is the name of one of the administrative units ("towns",
chō or machi) of
Kamakura, a
city
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
located in
Kanagawa
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kanagaw ...
,
Japan, about 50 km south-south-west of
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...
. Nikaidō lies immediately to the east of
Nishi Mikado and
Yukinoshita, and used to be called Higashi Mikado. The name is still sometimes used. In it lie famous temples and shrines like
Zuisen-ji
is a Buddhist temple of the Rinzai sect in Nikaidō's in Kamakura, Japan.Kamiya (2008:98-102) During the Muromachi period it was the family temple of the Ashikaga rulers of Kamakura (the ''Kantō kubō''): four of the five ''kubō'' are burie ...
,
Egara Tenjinsha,
Kamakura-gū
is a shrine in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It was erected by Emperor Meiji in 1869 to enshrine the spirit of Prince Morinaga, who was imprisoned and later executed where the shrine now stands in 1335 by order of Ashikaga Tadayoshi. For ...
and
Kakuon-ji.
[Shirai (1976:231)] It's in Nikaidō that first Kamakura shōgun
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 ...
built ,
[Note that these characters are more often read Eifuku-ji, and that Japanese themselves in this particular case often pronounce them incorrectly.] one of his most important temples. It was probably part, together with Yukinoshita, of the Ōkura Valley that gave its name to the
Ōkura Bakufu, Yoritomo's first government.
Etymology of the name
After his wars with the
Taira clan
The Taira was one of the four most important clans that dominated Japanese politics during the Heian, Kamakura and Muromachi Periods of Japanese history – the others being the Fujiwara, the Tachibana, and the Minamoto. The clan is divi ...
and
Ōshū's Fujiwara clan, in 1189 shōgun Yoritomo founded a temple called Yōfuku-ji to comfort the souls of the samurai that had died in them.
[Kusumoto (2002:44-45)] The temple was erected in a location next to today's Kamakura-gū. Its main hall was a two-story building called Nikaidō, which was copied from
Chuson-ji's in
Hiraizumi
is a town located in Nishiiwai District, Iwate Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 7,408 and a population density of in 2,616 households. The total area of the town was . It is noted for the Historic Monuments and Sit ...
, a building the shōgun had greatly admired.
In time, that famous building gave its name to the entire area where it stood.
According to another theory, however, the name comes from that of an important clan vassal of the Minamoto, also called
Nikaidō, because that's where the clan's mansion used to stand.
Yōfuku-ji was expanded several times, finally becoming a great temple with many pavilions and a great artificial lake. It was often visited by Yoritomo, his wife
Hōjō Masako
was a Japanese politician who exercised significant power in the early years of the Kamakura period, which was reflected by her contemporary sobriquet of the "nun shogun". She was the wife of Minamoto no Yoritomo, and mother of Minamoto no Yo ...
, and their descendants, who liked spending time there.
The temple no longer exists, but exactly when and how it was destroyed isn't known.
We do know that at the end of the
Muromachi period
The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...
it stopped appearing in written records
and that it burned down many times, the last we know of in 1405.
The area where it used to stand is now public property, and the city of Kamakura plans to turn it into an historical park.
Notes
References
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External links
Yōfuku-ji site dedicated to the temple, with CG reconstructions of its main structures
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nikaido
Kamakura, Kanagawa