, also known as or , is a Buddhist temple and a former nunnery, the only survivor of a network of five nunneries called , in the city of

Kamakura , officially , is a city of Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan. It is located in the Kanto region on the island of Honshu. The city has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 people per km2 over the tota ...

Kanagawa Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...

, Japan. It is part of the

Rinzai school The Rinzai school (, zh, t=臨濟宗, s=临济宗, p=Línjì zōng), named after Linji Yixuan (Romaji: Rinzai Gigen, died 866 CE) is one of three sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism, along with Sōtō and Ōbaku. The Chinese Linji school, Linji s ...

Zen Zen (; from Chinese: ''Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka phil ...

Engaku-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. Founded ...

branch, and was opened by Hōjō Sadatoki and founding abbess Kakusan-ni in 1285. It is best known as a historic refuge for women who were abused by their husbands. It is for this reason sometimes referred to as the "Divorce Temple".

History

The temple was founded in the 8th year of

Koan A ( ; ; zh, c=公案, p=gōng'àn ; ; ) is a story, dialogue, question, or statement from Chinese Chan Buddhist lore, supplemented with commentaries, that is used in Zen Buddhist practice in different ways. The main goal of practice in Z ...

(1285) by nun Kakusan-ni, wife of

Hōjō Tokimune of the Hōjō clan was the eighth ''shikken'' (officially regent of the shōgun, but ''de facto'' ruler of Japan) of the Kamakura shogunate (reigned 1268–84), known for leading the Japanese people, Japanese forces against the Mongol invasions ...

(1251–1284) and mother of Sadatoki, after her husband's death. Because it was then customary for a wife to become a

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service and contemplation, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 5 ...

after her husband's death, she decided to open the temple and dedicate it to the memory of her husband. She also made it a refuge for battered wives. In an age when men could easily divorce their wives but wives had great difficulty divorcing their husbands, Tōkei-ji allowed women to become officially divorced after three years of religious service, Temple records show that, during the Tokugawa period alone, an estimated 2,000 women sought shelter there. The temple lost its right to concede divorce in 1873, when a new law was approved and the Court of Justice started to handle the cases. The temple remained a nunnery for over 600 years and men could not enter until 1902, when a man took the post of abbot and Tōkei-ji came under the supervision of

. Before then, the chief nun was always an important figure, and once it even was a daughter of Emperor Go-Daigo. Tenshū-ni, the daughter and only survivor of

Toyotomi Hideyori was the son and designated successor of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the general who united all of Japan toward the end of the Sengoku period. His mother, Yodo-dono, was the niece of Oda Nobunaga. Early life Born in 1593, he was Hideyoshi's sec ...

's family, son of Hideyoshi, entered Tōkei-ji following the

Siege of Osaka A siege () . is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare (also called siegecrafts or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict charact ...

. Such was the nunnery's prestige that its couriers did not need to prostrate themselves when they met a ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

''s procession. The two main buildings of the complex are the Main Hall and the Suigetsu-dō, but the latter is not open to visitors. The temple's old ''Butsuden'', an Important Cultural Property, was bought during the Meiji period by businessman Tomitaro Hara and is now in the garden he built,

Yokohama is the List of cities in Japan, second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous Municipalities of Japan, municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a popu ...

's Sankei-en. In 1923, the entire temple, with the exception of the bell tower, was destroyed in the

1923 Great Kantō earthquake The 1923 Great Kantō earthquake (, or ) was a major earthquake that struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshu at 11:58:32 JST (02:58:32 UTC) on Saturday, 1 September 1923. It had an approximate magnitude of 8.0 on the mom ...

, and the temple was gradually rebuilt in the subsequent decade.

Cemetery

Behind the temple there is a graveyard where many celebrities are buried, among them in adjacent graves are three men also famous among European

and

haiku is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 Mora (linguistics), morae (called ''On (Japanese prosody), on'' in Japanese) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a ''kire ...

aficionados, Kitarō Nishida,

Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki , self-rendered in 1894 as Daisetz, was a Japanese essayist, philosopher, religious scholar, and translator. He was an authority on Buddhism, especially Zen and Shin, and was instrumental in spreading interest in these (and in Far Eastern phi ...

, Beatrice Erskine Lane Suzuki, and

Reginald Horace Blyth Reginald Horace Blyth (3 December 1898 – 28 October 1964) was an English writer and devotee of Japanese culture. He is most famous for his writings on Zen and on haiku poetry. Early life Blyth was born in Essex, England, the son of a railway ...

References

External links

*
Tokeiji
A Guide to Kamakura, retrieved on April 6, 2008

retrieved on April 6, 2008

sightseeing information and history by Kamakura Today
Kamakura Video Guide – Tokeiji
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tokei-ji 1280s establishments in Japan 1285 establishments in Asia Buddhist temples in Kamakura, Kanagawa Engaku-ji temples 13th-century Buddhist temples