Nijo-jo Castle is the guest-castle which the greatest “kiryo-jin” designed with depth and eternal vision

The temperature of the season of the Gion Festival in Kyoto in July is very hot every year. A room with no air-conditioner severely exhausts the people in the room. The temperature of the day when my wife and I came to Kyoto was 38.5 degrees Celsius, it was over the limit of our endurance. Whereas many foreign travelers came to Nijo-jo Castle which has no air-conditioning, they saw many wall paintings and works of the structures eagerly along the long zigzagging corridors.

Nijo-jo Castle is one of the world heritage sites in Kyoto, and many travel guide books explain the attractive points of Nijo-jo Castle. Therefore I will try to show the attraction of Nijo-jo Castle from another view point. Simply speaking, I will draw what idea the builder of Nijo-jo Castle, Ieyasu Tokugawa who was the founder of the Tokugawa Bakufu, included into this Castle for the sake of governing all regional lords in the aim of ending the civil war period.

Ieyasu Tokugawa

This is Ieyasu Tokugawa. It is the portrait which he ordered an artist to paint his real figure being frightened amid the most desperate situation as the teary-eyed general of his force of his lost war. He had admonished himself by looking at this portrait so as not to fall into the similar situation.

There will be a few people who admonish themselves by using failure as leverage, but there might be very few people who would have such a portrait with his weakness at a young age even if after becoming great. This rare behavior with admonishment lifted him to “kiryo-Jin”.

A renowned Japanese historian-teller, Ryotaro Shiba, said about Ieyasu Tokugawa as follows;

“The unification of Japan after the civil war period was completed by three great men. The first, Nobunaga Oda had promoted the unification by his strong force strategy, but he was killed on his way by his subordinate. The second, Hideyoshi Toyotomi unified Japan by following in Nobunaga’s footsteps, but he destroyed his unification by the exhaustion, especially by the reduction of loyalty of many familiar lords to the Toyotomi family, due to the reckless assault into the Korea Peninsula. A lot of lords who repelled the opposing lords groups which promoted the assault on the Korean Peninsula leaned to trust Ieyasu Tokugawa. They were bored with the governing by the Toyotomi family.

Finally, Ieyasu Tokugawa finished the civil war period. He was the largest lord next to the Toyotomi family, and he was an ally of Nobunaga Oda, furthermore, he drew in the war against Hideyoshi Toyotomi. On the contrary, he wasn’t a strategist like Nobunaga Oda nor a innovator like Hideyoshi Toyotomi, but he was a worldly-wise man “Kuro-nin” and a man with eternal vision and deep design. Simply speaking, He was a “kiryo-jin”.

As a result, the trend of the times leaned to Ieyasu.”

Kiryo-Jin

(Above:the caricature of “kiryo-jin”)

“Kiryo-jin” is a specific Japanese word that consists of “kiryo”(a high capability) and “jin”(a person), and its direct meaning is “a man who has a big vessel”. In Japanese society it is necessary for a leader to have it.

In other words, kiryo-jin is the same as a man who gathers a lot of trust from many people. By all means, the big vessel of kiryo-jin is a vessel in order to insert people’s trust and hope.

It is said that “kiryo” is made up of three components, abilities, actual sense of humanity and virtue. Abilities of “kiryo” contains innate abilities and abilities that were gotten on the steps of life. Especially in Japan, abilities which were formed by studying anything among your failure and your suffering are better.

Actual sense of humanity is difficult to conceptualize, but in a nutshell, it is necessary to keep good connections with others and to understand other people’s true opinions. It’s important to have access to a lot of different types of people, in particular people whom you don’t like. Of course if you are wrapped up in your strong ego, you can’t get these connections.

Virtue is the most important element and it is acquired through the severe practices. It’s necessary to reduce your ego and strengthen a larger hope which constitute our society. If it is filled with water in a vessel, you can’t insert more water in the vessel. Therefore it’s necessary for a vessel to be empty in order to pour more water into the vessel. Water in the vessel is your ego and pouring water in is the trust and hope of others, then you have to reduce your 

It is said that Ieyasu Tokugawa was one of the historically highest kiryo-jin. The Ieyasu’s kiryo was the gift of his admonishing.

The trait of Nijo-jo castle

Nijo-jo Castle is the guest-castle which the historical kiryo-jin with eternal vision and deep design planed to settle down the samurai society split to the Tokugawa group and the Toyotomi group which was beaten in the decisive winner-takes-all combat “Sekigaha-no-tatakai” in 1600. For this purpose it is built nearby the Emperor’s House in order to bring in his opposing group by borrowing the authority of the Emperor.

Ieyasu didn’t furnish the family emblem of Tokugawa and the portraits of Ieyasu which impressed the authority of Tokugawa to the invited lords so as not to stimulate the opposing lords. Instead of these he let artists draw big pine trees and a great eagle metaphorically.

Nijo-jo Castle is surely luxurious, but compared with the great flamboyance of the former time of Hideyoshi, it is restrained. This style may have introduced the idea that time had changed for some lords who could feel the difference.

This  painting “fusuma-e” is in the first room where invited lords sat down to wait to meet Ieyasu. Two tigers and a panther may have surprised them because they didn’t see them but had known that they were dangerous animals. Ieyasu wanted them to feel fear of him.

This is the meeting room where the invited lords met Ieyasu. In accordance to my aforementioned writing, big pine trees show the authority of Ieyasu metaphorically. The floor with two stages shows the difference between Ieyasu and the other lords, but the difference in height is only approximately twenty centimeters.

Did you enjoy it? I am wondering if you feel fuzzy. However that is Ieyasu Tokugawa! And Nijo-jo Castle is the symbol that the “kiryo-jin” with eternal vision and deep design formed the cornerstone of a stable society for 2.7 centuries. Furthermore the time of the Tokugawa Bakufu influenced the traits of Japanese people.