Tales of the Heike:

Research done by Robert Bravo (Eng. 231.043)

Historical and Biographical Analysis

Tales of the Heike: The Death of Lord Kiso Summary

• The Death of Lord Kiso is a lengthy epic which touches upon the subjects of religion, samurai honor and loyalty, and war.
• Yoshinaka, more often referred to as Kiso, and a few hundred of his Heike (Taira) troops are in the midst of changing position when they run into a Genji (Minamoto) force of about 6,000 warriors. A few moments after battle is engaged, Kiso loses more than half of his men. The battle continues until Kiso and his loyal warrior, Imai, are the only two Heike left in the fight.
• Imai tells Kiso to ride to a more defensible position, while he holds off the Genji. After Kiso rides off, Imai fights valiantly until he hears of Kiso's death by Ishida Tamehisa of Miura. It is at this time that Imai cries," Who is left now to go on fighting for?" and he thrusts his sword through himself

  (The Longman Anthology of World Literature: Volume B - The Medieval Era).

  Timeline :

• ca. 1000 Lady Murasaki, a high-born lady-in-waiting, writes the Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji). This lengthy, poignant description of court life, romance, and intrigue, frequently interspersed with poetry, is often considered the world's first novel.
• ca. 1050 The name Heian-kyo is gradually changed to Kyoto, meaning "capital."
• 1087 Emperor Shirakawa (r. 1072-86) abdicates the throne and becomes a Buddhist monk. Freed from the throne's onerous ritual obligations, Shirakawa is able to dominate his successor and the government as the first of a series of "cloistered emperors" (the insei system).
• 1156 The Battle of the Hogen Era is fought in the capital between rival court factions, allied with various members of the Minamoto (also known as Genji) and Taira (also called Heike) warrior clans. This battle was the first of a series of armed struggles that results in the collapse of Fujiwara control over the court and the transfer of power to military dictators.
• 1160 The Battle of the Heiji Era pits the Minamoto military clan against the Taira, as each fights in support of rival court factions. The Taira succeed in defeating the Minamoto and supplant the Fujiwara family as the dominant power at court. However, their victory is short-lived, and they are challenged again by the next generation of Minamoto warriors.
• 1175 The Buddhist monk Honen (1133-1212) spreads the Pure Land school (Jodo shu) among the population at large. Its appeal lies in the promise of salvation by Amida Buddha to all those who sincerely seek his assistance by calling out his name (nembutsu).
• 1180-1185 The Gempei War marks the culmination of the competition between the contending warrior clans, the Taira and the Minamoto. The Minamoto succeed in brutally defeating the Taira after the naval battle at Dannoura.
• 1180s The Buddhist monk Saigyo (1118-1190), one of Japan's most talented poets, compiles a three-volume collection of his own compositions, entitled Sankashu (The Mountain Hermitage). Saigyo's poems, which often have a melancholy tone, combine simplicity with deep emotion and evocative descriptions of nature, observed during the monk's several long journeys on foot around Japan.
• 1181 Reconstruction work begins on Todaiji temple in Nara, destroyed by the Taira in retaliation for the monks' armed support of the Minamoto in the preceding years' wars. Two of the most accomplished sculptors of the early Kamakura period, Unkei (1151-1223) and Kaikei (active 1183-1223), participate in this large project.
• 1191 The monk Eisai (1141-1215) returns to Japan from China and begins teaching Zen Buddhism. Based in Kamakura, Zen Buddhism promotes Eisai's emphasis on meditation, restraint, and self-reliance appeals to the While this is not the first time Zen is taught in Japan, it marks the beginning of wide Zen Buddhist influence
• 1192 Emperor Go-Toba (r. 1183-98) names Minamoto Yoritomo (1147-1199) Seii tai shogun ("barbarian-quelling general"), legitimizing his military dictatoratorship, based in Kamakura, on the coast east of modern Tokyo. The establishment of the bakufu, or government by warrior chieftains (shogun) or their regents, creates a binary system whereby emperors reign but shoguns rule. This system endures for the next 700 years, a time of dramatic transformation in the politics, society, and culture of Japan.
• 1212 The courtier-turned-recluse Kamo no Chomei (1155-1216) completes the Hojoki (The Ten-Foot Square Hut), which exemplifies the spirit of the new military age. In this account of Chomei's personal misfortunes and subsequent search for solitude and salvation in the Pure Land of Amida, Chomei gives a detailed description of the famine of 1181 (in only two months, more than 42,300 people died of starvation in the capital). His documentation of the most pitiful and repellent aspects of reality, reflecting the warrior's honest and direct outlook on life, ushers in a period of unprecedented realism.
• early 13th century The Heike monogatari (The Tale of the Heike) is written and becomes one of the most popular war tales of the Kamakura and Muromachi periods. Through vivid descriptions of battles and military exploits, the saga of the Taira clan is told from the time of the Battle of the Heiji Era to the end of the Gempei War (1160-85). Emphasizing the eventual pathos of the Taira's fate, the tale has a prominent Buddhist tone, lamenting the fleeting quality of life. Although the text is thought to have been written by a courtier a few decades after the main events transpired, it is transmitted by itinerant blind storytellers who recite the narrative from memory to the accompaniment of a lute. (Note: All timeline information is from Metropolitan Museum of Art's web page "Japan, 1000-1400 A.D.")

