Buddhist monasteries · The Kamakura house and its housemen · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Mōtsūji

Mōtsūji was not one temple but the pair of Enryūji and Kashōji that Motohira and his son Hidehira built about 1150 and later at the south of Hiraizumi, round a pond designed as a Pure Land garden.

When the Fujiwara fell in 1189 fires (natural or from the fighting) destroyed the halls, and by 1226 the English page calls it completely in ruins. In 1200 the garden and pond remain and some halls may still stand; the pages give nothing for 1189 to 1200.

Who holds it

Title
No head is known
Since
not applicable
Family
Built by Motohira (c. 1150) and Hidehira; the Fujiwara line is extinct.
Confidence
low

English Wikipedia (Mōtsū-ji): founded in 850 by Ennin (tradition); Enryūji built by Motohira about 1150 with a Yakushi image and twelve generals by Unkei; Kashōji beside it completed by Hidehira; the garden centred on the Ōizumi-ga-ike pond; the buildings 'completely in ruins by 1226'.

Overlord

Kasai Kiyoshige's stewardship

What it holds

  • The site, the pond and what remains

How it was acquired

Built by the Fujiwara.

How things stand that morning

Half ruined.

Threats

  • Neglect; fire

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

  1. 1226The English page calls it completely in ruins.Depends on: Neglect Stopped by: Not known: no source says what would prevent it.

Places of note

  • Mōtsūji site: The pond and ruins at Hiraizumi

Where the sources disagree

  • The page's 'Mōtsūji' of 850 by Ennin and the Fujiwara twin temples are the same site under different foundations.

Evidence: One English page.

On the map: Point only.

Primary sources for Kamakura regime

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • Hundred Times Refined Extracts: court annals (late thirteenth century, from court diaries). Short dated annals of the imperial court excerpted from courtiers' diaries, among them the Gyokuyo and the Meigetsuki. Read online
  • Mirror of the East, Anonymous; compiled by officials of the Kamakura shogunate (compiled about 1300 from the shogunate's records, diaries and family documents). The Kamakura house's own chronicle, in daily entries. Read online
  • Jottings of a Fool: an interpretative history of Japan, Jien (慈円) (about 1219 to 1220, revised to about 1223). A history by Kujo Kanezane's brother, head of the Tendai school and the leading churchman of the court, written to explain the fall of the Kujo and the rise of the warriors as the working of principle (dori). Read online
  • Diary of the Inokuma Regent: the diary of Konoe Iezane, Konoe Iezane (近衛家実) (1197 to 1218, as a daily diary). The diary of the regent's heir, aged twenty-one in 1200 and already a senior courtier under his father Konoe Motomichi, who was regent (sessho) for the child emperor Tsuchimikado. Read online
  • Leaves of Jade: the diary of Kujo Kanezane, Kujo (Fujiwara) Kanezane (九條兼實) (1164 to 1200, as a daily diary). The diary of the former regent, Yoritomo's ally at court, who had been driven from power in the Kenkyu purge of 1196 and lived in retirement in 1200. Read online
  • Record of the Bright Moon: the diary of Fujiwara no Teika, Fujiwara no Teika (藤原定家) (1180 to 1235, as a daily diary, with gaps). The diary of the poet and courtier, then thirty-eight and a middle-ranking official of the Kujo house. Read online
  • Surviving Documents of the Kamakura Period, Various; collected by Takeuchi Rizo (竹内理三) (documents of 1185 to 1333, collected and printed 1971 to 1997). The collected charters, deeds, court orders, shogunal directives, temple records and land registers of the Kamakura age, printed in date order. Read online
  • The Tale of the Heike, Anonymous; traditionally attributed to Shinano no Zenji Yukinaga, performed and reshaped by blind reciters (early thirteenth century in its first form; the standard Kakuichi text was fixed in 1371). The epic of the Genpei war, in the form the reciters gave it over the century after 1200. Read online

Sources and studies

  1. KJA_BRIEF.md and the OMNIA board for sheet kja (the lead's notes: [own] computation, [not yet checked against the source] recollection, [en] English Wikipedia)
  2. Azuma Kagami (the Kamakura chronicle), Kenkyu 10 to Shoji 2 entries, recalled and through the brief; ja.wikipedia and ja.wikisource were refused in this session, so no entry was re-read
  3. Jeffrey P. Mass, Warrior Government in Early Medieval Japan (1974), from memory; the archive.org full text could not be opened
  4. English Wikipedia: Mōtsū-ji (read this session; thin)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.