Chapter Five
The Rise of the Warriors and the "Age of Anxiety"
(Late Heian-Muromachi Periods)
Welcome to what I call the "Age of Anxiety" in Japanese history. Temporally, this long period stretches from the middle eleventh century to about the middle of the sixteenth, in other words from the late the Heian period through most of the Muromachi period. There were several factors contributing to a high degree of anxiety during this time, but none was more important than the Buddhist theory of cycles. The specific fear was that society had entered, or was about to enter mappō, the final, degenerate phase of a cosmic cycle. This anxiety over mappō shaped many aspects of medieval Japanese culture, including two new forms of Buddhism: Zen and Pure Land. This chapter 1) surveys the major political narrative of medieval Japan; 2) examines the theory of mappō and some of its implications; and 3) examines the visual art of the Muromachi period.
By roughly the middle of the Heian period, the world of the aristocrats in the capital had become remarkably insular and removed from life in the rest of Japan. It was almost a fairy tale world--a delicate blossom destined to fade and scatter in the face of the winds of inevitable change, to say it in Heian Buddhist terms. Turning our attention back to the realm of politics and institutions, the cloistered emperor's court had managed to return the preponderance of political power in the capital to the imperial family; though, as always, it still had to rely on the cooperation of leading aristocratic families. The power of the capital over outlying areas, however, had been gradually fading. Filling the power gap were local strongmen with bands of warriors under their command. Many of these local strongmen had distant hereditary connections with the aristocrats in the capital, often with the imperial family.
The reason for these connections is that the imperial family continually grew too large, its members having ample time, energy and opportunities to produce many children, each of whom in turn tend to produce many children, and so forth. The numbers of imperial second cousins and other distant relatives grew too large for the government to provide for their support. Periodically, therefore, there would be a weaning out of persons a certain number of generations removed from the current emperor. Those affected lost all or most of their government support and usually had to leave the capital to seek their fortunes in the provinces. An imperial relative, a cousin, for example, would have been unimportant in the capital because such people were so numerous. Out in the provinces, however, even the most distant imperial relatives enjoyed prestige. This prestige combined with connections back in the capital enabled many of these provincial aristocrats to acquire managerial interests in shōen. Economic power went hand-in-hand with military power, resulting in the formation throughout Japan of #bands of provincial warriors# led by local aristocrats. As the generations passed, these local strongmen completely abandoned the refined manners and culture of the capital.
Back in the capital, the aristocrats regarded such provincial strongmen as uncultured boors, hardly worthy of respect. Aristocratic capital society held skill in the military arts in the lowest regard. Indeed, to suggest that another aristocrat was "skilled with a bow" or something to that effect was a common form of insult. When one or another of these bands of local warriors got out of hand, becoming outlaws or rebels, the imperial court summoned other warrior bands to attack the rebels. As incentive, the court usually offered grants of minor rank. That the court's strategy was successful, at least for a while, suggests it retained much cultural prestige in the provinces, even if it lacked its own military might.
One of the earliest of the rebel warriors was Taira-no-Masakado (#his resume#), a fifth-generation descendant of Emperor Kanmu. Masakado took over several provinces and set up a rival court in 939. The imperial court appointed a member of the Fujiwara family as general, giving him orders to attack the rebels; however, before he was able to do anything significant, several other provincial warrior groups, including other branches of the Taira family, joined forces and defeated Masakado. The major point for our purposes is that, even as early as the 900s, rivalry among the different warrior groups, not the military power of the imperial court itself, kept potentially serious challenges to the imperial system in check. This situation, of course, was not conducive to long-term stability.
By the late Heian period, two large military clans had emerged, each with branches in many provinces. One was the Minamoto family, the other the Taira family. Both were distant descendants of former emperors. This situation was potentially dangerous for the imperial court because, if one of these two clans were to defeat the other, there would be nothing but tradition to stop the victor from taking over all government authority. This was exactly what happened, though tradition turned out to be a powerful force in restraining the demands of the warriors. As a result, the imperial court retained a substantial measure of importance and authority throughout the Kamakura period.
In the #struggle between these two families,# fortunes rose and fell for each during the twelfth century (#map#). At first, the Taira family gained the upper hand, and, by the middle of the twelfth century, their leaders had taken up residence in Kyōto. They demanded high court rank and offices and got it. The Taira ruled as virtual dictators, much like the Fujiwara had done at the height of their power. Like the Fujiwara, the Taira did not eliminate the emperor or any key institution. Instead they ruled from different places within the system, their military power always an ominous force in the background. Things looked bleak for the traditional aristocrats. They regarded the Taira as barbaric warriors and were horrified at the extent of Taira power, yet they were helpless to check it.
The Minamoto clan had not, however, been totally defeated. Led by politically astute Minamoto Yoritomo (1149-1199) and his brother Yoshitsune (1159-89), a brilliant general who met a tragic end, the Minamoto began to make a comeback. Meanwhile, at the Heian court, life went on among the aristocrats, but change was definitely in the air. One specific problem was that revenues from shōen were becoming less reliable as imperial power weakened. Shōen managers in the field began using a variety of excuses (bad weather/crop failure, for example) as a thin cover for not delivering full quantities, or even any, of the produce normally owed to the shiki holders in the capital.
Pressured by the Taira and by reduced revenues, the high courtly ideals of the middle Heian period began to decline, albeit gradually, in a variety of ways. In literature, for example, we see less concern with elegance and taste and increasingly detailed depictions of the more sinister sides of life. In a major novel from the twelfth century, Konjaku monogatari, for example, we find relatively graphic depictions of sexual acts, often with a sinister twist. In one part, a former lover turned demon has been having sexual relations with one of the emperor's wives. The emperor called in Buddhist monks to perform an exorcism, but the demon merely bided his time, waiting a few months to make everyone think the exorcism had been successful. Then one day the demon reappeared in the palace and:
. . . the lady reappeared following the demon. They made love right in front of the Emperor and everyone else present. It was so ugly an act that it cannot possibly be described. She performed it without any restraint at all. When the demon arose, she also stood up and went back into her room. The Emperor felt that there was nothing that could be done and collapsed in tears. (Quoted in Shuichi Kato, A History of Japanese Literature 1: The First Thousand Years [New York: Kodansha International, 1979], p. 205.)
