Misplaced Pages

#129870

69-612: The Ekotoba was created under the supervision of Suwa (or Kosaka ) Enchū (諏訪（小坂）円忠, 1295-1364), a member of a cadet branch of the Suwa clan , originally a priestly lineage of one of the component shrines of the Grand Shrine of Suwa , the Upper Shrine or Kamisha that had, by the Kamakura period , took up arms and became a clan of warriors . Enchū was originally an officer or bugyō under

138-466: A Vairocana and appeared as Ryūjin of the vast blue seas. My lord ( Emperor Go-Daigo ) is her descendant, and drifts upon waves of the western sea due to rebels. I Yoshisada, in an attempt to serve as a worthy subject, will pick up my axes and face the enemy line. That desire is to aid the nation and bring welfare to the masses. Ryūjin of the Eight Protectorate Gods of the (seven) Inner Seas and

207-533: A body and so make this priest ( hōri ) my body." This [boy] is Arikazu (有員), the priest of the sacred robe (御衣祝 Misogihōri ), the founding ancestor of the Miwa (Jin) clan. However, a brief text attached to a genealogical record of the Suwa clan discovered in the Ōhōri 's residence in 1884 instead portrays Arikazu as a descendant of Kumako (神子 or 熊子), a son of a kuni no miyatsuko (provincial governor) of Shinano Province , who

276-415: A difficult position during this turbulent period due to a conflict of interest, his position at the court clashing with his familial ties as a member of the Suwa clan. Leaving Kyoto to go to his ancestral land, he set about redeeming the good name of the Upper Shrine's ōhōri and ensuring that the prestige the shrines of Suwa enjoyed in the past be revived and continue under the new state of affairs. Enlisting

345-520: A low tide and moved his men in through the beaches to the south, but according to the Taiheiki , he threw his sword into the surf and prayed to Ryūjin , who parted the waters for him. In describing this event, Japanese sources say Nitta Yoshisada prayed to a sea-god or Ryūjin ; English sources almost always refer to Sun Goddess Amaterasu. The Taiheiki ( 稲村崎成干潟事 ) says: Dismounting from his horse, Yoshisada removed his helmet and prostrating himself across

414-619: A new set of engi emaki as a replacement for these lost scrolls. In composing the main text, Enchū researched both the official chronicles, namely the Nihon Shoki and the Sendai Kuji Hongi (at the time still considered to be of venerable antiquity on par with the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki ), as well as local sources. He also made use of various tales and legends concerning Suwa Shrine. He

483-579: A pagoda built in every province in Japan . It is thought that Enchū exerted an influence over the location of Shinano Province's Ankoku-ji : rather than being situated in the provincial capital (the modern city of Matsumoto ), the temple was instead built near one of the two sub-shrines of the Kamisha , the Maemiya (modern Chino City ), where the Suwa ōhōri then resided. Illustrated scrolls ( emakimono ) depicting

552-618: A sanctuary at the foot of the mountain at the southern side of the lake. Another genealogical record, that of the Aso clan ( 阿蘇氏 ) of Aso Shrine in Kyushu (discovered in 1956), similarly identifies Otoei (乙頴) - there given the alias 'Kumako' - as the " Ōhōri of the great deity of Suwa" (諏訪大神大祝) and narrates the same legend as those found above. Recent reappraisals of these two genealogies, however, have cast doubt on their authenticity and reliability as historical sources. Apart from these candidates,

621-417: A violent quarrel with Minamoto no Yoshimitsu 's men during a feast held by the latter was considered to be divine punishment for his violation of the ban. Due to the circumstances of his father's death, Tamenaka's son, Tamemori (為盛) did not inherit the office of ōhōri , it instead passing in succession to Tamenaka's three younger brothers, two of whom died within mere days of their investiture. It would be

690-461: Is claimed to have founded the Upper Shrine during the reign of Emperor Yōmei (585-587). When Kumako was eight years old, the revered deity appeared, took off his robe and put them on Kumako. After declaring, "I do not have a body and so make you my body," he disappeared. This [Kumako] is the ancestor of Arikazu of the Miwa (Jin) clan, the Misogihōri . In the second year of Emperor Yōmei, Kumako built

