Tenryu-ji. Norris Brock Johnson
constructed a complex with Shintō-inspired features such as torii, waterways, extensive stands of bamboo, and the Shrine of Perfect Virtue. Emperor Go-Saga initiated construction of an elaborate settlement in Sagano, and altered the land through the planting of trees as well as the construction of a comparatively large pond garden. Go-Saga also altered the Ōi River to direct water into his villa and under and through several of its buildings. The affecting presence of cherry trees transplanted from Yoshino in particular was a profound alteration of the land and resulted in a lasting dramatic impact upon the visual landscape.
These alterations of the land, the defining of a human-created landscape, were cumulative in their effects and affects. Each alteration contributed to the character of the later landscape within which the Temple of the Heavenly Dragon will emerge.
The significance (religious significance, for the most part) of the land itself will be ongoing. The sensate colors and textures of the human-created visual landscape also will continue aesthetically and emotionally to touch those privileged to experience the region west of the City of Purple Hills and Crystal Streams.
2
DEATH, DREAM, AND THE GENESIS OF A TEMPLE
The Temple of the Heavenly Dragon was not parented by aesthetic and religious sensibilities, exclusively. Generations of brutal conflict flowed across the mountains and plains west of the City of Purple Hills and Crystal Streams. Fear and violence, betrayal and atonement, and compassion, also were constituent aspects of the birth of the Temple of the Heavenly Dragon and the life of the pond garden.
Nearly half a century had passed since the Saga emperorship. Four people of influence subsequently appeared who will directly influence the birth of Tenryū-ji: Emperor Go-Daigo (1288–1339); the brothers Tadayoshi (1306–52) and Takauji (1305–58) of the Ashikaga, a branch of the Minamoto clan of families; and the venerable priest Musō Soseki (1275–1351). Along with religious belief and aesthetic sensibilities, we will discover sharp shards of suffering strewn about our archaeology of the Temple of the Heavenly Dragon.
Emperor and Shōgun
Emperors continued to claim authority for the divine right to rule imperially, through societal belief in the descent of emperors from the Shintō deity Amaterasu-o-mi-Kami. Yet, imperial rule increasingly was challenged by aristocratic families and by the appointed administrators (regents) of lands, provinces, outlying Kyōto.
Revolts in the provinces against imperial authority were frequent. As a repercussion of a decisive revolt in 1185, in 1192 Yoritomo of the Minamoto clan of families declared himself Seii Taishōgun (“Barbarian-Subduing General”). Yoritomo established the seat of his military regime (bakufu) in Kamakura, thereby challenging the authority of the court of emperors in Kyōto. With the death of Yoritomo in 1199, clans of aristocratic families, the Hōjō especially, and subsequent shōgun, continued to challenge the rule of emperors for the next several centuries.
In April of 1318, Crown Prince Takaharu ascended to the throne in Kyōto as Emperor Go-Daigo. In 1326, Hōjō in Kamakura “requested” that Go-Daigo assume the position of Titular Emperor, an impotent position without influence, so that an emperor of Hōjō choosing could be installed on the throne in Kyōto. Go-Daigo wanted to restore the power of emperors, weakened over the last several hundred years. Go-Daigo rebuffed the direct challenge to imperial rule and right of succession and began a series of attacks on Kamakura.
In 1331, Takatoki of the Hōjō sent thousands of soldiers to Kyōto in response to Go-Daigo’s continuing attacks on Kamakura. Informed of the forces riding against him, Go-Daigo and many of his loyalists fled Kyōto and retreated southward to a monastery on Mount Kasagi. Soldiers from Kamakura pursued Go-Daigo and, though met with force by warrior-monks loyal to Go-Daigo, the monastery on Mount Kasagi was seized then razed. Go-Daigo managed to escape but was captured in 1332 and exiled to the island of Chiburi (present-day island of Oki). The military regime in Kamakura then installed young Prince Kazuhito (Emperor Kōgon, 1313–64) to the imperial throne in Kyōto.
