五山十刹制度末期の大徳寺 : 紫衣事件の歴史的前提

抄録

In the early seventeenth century, the then newly founded Tokugawa Shogunate confiscated the purple robes of the priests of Daitokuji Temple in Kyoto, and banished them to the remote Tohoku Region. Since the purple robe was the symbol of the highest status given to a priest by the Emperor, the Shogun. was thought to have challenged the Emperor's power. However, since it later became apparent that the Shogun, along with the Emperor, had collaboratively schemed to gain control of society and religious institutions, the people gradually became aware that the conflict between the Shogun and the Emperor had been staged. What became an important historical issue, then, was not the conflict over control of the temple, but what significance Daitokuji Temple had for to the Shogun and the Emperor. The Ashikaga Shogunate, in the process of restructuring the Gozan System, ranked Nanzenji Temple in Kyoto at the top of the religious institutions, while placing Daitokuji among the second rank institutions. Under this system, the purple robe was granted to the chief priest of Nanzenji. However, by the midfifteenth century the chief priest of Daitokuji had attained the right to wear the purple robe as well. The reasons why Daitokuji was given such special treatment are two-fold: first, it had historically been of equal rank to Nanzenji; and second, the founder of Daitokuji had been a prominent religious leader, who was endowed by the successive chief priests of the Daitokuji with the right to wear the purple robe without undergoing a formal ritual. Even the Emperor could not deny this right. On the other hand, the right to the purple robe held by Nanzenji included the nuance of political/economical favoritism. Incidentally, it was Rokuon-Soroku, the governor of the Gozan System, who played a key role in forcing the Shogun to concede to favoritism toward Nanzenji. The existence of Rokuon-Soroku and Daitokuji were thus instrumental in threatening the status quo of the State-temple system. The Tokugawa Shogunate acted to eliminate any attempt to profane the dignity of the State-Temple institution, by first dismissing Rokuon-Soroku for the Hokoji Temple Incident of 1614, and secondly be dishonoring Daitokuji as described above.