759-556: Is now the Tōhoku region ; in thanksgiving, Tamuramaro was said to have instituted the religious festivities of the shrines of Suwa. During the Kamakura period , the Suwa clan's association with the shogunate and the Hōjō clan helped further cement Suwa Myōjin's reputation as a war god. The shrines of Suwa and the priestly clans thereof flourished under the patronage of the Hōjō, which promoted devotion to

SECTION 10

#1732873203130

828-736: Is often blamed for the split between the Northern and Southern Courts , as he fought against the Ashikaga and for the emperor, Emperor Go-Daigo . This rivalry came largely from the fact that the Ashikaga were ranked above the Nitta, despite their being descended from a younger ancestor; since the ancestors of the Nitta did not fight alongside their Minamoto cousins in the Genpei War , they were never accorded power or prestige at Kamakura. In 1331, after being ordered by

897-462: Is said to have lived in the early Heian period during the reigns of the emperors Kanmu (reigned 781-806), Heizei (806-809), and Saga (809-823), to be this child. The Suwa Daimyōjin Ekotoba (1356) for example relates: At the beginning of the god's manifestation , he took off his robe, put them on an eight year old boy, and dubbed him 'great priest' ( Ōhōri ). The god declared, "I do not have

966-464: Is supposed to have drawn his short sword and cut off his own head. Record has it that a number of his fellow samurai committed junshi seppuku nearby, in a show of allegiance. Yoshisada died on August 17, 1338. Dismounting from his horse, Yoshisada removed his helmet and prostrating himself across the distant seas prayed to Ryūjin . "It is said that the lord of Japan from the beginning, Amaterasu Ōmikami , enshrined at Ise Jingū , hid herself within

1035-415: Is the place where, according to tradition, he threw his golden sword into the waves, praying the sea-god to withdraw them and let him pass. (Erected in 1917) The city was taken, and the Hōjō clan's influence destroyed. Following the fall of Kamakura (and of the Hōjō regency), Yoshisada was appointed governor of Echigo and vice-governor of Harima and Kōzuke Provinces, as Emperor Go-Daigo redistributed

1104-509: The bakufu (shogunate) to join an army at the Chihaya fortress, Nitta was ordered by Prince Morinaga and Emperor Go-Daigo to strike at the Hōjō, so he left his post. Returning to his home province of Kozuke, Yoshisada rallied the aid of other descendants and vassals, including his brother Yoshisuke of the Minamoto clan, and began to march toward Kamakura through Musashi . On the approaches to

1173-621: The Gōdono (神殿). Reflecting its being the residence of an incarnate deity, the Maemiya area and its vicinity was known during the Middle Ages as the Gōbara (神原), the 'god's field'. Should an incumbent Ōhōri die while in office, his corpse was immediately brought before the Uchi-no-mitama-den where he was ceremonially retired - the idea being that the Ōhōri 's spirit was temporarily deposited in

1242-467: The Hōjō clan in 1333. Later, he fought the Ashikaga brothers on the Emperor's behalf in a see-saw campaign which saw the capital change hands several times. After a peaceful compromise was agreed, Yoshisada was entrusted with two royal princes. At the siege of Kanegasaki (1337) , both princes were killed, along with Yoshisada's son, although Yoshisada was able to escape. He committed seppuku when his horse

1311-538: The Hōjō clan , which the Suwa served as vassals or miuchibito at the time. After the fall of the Hōjō, Enchū moved from Kamakura to Kyoto , where he served under Emperor Go-Daigo 's court as a yoriudo (寄人) or clerk in the Court of Pleas (雑訴決断所 Zasso Ketsudansho , also 'Court of Miscellaneous Claims'), which handled minor lawsuits. The deity of the Suwa Kamisha , Suwa (Dai)myōjin (諏訪（大）明神), commonly identified with

1380-522: The Jinchōkan dressed the boy in full ritual attire: traditional makeup ( oshiroi , ohaguro , beni and mayuzumi ), a dull yellow-green sokutai , a hakama , and a crown ( kanmuri ). The Jinchōkan then summoned the Mishaguji (who as a nature spirit was believed to manifest on rocks and trees ) to the kanameishi via secret incantations . Via the rock, the Mishaguji was then believed to enter

