On the placement of children of the Ashikaga Shogunate into the Buddhist novitiate and its significance

As to the purpose behind the practice of placing children of the Ashikaga Shogunate family, whether inborn or adopted, in noviates of medieval Japan’s five elite Buddhist temples （monzeki ji’in 門跡寺院）, the research to date has often cited the Bakufu’s intention to regulate and control those influential Buddhist institutions. Indeed, it would not be difficult to assume that clergy who had entered （nisshitsu 入室） those institutions as blood or adopted kin of the Muromachi shoguns would naturally act in the interest of the Bakufu to enhance its influence in religious affairs; however, such a conclusion ignores the fundamental reasons why these children entered the novitiate in the first place, and thus vitiates a firm understanding of not only the relationship between the Bakufu, aristocrats and their religious institutions, but also the backdrop against which the Bakufu did actually influence the affairs of elite temples. In particular, not only was the selection of bhikkhu and bhikkhuni novices subject to consensus from all members of the aristocracy, but there also exists a lack of research on the imperial and aristocratic families who did place their children in novitiates and the activities of the temples in which they were placed, thus obscuring the wide-ranging significance of the practice of nisshitsu.<br>　In the present article the author examines why children of the Ashikaga shogunate family entered the novitiate at elite temples and discusses the social significance of possessing a “nisshitsu pedigree”. He concludes that nisshitsu 1） functioned to reinforce and raise the aristocratic pedigree （gauged vis-a’-vis the imperial family） of Shogunate children, 2） released selected children from the “vulgar” world of competing Ashikaga shogun sibling and branch families, 3） was initiated by the temples themselves seeking the auspices of the Muromachi shoguns, 4） strictly determined novices and the aristocratic status of their families and 5） preserved the aristocratic status of successors to the abbacy of the Bakufu’s monzeki temple, Sanboin 三宝院. The author ends the article with an examination of the regime of Ashikaga Shogun Yoshinori （1429―1441）, elucidating the era of the Bakufu’s most aggressive pursuit of its nisshitsu social and political strategy.