sogen

Updated: May 24, 2025

It has been suggested that Tokimune was not guided in this matter solely by religious instincts: he used the Zen-shu bonzes as a channel for obtaining information about China. Sogen himself, when officiating at the temple of Nengjen, in Wenchow, had barely escaped massacre at the hands of the Mongols, and he may not have been averse to acting as a medium of information between China and Kamakura.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era