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Updated: June 3, 2025
Nor were the privileges of the temple confined to barren honours, for it was endowed with lands of the value of five thousand kokus of rice yearly. When Iyéyasu died, the shrine called Antoku In was erected in his honour to the south of the main temple.
Thereafter, at intervals, Iyeyasu used to send for him; and presently we hear of him teaching the great statesman "some points of jeometry, and understanding of the art of mathematickes, with other things." ... Iyeyasu gave him many presents, as well as a good living, and commissioned him to build some ships for deep-sea sailing.
The priest Sasa also tells me this: When Naomasu, grandson of the great Iyeyasu, and first daimyo of that mighty Matsudaira family who ruled Izumo for two hundred and fifty years, came to this province, he paid a visit to the Temple of Kitzuki, and demanded that the miya of the shrine within the shrine should be opened that he might look upon the sacred objects upon the shintai or body of the deity.
There are some kakemono representing Iyeyasu and his retainers; and on either side of the door, separating the inner from the outward sanctuary, there are life-size images of Japanese warriors in antique costume. On the altars of the inner shrine are small images, grouped upon a miniature landscape-work of painted wood the Jiugo- Doji, or Fifteen Youths the Sons of the Goddess Benten.
It was a suggestion of vigilance wisely given and alertly acted upon. The strongholds of the league were invested without delay, and one by one fell into the victors' hands. The fragments of the beaten army were followed and dispersed. Soon all opposition was at an end, and Iyeyasu was lord and master of Japan.
As the military power developed in Japan, the Chinese code of vengeance became universally accepted; and it was sustained by law as well as by custom in later ages. Iyeyasu himself maintained it exacting only that preliminary notice of an intended vendetta should be given in writing to the district criminal court. The text of his article on the subject is interesting:
The Emperor has twelve concubines, called Kisaki; and Iyéyasu, alluding forcibly to excess in this respect as teterrima belli causa, laid down that the princes might have eight, high officers five, and ordinary Samurai two handmaids. "In the olden times," he writes, "the downfall of castles and the overthrow of kingdoms all proceeded from this alone.
The 50th and 51st chapters of the "Legacy of Iyéyasu," already quoted, say: "If a married woman of the agricultural, artisan, or commercial class shall secretly have intercourse with another man, it is not necessary for the husband to enter a complaint against the persons thus confusing the great relation of mankind, but he may put them both to death.
One must carefully read the entire Legacy in order to understand Iyeyasu's real position, which was simply this: that any man was free to adopt any religion tolerated by the State, in addition to his ancestor-cult. Iyeyasu was himself a member of the Jodo sect of Buddhism, and a friend of Buddhism in general.
It is hard to disentangle what belongs to Christianity and what to mere hostility to the Central Government in the movements of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. However that may be, Iyeyasu decided to persecute the Christians vigorously, if possible without losing the foreign trade. His successors were even more anti-Christian and less anxious for trade.
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