著名人物

Tokimasa Born 1136, died 1216; Yoshitoki appointed 1205, died 1227; Yasutoki appointed 1225, died 1242; Tsunetoki appointed 1243, died 1263; Tokiyori appointed 1246, died 1263. Tokimune appointed 1261, died 1284; Sadatoki appointed 1284, died 1311; Morotoki appointed 1301, died 1311; Takatoki appointed 1312, died 1333. 25. - List of Celebrated Personages. The following list of celebrated personages referred to in this book, and likely to be mentioned by guides when explaining objects of historical or artistic interest, may be found useful. Akahito (flourished circa A.D. 700), one of the earliest poets of Japan. His full name was Yamabe-no-Akahito.

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Antoku Tenno, an ill-fated infant Mikado, who perished at sea in A.D. 1185, during the civil war waged between the great families of Taira and Minamoto. (See also end of Route 47). Asahina Saburo (end of 12th century), one of Yoritomo's doughtiest retainers, was distinguished by almost incredible physical strength. He is depicted in art as hurling great rocks with the same ease that he flings stalwart rivals, and as swimming with a live shark under each arm. Bakin (1767-1848), the greatest novelist of modern Japan.

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His most famous production is the Hakkenden, or "Story of Eight Dogs." This amazingly voluminous work (it fills no less than one hundred and six volumes!) sets forth the adventures of eight heroes of semi-canine parentage, who represent the eight cardinal virtues.

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Celebrated Personages. 71 Benkei, or Musashi-bo Benkei (12th century), was Yoshitsune's famous henchman. How many of Benkei's achievements are historical, it would be hard to say. According to the current version, he was eight feet in height, strong as a hundred men, and had even in early years performed so many deeds of violence as to have been nicknamed Oni-waka, "the Devil Youth." Having attempted to cut down Yoshitsune, then a mere stripling, on the Gojo bridge in Kyoto, he found in him his master in the art of fencing, and was made to sue for quarter. So great was the veneration thus inspired in his breast that he thenceforth attached himself to Yoshitsune's fortunes, and died battling in his cause.

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The fight between Yoshitsune and Benkei is a favourite subject with the artists of Japan. Another is the subterfuge by which Benkei made way for his master and their little band through one of the barriers where, at that time, all travellers were liable to be stopped. He pretended that he was a priest sent to collect subscriptions for the building of a new temple, and therefore privileged to travel free. The pictures represent him reading out his supposed ecclesiastical commission from a scroll to the barrier-keepers, who were too ignorant of letters to discover the feint. This story is the subject of a popular drama called Kanjin-cho. See de Benneville's "Saito Musashi-Bo Benkei." Buson (see p.

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59.) Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724) was Japan's foremost playwright. His dramas are still immensely popular. Cho Densu (see p. 57). Daruma (Sanskrit, Dharma), an Indian Buddhist patriarch of the 6th century, who sat for nine years in profound abstraction till his legs rotted away and fell off. Date Masamune (1567-1636), Daimyo of Sendai, is chiefly remembered for the embassy which he despatched to the Pope and to the King of Spain in 1614. This nobleman was eminent as a warrior, a diplomatist, and a patron of learning and art. Dengyo Daishi (flourished about A.D. 800) was the first Buddhist abbot of Hiei-zan, near Kyoto.

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He made a long sojourn in China for the purpose of esoteric study, and brought back with him the doctrines of the Tendai sect. Daruma. En no Shokaku was a famous Buddhist saint and miracle-worker of the 7th century, and the first human being to ascend Haku-san, Daisen, Tateyama, and others of Japan's highest mountains, it being part of his mission to bring all such remote and inaccessible places under the sway of Buddha. Having been slandered as a magician and condemned to death, he so fortified himself by the use of mystic signs and formulae that the swords of the executioners sent to behead him snapped in pieces; but afterwards he flew away through the air, and was never again seen by mortal eyes.

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Enko Daishi (1133-1212) was born of respectable parents in the province of Mimasaka. At the age of nine, he was entered as a pupil at a

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72 Introduction: - Celebrated Personages. seminary in his native province; but his teacher, recognising his exceptional powers, sent him up to the great monastery on Hiei-zan in 1147, with a letter containing only these words: "I send you an image of the great sage Monju." On the letter being presented, the priest to whom it was addressed asked where the image was, and was much astonished when the child alone appeared before him. But the young novice soon justified the implied estimate of his great intellectual powers, and made such rapid progress in his studies that at the end of the same year he was judged fit for initiation into the priesthood.

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The prospect was held out to him of ultimately obtaining the headship of the Tendai sect; but he preferred to devote himself to the study of theology, and finally developed a special doctrine of salvation, or the road to the "Pure Land," from which the new sect was named Jodo, this word having the same meaning as the Sanskrit Sukhavati or "Pure Land," the paradise of Amida. In 1207 he settled at Kyoto near the site of the present monastery of Chion-in, and there breathed his last at the age of seventy-nine. Eshin (942-1017), a Buddhist abbot who is famous as a sculptor. Forty-Seven Ronins. Their story, too long to be told here, will be found in Things Japanese. Fujiwara Family.

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This, the greatest of Japan's aristocratic houses, traces its origin back to mythological times. Already in the seventh century, its then head, Kamatari, was regent of the empire. Down to the middle of the eleventh century, its members engrossed the high offices of state and supplied most of the Mikados' consorts. Even now, nearly two-thirds of the Court nobility (Kuge) are of Fujiwara descent. Go-Daigo Tenno (reigned 1319-1339) was a Mikado celebrated for his misfortunes.

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For about a century before his time the throne had been in a state of vassalage to the powerful Hojo "Regents" at Kamakura; and his endeavour to shake off their domination only resulted, after much shedding of blood, in his being taken prisoner and banished to the Oki Islands. When the Hojo fell in 1333 under the sword of the loyalist warrior Nitta Yoshisada, the Emperor Go-Daigo was recalled from exile. But the times were not ripe for the abolition of military rule, nor was Go-Daigo wise in his choice of counsellors after his restoration.

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Ashikaga Takauji, who had posed as the champion of Imperial rights, desired nothing so much as to become Shogun himself, and bribed the Mikado's concubine Kado-ko to poison her lord's mind against those who had served him most faithfully, and even against his own son, Prince Morinaga (also known as Oto-no-miya), who was declared a rebel, cast into a dungeon at Kamakura, and there murdered. Go-Daigo repented of his folly and weakness when it was too late. Takauji left Kyoto, and the army sent to smite him received such a crushing defeat that Go-Daigo was forced to seek safety in flight. Thereupon Takauji set another Mikado on the throne.

