ABSTRACT
The names "Tōshōgū," which means "eastern shining shrine," and "Nikkō," which means "sunlight," both derive from Tōshō Dai-Gongen, the posthumous name that was bestowed on Ieyasu by the imperial court. The granting of such names is a Buddhist tradition, not a Shintō one, and Ieyasu's posthumous name, which means "Great Avatar Illuminating the East," refers to the belief that Ieyasu had been an avatar, an earthly manifestation, of Yakushi (Bhaishaja-guru in Sanskrit), the Buddha of Healing who
rules the Eastern Emerald World. At the same time, the reference to the sun, and the fact that the "shō" in "Tōshō" is written with the same character as the "terasu" in "Amaterasu," probably were meant to indicate that Ieyasu was held to have a special connection with the Shintō sun goddess, and the imperial line supposedly descended from her. It is there fore fitting that the memorial complex at Nikkō is distinctive in its intermingling of Shintō and Buddhist structures and motifs. Just as the human being Ieyasu had completed the
military and political unification of the country, so the divine being Tōshō Dai-Gongen was to symbolize its religious uni fication.