  

  (This is a painting of Yoshitsune preparing to attack an enemy [Samurai Gallery].)

  Terms to Know:

• Atsumori - A young Taira warrior who dies at Ichi-no-tani (The Longman Anthology of World Literature: Volume B - The Medieval Era).
• Genji - Also known as the Minamoto. The Genji are the rival warrior clan of the Hei Heike - Also known as the Taira.
• The Heike, a warrior clan, are enemies of the Genji.
• Kiyomori - Taira clan head. Kiyomori is also a Chancellor and lay priest of Rokuhara (The Longman Anthology of World Literature: Volume B - The Medieval Era).
• Lord Kiso (Yoshinaka) - Leader of the northern anti-Taira forces. Kiso is also Yoritomo's cousin and is later killed by his forces (The Longman Anthology of World Literature: Volume B - The Medieval Era).
• Minamoto - See Genji.
• Munemori - The son of Kiyomori and a Nun of Second Rank. Munemori takes his father's position as head of the Taira clan (The Longman Anthology of World Literature: Volume B - The Medieval Era).
• Samurai - The Japanese feudal military aristocracy. Samurai believe in a strong code of honor and loyalty. Taira - See Heike.
• Yoritomo - The leader of the Minamoto in the east. He is also the founder of Kamakura Shogunate (The Longman Anthology of World Literature: Volume B - The Medieval Era).
• Yoshitsune - One of Yoritomo's chief commanders. Yoshitsune is also the younger half-brother of Yoritomo. Yoshitsune is responsible for the defeat of the Heike at Dan-no-ura (The Longman Anthology of World Literature: Volume B - The Medieval Era).

Works Cited

"Japan, 1000-1400 A.D." The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 02 Oct. 2005. http://www.metmuseum.org/home.asp

"Samurai Gallery." The Cobweb Castle. The Cobweb Castle. 04 Oct. 2005 . http://www.kiku.com/electric_samurai/cobweb_castle/index.html

The Longman Anthology World Literature Volume B. "The Medieval Era." Ed., David Damrosch. New York: Pearson Longman, 2004. 344.

TALES OF THE HEIKE: DEATH OF LORD KISO 14TH CENTURY JAPAN

Research done by John Lazich (ENG. 231:043)