Lady Murasaki and Sei Shōnagon would have been shocked at such coarse, unpleasant matters depicted in literature. In the late Heian period, however, the "demons" (military families?) were gaining the upper hand over the "Emperor" (imperial court and aristocrats). The once-glorious aristocratic order (the imperial wife?) was clearly starting to decline by the twelfth century.
Law and order also began to decline within the capital during the twelfth century. The great Buddhist temples surrounding Kyōto took advantage of the imperial court's weakness by sending armed bands of warrior monks into the capital. These monks would sometimes march right up to the grounds of the imperial court and present lists of demands for political favors and concessions. To avoid attack from the imperial guards, the monks often brought various Buddhist icons, relics, and other holy objects with them. Terrified of divine wrath, the guards would not dare attack or even confront the monks (in most cases, there were some exceptions). The warrior monks' terrorizing of the capital and intimidation of the imperial court was another indication of the decline of late Heian period aristocratic society.
Warfare broke out anew in the late 1170s between the regrouped Minamoto forces and the Taira armies. Under the able generalship of Yoritomo's brother #Yoshitsune# (#details;# #contemporary image#), the Minamoto forces gradually gained the upper hand. In 1185, the Taira and Minamoto fought a final, decisive battle in which the Minamoto were completely victorious. With the Taira destroyed, Minamoto Yoritomo (#contemporary image#) and his warriors emerged as the single most powerful military or political force in Japan. Incidentally, to secure his own personal power, Yoritomo accused his brother Yoshitsune of treason and forced him to commit suicide. It was Yoshitsune who had done nearly all of the work of defeating the Taira, but he paid a heavy price for political naiveté. The tragic circumstances of his death after a heroic career resulted in Yoshitsune becoming a literary hero, celebrated even today.
The military struggle between the Taira 平and the Minamoto 源 is known as the Gempei 源平 War(s), which are chronicled in the literary song-tale Heike Monogatari 平家物語 (composed, 13th century) and the epic tale Taiheiki 太平記 (composed, 14th century). Barbara Ruch comments on the broader influence of this epic struggle as follows:
No one was unaffected by the battles. The Gempei Wars shocked the nobility, cracked the social structure, disrupted normal agricultural and commercial life, tore apart families on all levels of society, and left whole segments of the country widowed, orphaned, or disabled by the loss of economic support or normal employment. ("The Other Side of Culture in Medieval Japan," in Kozo Yamamura, ed., The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 3 Medieval Japan [New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990], p. 532.)
After victory over the Taira, Minamoto Yoritomo set up his headquarters in Kamakura, a city in the general vicinity of present-day Tōkyō. Yoritomo claimed to be in complete support of the imperial court, and all evidence indicates that he did respect imperial traditions. Nevertheless, because of Yoritomo's military power, talks with the imperial court were actually negotiations regarding the division of power.
In 1192, the emperor bestowed on Yoritomo the title sei'i taishōgun, which means "barbarian-conquering great general." Thereupon, Yoritomo established a military government at his base in Kamakura. His title is usually abbreviated to shōgun, and his military government is commonly known by its Japanese term *bakufu,* which is so common that we will use it here. The title Shōgun may sound impressive, but, being a military post, it was not high on the list of court offices. It seems that Yoritomo was willing to go without a high office or title from the imperial court, which must have pleased the aristocrats, and set up his headquarters far from Kyōto. In return, however, the court delegated substantial real authority to him.
Initially, Yoritomo received permission from the court to appoint his own officers as shōen supervisors and as provincial military governors in all of Japan's eastern provinces. This development in effect created *two different governments* in Japan, each with its own capital. Yoritomo's Bakufu ruled the east from the city of Kamakura; Go-Shirakawa the cloistered emperor, ruled the western provinces from Kyōto. The imperial capital retained its prestige as the center of high culture. However much the imperial court may have disliked its forced alliance with Yoritomo, the merger actually strengthened imperial authority in the western provinces because now the imperial court had a powerful backer. Yoritomo's appointees also restored shōen revenues to the Kyōto aristocratic holders of shiki, though there was a discount to pay for the bakufu-appointed overseer. (As time went on, however, these overseers became a major problem for shiki-holding aristocrats, as we will see later.) The alliance between the civilian and military governments also gave legitimacy to Yoritomo's Bakufu.
Yoritomo died relatively young in an accident in 1199. At the time of his death he had two small sons and had not made arrangements for who would succeed him to leadership of the Minamoto family and the other families allied with it. Yoritomo's principal wife, Hōjō Masako (1157-1225), took advantage of the situation. Along with her father, Hōjō Tokimasa (1138-1215), she used her power over Yoritomo's sons to place members of the Hōjō family into key leadership positions within Kamakura's Bakufu. Gradually, the Hōjō family gained de facto control of the Bakufu. Yoritomo's descendants continued to become Shōgun, but they were actually puppets of a Hōjō regent, who ruled the Bakufu from behind the scenes.
Around the year 1220, Japan had two governments, each ostensibly headed by someone who was in fact nearly powerless--the emperor in Kyōto and the Shōgun in Kamakura.
The real power in each case lay behind the scenes--the cloistered emperor in Kyōto and the Hōjō regent in Kamakura. This type of arrangement is still common in Japan today, whether in the realm of government or in business. It is common to find someone with a lofty title but very little real power serving as a ceremonial figurehead for one or more persons behind the scenes, often with humble titles, who actually wield power and make decisions. Government and business leaders from the United States trying to do business in Japan have often suffered for their ignorance of this phenomenon. What are some advantages to this arrangement of power? What are some disadvantages?
