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Kakusan-ni
*''Born: [[1252]]''
*''Died: [[1305]]''
In [[1285]], Kakusan Shido established [[Tokeiji]] as a [[Rinzai Zen]] [[Buddhist]] convent in [[Kamakura]] after the death of her husband, [[Hojo Tokimune]], the 8th Regent of the Kamakura Shogunate. Her birth name was [[Horiuchi]] and she belonged to the [[Adachi]] clan. Abbess Kakusan knew first hand that women were often pawns of revenge killings and wars; therefore, she had the desire to establish the first convent used to shelter women.
[[Yodo-ni]] (1318-96), a daughter of Emperor [[Go-Daigo]], found sanctuary at Tokeiji after the death of her brother, [[Prince Morinaga]] in Kamakura. [[Naa-hime]] (1609-44) the daughter of [[Toyotomi Hideyori]] and granddaughter of Hideyoshi was brought to Tokeiji in [[1615]] after she was rescued from [[Osaka castle]] with her step-mother [[Sen-hime]] by the order of [[Tokugawa Ieyasu]], Sen-hime’s grandfather. Tokeiji was then given extraterritorial rights by the Tokugawa Shogunate.
In the late Edo Period (1603-1868), Tokeiji was widely known as the “Divorce Temple” by sheltering runaway wives for 2 or 3 years to protect them by the authority of the shogunate, provide counseling and give them the choice of a legal divorce. Most of the women later returned to their parents’ home and some were reunited with their husbands. In the museum at Tokeiji there are many short poems written by the runaway women. These poems are [[senryu]], similar to [[haiku]], but with an ironic or bitter twist. In 1901, Tokeiji’s history as a convent and sanctuary ended when it became a monastery. It lost its extraterritorial rights when the Edo Period ended and the [[Meiji]] government set up courts for divorce. Kakusan Shido’s vision for Tokeiji lasted over 600 years.
==References==
*Bernstein, Gail Lee. Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991, pp. 100-1.
*Kondo, Tadahiro’s website: A New Guide to Kamakura. Retrieved from
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~qm9t-kndu/tokeiji.htm
*Morrell, Sachiko Kaneko and Robert E. Morrell. Zen Sanctuary of Purple Robes: Japan’s Tokeiji Convent Since 1285, N.Y.: State University Press, 2006.
*Rozmus, Lidia and Carmen Sterba, ed. The Moss at Tokeiji: A Sanctuary at Tokeiji that Saved Women’s Lives (1285-1902), Santa Fe: Deep North Press, 2010.
*Tokeiji Official Web Site, Kamakura: Tokeiji Temple Co., LTD. Retrieved from http://www.tokeiji.com/pc/
*Tonomura, Hitomi. “Re-envisioning Women,” The Origins of Japan’s Medieval World: Courtiers, Clerics, Warriors, and Peasants in the Fourteenth Century, ed. Jeffrey P. Mass, Oxford and N.Y: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 138-169
*Ueda, Makoto. ”The Battle Between the Sexes,” Light Verse from the Floating World: An Anthology of Premodern Japanese Senryu, 1999, pp. 136-145.
[[Category:Religious Figures]]
[[Category:Women]]
[[Category:Scholars and Philosophers]]
[[Category:Kamakura Period]]
[[Category:Buddhism]]
*''Born: [[1252]]''
*''Died: [[1305]]''
In [[1285]], Kakusan Shido established [[Tokeiji]] as a [[Rinzai Zen]] [[Buddhist]] convent in [[Kamakura]] after the death of her husband, [[Hojo Tokimune]], the 8th Regent of the Kamakura Shogunate. Her birth name was [[Horiuchi]] and she belonged to the [[Adachi]] clan. Abbess Kakusan knew first hand that women were often pawns of revenge killings and wars; therefore, she had the desire to establish the first convent used to shelter women.
[[Yodo-ni]] (1318-96), a daughter of Emperor [[Go-Daigo]], found sanctuary at Tokeiji after the death of her brother, [[Prince Morinaga]] in Kamakura. [[Naa-hime]] (1609-44) the daughter of [[Toyotomi Hideyori]] and granddaughter of Hideyoshi was brought to Tokeiji in [[1615]] after she was rescued from [[Osaka castle]] with her step-mother [[Sen-hime]] by the order of [[Tokugawa Ieyasu]], Sen-hime’s grandfather. Tokeiji was then given extraterritorial rights by the Tokugawa Shogunate.
In the late Edo Period (1603-1868), Tokeiji was widely known as the “Divorce Temple” by sheltering runaway wives for 2 or 3 years to protect them by the authority of the shogunate, provide counseling and give them the choice of a legal divorce. Most of the women later returned to their parents’ home and some were reunited with their husbands. In the museum at Tokeiji there are many short poems written by the runaway women. These poems are [[senryu]], similar to [[haiku]], but with an ironic or bitter twist. In 1901, Tokeiji’s history as a convent and sanctuary ended when it became a monastery. It lost its extraterritorial rights when the Edo Period ended and the [[Meiji]] government set up courts for divorce. Kakusan Shido’s vision for Tokeiji lasted over 600 years.
==References==
*Bernstein, Gail Lee. Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991, pp. 100-1.
*Kondo, Tadahiro’s website: A New Guide to Kamakura. Retrieved from
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~qm9t-kndu/tokeiji.htm
*Morrell, Sachiko Kaneko and Robert E. Morrell. Zen Sanctuary of Purple Robes: Japan’s Tokeiji Convent Since 1285, N.Y.: State University Press, 2006.
*Rozmus, Lidia and Carmen Sterba, ed. The Moss at Tokeiji: A Sanctuary at Tokeiji that Saved Women’s Lives (1285-1902), Santa Fe: Deep North Press, 2010.
*Tokeiji Official Web Site, Kamakura: Tokeiji Temple Co., LTD. Retrieved from http://www.tokeiji.com/pc/
*Tonomura, Hitomi. “Re-envisioning Women,” The Origins of Japan’s Medieval World: Courtiers, Clerics, Warriors, and Peasants in the Fourteenth Century, ed. Jeffrey P. Mass, Oxford and N.Y: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 138-169
*Ueda, Makoto. ”The Battle Between the Sexes,” Light Verse from the Floating World: An Anthology of Premodern Japanese Senryu, 1999, pp. 136-145.
[[Category:Religious Figures]]
[[Category:Women]]
[[Category:Scholars and Philosophers]]
[[Category:Kamakura Period]]
[[Category:Buddhism]]