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But as Go-Daigo continued to be recognised by many as the rightful ruler, the sovereignty was split into two rival branches, called the Southern (legitimate) and the Northern (usurping) Courts. After sixty years of strife and misery, the Northern Court triumphed in 1392, the representative of the Southern dynasty handing over to it the Imperial regalia. Go-Daigo perished at an early period of the struggle. His Court - if we may so call the mountain fastness where he mostly encamped - was at Yoshino, whose position to the south of Kyoto was the origin of the epithet "Southern" applied to it by Japanese historians.

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Gyogi Bosatsu (670-749), a Korean by birth, and a Buddhist abbot and saint, is the subject of many artistic fictions. He is credited not only with the invention of the potter's wheel, which was certainly used in

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Celebrated Personages. 73 Japan before his time, but with a number of important wood-carvings and other works of art. The ware called after him, Gyogi-yaki, is earthenware, - dark, glossy, very solid, having wave-lines in the interior, and on the outside a pattern resembling the impression made by matting. He built bridges, opened up mountain districts, and above all he was instrumental in fusing the two antagonistic religions, Buddhism and Shinto into a single system (see p. 35).

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Hachiman Taro, lit. the First-Born of the God of War, was a famous general at the end of the 11th century, whose real name was Minamoto-no-Yoshiie, and whose vigorous personality created the pre-eminence of the Minamoto or Genji family. He it was who conquered Northern Japan (the region beyond Sendai), and brought those hitherto barbarous provinces into permanent subjection to the Imperial sway. Artists often depict an episode in his career which showed his skill as a strategist, namely, his discovery of an ambush among the rushes, which he inferred from the disturbed flight of the wild-geese overhead.

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Like many other turbulent spirits of that time, he forsook the world and became a Buddhist monk at the approach of old age. Hidari Jingoro (see p. 59). Hideyoshi (1536-1598), commonly known as the Taiko Hideyoshi - the word Taiko being a title indicative of exalted rank - has sometimes been called the Napoleon of Japan.

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Of low birth and so ugly as to earn the nickname of "Monkey Face," Hideyoshi worked his way up by sheer will, hard fighting, and far-sighted ability, to the position of Nobunaga's most trusty lieutenant; and when that ruler died in 1582, Hideyoshi, having slain his chief enemies and captured Kyoto, became practically monarch of Japan with the title of Regent (Kwampaku), which till then had never been accorded to any but the highest nobility. Hideyoshi carried out many wise measures of internal policy, such as financial reform, the improvement of the great cities of Kyoto and Osaka, and the encouragement of maritime trade. He was also more merciful to his foes and rivals than his predecessor Nobunaga had been.

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His greatest failing was the vulgar ambition of the parvenu. His dream was to conquer China and become Emperor of the whole East. As a first step towards this, he sent an army across the straits to Korea under command of the celebrated generals Kato Kiyomasa and Konishi Yukinaga, - the latter a Christian, as were many of the soldiers of the expedition. Korea was ruined, and Japan nowise benefited. Hideyoshi's death resulted in the withdrawal of the Japanese troops from the peninsula, and in the speedy overthrow of his own family power which he had hoped to render hereditary. Hishigawa Moronobu (see p. 58). Hitomaro (flourished circa A.D. 700) was one of Japan's earliest great poets, and the rival of Akahito.

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His full name was Kakinomoto-no-Hitomaro. Hojo Family. Established first at Hojo, then at Kamakura in Eastern Japan, this family governed the empire as military regents from 1205 to 1333 under the nominal rule of Shoguns living at Kyoto. Hojo Tokimune made his rule (1261-1284) illustrious by the repulse of the Mongol fleet which Kublai Khan had sent to invade Japan. Hokusai (see p. 58).

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Iemitsu (1604-1651), the third Shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty, inherited the administrative ability of his grandfather Ieyasu, and devoted his peaceful reign to perfecting the system of government established by that prince, including the elaborate system of espionage, touching which early European writers on Japan have so much to say. To him is due the

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74 Introduction: - Celebrated Personages. rule according to which all the Daimyos were obliged to reside during half the year in Yedo, and to leave their families there as hostages during the other half. It was also Iemitsu who suppressed Christianity as dangerous to the state, and closed up the country against all foreigners except the Dutch and Chinese, who were permitted to trade at Nagasaki under humiliating restrictions. In fact, it was Iemitsu who consolidated what we call "Old Japan." His tomb is at Nikko near that of Ieyasu.

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Ieyasu (1542-1616), one of the greatest generals, and altogether the greatest ruler that Japan has ever produced, was by birth one of the small Daimyos of the province of Mikawa, and a scion of the noble family of Minamoto. His own surname was Tokugawa. Having served under both Nobunaga and the Taiko Hideyoshi, he profited by the latter's death in 1598 to make war on his infant son Hideyori, seized the great castle of Osaka, burnt the Taiko's celebrated palace of Momoyama at Fushimi, and finally, in the year 1600, defeated all his enemies at the battle of Seki-ga-hara, a small village in the province of Omi, now a station on the Tokaido Railway.

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Meanwhile he had, in 1590, moved his own headquarters from Shizuoka, where they had been for many years, to Yedo, then an unimportant fishing-village, which he chose on account of the strategic advantages of its position. In 1603 he obtained from the faineant Court of Kyoto the title of Shogun, which was borne by his descendants during two and a half centuries of unbroken peace, till Commodore Perry's arrival in 1853 led to the revolution of 1868, and to the break-up of Japanese feudalism and dualism.

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The statecraft which caused so long a reign of peace under one dynasty to take the place of the secular struggles between petty warring chieftains, consisted principally in maintaining a balance of power whereby the rivalries of the greater Daimyos were played off against each other, and in the annexation to the Shogun's own domain, or to those of his nearest relatives, of large strips of territory in all portions of the Empire. These served as coigns of vantage, whence, in those days of difficult communication, the actions of each Daimyo could more easily be controlled. Ieyasu held in his own grasp all the military resources of the country, and forced all the Daimyos to regard themselves as his feudatories.

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He likewise had the Court of Kyoto strictly guarded, - nominally as a protection for the sacred Mikado against rebel foes, but in reality to prevent His Majesty, who still retained the semblance of Imperial power, from endeavouring to shake off the fetters which made him a passive instrument in the Shogun's hands. Ieyasu furthermore built powerful strongholds, made new highways, established a system of posts, and promulgated laws, which - if we accept the theory of paternal government alike in politics and in the family - were very wise, and which were in any case far in advance of anything that Japan had previously known.

