, also known as King of Lew Chew, , or more officially , was a title held by several lineages from
Okinawa Island until 1879. It effectively started in 1372 when
Satto
Satto (察度) (1321 – November 17, 1395) was King of Chūzan. He is the first ruler of Okinawa Island who was recorded by contemporary sources. His reign was marked by expansion and development of Chūzan's trade relations with other states, ...
greeted a Chinese envoy from the newly established
Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peo ...
although his son
Bunei was the first to be officially recognized as the King of
Chūzan
was one of three kingdoms which controlled Okinawa in the 14th century. Okinawa, previously controlled by a number of local chieftains or lords, loosely bound by a paramount chieftain or king of the entire island, split into these three more so ...
. However, the official Okinawan narrative traces the line of succession further back to the legendary ruler
Shunten
, also known as , was a legendary ruler of Okinawa Island. Shunten is the earliest chief in Okinawa for whom a name is known. He is said to have taken power after defeating an usurper to the throne by the name of Riyū who had overthrown the 25th ...
, who supposedly ascended to the throne in 1187. Another peculiar feature of the official Okinawan narrative is the notion of the single line of succession, instead of Chinese-style dynastic changes, even though they clearly recognized that several unrelated lineages had taken over the position.
Early forms of the narrative
The earliest known form of the narrative dates to the reign of King
Shō Shin
was a king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, the third ruler the second Shō dynasty. Shō Shin's long reign has been described as "the Great Days of Chūzan", a period of great peace and relative prosperity. He was the son of Shō En, the founder of the d ...
of the
Second Shō dynasty
The was the last dynasty of the Ryukyu Kingdom from 1469 to 1879, ruled by the under the title of King of Chūzan. This family took the family name from the earlier rulers of the kingdom, the first Shō family, even though the new royal famil ...
. A stone monument dated 1522 makes reference to "three dynasties of Shunten's, Eiso's and Satto's". His son King
Shō Sei
was king of the Ryukyu Kingdom from 1526 to 1555.Kerr, George H. (2000). He was the fifth son of King Shō Shin, who he succeeded.
Shō Sei suppressed a rebellion on Amami Ōshima in 1537 and took steps to improve defenses against '' wakō'' th ...
expressed the line of succession in a slightly more elaborate form. The ''Katanohana Inscription'' (1543) reads: "Shō Sei, King of Chūzan of the Great State of Ryūkyū, ascended to the throne as the 21st king since Sonton
hunten (大りうきう国中山王尚清ハ、そんとんよりこのかた二十一代の御くらひをつきめしよわちへ). Similarly, another stone monument dated 1597 states that
Shō Nei
was king of the Ryukyu Kingdom from 1587 to 1620. He reigned during the 1609 invasion of Ryukyu and was the first king of Ryukyu to be a vassal to the Shimazu clan of Satsuma, a Japanese feudal domain.
Shō Nei was the great-grandson of Shō S ...
is the 24th king since Sonton
hunten(しやうねいハそんとんよりこのかた二十四たいのわうの御くらゐ...). The numbers of kings mentioned in these monuments agree with those of the official history books compiled much later although it is not clear whether the individual members were fixed at this stage.
Historian Dana Masayuki relates the notion of the line of succession to Buddhist temples where
ancestral tablets of the deceased kings were stored. According to the ''
Chūzan Seifu
was an official history of the Ryūkyū Kingdom compiled between 1697 and 1701 by a group of scholar-officials led by Sai Taku. It was a Kanbun translated version of ''Chūzan Seikan''.
Later, it was rewritten into Classical Chinese by Sai Tak ...
'', Manju-ji stored the ancestral tablets of Satto, Bunei, Shishō and
Shō Hashi
was the last King of Chūzan and the first king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, uniting the three polities of Chūzan, Hokuzan, and Nanzan by conquest and ending the Sanzan period.
Family
* Father: Shishō
* mother: daughter of Miiko
* Wife: sister of ...
, while the tablets of
Shō Taikyū
was a king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, the sixth ruler of the first Shō dynasty. His reign saw the construction of many Buddhist temples, the casting of the , and the battle between the lords Gosamaru and Amawari.
Life and reign
Shō Taikyū was ...
and
Shō Toku
was the son of Shō Taikyū and last king of the First Shō Dynasty. He came to power as a young man in a kingdom whose treasury had been depleted. He engaged in efforts to conquer islands between Ryukyu and Japan and took the Mitsudomoe, the sy ...
were at
Tenkai-ji
was a Rinzai Buddhist temple and royal ''bodaiji'' of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, located in Naha, Okinawa.