1449-484: The Maemiya to a place in what is now Nakasu, Suwa City . In the meantime, other male members of the clan aside from the ōhōri - who cannot step outside the boundaries of the region, as well as come into contact with sources of impurity such as the flesh and blood of men or horses - began to pursue military careers. One of the first recorded warriors from the clan was Tamenaka (為仲), a son of then ōhōri Tamenobu (為信). Tamenaka served under Minamoto no Yoshiie during

SECTION 20

#1732873203130

1518-455: The Minamoto ( Seiwa Genji ) clan). The Suwa were themselves regarded as the most influential among the shogunate's vassals . The Suwa clan suffered a heavy setback at the downfall of the Hōjō and the shogunate itself in 1333, when Ashikaga Takauji, a chief general of the Hōjō, switched sides and began to support Emperor Go-Daigo against the shogunate. Testifying to the close connections between

1587-651: The Takeda clan , during the Sengoku period (which ended in the extinction of the main family), by the Edo period the clan had split into two branches: one ruling the Suwa Domain of Shinano as daimyō , with the other continuing to serve as priests of Suwa Shrine until the Meiji period . Although the Suwa, which was the high priestly lineage of the Upper Shrine (上社 Kamisha ) of Suwa, one of

1656-478: The Zenkunen War (1051-1063) under the orders of his father, who could not participate himself due to his priestly status. He then also served again under Yoshiie in the later Gosannen War of the 1080s, this time despite opposition from his family due to him already inheriting the position of ōhōri from Tamenobu in the interim between the two wars. Tamenaka's eventual suicide out of shame after his subordinates had

1725-410: The siege of Kanegasaki (1337) . Nitta escaped, but his son Nitta Yoshiaki and the princes were eventually killed. Nitta's death was as remarkable as his life. While Nitta was fighting in the siege of Kuromaru against Hosokawa Akiuji , an ally of Takauji, his horse was felled by arrow fire. Nitta, pinned under the dead horse and unable to move, was an easy target for archers. As a final act, Nitta

1794-461: The Ōhōri as the god's incarnation in a letter to his subordinates, declaring that the Ōhōri 's orders are those of the god himself. The Ōhōri was expected to live a life of ritual purity and was also forbidden to step outside the boundaries of Suwa region under pain of divine punishment. During his term of office, the Ōhōri originally resided in a building near the Suwa Maemiya known as

1863-469: The Ōhōri made a ritual declaration (申立 mōshitate ) that he has become the god's new 'body' and will henceforth avoid impurity . As time went on the ritual became increasingly simplified and later, was supposedly even omitted altogether, with the ōhōri simply assuming the position without any ceremony. During his term, the incumbent Ōhōri was treated as the physical manifestation of Suwa Daimyōjin. In 1186, Minamoto no Yoritomo officially recognized

1932-662: The Hōjō lands. He took the Seiwa Genji heirloom Higekiri and the Tenka-Goken Onimaru Kunitsuna. During the following few years, Nitta Yoshisada's rivalry with Ashikaga Takauji and his brother Ashikaga Tadayoshi came to a head, with an imperial commission to destroy the two brothers issued in 1335. The two armies fought a number of battles, starting at the Yahagi River on December and ending at Mishima later that month. Yoshisada's forces were eventually defeated and

2001-568: The Nakasendai Rebellion ( 中千代の乱 ) - all committed suicide in Kamakura. Tokitsugu's son who inherited the office of ōhōri , Yoritsugu (頼継), was stripped from his position and replaced by Fujisawa Masayori (藤沢政頼), who hailed from a cadet branch of the clan. Now declared an enemy of the imperial throne, Yoritsugu went into hiding. Upon his successful retaking of Kamakura, Takauji began to turn against Go-Daigo, granting land to his retainers without

2070-599: The Northern Court inscribed the title on the labels (外題 gedai ) of each scroll, while Ashikaga Takauji wrote afterwords at the end of each volume. The ten-volume work was finally completed in 1356 ( Enbun 1) after ten years of production. The scrolls were kept in Kyoto under the possession of Enchū's descendants. In mid-1442 ( Kakitsu 2), Enchū's fourth-generation descendant, Suwa Shōgen Chūsei (諏訪将監忠政), exhibited these to courtier Nakahara Yasutomi (中原康富) and certain others. Later

