The main tower of Osaka Castle: Did you know it was the tower for God?

There was a countless number of people when my wife and I visited Osaka Castle. More than half of the visitors were foreigners, and they radiated their interest and energy. Some people might have interest in the large stone-wall and the moat, some people might have interest in souvenirs of miniatures of the Japanese sword or the samurai armor and some people might have interest in the main tower, “tensyu-kaku”. Whatever the interest may be, the youthful atmosphere with enthusiasm made by them seemed to be appropriate for Osaka Castle. Because Osaka Castle is the symbol of the warring states period (1467-1598, the year when Hideyoshi Tokugawa died) when Japan past the time of its youth.

The military purpose of Osaka Castle was a citadel against enemies, but the external purpose of Osaka Castle is to display the extreme power of Hideyoshi Toyotomi, who built the castle. And the symbol of the extreme power was its main tower.





The man who created the first main tower

It is said that the man who created the first main tower in a castle was Nobunaga Oda. He was the lord of Hideyoshi and he built the main tower of his Azuchi Castle. In the beginning in his youth, he was nothing but one rural lord of a small country in current Aichi prefecture, but he was a super radical thinker and the biggest innovator in the warring period, and liked a lot of western things and thoughts.He must have asked about western castles to foreign missionaries.
His slogan of the innovation that he eagerly wanted to control the warring society was the unification by the strong power,”Tenka-fubu”. So as to broaden his slogan he must have thought that an architecture depicting his authority at first glance was needed.  It was his main tower.
The meaning of the main tower, “tensyu-kaku” in the Japanese language is “God”. It doesn’t mean that he believed in Christian thoughts. He only borrowed the mysterious power of the different religion to Japanese people at that time. That was for his opponents and normal people to fear him. And Hideyoshi who succeeded Nobunaga who was killed on the way to realize his unification built the marvelous main tower in Osaka Castle. And a lot of feudal lords imitated Hideyoshi. Nowadays we can see a lot of main towers around Japan, these are proof that many feudal lords wanted to depict their authority to his people of his feudal land.

Japanese people in the warring period written by Francisco de Xavier 

Francisco de Xavier was the first missionary to come to Japan in 1549. He sent letters about Japan and Japanese people to his Societas Iesu. A prominent writer, Ryotaro Shiba, noted an imaginary short conversation between Japanese people and Xavier based on the letters.
Japanese people had some doubts about his thoughts on listening to his sermons on Christianity. They questioned him why the discovery of Japan was so late if his God was supreme and knew all things. (His answer was a stretch.) And they questioned why there was a devel if his God is absolute love. (Shit! Jesus Christ!) Furthermore, they questioned whether Christianity had a method to save suffering parents after their death, on the contrary, we had the method, “Senzo-kuyo” based on Buddhism to save them. He had no other option but to say “no”.
Xavier said in his letters about Japanese people.
“People in this nation are supreme of all the people I have met. We wouldn’t be able to find people better than Japanese people in different religious nations. They are kind, generally good people and they don’t have malicious minds. They are surprisingly proud and they put their significance on honor. Most Japanese people are poor, nonetheless, the samurai and even other people don’t think that poverty is a dishonor.” In addition, he said that Japanese people were sociable and they had a lot of interest in things which they didn’t know about.
Ryotaro commented about the good points in Japanese people that these were related to the warring period. In the warring period Japanese people were developed into individuals, they resolved their life-styles on the die-hard line and wanted to grasp their own religious view.
A lot of main towers in Japan are beautiful. Of course it is for depicting the authority, but also for the honor of the feudal lord. So then, the main tower is the symbol of the spirit of the samurai in the warring period.