台徳院
Daitoku-in

(Tower of Benevolence & Virtue)

二代将軍徳川秀忠公
2nd Shōgun, Lord Tokugawa Hidetada

LOCATION: Zōjō-ji (Shiba Park)

Tokugawa Hidetada

To the average Japanese his name has sort of dissipated into the ether. If they remember him at all, he’s the uninteresting guy between Ieyasu and Iemitsu. To fans of the Sengoku Era, he’s kinda boring compared to all the major warlords of the day. To fans of the Edo Era, he’s the son of a great man and the father of another great man, but not a great man himself.

But in my opinion, Hidetada’s reputation as a boring shōgun is totally unfair.

Part of his bad rep is the fact that he was Tokugawa Ieyasu’s second son. In the final throes of the Sengoku Period, Ieyasu had ordered his first son, Nobuyasu, to commit seppuku after a period of house arrest for suspected treason against Oda Nobunaga. Famously, Ieyasu is said to have regretted this order until he died. But such was life in Sengoku Japan. To make things worse, at the Battle of Sekigahara – Ieyasu’s most important battle – Hidetada arrived late… late as in, after the battle. Ieyasu was pissed off like a motherfucker and never forgot this.

Why do I think this is unfair?

1 – It’s not Hidetada’s fault he was born second (primogeniture was supremely important at the time)

2 – It’s not Hidetada’s fault that Nobuyasu was (apparently) a dick and got mixed up with people who were plotting Nobunaga’s murder (whether this was true or not is unknown).

3 – It’s not Hidetada’s fault that Nobunaga insisted on executing Nobuyasu and that Ieyasu ordered his own first born son to do seppuku in order to have an “honorable death.”

4 – Hidetada ruled for a little under 20 years. Not bad at all given the fact that even Hideyoshi hadn’t held onto power for more than 10 years. His own father, Ieyasu, abdicated from the position of shōgun after just 2 years[1]. So Hidetada set a record by just being alive.

5 – Besides being late to Sekigahara, one of the other alleged reasons Ieyasu hated Hidetada was that supposedly Hidetada married 江姫 Gō-hime for love. To Ieyasu this was the ultimate pussy move. Real men used women for making babies and managing the household while men tended to matters of war and state[2]. But I think it’s sweet.

6 – Hidetada made strong relations with 朝廷 chōtei the imperial court in Kyōto by marrying the Tokugawa into the imperial bloodline.

7 – He encouraged massive building efforts in Edo, including Kan’ei-ji.

8 – He had a bad ass mustache.

So yeah, sometimes Tokugawa Hidetada gets cast as a pussy or as a shitty shōgun, but I don’t think that’s really the case. He definitely had the bad luck of being sandwiched between 2 remarkable shōguns in a remarkable time. But he wasn’t a shitty shōgun by any stretch of the imagination. The shitty shōguns don’t come until later. And they will come, believe me.

But in our story, Hidetada is the hero. He donated land to the Buddhist priest Tenkai to develop a second funerary temple complex at Kan’ei-ji in Ueno.  Even though Hidetada developed Kan’ei-ji, he chose to be interred at Zōjō-ji. Despite his direct order that he just have a simple gravestone, his mausoleum was said to have been the most opulent structure at Zōjō-ji. The shōgunate threw buckets of money into the development of a shrine worthy of the son of Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Most of the Daitoku-in was destroyed in the firebombing of WWII and sadly never rebuilt. Luckily for us, a few structures survived. Except for one gate, the remaining pieces were sent to 不動寺 Fudō-ji in Tokorozawa, Saitama. Looking at the pictures of the original structures, they do look quite elaborate. If you see the restored 惣門 sōmon main gate in Shiba Park today, you’ll be shocked at how intense it is. Whether it looked like that in the Edo Period or not, I don’t know… but when it was new it probably did shine like that. Also seeing the level of detail and craftsmanship of the remaining pieces in Saitama, it really breaks my heart that all these treasures were lost forever.  Having spent the last 3 days sorting through as many photos as I could, I really do believe it’s a tragedy that these buildings were not only destroyed but never rebuilt.