Until 1221, the power balance between the *imperial court and the Bakufu* was about even. The Bakufu, however, had greater potential power since government is ultimately based on coercive force. In the early Kamakura period, two important power struggles took place, one in each capital. In Kamakura, the brother and sister team of Hōjō Yoshitoki (1163-1224) and #Hōjō Masako# seized power from their father Tokimasa and (really) retired him. In Kyōto, Emperor Go-Toba "retired" at age 18 and then set to work eliminating the influence of rival court factions. By 1202, he was in complete control of his own cloistered government and was on the fast track to becoming master of the whole capital. Go-Toba began to compete with Kamakura in certain ways. For example, he recruited prominent Bakufu retainers for his personal guard units, thus providing an alternative source of patronage for warriors. Both the Hōjō siblings and Go-Toba were ambitious.
Go-Toba (#image#) and Hōjō Masako entered into negotiations for a marriage link between the imperial court and the Bakufu. Masako's plan was for one of Go-Toba's sons to be adopted into the Minamoto family and become shōgun. Go-Toba balked at the plan after he learned of the assassination of the third shōgun, Minamoto Sanetomo (1192-1219), for not cooperating with the Hōjō. The bakufu responded by implied threats and other forms of pressure, and, finally, Go-Toba was forced to allow an imperial princess to marry the Hōjō-controlled shōgun. Go-Toba decided at this point to go to war and destroy the Bakufu. He quietly raised an army from imperial shōen and Buddhist temples and attacked suddenly in 1221. The attack initially caught the Hōjō family off guard, but they soon rallied and defeated Go-Toba's forces in what is known as the Jōkyū War (or Jōkyū Disturbance). The fighting lasted approximately a month.
When word spread of the defeat of the imperial forces, lawlessness broke out in several western provinces as local warrior groups took advantage of the situation. This and similar incidents made the bakufu leaders realize that however much they might want to exact revenge on the imperial court, they still needed its authority to maintain order in the west. Therefore, the bakufu did not make radical changes in the imperial court. The changes it did make, however, were significant. After exiling Go-Toba to a remote location, the bakufu abolished the court of the cloistered emperor. Retired emperors now really retired. Second, the bakufu posted an overseer in Kyōto and reserved the right to intervene in high-level personnel decisions in the imperial court. Finally, the bakufu forced the court to allow it to post shōen managers and provincial military governors in the western provinces, just as it had earlier done in the east.
From this point on, the balance of power shifted firmly in favor of the warriors. The imperial court continued to exist, but it gradually lost power and prestige until the nineteenth century. For reasons we examine in HIST 481, from the mid-nineteenth century, the imperial court gradually regained its prestige, as well as some of its power. During the Kamakura and Muromachi periods, It was warrior government and institutions that most shaped the direction of Japanese society
As political power shifted from civilians to warriors, institutional importance shifted from the imperial court to the bakufu. Japan had three bakufus, two of which we deal with in this chapter in some detail. We begin with major political events and then turn to a highly selective (i.e., partial) examination of religious and cultural developments. We conclude with the events that led to Japan's third bakufu.
A period of approximately fifty yeas of relative peace and prosperity followed the Jōkyū War. The Hōjō regents provided excellent leadership for the bakufu, and the bakufu oversaw the operations of the imperial court. We need not examine the structure of the Kamakura bakufu here in detail, but we should be aware of its basic functions. First, it supervised Japan's warrior households, which was no simple task. Second, it supervised local officials and shōen managers. Third, it adjudicated disputes involving warriors or warriors versus civilian aristocrats (the imperial court continued to adjudicate disputes involving civilian aristocrats and ordinary people residing in Kyōto). The bakufu, in other words, had become Japan's largest legal organization, and its courts were constantly backlogged with disputes.
The post-Jōkyū era was a difficult time for many court aristocrats. Kato describes aristocratic reactions to the reality of warrior power as follows:
The aristocracy reacted in two basic ways to the military power of Kamakura. The first, as we have already seen, was to seize every opportunity to set in motion plots aimed at resurrecting the old system. The unsuccessful Jōkyū uprising of 1221, led by the Retired Emperor Go-Toba (1180-1239), was a typical example of this reaction. The second reaction is well illustrated by the policy of Fujiwara Kanezane (1149-1207) and his close relationship with Yoritomo; Kanezane's policy being to preserve the autonomy of Kyōto by compromise with Kamakura and to maintain for the aristocracy as many as possible of the special privileges, especially 'shōen', they had enjoyed under the old system. Many individual aristocrats adopted this second attitude as a means of self-preservation. (Kato, Japanese Literature, p. 239.)
Despite the prevalence of disputes over shōen (estate) revenues and general aristocratic anxiety, there were no major problems until the late 1260s. At that time, the Mongols were completing their conquest of China and had also intimidated the Korean kingdom into becoming their allies. Mongol leader Kubilai Khan first sent envoys to Japan in 1266 to demand that Japan become a tributary state of the Mongol empire. The aristocrats at the imperial court were terrified of antagonizing the powerful Mongol leader and probably would have agreed to the demand. When Kubilai's envoys reached the bakufu, however, Regent Hōjō Tokimune (1251-1284, #image#) rejected their demands with scorn. Subsequent Mongol envoys received similar treatment. What was Kubilai Khan's motivation? According to Thomas D, Conlan:
Surviving records suggest . . . that the Mongols were in fact preoccupied with political hegemony, for such rhetoric pervades their diplomatic missives; the accumulation of wealth seems to have been perceived as a function of this dominance that deserved little explicit attention. Indeed, an aura of absolute supremacy permeates their diplomatic discourse, which when coupled with their military offensives, led many to conclude that they intended to bring the whole world under their domination. (Thomas D. Conlan, trans., In Little Need of Divine Intervention: Takezaki Suenaga’s Scrolls of the Mongol Invasions of Japan. [Ithaca: East Asian Program, Cornell University, 2001], pp. 255-6.)
