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GENERAL EDITORS' PREFACE
Since the beginning of this century the Cambridge histories have set a
pattern in the English-reading world for multivolume series containing
chapters written by specialists under the guidance of volume editors.
Plans for a Cambridge history of Japan were begun in the 1970s and
completed in 1978. The task was not to be easy. The details of Japanese
history are not matters of common knowledge among Western
historians. The cultural mode of Japan differs greatly from that of the
West, and above all there are the daunting problems of terminology
and language. In compensation, however, foreign scholars have been
assisted by the remarkable achievements of the Japanese scholars during
the last century in recasting their history in modern conceptual and
methodological terms.
History has played a major role in Japanese culture and thought,
and the Japanese record is long and full. Japan's rulers from ancient
times have found legitimacy in tradition, both mythic and historic,
and Japan's thinkers have probed for a national morality and system of
values in their country's past. The importance of history was also
emphasized in the continental cultural influences that entered Japan
from early times. Its expression changed as the Japanese consciousness
turned to questions of dynastic origin, as it came to reflect Buddhist
views of time and reality, and as it sought justification for rule by the
samurai estate. By the eighteenth century the successive need to explain
the divinity of the government, justify the ruler's place through
his virtue and compassion, and interpret the flux of political change
had resulted in the fashioning of a highly subjective fusion of Shinto,
Buddhist, and Confucian norms.
In the nineteenth century the Japanese became familiar with Western
forms of historical expression and felt the need to fit their national
history into patterns of a larger world history. As the modern Japanese
state took its place among other nations, Japanese history faced the
task of reconciling a parochial past with a more catholic present. Historians
familiarized themselves with European accounts of the course of
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Vi GENERAL EDITORS' PREFACE
civilization and described Japan's nineteenth-century turn from military
to civilian bureaucratic rule under monarchical guidance as part
of a larger, worldwide pattern. Buckle, Guizot, Spencer, and then
Marx successively provided interpretative schema.
The twentieth-century ideology of the imperial nation state, however,
operated to inhibit full play of universalism in historical interpretation.
The growth and ideology of the imperial realm required caution
on the part of historians, particularly with reference to Japanese
origins.
Japan's defeat in World War II brought release from these inhibitions
and for a time replaced them with compulsive denunciation of
the pretensions of the imperial state. Soon the expansion of higher
education brought changes in the size and variety of the Japanese
scholarly world. Historical inquiry was now free to range widely. A
new opening to the West brought lively interest in historical expressions
in the West, and a historical profession that had become cautiously
and expertly positivist began to rethink its material in terms of
larger patterns.
At just this juncture the serious study of Japanese history began in
the West. Before World War II the only distinguished general survey
of Japanese history in English was G. B. Sansom's Japan: A Short
Cultural History, first published in 1931 and still in print. English and
American students of Japan, many trained in wartime language programs,
were soon able to travel to Japan for study and participation
with Japanese scholars in cooperative projects. International conferences
and symposia produced volumes of essays that served as benchmarks
of intellectual focus and technical advance. Within Japan itself
an outpouring of historical scholarship, popular publishing, and historical
romance heightened the historical consciousness of a nation
aware of the dramatic changes to which it was witness.
In 1978 plans were adopted to produce this series on Japanese history
as a way of taking stock of what has been learned. The present
generation of Western historians can draw upon the solid foundations
of the modern Japanese historical profession. The decision to limit the
enterprise to six volumes meant that topics such as the history of art
and literature, aspects of economics and technology and science, and
the riches of local history would have to be left out. They too have
been the beneficiaries of vigorous study and publication in Japan and
in the Western world.
Multivolume series have appeared many times in Japanese since the
beginning of the century, but until the 1960s the number of professionCambridge
Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
GENERAL EDITORS PREFACE VU
ally trained historians of Japan in the Western world was too small to
sustain such an enterprise. Although that number has grown, the
general editors have thought it best to draw on Japanese specialists for
contributions in areas where they retain a clear authority. In such
cases the act of translation itself involves a form of editorial cooperation
that requires the skills of a trained historian whose name deserves
acknowledgment.
The primary objective of the present series is to put before the
English-reading audience as complete a record of Japanese history as
possible. But the Japanese case attracts our attention for other reasons
as well. To some it has seemed that the more we have come to know
about Japan the more we are drawn to the apparent similarities with
Western history. The long continuous course of Japan's historical record
has tempted historians to look for resemblances between its patterns
of political and social organization and those of the West. The
rapid emergence of Japan's modern nation state has occupied the attention
of comparative historians, both Japanese and Western. On the
other hand, specialists are inclined to point out the dangers of being
misled by seeming parallels.
The striking advances in our knowledge of Japan's past will continue
and accelerate. Western historians of this great and complex
subject will continue to grapple with it, and they must as Japan's
world role becomes more prominent. The need for greater and deeper
understanding of Japan will continue to be evident. Japanese history
belongs to the world, not only as a right and necessity but also as a
subject of compelling interest.
