Kyoto nunnery strives to preserve atmosphere of Kenreimonin Tokuko’s time
Written by Writer on Thursday, October 30th, 2008
The tragic Heike heroine of Jakkoin/Kyoto nunnery strives to preserve atmosphere of Kenreimonin Tokuko’s time
Kahori Sakane
KYOTO–Despite its distance from the city center, Jakkoin nunnery in the Ohara district of Sakyo Ward here is popular with women because of the tragic figure of Kenreimonin Tokuko (1155-1191), who lost most of her family in the 1185 Genji-Heike battle.
Because Kenreimonin’s humble life as a nun at the temple appears in the conclusion of “The Tale of Heike,” a 13th century classic Japanese war tale depicting over a span of 60 years the prime of the Heike clan and their tragic downfall, visitors reflect on her hard times at her tomb located on a hill overlooking the temple.
Jakkoin has preserved several items associated with Kenreimonin and handed her story down from generation to generation.
The temple is especially popular in spring and autumn, when a site where a small, two-room hut made of gathered sticks and branches used to stand is accessible to the public.
“Some visitors claim to be descendants of the Heike clan and ask me to pray for the repose of their ancestors’ souls,” said Chimyo Takizawa, 72, the 32nd head nun of the temple. “Although the main hall of our temple was destroyed by arson in 2000, this mountainous area must still retain the same quiet atmosphere enjoyed by Kenreimonin.”
The Heike tale was written sometime between 1219 and 1243 by an unknown author based on the Buddhist notions of transiency and causality. Written as a prose epic, the tale gained popularity as Biwa Hoshi monks narrated the stories on the streets while accompanying themselves on Biwa lute.
When it was founded, Jakkoin did not belong to any particular Buddhist sect. However, around the Kamakura era (1192-1333), the temple began to follow both Tendai and Jodo sect teachings.
After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the central government ordered small temples to affiliate with head temples, with Jakkoin being overseen by Enryakuji temple, the headquarters of the Tendai sect on Mt. Hiei in Otsu.
It is said that Prince Shotoku (574-622), who has been called the founder of the nation, established Jakkoin in 594 to mourn his father, Emperor Yomei, who died in 587.
Prince Shotoku created Rokumantai Jizo Bosatsu statue, a guardian deity and the principal image of Jakkoin, and traveled north on horseback from Naniwa, present day Osaka Prefecture, searching for a place to establish a temple.
As his company came to the Ohara area, about 16 kilometers from central Kyoto, his horse stopped and would go no further, so he decided to establish a small temple on the spot, according to the temple’s history.
After constructing the temple, he sent his former nanny, a daughter of a powerful clan, to the nunnery to serve as its first head.
In the Heian period, there was an imperial horse ranch in the mountainous basin of the Ohara area.
In the late 10th century, a number of monks frustrated with the corruption of the Tendai sect left Mt. Hiei and began residing in the area. The type of Buddhist chanting they developed during their seclusion in the area became the basis of the Tendai sect’s Shomyo chanting.
When Kenreimonin came to the area in 1185, there were a number of huts established by the monks near Jakkoin.
Although there are no records for about the first 500 years of Jakkoin’s existence–its history began being compiled only after the arrival of Kenreimonin–it is thought that some of the monks may have served as heads of the temple.
Kenreimonin was born to Taira no Kiyomori, a samurai warrior who grabbed power in the imperial court to become the grand minister of state. In 1180, Kiyomori enthroned Kenreimonin’s first son as Emperor Antoku, before he was even two years old.
However, Kiyomori’s domineering practices gradually created animosity among the nobles and others, and soon after his death in 1181, the Genji clan staged an uprising against the Heike clan.
In the decisive 1185 battle off the shores of Dannoura, in present day Yamaguchi Prefecture, that destroyed the Heike clan, Kenreimonin’s mother jumped from a boat while holding Emperor Antoku in her arms.
Kenreimonin also jumped from the boat, but she was rescued and taken back to the ancient capital of Kyoto, her family lost in the battle.
Two months later, Kenreimonin entered the priesthood, shaving her head at a temple near the imperial court. However, with the temple’s proximity to downtown, she could not bear hearing the constant talk about the downfall of her family, so she moved to Jakkoin with her servants later the same year. She spent her days stoically at the temple until she died at age 36 in 1191.
In 1186, the former Emperor Goshirakawa, Kenreimonin’s father-in-law, visited Jakkoin. Although she initially hesitated to meet him out of shame and misery, she finally saw him and explained that she had experienced both heaven and hell in her life. She also told him she could not help but think of her son who died at the age of 6, although she chanted the nenbutsu prayer every day.
The former emperor and his attendants all left the temple in tears, and he later gave her two small estates near Jakkoin for financial support.
Among the treasures associated with Kenreimonin kept at the temple’s Homotsuden hall is a hanging scroll drawn by Maruyama Okyo (1733-1795), a renowned painter, which depicts the dramatic reunion of Kenreimonin and the former emperor.
Kenreimonin devoted herself to praying for the souls of her family until she died.
