page_title: Suwa-taisha
section_title: Muromachi and Sengoku periods
hierarchical_section_title: Suwa-taisha / History / Muromachi and Sengoku periods
context_page_description: Suwa Grand Shrine, historically also known as Suwa Shrine or Suwa Daimyōjin, is a group of Shinto shrines in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. The shrine complex is the ichinomiya of former Shinano Province and is considered to be one of the oldest shrines in existence, being implied by the Nihon Shoki to already stand in the late 7th century.
context_section_description: The shrines suffered a heavy setback at the downfall of the Hōjō and the collapse of the shogunate in 1333. Testifying to the close connections between the warrior families of the Suwa region and the Hōjō is the fact that many members of the Suwa clan present in Kamakura during the siege of the city in 1333 committed suicide alongside Hōjō Takatoki.
  Takatoki's son, the young Tokiyuki, sought refuge in Shinano with Suwa Yorishige (諏訪頼重, not to be confused with the Sengoku period daimyō of the same name) and his son and then-Ōhōri, Tokitsugu (時継). In July–August 1335, the Suwa and other clans who remained loyal to the Hōjō, led by Tokiyuki, instigated an unsuccessful armed rebellion with the intention of reestablishing the Kamakura shogunate, which ended with the defeat of Tokiyuki's forces and Yorishige, Tokitsugu and some others committing suicide. Tokitsugu's son who inherited the priesthood, Yoritsugu (頼継), was stripped from his position and replaced by Fujisawa Masayori (藤沢政頼), who hailed from a cadet branch of the clan. Now declared an enemy of the imperial throne, Yoritsugu went into hiding.
  It is believed that the story of Kōga Saburō, which portrays Suwa Myōjin as a warrior hero and a hunter, originated in the aftermath of the shogunate's collapse and the Suwa Ōhōri's status becoming diminished as a result. Whereas formerly, the Suwa clan relied on the doctrine of the Upper Shrine's high priest being a god in the flesh to exert authority over its warrior devotees (Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1186 reprimanded subordinates for not obeying the Ōhōri, declaring that his words are those of the god of Suwa himself), with the loss of official backing the Suwa shrine network became decentralized. Warriors who were devoted to the Suwa cult sought for stories (setsuwa) about the deity that did not involve the Ōhōri or the Suwa clan, leading to the rise of localized setsuwa such as the Kōga Saburō legend.
  Suwa (or Kosaka) Enchū, government official and member of a cadet branch of the Suwa, took it upon himself to revive the former status of Suwa Shrine. To this end, he commissioned a set of ten illustrated scrolls (later expanded to twelve) showcasing the shrine's history and its various religious ceremonies, which was completed in 1356. The actual scrolls were later lost, but its text portions were copied and widely circulated, becoming known as the Suwa Daimyōjin Ekotoba.
  By the 14th century, the high priestly houses of the Upper and Lower Shrines, the Suwa and the Kanasashi were at war with each other and, in the Suwa's case, among themselves. During the Nanboku-chō period, the Suwa supported the Southern Court, while the Kanasashi chose to side with the Northern Court. This and other reasons contributed to the state of war between the two families, as well as other clans allied with them, during the Muromachi and Sengoku periods. During a battle between the two factions in 1483, the Lower Shrines were burned down by the Upper Shrine's forces; its high priest, Kanasashi Okiharu (金刺興春), was killed in battle.
  In 1535, Takeda Nobutora of Kai Province, who fought against the Suwa clan a number of times, had a truce with clan leader Suwa Yorishige and sent his daughter Nene off to him as his wife. His clan, the Takeda, were already known to be devotees of the Suwa deity since the 12th century, when in 1140, Takeda Nobuyoshi donated lands to each of the two shrines of Suwa in thanksgiving for his defeat of the Taira. By marrying his daughter to Yorishige, Nobutora was trying to bring himself closer to the Suwa and thus, ensuring that he would receive the blessings of the god.
  In 1542, Nobutora's son Shingen invaded Shinano and defeated Yorishige in a series of sieges; two years later Yorishige was forced to commit seppuku. Shingen then took Yorishige's daughter (his niece) to be one of his wives and had a son with her, Katsuyori, who would eventually prove to be the downfall of the Takeda. Shingen notably did not give his son the character traditionally used in Takeda names, 信 (nobu), but instead the character 頼 (yori) used for the
caption: Takeda Shingen by Utagawa Kuniyoshi
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