was a lady of the

Sengoku period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

and the

wife A wife (: wives) is a woman in a marital relationship. A woman who has separated from her partner continues to be a wife until their marriage is legally dissolved with a divorce judgment; or until death, depending on the kind of marriage. On t ...

Mōri Motonari was a prominent ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) in the western Chūgoku region of Japan during the Sengoku period of the 16th century. The Mōri clan claimed descent from Ōe no Hiromoto (大江広元), an adviser to Minamoto no Yoritomo. Motonari w ...

. "Myōkyū" is her

Dharma name A Dharma name is a new name acquired during both lay and monastic Buddhist initiation rituals in Mahayana Buddhism and Pabbajjā, monastic ordination in Theravada Buddhism (where it is more proper to call it Dhamma or Sangha name). The name is ...

; her real name is unknown. Her father was Kikkawa Kunitsune, her mother was Takahashi Naonobu's daughter, and her brothers were Kikkawa Mototsune and Kikkawa Tsuneyo. Her children consisted of the eldest daughter (hostage of Takahashi clan; premature death),

Mōri Takamoto was a ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of Aki Province during Japan's Sengoku period. He was the eldest legitimate son of Mōri Motonari. Biography Born in the Tajihi-Sarugake Castle in 1523. Takamoto was sent to Suō Province as a hostage of Ōuchi ...

Lady Goryū was a woman from the Sengoku period to the Azuchi–Momoyama period. Her real name was .Akitakata City Museum of Local History 2018, p. 11. She was the second daughter of Mōri Motonari, and the wife of Shishido Takaie. Life In 1529, Lady Go ...

Kikkawa Motoharu was the second son of Mōri Motonari, and featured prominently in all the wars of the Mōri clan. He became an active commander of the Mōri army and he with his brother Kobayakawa Takakage became known as the “Mōri Ryōsen", or “Mōri's T ...

, and

Kobayakawa Takakage was a samurai and daimyō (feudal military lord) during the Sengoku period and Azuchi–Momoyama period. He was the third son of Mōri Motonari who was adopted by the Kobayakawa clan and became its 14th clan head. He merged the two branches of ...

Life

Born in 1499 in Ogurayama Castle, Myōkyū was the daughter of Kikkawa Kunitsune, a lord in Aki Province. Reaching adulthood, Myōkyū was married out of convenience to Mōri Motonari, a prominent warlord of Aki Province from the Mōri clan. With Motonari, she had a daughter (hostage of Takahashi clan; premature death caused by Takahashi following their downfall), Takamoto in 1523, Lady Goryū in 1529, Motoharu in 1530, and Takakage in 1533. January 2, 1546, Myōkyū died in Koriyama Castle. She was 47. Her Dharma name is Myōkyūshiten Seishitsu Kyūkōtashi. Her grave's location is unknown.

Note

*Although it was a political marriage, it is said that the relationship between Motonari and Myōkyū was good. For as long as Myōkyū was alive, Motonari took up no concubines. *Though her real name is unknown, it is speculated to be Tama (玉) or Hisa (久).

In popular culture

Myōkyū is portrayed in the 1997

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

Taiga drama is the name NHK gives to the annual year-long historical drama television series it broadcasts in Japan. Beginning in 1963 with the black-and-white ''Hana no Shōgai'', starring kabuki actor Onoe Shoroku II and Awashima Chikage, the network regul ...

''Mōri Motonari'' by Tomita Yasuko.

References

Women of the Sengoku period Samurai 16th-century Japanese nobility 16th-century Japanese women 1499 births 1546 deaths Mōri clan People from Aki Province {{Japan-mil-bio-stub

Life

Note

In popular culture

See also

References