, later known as , was the daughter of Taira no Kiyomori and Taira no Tokiko. She was empress consort of Emperor Takakura. Tokuko was also the last Imperial survivor from the great naval battle of Dan-no-ura. Her life became a compelling narrative which survives as both history and literature.

In history

Daughter of an emperor

Tokuko became the adopted daughter of , the 77th emperor of Japan who reigned from 1155 through 1158. In 1171, when Tokuko was 17, the emperor had abdicated the throne and entered the Buddhist priesthood, taking the Buddhist name of Gyōshin.

Consort of an emperor

In 1172, Tokuko was married to Go-Shirakawa's fourth and only surviving son, Emperor Takakura. Takakura was also her first cousin as both their mothers were half-sisters. The wedding was an arranged one, as to cement the alliance between the two co-fathers-in-law; Go-Shirakawa sponsored Kiyomori's rise as Chancellor of the Realm, while Kiyomori provided military and financial support to Go-Shirakawa. Tokuko and Takakura's son, Prince Tokihito, was born in 1178. Just a year later, Kiyomori launched a

coup d'état A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...

, sacking his political rivals from their posts, banishing them, and replacing them with his allies and clansmen. He even had Go-Shirakawa imprisoned; at this point they had fallen out of their political alliance. In 1180, Emperor Takakura was forced to abdicate by Kiyomori; Prince Tokihito ascended the throne as Emperor Antoku. Now an empress dowager, Tokuko received the name Kenrei-mon In. In this period, the names of the several gates in the walls surrounding the imperial grounds refer not only to the wall-openings themselves; these names were also used to refer indirectly to a nearby residence of an empress whose husband had abdicated, or as an indirect way of referring to an empress dowager herself. For example, , whose official home, after the abdication and death of Emperor Takakura, was located near the Kenrei Gate.

Mother of an emperor

Tokuko, now Kenrei-mon In, was mother to Emperor Antoku. The child emperor reigned from 1180 through 1185.

Survivor of Dan-no-ura

Arguably, the most difficult moments in Kenreimon-In's life occurred near the close of the battle of Dan-no-ura, which took place near the southern tip of

Honshū , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the seventh-largest island in the world, and the second-most populous after the Indonesian ...

in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi. * '' Genryaku 2'', on the 24th day of the 3rd month (April 25, 1185): The Taira and the Minamoto clashed for the last time. The Taira were defeated decisively. Many of the Taira samurai threw themselves into the waves rather than live to see their clan's ultimate defeat at the hands of the Minamoto. Antoku's grandmother, Taira no Tokiko, Kiyomori's widow, leapt into the water with the young emperor clasped firmly in her arms. Kenrei-mon In also tried to drown herself; but according to the conventionally accepted accounts, she was pulled out with a rake by her long hair.

Buddhist nun

This sometime daughter, wife, and mother of emperors became a recluse in her later years. * '' Bunji 1'', on the 1st day of the 5th month (1185): Kenrei-mon In took the tonsure at Chōraku-ji, a branch temple of Enryaku-ji on Higashiyama. * ''Bunji 1'', on the 30th day of the 9th month (1185): Kenrei-mon In retreated further from the world when she moved to , a Buddhist nunnery near the village of , northeast of the Heian-ky�
...Click for link to photos of Jakkō-in and Ōhara
* ''Bunji 2'', on the 20th day of the 4th month (1186): Gyōshin, the cloistered former-Emperor Go-Shirakawa, visited Kenrei-mon In at her rural retreat in Ōhara. * '' Kenkyū 2'', in the 2nd month (1192): Kenrei-mon In dies in Ōhara. This once-pampered great lady is said to have composed this poem in her hermit's hut:

In literature

Many stories and works of art depict this period in Japanese history, and it is through these sources that the life of Taira no Tokuko is best known. '' The Tale of the Heike'' is the most famous of the sources from which we learn about this historical character, although many

kabuki is a classical form of Theatre of Japan, Japanese theatre, mixing dramatic performance with Japanese traditional dance, traditional dance. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily stylised performances, its glamorous, highly decorated costumes ...

and bunraku plays reproduce events of the war as well. The central theme of the Heike story—and the mirrored theme of Taira no Tokuko's life story—is a demonstration of the Buddhist law of impermanence. The theme of impermanence (''mujō'') is captured in the opening passage:

The sound of the Gion Shōja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sāla flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind.

In this and other classic Japanese tales, the central figures are popularly well known, the major events are generally understood, and the stakes as they were understood at the time are conventionally accepted as elements in the foundation of Japanese culture. The accuracy of each of these historical records has become a compelling subject for further study; and some accounts have been shown to withstand close scrutiny, while other presumed “facts” have turned out to be inaccurate. In English-language literature, Tokuko's life and reign are depicted throughout the two-volume historical fiction narrative, ''White as Bone, Red as Blood'', by Cerridwen Fallingstar, published in 2009 and 2011, respectively.''White as Bone, Red as Blood: The Fox Sorceress''
(2009), an
''White as Bone, Red as Blood: The Storm God''
(2011).

Notes

References

* Brown, Delmer M. and Ichiro Ishida. (1979). ''The Future and the Past: a translation and study of the 'Gukanshō'.'' Berkeley:

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

. * Kitagawa, Hiroshi and Bruce T. Tsuchida. (1975). ''The Tale of the Heike.'' Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. * McCullough, Helen Craig. (1988). ''The Tale of the Heike.'' Palo Alto:

Stanford University Press Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It is currently a member of the Ass ...

. * Ponsonby-Fane, Richard. (1959)
''The Imperial House of Japan.''
Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society
OCLC 194887
* Sansom, George Bailey. (1958). ''A History of Japan to 1334''. Stanford, California:

. * Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). ''Annales des empereurs du Japon'' ('' Nihon Ōdai Ichiran''). Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Irelandbr>--Click link to digitized, full-text copy of this book (in French)
* Varley, H. Paul. (1980). ''"A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns: Jinnō Shōtōki of Kitabatake Chikafusa.'' New York:

Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's la ...

External links

Meiji Gakuin University: ''Heike monogatari'' (in English)

Kyoto City Tourism and Culture Information System -- Jakkō-in (Ōhara)

Kyoto City Tourism and Culture Information System -- Chōraku-ji (Kyoto)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taira no Tokuko Japanese empresses consort Japanese Buddhist nuns Taira clan 12th-century Buddhist nuns 13th-century Buddhist nuns 12th-century Japanese women 13th-century Japanese women People of the Heian period People of the Kamakura period 1155 births 1214 deaths Deified Japanese women Buddhist nuns of the Heian period Mothers of Japanese emperors People of the Genpei War