JOHN WHITNEY HALL
MARIUS B. JANSEN
MADOKA KANAI
DENIS TWITCHETT
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
CONTENTS
General editors' preface page v
List of maps, figures, and tables xii
Preface to Volume I xv
Chronology xix
Introduction i
by DELMER M. BROWN, Department ofHistory,
University of California, Berkeley
New horizons i
Toward a holistic approach 9
Great waves of change 20
1 The earliest societies in Japan 48
by J. EDWARD KIDDER, J R . , Faculty of Literature and
Culture, International Christian University, Tokyo
The pre-Jomon period 50
The Jomon period 58
The Yayoi period 80
2 The Yamato kingdom 108
by DELMER M. BROWN, Department of History,
University of California, Berkeley
Yamato vigor n o
Yamato expansion 124
Yamato disruption 144
3 The century of reform 163
by INOUE MITSUSADA, College of Literature, Tokyo
University
with DELMER M. BROWN
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x CONTENTS
The Asuka enlightenment 164
The Great Reforms 184
The imperial state 201
4 The Nara state 221
by NAOKI KOJIRO, College of Humanities, Soai
University
Translated by FELICIA G. BOCK
Laying the foundation 222
Nara and Todai-ji 241
Authority crises 257
5 Japan and the continent 268
by OKAZAKI TAKASHI, College of Letters, Kyushu
University
Translated by JANET GOODWIN
Japan and the continent in the Jomon and Yayoi
periods 269
The "country" of Yamatai in the Late Yayoi period 283
Japan and the three Korean kingdoms 297
Okinoshima, the Yamato court, and the continent 312
6 Early kami worship 317
by MATSUMAE TAKESHI, College of Literature, Tenri
University
Translated by JANET GOODWIN
General problems 317
The evolution of Shinto 328
7 Early Buddha worship 359
by SONODA KOYt, Faculty of Literature, Kansai
University
with DELMER M. BROWN
Buddhism and the rise of the Korean kingdoms 360
Soga Buddhism 370
Ritsuryo Buddhism 388
Nara Buddhism 397
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CONTENTS xi
8 Nara economic and social institutions 415
by TORAO TOSHIYA, National Museum of History and
Ethnology
Translated by WILLIAM WAYNE FARRIS
Land tenure 415
Control of persons 425
Control of state finances and exchange 430
Policy changes 436
The early shben 448
9 Asuka and Nara culture: literacy, literature, and music 453
by EDWIN A. CRANSTON, Department ofAsian
Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University
Literacy and literature 453
Music and dance 486
10 The early evolution of historical consciousness 504
by DELMER M. BROWN, Department of History,
University of California, Berkeley
Linealism 505
Vitalism 521
Optimism 537
Works cited 549
Glossary-index 579
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MAPS, FIGURES, AND TABLES
MAPS
Northeast Asia, Sung period xxiv
Korea and Japan, Yayoi xxv
1.1 Paleolithic and Jomon sites 62
1.2 Yayoi sites 81
2.1 Shrines and burial mounds, Yamato 115
2.2 Last Yamato base 148
2.3 Kyushu plains 150
3.1 Fall of Paekche and Koguryo 211
3.2 Civil war of 672: troop movements 217
4.1 Fujiwara capital 230
4.2 Ancient capitals, shrines, and temples 244
FIGURES
I.i Break in imperial line 41
4.1 Government by imperial relatives 226
4.2 Nara bureaucratic order 233
4.3 Mommu's successors 242
4.4 Temmu's line and Fuhito's daughters 259
7.1 Spread of Buddhism from China to Japan 370
8.1 Grid in the Nara period for location of land 421
8.2 Tsubo numbering 422
8.3 Divisions of cho into tan 422
TABLES
4.1 Allowances according to the Taiho code 238
8.1 Nonallotment holdings 420
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LIST OF MAPS, FIGURES, AND TABLES xiii
8.2 Land allotment 424
8.3 Population registration and land allocation in the
seventh and eighth centuries 441
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Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
PREFACE TO VOLUME 1
We now know that human beings have lived on the Japanese archipelago
for about 100,000 years. Volume I of The Cambridge History of
Japan proposes to cover the first 99,000 years, a long period that
ended when Japan's imperial capital was moved away from Heijo (now
Nara) in A.D. 784. But until the introduction of agriculture and the use
of iron tools and weapons around 300 B.C., people residing on that
northeastern appendage to the Asian continent had made only slight
progress toward civilization. Consequently, most of this volume is
devoted to the final one thousand years (from 300 B.C. to A.D. 784) the
ninety-eighth millennium - of Japan's ancient past.
The last two centuries (587-784) of that millennium receive a disproportionate
share of attention, even though archaeological discoveries
and meticulous research in Korean and Chinese sources now make it
possible to outline a relatively rapid rise of kingdoms during the previous
eight centuries. At about the time of Christ, some of these kingdoms
were exchanging missions with the courts of imperial China, and
by the third century A.D. the kingdom of Yamato was making military
conquests in distant regions of the archipelago and burying its priestly
rulers in huge burial mounds (kofun).
Spectacular change followed the seizure ofcontrol in 587 by an immigrant
clan (the Soga) whose leaders encouraged a widespread adoption
of Chinese high culture: religious beliefs and practices (Taoism and
Buddhism), ethical teachings (Confucianism), literary tastes (poetry
and history), artistic techniques and styles (architecture, painting, and
sculpture), as well as penal and administrative law (codes and commentaries).