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When the government had been established on a firm footing in 1605, Ieyasu followed the usual Japanese custom of abdicating in favour of his son. He retired to Shizuoka, and spent the evening of his life in encouraging the renaissance of Japanese literature which had just begun. To his munificence is owing the editio princeps of many an important work. His political testament, known as the "Legacy of Ieyasu," embodied the rules of paternal government by which his successors were forever to be guided; but (owing perhaps to the circumstance of its having long been kept from public knowledge) its authenticity has been doubted.

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Ieyasu was first buried at Kuno-zan, not far from Shizuoka, in a beautiful shrine on a castle-like eminence overlooking the sea. In the year 1617, his remains were removed to their present still grander resting-place at Nikko. The dynasty of Shoguns founded

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Celebrated Personages. 75 by Ieyasu is called the Tokugawa dynasty, from the surname of the family. Ishikawa Goemon (end of 16th century), the most notorious of Japanese robbers, is credited with having possessed the physical strength of thirty ordinary men. Being at last captured at the age of thirty-seven, he and his young son Ichiro were condemned to be boiled to death in a cauldron of oil, which sentence was carried out in the dry bed of the Kamogawa at Kyoto.

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In accordance with custom, the criminal composed a death-song, which ran as follows: Ishikawa ya Hama no masago wa Tsukuru to mo Yo ni nusubito no Tane wa tsukimaji which may be rendered thus, "Though the stony-bedded rivers (ishi-kawa a pun on his own name) and the sand on the sea-shore come to an end, the line of thieves shall never come to an end." Ito Hirobumi (1841-1909). The greatest Japanese statesman of modern times. By birth a samurai of the Choshu clan, he was imbued at an early age with a desire to acquire Western knowledge, and, with a little band of reformers, escaped to Europe in 1863.

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Ito took an active part in the struggle against the Shogunate and, after the Restoration of 1867, in the numerous changes which crowded this new era. He became Minister of Public Works in the first Cabinet on Western lines, subsequently four times Prime Minister, and was chiefly responsible for the Constitution instituted in 1889. After the war with China, 1894-5, Ito and Li-Hung-Chang arranged the terms of peace whereby Formosa was ceded to Japan. When Korea came under the protection of Japan in 1905, he received the appointment of Resident-General and was shortly afterwards created a Prince. He was murdered by a Korean fanatic at Harbin, October 26, 1909. Iwasa Matahei (see p. 58). Jikaku Daishi (A.D.

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794-864), a celebrated Buddhist abbot. Like many others of his time and profession, he visited China in quest of religious and magical lore. Jimmu Tenno, that is, the Emperor Jimmu, is accounted by the Japanese annalists the first human sovereign of their country, which had till then been ruled over by the Shinto gods. Jimmu Tenno was himself descended from the Sun-Goddess Ame-terasu, and consequently semi-divine. The orthodox account of his career is that, starting from Kyushu in the extreme west of Japan, he rowed up the Inland Sea with a band of devoted warriors, subduing the aborigines as he went along, in virtue of the commission which he had received from Heaven.

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After much fighting in what are now the provinces of Bizen and Yamato, and many miraculous occurrences, he died at the age of one hundred and thirty-seven, and was buried at Kashiwabara in Yamato, where his capital had been established after the conquest. The date assigned for his accession is the 11th February, 660 B.C., the anniversary of which day has been made a public holiday, and was chosen for the promulgation of the new Constitution in 1889, evidently with the desire to strengthen the popular belief in the authenticity and continuity of Japanese history.

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Jimmu Tenno and his successors during many centuries have, however, been condemned as myths by competent European investigators, though it is allowed that the Jimmu legend may possibly be an echo of some actual

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76 Introduction: - Celebrated Personages. invasion of Central Japan by western tribes of adventurers in very early days. Jingo Kogo, that is, the Empress Jingo, ruled over Japan, according to the native annalists, from A.D. 201 to 269, when she died at the age of one hundred; but Mr. Aston, the leading authority on early Japanese history, while not denying the existence of this Japanese Semiramis, relegates most of her mighty deeds to the realm of fable.

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The chief legend connected with her is that of the conquest of Korea, to which country she crossed over with a gallant fleet, aided by the fishes both great and small and by a miraculous wave, and whence she returned only after receiving the abject submission of the king. During the three years of her absence in Korea, she held in her womb her son Ojin, who is worshipped as Hachiman, the God of War. Next she turned her attention eastwards, and going in her fleet up the Inland Sea, smote the rebels of Yamato, as Jimmu Tenno is said to have done before her. Indeed, it has been suspected that the two legends are but varying versions of the same story.

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Jocho, the most original of Japan's mediaeval sculptors, flourished during the reign of the Emperor Go-Ichijo (A.D. 1017-1036). He carved Buddhist subjects. Josetsu (see p. 57). Kagekiyo (second half of 12th century) was a famous warrior of the Taira family, to whom various picturesque legends attach. On one occasion he disguised himself as a Buddhist priest, and took part in a grand temple service as an opportunity for attempting the life of Yoritomo. After the ruin of his party, he put out his own eyes, in order not to see the triumph of the rival house of Minamoto. Kano, the family name of a celebrated school of painters (see p. 57).

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The Japanese custom of adoption is the key to the apparent mystery of so many men similarly gifted arising in one family. Kato Kiyomasa was one of Hideyoshi's generals in the invasion of Korea at the end of the 16th century, and a fierce enemy of the Christians. He is one of the most popular Japanese heroes, and is worshipped - chiefly by the Nichiren sect of Buddhists - under the name of Seisho Ko. Kesa Gozen (12th century) is the subject of a celebrated story. Though she was already wedded to another, her beauty inspired an amorous passion in the breast of a cousin only seventeen years of age, who did not hesitate to demand her of her mother.

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Alarmed for her mother's safety, Kesa Gozen feigned consent to his adulterous wishes, but on condition that he would first kill her husband. Then taking her husband's place in bed, she awaited the assassin. The cousin accordingly entered the room at midnight, and carried into effect his murderous intent, but was so horrified on discovering who his victim was that he forsook the world and became a monk, and finally a saint under the name of Mongaku Shonin. Kiyomori (1118-1181) was head of the great house of Taira during its struggles with the rival house of Minamoto, and during the brief period of triumph which preceded its final overthrow at Dan-no-ura.

