United States or Qatar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Visiting the temple after his victory, Yasutoki was thus addressed by Myoe: The ancients used to say, "When men are in multitude they may overcome heaven for a moment, but heaven in the end triumphs." Though a country be subdued by military force, calamities will soon overtake it unless it be virtuously governed.
But in the thirteenth, the aim of Yasutoki and his fellow legislators was to render the laws intelligible to all, and with that object they were indited mostly in the kana syllabary. *Called also the Kwanto Goseibai Shikimoku. There was no intention of suppressing the Daiho code. The latter was to remain operative in all regions to which the sway of the Kyoto Court extended direct.
Meanwhile, at Kamakura, the Bakufu regents, Yasutoki, Tokiyori and Tokimune, earnest disciples of Buddhism, were building temples and assigning them to Chinese priests of the Sung and Yuan eras who reached Japan as official envoys or as frank propagandists.
A few extracts will serve to show the nature of the ethical teaching given to Japanese children in medieval days: *A syllabary of moral precepts like the ethical copy-books of Occidentals. A model letter-writer. *The criminal laws of Hojo Yasutoki. All these text-books remained in use until the Meiji era. Let nothing lead thee into breaking faith with thy friend, and depart not from thy word.
The next four, however, from Yasutoki down to Tokimune, are distinctly entitled to a high place in the pages of history. *It is recorded that the first half of every month in Kamakura was devoted to judicial proceedings, and that at the gate of the Record Office there was hung a bell, by striking which a suitor or petitioner could count on immediate attention.
Then the lady Masa summoned Miyoshi Yasunobu and asked his opinion. He said: "The fate of the Kwanto is at stake. Strike at once." Thereupon Hojo Yoshitoki ordered Yasutoki, his son, to set out forthwith from Kamakura, though his following consisted of only eighteen troopers. Thereafter, other forces mustered in rapid succession. They are said to have totalled 190,000.
Thus, there was a cloistered regent at Kamakura, just as there had so often been a cloistered Emperor in Kyoto. Tradition has busied itself much with Tokiyori's life. He carried to extreme lengths the virtue of economy so greatly extolled by his grandfather, Yasutoki.
The former cruel practice was strictly forbidden by Yasutoki, and, to correct the latter defect, he adopted the plan of setting a fine example himself. In the Azuma Kagami, a contemporaneous history generally trustworthy, we find various anecdotes illustrative at once of the men and the ethics of the time.
Even life must be sacrificed if the cause of good government demands it. But you have broken an Imperial army; destroyed Imperial palaces; seized the persons of sovereigns; banished them to remote regions, and exiled Empresses and princes of the Blood. Such acts are contrary to propriety. Heaven will inflict punishment. These words are said to have profoundly moved Yasutoki.
Thus, when Hojo Yoshitoki died suddenly, in 1224, his son, Yasutoki, returned at once to Kamakura to succeed to the regency, transferring to his son, Tokiuji, the charge of northern Rokuhara, and a short time afterwards the control of southern Rokuhara was similarly transferred from Yoshitoki is brother, Tokifusa, to the latter's son, Tokimori.
Word Of The Day