A great spurt of reform activity came in and after the 660s when
two Korean kingdoms (Koguryo and Paekche) came under the hegemony
of China's expanding T'ang empire and when a Japanese naval
force - sent to the support ofPaekche - was virtually annihilated. Fearing
that Japan, too, would be invaded by China, the new leaders adopted
a wide range of Chinese methods for strengthening military defense and
state control, relying heavily on the services of men who had lived and
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
XVI PREFACE TO VOLUME I
studied for years in China and on refugees from Korean kingdoms
conquered by Chinese armies. Within a few decades, Japan's old "clan
system" was transformed into something like a Chinese empire.
This control over all lands and peoples was then reinforced by a
Chinese-style bureaucracy headed by an emperor or empress who was
revered as a manifest deity (kami), a direct descendant of the Sun Goddess
(Amaterasu) and the country's highest priest or priestess of kami
worship. The imperial system was further strengthened - especially
during the eighth century - by a statewide system of Buddhist temples
in which exotic rites were performed in order to ensure peace and
prosperity for the imperial state.
We can still obtain a sense of Nara period grandeur when we see in
the Nara of today the remains of (i) a great Chinese-style capital built
at the beginning of the eighth century, (2) the central temple (the
Todai-ji) erected in the middle years of the century as the centerpiece
of the Buddhist system, (3) the imposing fifty-two-foot-high Great
Buddha statue completed in 752 and still honored as the Todai-ji's
central object of worship, (4) the storehouse (Shoso-in) where the
prized possessions of Emperor Shdmu (r. 724-745) have been preserved,
and (5) many statues, paintings, chronicles, poems, documents,
and memos made or written when Nara was becoming an
impressive "sacred center" of a Japanese empire.
Research by thousands of Japanese scholars working with new evidence
found on the continent as well as in Japan have produced massive
amounts of information concerning the thousand years (from 300
B.C. to A.D. 784) commonly referred to as Japan's ancient age. But only
a general overview of that age can be provided in a single volume, and
interpretations and analyses based on methods and perspectives of
different disciplines reveal such fluid patterns of interactive change
that some conclusions drawn here may soon need to be revised. Western
scholars have made valuable contributions to our'understanding of
Japanese life in this ancient age, especially through translations and
holistic studies of religious subjects. But Japanese specialists, participating
in an "ancient history boom," have shed such afloodof light on
life in those early times that six distinguished Japanese historians were
invited to write six of the volume's ten chapters.
Unfortunately, two of the Japanese authors died before their chapters
could be completed: Inoue Mitsusada, before the second half of his
chapter "The Century of Reform" had been written, and Okazaki Takashi,
before his chapter "Japan and the Continent" had been adjusted to
the discovery of recent and important archaeological finds. Much of
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PREFACE TO VOLUME I XVU
these two chapters - and another, "Early Buddha Worship" by Sonoda
Koyu - had to be rewritten or substantially revised.
After Inoue's death, Takagi Kiyoko wrote a summary of seventhcentury
developments not covered in the unfinished Inoue manuscript.
These two manuscripts were then ably translated into English
by John Wisnom. But because early sections of the Inoue portion of
Chapter 3 duplicated a section of Chapter 2, and the two manuscripts
provided no coherent pattern of historical change in the century of
reform, it was decided that the chapter should be recast. Takagi and
Wisnom read the revision and offered valuable suggestions for improvement
but did not feel that they should be listed as coauthors or
translators. We are, however, deeply indebted to Takagi for thoughtful
interpretations and Wisnom for painstaking research on names and
titles.
Having translated Chapter 5 ("Japan and the Continent") and read
the articles and reports published by Okazaki Takashi, Janet Goodwin
wrote a number of proposed additions. But Okazaki was then too ill to
be contacted for approval. Shortly before his death, reports on archaeological
discoveries at Yoshinogari in Kyushu led some Japanese scholars
to conclude that Yoshinogari may have been the capital of a Japanese
"country" mentioned in the Wei shu, a third-century Chinese
dynastic history that includes an account of what members of a Chinese
mission to Japan had seen and heard. Goodwin had an opportunity
to visit the site in 1989, and after studying some reports (including
a preliminary official one) and interviewing several scholars, she wrote
additional pages for the author's consideration. But Okazaki could not
be consulted, and he died a few months later. What Goodwin wrote is
included as a translator's note.
For Chapter 7, "Early Buddha Worship," Sonoda Koyu submitted a
scholarly and detailed study of Buddhist history in Korea before 587,
plus a brief treatment of the spread of Buddhism to Japan. John W.
Buscaglia, then a graduate student in Buddhist studies at Yale University,
made an excellent translation of the manuscript, giving close
attention to the identification and explanation of names and terms. It
was then decided that the material on Korea should be condensed and
that additional sections should be written on the early years of Japanese
Buddhism. Unfortunately, Sonoda and Buscaglia were unable to
undertake these tasks, thereby leaving them to the editor.
