Monuments and Mandalas in Medieval Kyoto: Reading Buddhist Kingship in the Urban Plan of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu

Abstract

Kyoto’s urban landscape was transformed during the late fourteenth century through the ambitious building projects of the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358–1408). By examining these projects, I identify a grand urban vision indicative of monumental aspirations. The creation of palaces and temples helped Yoshimitsu infiltrate and eventually dominate warrior, imperial, and religious spheres of influence in Kyoto. More important, the findings suggest the shogun leveraged the allusive power of architecture and urban planning to forge an anthropocosmic connection between himself and the divine. I suggest that Yoshimitsu—like his counterparts in the premodern Buddhist centers of Angkor, Bagan, and Borobudur—sought to transform Japan’s medieval capital into an expression of sacred geography, thereby legitimizing the Kyoto court at a time of imperial schism and advancing his own aim of attaining a status synonymous with dharma king.