2139-436: The Suwa Kamisha 's ōhōri or high priest believed to be the physical manifestation of Suwa Myōjin during his term of office. In July–August 1335, the Suwa and other clans who remained loyal to the Hōjō, led by Tokiyuki, instigated an armed rebellion with the intention of reestablishing the Kamakura shogunate, which was quashed by Takauji; Yorishige, Tokitsugu, and some others who participated in this uprising – later known as

Suwa Daimyōjin Ekotoba - Misplaced Pages Continue

2208-410: The Upper Shrine. In another myth, the god is said to have chosen an eight-year-old boy to become his priest (祝, hōri ; historical orthography : hafuri ) and living incarnation by clothing the latter with his own garments. This boy is eventually said to have become the founding ancestor of the Suwa clan. Medieval tradition usually identified a semi-legendary individual named Arikazu (有員), who

2277-451: The abolition of the han system during the Meiji period . Meanwhile, the establishment of State Shinto abolished the tradition of hereditary succession among Shinto priesthood, including that of Suwa Grand Shrine. Local clans such as the Suwa lost control of the shrine's traditional priestly offices (which in turn became defunct) as government appointees began to manage the shrine, which passed under state control. The last Suwa ōhōri ,

2346-486: The approval of the emperor. In 1336, Takauji defeated pro-imperialists Nitta Yoshisada and Kusunoki Masashige in the Battle of Minatogawa and drove Go-Daigo out of Kyoto. Setting up his own military government in the capital, Takauji then installed a new emperor in opposition to Go-Daigo's court. Thus began a conflict that would lead to the rise of two rival imperial courts . Enchū, naturally, apparently found himself in

2415-726: The area encompassing Lake Suwa in Shinano Province (modern-day Nagano Prefecture ), it was originally a family of priests who served at the Upper Shrine of Suwa located on the southwestern side of the lake. By the Kamakura period , it thrived as a prominent samurai clan with close ties to the shogunate . Surviving the fall of both the Kamakura shogunate and the Southern Imperial Court which it supported, its feud with local rival clans, and frequent clashes with its neighbor in Kai ,

2484-551: The brothers advanced upon Kyoto. The Ashikagas were able to capture Kyoto for a few days in February 1336, before help arrived for Yoshisada and Kusunoki from Prince Norinaga and Prince Takanaga . In April 1336 Nitta attacked Akamatsu Norimura in Harima Province . He kept up the investment of Akamatsu's strongholds at Shirohata and Mitsuishi until June, when he retreated in the face of advances by Tadayoshi's army. Yoshisada

2553-401: The child's body, thereby turning him into a living god . After being consecrated, the Ōhōri visited the various shrines of the Upper Shrine complex. In another shrine in the Maemiya area, the Uchi-no-mitama-den (内御霊殿), wherein was kept the sacred treasures of the Upper Shrine (a bell, a mirror , a bit and a saddle ) that were supposedly brought to the region by Suwa Daimyōjin himself,

2622-619: The city, Nitta enjoyed some early victories, routing the Hōjō defenders and pursuing them towards the city. Except for its coastline, Kamakura is surrounded by steep hills, making an overland attack difficult. Nitta first tried to enter through the Gokurakuji Pass and the Kewaizaka Pass , but strong Hōjō forces stopped him. Judging it's impossible to enter by land, Nitta decided to try by sea, bypassing Inamuragasaki Cape on Sagami Bay , west of Kamakura . Once there, Nitta took advantage of

2691-474: The clan has also been claimed to descend from the Seiwa Genji via Minamoto no Mitsuyasu (one of the sons of Minamoto no Tsunemoto ). In antiquity, the Suwa clan produced the Upper Shrine (上社 Kamisha ) of Suwa's high priest known as the Ōhōri (大祝 'great priest', old orthography : おほはふり Ohohafuri ; also rendered as Ōhafuri ), who was worshiped as the living avatar of the shrine's deity during his period in office. The Ōhōri , who traditionally assumed