The Introduction to this volume attempts to show (1) how recent
studies of the ancient past have been directed to developments outside
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XVU1 PREFACE TO VOLUME I
the boundaries set by enduring preoccupations, (2) how analyses of
historical development are now being sharpened by the use of core
beliefs as analytical models, and (3) how postagricultural periods are
identified with four great waves of change that have shaped and colored
the history of Japan from early times to the present. The first four
chapters contain broad surveys of successive periods: the pre-Jomon,
Jomon, and Yayoi to about A.D. 250, the Yamato state to 587, the
century of reform to 672, and the Nara state to 784. The remaining
chapters are devoted mainly to nonpolitical fields of historical change
during the last two centuries of the ancient age.
As in the other volumes, conventional systems for romanizing Japanese,
Korean, and Chinese terms and names are used: the Hepburn
for Japanese, the McCune-Reischauer for Korean, and the WadeGiles
for Chinese. Asian personal names are referred to in the native
manner - surnames followed by given names - except when the Asian
authors are writing in English. Books and articles are listed in the
Works Cited, and the Chinese characters for names and terms appear
in the Glossary-Index. Years recorded in Japanese eras (nengo) are
converted to years by the Western calendar, but months and days are
not.
I join the editors of the other five volumes in thanking the Japan
Foundation for funds that facilitated the production of this series. The
costs of publishing this book have been supported in part by an award
from the Hiromi Arisawa Memorial Fund, which is named in honor of
the renowned economist and the first chairman of the Board of the
University of Tokyo Press. My special thanks go also to the authors
and translators for their gracious patience, and to the following scholars
who have read one or more chapters and made valuable suggestions
for improvement: Peter Duus, Lewis Lancaster, Robert Lee, Betsy
Scheiner, Taiichiro Shiraishi, and Thomas Smith.
Delmer M. Brown
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Northeast Asia, Sung period. (Based on Ueda Masaki, Okimi no
seiki, 1975, inside back cover.)
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Ocean
Korea and Japan, Yayoi.
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CHRONOLOGY
COMPARATIVE CHRONOLOGY OF ASIA UP TO A.D. 25O
Approximate
date1
Middle
Pleistocene
10,500 B.C.
7000 B.C.
5000 B.C.
Japan
Paleolithic and
Mesolithic
(Sosoki: subearliest
Jomon)
Early Jomon
Korea
Paleolithic and
Mesolithic
China
Paleolithic and
Mesolithic cul-
tures
Neolithic
3OOO B.C.
24OO B.C.
1750 B.C.
IIOO B.C.
Middle Jomon
Sobata pottery
Late Jomon
Neolithic
Tongsam-dong
site (Chulmun
culture):
Mumun culture
Agriculture
Hunam site
Bronze Age
Agriculture
Yang-shao culture
(Yellow
River)
Ta-p'en-k'eng
(southeastern
coast)
Shang (Bronze
Age)
Western Chou
1 Scholars' estimates of dates vary, especially in Korea and Japan before 400-300 B.C. Dates
tend to be better substantiated in the case of China.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
XX
770 B.C.
40O B.C.
3OO B.C.
221 B.C.
206 B.C.
109 B.C.
100 B.C.
CHRONOLOGY
Terminal Jomon
Itazuke site
(Yusu pottery)
Saitoyama
Early Yayoi
Agriculture
Bronze and iron
Sites: Itazuke
(Itazuke I
pottery)
Ukiunden
(bronzes)
Middle Yayoi
Sites: Okamato,
Yasunagata,
Omagari Mine,
Higashi Oda
Mine,
Kashiwazaki
Tajima,
MikumorSugu
Okamoto,
Tateiwa
Iron Age
Chdson and
Samhan cul-
tures
Lo-lang Colony
(Korean:
Nangnang)
Eastern Chou
(Iron Age)
Warring states
Ch'in dynasty
Former Han
A.D. 8
A.D.
A.D.
A.D.
25
57
222
Late Yayoi
Gold Seal from
Han
Himiko (Yamatai)
A.D. 239
A.D. 250
Embassy to Wei
Burial Mound
period
Wang Mang
Interregnum
Later Han
Wei, Wu, Shu
Han
Chinese visit to
Japan
Northern and
southern
cultures
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CHRONOLOGY XXI
CHRONOLOGY OF JAPAN FROM B.C. 3OO TO A.D. 794
B.C. 300- Rice cultivation, Yayoi culture in Japan.
A.D. 100
57 According to Chinese records, a tribal king of Na in Kyushu pays tribute
to Eastern Han Emperor Kuang Wu and receives official seal.
107 History of the Later Han reports that Na king sends 160 slaves as tribute to
China.
180 Himiko unites neighboring tribes and becomes the queen of Yamatai.
240 Wei Court of China acknowledges Himiko as the queen of Japan with a
gold seal.
285 Analects and Thousand Character Classic enter Japan from Paekche.
369 According to Nikon shoki, Japan defeats Silla, and Mimana is established;
Isonokami sword received from Paekche.
421-78 Five Yamato kings send tribute to Chinese court.
512 Four prefectures of Mimana are transferred to Paekche.
513 Scholar of the Five Classics arrives from Paekche.
527 Iwai, kuni no miyatsuko of Tsukushi (North Kyushu), rebels.
538 Paekche king presents Buddhist statue and sutra.
554 Experts in medicine, divination, and calendar arrive from Paekche.
562 Mimana absorbed by Silla.
587 Mononobe overcome by Soga.
589 Rise of Sui dynasty in China.
592 Soga no Umako assassinates Sushun; Suiko enthroned.
593 Prince Shotoku installed as regent; Buddhism patronized.
600 Envoy sent to Sui court in China.
603 Twelve court-rank system of China adopted.
604 Seventeen Injunctions ("Constitution") issued by Shotoku.
607 Ono no Imoko sent to Sui, returns the following year and is sent back to
China with students.