In 1274, Kubilai Khan finally resorted to force, sending from Korea an armada, which landed an #invasion force# numbering about 30,000 #soldiers# according to traditional accounts (some accounts put the figure as high as 90,000). Because each side greatly exaggerated the number of enemy soldiers in its own records (during and soon after the invasion period), one should be skeptical of such a large figure. Conlan has carefully examined both Mongol and Japanese military capabilities and concludes that each side consisted of perhaps 2,000 - 3,000 soldiers in 1274. Regarding overall military capabilities: “Surviving sources suggest that military parity existed between the Mongol invaders and the Japanese. Although the Mongols enjoyed naval superiority, they lacked sufficient forces to occupy northern Kyūshū and accordingly avoided close confrontations with the Japanese defenders.” (In Little Need of Divine Intervention, p. 265.)
It is hard to say with certainly how the Japanese forces fared in the initial battles on 1274, in part because the Mongol force did not have sufficient solders to conquer and hold much territory even under ideal conditions. Working against the defenders was the superior weaponry of the Mongols. More important was that the Japanese defenders, while sufficiently numerous, consisted of a collection of local warrior bands with little or no central organization. Each warrior band--or individual warrior--sought to maximize its own glory in the hope of receiving rewards from the bakufu. Many, therefore, avoided areas of the battle where the Mongols were strongest and Japanese defenders most urgently needed. Instead, they tended to hold back while seeking places where they could score a relatively easy "victory" in the sense of taking Mongol heads or being witnessed killing Mongol invaders. In any case, not long after the Mongols landed, they departed. The traditional account blames the departure on serious storms that arose suddenly, causing the Korean sailors manning the fleet to persuade the Mongols to leave or risk disaster. But the likely cause was not a storm per se, but a sudden reversal of the wind direction. Mongol commanders had come to know that their numbers were insufficient, and the change in wind direction facilitated their sailing back to the continent. In any event, "neither side believed that the 1274 encounter had been decisive. The Mongols attributed their initial failure simply to insufficient manpower, while the Japanese, uncowed by the Mongols, initiated preparations for an invasion of Korea in order to belatedly aid anti-Mongol forces.” (In Little Need of Divine Intervention, p. 267.) (#visual images# of the invasions)
The first Mongol force withdrew, but Kubilai had certainly not given up. He sent several more envoys and threatened a much larger invasion force if Japan did not capitulate to Mongol demands. The bakufu response was as firm as ever, and Hōjō Tokimune ordered fortifications built in northern Kyūshū, the area most likely to be attacked in the second invasion. The bakufu also ordered warriors from all over Japan to mobilize and serve guard duty in Kyūshū on a rotational basis. It was not until 1281 that the second invasion force set sail for Japan. This force was much larger, about 140,000 in traditional accounts. More realistically, however, says Conlan: "It remains doubtful that even as many as ten thousand invaders attacked a reinforced Japanese contingent of several thousand men in 1281.” (In Little Need of Divine Intervention, p. 264.) Although the second invasion force was much larger than the first, Japanese defenses and coordination were also much better.
Since the time of the first invasion, Japanese laborers had erected a massive stone defensive wall along the coast of Hakata Bay (part of present day Fukuoka City, which is straight up from Nagasaki on the northwestern coast of Kyūshū). This wall proved quite effective in containing the Mongol forces that did manage to come ashore. Japanese strategy, however, called for preventing as many from landing as possible by keeping the relatively large Mongol ships under constant attack by #small, maneuverable vessels# that could strike swiftly from any angle. This strategy also worked well, and only a relatively small number of the invaders ever landed. The fighting went on for about two months, with Japanese defenses holding but no major battle having been fought. The lack of a major battle should not suggest a lack of savagery. For example: “The defenders’ desire for vengeance had been inflamed by the brutal occupation of the outlying islands. The Mongols murdered most men and cruelly pierced the center of the palms of captured women and tied them to the sides of the ships. . . Suenaga [a Japanese warrior] and his cohorts coolly killed most sailors and soldiers captured on the high seas.” (In Little Need of Divine Intervention, p. 270.) Then, quite suddenly, a typhoon came through the area and destroyed much of the Mongol fleet. The typhoon ended the invasion, and the battered, greatly reduced remnants of the Mongol force sailed back to Korea.
While the bakufu was busy with military preparations, the imperial court had mobilized all of Japan's shrines and temples to offer prayers and perform religious rituals to ward off the invaders:
Kyōto and not Kamakura took the lead in mobilizing the gods. The court ignored the initial Mongol missives of 1266, but began enacting esoteric rituals of destruction against foreigners (ikoku chōbuku 異国調伏) during the third month of 1268, shortly after establishing the precedent for such rituals to be performed on a national scale. . . . After the 1281 invasion, the court (and the retired sovereign Kameyama in particular) took the most active role in cursing the Mongols. The Kamakura bakufu belatedly promulgated prayers in eight of Japan’s sixty-six provinces in 1283 and did not apparently start issuing nationwide prayers throughout Japan until 1290. (In Little Need of Divine Intervention, p. 273.)