2760-427: The component shrines of Suwa Grand Shrine , traditionally regarded themselves to be the descendants of the shrine's deity , Takeminakata (also known as Suwa Daimyōjin ), the clan's actual historical origins are shrouded in mystery. In the Kojiki and the Sendai Kuji Hongi , Takeminakata is portrayed as a son of the god Ōkuninushi who fled to Suwa after his defeat at the hands of the god Takemikazuchi , who

2829-428: The day of the ceremony itself, the Jinchōkan led the candidate by the hand before a sacred tree west of the Gōdono (神殿), the Ōhōri 's residence during his term located west of the Maemiya , under which was a flat rock known as the kanameishi (要石 'keystone'). During the ceremony, this rock is surrounded a makeshift enclosure or hut and a mat of reeds was placed over it for the boy to sit on. Inside this enclosure,

Suwa Daimyōjin Ekotoba - Misplaced Pages Continue

2898-674: The defeat of the Southern Imperial Court (which the clan supported) during the Nanboku-chō period . During the Muromachi period , the Suwa were involved both in a feud with the Kanasashi clan of the Shimosha which supported the Northern Court , and interclan strife between the head family (惣領家 sōryō-ke ) and the ōhōri-ke (大祝家), a branch of the clan that had come to assume the priestly duties. With

2967-407: The defeat of the Kanasashi and the head family's reattainment of the position of ōhori , the clan became a regional power , clashing with the Takeda clan - originally their allies - during the Sengoku period . The clan again suffered a setback with Suwa Yorishige 's defeat in the hands of Takeda Shingen (who was, ironically, a staunch devotee of Suwa-myōjin) in 1542 and with his suicide in 1544,

3036-534: The defective page order of the original. The text of the Gon-hōri-bon itself has been published in a number of anthologies, with the defect in the manuscript usually corrected. The Bonshun manuscript, meanwhile, is the basis for the text published by Koten Bunko in 1971. Kanai (1982) features the text of the Bonshun and Gon-hōri manuscripts compared with each other. A Shinto-Buddhist liturgical eulogy (講式 kōshiki ) to

3105-408: The distant seas prayed to Ryūjin . "It is said that the lord of Japan from the beginning, Amaterasu Ōmikami , enshrined at Ise Jingū , hid herself within a Vairocana and appeared as Ryūjin of the vast blue seas. My lord ( Emperor Go-Daigo ) is her descendant, and drifts upon waves of the western sea due to rebels. I Yoshisada, in an attempt to serve as a worthy subject, will pick up my axes and face

3174-621: The enemy line. That desire is to aid the nation and bring welfare to the masses. Ryūjin of the Eight Protectorate Gods of the (seven) Inner Seas and the Outer Sea, witness this subject's loyalty and withdraw the waters afar, open a path to the lines of the three armies. He therefore speaks to Ryūjin who, he has heard, is a manifestation of Amaterasu. The stele at Sode no Ura ( 袖の浦 ) , the tiny bay west of Inamuragaki, says: 666 years ago on May 21, 1333 Nitta Yoshisada, judging an invasion on land to be difficult, decided to try to bypass this cape. This

3243-518: The extinction of the main family; his cousin Yoritada (諏訪頼忠, 1536-1606), who succeeded Yorishige's younger brother Yoritaka (諏訪頼高, 1528-1542) as ōhōri , was spared. After the Takeda was destroyed by an alliance of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu , Yoritada allied himself with the latter, who eventually reinstated Yoritada in his family domain in 1601. Yoritada's eldest son, Yorimizu (頼水, 1571-1641) became

3312-608: The fifteenth since Yorihiro, died in 2002 with no heirs. Nitta Yoshisada Nitta Yoshisada ( 新田 義貞 , 1301 – August 17, 1338) also known as Minamoto no Yoshisada was a samurai lord of the Nanboku-chō period Japan. He was the head of the Nitta clan in the early fourteenth century, and supported the Southern Court of Emperor Go-Daigo in the Nanboku-chō period. He famously marched on Kamakura , besieging and capturing it from

3381-477: The first daimyō to rule Suwa Domain , with the office of ōhōri passing down to his fourth son, Yorihiro (頼広). With this, the clan effectively split into two branches: the daimyō line and the ōhōri line. To distinguish themselves from the daimyō line, the priestly line altered one of the Chinese characters of their surname (from 諏 訪 to 諏 方 ). All in all, ten generations served as daimyō of Suwa Domain until