618 T'ang dynasty established in China.
622 Death of Prince Shotoku
640 Takamuko no Kuromaro and Minabuchi no Shoan return from three
decades of study in China.
643 Soga no Iruka exterminates the family of Prince Shotoku's son, Yamashiro
no Oe.
645 Prince Naka no Oe assassinates Soga no Iruka. Great Reforms of Taika.
Capital moved to Naniwa.
646 Reform decree promulgated.
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XXU CHRONOLOGY
649 Nineteen court-rank system established. Soga Ishikawa Maro is killed.
660 Silla defeats Paekche with help of T'ang army.
661 Japanese force sent to the support of Paekche.
663 Japanese navy annihilated by T'ang navy.
664 Twenty-six step court-rank system established.
667 Capital moved to Otsu in Omi Province.
668 Prince Naka no Oe enthroned as Emperor Tenji.
670 Nationwide household registration carried out.
671 Omi code promulgated.
672 Civil war; Prince Oama enthroned as Temmu. Capital moved to Asuka in
Yamato Province.
681 Compilation of Kojiki ordered.
689 Asuka no Kiyomihara civil code promulgated.
694 Capital moved to Fujiwara in Yamato Province.
701 Embassy to T'ang court authorized after a thirty-year interval. Tsushima
presents gold. Era name changed. Taiho civil and penal codes promulgated.
708 Copper brought as tribute from Musashi no kuni. Era name changed.
First Japanese coin, Wado kaichin, minted.
710 Empress Gemmei moves capital to Heijo-kyo (Nara).
712 Kojiki completed by O no Yasumaro.
713 Provinces ordered to compile reports (fudoki).
718 Fujiwara no Fuhito compiles the Yoro civil and penal codes.
720 Nikon shoki completed.
724 Shomu enthroned as emperor. Taga fortification established at Sendai to
counter Ainu unrest.
727 P'o-hai sends envoy to Japan.
735 Kibi no Makibi and Gembo return from T'ang.
735-7 Smallpox epidemic spreads from Kyushu to capital region.
740 Fujiwara no Hirotsugu revolts in Kyushu.
741 Construction of provincial Buddhist temples, kokubunji, ordered.
743 Permanent ownership of rice-bearing land permitted.
749 Gold presented as tribute from Mutsu Province; Shomu issues edict before
the Great Buddha of Todai-ji. Era name changed.
751 Kaifuso anthology completed.
752 Great Buddha of T6dai-ji completed.
754 Priest Ganjin comes from China.
756 Shoso-in constructed.
757 Fujiwara no Nakamaro defeates Tachibana no Nakamaro in attempt to
seize power.
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CHRONOLOGY XXU1
764 Fujiwara no Nakamaro revolt crushed. Former Empress Koken resumes
throne as Shotoku.
765 Priest Dokyo named minister of state, and the following year is given the
title of Buddhist king (Ho-o).
770 Dokyo exiled after the death of Empress Shotoku.
781 Emperor Kammu enthroned.
784 Capital moved to Nagaoka.
788 Priest Saicho builds Enryaku-ji.
794 Capital moved to Heian-kyo (Kyoto).
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Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
INTRODUCTION
Japanese historical accounts written during the last twelve hundred
years have been consistently narrowed and influenced by three preoccupations:
first, by an age old absorption in an "unbroken" line of
sovereigns descended from the Sun Goddess (Amaterasu), leading
historians to concern themselves largely with imperial history and to
overlook changes in other areas; second, by a continuing concern
with Japan's cultural uniqueness, causing many intellectuals, especially
those from the eighteenth century to the close of World War II,
to be intensely interested in purely Japanese ways and to miss the
significance of Chinese and Korean influences; and third, by the
modern tendency of scholars to specialize in studies of economic
productivity, political control, and social integration and thus to
avoid holistic investigations of interaction between secular and religious
thought and action.
But in recent years historians have extended their studies to questions
that lie well beyond the boundaries set by these enduring preoccupations.
This Introduction will attempt to outline the nature of this
shift and to point out how research in new areas - and from new
points of view - has broadened and deepened our understanding of
Japan's ancient age.
NEW HORIZONS
Beyond genealogy
Belief in a single line of priestly rulers was strong as far back as the
third century A.D. when the Japanese kingdom of Yamatai, according
to an item found in an early Chinese dynastic history, was governed by
hereditary rulers. Later in that same century a powerful kingdom
based in the Yamato region of central Japan emerged under a succession
of kings and queens who ruled as blood relatives of their predecessors.
