is one of the three royal

mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be consid ...

s of the Ryukyu Kingdom, along with Tamaudun at Shuri Castle and

Izena Tamaudun is one of the three royal mausoleums of the Ryukyu Kingdom, along with Tamaudun at Shuri Castle and Urasoe yōdore at Urasoe Castle. It is located near Izena Castle in Izena, Okinawa. It was built in 1501 by King Shō Shin. Burials * Shō Shoku ...

near

Izena Castle is a Ryūkyūan gusuku on Izena Island. It was built around the 14th century by Samekawa, son of the Yogura Chief of Iheya Island. It is built over a limestone outcrop about above sea level on the south eastern side of the island. The castle h ...

Izena, Okinawa is a village occupying Izena Island in the north of Okinawa Prefecture, Japan (though administered as part of Shimajiri District). There are five localities of about equal size and population located on the island: Izena, Nakada, Shomi, Uchihana ...

. It is located in

Urasoe, Okinawa is a city located in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. The neighboring municipalities are Naha to the south, Ginowan to the north, and Nishihara to the east. As of November 2012, the city has an estimated population of 113,718 and a population densi ...

, in a cave on a cliff to the northeast of Urasoe Castle. It houses the remains of three rulers of the

Ryukyu Islands 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 Yonaguni ...

, along with one king of the

Ryūkyū Kingdom The Ryukyu Kingdom, Middle Chinese: , , Classical Chinese: (), Historical English language, English names: ''Lew Chew'', ''Lewchew'', ''Luchu'', and ''Loochoo'', Historical French name: ''Liou-tchou'', Historical Dutch name: ''Lioe-kioe'' wa ...

separated from the others by several centuries.

History

The mausoleum was established in 1261, during the reign of Eiso, before Okinawa was divided into

three kingdoms The Three Kingdoms () from 220 to 280 AD was the tripartite division of China among the dynastic states of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu. The Three Kingdoms period was preceded by the Han dynasty#Eastern Han, Eastern Han dynasty and wa ...

, when it was simply ruled by a network of local chieftains under the leadership of one head chieftain or "king". It was completed by 1271, and included a first and second gardens, stone gateways, and stone monuments written in Chinese and Ryukyuan. Like many other structures on the island, it was extensively damaged during the 1945

Battle of Okinawa The , codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Army (USA) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) forces against the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). The initial invasion of ...

, and later researched and restored. Eiso and two of his successors are entombed at Urasoe yōdore, in sarcophagi of a Chinese

diorite Diorite ( ) is an intrusive igneous rock formed by the slow cooling underground of magma (molten rock) that has a moderate content of silica and a relatively low content of alkali metals. It is intermediate in composition between low-silic ...

stone; statues of the

bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva ( ; sa, 𑀩𑁄𑀥𑀺𑀲𑀢𑁆𑀢𑁆𑀯 (Brahmī), translit=bodhisattva, label=Sanskrit) or bodhisatva is a person who is on the path towards bodhi ('awakening') or Buddhahood. In the Early Buddhist schools ...

s Kannon and Jizō stand inside the cave. More than 300 years later, King

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 Shin ...

requested to be buried at Urasoe and not in the Shō family royal mausoleum of Tamaudun. His reign had seen the

invasion of Ryukyu The by forces of the Japanese feudal domain of Satsuma took place from March to May of 1609, and marked the beginning of the Ryukyu Kingdom's status as a vassal state under the Satsuma domain. The invasion force was met with stiff resistance f ...

by forces from Japan's

Satsuma province was an old province of Japan that is now the western half of Kagoshima Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Satsuma" in . Its abbreviation is . History Satsuma's provincial capital was Satsumasendai. Durin ...

, and the subjugation of the kingdom to Satsuma's

suzerainty Suzerainty () is the rights and obligations of a person, state or other polity who controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy. While the subordinate party is cal ...

, and thus it is believed that he felt he had dishonored his family and his kingdom, and was not worthy of being buried with his ancestors.

Burials

* Eiso (1229–1299) * , grandfather of Shō Nei *

Shō I , also known by Prince , was a royal of the Ryukyu Kingdom. He was the third head of a royal family, ''Oroku Udun'' (), and was also father of King Shō Nei. Shō I was a grandson of Urasoe Chōman (Shō Ikō), the deposed crown prince of King Shō ...

(d. 1584), father of Shō Nei * King

(1564–1620) * , Queen consort of Shō Nei

Gallery

File:Stone_sarcophagus_of_King_Eiso.JPG, Tomb of King Eiso File:Urasoe Youdore - The royal tomb of the Ryukyu king.jpg

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Urasoe yodore Ryukyu Kingdom Mausoleums in Japan Buildings and structures in Okinawa Prefecture History of Okinawa Prefecture