3450-518: The fourth and fifth volumes – were added to the collection, for a total of twelve. While the original twelve scrolls containing the illustrations are now lost, the text is preserved in a number of manuscripts. Some of these are: The earliest printed edition of the Ekotoba is that included in the Zoku Gunsho Ruijū , volume 73. This edition is based on late copies of the Gon-hōri-bon that reflect

3519-583: The god Takeminakata recorded in both the Kojiki (720 CE) and the later Sendai Kuji Hongi (807-936 CE, aka Kujiki ), was worshipped as a god of warfare since the Heian period , as attested to by a 12th-century song anthology, the Ryōjin Hishō . A popular legend claimed that the god appeared to the 8th-century general Sakanoue no Tamuramaro and assisted him in his subjugation of the Emishi peoples who lived in what

SECTION 50

#1732873203130

3588-452: The god as a sign of loyalty to the shogunate. For their part, the Hōjō, a clan of obscure origins who lacked an ancestral kami ( ujigami ) of their own, looked upon Suwa Myōjin as the closest thing they had to a guardian deity. Suwa branch shrines became numerous all across Japan, especially in territories held by clans devoted to the god (for instance, the Kantō region , traditional stronghold of

3657-596: The god of Suwa known as the Suwa Daimyōjin Kōshiki (諏方大明神講式), surviving in a late 15th century manuscript transcribed in Kōzan-ji in Kyoto, is believed to have been composed by Enchū around the same time as the Ekotoba . Suwa clan The Suwa clan ( 諏訪氏 , Suwa-shi ) , also known as the Jin or Miwa clan (神氏, Miwa uji / Miwa-shi or Jinshi ) was a Japanese shake and samurai family. Originating from

3726-515: The help of both the Ogasawara clan of Shinano and the Takeda clan of Kai , he deposed Masayori from the high priesthood and put Yoritsugu's younger brother, Nobutsugu (信嗣), in his place. Enchū strove to secure the Ashikaga shogunate's support of the shrines of Suwa and to get back shrine landholdings that had been appropriated by disaffected samurai. By 1338 ( Ryakuō 1), Enchū was back in Kyoto, Zen master Musō Soseki (adviser and close confidant to

3795-436: The historical record. However, one copy of the text made in 1601 may suggest that the work was still extant as late as the beginning of the 17th century. The work originally spanned ten scrolls: the first three were devoted to the engi of Suwa Shrine, while the other seven described the yearly religious festivals of the shrine (mostly that of the Kamisha ) by season. Some time afterwards, a further two scrolls of engi  –

3864-494: The position at a young age (ideally between the ages of eight to fifteen), was assisted by five priests headed by the Jinchōkan (神長官) of the Moriya clan, who oversaw the Upper Shrine's religious rituals, many of which are centered around the worship of agricultural and fertility god(s) called Mishaguji . The Jinchōkan was believed to have the prerogative to summon the Mishaguji onto individuals and objects whenever its presence

3933-415: The religious institutions themselves and were at times even considered to be sacred. Suwa Shrine originally also had an emaki of its own that apparently depicted the shrine's religious ceremonies; this scroll (or scrolls), however, have already disappeared during the 14th century. Enchū, who have been thinking of another means to promote devotion to the god of Suwa and his shrine, thus decided to commission

4002-405: The respective foundation legends ( engi ) of various important shrines and temples and related anecdotes ( setsuwa ) were popular in medieval Japan. Intended to showcase the history and/or the religious rites of the shrine or temple in question as well as to advertise the powers and benefits of the god or buddha enshrined there, such picture scrolls were produced either by patrons or worshipers or

4071-511: The same year, the scrolls were temporarily loaned to be shown to the then Fushimi-no-miya and his son, Emperor Go-Hanazono . Records from this time such as Nakahara's diary consistently refer to the Suwa Engi as comprising twelve volumes, suggesting that two more scrolls were added to the work in the interim. A possible passing reference to the Suwa Engi still being in Kyoto occurs in 1585 ( Tenshō 14 ), after which they completely vanish from