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From the year 1156 until his death, Kiyomori was all-powerful, engrossing all the highest offices of state for his own kinsmen, and governing the palace through his kinswomen, where boy Mikados succeeded each other like shadows on the throne. To suit his own convenience, he changed the capital for a time from Kyoto to Fukuwara near the site of modern Kobe, - an act of high-handed autocracy which was bitterly resented by the courtiers and the nobility, whose habits were interfered with and their resources taxed by the double move. While irritating the upper classes by his nepotism and

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Celebrated Personages. 77 overbearing demeanour, he ground down the common people by his exactions, and endeavoured utterly to exterminate the Minamoto family. The famous beauty Tokiwa Gozen, handmaiden to Yoshitomo, was forced to yield to his embraces in order to save the life of her infant, the future hero Yoshitsune; and every woman that pleased his fancy had to minister to his lust. His eldest son Shigemori remonstrated with him in vain. But the storm did not break in his time. He died in his bed, leaving his whole house to perish four years later in a sea of blood.

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Kobo Daishi (774-834), the most famous of all Japanese Buddhist saints, was noted equally as preacher, painter, sculptor, calligraphist, and traveller. Had his life lasted six hundred years instead of sixty, he could hardly have graven all the images, scaled all the mountain peaks, confounded all the sceptics, wrought all the miracles, and performed all the other feats with which he is popularly credited. Byobu-ga-ura, near the modern shrine of Kompira in Shikoku, was his birth-place. His conception was miraculous, and he came into the world with his hands folded as if in prayer. He entered the priesthood in A.D. 793.

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Various legends are told of the trials to which he was subjected by evil spirits during his novitiate. At Cape Muroto in Tosa, dragons and other monsters appeared out of the sea, and disturbed him in his devotions. These he drove away by repeating mystic formulae called Darani, and by spitting at them the rays of the evening star which had flown from heaven into his mouth. At a temple built by him on this spot, he was constantly annoyed by hobgoblins, who forced him to enter into conversation; but he finally got rid of them by surrounding himself with a consecrated enclosure into which they were unable to enter against his will.

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Having been sent to China as a student in 804, much as promising Japanese youths are sent to Europe or America to-day, he became the favourite disciple of the great abbot Hui-kwo (Jap. Hei-kwa), by whom he was charged to carry back to Japan the tenets of the Yogacharya, or, as it is called in Japan, Shingon sect, which occupies itself greatly with mystic formulae, magic spells, and incantations. Kobo Daishi returned home in 806, bringing with him a large quantity of Buddhist books and devotional objects, and in 810 was installed as abbot of Toji in Kyoto. A few years later he founded the great monastery of Koya-san in Kishu, where he spent the closing days of a life of incessant toil.

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It is asserted that he did not die, but merely retired into a vaulted tomb, where he still awaits the coming of Miroku, the Buddhist Messiah. Among the innumerable great deeds with which this saint is credited, is the invention of the Hiragana syllabary. It should be noted that the name Kobo Daishi (lit. the Great Teacher Spreading Abroad the Law) is a posthumous title conferred on him by the Emperor Daigo in the year 921. His name while alive was Kukai. Kobori, lord of Enshu (1577-1645), courtier to Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, was the highest authority of his age on the tea ceremonies (cha-no-yu) and all the cognate aesthetic pursuits which that term sums up to the Japanese

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78 Introduction: - Celebrated Personages. mind, - curio-collecting, for instance, and the laying out of landscape gardens. The still existing school of flower arrangement (Enshu-ryu) derived from him distinguishes itself from others by its greater elaborateness and artificiality. Kojima Takanori, also called Bingo-no-Saburo, was a high-born warrior of the 14th century, celebrated for his romantic loyalty to the Emperor Go-Daigo. When that ill-fated monarch was being carried off to exile by the minions of the usurping house of Hojo, the faithful young soldier endeavoured to rescue him on the road.

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Having failed not only in this, but even in gaining access for a moment to his master's person, Takanori hit on a method of communication characteristically aesthetic and Japanese. Stealing at night into the garden of the inn where the Imperial party had halted, he scraped part of the bark of a cherry-tree bare, and on it wrote the following line of poetry: 天莫空勾践 時非無范蠡 which, being interpreted, signifies "Heaven! destroy not Kosen, For he is not without a Hanrei!" the allusion being to an ancient Chinese king, who, after twenty years of warfare, was at length helped to victory by the prowess of a faithful vassal.

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When day broke, the soldiers, seeing the writing, but being too ignorant to decipher it, showed it to their Imperial captive, who at once understood that it referred to himself and was meant to intimate that faithful friends were at hand. The choice of a cherry-tree was not the least significant part of the deed; for that tree is in Japan the emblem of patriotism and loyalty. Later on, Takanori died fighting for his sovereign, and artists still love to reproduce that scene of his life in which loyalty and delicacy were so well combined.

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Komachi (full name Ono-no-Komachi), the most famous of Japan's many poetesses, seems to have flourished in the second half of the 9th century, and left a lasting impression on the national mind by her beauty, her talents, and the miserable old age which was the reward of her pride and frailty; but nothing certain is known of her career.

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Every branch of art borrows motives from Komachi's life. "She is shown," says Anderson, "in her days of pride and luxury, drawing rain down upon the parched earth by the numbers of her magic verse, bringing to shame the rival who sought to fasten upon her the stigma of plagiarism and falsehood; courted by the noblest of the brilliant band that surrounded the throne, - and again, without a step of transition, old, enfeebled, clad in unclean rags, begging her way from door to door until she died, rotted, and became the food of dogs on the highway - a moral illustration of the Buddhist text, 'All is vanity,' that the artist never tires of repeating, and sometimes elaborates with sickening detail." Korin (see p.

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58). Kose-no-Kanaoka (see p. 56). Kumagai Naozane, a warrior of the latter half of the 12th century, took his surname from the town of Kumagai in the province of Musashi, which he received as a fief from Yoritomo. The most striking incident in his life was his encounter with Atsumori at the battle of Ichi-no-tani not far from Kobe, in the year 1184. Atsumori was a delicate young nobleman of the Taira family, scarcely sixteen years of age, who, when the city of Fukuwara had been taken by the Minamoto, sought safety like the rest of his kindred in flight on board a junk, but being pursued by Kumagai Naozane, had to fight for his life. He succumbed to the veteran, who

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Celebrated Personages. 79 tearing off his helmet the better to sever his head, beheld the youthful face and was struck with pity and sympathy, his own son having fallen earlier in the day. He reflected, however, that to spare the boy's life might only cause him to fall into more ruthless hands. So partly out of compassion, and partly for the sake of his own reputation, he resolved to carry out his first purpose. Atsumori submitted to his fate with heroic courage, while Naozane, overwhelmed with bitter remorse, vowed never more to bear arms, but to forsake the world and spend the remainder of his days in praying for the soul of the fair youth whose life he had so unwillingly taken.

