Child adoption as a factor in the coalescence of temples, aristocrats and the Muromachi shoguns in late medieval Japan

This article offers a political interpretation of the late Japanese medieval practice known as “yushi nisshitsu” 猶子入室， a process by which male and female children of branch lines of aristocratic families were often adopted into the Ashikaga shogun family and then placed in Buddhist institutions as bhikkhu and bhikkhuni novices.<br> 　 Contrary to the research to date on the subject, which interprets the practice as one link in the Muromachi Bakufu’s measures to regulate and control Buddhist institutions, the author shows that in most cases it was either specific temples or the families of the prospective novices that petitioned the Shogunate for yushi nisshitsu, with the expectation that candidates would receive the privileged treatment accorded to members of the Ashikaga shogun family, while at the same time reverse the waning “aristocratic blood” in the successors to the abacy of the period’s five elite temples （monzeki 門跡）, which had been plaguing the late medieval religious elite.<br> The author also argues that the fact that yushi nisshitsu was not limited to adopted children of Ashikaga shoguns, but can be observed in practice among the imperial, Fujiwara regent and other elite families, debilitates the interpretation of the practice as a Bakufu temple regulation measure, thus refuting any correlation between slowly increasing imperial family but declining Ashikaga shogun family yushi adoptees.<br> The author then turns to the actual numbers of Ashikaga shogunate yushi adoptees and their family origins, showing that during the regimes of shoguns Yoshimitsu and Yoshimochi（1368-1423）, the majority of adoptees came from Ashikaga branch families, while petitions from the aristocracy were limited exclusively to the Nijo Fujiwara regent family. On the other hand, during the regimes of shoguns Yoshinori and Yoshimasa（1429-1474）, yushi petitions broadened in terms of family origin and status, resulting in a significant rise in the Ashikaga shogun family’s prestige, pedigree and authority within the elite. In particular, under Yoshimasa a survey of his yushi adoptees reveals what can be called the pinnacle of the Shogunate’s social status and authority, despite the political instability marking that regime. While yushi petitions abounded from both the Buddhist and aristocratic establishments on the strength of rising Ashikaga shogun family pedigree, the structure of such petitioning itself worked to institutionally raise and firmly establish the authority of the shogunate.<br> In conclusion, the author looks forward in time to the Sengoku era, in terms of the previously established bonds among monzeki temples, original families of adoptees and the Muromachi Bakufu, for the purpose of emphasizing the importance of such an alliance as an indispensable focus for understanding late medieval politics in Japan, as observed in the specific case of yushi nisshitsu.