shikibu at the beginning of the 11th century is considered the world's first ever novel). The Imperial court became very caught up in these cultural pursuits, to the extent that real control over the country passed to martial clans in the regions.
After a period of corruption under the Fujiwara and later theTaira clan, who effectively ruled the country as regents, Japan entered a medieval period of feudalism and saw the advent of a samurai (warrior) class. Incidentally, this was also when the title of Shogun was first introduced, originally given to the commander of the Imperial armies.
In 1185, the Minamoto clan (also known as the Genji) established military rule after destroying the Taira clan at the epic Battle of Dannoura on the Inland Sea. Minamoto Yoritomo became the first of the Shogun as we know them and ruled from Kamakura. Kyoto remained the Imperial capital but the Emperor himself was now no more than a figurehead.
Under Yoritomo's Shogunate, bushido (Way of the Samurai) and an aesthetic of austerity were developed in order to maintain control over the subjegated clans. In the middle of this Kamakura Period (1185-1333), Kublai Khan's Mongols tried twice to invade the north of the southern island of Kyushu. During both attacks, the Mongol fleet was destroyed by a typhoon and this kamikaze or Wind of the Gods entered Japanese folklore.
But the Shogunate failed to amply reward the military for these defeats of the invaders. The emperor Godaigo took advantage of the subsequent unrest to restore Imperial rule for a short period of time, known as the Kammu restoration.
But the emperor, too, was lacking in foresight and in turn was overthrown by the Ashikaga clan and military rule restored, this time from Kyoto. This was the start of the Muromachi Period (1336-1573). The Shogun Ashikaga Takauji established two royal courts, at Kyoto and Yoshino. In Kyoto, he built the original Kinkakuji or 'Gold Pavilion'. A restored version attracts hordes of tourists to this day.
As is often historically the case, Ashikaga's extravagance was accompanied by heavy taxes and corruption. Civil war between the warrior clans lasted for over a hundred years. It was during this time that Japan first experienced European culture, after a Portuguese ship ran aground in 1543.
Oda Nobunaga tried to unify the country until his assasination in 1582, when his influential samurai general Toyotomi Hideyoshi took over. In 1590, following his defeat of the Hojo clan, and with the help of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Hideyoshi became the ruler of a unified Japan. He launched two unsuccessful invasions of Korea in 1592 and 1597.
He is also remembered today for his crucifixion in 1597 of 26 Christians - 6 of them foreigners - in Nagasaki in an attempt to wipe out their religion, which had been introduced to Japan by Francis Xavier. A monument to the martyrs was built on the centenary of their canonization as saints in 1962.
The brief Azuchi-Momoyama Period (1573-1598) is named after the castles of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi. Osaka Castle and many other castles around the country also date from this period.
Meanwhile, as thanks for his support, Ieyasu received a fiefdom near the city of Edo, or modern-day Tokyo. He became the most powerful daimyo (baron) by winning the famous Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and he became Shogun in 1603. He made Edo the new capital and Japan was finally at peace. Under the leadership of Ieyasu, the Edo Period (1600-1868) was one of great cultural achievement. | <urn:uuid:8ed2d789-0877-43e3-9c47-2b4e2f931a09> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | https://japan-zone.com/omnibus/history1.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578530253.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20190421060341-20190421082341-00398.warc.gz | en | 0.976312 | 1,382 | 4 | 4 |
Japanese Green tea is famous around the world and tea ceremony is a well know cultural practice. You many not know that even something as zen as tea ceremony can have a dramatic history.
In 1591, during an unusual off-season thunderstorm, a tea expert committed ritual suicide (hara-kiri)
by the command of the wealthy warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi
. His death and the story surrounding it are woven into a tale of green tea, pride, and envy.
Sen no Rikyu (Inscription by Tada Sokiku II) by Artist/Author Ogawa Kyuho (Ogawa Hakurin) 1727 - 1796 -- Illustration in Public Domain
The tea expert in the story was Sen no Rikyu
who, four hundred years after his death, still enjoys the reputation of being "the tea saint". Having followed the formality of conventional tea ceremony for a good part of his life, Rikyu later attempted to create his own style of tea ceremony under the rule of a wealthy lord, never expecting he would have to kill himself for the sake of his art.
Chagama: Kettle for Tea Water -- Photo from Flickr cc by Christian Kaden
The way of the tea ceremony Rikyu established is known for its philosophy of subtle taste and elegant simplicity or wabi, as suggested in the teachings of Buddha.
The original tea gatherings held by people around the 14th century had no connection whatsoever with Buddhism. Participants blind-tasted several varieties of tea to compete on how well they could tell good varietals from poor ones. Such gatherings were called tocha, which literally means tea fight, and were an occasion for gambling and carousing.
Preparing for Tea Ceremony -- Photo from Flickr by Takashi.M
In the late 15th century the practice of tea ceremony was formalized and upgraded to an art form. By then, the ceremony had steered away from commoners to aristocrats who funneled their money into collecting resplendent and valuable tea utensils. Many of these luxury goods were imported from China.
Tea ceremonies were finally connected with Buddhism when a monk called Murata Juko
was appointed tea master for shogun
or military commander Ashikaga Yoshimasa
. Keen to establish a way of tea accessible to commoners, Murata emphasized attentiveness and courtesy, instead of magnificence, at the tea gatherings he held.
Vintage Photo of an Onsen Town -- Photo Courtesy of Arima Hot Springs Tourism Association
Murata also adopted the Buddhist custom of serving free cups of tea and opening a free bathhouse to the public. The spirit of his tea ceremony was passed down to Sho-o Takeno, who first adopted the philosophy of wabi, then to Rikyu, who further developed the idea.
Born into a fish merchant family in 1522 in Sakai, a then-emerging commercial city in western Japan, Rikyu began to learn the formality of tea ceremony for aristocrats in his teens. He later became a pupil of Sho-o. The time period was during the age of provincial wars. Working his way through the troubled era to secure his social position as a tea expert, Rikyu finally reached an impressive level at around the age of fifty.
The warlord Nobunaga Oda, captivated by the art of tea ceremony which enabled its learners to easily appear cultured, appointed Rikyu as one of his tea masters.
An Open Tea House Serving Matcha (Ippuku Issen 一服一銭, right) in Muromachi Period -- Unsigned Illustration in Public Domain
About ten years later, Rikyu began his service to Hideyoshi Toyotomi after Nobunaga was assassinated. Rikyu was already in his sixties when he began his quest for tea culture and adopting the tenets of wabi based on Buddhism.