The court made the plausible claim that the typhoon was the result of these prayers and proof that Japan was a land specially favored by the deities. The typhoon that destroyed the second Mongol invasion force is the origin of the word "kamikaze" 神風 (also pronounced shinpū in premodern times). Kamikaze literally means "divine wind." One should not, however, read too much into this idea of Japan as favored "land of the gods." This idea was prominent in elite court circles from the late Kamakura period onward, but it does not indicate popular nationalism, as Conlan points out in the context of the extensive account provided by a local warrior:
Nowhere in Takezaki Suenaga’s account can one uncover evidence of a “national” consciousness whereby “Japan” existed as a transcendent entity worthy of defense. Although Takezaki Suenaga explained in his audience with the high-ranking bakufu official Adachi Yasumori that normal ‘rules’ of precedent did not apply when fighting foreign invaders, he stated so in order to convince Yasumori to grant him rewards that otherwise did not appear to be forthcoming. Rather than fighting for the defense of Japan, personal and familial goals—the desire to be first to charge, to have an audience with his lord, and to receive ample rewards—propelled him to risk his life in battle. Even his grim determination to behead as many enemy as possible stemmed from the need to have proof of his “valor” than to extract revenge from foreign invaders. (In Little Need of Divine Intervention, p. 271.)
The idea of Japan as a transcendent entity worthy of sacrifice on the part of its citizens is a modern notion that would not take hold among the general population until the last two decades of the nineteenth century. This transition of Japan form a loosely-organized empire to a nation-state is a major theme of HIST 481, Modern Japan.
The Mongol Invasions of 1274 and 1281 were a major turning point in the history of the Kamakura period. On the surface, it appeared the bakufu had won a great victory against the vast Mongol empire. It was certainly the case that the bakufu provided excellent leadership in the crisis, but, in hindsight, we can see that the Mongol Invasions proved to be the beginning of the end for the Kamakura bakufu. For one thing, the invasions exacerbated pre-existing social tensions:
Those dissatisfied with the status quo believed that the crisis provided an unprecedented opportunity for advancement. By serving generals and . . . [shugo], these men could ignore the commands of their family chieftains (sōryō 惣領) . . . Takezaki Suenaga, for example, disobeyed the commands of his relatives in order to receive lands and rewards from ranking bakufu officials such as Adachi Yasumori. . . . Sōryō generally resented the creeping autonomy of some family members, which they perceived to stem from encroaching bakufu authority. (In Little Need of Divine Intervention, p. 269.)
Until the time of the invasions, all warfare had taken place within the Japanese islands between competing groups of local warriors. This situation meant that there were always spoils, typically land, taken from the losing side. The victorious general would reward his officers and key allies with grants of this land and other wealth taken in battle. The idea that sacrifice in military service should be rewarded had, by the thirteenth century, become deeply ingrained in Japanese warrior culture. In the case of the Mongol invasions, of course, there were no spoils to divide up as rewards. Sacrifices, on the other hand, had been high. Not only were the expenses for the first two invasions high, the bakufu regarded a third invasion as a distinct possibility. Costly patrols and defense preparations, therefore, continued for several years after 1281. The bakufu did all it could to equalize the burden and used what limited land it could spare to reward those individuals or groups who had made the greatest sacrifices in the defense effort; however, these measures were inadequate to prevent serious grumbling among many of the warriors.
There was a sharp rise in lawlessness and banditry after the second invasion. At first, most of these bandits were poorly armed civilians, sometimes called #akutō ("gangs of thugs")# 悪党. Despite repeated orders from the bakufu, local warriors were unable, or unwilling, to suppress these bandits. Toward the end of the thirteenth century, these bandits had become more numerous. Furthermore, it seems that impoverished warriors now made up the bulk of the bandits. The Kamakura bakufu was losing its grip on the warriors, particularly in outlying areas and in the western provinces.
In addition to problems with bandits, the bakufu faced renewed problems with the imperial court. The complex details need not detain us here, but the bakufu had gotten itself entangled in a bitter succession dispute between two branches of the imperial family. The bakufu decided that each branch should alternate emperors, which only prolonged the dispute from one reign to the next and also caused increasing resentment toward the bakufu in the court. Go-Daigo (#image#), a strong-willed emperor (#who liked wild parties#), came to the throne in 1318. He soon became convinced of the need to change the imperial institution radically. Recognizing the almost total militarization of society, #Go-Daigo sought to re-make the emperorship# so that it would be at the head of both civilian and military governments. In 1331, he began a rebellion against the bakufu. It quickly ended in failure, and the bakufu exiled Go-Daigo to a remote island. Go-Daigo #escaped,# however, and became a magnet around which all the many dissatisfied groups in Japan rallied.
After Hōjō Tokimune died in 1284, the bakufu suffered intermittent rounds of internal disputes, some of which resulted in bloodshed. By the time of Go-Daigo's rebellion, it lacked sufficient internal unity to deal with the crisis effectively. As the opposition forces grew stronger, bakufu leaders assembled a vast army under the command of Ashikaga Takauji (1305-1358, #image#). In 1333, this army set out to attack Go-Daigo's forces in Kyōto. Takauji had apparently made a deal with Go-Daigo, however, for midway to Kyōto he turned his army around and attacked Kamakura instead. The attack destroyed the bakufu, and Go-Daigo had made great strides toward re-positioning himself and those who might come after him. But there was a reaction against Go-Daigo's moves by certain elements of the warrior class. By 1335, Ashikaga Takauji, Go-Daigo's former ally had become the leader of the opposition forces. In other words, he launched a counter-revolution against Go-Daigo and his policies designed to create a strong central government headed by an emperor.
After considerable maneuvering, Takauji managed to drive Go-Daigo out of the capital and installed a different member of the imperial family as emperor. Go-Daigo set up his imperial court to the south of Kyōto. Takauji propped up a rival member of the imperial clan as emperor and for himself took the title shōgun. He tried to establish a bakufu along the lines of the former government in Kamakura, and set himself up in the Muromachi district of Kyōto. It is for this reason that the period from 1334 to 1573 is known as either the Muromachi period or the Ashikaga period.
