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144 Chapter 4

Chapter 4 Changing Agendas at Musō Soseki’s Tenryūji

One of the central political events of Musō’s time was the uprising of Emperor Godaigo, which ushered in the period of the Southern and Northern courts, as well as the rule of the Ashikaga bakufu—developments that would provide the backdrop for many of the events in Musō’s career. Godaigo’s Kenmu adminis- tration, an attempt to disenfranchise the ruling warrior government and invest his imperial line with ultimate political power, was short-lived, but the influ- ence of the rebellion would be long-lasting in a variety of ways, many of which would have direct impact on Musō. In 1339, Godaigo, still persisting in his claims to power, died at his stronghold in Yoshino, the primary base of the Southern cause. The late fourteenth-centu- ry historical chronicle Taiheiki 太平記, describes his final moments in this way. When told that his time of death was drawing near and that he should focus his mind on attaining a good rebirth, the emperor instead declares his wish for the destruction of and his family, and for peace to prevail in all directions:

“The realm must be pacified. As this is my wish, although my bones will be buried on Yoshino Mountain, my spirit will always be watching the skies over the …” In his left hand, he clutched the fifth scroll of the Lotus Sutra, and in his right he held a sword. On the sixteenth day of the eighth month, at the hour of the ox,1 his time came to an end. He was just fifty-two at his death.2

Taiheiki thus sets the stage for the reappearance of Godaigo’s spirit in later chapters, which present Godaigo as part of the pantheon of spirits historically blamed for wreaking havoc in this world from beyond it, reflecting a common- ly held belief at that time in vengeful spirits of the dead (onryō 怨霊) as the source of worldly trouble. In contrast, as several recent studies have pointed out, although Taiheiki de- picts Godaigo as an implacably angry spirit, Musō Soseki’s own writings and those closely associated with him do not directly portray Godaigo in such a

1 Between 1 and 3 a.m. 2 Vol. 3 of Taiheiki 太平記, in vol. 56, Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū, ed. Hasegawa Tadashi 長谷川端 (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1997), 28-29.

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Changing Agendas At Musō Soseki’s Tenryūji 145

Figure 16 Abbot’s quarters and garden at Tenryūji

light. For example, a portion of Musō’s biographical chronology detailing the establishment of Tenryūji, a temple founded by Musō that is often associated with the posthumous placation of Godaigo, states that on 6.24 of the same year, Musō had a dream in which Emperor Godaigo was riding a phoenix into the Kameyama palace in Saga, the future site of Tenryūji. Less than two months later the emperor was dead.3 The Taiheiki has Musō recounting his dream so as to suggest that Godaigo posed a threat to the realm,4 yet this connotation is absent from the presentation of Musō’s dream in his biographical chronology, as we shall see. Presaged by Musō’s summer night’s dream, Tenryūji was a massive under- taking funded from the proceeds of a trading mission dispatched to the conti- nent. Authorized in a decree by Retired Emperor Kōgon and built by the Ashikaga bakufu, Tenryūji is perhaps the most illustrious symbol of Musō’s ma- jor contributions to the development of the Gozan system during the early years of the Muromachi shogunate. Tenryūji also reflects the delicate position occupied by Musō in the midst of contemporary power struggles, having been patronized by both Godaigo and his rivals associated with the Northern court. Accordingly, it amply illustrates the complex ways in which issues of politics, patronage, and competition from other Buddhist institutions intersected to shape the development of Zen in Nanbokuchō-era .

3 “Nenpu,” 319. 4 Taiheiki, 161-162.