Rikyu's tea utensils also represented the idea of the subtlety and simplicity. He preferred simple-looking, irregularly-shaped bowls to gorgeous, perfectly-shaped Chinese ceramics, which had long been part of tea ceremony. Above all, he pursued a way of the ceremony which encouraged people to lead a spiritually rich life.
According to "Nanboroku", a book describing Rikyu’s philosophy, the tea master defined the heart of his art using the metaphor: “A house doesn’t need to be lavish. It only needs a roof that doesn’t leak. A meal doesn’t require culinary delicacies. It only needs to keep hunger away.”
Rikyu believed this expression captured the Buddhist idea of wabi. Wabi was not to harbor a sense of lacking in the physical things one wants. Instead, focus on what one has spiritually.
Preparing the Matcha -- Photo from Flickr by Teruhiro Kataoka
Rikyu also insisted that a tea expert be spontaneous and creative, and dismissed anything unoriginal. When his best pupils used a round tea kettle that looked like his, he said that they should use a square-shaped kettle that bore no resemblance to their master’s. He used a well bucket as a carafe, and a vegetable basket as a charcoal scuttle at his tea gatherings. He also loved simple flower vases made of bamboo.
In time, however, Rikyu's pursuit of subtlety and simplicity began to conflict with Hideyoshi’s taste for gaudiness. The wealthy lord was a passionate learner of the tea ceremony. He was also a flashy performer who went to the extreme of having his new teahouse plated with gold leaf.
Writer and historian Kozo Kaku, in his book about Rikyu, surmises that Hideyoshi adored and envied his tea master, and was desperate to establish his own style of tea ceremony as a symbol of his power. However, Hideyoshi’s liking for glamor and artificiality kept him from being on an equal footing with the tea saint. Rikyu, aware of his employer's desperation, deliberately used a tea bowl in black — a color that he believed represented a seasoned spirit, yet Hideyoshi disliked — at a gathering where Hideyoshi was present. Implying that the lord still had a lot more to learn, tensions between the two giants mounted.
Portrait of Hideyoshi as Prestigious Regent (Kampaku) -- Unsigned Illustration in Public Domain
In spring 1591, about a month and a half after the gathering with the infamous black tea bowl, Hideyoshi ordered his tea master to commit hara-kiri. Two official charges were brought against Rikyu. One was his irreverent act of erecting a wooden statue of himself at the gate of a newly-built large temple. The other was his illegal act of setting an exorbitant price for a new tea set and selling it. However, what really prompted Hideyoshi to put an end to the tea saint’s life remains a mystery. Rikyu obeyed the command without resistance. Making his last tea for Hideyoshi’s emissary who was to deliver his head to the angry lord, Rikyu stabbed himself as told, during an early spring downpour.
Whisking the Tea -- Photo from Flickr cc by Allison Stillwell Young
Rikyu is said to have predicted the decline of his art in ten years’ time. He thought that the tea ceremony would become too widely popular, a fad, degenerating into worldly entertainment. He believed the public would not understand the heart of the wabi philosophy. In reality, although the general public does not necessarily understand his idea of wabi, the tea ceremony style he established has survived up until today. Rikyu also failed to predict that he would be remembered as the greatest tea master of all time.
Would you like to learn more about the art of tea, first hand? | <urn:uuid:78154af4-94c4-4796-8d16-03a12b142dcc> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | https://www.tokyocreative.com/articles/18344-the-saint-of-tea | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578527866.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20190419181127-20190419203127-00535.warc.gz | en | 0.977844 | 1,641 | 3.34375 | 3 |
A Summary of Periods and Events in Japanese History
Jōmon Period (縄文時代 14,000 BC–300 BC)
The early evidence of human inhabitation of the Japanese archipelago dates over 35,000 years ago, with relics such as axes found in 224 sites in Kyūshū and Honshū. Following the end of the last glacier age, a hunter-gatherer culture gradually developed in the archipelago, one that would eventually achieve significant cultural complexity. In 1877, American scholar Edward S. Morse named this extended period of Japanese history as Jōmon, the name itself meaning “cord-marked” and inspired by the way these hunter-gatherers decorated pottery by impressing rope-cords onto wet clay. Of note, foundation myths of Shintoism state the founding of the Japanese Imperial Family to have happened during the Jōmon Period. However, there is no conclusive archeological evidence supporting this claim.
- For easy discussion, the Jōmon Period is usually divided into the early, middle, and late/final eras.
- The most convenient place to learn about this period of Japanese history is at Tokyo National Museum, which has a sizable collection of Jōmon Period relics. Many other Japanese museums also exhibit similar relics.
- There are various recreations of Jōmon Period villages across Japan. For example, the Historical Museum of Jomon Village in Oku-Matsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, and the Sannai-Maruyama Site in Aomori Prefecture.
- The most famous “face” of the Jōmon Period is perhaps that of the Dogū. These unique-looking earthen figurines are often mass produced for sale as tourist souvenirs.
Yayoi Period (弥生時代 BC 900–AD 300)
The Yayoi Period overlaps the final years of the Jōmon Period and takes its name from a district of modern-day Tokyo where ancient, unembellished pottery was found. Regarded as the Iron Age of Japan, the Yayoi Period witnessed the growth of agricultural development as well as the importing of weapons and tools from China and Korea. Geographically, Yayoi culture extended from southern Kyūshū to northern Honshū, with archeological evidence suggesting the hunger-gathering culture of the Jōmon Period was progressively subsumed by agricultural cultivation during this period of ancient Japanese history. One area that has fascinated researchers has been the notable physical differences between the Jōmon and Yayoi people. The Yayoi tend to be taller than the Jōmon, with facial features closer to those of modern-day Japanese.
According to ancient Chinese records, Japan was a land of scattered tribes during this Iron Age period of Japanese history. This contradicts the events stated in the Nihon Shoki, an account of Japanese history penned in the eighth century. However, it must be noted that the Nihon Shoki is regarded by academics as partly mythical/fictional.
- In the late 1990s, Yayoi remains uncovered in Southern Japan were found to contain similarities to those unearthed in Jiangsu, China. A general belief is that the Yayoi people were immigrants from the Asiatic mainland.
- The most famous and extensive reconstruction of a Yayoi Period settlement is the Yoshinogari Site in Kyūshū.