In 1333, Go-Daigo escaped from the island of Chiburi as loyalists began military campaigns to restore the emperor’s rule in Kyōto. Prince Daito [Morinaga, the eldest son of Go-Daigo], his son Akamatsu Norimura, Nitta Yoshisada, and Takauji of the Ashikaga led large armies in attacks around Kyōto and in Kamakura on forces loyal to the Hōjō and the military regime, such that “by afternoon the sky was full of smoke … there was no daylight [in Kamakura]. It was as if the scene had been rubbed over with ink.”1 Returning to Kyōto as emperor, Go-Daigo initiated the Kenmu Restoration and Era [Kenmu no Shinsei, 1333–36], a short-lived period meant to solidify imperial rule.
The power of the emperor, though, remained weakened. Go-Daigo had to depend on military men, such as Takauji and Tadayoshi, for control of lands under imperial rule.
Takauji of the Ashikaga initially had provided military support for the Hōjō, to which his family was related by marriage. Takauji led one of the wealthiest and most influential families in the provinces east of Kyōto. Hōjō regents named him a constable, placed a sizeable military force at his command, and ordered him to march against Go-Daigo, then in Kyōto. Takauji, though, sensed the eventual demise of the Hōjō and subsequently changed allegiance. He placed his army at the disposal of loyalists campaigning for restoration of imperial rule under Go-Daigo.
Go-Daigo then dispatched Takauji to quell a rebellion in Kamakura. Takauji followed the orders of the emperor and marched to Kamakura where he quelled the forces of rebellion against imperial rule. Soldiers such as Takauji, though, expected spoils of war rather than leadership of ceaseless military campaigns as reward for supporting emperors. Takauji desired control of provincial lands to the east of Kyōto. He coveted the title of shōgun. Takauji initially had asked Go-Daigo to appoint him shōgun, but Go-Daigo denied his request, as he did not want to encourage potential challenges to the authority of emperors.
In 1335–36, Takauji seized control of Kamakura, routed the last of the Hōjō regents and the bakufu and had himself appointed shōgun. He then began to distribute land to his officers, undermining Go-Daigo’s authority to command imperial lands and soldiers. Go-Daigo branded him a traitor and sent punitive expeditions to Kamakura to rout Takauji and his army.
At roughly the same time, Nitta Yoshisada also turned against Go-Daigo when he was sent by the emperor to dispatch Takauji from Kamakura. Yoshisada subsequently joined forces with Takauji and their combined forces moved on Go-Daigo in Kyōto, defeated imperial troops, and marched into the city “leaving flames behind them as they destroyed the palace and the mansions of Court nobles and generals, notably those of their enemies.”2 For a second time, Go-Daigo was forced into exile; this time, the emperor fled into the mountains of Yoshino south of Kyōto. Mountainous and difficult to access, “the wild country of Yoshino was like a natural fortress.”3 In early 1336, Kitabatake Akiie, a loyalist to Go-Daigo, forced the troops of Takauji and Yoshisada from Kyōto, and Go-Daigo briefly returned to the city. In response, in late 1336 Takauji again forced Go-Daigo from Kyōto and installed Prince Yutahito (Kōmyō, 1322–80, a brother to Emperor Kōgon) as emperor.
Two emperors thus simultaneously claimed the right to rule: Go-Daigo organized an administrative court (Nanchō, the Southern Court) while in exile in Yoshino; the child-emperor Kōmyō, a puppet of Takauji, held court (Hokuchō, the Northern Court) in Kyōto. Most historians privilege the stronger position of Go-Daigo, as he managed to keep possession of the imperial regalia—the seal of the emperor and perhaps a mythic sword (Kusa-Nagi, “Grass Mower”), one of the Three Treasures of Shintō.4 Armies of the Northern Court supported Kōmyō and, under the leadership of Takauji, fought armies of the Southern Court, who supported the restoration of Go-Daigo to the throne in Kyōto.
Forests of Suffering
Violence and bloodshed seeped and settled into the land on which the Temple of the Heavenly Dragon will rest. Amid suffering, though, there appeared the influential presence of the venerable Rinzai Zen Buddhist priest Musō Soseki (fig. 36).
Soseki remains indelibly linked to the present-day Temple of the