Kakusan-ni

Kakusan-ni
覚山尼
Tōkei-ji temple in Kamakura, Japan
Born	(1252-08-10)August 10, 1252
Died	November 15, 1306(1306-11-15) (aged 54)
Other names	Kakusan Shidō Horiuchi-dono Chōon'in
Known for	Zen Buddhist nun Founding abbess of Tōkei-ji
Spouse	Hōjō Tokimune
Children	Hōjō Sadatoki
Father	Adachi Yoshikage

Kakusan-ni (Japanese: 覚（かく）山（さん）尼（に）, August 10, 1252 – November 15, 1306), also known as Kakusan Shidō (覚山志道), was a Japanese Buddhist nun and widow of Hōjō Tokimune (1251–1284), the eighth Shikken regent of the Kamakura shogunate.^[1] She was the founding abbess of Tōkei-ji temple in Kamakura, noted for its long history as a refuge for women seeking divorce from their husbands.^[1] Her many other names included Lady Horiuchi (堀内殿, Horiuchi-dono) and the posthumous name of Chōon’in.^[2]

Lady Horiuchi was born in 1252 to the powerful Adachi clan.^[3] Her father was Yoshikage, the commander of Akita Castle;^[2] her mother was the daughter of Hōjō Tokifusa.^[4] She was the last of Yoshikage’s eleven children, according to Lineages of the Higher and Lesser Aristocracy.^[2][a] After her father died in 1253, she was raised by her older brother Adachi Yasumori, who succeeded Yoshikage as head of the clan and as her custodian.^[2]

Lady Horiuchi and Tokimune, her cousin and future husband, were likely well acquainted from a very young age;^[2][3] Tokimune himself was born at the Adachi residence in Kamakura.^[2]

In 1261, Lady Horiuchi married Hōjō Tokimune when she was nine, and he was ten years old.^[2] They moved together from the Adachi household to Tokimune’s own residence.^[2] Nearly seven years later, Tokimune became regent to the shōgun, and de facto the most powerful man in the country.^[3] As a young woman from the samurai or warrior class, she always carried a ten-inch-long samurai knife.^[3]

At the age of 19, Lady Horiuchi gave birth to a son, Hōjō Sadatoki, Tokimune's legitimate heir.^[2] Sadatoki's wet nurse was the wife of Taira no Yoritsuna, who would later wield influence over her son.^[5]

In 1274 and in 1281, Tokimune successfully repelled the Mongol invasions of Japan,^[1] but at considerable cost to the Kamakura shogunate, both financially and politically.^[2]

Both Lady Horiuchi and Hōjō Tokimune studied the practice of Zen Buddhism, including meditation, under Mugaku Sogen (1226–1286),^[6] who emigrated from Song dynasty China and became the founding abbott of Engaku-ji.^[6] In light of their shared interest in religion and spirituality, historians have speculated that Horiuchi and Tokimune were happily married.^[6][2]

In early 1284, Lady Horiuchi and Tokimune took the tonsure, shaving their heads after Tokimune suddenly became ill.^[2] She was given the Buddhist name Kakusan Shidō,^[3][7] and took on the robes of a nun.^[2] Mugaku composed several verses in Chinese to commemorate the occasion of their conversion, including "Shidō Daishi [i.e., Kakusan] Takes the Tonsure".^[2]

In 1284, Tokimune died at the young age of 34.^[2] Their 13-year-old son Sadatoki succeeded Tokimune as Hōjō regent.^[2] Under the influence of his advisor Taira no Yoritsuna, many members of the Adachi clan, including Kakusan's brother and former guardian Yasumori,^[5][8] were assassinated in what came to be called the Shimotsuki ("Eleventh Month") incident.^[2][5] Many suspected followers of Yasumori were attacked and killed, and more than 50 men committed suicide following the incident, while still others went into exile.^[5]

In 1285, Kakusan-ni^[b] and Sadatoki founded Tōkei-ji as a Rinzai sect convent located near Engaku-ji, now part of North Kamakura.^[2][9] Kakusan was the founding abbess, while Sadatoki was the lay patron.^[2] From Tōkeiji, Kakusan-ni would have been able to see the former home she had shared with Tokimune.^[2]