- The Chinese historical text, the Records of the Three Kingdoms, mentioned Yayoi Japan. The text named Japan as Yamatai and stated it was ruled by a priest-queen titled Queen Himiko.
- There has been much academic debate over whether “Yamatai” was the Chinese transliteration of Yamato (see next section).
- Other Chinese historical texts recorded Yayoi Japan as Wa (倭). In Chinese, the word means dwarf and would later be changed within Japan to Wa (和), which means harmony.
Kofun Period (古墳時代 AD 300–AD 538)
The years of the Kofun Period saw the gradual unification of half of the Japanese archipelago under one clan. Rulers of this clan constructed elaborate burial mounds for themselves, which gave rise to the name of the era. Centered in the Kinai (modern-day Kansai) area of Honshū, the unified kingdom also came to be known as Yamato, a name that’s still synonymous with historical. During this period, Japan continued to be strongly influenced by culture, technology, and arts imported from China and the Korean Peninsula. Buddhism also reached Japan during the final years of the Kofun Period. In fact, the introduction of Buddhism marks the end of this historical period in ancient Japanese history.
- The Yamato rulers based their rule on Chinese models. However, they did not have a permanent capital. The capital was frequently shifted, a practice that continued till the Heian Period.
- The most representative landmarks of the Kofun Period are the immense keyhole-shaped burial mounds of rulers, many of which can still be found in the Kansai region.
- Based on the location of the above-mentioned burial mounds, the Yamato State is believed to have extended from Yakushima to present-day Niigata Prefecture.
- The Yamato State was not unchallenged. There were other clans coexisting with them. All of which eventually subjugated.
Aerial View of Kamiishizumisanzai Kofun in Sakai
Asuka Period (飛鳥時代 AD 538–AD 710)
The Asuka Period of Japanese history began with the introduction of Buddhism in Japan and is characterized by significant socio-political and artistic changes. Politically, the Yamato clan was affirmed as the supreme ruling entity of Southern Japan. At the height of this era, the famed Regent Prince Shōtoku also introduced a new court hierarchy and constitution, both of which were inspired by Chinese ideals and systems that had reached Japan. These new systems formed the foundation for the next stage of Japan’s development as a proper nation.
Of note, the Asuka Period also witnessed the beginning of a phenomenon that would continue to modern times. In AD 587, the powerful Soga clan took over the government and became the de facto rulers of Japan. They were overthrown in AD 645, following which the Fujiwara clan became the true rulers. Throughout these years, the Yamato Emperors remained in position, still venerated as supreme sovereigns, but with little or no power. This phenomenon of actual political might residing away from the throne will constantly be repeated throughout the next 13 hundred years of Japanese history.
- The period is named after the Asuka region, which is south of modern-day Nara. Today, the Asuka region is a tourist hotspot for its various Asuka Period architectures and museums.
- Hōryū-ji, near the Asuka region, is home to what is widely considered the world’s oldest wooden pagoda. The temple was founded by Prince Shōtoku in AD 607.
- Prince Shōtoku was a devout Buddhist, credited with the founding of Japanese Buddhism. There are many temples associated with him throughout the Kansai region.
- Prince Shōtoku was also one of the first leaders in Japanese history to refer to Japan as Nihon, or the Land of the Rising Sun.
- Asukadera Temple in Asuka contains the oldest known Japanese statue of the Buddha with an accepted date of creation (AD 609).
Nara Period (奈良時代 AD 710–AD 794)
This brief period in classical Japanese history contains two major events. The establishment of Japan’s first permanent capital at Heijō-kyō (modern-day Nara), and various natural disasters and epidemics that decimated the Japanese population. In reaction to the calamities, Emperor Shōmu ordered the increased promotion of Buddhism, a move that resulted in many large monasteries such as Tōdai-ji being built in Heijō-kyō. Ironically, the political influence of the monasteries soon became too worrying for the royal family and the government, the latter still dominated by the Fujiwara clan. In AD 794, the Nara Period ended with Emperor Kanmu shifting the capital away from the monasteries to Heian-kyō. Heian-kyō, or modern-day Kyoto, would be Japan’s capital for the next 1000 years.
- There are partial reconstructions of the Heijō-kyō palace near Nara City today. Only a single hall from the original structure survived, having been moved to Toshodaiji Temple.
- The most famous temple from the Nara Period is undoubtedly the immense Tōdai-ji. However, the current structure is a reconstruction from AD 1692. The original temple hall is believed to be much larger.
- Major Buddhist monasteries were so powerful, they were able to compete with aristocratic clans for political dominance.
- The semi-mythological historical annals, the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, were written during the Nara Period.
- The first Japanese styled gardens were built during this classical period of Japanese history.
Heian Period (平安時代 AD 794–AD 1185)
During the Heian Period, the Yamato court conquered the Ainu lands of Northern Honshū, thus extending their rule over most of the Japanese archipelago. Conversely, it also suffered a prolonged decline, the outcome of courtiers being more concerned with petty power struggles and artistic pursuits, rather than admirable governing.
In AD 1068, the Fujiwara hegemony came to an end when Emperor Go-Sanjō implemented various policies to curb the influence of the Fujiwara clan. However, this did not secure the permanent return of power to the throne because of the failures of the Taika reforms. A land redistribution and taxation program implemented during the Asuka Period, the Taika reforms had impoverished many farmers, forcing them to sell their lands to large landowners. At the same time, many aristocrats and monasteries also enjoyed tax immunity, allowing them to grow very wealthy. The combined repercussions resulted in wealthy landowners actually owning more land than the government, correspondingly benefitting from more income. These landowners subsequently hired private armies to protect their interests, a move that greatly fueled the rise of the military class in Japan. In the midst of this worsening situation and the decline of the Fujiwara clan, two other aristocratic families rose to prominence. The conflicts between these two, the Minamoto clan and the Taira clan, soon resulted in all-out civil war.
In AD 1160, Taira no Kiyomori became the new true ruler of Japan following victory over the Minamoto Clan in the Heiji Rebellion.
Like the Heian Court before them, the Taira clan was soon seduced by the creature comforts and the intrigues of the imperial court. Meanwhile, the surviving sons of the Minamoto clan slowly rebuilt their armies.
In AD 1180, Minamoto no Yoritomo joined an uprising against Taira rule. He was assisted by his brothers Noriyori and Yoshitsune, the latter one of the most beloved and legendary generals in Japanese history.
In AD 1185, the Taira clan was completely defeated in the famous Battle of Dan-no-ura.
