Hogen Insurrection—battle of 1156 between Taira (Heike) and Minamoto (Genji) families

Taira no Kiyomori (1118-1181)  The kingpin of the Taira family

Emperor Antoku (1178-1185)  Kiyomori’s grandson

Minamoto Yoritomo (1147-1199)  The kingpin of the Minamoto family.  He establishes his camp in Kamakura and eventual become shogun.

Gempei War (1180-1185)

Dan-no-ura (1185) the decisive sea battle in the Gempei War.  The Taira flee on ships and are defeated.  Many perish at sea.  Emperor Antoku , barely seven  years old, dies—when his grandmother (a nun) leaps into the sea with him in her arms to avoid capture by enemy soldiers.  The famous sword of Susa-no-o (one of the Imperial Regalia) is lost at sea as well.

Heike Monogatari (The Tale of the Heike)—a war tale anthology that evolved over the years from both oral and written traditions.  Source text for the written tales believed to have been written in 1371.  Concern of the tale is that of honor, loyalty, but also loss.  The tale echoes the concerns of the earlier mono no aware.  Nothing lasts forever.  Not youth, not beauty, not even power.  All we have is the record of honor—a good name—to leave behind.  The tales celebrate the brave warrior and vilifies the evil.  The opening lines of the Tale of the Heike are perhaps the most important in all of Japanese literature:
 

The sound of the Gion Shoja bells echoes the impermanence of all things;
The color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline.
The proud do not endure; they are like a dream on a spring night;
The mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind . . .

Biwa hôshi—blind minstrels—associated with Buddhist temples and dressed like monks—who were responsible for singing the ballads related to the wars.  Their songs (like the earlier poems by Hitomaro in the Man’yôshû) were most likely meant to assuage the bitter spirits of the vanquished.  Hence, not all Heike warriors are bad and not all Genji are good.  Both families find heroes to celebrate.  Because the biwa hôshi were blind, they developed oral formulas to help them remember the tales.  This is why you will see certain motifs, images, etc, repeated over and over in the tale.

Key figures in Chapter Nine of the Heike:
Kiso no Yoshinaka (Minamoto no Yoritomo’s cousin) and his retainers :

Kanehira
Tomoe

Back to Coursepage