Introduction

The architectural and urban legacy of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408) is well known and widely celebrated. His Golden Pavilion, a UNESCO World Heritage site, attracts the attention of scholars and tourists the world over. It looms large in our imaginations of medieval culture and stands as a monument to its patron’s breathtaking wealth and his deft capacity to negotiate court, warrior, and Zen societies. Yoshimitsu’s Muromachi Palace gave the shogunate its toponym—its name is synonymous with the entire era of Ashikaga rule. Its courtly architecture, exquisite gardens, and prime location in Kyoto’s elite district are frequently cited as tangible emblems of the Ashikaga regime’s gentrification, cultural achievements, and attainment of unrivalled political influence. Finally, the sprawling monastery of Shōkokuji catalyzed a fundamental reorganization of the Zen establishment and became a salon of cultural production that continues to thrive today.

As impressive as these several sites are, Yoshimitsu’s material legacy is much, much greater. Indeed, over the course of his career, he established no less than three massive temple-palace complexes, built two pagodas that towered a staggering 110 meters over the city, and completely reimagined Kyoto’s fundamental urban plan. Yoshimitsu’s contributions to the medieval capital were so sweeping and fundamental that they both signaled and facilitated a profound challenge to the contemporary status quo.

This book explores that legacy with two core aims. The first is to pull from the shadows a splendidly diverse repertoire of palaces, temples, and monuments that were either built or rebuilt by Yoshimitsu during the late fourteenth century. My goal is to de-romanticizing some of those sites—such as the Golden Pavilion—while highlighting the significance of others, such as the massive “Hall of the Sutra King” (経王堂) at Kitano Shrine. The styles, locations, and embedded symbolism of Yoshimitsu’s architecture reveal much about the political and religious history of the era and opens up new vistas for interpreting the nexus of pageantry and power.

The second aim is more theoretical, ambitious, and provocative: I seek to argue that Yoshimitsu leveraged the symbolic power of architecture and monumentalism to assert an anthropocosmic connection between himself and the divine. Taking cues from ex-sovereigns who had ruled from cloistered retirement four centuries earlier, he drew on the language and symbolism of Hindu-Buddhist kingship to sacralize his rule and assert a status synonymous with dharma king (J. hōō 法皇, Sk. dharmaraja). The fact that the most powerful rulers of the insei period called themselves dharma king is frequently overlooked due to the tendency for modern scholars to habitually conflate hōō with “retired emperor,” often using the term interchangeably with in 院 and jōkō 上皇. This kind of rhetorical slippage has profound implications on interpretation. In the first instance, it perpetuates a Meiji-era fallacy that the imperial institution was the perpetual trunk and pivot of premodern Japanese politics. In the second, it ignores compelling parallels between the political discourses of medieval Japan and other parts of Asia.

To be sure, the term “hōō” (dharmaraja) should not be automatically domesticated and then subsumed into a political hierarchy that revolves ultimately around the position of the emperor. A scholar of premodern South or Southeast Asia would certainly not make such a mistake. Instead, they would likely recognize the original Sanskrit term as a discrete title indicative of an idealized form of kingship in which the ruler unifies sacred and secular authority, the governance of the realm (Sk. artha) with the Buddhist law (Dharma).

Imagining Yoshimitsu as dharma king requires an acknowledgment of political plurality in medieval Japan and a currency of kingship idioms outside the imperial lineage. Neither, however, should be problematic. He was born, after all, during the Nanbokuchō 南北朝 era (1335–1392), a time when a divided imperial lineage gave rise to heated and sometimes violent debates over what constituted legitimacy. Medieval writings are characterized by their variety when it comes to such questions. Some emphasize the centrality of the kami and their symbols while others focus almost exclusively on heredity or Buddhist notions of enlightened kingship. Rulers such as Michinaga, Shirakawa, and Goshirakawa drew liberally on numerous idioms, engaging in rites, rituals, and pilgrimages that sanctified their legitimacy in flexible and combinative terms. Yoshimitsu was no exception.

Focusing on the material record makes possible compelling comparisons between Japan and Southeast Asia. Although it is widely recognized that Hindu-Buddhist ideas inspired the religious monuments of Borobudur, Angkor, Luang Prabang, and Pagan, precisely the same discourse can explain the construction in Japan of Ninnaji 仁和寺, Hosshōji 法勝寺, Toba 鳥羽, and Hōjūji 法住寺 between the 9^th and 12^th centuries. In both Southeast Asia and Japan—and at about the same time—dharma kings were building temple-palace complexes that symbolized sacred status and facilitated political supremacy. If Yoshimitsu is included in the list of Japanese dharma kings, his own architectural legacy can be read as an extension of a building lineage that dates back to the ninth century. Subsequently linking that lineage to the monuments of Southeast Asia is not difficult when we remember that Ninnaji, the first of a Japanese temple-palace prototype, was built not long after Kūkai 空海 (774–835) imported the first fully articulated discourse on Buddhist kingship. Having studied the rituals, symbols, and cosmologies in Tang China alongside monks from the great centers of Buddhist learning in Khmer, Java, and Sumatra, would it be unreasonable to imagine Kūkai also brought to Japan ideas of monumentalism that were flourishing at that time in Southeast Asia? I do not think so.

Architecture and urban planning are not merely reifications of ambitions. Yoshimitsu’s temples, towers, and palaces played active roles in the execution of his political aims. They provided the material context to engage in rituals and pageantry that underscored his legitimacy. Monuments inspire awe; they send messages. They also signify a reaching for immortality. They are inscriptions on the stones of a civilization meant to be read for generations.