Yoritomo thereafter became the new de facto ruler of Japan. More importantly, he established the Kamakura Shogunate and became its first ruler, thus kickstarting the next period of Japanese history.
- The Japanese Kana writing system is said to have been invented during the Heian Period. In turn, the development of the system saw a proliferation of Japanese literary works.
- The Japanese Buddhist sects of Tendai and Shingon flourished during the Heian Period.
- The Tendai Sect, which enjoyed a close relationship with the imperial court, became so powerful they supported their own monastic army.
- The unusual practice of blackening one’s teeth as a projection of beauty, known as ohaguruo, began in the Heian Period.
- The magnificent Byōdōin in Uji was built during the Heian Period as a retirement home for a powerful Fujiwara clan member.
- Development of Mount Kōya, the headquarters of Japanese Shingon Buddhism, also began during the Heian Period.
Kamakura Period (鎌倉時代 AD 1185–AD 1333)
In a move that would be repeated centuries later in Japanese history by Tokugawa Ieyasu, Minamoto no Yoritomo established his base of power at Kamakura, far away from Heian-kyō. Notoriously, he also ordered the killing of his brothers Noriyori and Yoshitsune. Yoshitsune was forced to commit ritual suicide after being cornered in Hiraizumi.
Yoritomo himself died in AD 1199 from a horse-riding accident, thereafter which his wife Hōjō Masako seized power for her family. For the rest of the Kamakura Period, the Hōjō regents would be the ones wielding true authority in Japan, with the Kamakura shoguns as mere puppets. In AD 1274 and again in AD 1281, the Mongolian Empire launched two massive invasions of Japan, both of which failed because of typhoons. These twin victories, however, did not strengthen Hōjō rule. Instead, the regency was severely weakened by defense expenditures.
In AD 1331, Emperor Go-Daigo attempted to remove the Kamakura Shogunate and the Hōjō Regency by force but was defeated by Kamakura’s General Ashikaga Takauji. When the Emperor repeated his efforts two years later, Takauji switched sides and supported the Emperor instead. With Takauji’s help, Go-Daigo successfully overthrew the Kamakura Shogunate and restored power to the imperial throne. Unfortunately for him, though, the imperial court was by then outdated and inefficient, completely unable to govern the country. Seizing the opportunity once more, Takauji attacked the capital and expelled Go-Daigo. He then appointed himself Shogun, beginning the second shogunate in Japanese history.
- Japan termed the typhoons that repelled the Mongolians as kamikaze, or divine wind. Today, the name is more notoriously remembered as the suicidal crashing of Japanese planes into Allied forces during World War II.
- The father of Nichiren Buddhism, Nichiren, lived during the Kamakura Period of Japanese History.
- Only the first three Shoguns of the Kamakura Shogunate were from the Minamoto clan. The rest were from other aristocratic families such as the Fujiwaras.
Muromachi Period (室町時代 AD 1333–AD 1573)
Although Go Daigo was expelled by Ashikaga Takauji, he wasn’t out of the game, so to speak. Fleeing to Yoshino, he founded the Southern Court and challenged Takauji’s appointed emperor and shogunate. This began the Northern and Southern Courts period of Japanese history, during which the Ashikaga Shogunate faced the twin challenges of defeating the Southern Court while maintaining nationwide rule. Though Takauji’s grandson, Yoshimitsu, ultimately succeeded in reuniting the country, the seeds of strife were planted, these allies appointed by the Ashikaga Shogunate to manage the provinces. These allies would steadily grow in power, eventually also openly defying the Ashikaga Shogunate and styling themselves as daimyōs (Great Lord/Great Landowner).
By the final years of the Ashikaga Shogunate, Japan was racked by frequent internal conflicts. The worst of these was the Ōnin War of AD 1467, a succession crisis over who was to be the next Shogun. Though the issue was resolved, the Shogunate lost all power, following which Japan was splintered into numerous feuding states. Worse, large Buddhist monasteries that had long supported their own armies soon joined in the conflicts too. The remnant authority of the Ashikaga Shogunate was destroyed for good in AD 1573 when daimyō Oda Nobunaga drove the 15th Ashikaga Shogun, Yoshiaki, out of the capital. In AD 1588, Yoshiaki formally resigned from his post of Shogun.
- The era takes its name from the Muromachi district of Heian-kyō, where the “best-performing” Ashikaga Shogun, Yoshimitsu, had his residence.
- Historians considered the Ashikaga clan the weakest of Japan’s three historical shogunates.
- Europeans arrived in Japan toward the end of the Muromachi Period.
- AD 1549 saw the arrival of Francis Xavier and Roman Catholicism in Japan.
- Kyoto’s magnificent Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji) and Silver Pavilion (Ginkaku-ji) were both built during the Muromachi Period.
Azuchi-Momoyama Period (安土桃山時代 AD 1573–AD 1603)
Three names define the Azuchi-Momoyama Period or warring states era of Japanese history. Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu.
- Born in Owari Province (modern-day Western Aichi Prefecture), Oda Nobunaga was a ruthless warlord renowned for his strategic brilliance. Through the forging of strong relationships with foreign missionaries and merchants, he secured powerful European firearms for his armies, thus ensuring a string of important victories in Japan’s bloodiest civil war. By AD 1582, it was clear Nobunaga would emerge the ultimate victor, which would have happened had Nobunaga not then suffered a coup. On June 21, 1582, Nobunaga’s retainer, Akechi Mitsuhide, cornered him in a burning temple. In the face of hopelessness, Nobunaga opted for ritual suicide. His abrupt death immediately created a power vacuum.
- No dependent record of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s younger life exists, but he is popularly believed to be the son of a lowly foot-soldier. Cunning and resourceful, he achieved recognition while serving under Nobunaga. Upon Nobunaga’s death, Hideyoshi moved quickly to avenge his former lord, in the process conveniently subjugating surviving Oda clan members. By AD 1583, Hideyoshi had replaced Nobunaga as medieval Japan’s most powerful warlord. Though his subsequent megalomaniacal ambitions to invade China failed disastrously and seeded the eventual demise of his clan, Hideyoshi died while in power. His stronghold, Osaka Castle, remains one of the symbols of Japan till today.