Despite her popular reputation as the founder of Tōkei-ji as a “divorce temple”, there is no hard evidence confirming that Kakusan-ni had specifically intended Tōkei-ji as a refuge for women fleeing their husbands.^[2][10] One historical text suggests that Kakusan-ni had asked her son Sadatoki to enact a temple law at Tōkei-ji to help women seeking separation from their husbands, and that he in turn asked the emperor, who approved the request.^[2][7] Although temple tradition maintains that Tōkei-ji was authorized from the start to grant divorces to women who had served in its convent for a period of time,^[7][10] the earliest divorce certificate the temple has in its records is dated 1783.^[7] Other historians have pointed to the short story, Karaito-zōshi, which depicts Tōkei-ji as a sanctuary, as evidence that it had already developed a reputation as a safe haven for women as early as the Muromachi period.^[10]

Recent historians including Sachiko Kaneko Morrell and Robert E. Morell have suggested that Kakusan-ni's interest in providing sanctuary to others was likely influenced by the fact that so many members of her own family were killed or forced into exile following the Shimotsuki incident.^[2] Thus, another theory is that Tōkei-ji initially had its roots in providing asylum more generally, and that its function as a divorce temple was a later development.^[2]

Following Tokimune's death, Kakusan-ni took on the task of copying the entire text of the Garland Sutra in his memory, taking an entire year to transcribe 80 volumes.^[2] The scrolls she transcribed were formally presented at the third memorial anniversary of his death, and later stored at Engaku-ji, in a stupa commissioned by Sadatoki.^[2]

In 1545, the Rinzai monk Muin Hōjō published a compilation of Kamakura Zen kōan, called Word Weeds in Southern Sagami Province.^[2] The volume includes several anecdotes about Kakuzan Shidō.^[2]

According to the kōan, in 1304, Shidō was conferred the inka or "seal of succession" as a Zen Buddhist master, by Tōkei, the fourth abbott of Engaku-ji.^[2][3] A master of novices who opposed her confirmation challenged her by asking, "In our lineage, anyone receiving transmission must expound on the Discourses of Lin-chi (Rinzai-roku). Do you know this work?"^[2][3]

Acknowledging that teachers of Zen were typically literary scholars who were lecturers, Shidō placed her knife before her and replied, "As a woman from a military family, however, I place my dagger before me. What need have I for books?"^[2][3]

Another kōan describes Kakusan-ni's practice of meditation before a mirror, which might enable her to "see into her own nature" and attain enlightenment.^[2][3] Word Weeds attributes the following lines of poetry to Kakusan-ni:

The practice of zazen while sitting in front of the mirror thus became a tradition among nuns at Tōkeiji, who would meditate on the question: "Where is a single feeling, a single thought, in the mirror image at which I gaze?"^[2]

Kakusan-ni is believed to be buried at Butsunichian, the Hōjō family memorial at Engakuji, along with Tokimune.^[2] After her death in 1306, she was given the name Chōon’in.^[2] In 1384, a fire destroyed the Garland Stupa at Engaku-ji, and the fate and whereabouts of Kakusan-ni's copy of the Garland Sutra, if it still exists, are unknown.^[2]

According to temple historians, Tōkei-ji retained the temple law allowing women to cut ties with their husbands, for more than 600 years.^[7] During the Edo period, Tōkei-ji was one of two temples recognized by the Tokugawa shogunate as asylums for women.^[11] The divorce law was abolished in 1871 due to anti-Buddhist sentiment, and the temple ceased to be a nunnery in 1902.^[7]

In 2001, NHK broadcast a year-long historical TV drama series titled Hōjō Tokimune.^[12] In the series, Kakusan-ni is called Noriko (祝子), although her actual given name is unknown. She was portrayed by Hikaru Nishida, with other actors playing her as a child and as an older woman.^[13]

• Mugai Nyodai
• Hōjō Masako

• Kakusan-ni profile at Tōkei-ji (including sculpture of her likeness)