Mitake-juku
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270px, Site of the ''honjin''. was the forty-ninth of the sixty-nine stations of the
Nakasendō The , also called the ,Richard Lane, ''Images from the Floating World'' (1978) Chartwell, Secaucus ; pg. 285 was one of the centrally administered Edo Five Routes, five routes of the Edo period, and one of the two that connected the ''de facto'' ...
connecting
Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...
with
Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...
in
Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...
Japan. It is located in former
Mino Province was a province of Japan in the area of Japan that is today southern Gifu Prefecture. Mino was bordered by Ōmi to the west, Echizen and Hida to the north, Shinano to the east, and Ise, Mikawa, and Owari to the south. Its abbreviated fo ...
in what is now part of the town of Mitake, Kani District,
Gifu Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Gifu Prefecture has a population of 1,910,511 () and has a geographic area of . Gifu Prefecture borders Toyama Prefecture to the north; Ishikawa Prefecture ...
,
Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
.Nakasendo Mitake-juku
. Ibisoku Co., Ltd. Accessed July 11, 2007.
Travelers often came straight to Mitake-juku to avoid the difficult paths near
Hosokute-juku was the forty-eighth of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō connecting Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. It is located in former Mino Province in what is now part of the city of Mizunami, Gifu Prefecture, Japan.


History

The temple of Gankō-ji ( 願興寺) was founded by
Saichō was a Japanese Buddhist monk credited with founding the Japanese Tendai school of Buddhism. He was awarded the posthumous title of Dengyō Daishi (伝教大師). Recognized for his significant contributions to the development of Japanese Budd ...
, the founder of
Tendai , also known as the Tendai Dharma Flower School (天台法華宗, ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just ''Hokkeshū''), is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition with significant esoteric elements that was officially established in Japan in 806 by t ...
Buddhism in Japan Buddhism was first established in Japan in the 6th century CE. Most of the Japanese Buddhists belong to new schools of Buddhism which were established in the Kamakura period (1185-1333). During the Edo period (1603–1868), Buddhism was cont ...
in 815 AD, and Mitake-juku grew as a temple town in front of the gates of this temple. It was thus a station on the ancient
Tōsandō is a Japanese geographical term. It means both an ancient division of the country and the main road running through it. It is part of the ''Gokishichidō'' system. It was situated along the central mountains of northern Honshu, specifically th ...
highway long before the creation of the Nakasendō. The area was devastated by floods in 995 AD, but the temple and settlement were spared - a fact commemorated in a festival to this date. The temple was repeatedly destroyed by natural disasters and by wars, the last of which was during fighting between
Takeda Shingen was daimyō, daimyo of Kai Province during the Sengoku period of Japan. Known as "the Tiger of Kai", he was one of the most powerful daimyo of the late Sengoku period, and credited with exceptional military prestige. Shingen was based in a p ...
and
Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demo ...
in 1572. Many of the structures of the temple date to the late
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 ...
or early Edo period. When the system of
post stations Graham Media Group (formerly Post-Newsweek Stations) is the television broadcasting subsidiary of Graham Holdings Company. It is now headquartered in Detroit, co-locating with its local NBC affiliate WDIV-TV, after spending 10 years in Chicago. ...
on the Nakasendō was formalized by the
Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...
in 1602, and Mitaka-juku became a stopping place for traveling merchants and for various western ''
daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...
'' on the ''
sankin-kōtai ''Sankin-kōtai'' (, now commonly written as ) was a policy of the Tokugawa shogunate during most of the Edo period, created to control the daimyo, the feudal lords of Japan, politically, and to keep them from attempting to overthrow the regi ...
'' to-and-from the Shogun's court in
Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...
. Sekigahara is 443 kilometers from
Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...
. Per the 1843 guidebook issued by the , the town had a population of 600 people in 66 houses, including one ''
honjin image:Ohara-juku01s3200.jpg, The ''honjin'' at Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku. is the Japanese word for an inn for government officials, generally located in post stations (''shukuba'') during the later part of the Edo period. Evolution of ''Honjin ...
'', one ''waki-honjin,'' and 28 ''
hatago were Edo period lodgings for travelers at ''shukuba'' (post stations) along the national highways, including the Edo Five Routes and the subroutes. In addition to a place to rest, ''hatago'' also offered meals and other foods to the travelers. ...
''. Mitake-juku is 376.4 kilometers from Edo. Modern Mitake-juku is fairly well-preserved. The ''honjin'' (built in 1742) and several ''
machiya are traditional wooden townhouses found throughout Japan and typified in the historical capital of Kyoto. ('townhouses') and ('farm dwellings') constitute the two categories of Japanese vernacular architecture known as ('folk dwellings'). ...
'', including the Tateya ''hatago'' (built in 1877) still survives, as does the teahouse which was the subject of Hirsohige's print. Mitake-juku has a local museum, the with documents and displays pertaining to the history of the post station.


Mitake-juku in ''The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō''

Utagawa Hiroshige or , born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format landscape series '' The Fifty-three Stations ...
's ''
ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock printing, woodblock prints and Nikuhitsu-ga, paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes ...
'' print of Mitake-juku dates from 1835 -1838. The print depicts travelers preparing to depart the station in the early morning. A notice on the front of the open-fronted teahouse proclaims "kichinyago", which was a restaurant with cheap lodgings. Inside are four travelers around a large cauldron, one of whom is talking with the mistress of the house, and on the porch is a man tying on his sandals. Outside, a woman, possibly a vendor, has two buckets suspended from a pole on her shoulder, while an old woman nearby is rubbing out a bucket by a stream. In the distance, a heavily laden man struggles up the hill, and
Mount Ontake , also referred to as , is the 14th-highest mountain and second-highest volcano in Japan (after Mount Fuji) at . It is included in Kyūya Fukada's 1964 book ''100 Famous Japanese Mountains''. Description Mt. Ontake is located around northeast ...
can be seen as a shadow in the far distance.


Neighboring Post Towns

;Nakasendō :
Hosokute-juku was the forty-eighth of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō connecting Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. It is located in former Mino Province in what is now part of the city of Mizunami, Gifu Prefecture, Japan.Fushimi-juku


Notes


References

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External links


Hiroshige Kiso-Kaido seriesMitake-juku on Kiso Kaido RoadGifu Nakasendo Guide
{{Nakasendō Stations of the Nakasendō Post stations in Gifu Prefecture Mitake, Gifu Mino Province