The temple was erected by Keiin Ansen () during the reign of King Shō Taikyū (r. 1454–1460). The Mahavira Hall was built in 1466, a ''bo ...
.
Shō En
was a king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, the founder of the Second Shō dynasty. Prior to becoming king, he was known as .
Early life and rise to power
Kanamaru was born into a family of peasant farmers on Izena Island,"Shō En." ''Okinawa rekishi jin ...
, the founder of the Second Shō dynasty, established
Tennō-ji and designated it as the family mausoleum. It is not certain which temples were dedicated to the missing kings of the
First Shō dynasty
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
,
Shō Chū
was a king of the Ryukyu Kingdom of the First Shō dynasty. He ruled from 1439 to 1444. Shō Chū was the second son of his father, King Shō Hashi. After his father conquered the Kingdom of Hokuzan, Shō Chū was appointed in 1422. Shō Chū ...
,
Shō Shitatsu
was king of Ryukyu Kingdom who ruled from 1444 to 1449. Shō Shitatsu was the eldest son of king Shō Chū
was a king of the Ryukyu Kingdom of the First Shō dynasty. He ruled from 1439 to 1444. Shō Chū was the second son of his father, King ...
, and
Shō Kinpuku
was a king of the Ryukyu Kingdom of the First Shō dynasty.
Shō Kinpuku succeeded his nephew, Shō Shitatsu, in 1449. A one-kilometer-long dam, which known as , was built in 1451 by Kaiki, a somewhat mysterious figure from Ming China. The dam ...
. Nevertheless, each king performed "ancestral" worship for deceased kings from different dynasties in the presence of a Chinese envoy, presumably because they deceived the Chinese into thinking that the throne was normally succeeded from the father to the son.
According to the ''
Ryūkyū-koku yuraiki'' (1713), Ryūfuku-ji in Urasoe, in addition to the above-mentioned temples, served as the royal mausoleum. This temple stored inkstone tablets representing the deceased kings from Shunten to Shō Hashi. According to the ''Chūzan Seifu'', Ryūfuku-ji was originally founded by Eiso under the name of Gokuraku-ji and was re-established by Shō En. Dana Masayuki surmises that Gokuraku-ji used to serve not only as the family mausoleum of the Eiso dynasty but as the state mausoleum tracing the royal line back to Shunten. The apparent conflict between Manju-ji and Gokuraku-ji is resolved if Manju-ji is seen as a representation of the state in relation to China while Gokuraku-ji was the manifestation of Okinawa's own narrative.
Shō Shin established
Enkaku-ji
, or Engaku-ji (円覚寺), is one of the most important Zen Buddhist temple complexes in Japan and is ranked second among Kamakura's Five Mountains. It is situated in the city of Kamakura, in Kanagawa Prefecture to the south of Tokyo.
Found ...
and transferred the function of the family mausoleum from Tennō-ji to Enkaku-ji. Shō Shin founded another temple named
Sōgen-ji
was a Buddhist temple and royal mausoleum of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, located in Naha, Okinawa. It was erected during the reign of King Shō Shin (r. 1477–1526), and destroyed in the 1945 battle of Okinawa.
In 1496, memorial tablets representi ...
and decided to use it as the ''state'' mausoleum while the function of Enkaku-ji was clarified as the mausoleum of the Second Shō dynasty. He moved all ancestral tablets, starting from Shunten, to Sōgen-ji and thereby visualized the single line of succession based on Okinawa's own narrative.
Minamoto no Tametomo as the father of Shunten
Minamoto no Tametomo (1139–1170), the uncle of the
Kamakura shogunate
The was the feudal military government of Japan during the Kamakura period from 1185 to 1333. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Kamakura-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 459.
The Kamakura shogunate was established by Minamoto no ...
's founder
Minamoto no Yoritomo
was the founder and the first shogun of the Kamakura shogunate of Japan, ruling from 1192 until 1199.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Minamoto no Yoriie" in . He was the husband of Hōjō Masako who acted as regent (''shikken'') after his ...
, has been consistently treated as the father of Shunten since the earliest official history book, the ''
Chūzan Seikan
, compiled in 1650 by Shō Shōken, is the first official history of the Ryūkyū Kingdom. In six scrolls, the main text occupies five and an accompanying summary the sixth. Unlike later official histories such as '' Chūzan Seifu'' and '' Kyūyō ...