Gaining control over most of the Japanese islands and a portion
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2 INTRODUCTION
of the Korean peninsula, they erected huge mounds (kofun) in which
to bury their priestly predecessors - mounds that were truly impressive
monuments to inherited authority. Because the Yamato kings and
queens (dkimi) have long been considered direct ancestors of the later
Japanese emperors and empresses (tenno), the government of presentday
Japan still does not permit excavations at kofun where Yamato
rulers are thought to have been buried. Largely on the basis of research
carried out at hundreds of other kofun sites, historians are
beginning to agree that the Yamato kings and queens were willing to
use much of their human and material resources for mound building
because they believed that this was the best way to symbolize, sanctify,
and strengthen their positions on the sacred line of descent.
Incontestable proof of descent-line preoccupation is found in an
inscription carved on a fifth-century sword unearthed at Inariyama in
northeastern Japan. It includes the names of six clan (uji) chieftains
who served Yamato kings, and each name is identified as die son of the
chieftain ahead of him on the list. Equally strong evidence of this early
absorption in genealogy is obtained from descent myths passed along
by word of mouth andfinallyassigned core positions in chronicles (the
Kojiki1
and the Nihon shoki2
) compiled at the beginning of the eighth
century. The chronicles themselves were shaped and tinted by the
urge to exalt an imperial line running from the Sun Goddess through
the Yamato kings to the emperors and empresses reigning in the seventh
century (see Chapter 10).
Nearly all the large structures (burial mounds, capitals, sanctuaries)
and written materials (chronicles, poems, inscriptions) erected or composed
during the last two centuries of Japan's ancient age were meant
to enhance the current ruler's position on the sacred descent line. This
preoccupation was expressed also in myths and rituals of local regions
that had been placed under direct imperial control. Festivals (matsuri)
honoring the ancestral deities (kami*) of the imperial clan were thus
1 Kuroita Katsumi, ed., Shintei zoho: kokushi laikei (hereafter cited as KT) (Tokyo: Yoshikawa
kobunkan, 1959), vol. 1; translated by Donald L. Philippi, Kojiki (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press; Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1968).
2 Sakamoto Taro, Ienaga Saburo, Inoue Mitsusada, and Ono Susumu, eds., Nihon koten
bungaku laikei (hereafter cited as NKBT) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1967), vols. 67 and 68;
translated by W. G. Aston, Nihongi, Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697
(hereafter cited as Aston) (London: Allen & Unwin, 1956).
3 Just what a kami is and how the word should be translated has been discussed and debated for
years. Some scholars are inclined to think that the term was introduced from Korea. In Japan
it has long denoted unseen deities that reside in awesome things (shintai or "kami bodies")
located in particular places. For a thoughtful reexamination of views regarding kami, see John
Keane, SA, "The Kami Concept: A Basis for Understanding the Dialogue," Orients Studies,
no. 16 (December 1980): 1-50.
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NEW HORIZONS 3
customarily held not only at the capital whenever a new sovereign was
enthroned but also at local shrines where rituals had been established
by imperial authority. Therefore most historical writing, especially
that by officials, has long been affected by a deep and lasting belief in
the divinity of Japan's sacred imperial line.
This belief was strengthened during World War II by the government's
endeavors to arouse feelings of loyalty to the current occupant
of the throne. Under the influence of an intellectual climate charged
with "emperorism," thousands of soldiers willingly marched into hopeless
battles screaming tenno heika banzai (long live the emperor), and
hundreds of pilots volunteered for suicidal attacks remembered as
kamikaze (kami wind) raids. Japan's Department of Education published
and distributed a book on the emperor-headed kokutai (nation
body) for the guidance of teachers and students,"* and historians produced
a flood of printed material on the origins, development, and
divinity of Japan's "unbroken" imperial line.
Although considerable study is still devoted to the ancient roots of
Japan's emperor institution, the grip of imperial-line preoccupation
was definitely broken by defeat in World War II. The Allied Occupation
forced the adoption of a constitution that separated politics from
religion and made the emperor a symbolic head of state, not a divine
descendant of the Sun Goddess. After the war some individuals even
dared to say and write that Japan no longer needed an emperor, and
many historians exercised their new freedom by questioning the origins
of an imperial institution that had long been considered too sacred
for objective and critical study. They probed for the significance of
phrases and paragraphs copied from Korean and Chinese accounts,
expressed doubts about the authenticity of reports that could not be
squared with other sorts of evidence, and made distinctions between
myth and historical fact. Writers who had previously accepted ancient
myths of divine descent as literal truth have maintained that Japan's
single line of imperial descent has at times been badly bent if not
actually broken, that some traditional dates are several centuries off,
and that certain occupants of the imperial throne may have been Korean
descendants. Others have looked through existing sources for
signs of historical change within myths (essentially ahistorical verbalizations
of rites), discovering themes appropriate to different periods
of Japan's ancient past (see Chapter 6).
4 John Owen Gauntlett, trans., Kokutai no Hongi, Cardinal Principles of ike National Entity of
Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1949).
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4 INTRODUCTION
In this fresh air of religious and intellectual freedom, archaeologists
have thrown much new light on the "prehistoric" age of Japan by
discovering material evidence from thousands of sites throughout the
Japanese islands, other than the tombs of Yamato kings.s These new
data, coupled with information gleaned from continental sources and
historical truth extracted from recorded myths, permit historians to
delineate a process by which a centralized Yamato state emerged during
the third century, flourished in the fifth, and declined in the sixth.
