Jisha kogyoho (Shrine restoration policy) (寺社興行法)

Jisha kogyoho was a series of ordinances that imperial court authority and bakufu (Japanese feudal government headed by a shogun) authority enforced to repair the main shrine buildings and the Buddhist temples of the religious institutions and to promote the strict observance of Shinto rituals and Buddhist memorial services.

As the term 'kogyo' meant to restore something declined and became extinct to its original state, various kogyoho were promulgated after the late Heian period when temples had been further declined for various reasons. Under the new system of the imperial court administration, the restoration included repairing buildings of the religious institutions, restoration of Shinto rituals and Buddhist memorial services, assistance in lawsuits, and prohibition of shooting and fishing in the precincts; therefore, they managed to maintain the facilities and support the rituals, and secure economic base including shoryo (estate) necessary for the maintenance and support. Article one of the Goseibai shikimoku of the Kamakura bakufu stipulated repairing shrines and devotion to religious services, and Article two stipulated repaiing and rebuilding of pagodas in the temples and religious services at the temples. The stipulations aimed at establishment of the authority of rites by Kamakura dono (Lord of Kamakura) which was the head of the warrior government.

In contrast, as the term 'Tendo' meant declining and dying out of a normally operated thing, the tendo became more intensified during the late Kamakura period. The problem of embezzling of jisharyo (holdings of temples and shrines) by kokuga (imperial household officials or an estate manager) or bushi (samurai) was the background of the tendo -- But in some cases, as Buddhist monks and Shinto priests inherited the shoryo, which was necessary for maintenance of the facilities and support of the rituals, accompanying their religious belief (Buddhist monks inherited the shoryo from the master to the disciple, correspondingly to the case of the Shinto priests where they inherited the shoryo from father to children), they began to privatize the shoryo such that they could use the shoryo for private purposes, which had nothing to do with their religious activities, or that they sold the shoryo to the other person at their own discretion in the worst cases. In such circumstances, the biggest problem in the Jisha Kogyo was to restore the situation that the shoryo which should belong to the shrine or the Buddhist temple (god's belongings, Buddha's belongings) was treated as the private things of the Buddhist monks and the Shinto priests (monk's belongings, Buddha's belongings) to the original state. Especially, the crisis in the foreign relations caused by the Mongolian Expeditions against Japan forced the imperial court authority and the bakufu authority to protect the temples and shrines; besides, supported by tenjin sokan setsu (theory of correlation between Heaven and man), tokusei (debt cancellation edict) issued by the cloistered emperor's government or the bakufu provided various kinds of Jisha Kogyo. Those Jisha Kogyo forfeited the shoryo, which should have been the god's belongings or Buddha's belongings, from the current holder and forcefully returned the shoryo to the temples or the shrines; besides, based on the reasoning such that the privatization was caused by the inheritance of the positions of the Buddhist monks and shrine priests, the Jisha Kogyo prohibited the monks and priests to inherit the position to disciples and children at their own discretion.
The policy was culminated in the Bunei era and Koan era which corresponded to the period of the cloistered emperor's governments by Emperor Gosaga and Emperor Kameyama in the imperial court administration, and the period of the government led by Tokimune HOJO and the government led by Sadatoki HOJO (Yasumori ADACHI as an advisor), when various kinds of Shinryo Kogyo were conducted to shrines and similar policies were also conducted to the temples under the so-called 'Koan Tokusei.'
As the imperial court administration and the bakufu declined, the edict of tokusei decreased, and the Jisha Kogyo became in name only except that influential samurai families became patrons of specific temples or shrines which they were closely tied with.

[Original Japanese]