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He restored to Atsumori's father the head and the other spoils which he had gained, and after the conclusion of the war went to Kyoto and entered the cloister of Kurodani, where numerous relics of him are shown to this day. The story has been dramatised under the title of Atsumori. Kusunoki Masashige, also called Nanko (first half of 14th century), is celebrated for his courage and for his unswerving loyalty to the throne. Had the Emperor Go-Daigo listened to his advice, the rising power of the house of Ashikaga might have been crushed.

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As it was, Masashige was unequally pitted against a superior foe; and when his army had been annihilated at the battle of Minato-gawa near the modern city of Kobe, in 1336, he and a little band of personal followers committed harakiri rather than surrender. A scene which painters often delineate is Masashige, about to die, presenting to his young son a scroll containing the Imperial acknowledgment of his doughty deeds. Kyosai (1831-1890), an artist noted for vigorous drawing and for caricature. Masakado (killed A.D. 940) was the most celebrated of Japanese rebels, and the only one who ever went so far as to arrogate to himself the title of Mikado. For details, see under Narita (Route 5, Sect.

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11), and the temple of Kanda Myojin in Tokyo. Masamune, the name of a celebrated family of swordsmiths, of whom the most eminent was Masamune Goro Nyudo, who flourished circa A.D. 1300. Meiji Tenno (1853-1912) is the posthumous title of the Emperor Mutsuhito, to whose manifold virtues all the achievements of the late reign, - the most momentous in Japan's history - have been ascribed by a loyal and devoted people. His remains were conveyed to Momoyama near Kyoto amidst universal mourning in which distinguished envoys from all the great powers took part. Michizane (see Tenjin). Minamoto or Genji Family. Sprung from a Mikado of the 9th century, this family produced an exceptional number of eminent men.

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It fought with and triumphed over its rivals, the Taira, in the 12th century, when its head, Yoritomo, was made Shogun. Apart from two or three Imperial princes, no other family ever claimed that office; the Ashikaga and Tokugawa lines of Shoguns were all of Minamoto blood. Mito Komon (1622-1700), second Daimyo of Mito, a near relative of the Tokugawa Shoguns, helped greatly though unwittingly to the final overthrow of their house, and of the whole feudal system a century and a half later, by means of his celebrated historical work, the Dai Nihon Shi, which first reminded thoughtful men that the Shoguns were usurpers, and the Mikados the only rightful rulers of Japan.

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He also patronised the new school of Shinto literati, whose studies led them, and finally the majority of the educated public, to endeavour to bring back the state of things supposed to have existed in pre-Buddhistic and pre-feudal days.

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80 Introduction: - Celebrated Personages. Popular tradition ascribes to this prince many fanciful undertakings, such as the endeavour to raise the great bell from the river at Konodai, and to find the bottom of the kaname-ishi at Kashima, which is supposed to be the pivot of the world. The succeeding Daimyos of the house of Mito inherited the literary and political views of their great ancestor. As late as 1840, the then prince, "tired of preaching Shinto and of persuading the Shogun to hand over his authority to the Mikado, resolved to take up arms and to try the wager of battle.

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To provide the sinews of war, he seized the Buddhist monasteries, and melted down their enormous bronze bells, and cast them into cannon. By prompt measures the Shogun suppressed his preparations for war, and imprisoned him for twelve years, releasing him only in the excitement consequent upon the arrival of Perry."* The son of this stout old imperialist became the last of the Shoguns, and accomplished what his ancestors had laboured for, by the voluntary surrender of his rank and power to the Mikado. Mongaku Shonin (see Kesa Gozen). Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) was the prince of Japanese literati.

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A pupil of the scarcely less distinguished scholar Mabuchi, he continued Mabuchi's work of investigating Japanese antiquity, bringing back into literary use the pure ancient Japanese language, restoring the Shinto religion to the supremacy of which Buddhism had robbed it, - in a word, emphasising and exalting everything native as against that part of Japanese civilization which was new and of extraneous origin.

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The restoration of the Mikado to the absolute authority which centuries before had been usurped by the Shoguns, was naturally a prime object of the endeavours of a man to whom antiquity and perfection were convertible terms, and in whose belief the Mikado was really and truly a descendant of the Goddess of the Sun. Motoori and his school thus became to some extent the authors of the revolution which, half a century later, overturned the Shogunate and brought the Mikado forth from seclusion to govern as well as reign. In recognition of these services, divine honours have been conferred both on Motoori and Mabuchi by the late Emperor. Motoori's works were very numerous.

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The greatest is his elaborate commentary on the Kojiki, called Kojiki Den, which is practically an encyclopaedia of ancient Japanese lore, written in a style as clear as it is elegant. The printing of the forty-four volumes of which it consists was not concluded till 1822, long after the author's death. Murasaki Shikibu (flourished circa A.D. 1000) was a Court lady, and the most celebrated of Japanese romance-writers. Her chief work is the Genji Monogatari. Narihira (A.D. 825-880), the Don Juan of ancient Japan. His adventures are recounted in the Ise Monogatari. Nichiren was born at Kominato in the province of Awa, not far from modern Tokyo in A.D. 1222.

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At the age of twelve, he became an acolyte of the Shingon sect of Buddhists, and was admitted to the priesthood three years later. Shortly afterwards, he adopted the name by which he is known to history. It signifies "Lotus of the Sun," and is derived from a dream which came to his mother of the sun on a lotus-flower, in consequence of which she became pregnant. He acquired a thorough knowledge of the whole Buddhist canon by means of a miracle, and met in the course of his studies with words which he converted into the formula Namu Myoho Renge Kyo, "Oh, the Scripture of the Lotus of the * Griffis's Mikado's Empire.

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Celebrated Personages. 81 Wonderful Law!" - a formula which is still constantly used by his followers as an invocation, and which is to be seen carved on stones all over the country in the eccentric calligraphy (hige-daimoku) represented in the accompanying illustration. Having excited the wrath of the Regent Hojo Tokiyori by the unsparing manner in which he attacked other sects, he was banished to the peninsula of Izu in 1261, but pardoned soon after. Ten years later, his enemies persuaded the Regent Tokimune that Nichiren's doctrines tended to subvert the state.