By looking objectively at this new evidence through wide-angle lenses,
they can now see that the line of Yamato kings was not simply an early
segment of Japan's imperial line but a succession of priestly rulers who
had gained awesome economic and military power by adopting imported
techniques for building tombs and irrigation systems, making
and using iron tools and weapons, and running an increasingly complex
bureaucracy (see Chapter 2).
For the earlier Yayoi period - beginning with Japan's agricultural
age around 300 B.C. and continuing to the rise of the Yamato state in
about A.D. 250 - archaeological reports have been almost as startling.
Based on investigations at sites in various regions of the country, they
show that the rapid spread of wet-rice agriculture was accompanied by
larger and more stable social groups, higher degrees of social interdependence,
and tighter political control. At the beginning of this process,
agricultural communities appeared. Then came small kingdoms
that, by the middle of the Yayoi period, were gradually incorporated
into what has been called "kingdom federations." According to the
archaeological evidence, it is thought that these federations were profiting
from exchanges with neighbors as far away as Korea, enabling
them to acquire or make symbolic bronzes (mirrors, weapons, and
bells) and such useful iron implements as spades, swords, and spears.6
Archaeological discoveries for pre-Yayoi times have also opened our
eyes to change during the more than eight thousand years of Japan's
preagricultural pottery age. This Jomon ("rope-patterned" pottery)
period probably began around 8500 B.C. when a gradual rise of the sea
level off the northeastern coast of Asia was turning Japan into an
insular land and when clay pots were first made and used. But pre-
5 The results of archaeological investigations, including research on wooden tablets (mokkati),
were outlined by Joan R. Piggott, "Keeping Up with the Past: New Discoveries Enrich Our
Views of History," Monumenta Nipponica 38 (Autumn 1983): 313-19.
6 For an excellent recent summary of what is now known about Yayoi life, see Tsude Hiroshi,
"Noko shakai no keisei," in Genshi kodai, vol. 1 of Asao Naohiro, Ishii Susumu, Inoue
Mitsusada, Oishi Kaicbiro et al. eds., Iwanami koza: Nihon rekishi (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku
shuppankai, 1984), pp. 117-58.
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NEW HORIZONS 5
Jomon discoveries have also been dramatic, forcing historians to continue
moving the beginning of Japan's stone age further into the past.
Until a few years ago, they concluded that this stone age dated back to
about 20,000 B.C. But they now say it goes back to around 100,000
B.C.,7
and before these pages go to press they will surely be saying - in
the light of new discoveries - that people lived on the islands of Japan
much earlier than that.
While archaeologists have been investigating the remains of life in a
past that was until recently largely unknown and unimagined (see
Chapters 1 and 5), historians have been using these and other types of
evidence to study currents of change that flowed through and beyond
the genealogical sphere. In doing so they provide penetrating views of
change in the highly textured life that followed the introduction and
spread of wet-rice agriculture and that reached high points of cultural
sophistication before the Nara period came to a close. Special attention
has been given to changing forms of kami worship (Chapter 6), Buddhist
development (Chapter 7), economic growth (Chapter 8), cultural
achievement (Chapter 9), and the emergence of a historical consciousness
(Chapter 10). Studies under these and other rubrics enable generalists
to draw a fuller picture of life in particular periods: the Yayoi
(Chapter 1). the Yamato (Chapter 2), the reform century (Chapter 3),
and the Nara (Chapter 4).
Beyond Japan
Preoccupation with cultural uniqueness first narrowed and sharpened
Japanese views of their ancient past in the eighteenth century. This
was when national learning (kokugaku) scholars, such as Motoori
Norinaga (1730-1801), turned against a Neo-Confucian ideology that
was introduced from China and that, with revisions, was officially
endorsed by the Tokugawa military regime. In searching for a Japanese
substitute, national learning scholars made meticulous studies of
ancient sources, looking for unmistakable evidence of what was said
and done before the country was inundated by Korean and Chinese
texts. But the urge to carry out such investigations became much
stronger in the nineteenth century when Japan faced, and reacted to,
pressure exerted by expanding Western powers. Resentment of the
West - in response first to the West's use of modern guns and ships
along Japan's shores and then to its religious beliefs and political
7 Yoshie Akio, Rekishi no akebono kara dento thakai no seijuku e: genshi, kodai, chusei, vol. 1 of
Nikon tsushi (Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppansha, 1986), p. 27.
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6 INTRODUCTION
ideas - peaked in the years around World War II. Western individualism
and egalitarianism were rejected at this time, and ancient Japanese
traditions were embraced. Even the use of Western words and the
wearing of Western clothes were officially discouraged. And historical
studies highlighted the country's kami-created imperial system (tennosei),
its indomitable Japanese spirit (Nihon seishin), and its divine "nation
body" (kokutai).s
Japanese absorption in their cultural uniqueness seems to have induced
Western scholars to translate and study ancient sources that
were highly valued by national learning scholars and by World War II
historians writing about the glories of Japan's imperial past. In 1882
Basil Hall Chamberlain translated the Kojiki, the ancient chronicle to
which Motoori had turned in his search for uniqueness;9
in 1896 W. G.
