Encyclopedia of Shinto

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カテゴリー1： 8. Schools, Groups, and Personalities
カテゴリー2： Personalities
Title
Kuni no Miya Tomoyoshi Shinnō, (Prince)
Text (1824-91)
Politician of the late Edo and early Meiji periods. His name is also read Prince Asahiko. The fourth child of Prince Fushimi no Miya Kuniie, he was born in Kyoto on the twenty-eighth day of the first month of 1824. His childhood names included Kumachiyo and Tomi no Miya.
Prince Tomoyoshi studied Confucianism and Buddhism under the monk Nichiji at the temple Honnōji. In 1836 he was legally registered as son and heir of Emperor Ninkō, and in the eighth month of the following year he was given the title of Prince (shinnō), whereupon his name changed to Shigenori. In the intercalary fifth month of 1838, he took the Buddhist precepts, receiving the dharma name Son'ō and, after serving as abbot of the temple Shōren'in, he was appointed Prelate (zasu) of the Tendai sect in 1852.
Before the Meiji Restoration, the Prince was a leading figure in the court faction in favor of reconciliation between the court and the Tokugawa shogunate. After the reestablishment of imperial rule, he was stripped of his status as Prince (shinnō) in the eighth month of 1868, due to suspicions that he was colluding with anti-government forces, but in 1872 he was once again allowed to use the princely title miya, and in May of 1875 established the Kuni no Miya branch of the imperial lineage. That year, at the age of fifty-two, he became Supreme Priest (saishu) of the Grand Shrines of Ise (Ise Jingū), submitted to the emperor a report on the implementation of the Meiji Period Liturgy for the Grand Shrines (Jingū Meiji saishiki), and established the Jingū Kyōin Kōkyūkai, a scholarly association for the investigation of Shinto classics. He concurrently held the role of Senior Prefect of Instruction (Daikyōsei) in the Office of Preceptors (kyōdōshoku), founding the Jingū Shinshinkai for the purpose of holding convocations of the "moral preceptors" (kyōdōshoku; see taikyō senpu) from different Shinto sects.
In 1889, Prince Tomoyoshi was appointed Official Supervisor of Construction in preparation for the upcoming fifty-sixth Regular Removal (shikinen sengū) of the Grand Shrines, undertaking a survey of ancient protocols and thus contributing to the dedication of the new structures. He died October 25, 1891, at the age of sixty-eight.

- Nakanishi Masayuki

Pronunciation in Japanese/用語音声

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