'' (1650). The earliest known association of Tametomo with Ryūkyū can be found in a letter written by a Zen monk in Kyoto named
Gesshū Jukei (1470–1533) with a request by Kakuō Chisen, another Zen monk serving to Ryūkyū's Tennō-ji. According to a tale which Gesshū attributed to Kakuō, Tametomo moved to Ryūkyū, used demons as servants, and became the founder of the state, which the
Minamoto clan
was one of the surnames bestowed by the Emperors of Japan upon members of the imperial family who were excluded from the line of succession and demoted into the ranks of the nobility from 1192 to 1333. The practice was most prevalent during th ...
had ruled since then. The reference to demons may reflect the centuries-old Japanese Buddhist perception of Ryūkyū as the land of man-eating demons, as seen in, for example, the ''
Hyōtō Ryūkyū-koku ki'' (1244). Although at this stage, Tametomo was not explicitly associated with Shunten, the tale apparently circulated in the network of Zen Buddhists connecting Kyoto to Okinawa. A similar tale was recorded in the ''
Ryūkyū Shintō-ki'' (1606) by
Jōdo-shū
, also known as Jōdo Buddhism, is a branch of Pure Land Buddhism derived from the teachings of the Japanese ex-Tendai monk Hōnen. It was established in 1175 and is the most widely practiced branch of Buddhism in Japan, along with Jōdo Sh ...
monk
Taichū, who visited Ryūkyū from 1603 to 1606. This indicates that by that time, the tale of Tametomo had been known to non-Zen Buddhists. In light of these, the apparent innovation of the ''Chūzan Seikan'' (1650) was the explicit association of Tametomo with Shunten.
The tale of Tametomo had a profound impact on Ryūkyū's self-perception. In 1691, for example, the king ordered all the male members of the royal family to use the kanji ''Chō'' (朝) as the first of their two-character given names, presumably to indicate an affinity to Minamoto no Tametomo (源為朝).
Association of the foundation myth with the royal line
Another innovation of the ''Chūzan Seikan'' (1650) was the association of the foundation myth with the royal line. The foundation myth concerning the goddess
Amamikyu
Amamichuu, or , is the creation goddess of the Ryukyu Islands in the Ryukyuan religion.
Name
Amamikyu's name comes from the reading of the Chinese characters 阿摩美久 or 阿摩彌姑, which were most likely written ad hoc for the Okinawan lan ...
itself was recorded in the ''Ryūkyū Shintō-ki'' (1606). However, the ''Chūzan Seikan'' was the first to make reference to the , who supposedly descended from the goddess.
Without showing a clear genealogy, the official history books connect the Tenson dynasty remotely to the Eiso dynasty. Eiso's mother dreamed that the sun intruded into her bosom, giving a
miraculous birth
Stories of miraculous births often include conceptions by miraculous circumstances and features such as intervention by a deity, supernatural elements, astronomical signs, hardship or, in the case of some mythologies, complex plots related t ...
to Eiso, but Eiso's foster father was said to have descended from the Tenson dynasty. Similarly, Satto was said to have been mothered by a
swan maiden. Shō En was believed to have descended from Gihon of the Shunten dynasty (i.e., the second Shō family originated from the Minamoto clan), or some other king. It is not clear why the ''Chūzan Seikan'' did not provide a special link to the First Shō dynasty.
Official narrative
Tenson dynasty
The founder of the Tenson dynasty
was a descendant of . The 25 generations of the Tenson dynasty ruled the land for 17,802 years, but their names are unknown.
Shunten dynasty
The Shunten dynasty lasted from AD 1187 to AD 1259.
In 1186, the 25th ruler's throne was usurped by
Riyū.
Minamoto no Tametomo's son
Shunten
, also known as , was a legendary ruler of Okinawa Island. Shunten is the earliest chief in Okinawa for whom a name is known. He is said to have taken power after defeating an usurper to the throne by the name of Riyū who had overthrown the 25th ...
overthrew Riyū the next year, becoming the king.
Eiso dynasty
The Eiso dynasty lasted from AD 1260 to AD 1349.
In 1259,
Gihon
Gihon is the name of the second river mentioned in the second chapter of the biblical Book of Genesis. The Gihon is mentioned as one of four rivers (along with the Tigris, Euphrates, and Pishon) issuing out of the Garden of Eden that branched fr ...