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He was seized and thrown into a cave with his six chief disciples, and condemned to be beheaded the same night, but when brought to the place of execution, was saved by a miracle, the executioner's sword failing to act on the head of so holy a man; and Tokimune, warned in a dream, spared his life. Nichiren was, however, banished to the island of Sado in the north, but was permitted in 1274 to return to Kamakura, then the military capital of Eastern Japan. He next retired to live among the mountains of Minobu in a hut, which he quitted in order to take up his abode with the lord of the manor, Nambu Rokuro, a devotee so zealous that he bestowed on the saint and his sect forever all the lands in his possession.

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As crowds of disciples flocked to Nichiren for instruction in the faith, he erected a small shrine, which became the nucleus of the now famous monastery of Minobu. In 1282, feeling that death was approaching, he removed from Minobu to Ikegami, near the modern city of Tokyo, and there died. His body was cremated on the spot, and the bones were conveyed to Minobu, only a small portion being retained at Ikegami as a precious relic. His zeal and his intolerance appear to have been inherited by his spiritual children; - the Nichiren-shu, or Hokke-shu as the sect derived from him is also called, having pushed the odium theologicum to a degree otherwise rare in Japan.

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The chief outward and visible - or rather audible - sign of their temples is the drum, which the faithful beat for hours together to keep time to their chanting of the sacred formula Namu Myoho Renge Kyo. Nichiren's crest is the orange-blossom (tachibana). Nitta Yoshisada, a warrior of the 14th century, famed for his courage and for his devotion to the Mikado's cause against the usurping families of Hojo and Ashikaga. An incident in his life which artists love to depict is that related at the end of the description of Kamakura, in Route 2. Nobunaga,* properly Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), was a warrior who, in * This article is borrowed almost verbatim from Griffis's Mikado's Empire, Chap. XXIII.

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82 Introduction: - Celebrated Personages. the general scramble for land and power which went on in the latter half of the 16th century, gained possession of the provinces of Suruga, Mino, Omi, Mikawa, Ise, and Echizen. Having next taken Kyoto, he built the stronghold of Nijo, and sided with Ashikaga Yoshiaki, who by his influence was made Shogun in 1558. Six years later, the two quarrelled. Nobunaga arrested and deposed Yoshiaki; and the power of the Ashikaga family, which had lasted two hundred and thirty-eight years, came to an end.

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By the aid of his generals Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, he brought large portions of the empire under his sway, but never obtained the title of Shogun, which custom had limited to members of the Minamoto family, whereas Nobunaga was of Taira descent. Though a great soldier, Nobunaga lacked the administrative ability to follow up and consolidate the advantages gained in war. Consequently, when he was assassinated by an offended subordinate named Akechi, his power died with him. Nobunaga was a bitter foe to Buddhism. Among his many acts of violence, was the destruction of the great monastery of Hiei-zan near Kyoto and of the Hongwanji at Osaka, on both which occasions frightful scenes of massacre ensued.

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On the other hand, he encouraged the Christians; but it is not to be supposed that a man of his stamp did so out of any appreciation of their theological tenets. He is now worshipped as a Shinto god. Oda Nobunaga. See Nobunaga. Oguri Hangwan (15th century) and his faithful wife or mistress, Terute Hime, belong rather to romance than to sober history. Robbers having plotted to drug him with sake and murder him during the night, she - at that time one of the courtesans of the village, who had been invited to assist in the revels - informed him of the plot. Vaulting upon the back of a wild horse found in a thicket close by, he escaped to Fujisawa on the Tokaido, where his tomb and Terute Hime's are still shown.

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On another occasion, his enemies decoyed him into a poisonous bath which produced leprosy; but Terute Hime wheeled him in a barrow from Kamakura all the way to the hot springs of Yunomine in Kishu, where a single week's bathing restored him to health and strength. Okyo (see p. 58). Rai San-yo (1780-1832) was an excellent poet in the Chinese style and a great traveller, but above all a historian. His chief work, the Nihon Guaishi, which treats in detail the period from the middle of the twelfth to the beginning of the eighteenth century, was published in 1827, and is still widely read.

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Its strongly pronounced imperialism has contributed more than anything else to mould the opinions of the governing class during the last two generations. Saigo Takamori (1827-1877), a samurai of Satsuma, whose youth coincided with the closing years of the Japanese ancien regime, conspicuously distinguished himself on the Imperialist side. Before the triumph of the latter he was thrice exiled to Oshima in Luchu, as a political suspect; but after the revolution of 1868, to the success of which he contributed so materially as to earn the title of Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial forces, he became one of the most important personages in the state. His programme, however, was no radical one.

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When his colleagues in the government showed that their aim was not, as had at first been asserted, a return to the Japan of early historic days, but the complete Europeanisation of the country and the abandonment of national usages and traditions, Saigo broke with them, and retired to the city of Kagoshima in Satsuma, where he founded a military school, to which all the ardent youth of Satsuma and Osumi soon began to flock. The influence of this school precipitated the inevitable conflict between the old and the new

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Celebrated Personages. 83 order of ideas. It broke out in 1877, and is known to history as the Satsuma Rebellion. After a struggle of several months, the Imperialists triumphed, and Saigo himself fell on the 24th September, as did the whole of the little band of five hundred that had remained faithful to him till the end. Saigo's reputation never suffered in public esteem; and even the Imperial Court now respects his memory, the ban of degradation having been removed in 1890, and the dead Commander-in-Chief reinstated posthumously in all his honours.

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The visit of the Czarevitch (the present Czar) to Japan in 1891 helped to give credence to a wild notion according to which Saigo had, like Yoshitsune centuries before, escaped to Siberia. Saigyo Hoshi (died A.D. 1198) was an eccentric monk and famous poet. The San-ju-rok-ka-sen, or Thirty-six Poetical Geniuses, flourished during the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries. The grouping of their names in a galaxy is attributed to a court noble of the 11th century, named Kinto Dainagon. Their portraits, which were first painted by Fujiwara-no-Nobuzane about A.D. 1200, frequently adorn the walls of Ryobu Shinto temples.

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A complete list of their names will be found in Anderson's interesting Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Paintings. Sei Shonagon (circa A.D. 1000), a Court lady celebrated in Japanese literature for her volume of miscellanies, entitled Makura no Soshi. Sen-no-Rikyu (1521-1591) is revered as a legislator of taste, especially in such thoroughly Japanese arts as flower arrangement and the tea ceremonies.* He began his aesthetic career at the age of seventeen, and became a great favourite with Hideyoshi, accompanying that general in his campaigns to preside at tea parties in the intervals of battle.