Go-Daigo did not give up his claim to the throne. He and his supporters fled south and set up a military base in the rugged mountains of Yoshino in present-day Nara Prefecture. There they waged war against the Ashikaga bakufu until 1392. Because there were two competing imperial courts, the period from roughly 1335 until reunification of the courts in 1392 is known as the period of the Northern and Southern Courts. During this half century plus, the tide of battle ebbed and flowed with victories for each side, until gradually, the fortunes of Go-Daigo's southern court declined, and its supporters dwindled. The Ashikaga bakufu prevailed. (At least this is the "official" textbook version of these events. In reality, the opposition between the northern and southern courts lasted much longer, at least 130 years, and, to some small extent, it continues to this day. #Click here# for the rest of the story.)
Both Takauji and Go-Daigo died before the matter of the two courts had been settled. The man who brought about that settlement was the third shōgun, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1386-1428). Under Yoshimitsu's reign, the bakufu attained the peak of its power, though even then its ability to control the remote areas of Japan was marginal. Yoshimitsu negotiated with the southern court to return to Kyōto, promising the southern emperor that his branch of the imperial family could alternate with the rival branch currently on the throne in the capital. Yoshimitsu broke this promise. Indeed, he treated the emperors quite poorly, not even allowing them their former ceremonial dignity. There is even evidence that Yoshimitsu planned to supplant the imperial family with his own, although it never happened. The power and prestige of the emperors reached its nadir in the fifteenth century. But neither was the bakufu particularly powerful, unlike its Kamakura predecessor. As Go-Daigo well knew, times had changed. During most of the Muromachi period, power drained out of the "central" government(s) into the hands of local warlords.
Yoshimitsu is noted for a number of accomplishments. In the realm of foreign relations, he initiated formal diplomatic ties between Japan and Ming China in 1401. Doing so required that the bakufu agree to participate in China's tributary system, which it did so reluctantly. Yoshimitsu even accepted the title "King of Japan" from the Ming emperor--an act that later Japanese historians often severely criticized as a disgrace to the "national" dignity. In the cultural realm, Yoshimitsu created a number of magnificent buildings, the most famous of which is the #Golden Pavilion,# which he built as a retirement residence. The building's name derives from the walls of its second and third stories, which were plated with gold leaf. It is one of Kyōto's major tourist attractions today, although the current structure is not the original one. These construction projects established a precedent for shōgunal patronage of high culture.
It was in patronage of high culture that the later Ashikaga shōguns excelled. The bakufu steadily lost political power after Yoshimitsu's day. In 1467, #open warfare between two rival warrior families# broke out in the streets of Kyōto itself, laying waste to large areas of the city. The bakufu was powerless to prevent or suppress the fighting, which eventually touched off civil wars throughout Japan. These civil wars continued for over a century, a period known as the Age of Warfare. Japan had entered an era of turmoil, and the Ashikaga bakufu, which continued to exist until 1573, lost nearly all its political power. The post-1467 Ashikaga shōguns spent their remaining political and financial resources on cultural matters, and the bakufu now replaced the imperial court as the center of cultural activity. Meanwhile, the imperial court had sunk into poverty and obscurity, and no emperor like Go-Daigo ever appeared on the scene to revive its fortunes. It was not until the 1580s that a succession of three generals managed to reunify all of Japan.
Recall from the introductory material on Buddhism that one of the characteristics of the Mahayana forms of Buddhism is a theory of cosmic cycles in which a Buddha appears to show others how to attain enlightenment. Then, as time goes on, this Buddha's teachings deteriorate, leading eventually to a long period of general misery and social unrest. Then, a new Buddha appears to start another cycle. Thus, there has been a series of cosmically-ordained Buddhas in human history, with the Buddha Shakyamuni (the historical Buddha who founded Buddhism as we know it today) simply being the most recent, that is, the Buddha for the present cycle. Of course, it is possible that other other Buddhas have existed after Shakyamuni in the form of people who have attained enlightenment. The theory of cosmic cycles pertains only to the Buddhas that appear as part of the cosmic order of things.
The term mappō literally means something like "end of the dharma." It is the last of the three temporal stages Buddhism mentioned earlier: the true dharma, the semblance dharma, and the last dharma. Let us examine some of the details of this theory, which came into Japan along with the vast corpus of Buddhist texts from India, China, and Korea. Among the first Japanese Buddhists to act on the implications of the theory of mappō was a prominent monk named Saichō, who was active at the start of the Heian period. At this time, the theory of cosmic cycles, while known to some monks, was not generally a concern among the Japanese aristocracy or clergy.
Interested in some of the theoretical details? If so, read these paragraphs, which are based on the article "Saichō no mappō kan" 最澄の末法観, Nihon shisō-shi 日本思想史, no. 40 (1993): 45-55. Otherwise, skip down to the next red horizontal line.
According to the theory of cosmic cycles, the age of the true dharma is characterized by three qualities: 1) theory or teachings, 2) the practice of those teachings, and 3) true insight capable of leading to enlightenment. In the age of the semblance dharma, Buddhists go through the motions of practice (#2), but without benefiting from them owing to worldly corruption. Therefore, they will not attain true insight (#3). So in the semblance age, #1 and #2 are present, but not #3. In the final age, #2 is also gone. Though some may claim to be practicing Buddhism, they do not even go through the motions correctly, and disputes between monks and religious factions become heated. The teachings themselves (#1) remain (recall that they are the unchanging essence of the diamond world in esoteric Buddhism), but nobody really understands them, much less putts them into practice.
