The Kamakura era

Just as the "Tale of Genji" transports us back to the cultured world of the Heian court and allows us to glimpse the delight with which the privileged classes saw nature, so the "Tale of Heike", a Kamakura war epic, captures the the mood of the tumultuous age which followed - the age of the warrior.
"The Gion Temple bell echoes the evanescence of all. The colour of the flowers of the Saraso Tree discloses the law of the fall of the prosperous. The proud last not long, but are like a spring night's dream. The mighty soon pass just like dust before the wind.

The "Tale of Heike" is a lively account of the decline of the Taira clan who once dominated the imperial court. They suffered final defeat at the hands of the Minamoto clan, whose power bases lay in the provinces. In the east of Japan, far from the imperial capital of Kyoto, commander-in-chief Minamoto Yoritomo succeeded in setting up an independent military government, or bakafu. In 1185 he founded his capital, Kamakura, from where he subsequently ruled as Sho-gun. Although Kyoto remained the official capital of Japan for another hundred and fifty years, the now politically powerless emperor was reduced to no more than a figurehead.