The Kamakura period was the period during which the Kamakura shogunate ruled from the city of Kamakura, in the Kantô region.
The period is generally said to begin in 1185 with the Minamoto clan victory in the Genpei War, marking the end of the Taira clan's political control; others cite 1192 as marking the beginning of the Kamakura period, as this was the year in which the Kamakura shogunate was officially established, ending the period of Kyoto (aka Heian) being the sole center of authority. The period ends in 1333, with the fall of the Kamakura shogunate.
The Kamakura period marks a significant stage in the development of samurai rule. While the Taira clan held considerable power from the 1150s-1180s, they did so from within the Imperial court; the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate marks the first time that samurai rule, operating quite separately from the Imperial court, is asserted as a significant authority in itself. The Kamakura shogunate was never as strong as the Ashikaga or Tokugawa shogunates which succeeded it, however; it largely ruled over only the samurai, while the Court continued to govern the aristocracy, temples & shrines, and the common people. While the shogunate appointed shugo (military governors) to oversee each province, the court still continued to appoint kokushi (civil governors). Further, the shogunate's authority did not extend over the entire archipelago, and there were many regions where shogunal authority was weak or non-existent. As a result, there were a number of areas in western Japan, particularly in Kyushu, but also even around Kyoto, where local groups claimed considerable power, or vied with one another for power, absent any effective control by either the Court or the shogunate. Some of these local groups came to be described as akutô (lit. "bad parties"), though this term was applied to a wide range of types of actors, from brigands, thieves, and those who sought to seize land & power by force, to those who wielded some rightful claim and simply sought to exercise or enforce that authority.[1]
Shogunal retainers are believed to have numbered only around 2,000 in the period from 1185-1221, and around 3,000 afterwards. The total population of the archipelago may have been around 9.75 million in 1300.[2]
Though the Minamoto clan founded the Kamakura shogunate, and the city, its control of the shogunate lasted only very briefly. After the first shogun, Minamoto no Yoritomo, died in 1199, his widow Hôjô Masako named her father Hôjô Tokimasa regent (shikken), and seized control over the shogunate. For the remainder of the period, the shoguns were largely pawns, or puppets, of the Hôjô, who exercised true political power. After the third Kamakura shogun, Minamoto no Sanetomo, was assassinated in 1219, the Minamoto line of shoguns ended. The shogunate survived an attempted coup two years later, known as the Jôkyû War, but for the remainder of the period, Imperial princes and members of the court aristocratic Kujô family served as shogun.
Numerous significant religious developments took place in the period. The monk Nichiren established and spread his Lotus Sect school of Buddhism in the 13th century; figures such as Ippen and Kûya spread their teachings during this time, too, with a variety of popular and millenarian Buddhist movements, including the Ji sect, emerging as well. Much of these developments were tied into a widespread belief that the decline and eventual fall of the Heian period marked the entry into the period of mappô (lit. "end of the law"), a period in the grand cosmic cycle during which the religious laws governing the universe begin to fall out of order, and the ability to achieve salvation wanes. Worship in Amida Buddha, including especially belief in the practice of nenbutsu, grew considerably in popularity at this time, as popular movements grew asserting that one needed not devote oneself fully to a proper Buddhist/monastic life of meditation, restraint, prayer, and ritual practice in order to achieve salvation, but rather that one could be saved by Amida, simply for chanting his name and expressing true faith. Zen was also introduced in this period - specifically, by the monk Eisai, who returned from China in 1191, introducing Rinzai Zen along with powdered tea and other Song Dynasty cultural practices. Dôgen then introduced Sôtô Zen a few decades later, in 1227. Zen received patronage from the Hôjô clan, regents to the shoguns, and quickly became well-established, with Kamakura becoming a major center of Zen practice.
Song Dynasty Neo-Confucianism was also first introduced into Japan in this period.[3]
In terms of the arts, perhaps the most significant developments of the Kamakura period were those concerning Buddhist sculpture, as the Tôdai-ji, Sanjûsangendô, and other temples were rebuilt and restored in the 1190s-1200s following their destruction or damage in the Genpei War. Sculptors such as those of the Kei school created new sculptures for these temples in a notably new and influential style.[4] Chinese stonemasons brought over at this time for the temple reconstruction projects also contributed significantly to the emergence of a tradition of stone grave markers, particularly in the form of miniature stone pagodas known as gorintô.[5]
Samurai administrators appointed to the provinces, as well as those situated within Kamakura, generally lived in fortified compounds known as yakata. These were strictly conglomerations of wooden structures, often including some in the shinden-zukuri style of the Heian period, surrounded with moats, and looked little like the castles of the Azuchi-Momoyama and Edo periods. The Asakura clan fortress at Ichijôdani is a representative example.[6]
The Mongol Empire launched two invasions of Japan, in 1274 and 1281. Though both were unsuccessful, gaining no territory at all beyond landfall, efforts to defend against these invasions - and, in particular, efforts to strengthen preparations for defense against a third invasion which never came - severely weakened the shogunate. When Emperor Go-Daigo raised forces against the shogunate in 1333, in an effort to restore Imperial power, it fell fairly quickly. This Kemmu Restoration did not last long, however, as Go-Daigo's lead general, Ashikaga Takauji, turned on him and established his own shogunate, the Ashikaga shogunate, in 1336, marking the beginning of the Muromachi period.
| Preceded by: Heian Period |
Kamakura Period 1185-1333 |
Succeeded by: Muromachi Period |
References
- ↑ Lorraine F. Harrington. "Social Control and the Significance of Akutô." in Jeffrey Mass (ed.). Court and Bakufu in Japan: Essays in Kamakura History. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982. pp221-250.
- ↑ Robert Tignor, Benjamin Elman, et al, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, vol B, Fourth Edition, W.W. Norton & Co (2014), 410.
- ↑ Takatsu Takashi, “Ming Jianyang Prints and the Spread of the Teachings of Zhu Xi to Japan and the Ryukyu Kingdom in the Seventeenth Century,” in Angela Schottenhammer (ed.), The East Asian Mediterranean: Maritime Crossroads of Culture, Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008. 254.; Robert Morrell, "Zeami's Kasuga Ryûjin (Dragon God of Kasuga), or Myôe Shônin," Early Kamakura Buddhism: A Minority Report, Asian Humanities Press (1987), 103.
- ↑ Morse, Samuel C. "Revealing the Unseen: The Master Sculptor Unkei and the Meaning of Dedicatory Objects in Kamakura-Period Sculpture." Impressions 31 (2010). p25.
- ↑ Hank Glassman, "Remembering the Dead in Medieval Japan: On the Origins of Stone Grave Markers," talk given at University of California, Santa Barbara, 7 May 2015.
- ↑ Gallery labels, National Museum of Japanese History.[1][2]