4140-456: The shrine until a new candidate was chosen. Originally, the deceased priest was buried wearing hunting attire (such as that supposedly worn by Suwa Daimyōjin) and with hair and beard kept unshaven. However, in 1465, with the death of then Ōhōri Yorinaga (頼長), the local priesthood began to adopt the Buddhist custom of cremation . By the early 17th century, the Ōhōri 's residence was moved from

4209-450: The two Ashikaga brothers, Takauji and Tadayoshi ) securing him a position within the Ashikaga shogunate. While in the capital, Enchū continued to promote devotion to Suwa Myōjin. In 1339, he was appointed overseer of the construction of Tenryū-ji , which was meant to function as a mortuary temple ( bodaiji ) for Go-Daigo, who died that year. At Soseki's persuasion, Takauji had a temple ( Ankoku-ji , "Temple for National Pacification") and

SECTION 60

#1732873203130

4278-454: The warrior families of the Suwa region and the Hōjō is the fact that many members of the Suwa clan present in Kamakura during the siege of the city in 1333 committed suicide alongside Hōjō Takatoki . Takatoki's son, the young Tokiyuki , sought refuge in Shinano with Suwa Yorishige (諏訪頼重, not to be confused with the Sengoku period daimyō of the same name ) and his son, Tokitsugu (時継),

4347-422: The youngest brother, Tamesada (為貞), who would turn out to successfully pass down the priesthood to his progeny. By the Kamakura period , the clan - now renowned as being both a priestly and a warrior clan - rose to national prominence as vassals ( gokenin ) of the shogunate and later, flourished greatly under the patronage of the Hōjō clan . The clan's fortunes waned with the fall of the Kamakura shogunate and

4416-586: Was assisted in this task by Yoshida Kanetoyo (吉田兼豊), then senior assistant director (神祇大輔 jingi taifu ) of the Department of Divinities , via a friend in the court, aristocrat and statesman Tōin Kinkata ( 洞院公賢 , 1291-1360). The actual scrolls themselves were written and illustrated by some of the best high-ranking calligraphers and artists of the age such as Prince Son'en ( 尊円親王 , 1298-1356), son of Emperor Fushimi and abbot of Shōren-in in Kyoto. Emperor Go-Kōgon of

4485-480: Was called for. Though officially the Upper Shrine's chief priest and as incarnate deity, an object of worship, the Suwa Ōhōri had little, if any, actual power over the shrine's affairs, which rested in the hands of the Moriya Jinchōkan , with his unique relationship to the Mishaguji and his knowledge of closely guarded secret traditions passed down via word of mouth only to the heir to the office. In fact, it

4554-425: Was defeated in the Battle of Minatogawa allowing Takauji to occupy Kyoto once again. Nitta retreated with the emperor to Hieizan . Eventually, on November 13, 1336, the emperor agreed with Takauji's offers to return to Kyoto . Before he did so, he entrusted Nitta with escorting Prince Takanaga and Prince Tsunenaga to Echizen Province . They made it as far as a loyalist stronghold, where they had to endure

4623-427: Was due to the Jinchōkan summoning the Mishaguji onto the Ōhōri during the investiture ceremony that the latter became a living deity. The full rite of investiture into the office of Ōhōri as practiced in the late medieval period involved the candidate first undergoing a twenty-two day period of strict ritual purification in the Maemiya (前宮 'old shrine'), one of the Upper Shrine's two component shrines. During

4692-480: Was killed at the siege of Kuromaru . Yoshisada was born in 1301, the eldest son of Nitta Tomouji. He succeeded his father and became the lord of Nitta Manor in Kōzuke Province in 1317. At this time, he also became the head of the Nitta clan . Yoshisada courted a daughter of a court noble, Kōtō-Naishi (匂当内侍), and married her through the emperor's mediation. Long an enemy of Ashikaga Takauji , Nitta Yoshisada

4761-403: Was sent by the gods of heaven to claim the land held by his father in the name of the goddess Amaterasu . Other myths (mostly of medieval provenance), however, portray the Suwa deity in a different light. In one story, Suwa Daimyōjin is an interloper who wrested control of Suwa from the indigenous god Moriya , the mythical ancestor of the Moriya (守矢氏) clan, one of the priestly families of

#129870