- Like Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu was an ally and subordinate of Nobunaga. Easily the most devious member of the trio, Ieyasu faithfully served Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, never once revealing his true ambitions. In fact, Ieyasu was so good at his masquerade, he was appointed the chief advisor of Hideyoshi’s young heir, by none other than Hideyoshi himself. In AD 1599, a mere year after Hideyoshi’s passing, Ieyasu turned on his former lord and stormed Osaka Castle. After the decisive Battle of Sekigahara in AD 1600, he emerged the ultimate victor of the Azuchi-Momoyama Period. His appointment as Shogun by Emperor Go-Yōzei in AD 1603 formally commenced the next era in Japanese history.
- The period itself takes its name from the strongholds of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi. Nobunaga’s headquarters was the legendary Azuchi Castle. Hideyoshi’s headquarters prior to Osaka Castle was Momoyama Castle.
- The saying, Nobunaga kneaded the dough; Hideyoshi baked the pie; and Ieyasu ate the pie, summarizes the story of Japan’s three unifying warlords.
- Other than the above-mentioned trio, there were several other famous warlords from this era. For example, Takeda Shingen of Kagemusha fame.
- While Nobunaga welcomed Christian missionaries, albeit with ulterior motives, Hideyoshi distrusted them. Hideyoshi notoriously ordered the execution of several missionaries.
- Ironically, the art of tea flourished during this tumultuous period. Nobunaga and Hideyoshi were both advent collectors of tea ceremony utensils.
Edo Period (江戸時代 AD 1603–AD 1868)
The Edo Period is alternatively known as the Tokugawa Shogunate and refers to the three pre-modern centuries when Japan was under the de facto rule of the Tokugawa Shoguns. Major events of this important historical period include a strengthening of social order, the implementation of nation-wide isolationist policies, and a shift of political power from Heijō-kyō to Edo, Edo being the historical name of Tokyo. While Tokugawa laws were harsh and often brutal, Japan enjoyed three centuries of peace and domestic economic growth. Uniquely Japanese art forms such as Kabuki also flourished during this time. Edo itself grew from a small fishing village into a bustling city that was home to a million Japanese in the 18th century.
The end of this peaceful period began in AD 1853 with the arrival of American Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s “Black Ships.” Forced by Perry’s gunboat diplomacy to open up its ports to international trade, Japan painfully realized how backward she was compared to western powers. By then, the Tokugawa Shogunate was also in decline, with dangerous discontent festering between the social classes created by the Tokugawa Shoguns. In AD 1867, the 15th Tokugawa Shogun resigned in the face of growing unrest. This, however, did not prevent armed conflict, and the Boshin War broke out the following year. With the defeat of the pro-shogunate forces in 1869, authority was at long last fully restored to the imperial crown. This restoration marked Japan’s first step into the modern era.
- The Tokugawa Shogunate considered Catholicism to be a threat, in particular, converted daimyōs in Southern Japan. This was the main reason for isolation.
- Tokugawa Japan wasn’t completely isolated. Selected foreigners, such as the Dutch East India Company, could visit Japan. However, all were restricted to the artificial island of Dejima in Nagasaki. Dejima is today, a major tourist attraction of Nagasaki.
- Society was extremely structured during the Edo Period.
- Peace afforded commoners the means and time to seek entertainment. This birthed ukiyo, not the painting style but a general term for the quest for fleeting entertainment. In turn, ukiyo fueled the growth of many industries and art forms.
The Meiji Restoration, Meiji, and Taishō Periods (明治維新, 明治, 大正 AD 1868–AD 1926)
The Meiji Restoration takes its name from Emperor Meiji, who was restored to nominal supreme power following the Boshin War. Under his rule, the victorious leaders of the Boshin War progressively transformed Japan from a backward medieval kingdom into a leading international power. Westernization was the keyword during these formative years. The Japanese military was also aggressive in the establishment of overseas colonies, examples of which being the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa) and Korea. By the time of Emperor Meiji’s passing in 1912, Japan was widely considered one of the Great Powers of the world. She was the strongest independent nation in Asia.
Political domination by the military, industrialization, and westernization, continued into the reign of Emperor Taishō, which lasted from 1912 to 1926. After participating in World War I on the side of the Allies, Japan’s international standing was enhanced on top of her gaining the South Pacific colonies of Germany. The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, which killed over a hundred thousand Japanese, severely challenged the country, but nonetheless, Japan’s growth as a new empire was not checked. Towards the end of the Taishō Period, extreme nationalism took root in Japan, leading to increased antagonism towards western powers and regional neighbors. These tensions would ultimately result in the massive confrontation that was the Pacific Theater of World War II.
- Western design was greatly favored during the Meiji and Taishō periods. Subsequent integration with classic Japanese elements resulted in a uniquely Japanese aesthetic style.
- While the Tokugawa Shogunate was antagonistic to foreigners, the Meiji government welcomed several thousand foreign “experts” into Japan. Through borrowed technologies, Japan was transformed into Asia’s first industrialized nation within a few decades.
- The reign of Emperor Meiji also marked the rise of “State Shintoism.” The use of Shinto rites to endorse radical nationalism was a major contributor to Japan’s subsequent expansionist war efforts.
- The Taishō Period saw the beginning of Japan’s transition into a modern democracy. Unfortunately, this was quickly stifled by military dominance.
Prewar Shōwa Period and World War II (昭和 AD 1926–AD 1945)
The Shōwa Period is named after Emperor Shōwa, or Emperor Hirohito as he is more commonly remembered as nowadays. The period itself contains three distinct phases. These were the years before World War II, the war itself, and the postwar years thereafter.
The years before the war was marked by the peaking of radical right-wing nationalism and military dominance in Japan. Moderate politicians who attempted to reign in the military were assassinated, for example, Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai. Inukai himself was the last party politician to lead Japan prior to World War II. After his assassination, de facto power was firmly in the hands of the military.
In 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge incident at Wanping, China, led to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japan thereafter enjoyed a series of victories cumulating with the capture of Nanking. The appalling Nanking Massacre, which saw the execution of hundreds of thousands of Chinese, was committed after this victory.
The West reacted strongly to Japan’s invasion of China. The United States imposed harsh sanctions, to which Japan responded by forming an alliance with fascist Germany and Italy. After Japanese assets were frozen by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands as punishment for Japan’s invasion of French Indochina, Japan launched a surprise attack on the American Fleet at Pearl Harbor. With American presence in the Pacific temporarily crippled, Japan proceeded to invade Southeast Asia. Practically all Southeast Asian colonies of the European powers were conquered by Japanese imperial forces by 1942.
