Background
Dōkyō was born in 700 and was said to have come from Yuge, Shiki district in the province of Kawachi (present Osaka Prefecture).
He is therefore also referred to as Yuge Dôkyô.
Dōkyō was born in 700 and was said to have come from Yuge, Shiki district in the province of Kawachi (present Osaka Prefecture).
He is therefore also referred to as Yuge Dôkyô.
In 764, following the failure of an attempted coup d’état by Fujiwara no Nakamaro, he became dajddaijin zenshi (prime minister priest), taking upon himself the supreme power in both the political and religious worlds. Then in 766 he was given the title of hdo (something akin to pope), thus embarking on a type of priestly government quite divorced from the legally established ritsuryo system, the centralized bureaucratic system of the day.
However, despite his attempt to establish his own position as something conferred by divine authority, he was overthrown by the machinations of court nobles and others opposed to him, who claimed that he had gone against the divine oracle, and he was demoted to the Yakushi-ji temple in Shimotsuke (present Tochigi Prefecture), where he ended his days.
He was a disciple of Gien, studying with him the doctrines of the Hossô sect of Buddhism.
In 762 he attended retired Empress Kôken during an illness and won her confidence as a result, using it as a means to intervene personally in political matters.
