Tenkai

(?1536-1643)

   An eminent Tendai monk of the early Tokugawa period who took the name Tenkai in 1590 and was known posthumously as Jigen daishi. He studied Buddhism at Mt. Hiei and Nara, then studied Confucianism and impressed Tokugawa, Ieyasu at a meeting in 1589. He subsequently became an adviser on foreign affairs to three successive shoguns. Ieyasu appointed Tenkai to head the Nikko-san Tendai temple at Nikko. After Ieyasu's death his body was transferred from its temporary burial-place and interred in the newly built Nikko toshogu by the rites referred to as Sanno ichijitsu shinto, as a result of a request by Tenkai to the emperor in Kyoto to bestow a posthumous title on Ieyasu.