Insei Politics

In the 11th century, Emperor Go-Sanjo passed a series of regulations that weakened the Fujiwara regency. Though the Fujiwara clan continued to hold positions of influence, political influence split between various factions, each aiming to secure their own interests; the interplay between these groups characterised Insei politics.

Temples, Ritual, and the Political Sphere

The transition from the Fujiwara regency to Insei government was coupled with the emergence of formalised Buddhist doctrine. Through this, the courtly and the monastic landscapes were interconnected, and the court and surrounding temples continued to maintain relationships with each other (1).

The court and the temples were mutually dependent, and each served to legitimise the status of the other: the court acknowledged and sought services from temples, like the performance of ritual, which bolstered their status and prestige, while the temple’s ritual services acknowledged the transfer of power between emperors and confirmed the legitimacy of the imperial family as rulers. Performance of secret rituals, and continued integration of secret rituals with functions of emperorship, provided the emperor with legitimacy both at court and within temple complexes, and political significance was thus embedded within ritual (2, 3). In this way, the rituals that temple officials performed both defined and reinforced power at court.

Lower tiers of the court and the monastery were interconnected. Sons of imperial lineages would be sent to temples to become monks, where they could secure promotions through the temple rather than the competitive court. These connections did not just exist through initiation at temples. Head abbots represented the interests of both the court and the imperial line, and as such were expected to maintain control of activity within monasteries. Like at court, each temple held its own interests, both doctrinal and political, that it aimed to secure, and that conflicted with each other. This conflict also meant that no temple was able to maintain a stronghold over ritual affairs: for example, under Emperor Go Shirakawa, the temples of Enryakuji and Onjōji were drawn into conflict over challenges to Enryakuji's primacy within ritual affairs.

This intersection between court and temple complexes was also visible in the appointment of gojisō, who were appointed from temples for the protection of the emperor. This protection took both physical and ritual forms, and meant they held close proximity to the emperor, allowing them to accrue political power. Its continued existence allowed the gojisō to develop into an honourable position, and their ranks were thus increasingly monopolised by monks who descended from the nobility (4).

Both established temples and newly-constructed temples were important as centres of ritual and Buddhist institutions, and constructed temples also held economic functions. Hosshōji, for example, was a ritual site constructed and organised by Emperor Shirakawa, and in his capacity as retired emperor, he was able to use the temple site to mitigate conflict between monastic groups, while also reinforcing his own authority over them (5). These constructed temples allowed cloistered emperors in particular to preside over the sphere of ritual, intersecting with the affairs at court and serving as a physical reminder of the imperial family's power.

1. Toshio Kuroda, “The Imperial Law and the Buddhist Law,” trans. Jacqueline Stone, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23-3/4 (1996): 275-276.

2. Thomas Conlan, From Sovereign to Symbol: An Age of Ritual Determinism in Fourteenth-Century Japan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 28.

3. Heather Blair, “Rites and Rule: Kiyomori at Itsukushima and Fukuhara,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 73-1 (2013): 3-7. For further information on the shape of ritual, and the retired emperor's role in it, see pages 12-17.

4. Thomas Conlan, From Sovereign to Symbol: An Age of Ritual Determinism in Fourteenth-Century Japan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 79-83.

5. Mikael Bauer, “Conflating Monastic and Imperial Lineage: The Retired Emperors’ Period Reformulated,” Monumenta Nipponica 67-2 (2012): 246-257.