The province on the Inland Sea's western shore whose revenue was assigned to Tōdaiji for the rebuilding of the Great Buddha Hall after 1180.
Chōgen's agents cut the beams in its hills and run the timber slides to the coast at Hōfu; the local clerks (the Ōuchi) keep the provincial office (see Ōuchi of Suō). The Nandaimon, the South Great Gate of Tōdaiji, is being raised in 1199 with Suō timber.
Who holds it
- Name
- Chōgen
- Title
- Tōdaiji, through its head of the work Chōgen (Shunjōbō)
- Since
- 1180s
- Born
- 1121
- Family
- See Tōdaiji
- Confidence
- medium
The brief and the campaign board.
Overlord
none in law; the court granted the province to Tōdaiji
How things stand that morning
Held by Tōdaiji for the rebuilding: the revenue goes to Nara, not to the court's treasury or to a Kamakura constable (the brief).
Where the sources disagree
- The campaign board entry id suo-kokufu-hofu agrees. The grant date is not pinned (the 1180s).
Evidence: The brief and the campaign board agree; the exact date of the grant is not pinned.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: Drawn as the old province from the modern units round the places named; the borders follow the units, not the 8th-century boundaries.
Primary sources for Temple powers (west)
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
- 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
- OMNIA kja regional brief (KJA_BRIEF.md), the campaign's dated traps and realm table
- OMNIA board notes and places for area kjw (starting lead only, checked against the sources)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.