Japanese victory in the Asia Pacific region was ultimately short-lived. After the Battle of Midway, the Japanese military suffered a long series of bloody defeats. On Aug 6 and Aug 9, 1945, the Allies decimated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the world’s first atomic bombings. In the face of an all-out invasion of the Japanese homeland, further nuclear attacks, and the Soviet Union declaring war, Japan announced an unconditional surrender on Aug 14, 1945. In an unprecedented move, Emperor Hirohito personally made the announcement on Japanese radio. For many Japanese commoners back then, the thought of the semi-divine Emperor directly speaking to them was considered as unimaginable.
- As of 2018, Japanese atrocities during World War II remain a highly contentious subject between Japan and her neighbors.
- Prior to her defeat at Midway, Japanese forces reached as far south as Indonesia.
- Though she occupied important cities like Shanghai and Nanjing, Japan did not even conquer half of China.
- Many Japanese cities were flattened by aerial bombings during the final years of the war. Kyoto, however, was spared.
Postwar Shōwa Period (AD 1945–AD 1989)
The postwar Shōwa Period of Emperor Hirohito’s reign could itself be divided into three eras. These being the Allied Occupation which ended in 1952, the postwar recovery and growth of the 50s and 60s, and the bubble economy years of the 80s.
Following the unconditional surrender declared by the Emperor on Aug 14, 1945, Japan was stripped of all her wartime territorial gains. Constitutional changes led by US General Douglas MacArthur then spearheaded the demilitarization and democratization of Japan, as well as the separation of Shintoism from the state. In terms of territory, Japan largely remained intact. While she lost all her wartime gains, the original territories of the Japanese archipelago were not seized.
In part thanks to the Korean War, the Japanese economy rapidly recovered following the end of the Allied Occupation. Milestones achieved during this boom period include the hosting of the 1964 Summer Olympics and the inauguration of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen High-Speed Train (Bullet Train) route, the latter also in 1964. Though Japan was severely affected by the oil crisis of the 70s, her position as an economic giant was unshaken. By the 80s, Japan was one of the richest nations of the world.
Japan’s postwar economic miracle cumulated with the asset bubble economy of the late 80s. These heady, champagne-drinking days began their demise in the final years of the Shōwa Period, ending with the difficult years of the 90s, a decade some historians refer to as the “Lost Decade.” As of 2018, the Nikkei stock index has never risen above its 1991 highs.
- The Allied Occupation was the first time in history Japan was occupied by a foreign power.
- Article 9 of Japan’s postwar constitution forbids the country from maintaining any armed forces. However, this did not stop the country from establishing and maintaining a powerful “Self-Defense” force.
- Emperor Hirohito was never prosecuted by the Allies for war crimes. This remains a subject of much debate.
- Japan’s postwar economic miracle resulted in many of Japanese brands elevated to international household names.
Heisei Period (平成 AD 1989–Present)
The Heisei Period began with the passing of Emperor Hirohito and the ascension of his eldest son as Emperor Akihito on Jan 7, 1989. In the two decades since, Japan has been locked in protracted struggles with a stagnating economy, a rapidly aging population, and tenuous relationships with regional neighbors. Nonetheless, as of 2018, Japan remains a global financial, economic, and technological powerhouse.
The Heisei Period is also marked by two catastrophic earthquakes, namely, Kobe (1995) and Tōhoku (2011). The latter was the most powerful earthquake ever registered in Japan and resulted in the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. As of 2018, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster is still an issue of much concern and debate.
On the other hand, globalization and advances in communication technologies fueled the worldwide popularity of Japanese mass entertainment such as Anime, Manga, and Cosplaying. These interests are nowadays considered synonymous with the term, “pop culture.”
Lastly, affordable mass transportation transformed Japan into a tourism hotspot. What was once one of the world’s most isolated nation is nowadays, ironically, the dream vacation destination of millions of tourists.
- In spite of economic, natural, and social difficulties, several record-breaking construction projects were completed in the Heisei Period. For example, the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge and the Tokyo Skytree.
- While largely unnoticeable by casual visitors, right-wing extremism continues to exist in Japan. In 2017, China demanded a boycott of Japan’s APA Group for promoting books denying the Nanking Massacre.
- Tensions with China and the two Koreas were made worse by incidences of history rewriting in Japanese school textbooks, as well as top Japanese politicians visiting Yasukuni Shrine. Yasukuni enshrines several convicted World War II war criminals.
- The 1995 Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack by doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo was the worst domestic terrorism act suffered by modern Japan.
- The Heisei Period will formally end on Apr 30, 2019, with the abdication of Emperor Akihito.
Questions & Answers
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The Sengoku period or Warring States period in Japanese history was a time of social upheaval, political intrigue, and nearly constant military conflict that lasted roughly from the middle of the 15th century to the beginning of the 17th century. The Sengoku period in Japan would eventually lead to the unification of political power under the Tokugawa shogunate.
The Siege of Osaka (大坂の役 Ōsaka no Eki , or, more commonly, 大坂の陣 Ōsaka no Jin) was a series of battles undertaken by the Tokugawa shogunate against the Toyotomi clan, and ending in that clan's destruction. Divided into two stages (Winter Campaign and Summer Campaign), and lasting from 1614 to 1615, the siege put an end to the last major armed opposition to the shogunate's establishment. The end of the conflict is sometimes called the Genna Armistice (元和偃武 Genna Enbu ), because the era name was changed from Keichō to Genna immediately following the siege.
Oda Nobunaga (織田 信長 Oda Nobunaga (help·info), June 23, 1534 – June 21, 1582) was the initiator of the unification of Japan under the shogunate in the late 16th century, which ruled Japan until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was also a major daimyo during the Sengoku period of Japanese history. His work was continued, completed and finalized by his successors Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu. He was the second son of Oda Nobuhide, a deputy shugo (military governor) with land holdings in Owari Province. Nobunaga lived a life of continuous military conquest, eventually conquering a third of Japan before his death in 1582. His successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a loyal Oda supporter, would become the first man to unify all of Japan, and was thus the first ruler of all Japan since the Ōnin War.
The Mōri clan (毛利氏 Mōri-shi) was a family of daimyō, descended from Ōe no Hiromoto and established themselves in Aki Province. Their name was derived from a shōen in Mōri, Aikō District, Sagami Province. The generation of Hiromoto began to name themselves Mōri.
