Nitta Yoshisada's invasion, and became a sort of secondary base where the laws and regulations were drawn up, and the administrative code was dispensed along the lines of Takauji's predecessors. But the Kamakura period was at an end. The erstwhile brilliant capital never really recovered from the chaos of Nitta's attack, and the conflagration started upon that day proved the funeral pyre of Kamakura's greatness, the renaissance under the Ashikaga regime being but a pale reflection of its departed glories, and barely exceeding the duration of a century.
During that period, a condition of great and increasing strife existed between the governors of Kamakura (kanryo) and their representatives (shitsuji): members of great Uesugi family holding the latter office, which became so powerful that it would be difficult to decide which wielded the greater authority, kanryo or shitsuji. This truculent state of affairs culminated in 1445, when the representative openly attacked the governor Nariuji. The latter fled to Koga in Shimousa (now Chiba-Ibaraki prefectures), Kamakura losing much prestige by this undignified condition of internal discord. The populace, hoping that the fugitive governor would return and be reinstated in office, preserved his estates in readiness and kept the land cultivated; but the departed kanryo died in exile, this fact constituting a potent factor in the final decline of Kamakura.
The city suffered extensive damage in the siege of 1454, and later on was again almost reduced to ashes by the great fire of 1526. Large numbers of its inhabitants transferred their residence to Odawara when the latter town rose into prominence as the seat of the powerful Hojo family, Kamakura receiving its final coup de grace in the year 1603, when Edo was founded as the capital of the Tokugawa shogun.
The former brilliant city gradually declined into the little fishing village of the pre-Yoritomo period. However, the fortunes of this historic spot were not doomed to retrograde into permanent obscurity, and later on another renaissance was to develop, although based upon more prosaic lines.
The Restoration of 1868, with Tokyo established as the imperial capital; the rapid expansion of other adjacent towns into large and flourishing cities; increased facilities of communication; and various other reasons, all conduced to call attention to Kamakura's obvious and indestructible assets—its charming and picturesque scenery; the glorious sweep of blue ocean fringed by its crescent of sandy beach; its easiness of access; its teeming associations with ancient history—of which, like Rome, it has been said that "legends and romances cluster around every stone, and every cave is heavy with the bones of dead heroes"; its innumerable walks and excursions in every direction; and finally its pure bracing air and exceptionally fine climate.
However, the Restoration was not an unmixed blessing, for at that time the temples were dispossessed of their lands, and consequently fell upon very hard times; the high-water mark of their distress being reached about the year 1886 or 1887, when it is even said that some of the great structures were demolished and the timbers sold for firewood.
In 1890 the railroad, which before then had not come nearer than Ofuna—the junction upon the main line four miles distant—directly linked Kamakura with the capital, this fact being naturally conducive to a new era of prosperity. Since that time the besso (seaside villas) of residents of Tokyo and Yokohama have increased and multiplied apace—Yuigahama gaining wide celebrity as a bathing resort and acquiring a high degree of popularity with the swarms of summer visitors, who transform the beach into a scene of liveliest animation. Three years after the advent of the railway the shihan gakko (school for the training of primary school teachers) was removed from Yokohama to its present quarters at Kamakura on the eastern side of Hachiman. According to tradition the spacious playground of this academy is said to be the identical site of Takatoki's dogfights. Other scholastic institutions are the girls' school in the main avenue, with some 150 pupils; the large primary school almost opposite, two kindergartens, an orphanage for poor children, etc.
Although so many temples and shrines have been overtaken by various calamities and have disappeared since Kamakura's palmy days, yet there still remain the considerable number of forty Buddhist, and nineteen Shinto temples: eighteen of the former being associated with the Nichiren doctrines, and from their intimate connection with the life and teachings of the saint attract large numbers of the devotees of this most popular sect.
Two versions are extant regarding to origin of the name Kamakura. According to one theory the first emperor, Jinmu, visited this district during the course of his punitive expeditions in the eastern part of Japan. The enemy to the number of some thousands were slain by the imperial warriors—the corpses being piled up like mountains: hence this district acquired the name of kabanekura, or repository for dead bodies, which later became Kamakura. But a less sanguinary derivation, and the one that is generally accepted is the following. Fujiwara no Kamatari, the celebrated soldier and statesman of the seventh century, while on a pilgrimage to a distant shrine, passed one night at the little hamlet of Yui. Here he dreamed a sacred dream in which he was instructed by the powers above to bury his emblem, the kama, or large sickle that he carried, upon a hill in the district. This height is said to be the eminence behind Hachiman and which to the present day bears the name of Daijin-yama, or Hill of the Minister: thus the district became known as the repository of the kama, or Kamakura.
Footnote
* It will be remembered that Hachiman was the special protector and tutelary deity of the Minamoto family. The messengers of the god were supposed to be the sacred doves that, even at the present day, are always in evidence at the shrines dedicated to Hachiman. Amongst other instances, at the battle of Ishibashi-yama the life of Yoritomo was saved by two woodpigeons: later on, during the battle of Dan no Ura, at a crucial moment a pair of doves alighted upon the flagstaff of Yoshitsune's vessel, inspiring the hard-pressed warriors to further feats of courage and heroism.
Here still dwell the ancient gods
in the great silence of their decaying temples,
without worshippers, without revenues,
surrounded by desolations of rice-fields;
where the chanting of frogs
replaces the sea-like murmur of the city
that was, and is not.
—LAFCADIO HEARN
Egara Tenjin
THIS SMALL SHRINE, situated near the main road to Kanazawa, is of extreme antiquity, being one of the few relics of the pre-Yoritomo period; a long and imposing avenue of ancient pines forms the approach, spanned by a large stone torii. The exact date of the foundation is unknown; records of it doubtless existed at the time of Yoritomo, when this shrine was of considerable importance and on a much more elaborate scale. In those days three temples were situated in a grove of ume, or plum trees, upon the high terrace of the present shrine; with a vassal building in the enclosure below the hill.
It is recorded that in front of the main gate there was moreover a place called the sekitoriba, or barrier, and there all worshippers and visitors to the temple were requested to make a contribution of money by order of the regent (Hojo Ujinao): the funds thus raised being employed for the temple repairs. The original document embodying this command is still preserved among the treasures of Egara Tenjin. The dedication is to Sugawara no Michizane, a statesman and distinguished scholar of the ninth century: descended from a line of erudite literati, Michizane was the most renowned for his profound literary achievements, and was universally revered as the most brilliant man of the age. He was also a minister held in high esteem by the emperors Uda and Daigo: but at the height of his career, owing to the jealousy and intrigues of his enemies, he was unjustly banished in the year 901. Two years later he died in exile at the age of fifty-eight.