Kakusan-ni

Kakusan-ni (Japanese: 覚（かく）山（さん）尼（に）, August 10, 1252 – November 15, 1306), also known as Kakusan Shidō (覚山志道), was a Japanese Buddhist nun and widow of Hōjō Tokimune (1251–1284), the eighth regent of the Kamakura shogunate.[1] She was the founding abbess of Tōkei-ji temple in Kamakura, noted for its long history as a refuge for women seeking divorce from their husbands.[1] Her many other names included Lady Horiuchi (堀内殿, Horiuchi-dono) and the posthumous name of Chōon’in.[2]

Kakusan-ni
覚山尼
Tōkei-ji temple in Kamakura, Japan
Born(1252-08-10)August 10, 1252
DiedNovember 15, 1306(1306-11-15) (aged 54)
Other names
  • Kakusan Shidō
  • Horiuchi-dono
  • Chōon'in
Known for
SpouseHōjō Tokimune
ChildrenHōjō Sadatoki
Parent
  • Adachi Yoshikage (father)

Early life and family

Lady Horiuchi was born in 1252 to the powerful Adachi clan.[3] Her father was Yoshikage, the commander of Akita Castle;[2] her mother was the daughter of Hōjō Tokifusa.[4] She was the last of Yoshikage’s eleven children, according to Lineages of the Higher and Lesser Aristocracy.[2][lower-alpha 1] After her father died in 1253, she was raised by her older brother Adachi Yasumori, who succeeded Yoshikage as head of the clan and as her guardian.[2]

Lady Horiuchi and Tokimune, her cousin and future husband, were likely well acquainted from a very young age;[2][3] Tokimune himself was born at the Adachi residence in Kamakura.[2]

Marriage and child
Hōjō Tokimune (Edo period illustration)

In 1261, Lady Horiuchi married Hōjō Tokimune when she was nine and he was ten years old.[2] They moved together from the Adachi household to Tokimune’s own residence.[2] Nearly seven years later, Tokimune became regent to the shōgun, and de facto the most powerful man in the country.[3] As a young woman from the samurai or warrior class, she always carried a ten-inch-long knife.[3]

At the age of 19, Lady Horiuchi gave birth to a son, Hōjō Sadatoki, Tokimune's legitimate heir.[2] Sadatoki's wet nurse was the wife of Taira no Yoritsuna, who would later wield influence over her son.[5]

In 1274 and in 1281, Tokimune successfully repelled the Mongol invasions of Japan,[1] but at considerable cost to the Kamakura shogunate, both financially and politically.[2]

Religious life

Both Lady Horiuchi and Hōjō Tokimune studied the practice of Zen Buddhism, including meditation, under Mugaku Sogen (1226–1286),[6] who emigrated from Song dynasty China and became the founding abbott of Engaku-ji.[6] In light of their shared interest in religion and spirituality, historians have speculated that Horiuchi and Tokimune were happily married.[6][2]

  • For countless aeons all has been a dream,
  • And none can tell the length of the road ahead.
  • Love and gratitude are severed by one sword stroke,
  • The sun burns, and fragrant are the myriad trees.

Mugaku Sogen, "Shidō Daishi (i.e. Kakusan) Takes the Tonsure"[2]

In early 1284, Lady Horiuchi and Tokimune took the tonsure, shaving their heads after Tokimune suddenly became ill.[2] She was given the Buddhist name Kakusan Shidō,[3][7] and took on the robes of a nun.[2] Mugaku composed several verses in Chinese to commemorate the occasion of their conversion, including "Shidō Daishi [i.e., Kakusan] Takes the Tonsure".[2]

Death of Tokimune and Shimotsuki incident

In 1284, Tokimune died at the young age of 34.[2] Their 13-year-old son Sadatoki succeeded Tokimune as Hōjō regent.[2] Under the influence of his advisor Taira no Yoritsuna, many members of the Adachi clan, including Kakusan's brother and former guardian Yasumori,[5][8] were assassinated in what came to be called the Shimotsuki ("Eleventh Month") incident.[2][5] Many suspected followers of Yasumori were attacked and killed, and more than 50 men committed suicide following the incident, while still others went into exile.[5]

Founding of Tōkeiji

In 1285, Kakusan-ni[lower-alpha 2] and Sadatoki founded Tōkei-ji as a Rinzai sect convent located near Engaku-ji, now part of North Kamakura.[2][9] Kakusan was the founding abbess, while Sadatoki was the lay patron.[2] From Tōkeiji, Kakusan-ni would have been able to see the former home she had shared with Tokimune.[2]

Origins as a divorce temple
Temple grounds of Tōkei-ji, founded by Kakusan-ni in 1285, in 2009

Despite her popular reputation as the founder of Tōkei-ji as a “divorce temple”, there is no hard evidence confirming that Kakusan-ni had specifically intended Tōkei-ji as a refuge for women fleeing their husbands.[2][10] One historical text suggests that Kakusan-ni had asked her son Sadatoki to enact a temple law at Tōkei-ji to help women seeking separation from their husbands, and that he in turn asked the emperor, who approved the request.[2][7] Although temple tradition maintains that Tōkei-ji was authorized from the start to grant divorces to women who had served in its convent for a period of time,[7][10] the earliest divorce certificate the temple has in its records is dated 1783.[7] Other historians have pointed to the short story, Karaito-zōshi, which depicts Tōkei-ji as a sanctuary, as evidence that it had already developed a reputation as a safe haven for women as early as the Muromachi period.[10]