After the Jōkyū War, Mōri was appointed to the jitō office of a shoen in Aki Province. During the Kamakura period Mōri was one of prominent Gokenin family due to the fame of their ancestor Hiromoto. At the end of Kamakura Shogunate, Mōri was distant from the Shogunate and showed a favorable attitude to Ashikaga Takauji.
During the war with the Oda clan and the Ikkō-ikki clan, the Mori helped the Ikkō-ikki clan by establishing a naval trade route between each others' provincial docks and harbours, the Oda eventually nullified this by laying siege to the trade ships between the two clans and went to further disrupt trade by attempting to destroy the Mōri fleet, failing on their first encounter in 1571, the second battle took place in 1579 with the Oda sending eight O' Ataka Bune (heavily armoured ships with iron-clad plating) warships to finally destroy the Mori naval threat.
After a struggle between Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who led his army as a general of Oda Nobunaga, the two sides made peace and Mori remained as a daimyo who kept five provinces in Chūgoku. In 1600 Mōri Terumoto led the West Army in the Battle of Sekigahara nominally. The West Army lost the battle and the Mōri clan lost three eastern provinces and moved their capital from Hiroshima to currentday Hagi, Yamaguchi. The newer fief, Mōri han consisted in two provinces: Nagato province and Suo province. Derived from the former, Mōri han was referred often Chōshū han.
Taken from Wikipedia
Late Hōjō clan (後北条氏 Go-Hōjō-shi ) was one of the most powerful warrior clans in Japan in the Sengoku period and held domains primarily in the Kantō region.
The clan is traditionally reckoned to be started by Ise Shinkurō, who came from a branch of the prestigious Ise clan, a family in the direct employment of the Ashikaga Shoguns. During the succession crisis in the 15th century, Shinkuro became associated with the Imagawa clan via the marriage of his sister to the Imagawa head, who led an army to Kyoto. Through this relationship Shinkuro quickly established a base of power in Kanto.
His son wanted his lineage to have a more illustrious name, and chose Hōjō, after the line of regents of the Kamakura shogunate, to which his wife also belonged. So he became Hōjō Ujitsuna, and his father, Ise Shinkurō, was posthumously renamed Hōjō Sōun.
The Late Hōjō, sometimes known as the Odawara Hōjō after their home castle of Odawara in Sagami Province, were not related to the earlier Hōjō clan. Their power rivaled that of the Tokugawa clan, but eventually Toyotomi Hideyoshi eradicated the power of the Hōjō in the Siege of Odawara (1590), banishing Hōjō Ujinao and his wife Toku Hime (a daughter of Tokugawa Ieyasu) to Mount Kōya, where Ujinao died in 1591. | <urn:uuid:650ae832-4ed9-474d-8f58-bcc71f6ccec4> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | https://www.commandsandcolors.net/samuraibattles/maps.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578527720.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20190419121234-20190419143234-00402.warc.gz | en | 0.969931 | 1,250 | 4.1875 | 4 |
Sun Tzu is better known to Chinese as Sun Zi, or Sun Wu. He is the author of The Art of War, an influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy.
Through this book, Sun has had a huge impact on Chinese and Asian history and culture. Since the 19th and 20th centuries, Sun's The Art of War has grew in popularity in Western society as well.
Sun Tzu lived in the Spring and Autumn Period of China (722–481 BCE) as a heroic general of the King of Wu. According to traditional sources, such as the 2nd century BCE biography written by Sima Qian, Sun was born in Qi (now Shandong Province) during the Spring and Autumn Period of China (722–481 BCE).
His real family name is Tian, but the last name of Sun was given by King of Qi State to his family when his grandfather, a general for Qi, won a big battle.
When Sun Tzu was young, his family was having trouble with some royal families, and he moved to Wu state and became a heroic general for the king of Wu, Helu. His victories then inspired him to write The Art of War.
Historians place the writing of The Art of War in the Warring States Period (476–221 BCE), based on its description of warfare. The period was a time of constant war among seven nations (Zhao, Qi, Qin, Chu, Han, Wei and Yan) seeking to control all of China.
The king of Wu tested Sun's skills by commanding him to train a harem of 180 concubines into soldiers.Here is a excerpt from Sun Wu and Wu Chi (both are great military geniuses) in The Record of the Historians by Sima Qian:
Sun Wu, a native of Qi, presented his work, The Art of War, to King He Lu of Wu and secured an audience with him.
I have read all thirteen chapters of your book," said the King. "Will you train my people on a small scale as an experiment for me to see?"
"Yes of course," replied Sun Wu.
"Will you try on women?"
"If you wish, sir."
The king sent him one hundred and eighty beauties from the palace and Sun Wu divided them into two companies with the King's two favorite concubines as their leaders. Then he tell them to hold halberds in theirs hands and asked,
"Do you know the front from the back and your left hand from your right?"
The women assured him they did.
"When I give the order to advance, go forward. At the order 'Left!' turn towards your left hand side, at 'Right!' turn towards your right hand side and "Retreat!" to turn back. Understand?"
They replied, "Yes. We understand all what you had said."
Having laid down these commands, Sun Wu had the executioners' swords and axes made ready and repeated his instructions time and again. Then with the beating of the drum, he gave the order "Turn right!" The women burst out into laughter without making any move.
Sun Wu said, "If the rules are not clear and the orders are not understood, the commander is to be blamed." So he repeated all the commands again in details, and he made sure that the women understood it. He beat the drum again and gave the order for a left turn. But once again, the women burst out laughing.
After seeing all this, he said, "If the rules are not clear and the orders are not understood, the commander is to blame. But when orders are given clearly yet not carried out, it is the officers who are to blame."
Immediately, he ordered that the two company leaders be executed.
The King, watching from his stand, was aghast to see that his favorites were about to be executed. He hurriedly sent a messenger to Sun Wu with the order against the execution.
"I can see that you are a competent general. But without these two concubines, my food and wine would lose all flavor. Please spare their life."
Sun Wu replied, "Since I have been appointed as the commander of the army, I am not bound by all orders from my sovereign."
So he had the two leaders beheaded as a warning to those who planned to disobey his orders. Then he appointed the pair next in order as new leaders. This time when the drum was beat, the women obeyed all his commands, not daring to utter a single word.
Then Sun Wu sent a message to the King informing that the troops are well trained and ready for inspection.
"You may go back and rest, I have no desire to inspect them."
Sun Wu said, "Your Majesty is interested in theories but not in practice."
