Odai no kata (於大の方, 1528–1602), also known as Dai, Daishi, and Denzûin, was a Japanese noble lady from the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

. She was the mother of

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...

, founder of the

Tokugawa Shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

. She was the daughter of

Mizuno Tadamasa (1493 – 22 August 1543) was a samurai lord of the Mizuno clan of feudal Japan. He was the father of Odai no Kata, the mother of ''shōgun'' Tokugawa Ieyasu. In 1533 by Mizuno Tadamasa built and ruled Kariya Castle. Tadamasa was also the fat ...

, the lord of Kariya Castle. She was married to

Matsudaira Hirotada was the lord of Okazaki Castle in Mikawa province, Japan during the Sengoku Period of the 16th century. He is best known for being the father of Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Biography Hirotada was the son of Matsudaira ...

in 1541 and gave birth to Ieyasu two years later. After the

Mizuno clan The was a Japanese kin group which claimed descent from Minamoto no Mitsumasa, son of Minamoto no Tsunemoto of the Seiwa Genji clan. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2 ...

betrayed Hirotada in 1544, he divorced her and remarried.

Life

Odai's older brother Mizuno Nobumoto who succeeded the

after the death of Tadamasa broke relations with the

Imagawa clan was a Japanese samurai clan that claimed descent from the Seiwa Genji by way of the Kawachi Genji. It was a branch of the Minamoto clan by the Ashikaga clan. Origins Ashikaga Kuniuji, grandson of Ashikaga Yoshiuji, established himself in ...

who was the master of the Matsudaira family and followed Oda clan in 1544, Odai was divorced by Hirotada who worried about relations with the Imagawa family and returned to Kariya Castle of the Mizuno family in Mikawa Province. In 1547, Odai remarried Toshikatsu, the lord of Agoya Castle in Chita-gun according to the wish of Nobumoto. Toshimasa had married a daughter of the Mizuno clan, but did not have good relationship with the Mizuno family or the Matsudaira family after her death, and he strengthened relations with the Mizuno clan in his struggle against the Matsudaira family. She bore Toshikatsu three sons and three daughters. She maintained regular correspondence with Ieyasu during this time. After the

Battle of Okehazama The took place in June 1560 in Owari Province, located in today's Aichi Prefecture. In this battle, the heavily outnumbered Oda clan troops commanded by Oda Nobunaga defeated Imagawa Yoshimoto and established himself as one of the front-running ...

, Ieyasu became independent from the Imagawa clan and allied with the Oda family, gave the family name Matsudaira to the three sons of Toshikatsu and Odai, made them his retainers, and welcomed Odai as his mother. Odai underwent tonsure and called herself Denzuin after the death of her husband, Toshikatsu. In 1602, after the

Battle of Sekigahara The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: ; Kyūjitai: , Hepburn romanization: ''Sekigahara no Tatakai'') was a decisive battle on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu prefecture, Japan, at the end of ...

, she had an audience with the widow of Hideyoshi, Kodaiin and Emperor Goyozei, and visited Toyokuni-jinja Shrine in Kyoto to show that the Tokugawa clan had no hostility toward the

Toyotomi clan The was a Japanese clan that ruled over the Japanese before the Edo period. Unity and conflict The most influential figure within the Toyotomi was Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of the three "unifiers of Japan". Oda Nobunaga was another primary un ...

. In the same year, she died in Fushimi Castle in Kyoto, where Ieyasu was staying. Her ashes were buried at Denzu-in Temple in Koishikawa, Edo. Her posthumous Buddhist name is Denzuinden Yoyokogaku Chiko Daizenjoni. Her family temples were built in various locations. Odai's birthplace of Higashiura-cho constructed 'Odai Park' in Ogawa in her memory and holds an 'Odai Festivals' every year.

Honours

Junior First Rank The court ranks of Japan, also known in Japanese as ''ikai'' (位階), are indications of an individual's court rank in Japan based on the system of the state. ''Ikai'' as a system was originally used in the Ritsuryo system, which was the politi ...

(1850; posthumous)

References

Sources

* Ishin Shiryô Kôyô 維新史料綱要, vol 1 (1937), 280. Hisamatsu clan Tokugawa clan 1528 births 1602 deaths {{Japan-noble-stub 16th-century Japanese women 17th-century Japanese women People of Muromachi-period Japan People of Edo-period Japan People of Sengoku-period Japan 16th-century Japanese people