By Saichō's calculations, the true dharma age lasted 500 years; the semblance dharma age 1000. Based on the traditionally accepted death of Shakyamuni, which was significantly earlier than the estimates of most scholars today, Saichō thought that he lived right at the start of mappō. Not everyone accepted Saichō's timing. Recall that some regarded the true dharma age to last 1000 years, not 500. Also, there were two possibilities for the semblance dharma age, 500 or 1000 years. Why? The main reason seems to be the discussion of time periods found in a scripture called the Great Collection Sutra. According to it, there are five 500-year periods (go-gohyakusai) after the death of the Buddha during which teachings and practice decline. Each period is characterized by a particular feature: 1) firm attainment of liberation (gedatsu kengo), 2) steadfast practice of meditation (zenjō kengo), 3) steadfast hearing of Buddhist teaching (tamon kengo), 4) building of many temples (zōji kengo), and 5) steadfast engagement in doctrinal disputes (tōjō kengo). For Saichō, the first of these five constituted the age of the true dharma, the second and third were the semblance dharma, and the final age began with the fourth, that is, the massive building of temples.
Notice that there is room here to make the true dharma last either 500 or 1000 years and the semblance dharma last either 500 or 1000 years. Another possible area of flexibility concerns the length of mappō itself. Might it last only 500 or 1000 years instead of the 10,000 years according to conventional belief? Another factor that added flexibility to the periodization was different dates for the Buddha's death, some several decades apart.
In any case, Saichō thought that he lived at the very start of mappō. He had other evidence to support this belief. For one thing, another Buddhist theory claimed that typical human life spans varied, from about 80,000 years at the longest to ten at the shortest, that is, during the depths of mappō. That typical life spans were well under 100 years in Saichō's day further pointed to the conclusion that final age was at hand. The short life spans were part of a larger collection of symptoms of the approach of mappō. The full list is called the "Five Defilements" (gojoku), which are: 1) famines plagues, wars, etc.; 2) the arising of false views; 3) intensification of evil passions; 4) rejection of moral laws and the physical and mental degeneration resulting from that rejection; and 5) short life spans. According to Buddhist theology, although these defilements began to appear when human life spans went below 20,000 years, they became especially obvious when life spans went below 100 years. Think of our own times right now. Does it not seem that the Five Defilements are abundantly present? Probably so. And the same impression would have prevailed at virtually any point in human history. In any case, for Saichō, all the evidence pointed to entry into mappō. Regarding this point, Nakano Masayuki argues convincingly that many of Saichō's activities in establishing Tendai on Mt. Hiei reflect an active attempt on his part to protect both the state and Buddhist teachings during the impending last age.
There is one essential point in the above paragraphs about Saichō's theory of mappō: nobody could be certain exactly when mappō would start. One reason was Saichō's compressing a 5-stage cycle into three stages, thereby leaving room for debate over whether the true dharma stage lasts 500 or 1000 years and also whether the semblance dharma state lasts 500 or 1000 years. Add in some slack for different sets of dates for the Buddha's death, and one could never be completely certain whether the world was about to enter the final stage or whether it had already entered that stage--an ideal condition for anxiety.
Few Japanese at the time of the early Heian period shared Saichō's sense of doomsday. Using the variables in timing described above, other Buddhists in the ninth century said that mappō was over two centuries away and would not start until 1052. Furthermore, few Japanese outside of the elite members of the clergy knew much about the more sophisticated doctrines of Buddhism during the early Heian period. By the end of the period, however, many things had changed. First, nearly all monastic and aristocratic Japanese were familiar with the major doctrines of Buddhism. Second, it became increasingly difficult to theorize the start of mappō farther into the future, especially after 1052. Third, from the standpoint of the aristocracy especially, it seemed as if society was indeed entering a period of major decline. Problems collecting revenues, political strife between the emperor and retired emperor, the increasing power of warriors and the #increasing frequency of warfare,# the decline of the central civilian government's authority, and the increasingly apparent *corruption of the Buddhist establishment* all contributed to anxiety concerning entry into mappō.
That this anxiety became acute is not to say that all learned Japanese understood mappō in the same way. Some rejected the theory entirely, and those who accepted it were not unanimously agreed about the timing. Furthermore, there was disagreement about how best to react to mappō. In other words, was there anything people could do about it? How could or should Buddhism be altered to suit the conditions of the time? Is it still possible to become enlightened, or at least to avoid rebirth in the lower realms of existence, while in the present, degenerate age? These were the sorts of questions on the minds of many elite Japanese in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and, to some extent, all the way up to the seventeenth century. Even those who rejected the theory of cosmic cycles had to discuss and deal with it. In short, mappō was the defining issue not only in theology, but also in the literary, dramatic, and *visual arts* of mid-medieval Japan. As William R, LaFleur points out:
[I]t is important to realize that people in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of Japan's history were deeply absorbed in a debate as to whether the entire world had just entered a necessarily evil era called mappō, the final epoch of the current Buddhist cycle. Many of those who embraced this idea had calculated that as of the year 1052 . . . there had commenced a lengthy period during which the correct understanding and practice of Buddhism had been virtually nonexistent. . . . Some took the calculations to be correct and the current laxity of monastic discipline as proof that the theory was true. Others, especially the Zen master Dōgen (1200-1253), argued against the mappō theory; they held that the possibility of understanding and practicing Buddhism was as good as it had ever been and that theories such as that of mappō were merely mental contrivances by which shallow understanding and loose practice were rationalized. (William R. LaFleur, The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983], p. 3.)
So, in the realm of religion, the fear of either being on the verge of entering mappō or of having already entered it was very much on the minds of elite Japanese during the late Heain period, the Kamakura period, and, to some extent, the Muromachi period. Furthermore, these centuries were a time of fundamental social change as the warriors replaced the civilian aristocrats as the dominant members of society. But these warriors tended to fight among themselves for territory and power, especially during the Muromachi period, when central government was weak or powerless. It is for these reasons that I call the period from about the middle eleventh century to the middle of the sixteenth century Japan's "Age of Anxiety." It was a time of unrest and uncertainty. In reaction to such circumstances, many Japanese longed for stability and order. Such stability was elusive in the "real" world, but in the realm of art, one can create alternatives.
