JAPAN’S GREAT VILLAINS
Dōkyō — The Rasputin of Japan who Almost Became Emperor
Buddhist priest and one of Japan’s 3 Great Villains
Perhaps you’ve read my series on Japan’s Three Great Vengeful Ghosts — Taira no Masakado, Emperor Sutoku, and my favorite, Sugawara no Michizane. Knowing how much Japan loves threes — Three Great Castles, Three Holy Mountains, Three Famous Gardens — it is not surprising that Japan also has Three Great Villains.
Today, we will see how the monk Dōkyō, 道鏡, who lived more than a millennium before his Russian counterpart, earned his place among the villainous three.
Great Villain #1 — the Buddhist Priest Dōkyō
Records of Dōkyō’s early years are sketchy.
We know he was born into a low-level aristocratic family in what is now Kochi Prefecture on the island of Shikoku. He became a Buddhist priest and studied under Gien, a senior priest of Hossō Buddhism. He studied Sanskrit, something only the most educated knew.
Dōkyō went on to practice a type of shamanistic Buddhism on Mount Katsuragi, where the founder of Shugendō, En no Gyōja, also stayed. Through meditation and mountain aestheticism, Dōkyō is said to have mastered control of nature and gained powers…