King He Lu, convinced of Sun Wu's skill as a commander, later made him his general. In the west, Sun Wu defeated the powerful state of that time, Chu, and captured Ying, the capital of Chu. In the north, he struck terror into the states of Qi and Jin. His fame spread far and wide among the feudal lords.
Sima's biography claims that Sun Tzu later proved on the battlefield that his theories were effective, that he had a successful military career, and that he wrote The Art of War based on his tested expertise. His descendant, Sun Bin, also became a famous scholar of the military arts.
Sun's Story became a TV series. According to the TV version, one of the king's favorite concubines, who was beheaded by Sun during the training session (see above quoted text), had a younger sister. This sister tried to kill Sun when she was given to Sun as his second wife by the king. Later she and Sun developed a very close relationship.
Sun Tzu's The Art of War has influenced many notable figures. Traditional histories recount that the first emperor of a unified China, Qin Shi Huang, considered the book invaluable in ending the Age of Warring States.
The Princess of Chu, older sister of the king of Chu, chanllenged Sun again and again about why he wrote a book to help shed blood.
Japan was introduced to The Art of War c. 760 CE, and the book quickly became popular among Japan's generals. The publication also significantly influenced the unification of Japan. Mastery of its teachings was considered a mark of respect among the samurai, and its teachings were both exhorted and exemplified by influential samurai such as Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Historians popularly recount how French emperor Napoleon studied Sun's military writings and used them to successfully wage war against the rest of Europe. The emperor's disregard for central principles such as attentiveness to temporal conditions is largely credited for his eventual defeat in Russia. Admiral of the Fleet Togo Heihachiro, who led Japan's forces to victory against Russia in the Russo-Japanese War, was a famous disciple of The Art of War's teachings.
During the Gulf War in the 1990s, General Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. practiced Sun Tzu's principles of deception, speed, and attacking the enemy's weakness.
Mark McNeilly writes about Sun Tzu in Sun Tzu and the Art of Modern Warfare" target="_blank">the Art of Modern Warfare that a modern interpretation of Sun and his importance throughout Chinese history is critical in understanding China's push to becoming a superpower in the 21st century.
Modern Chinese scholars explicitly rely on historical strategic lessons and The Art of War in developing their theories, seeing a direct relationship between their modern struggles and those of China in Sun Tzu's time.
There is a great perceived value in Sun's teachings and other traditional Chinese writings, which are used regularly in developing the strategies of China and its leaders.
New York Pass With More than 50 Sttractions
Southern California CityPASS saves you 32% for Disneyland, Universal Studios and 3 other attractions | <urn:uuid:97b77c4b-1c49-4979-a2ab-7f4099820041> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | https://www.uchinavisa.com/sun-tzu.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578602767.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20190423114901-20190423140901-00557.warc.gz | en | 0.981991 | 1,650 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Mori Nagayoshi (森 長可, 1558-May 18, 1584) was a samurai of the Oda clan during the Sengoku era and the older brother of the famous Mori Ranmaru.
Nagayoshi was known for his very bad temper and ferocity in battle, so much so that he came to be called the "devil".
His favorite weapon was a jumonji-yari named Ningen Mukō, forged by Izumi no kami Kanesada. The name literally means that the blades of his spear are capable of piercing humans as if they had no bones.
During the battle of Nagashima, Nagayoshi killed at least 27 opponents and brought their heads to Oda Nobunaga, who immediately praised him, even though he was known to be stingy with compliments.
It goes without saying that this weapon was strongly linked to his warrior reputation. His father Mori Yoshinari was also known as a master with this type of weapon.
His involvement with Toyotomi Hideyoshi during the difficult battle of Komaki and Nagakute cost him his life during the battle of Nagakute. | <urn:uuid:7e2cf03c-f012-4764-82c9-1a6e38404b67> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://thejapanbox.com/blogs/japanese-samurai/mori-nagayoshi | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652663048462.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20220529072915-20220529102915-00336.warc.gz | en | 0.992171 | 246 | 2.78125 | 3 |
|History of Japan|
This period is called Azuchi-Momoyama because there were two great centers of power during this time. One was Oda Nobunaga's castle at Azuchi near Lake Biwa. The other was Toyotomi Hideyoshi's castle at Momoyama near Kyoto.
Timeline[change | change source]
- 1568 (Eiroku 11): Nobunaga entered Kyoto
- 1573 (Genki 4): Oda Nobunaga causes the Ashikaga Yoshiaki to flee Kyoto; the Ashikaga shogunate is ended
- 1592 (Bunroku 1): Hideyoshi invaded Korea., This event was known as Bunroku-Keichō no Eki and it was also known as the Imjin War.
- 1615 ( Keichō 20): Battle of Osaka (Osaka Natsu no Jin)
Culture[change | change source]
The times when Toyotomi grasped the government are called Momoyama period (桃山時代 Momoyama-jidai), and the culture that prospered mainly on this time is called Momoyama culture (桃山文化 Momoyama-bunka).
A new merchant class grew in cities at this time. Consumption and luxurious culture increased among the wealthy.
Trade with the West was influential Francisco Xavier visited Japan.
References[change | change source]
- Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Momoyama-jidai" in Japan Encyclopedia, p. 656; excerpt, "... a historical and artistic period from 1568 or 1573 to 1615, during which Japan was controlled by military ditators ...."
- Nussbaum, "Azuchi-Momoyama" at p. 64; excerpt, "This name is given to the "dictator's period," from 1582 to 1600 (or from 1574 to 1615, depending on the writer) ...."
- Nussbaum, "Azuchi" at p. 64.
- Nussbaum, "Fushimi" at p. 224.
- Nussbaum, "Ashikaga Yoshiaki" at p. 55.
- Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Annales des empereurs du japon, p. 391.
- Nussbaum, "Honnō-ji" at p. 350.
- Titsingh, p. 399.
- Titsingh, p. 405.
- Nussbaum, "Bunroku Keichō no Eki" at 92.
- Titsingh, p. 405.
- Titisngh, p. 409.
- Hall, John Whitney. (1991). Japan: From Prehistory to Modern Times, p. 359.
- Sansom, George Bailey. (1961). A History of Japan, 1334-1615, p. 398.
Other websites[change | change source]
Media related to Azuchi-Momoyama period at Wikimedia Commons | <urn:uuid:f6982b60-8d0c-4959-8184-b6e551d38227> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azuchi-Momoyama_period | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578526228.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20190418181435-20190418203435-00508.warc.gz | en | 0.845933 | 659 | 3.984375 | 4 |
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