An indication of her devotion to Buddhism and nenbutsu chanting is a hanging scroll on which six Chinese characters–nenbutsu chanting words of “Nam Amida Buddha”–are embroidered with cuttings of Kenreimonin’s hair from when she entered the priesthood.
“There were two types of nuns in the late 12th to 14th centuries,” said Ryoichi Hosokawa, a professor specializing in Japanese women’s history in the Heian and Kamakura periods at Kyoto Tachibana University. “One type shaved their heads to show their devotion only to Buddhism–just like Kenreimonin–while the other type cut their hair to shoulder length and kept the assets of their late husbands and continued to live at home, like Kenreimonin’s mother, Taira no Tokiko.”
Kenreimonin and her servants often went up Mt. Suitai behind Jakkoin to pick flowers to offer to the Buddhist altar. They also collected firewood and wild plants and grasses for meals. At night, she took water from a well to offer to the three Buddhist images she worshiped in her small room, according to “The Tale of Heike.”
“I believe Kenreimonin was a strong woman and also a great nun who continued to chant the nenbutsu prayer for the Heike clan and her son,” Takizawa said.
“If Kenreimonin were a modern woman, she might have committed suicide because of her deep sorrow and the mental shock of losing her son in front of her,” she said, adding, “Because I myself became a nun at age 48, having two sons, I can understand how she felt.”
Until about 50 years ago, the nunnery’s inhabitants engaged in severe ascetic practices like Kenreimonin, Takizawa said.
Chiko Komatsu, the former head nun who died at the age of 92 in 2003, wrote in her book that she woke up before dawn and tolled the bell at the break of dawn every day since she entered the nunnery at age 10.
In those days, the temple’s nuns had to cultivate vegetables, and they were not allowed to use hot water to wash clothes or clean the floors of the main hall until mid-January.
“Nowadays, apprentice nuns take severe ascetic training only while at Eizan Gakuin school, which trains Tendai sect priests, but the nunnery life has been modernized and now is very different from the time of Kenreimonin. We can’t help but change with the times,” Takizawa said.
However, Jakkoin nuns continue to keep at least one local tradition alive: making shibazuke pickles.
Kenreimonin is known to have enjoyed the pickled eggplant colored and flavored by red Japanese basil, known as shibazuke, which were offered by a local farmer. The pickles later became a specialty of the Ohara area.
Although today shibazuke are sold at supermarkets across the nation, the pickles are still handmade at Ohara-area households.
Every summer, Takizawa makes the pickles, using the basil grown at the temple. Some are sent to the Imperial Palace to be served to the Emperor and Empress, she said.
Because of the temple’s connection to the Imperial family, a teahouse was donated by Emperor Showa to mark his inauguration, along with dozens of tea bowls created by living national treasures.
The Imperial family members, including Empress Michiko, were welcomed at Shoin hall, next to the main hall, when they visited the nunnery.
Although Jakkoin has until recently kept items associated with Kenreimonin and some of the temple’s traditions, the fire in 2000 destroyed the main hall and some of the items and severely damaged the 2.5-meter-tall Rokumantai Jizo Bosatsu wooden statue, an important cultural property.
The fire also killed the symbolic Sennen no Himekomatsu pine tree, which had survived since sometime before Kenreimonin moved into Jakkoin.
“We were so shocked by the incident because we’d never imagined someone would want to damage the nunnery,” Takizawa said.
Because of the external damage to the statue, the Cultural Agency first considered excluding it from the important cultural asset designation. But as a detailed examination conducted by the Kyoto-based Bijyutsuin Laboratory for Conservation of National Treasures of Japan found that many of the 3,417 small statues inside Rokumantai Jizo Bosatsu were undamaged, the agency decided to continue the designation.
As part of the two-year-long repairs, the statue’s carbonized surface was hardened with resin to prevent further deterioration. The statue is now held in a storage room under strict humidity and temperature control.
Jakkoin also built an elaborate replica of the statue and placed it at a new main hall as the new principal statue.
The fire also burned a wooden statue of Kenreimonin, which was modeled in 1597 on the original one made in 1192.
A statue made of letters sent to Kenreimonin by her husband, Emperor Takakura, and Heike family members, as well as kimono of Kenreimonin and her son Emperor Antoku were also destroyed in the fire.
The nunnery has built replicas of all the lost statues and placed them in the main hall as they were before.
“Jakkoin is the most popular among sites in Kyoto related to the Heike clan because visitors can feel the tale’s idea of the impermanence of worldly things by being in the environment in which Kenreimonin lived,” said Toshio Ishikawa, associate professor of Kyoto University of Art and Design who organized the reconstruction of the main hall and repairs.
Jakkoin built the Homotsuden hall to exhibit many of its old treasures that had been kept at its old repository. It also repaired some of the treasures that survived the fire, including the nenbutsu hanging scroll.
“Although the hall is small, we change the displays a few times a year [so that we can repair the exhibits],” Takizawa said, adding, “I believe cherishing the treasures and maintaining them forever is part of my role to keep alive the atmosphere of Kenreimonin’s time.”
(Oct. 30, 2008)