The power that the bakufu lost throughout the Muromachi period, and especially after the Ōnin War, became concentrated in the hands of local warlords, called daimyō 大名 (literally "big names"). These daimyō constantly fought one another in an effort to enhance the size of their territories, commonly called "domains." The daimyō also struggled with problems within their domains. The domain of a typical daimyō was comprised of the smaller territories of local warrior families. These subordinate families frequently overthrew their daimyō in an attempt to seize his lands and power. Daimyō at this time, in other words, were never secure in their holdings. All of Japan, it seemed, had entered a topsy-turvy age of "gekokujō" 下克上, a term meaning "those below conquer those above." During the late Muromachi period, social and political hierarchies were unstable. More than ever, the world seemed transient, impermanent and unstable.
In an age when many worried about mappō, revenues from estates (or the lack of those revenues), and the instability of frequent warfare, some Japanese sought purity and idealism in art where none was to be found in ordinary human society. This section briefly examines some of these themes, with emphasis on works from the Muromachi period. (#Some examples#)
Zen Buddhsim was undoubtedly the #single greatest influence# on Japanese painting during the Kamakura and Muromachi periods. We do not study Zen in this course, but, in the realm of the visual arts, one manifestation of Zen influence was an emphasis on simplicity and an economy of brush strokes. There were other influences on the art of Muromachi Japan. One was Chinese-style painting, which often reflected Daoist-inspired aesthetic values (#Daoism defined#). The ideal of reclusion (i.e., living a pure, simple life removed from human affairs) is also clearly evident in much Muromachi art.
One feature of Muromachi painting is that most of it was done in black ink or subdued colors. There is a studied simplicity to many works of this era. Most historians attribute this simplicity to Zen influence, and they are undoubtedly correct. The simplicity, however, may also have been a reaction against the complexity and confusion of the day's social and political world. The many Daoist-like scenes of nature in Muromachi painting suggest a desire to abandon, perhaps only temporarily, human society and its wars in favor of a life of quiet simplicity.
Landscapes are common in painting from the Muromachi period. Perhaps the most famous of these landscapes is Sesshū's (1420-1506) *Winter Landscape.* The most striking feature of this work is the thick, jagged "crack" or "tear" running down the middle of the upper portion of the painting. To the left of the crack is a temple, to the right, what appears to be a jagged rock face. Sesshū was heavily influenced by Chinese ideas and painting techniques. His work often features the primordial creative forces of nature (paintings in a style called tenkai). In Winter Landscape, the fissure dwarfs the human structure and suggests the tremendous power of nature. There are numerous interpretations of this ominous fissure in the landscape. Another holds that it is the turmoil of the outside world intruding into the painting. If so, then the fissure in Sesshū's landscape may represent the fissures and dislocations tearing apart the social and political fabric of Japan during the late Muromachi period.
Many works of late Muromachi art highlight the theme of reclusion, withdrawal from the world of human affairs. One example is the work of Eitoku (1543-1590), famous for his paintings of ancient Chinese hermits and Daoist immortals. *Chao Fu and His Ox* illustrates part of a tale of two ancient (legendary) Chinese hermits. As #the story# goes, the sagely King Yao offered to turn the empire over to the hermit Xu You. Horrified at the thought of becoming the ruler, the hermit washed out his ears, by which he had heard Yao's offer, in a nearby river. Thereupon, the river became so polluted that another hermit, Chao Fu, would not cross it. He turned away from the river and returned home with his ox. No doubt stories like this appealed to many world-weary Japanese at the time, including generals and daimyō. Other depictions of (usually) Chinese recluses and hermits were common in the art of this period.
In addition to reclusion, Eitoku's painting illustrates another common theme in late Muromachi painting: celebration of ideal virtue. Most typically this theme took the form of depictions of ancient Chinese quasi-legendary figures. Boyi and Shuqi, for example, were ancient Chinese paragons of virtue, who, to make a long story short, chose to starve themselves to death rather than make even the slightest compromise with ideal moral values. Naturally, such selfless moral behavior would have contrasted sharply with the actual behavior of most Muromachi-era politicians and military figures.
Another theme of late Muromachi art is the celebration of that which is sturdy, strong, and long-lived. Needless to say, such characteristics were precisely opposite the conditions then prevailing in Japanese society. In the "real world," even the most powerful daimyō rarely lasted long before being defeated in battle by a rival or betrayed by a subordinate. In painting, as in poetry, the pine and plum served as symbols of stability and longevity. So too, did bamboo, which is extremely sturdy despite its hollow core. A good, relatively early example is Shūbun's *Studio of the Three Worthies* from the early fifteenth century. In the painting we see a small hermitage in winter surrounded by pines, plum, and bamboo. These three trees--the most obvious set of "three worthies"--dwarf the human-built structure.
The painting conveys at least two themes at the same time: 1) a celebration of stability and longevity, which 2) tends to accentuate human fragility and short life by contrast. Such a painting could serve both to reflect the world around it (theme two) and present an alternative vision of that world (theme one). Furthermore, this painting is yet another example of the longing for reclusion. Well educated viewers of the painting might also have noticed that the term "three worthies" comes from the Analects of Confucius. In one passage, Confucius stated the importance of befriending three kinds of people: "the straight," "the trustworthy in word," and "the well-informed." So at a deeper level of meaning this painting also celebrates ideal virtue, with bamboo symbolizing "the straight" (= steadfastness), the plum symbolizing trustworthiness, and the pine symbolizing the "well-informed."
All of the paintings we have seen thus far reflect Chinese influence, both in terms of style and content. It was during the Muromachi period that Chinese influence on Japanese painting was strongest. There is much more to Muromachi art than we have seen here, and there is more that could be said about each of the works mentioned above. Here we simply suggest some tentative links between art and social, political and religious conditions. Also, keep these representative samples of late Muromachi art in mind when we examine the vastly different ukiyo-e prints of the Tokugawa period, which we examine in a later chapter.