CULURAL / RELIGIOUS REPORT

• "Tale of the Heike" is part of the history of Japan. The country of Japan is an island nation in the western part of the North Pacific Ocean and off the coast of East Asia. It occupies four main islands - Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu - and many smaller ones which extend in an arc from Hokkaido in the northeast to the Ryukyu Island in the southwest. The Sea of Japan separates Japan from the southeastern Pacific coast of Russia and the east coast of Korea. It is separated from China by the East China Sea.
• The Japanese have not had to contend with racial, ethic, linguistic, or religious divisions. Historically, they have rather diverse origins, and it is believed that the first residents of the islands were the Ainu, whose descendants have retreated to northern Hokkaido.
• Later there were migrations of more technologically advanced peoples of mongoloid stock from Siberia and Manchuria. There were probably additional migrations from the South Pacific. After these early migrations, there were on other large-scale movements of people into Japan.
• The Japanese were able to develop their culture and institutions free from intruders.
• The Japanese language is related to Korean, Mongolian, and Turkish. Although Japan is a small country, 145,870 square miles, a number of dialects are spoken.
• Evidence concerning the origins of the Japanese people and their culture is slight and often contradictory.
• Japan entered upon historic times with a people and a culture that were already of mixed race. The earliest Japanese culture of which anything much is known is called Joman, after the cord-pattern pottery with which it is associated. It belonged to a nonagricultural society beginning about the third millennium C.E.
• The people secured their food by hunting and by gathering roots and shellfish. They lived in sunken pit-dwellings and made their pottery without the use of a potter's wheel.
• About the third century C.E. Joman began to be superseded in Western Japan by Yayoi. They were also a pottery type of people who used a potter's wheel. Yayoi was agricultural with a wet rice civilization of Chinese origin. It showed an affinity with the cultures of China and Korea.
• By the first century bronze was in common use for ceremonial objects like mirrors and bells of Chinese or Korean pattern, though made by the Japanese. Iron had come into use for some utensils.
• Great earth mounds in which rulers came to be buried was called the Tomb Culture from the middle of the third century.
• The ruling class of this period was one of horse-riding warriors who used iron weapons. Their implements and way of life had much in common with those of contemporary Korea. These warriors claimed to be divine because they were descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu. Within their areas, their authority was limited.
• The land and the people were under the control of the clan units called uji. The imperial clan was the strongest.
• In the fourth century, Japanese emperors launched military interventions in Korea. This brought Japan into cultural contact with Korea and then China. This resulted in writing being introduced about the beginning of the fifth century.
• An official mission was sent to China in 607 C. E. This was to learn more about the religion of Buddhism which had been introduced in C. E. 552.
• The primitive religion of the Japanese people was Shinto. It means "Way of the Gods" or "Spirits." The Shinto religion is a combination of nature-worship and ancestor cult.
• The most important foreign influence that reached Japan as far as religion, art, and literature are concerned was Buddhism. It is pre-eminently a pantheistic religion. The spiritual result is to attain Buddha-hood.
• The Tao religion emphasizes a return to nature that meant a life freed of all human fetters, social conventions, and moral relationships.
• Confucius taught rationalism. Confucianism tends to stifle human imagination and to limit human activity to civic life.
• "Tales of the Heike" concerns the Genpei War of 1180-1185 C. E. which was fought between the Heike (Taira) clan led by Kiyomori, and the Genji (Minamoto) clan, eventually led by Yoritomo. This war marked the beginning of the medieval period. It became the basis for "Tales of the Heike." It tells about the lives of different samurai warriors from both clans.
• In "Tales of the Heike," the rise to power by the Taira is followed by a long series of defeats beginning with the abandonment of the capital by the Taira in 1183 as they take with them the child emporer, Antoku.
• By 1183 Yoritomo had gained control of the Kanto or eastern region. Yoshinaka, another Minamo leader, had brought Kyoto under his power. The Taira had fallen back to the Inland Sea. In an interlude of fighting among the Minamoto, Yosinaka is defeated and eliminated by Yoritomo and his half-brother Yoshitsune in 1184 C. E.
• In a major battle at Ichi-no-tani, in 1189, near the present-day city of Kobe, Yoshitsune led the Mitamoto forces and decisively defeated the Taira, driving them to the Inland Sea.
• In 1185, the last of the Taira forces was crushed at Dan-no-ura, in a sea battle on the west end of the Inland Sea. Rokudai, the last potential heir of the Taira clan, was captured and executed in 1185 C. E.
• "Tales of the Heike" is a military epic with strong Buddhist overtones. It also includes many samurai stories drawn from Japanese popular or folk literature.

WORKS CITED

Damrosch, David, ed. "Tales of the Heike." The Longman Anthology of World Literature, Vol. B. P. 344 -356. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2004.

Anesaki, Masaharu. The Mythology of All Races: Japanese, Vol. VIII. P. 214 -220. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., 1956. 3

Bahr, Lauren S., ed. Collier's Encyclopedia, Vol. 13. P. 452 - 456, 471 -476.