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As a connoisseur in articles of virtu, he amassed a large fortune by dishonest means, passing off new things as old, spurious as genuine. Hideyoshi at last grew tired of him, and matters were brought to a climax when Sen-no-Rikyu refused to give up to this all-powerful patron his lovely daughter, who was already betrothed to another. Orders were sent to him to commit harakiri, which he did in his tea-room after making tea, arranging a bouquet, and composing a Buddhist stanza. Sesshu (see p. 57).

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Shinran Shonin (1173-1262) was the founder of the powerful Ikko sect of Buddhists, also called Shinshu or Monto, whose splendid temples, known by the name of Hongwanji or Monzeki, are among the finest specimens of Japanese architecture. Hon-gwan-ji means "the Monastery of the Real Vow," in allusion to the vow made by Amida that he would not accept Buddhahood unless salvation were made attainable by all who should sincerely desire to be born into his kingdom, and signify that desire by invoking his name ten times.

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It is upon a passage in a Buddhist scripture where this vow is recorded that the peculiar doctrine of the sect is based, its central idea being that man is to be saved by faith in the merciful power of Amida, and not by works or by vain repetition of prayers. For this reason, and also because its priests are permitted to marry, this sect has sometimes been called the Protestantism of Japan. In the year 1602 political reasons caused a split in the sect, which since that time has been divided into a Western and an Eastern branch - Nishi Hongwanji and Higashi Hongwanji, - each branch owning a temple in every considerable city. Shinran Shonin was descended from the Imperial family.

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The abbots of this sect therefore bear the title of * See Things Japanese.

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84 Introduction: - Celebrated Personages. Monzeki, or Imperial Offspring, while the walls enclosing its temples are allowed the suji-kabe or suji-bei, - striped plaster ornamentation otherwise reserved for buildings inhabited by Imperial princes (see illustration on p. 95). Shinran Shonin has been honoured by the bestowal of the posthumous title of Kenshin Daishi, that is, "the Great Teacher who Sees the Truth." Shodo Shonin. See under Nikko, Route 16. Shotoku Taishi (572-621), the Constantine of Japanese Buddhism, was son of the Emperor Yomei and Regent under the Empress Suiko, but never himself actually ascended the throne.

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He founded a large number of monasteries, framed a code of laws, and is said to have introduced the use of the calendar into Japan. He is also the reputed author of numerous paintings and sculptures, which Anderson, however, inclines to consider apocryphal. A favourite art-motive is the victory of Shotoku Taishi over Mononobe-no-Moriya, who championed the old native Shinto religion as against the Buddhist innovators. He even went so far, on the Emperor Yomei's death, as to set up a candidate for the Imperial crown, of whom Shotoku Taishi, and his minister Soga-no-Umako disapproved. An appeal to arms having been made, the Shintoists were beaten and Mononobe-no-Moriya was killed. Shobun (see p. 57).

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Soami (second half of the 15th century), a celebrated dilettante and favourite of the Shogun Yoshimasa. Many of the noted landscape gardens of Kyoto were designed by him. Soga Kyodai, that is, the Soga Brethren Juro and Goro, have remained national heroes on account of the pious vendetta which they executed in the hunting-camp of the Shogun Yoritomo at the base of Fuji, in the year 1193, on Kudo Suketsune, the murderer of their father. Juro perished in the attempt, while Goro was captured, brought before Yoritomo, and condemned to have his head hacked off with a blunt sword.

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Together with their names has been preserved that of Tora Gozen, a courtesan of the town of Oiso on the Tokaido, who was the younger brother's mistress, and who, no less faithful than fair, aided him in his revenge and became a nun after his death. Sosen (see p. 58). The Taira or Heike Family, descended from a Mikado of the 9th century, were all-powerful during a portion of the 12th century, when they succumbed to their rivals the Minamoto. This feud is as celebrated in Japanese history as the Wars of the Roses are in that of England. See also Kiyomori p. 76 and end of Route 47. Takauji (1305-1356), founder of the Ashikaga dynasty of Shoguns (see Go-Daigo Tenno, p. 72).

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Takeda Shingen (1521-1573) was one of the fiercest feudal chieftains of the lawless times that preceded the establishment of the Tokugawa dynasty of Shoguns. The eldest son of his father, lord of Koshu, it was his fate to be unjustly passed over by that father in favour of his second brother; and he was obliged to feign stupidity as a boy, in order to live in safety. When, however, both youths had reached man's estate, Takeda Shingen's superiority in skill and courage gained all the warriors over to his side, and he succeeded his father without demur.

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His whole time was spent in waging war against the barons of the neighbouring provinces of Central and Eastern Japan, especially against Uesugi Kenshin, lord of Echigo. Their most famous battle was that of Kawanaka-jima. In middle life he became converted to the doctrines of the Tendai sect of Buddhism, built a temple to the god Bishamon; did public

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Celebrated Personages. 85 penance, abjured the eating of fish, and all female companionship; and went so far as to have himself decorated with the title of archbishop; - for what ecclesiastical authorities were going to refuse anything to a zealot who disposed of so many soldiers? He did not, however, renounce his grand passion, war, but kept on fighting till the end, his latter years being much disturbed by the consciousness of the growing power of Ieyasu, and being divided between quarrels and reconciliations with that great captain.

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When mortally wounded, he left orders with his successor to hold no funeral service in his honour, but to keep his death a profound secret for three years, and then to sink his body privately in Lake Suwa, enclosed in a stone coffin. This was in order to prevent his numerous foes from taking heart at the news of his decease. His last will and testament was only partially obeyed; for though his death was kept secret as long as possible, the body was not sunk in the lake, but buried at the temple of Erinji at Matsuzato, a few miles from Kofu. The place still exists, the temple garden being a tasteful specimen of rockery on a large scale. Brave but superstitious, Takeda Shingen was also an adept at governing men.

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His people loved and respected him, as was shown by the fact that none ever rebelled against him, even in that turbulent age when every man's hand was against every man. Take-no-uchi no Sukune, the Methuselah of Japan, is said to have lived two hundred and fifty-five years (according to others, three hundred and sixty years), and to have served six successive Mikados. His birth is supposed to have taken place about 200 B.C. Tametomo, a legendary hero of the 12th century, mighty with the bow. Being taken captive, he was exiled to Oshima (Vries Island), and the sinews of his arm were cut.

