Mausoleum - Blog Posts

Mausoleum

Song by Rafferty

Come inside my mausoleum

Light a candle on the pathway to my casket room

Step on through rusty iron archways

Where a pigeon lays that died without his lover

So strange and beautiful

How you gaze upon my bones

A mistake, a tragedy

Since we missed each other by a century

They took my clothes and sent to a museum

All I am is dust and a handlebar mustachio

They took my guns, and horse and swords for history

But they kindly left a photograph of you and me

Your dress, so beautiful

On those cliffs that took your soul

Though I reached for you as you drifted out to sea

Since we missed each other by a century

Your fine lips, I would kiss you again

So don't be frightened by my skeleton

I'd kill to touch your soft, bony hands

But I can't because this is my lover's century

So strange, and beautiful

How you gaze upon my bones

Before you leave me out to sea

I'll visit your bones next century

History on the high street: Honnô-ji

Similarly to the other examples mentioned in a previous post, a temple sits at the North-East end of Teramachi shopping street, with traditional-style gate and buildings. But this is more than an ordinary temple, as it bears the name of a pivotal moment of Japanese history.

I say "bears the name", because this is not the actual location of the Honnô-ji incident. The original Honnô-ji was built a few kilometres to the South-West, nearer to Shijô (the 4th East-West street South of the castle; the current temple is North of Sanjô, or 3rd street). It was there that, in 1582, Akechi Mitsuhide, a general in the force aiming to unify feudal Japan, rebelled against his leader, Oda Nobunaga. The importance of Oda Nobunaga would be its own series if I had the material, but if you know, you know; I'll concentrate on Honnô-ji.

Akechi's forces laid siege and burned the temple down, and it is widely believed that the trapped Nobunaga committed seppuku - however, his body was never found. Akechi, meanwhile, had underestimated other generals' loyalty to Nobunaga. Toyotomi Hideyoshi swiftly brokered a peace treaty with the lord he was fighting in the West to rush back to Kyôto, and ran Akechi down just two weeks after the coup.

Hideyoshi was accepted as the new leader of central Japan, and went back to expanding westward. He also ordered that Honnô-ji be moved to its current location and rebuilt in 1591. It has, in fact, needed to be rebuilt several times since, each time after fires ravaged the capital. Beyond its function as a Buddhist worship site, the new Honnô-ji includes a mausoleum to Oda Nobunaga, as the decision was made by his successors to honour him there.

I remember passing by this temple in 2016, during my first trip to Japan, a three-week work visit in Kyôto. I had no notions on Japanese history at the time, and it was only a while later that I realised the importance of Honnô-ji. So, as an aside to Gion Matsuri in 2023, I decided I had to go back for a closer look.