Recent historians including Sachiko Kaneko Morrell and Robert E. Morell have suggested that Kakusan-ni's interest in providing sanctuary to others was likely influenced by the fact that so many members of her own family were killed or forced into exile following the Shimotsuki incident.[2] Thus, another theory is that Tōkei-ji initially had its roots in providing asylum more generally, and that its function as a divorce temple was a later development.[2]

Transcription of the Garland Sutra

Following Tokimune's death, Kakusan-ni took on the task of copying the entire text of the Garland Sutra in his memory, taking an entire year to transcribe 80 volumes.[2] The scrolls she transcribed were formally presented at the third memorial anniversary of his death, and later stored at Engaku-ji, in a stupa commissioned by Sadatoki.[2]

Kamakura Zen kōan

In 1545, the Rinzai monk Muin Hōjō published a compilation of Kamakura Zen kōan, called Word Weeds in Southern Sagami Province.[2] The volume includes several anecdotes about Kakuzan Shidō.[2]

Seal of succession

According to the kōan, in 1304, Shidō was conferred the inka or "seal of succession" as a Zen Buddhist master, by Tōkei, the fourth abbott of Engaku-ji.[2][3] A master of novices who opposed her confirmation challenged her by asking, "In our lineage, anyone receiving transmission must expound on the Discourses of Lin-chi (Rinzai-roku). Do you know this work?"[2][3]

Acknowledging that teachers of Zen were typically literary scholars who were lecturers, Shidō placed her knife before her and replied, "As a woman from a military family, however, I place my dagger before me. What need have I for books?"[2][3]

Tōkei-ji Mirror Zen

Another kōan describes Kakusan-ni's practice of meditation before a mirror, which might enable her to "see into her own nature" and attain enlightenment.[2][3] Word Weeds attributes the following lines of poetry to Kakusan-ni:

The practice of zazen while sitting in front of the mirror thus became a tradition among nuns at Tōkeiji, who would meditate on the question: "Where is a single feeling, a single thought, in the mirror image at which I gaze?"[2]

Death and legacy

Kakusan-ni is believed to be buried at Butsunichian, the Hōjō family memorial at Engakuji, along with Tokimune.[2] After her death in 1306, she was given the name Chōon’in.[2] In 1384, a fire destroyed the Garland Stupa at Engaku-ji, and the fate and whereabouts of Kakusan-ni's copy of the Garland Sutra, if it still exists, are unknown.[2]

According to temple historians, Tōkei-ji retained the temple law allowing women to cut ties with their husbands, for more than 600 years.[7] During the Edo period, Tōkei-ji was one of two temples recognized by the Tokugawa shogunate as asylums for women.[11] The divorce law was abolished in 1871 due to anti-Buddhist sentiment, and the temple ceased to be a nunnery in 1902.[7]

In 2001, NHK broadcast a year-long historical TV drama series titled Hōjō Tokimune.[12] In the series, Kakusan-ni is called Noriko (祝子), although her actual given name is unknown. She was portrayed by Hikaru Nishida, with other actors playing her as a child and as an older woman.[13]

See also

Notes
  1. According to Morrell and Morrell, this volume, Sonpi bunmyaku, compiled by Tōin Kinsada (1340–1399), is a "monumental" work "although sometimes questionable".
  2. Literally "Nun Kakusan" or "Abbess Kakusan".

References
  1. Tanabe, George J., ed. (1999). "Introduction". Religions of Japan in Practice. Princeton University Press. p. 18. ISBN 0-691-05788-5.
  2. Morrell, Sachiko Kaneko; Morrell, Robert E. (2006). "Abbess Kakusan and the Kamakura Hōjō". Zen Sanctuary of Purple Robes. State University of New York Press. pp. 39–54. ISBN 9780791468289 – via Project MUSE.
  3. Tisdale, Sallie (2005). "The Knife: Kakuzan Shidō (1252–1306)". Women of the Way: Discovering 2,500 Years of Buddhist Wisdom. HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 978-0-06-059816-7.
  4. "覚山尼". デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus (in Japanese). Kōdansha. Retrieved December 30, 2022.
  5. Yamamura, Kozo, ed. (1990). Cambridge History of Japan: Medieval Japan. Vol. 3 (2006 ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 150–152. ISBN 978-0-521-22354-6.
  6. Kaneko, Sachiko; Morrell, Robert E. (1999). "Tōkeiji: Kamakura's 'Divorce Temple' in Edo Popular Verse". Religions of Japan in Practice. Princeton University Press. pp. 523–550. ISBN 0-691-05788-5.
  7. "覚山尼 [Kakusanni]". Tōkeiji (in Japanese). Retrieved December 31, 2022.
  8. "覚山志道 [Kakuzan Shidō]". 朝日日本歴史人物事典 (in Japanese). Asahi Shimbun Publications. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
  9. Turner, Jane, ed. (1996). The Dictionary of Art (1998 ed.). New York: Grove. p. 747. ISBN 1884446000.
  10. Owada, Tetsuo (1998). 日本の歴史101の謎 [101 Mysteries of Japanese History] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Mikasa Shobō. p. 228. ISBN 9784837909569.
  11. Nadehara, Hanako (Spring 2016). "Women in Edo Japan". Early Modern Women. 10 (2): 135–142. doi:10.1353/emw.2016.0010. JSTOR 26431403. S2CID 165133278.
  12. Liddell, C. B. (April 18, 2001). "Leaves left by the divine wind". Japan Times. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
  13. "Taiga drama "Hōjō Tokimune" – Plot summary". NHK (in Japanese). Archived from the original on February 6, 2001.
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