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Nevertheless, his prowess remained unimpaired, and his last exploit was to send the enemy's ship to the bottom with a single shaft. This incident forms a favourite art motive. Tamura-maro (died A.D. 811) was the bravest and most successful generalissimo (Shogun) of his time. He subdued the Ainos, who then inhabited the northern portion of the Main Island almost as far south as Sendai. Toba Sojo (see p. 57). Tori Busshi (see p. 59). Tori Family (see p. 58). Toyokuni (see p. 59). Tsurayuki (884-946), a Court noble who was one of Japan's greatest classic poets.

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He was also her first prose writer; the works by which he is best known being the Tosa Nikki, a charmingly simple and life-like account of his voyage home to Kyoto by junk from Tosa, where he had been governor, and the extremely elegant Preface to the Kokinshu, or "Odes Ancient and Modern," of which he was one of the editors. Uesugi Kenshin (1530-1578) was one of the representative men of his turbulent and superstitious century. A cadet of an ancient and powerful family, he had been entered as an acolyte in a Buddhist temple, but emerged from retirement to seize the paternal inheritance from the feeble grasp of an elder brother.

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To the family domain of Echigo, he added Etchu, Noto, and Sado, together with portions of several other provinces, rivalling not only Takeda Shingen, the famous lord of Koshu, but the great Nobunaga himself. He was as noted for high principle as for prowess in war, and, regarding himself as a priest to the end, never married and so left no successor. He is represented in art holding in his hand a bamboo stick with which he was wont to direct his men in the field, instead of with the war-fan then usual.

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86 Introduction: - Celebrated Personages. Unkei, a famous mediaeval sculptor of Buddhist images. Urashima Taro, the Japanese Rip Van Winkle, is said by the national historians to have left Japan in A.D. 477, and to have returned in 825. His legend takes a hundred forms. A celebrated and very ancient ballad on the subject will be found in Chamberlain's "Japanese Poetry." Yamato-take no Mikoto, one of the eighty children of the Emperor Keiko, was a mighty hero of the prehistoric age. While yet a stripling, he was sent by his father to destroy the rebels of Western Japan.

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In order to accomplish this end, he borrowed the gown of his aunt who was high-priestess of Ise, and, thus disguised, made the rebel chieftains fall in love with him while carousing in the cave where they dwelt. Then suddenly drawing a sword from his bosom, he smote them to death. He next subdued the province of Izumo, and finally conquered Eastern Japan, which was at that time a barbarous waste. After many adventures both warlike and amorous, he died on the homeward march to Yamato, where the Emperor his father held Court, and his tumulus is shown at Nobono in the province of Ise. Yoritomo (1147-1199) was the founder of the Shogunate, - the first Japanese Mayor of the Palace, if one may so phrase it.

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A scion of the great house of Minamoto, as shrewd and ambitious as he was unscrupulous and inhuman, he was left an orphan at an early age, and barely escaped death as a lad at the hands of Kiyomori, the then all-powerful minister, who belonged to the rival house of Taira. Kiyomori's exactions having roused the indignation of the whole empire, Yoritomo saw that the moment had come to essay the restoration of his own fortunes.

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All the malcontents eagerly flocked to his standard; and first in Eastern Japan, then at Kyoto, and lastly at the great sea-fight of Dan-no-ura near Shimonoseki at the S.W. end of the Inland Sea, Yoritomo defeated the Taira and utterly exterminated them, putting even women and children to the sword.

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Yoritomo established his capital at Kamakura, which soon grew into a great city, thoroughly reorganised the administration by the appointment of military governors chosen from among his dependants to act conjointly with the civil governors who received their nominations from the Mikado; by the levy of taxes for military purposes payable into his own treasury, and by other far-sighted innovations made in the interests of a military feudalism.

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At last in 1192, he obtained - in other words forced - from the Court of Kyoto the title of Sei-i Tai Shogun, that is "Barbarian-subduing Generalissimo," which soon came to denote the military or actual ruler of the country, as distinguished from its theoretical head, the heaven-descended Mikado. Yoritomo, whose life had been spent fighting, died peacefully in his bed. Among the many on whom he trampled to satisfy the dictates of personal ambition, was his brother Yoshitsune, a far nobler character.

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Though Yoritomo's system of government remained in vigour for well-nigh seven centuries, the sceptre dropped from his own family in the generation following his death, his sons Yoriie and Sanetomo being weaklings who both perished by assassination at an early age. Yoshimasa (1436-1490), eighth Shogun of the Ashikaga dynasty, was a munificent patron of the arts. Yoshitsune (b. 1159), also called Ushi-waka, was younger half-brother to the first Shogun Yoritomo, being the son of Yoshitomo by a beautiful concubine named Tokiwa Gozen. By yielding to the wicked desires of the tyrant Kiyomori, Tokiwa obtained pardon for her son on condition that he shaved his head and became a monk.

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Accordingly he was placed in the Buddhist monastery of Kurama-yama near Kyoto. But theological

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Population of the Chief Cities. 87 exercises were so little to his taste that he ran away to Northern Japan in company with a friendly merchant, and at once distinguished himself by the valour with which he repelled the assaults of the brigands, slaying several with his own hand, though then himself but sixteen years of age. When Yoritomo rose in arms against the Taira family, Yoshitsune naturally joined him, and became his greatest general. Indeed, the real guerredon belonged rightfully to the younger rather than to the elder brother. Yoritomo, far from feeling any gratitude, began to turn with jealousy and to detest Yoshitsune as a possible rival. He even went so far as to compass his death.

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But Yoshitsune escaped again to Northern Japan, where, according to one account, he was discovered by spies, and killed after a desperate fight on the banks of the Koromo-gawa, his head being sent to Yoritomo at Kamakura, preserved in sake. Others say that he committed harakiri when he saw that all was lost, having previously slain his wife and children. A more fanciful account is that he escaped to Yezo, and then re-appeared on the mainland of Asia as Genghis Khan. This fable probably originated in an accidental similarity between the Chinese characters used to write the names of these two famous men; but it is a remarkable fact that to this day Yoshitsune remains an object of worship among the Ainos of Yezo.

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Probably in his time, some of their race still lingered in the extreme north of the main island, where he may actually have come in contact with them. To the Japanese his name is a synonym for single-minded bravery and devotion. The traveller will often hear mentioned in connection with the name of Yoshitsune those of Benkei (p. 71) his faithful retainer, and Yasuhira, the traitor suborned by Yoritomo to slay him. 26. - Population of the Chief Cities.

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