Structure Name	Description	Condition	Location
本殿 honden	Main temple	Destroyed	Shiba Park (ruins)
渡廊 watarō	Like an outdoor hallway that separated the oku no in from the honden.	Destroyed	Shiba Park (ruins)
中門 nakamon	Middle gate (2x)	Destroyed	Shiba Park (ruins)
透塀 sukibei	A latticework fence common at shrines	Destroyed	Shiba Park (ruins)
水盤舎 2棟 suibansha	Water basins for ritual purification (2x)	Destroyed	Shiba Park (ruins)
奥院全部 oku no in	Inner sanctuary complex; included the 2 story pagoda that housed Hidetada’s remains and series of gates and buildings and a 5 story pagoda.	All destroyed	Shiba Park (ruins)
惣門 sōmon	Main gate	Restored to bizarrely perfect condition	Shiba Park
勅額門 chokugaku-mon	Imperial scroll gate (bears the okurigō gifted by the emperor upon the deceased; bears the shrine’s namesake)	Maintained in good condition. It’s former location is marked.	Fudō-ji Tokorozawa (moved in 1960)
丁子門 chōji-mon	Clove gate (led into the area that led into the cemetery)	Maintained in good condition	Fudō-ji Tokorozawa (moved in 1960)
御成門 o-nari mon	Special entrance reserved for the shōgun	Maintained in good condition	Fudō-ji Tokorozawa (moved in 1960)
銅灯籠 dōtōrō 石灯籠 ishitōrō	Copper & stone lamps for illumination at night	Many have survived	Most are at Fudō-ji (Tokorozawa)
崇源院霊牌所 Sūgen-in Reihaisho	Mausoleum of Gō, Hidetada’s wife. Sūgen’in is her ingō (“-in” name).	Destroyed	Shiba Park (ruins)

General Map of Daitoku-in

Look at the images below. In the middle, you can see a bunch of dudes in white lined up in front of the 惣門 sōmon Main Gate. Pass through the main gate, that brings you to the 勅額門 chokugaku-mon imperial scroll gate. From there, you can see the 2 水盤舎 suibansha wash basins on the left and right. If you continue straight, you’ll arrive at the 本殿 honden main hall. To the right of the main you can see 崇源院 Sūgen-in princess Gō‘s grave. To the left of the main hall,  you can go up the hill to the 奥院 oku no in, the inner sanctuary complex which housed Hidetada’s remains. The mortuary building was an octagonal, 2-story pagoda with a smaller 2-story urn made of wood inside. There was also another worship hall called a 拝殿 haiden in the oku no in. The five story pagoda next to it was technically part of Zōjō-ji, and not Daitoku-in. Apparently some fences and monuments remained in sitū until the 1960’s when they were either demolished or moved to another location.

Sōmon – the Main Gate

This type of gate is the street level gate. It signified a boundary between the mundane and the spiritual.

Called sōmon in Japanese, the main gate survived all sorts of conflagrations and earthquakes. How it survived the firebombing that destroyed most of Zōjō-ji is beyond me. It’s been restored and it is splendid. But it looks so new that… I dunno. You be the judge.

Chokugaku-mon – the Imperial Scroll Gate

The emperor — supposedly — thinks up and writes the posthumous name of the shōgun and then that handwritten calligraphy is made into a plaque for the true entrance to the temple. While the sōmon is the street level entrance, the imperial scroll gate, called 勅額門 chokugaku-mon announces  the name of the temple. It’s the gate between the mundane world and the spiritual realm of the deified shōgun.

Suibansha – Water Basins for Ritual Purification

Honden – the Main Hall

Oku no In – the Inner Sanctuary (Mortuary)

From Hidetada’s main hall, if we turn left and walk up through the gate we ‘ll come to a steep staircase which leads to the 奥院 oku no in, the inner sanctuary or mortuary/cemetery. At the top of the stairs is another gate called 御稲荷門 O-narimon. This was a gate for the personal use of the shōgun and his attendants. 100 years later, another o-nari gate would be built at Yūshō-in.

Next we come to another gate called 中門 Nakamon, middle gate, this one leads to an octagonal 2-story pagoda. Inside the pagoda was a 2-story wooden urn which housed the remains of Hidetada.

In front of the 2-story pagoda was the 拝殿 haiden, another hall of worship separate from the 本殿 honden, main hall. In the close up of the Nakamon above, you can see the roof behind the 玉垣 tamagaki fence. I don’t have a picture of the outside of the building, but you can see it in the painting above.

While it wasn’t part of Daitoku-in, on the hill across from the haiden, there was a 5-story pagoda.

Now, if we turn around and go back down the stairs and walk past the main hall, we’ll find a gate called 丁子門 chōjimon, the clove gate. If we pass through the clove gate, we will enter another mortuary called Sūgen-in. This is the grave of Hidetada’s wife, Gō.

崇源院
Sūgen-in

(Source of Adoration – posthumous name of Princess Gō)

And Finally, the Copper Lamps

Many stone lamps and copper lamps were on the premises. Some of the lamps that survived the firebombing were re-used at Zōjō-ji, but most were relocated to Fudō-ji in 1960.

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[1] It must be said, however, that Ieyasu abdicated in order to oversee the succession of his shōgunate from behind the scenes. So in as much as Hidetada was nominally shōgun, it could be said that Ieyasu was still in charge. Nevertheless, as shōgun, Hidetada wasn’t a puppet. Edicts and policies enacted during his reign are distinct from Ieyasu’s.

[2] 江 Gō’s name was written many different ways. She was also called 江与 Eyo and 督 Gō, among other things. It’s really complicated, so I’m just calling her Gō.