, who was the last king of the Shunten dynasty, abdicated his throne. Fathered by the sun,
Eiso succeeded him. During the reign of Tamagusuku, the state was divided into three polities. The King of Nanzan (Sannan) and the
King of Hokuzan (Sanhoku) came to compete with the King of Chūzan.
Satto dynasty
The Satto dynasty lasted from AD 1350 to AD 1405.
Satto, the son of a peasant and a
swan maiden, replaced Seii as the King of Chūzan. Satto started a tributary relation to the Ming emperor.
First Shō dynasty
The First Shō dynasty lasted from AD 1429 to AD 1469.
Shō Hashi
was the last King of Chūzan and the first king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, uniting the three polities of Chūzan, Hokuzan, and Nanzan by conquest and ending the Sanzan period.
Family
* Father: Shishō
* mother: daughter of Miiko
* Wife: sister of ...
, the virtual founder of the
First Shō dynasty
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
, overthrew
Bunei in 1406. He installed his father,
Shō Shishō
Sho, Shō or SHO may refer to:
Music
* ''Shō'' (instrument) (笙), a Japanese wind instrument
* ''Kane'' (instrument) (鉦), a Japanese percussion instrument
* Sho?, a Dubai rock band
People
* Shō (given name), including ''Sho''
* Shō (su ...
, as the nominal King of Chūzan. Shō Hashi annihilated the King of Hokuzan (Sanhoku) in 1416. In 1421, after the death of his father, Shō Hashi became the King of Chūzan. He overthrew the King of Nanzan (Sannan) until 1429, unifying the island. The surname Shō (尚) was given by the Ming emperor.
[Kerr, George. ''Okinawa: The History of an Island People''. Tokyo: Tuttle, 2000. p. 89.]
Second Shō dynasty
The Second Shō dynasty lasted from AD 1470 to AD 1879.
When
Shō Toku
was the son of Shō Taikyū and last king of the First Shō Dynasty. He came to power as a young man in a kingdom whose treasury had been depleted. He engaged in efforts to conquer islands between Ryukyu and Japan and took the Mitsudomoe, the sy ...
, the last king of the
First Shō dynasty
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
, died in 1469, courtiers launched a
coup d'état
A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
and elected
Shō En
was a king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, the founder of the Second Shō dynasty. Prior to becoming king, he was known as .
Early life and rise to power
Kanamaru was born into a family of peasant farmers on Izena Island,"Shō En." ''Okinawa rekishi jin ...
as king. He became the founder of the
Second Shō dynasty
The was the last dynasty of the Ryukyu Kingdom from 1469 to 1879, ruled by the under the title of King of Chūzan. This family took the family name from the earlier rulers of the kingdom, the first Shō family, even though the new royal famil ...
. The kingdom was at its peak during the reign of his son,
Shō Shin
was a king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, the third ruler the second Shō dynasty. Shō Shin's long reign has been described as "the Great Days of Chūzan", a period of great peace and relative prosperity. He was the son of Shō En, the founder of the d ...
. In 1609, Satsuma Domain
conquered the Ryukyu Kingdom. From then on, Ryūkyū was a vassal state of Satsuma Domain while the king was ordered to keep its tributary relation with China. The kingdom became a
domain
Domain may refer to:
Mathematics
*Domain of a function, the set of input values for which the (total) function is defined
**Domain of definition of a partial function
**Natural domain of a partial function
**Domain of holomorphy of a function
* Do ...
of
Japan in 1872. In 1879,
Japan replaced
Ryūkyū Domain
The was a short-lived domain of the Empire of Japan, lasting from 1872 to 1879, before becoming the current Okinawa Prefecture and other islands at the Pacific edge of the East China Sea.
When the domain was created in 1872, Japan's feudal han ...
with
Okinawa Prefecture, formally annexing the islands. King
Shō Tai
was the last king of the Ryukyu Kingdom (8 June 1848 – 10 October 1872) and the head of the Ryukyu Domain (10 October 1872 – 27 March 1879). His reign saw greatly increased interactions with travelers from abroad, particularly from Europe ...
was dethroned and later given the title of
marquis.
Honored as king posthumously
References
Citations
Sources
*
Kerr, George H. (1965). ''Okinawa, the History of an Island People.'' Rutland, Vermont: C.E. Tuttle Co
OCLC 39242121
External links
中山世鑑中山世譜
{{Kings of Chūzan
Ryukyu
The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), with Yonagu ...
Chuzan
Monarchs, Ryukyu
Monarchs, Ryukyu