The Site of Hideyoshi Toyotomi's Mother House

Japan Travel: Beauty and History at the Kongobuji Temple in Wakayama 11

Japan Travel: Beauty and History at the Kongobuji Temple in Wakayama 11

Kongobuji Temple, located center of Koya-Town in Wakayama Prefecture, was constructed in 1593 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in honor of his mother. Later merged with another temple, Kongobuji Temple became the head temple of Shingon Buddhism, a Buddhist sect introduced to Japan by Kobo Daishi in 805.

The vast grounds of the Kongobuji Temple have numerous buildings with different rooms for the various temple functions. Visitors are allowed to enter the building for a small fee but please be aware that wearing shoes within the premises is not allowed. Once paying the entrance fee, visitors will first approach the Ohiroma Room. Important rituals and religious ceremonies were conducted here. The room’s sliding doors (fusuma) are decorated with cranes painted by the famous Kano Tanyu.

Next to the Ohiroma Room are the “Plum” and “Willow” Room, so named by the paintings on the fusuma (sliding door). The Willow Room is where Toyotomi Hidetsugu ended his own life as he was ordered to do so by his uncle Hideyoshi.

Visitors will be directed to the long corridor which leads to a recent addition to the temple. In a large tatami room, visitors are invited to rest and enjoy some tea and a cookie.

Visitors will find rooms whose fusuma (sliding doors) are decorated in seasonal flowers in the adjacent building. Here, visitors can see displays about Kobo Daishi, his journey to China and his founding of Koyasan.

The Banryutei Rock Garden is located behind this building. The largest rock garden in Japan, Banryutei Rock Garden was constructed in 1984. The largest rocks are from Shikoku, the birthplace of Kobo Daishi. They represent a pair of dragons emerging from a sea of clouds.

The recommended temple route will lead back to Kongobuji’s main building. Here visitors can see the Jodannoma Audience room, an extravagant room used to receive visiting Dignitaries. The room’s walls and fusuma (sliding door) are covered in gold. The ceilings even have flower carvings.

The last room of the Kongobuji Temple tour is the kitchen. With its large hearth, the kamado stoves were large enough to feed up to 2000 people.

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Tokugawa Ieyasu

Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川 家康, January 31, 1543 – June 1, 1616) was the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Ieyasu seized power in 1600, received appointment as shogun in 1603, abdicated from office in 1605, but remained in power until his death in 1616. His given name is sometimes spelled Iyeyasu, according to the historical pronunciation of we. Ieyasu was posthumously enshrined at Nikkō Tōshō-gū with the name Tōshō Daigongen (東照大権現).


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SUMMARY
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The Emperor of Japan is the head of the Imperial Family and the head of state of Japan. Under the 1947 constitution, he is defined as the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people. Historically, he was also the highest authority of the Shinto religion. In Japanese, the Emperor is called Tennō (天皇), literally heavenly sovereign. In English, the use of the term Mikado (帝 or 御門) for the Emperor was once common, but is now considered obsolete.Currently, the Emperor of Japan is the only head of state in the world with the English title of Emperor. The Imperial House of Japan is the oldest continuing monarchical house in the world. The historical origins of the Emperors lie in the late Kofun period of the 3rd–7th centuries AD, but according to the traditional account of the Kojiki (finished 712) and Nihon Shoki (finished 720), Japan was founded in 660 BC by Emperor Jimmu, who was said to be a direct descendant of the sun-goddess Amaterasu. The current Emperor is Akihito. He acceded to the Chrysanthemum Throne upon the death of his father, Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito), in 1989. The Japanese government announced in December 2017 that Akihito will abdicate on 30 April 2019.The role of the Emperor of Japan has historically alternated between a largely ceremonial symbolic role and that of an actual imperial ruler. Since the establishment of the first shogunate in 1199, the Emperors of Japan have rarely taken on a role as supreme battlefield commander, unlike many Western monarchs. Japanese Emperors have nearly always been controlled by external political forces, to varying degrees. In fact, between 1192 and 1867, the shōguns, or their shikken regents in Kamakura (1203–1333), were the de facto rulers of Japan, although they were nominally appointed by the Emperor. After the Meiji Restoration in 1867, the Emperor was the embodiment of all sovereign power in the realm, as enshrined in the Meiji Constitution of 1889. Since the enactment of the 1947 Constitution, he has been a ceremonial head of state without even nominal political powers.
Since the mid-nineteenth century, the Imperial Palace has been called Kyūjō (宮城), later Kōkyo (皇居), and is on the former site of Edo Castle in the heart of Tokyo (the current capital of Japan). Earlier, Emperors resided in Kyoto (the ancient capital) for nearly eleven centuries. The Emperor's Birthday (currently December 23) is a national holiday.

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The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates



SUMMARY
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Japan (Japanese: 日本; Nippon [ɲippoɴ] or Nihon [ɲihoɴ]; formally 日本国 Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, lit. State of Japan) is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asian continent and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea in the south.

The kanji that make up Japan's name mean sun origin, and it is often called the Land of the Rising Sun. Japan is a stratovolcanic archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku, which make up about ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area and often are referred to as home islands. The country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions, with Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one. The population of 127 million is the world's tenth largest. Japanese make up 98.5% of Japan's total population. About 13.8 million people live in Tokyo, the capital of Japan. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world with over 38 million people.Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, particularly from Western Europe, has characterized Japan's history.
From the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shōguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a long period of isolation in the early 17th century, which was ended in 1853 when a United States fleet pressured Japan to open to the West. After nearly two decades of internal conflict and insurrection, the Imperial Court regained its political power in 1868 through the help of several clans from Chōshū and Satsuma – and the Empire of Japan was established. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victories in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese surrender. Since adopting its revised constitution on May 3, 1947, during the occupation by the SCAP, the sovereign state of Japan has maintained a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy with an Emperor and an elected legislature called the National Diet.
Japan is a member of the ASEAN Plus mechanism, UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8 and the G20 – and is considered a great power. The country has the world's third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the world's fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the world's fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer.
The country benefits from a highly skilled workforce and is among the most highly educated countries in the world, with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. Although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the world's eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. It ranked as the world's fourth most-powerful military in 2015. Japan is a highly developed country with a very high standard of living and Human Development Index. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, but is experiencing issues due to an aging population and low birthrate. Japan is renowned for its historical and extensive cinema, influential music industry, anime, video gaming, rich cuisine and its major contributions to science and modern-day technology.