Aston produced an English version of the Nihon shoki, the next-oldest
chronicle and the first of Japan's Six National Histories;10
in 1932 Sir
George B. Sansom combed through early chronicles for his study of
ancient law and government;11
in 1934 J. B. Snellen translated portions
of the Shoku Nihongi, the second of the Six National Histories
and the one covering the Nara period;12
in 1935 M. W. DeVisser used
ancient sources to write a two-volume study of government-supported
Buddhism;13
between 1970 and 1972 Felicia G. Bock translated the
first ten books of the Engi shiki, legal procedures compiled in response
to an imperial order issued in 905;14
In 1973 Cornelius J. Kiley analyzed
ancient sources for his research on imperial lineage in ancient
times;1
* and between 1974 and 1978 Richard J. Miller compiled data
recorded in ancient chronicles for his investigations of clans and imperial
bureaucracy during the Nara period.16
8 See Delmer M. Brown, Nationalism in Japan: An Introductory Historical Analysis (New York:
Russel and Russel, 1971).
9 This translation appeared first in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society ofJapan (hereafter cited
as TASJ) 10 1st series (supplement) (1882): 1-139. For a more recent translation, see n. 1.
10 See n. 2.
11 George B. Sansom, "Early Japanese Law and Administration", TASJ 9, 2nd series (1932):
67-109, and TASJ 11 (1934): 117-49.
12 J. B. Snellen, "Shoku Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan)," TASJ 11, 2nd series (1934): 151-239
and TASJ 14 (1937): 209-78.
13 M. W. DeVisser, Ancient Buddhism in Japan: Sutras and Ceremonies in Use in the Seventh and
Eighth Centuries A.D. and Their History in Later Times, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1935).
14 Felicia G. Bock, trans., Engi-shiki: Procedures of the Engi Era [Books 1-5] and Engi-shiki:
Procedures of the Engi Era [Books 6-10] (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1970 and 1972).
15 Cornelius J. Kiley, "State and Dynasty in Archaic Yamato," Journal of Asian Studies 33
(November 1973): 25-49.
16 Richard J. Miller, Ancient Japanese Nobility: The Kabane Ranking System (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1974); and Richard J. Miller, Japan's First Bureaucracy:
A Study of Eighth-Century Government, Cornell University East Asia Papers, no. 19.
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, China-Japan Program, 1978).
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NEW HORIZONS 7
The recent popularity of TV programs on life in ancient Japan is due
in part to a lingering effect of wartime efforts to deepen belief in the
country's unique and sacred institutions. But because today's ancient
history "boom" has not been fueled by an emotional rejection of foreign
ways, scholars are much more open to the significance of imported
techniques and ideas. Their studies help us see how life was
fundamentally altered in those early days by the importation of advanced
methods for growing rice, making iron implements, erecting
large burial mounds, installing complex irrigation systems, and building
grand sanctuaries and capitals. New insights into the nature and
extent of continental influence have been obtained from mainly three
types of investigation. The first is research in Chinese and Korean
sources. (Inoue Hideo, for example, translated an ancient Korean
history, and Inoue Mitsusada, in Chapter 3, examines early Japanese
history in the context of the contemporary Northeast Asian situation.)
The second kind of investigation is the archaeological excavations at
thousands of sites throughout the Japanese islands. (As noted by J. E.
Kidder in Chapter 1, the Takatsuka and Fujinoki sites have attracted
special attention because the excavated grave goods and wall paintings
were obviously made by Korean immigrants.) The third type is the
comparative archaeological investigations. (In Chapter 5 Okazaki
Takashi uses the results of such studies to discuss the origin and
timing of important technological and cultural imports.)
A new awareness of the effects of early continental influence is
reflected also in comparative studies outside the fields of history and
archaeology, especially in mythology, folklore, linguistics, cultural and
social studies, and anthropology. Without detailing the contributions
made by these diverse disciplines, we note only that (1) Chapter 6 by
Matsumae Takeshi is based on important investigations in mythology
and folklore; (2) Yoshie Akio and other sociologists have produced
valuable studies of social life in ancient times;17
and (3) Carmen
Blacker has compared different forms of shamanism in Asia, carried
out extensive field work, and written a masterful study of Japanese
shamanism.18
As more scholars come to recognize the importance of Korean and
Chinese influence on Japanese cultural development, a few Japanese
scholars are beginning to look differently at their country's cultural
uniqueness. Instead of accepting the national learning assumption that
17 See Yoshie, Rekishi no akebono.
18 Carmen Blacker, The Causlpa Bow: A Study of Shamanislic Practices inJapan (London: Allen
& Unwin, 1975).
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8 INTRODUCTION
the essence of what is unique can be found only in beliefs and ideas
untarnished by foreign influence, a few have concluded that the very
core of Japanese culture has been continually altered and reinforced by
religious beliefs, ethical principles, and political concepts introduced
from Korea and China.19
Beyond the secular
Today, scholars of Japanese ancient history tend to be interested
mainly in the hard facts of political control, economic productivity,
and social integration, not in the power of beliefs and ideas. Preoccupation
with what can be measured, dated, and documented (in contrast
with wholeness, quality, and value) has certainly been strengthened by
Western historical thought, especially by the economic materialism of
Karl Marx. But Japanese secular interests have been sharpened also by
the country's spectacular economic growth in recent years and by a
widespread distaste for inquiries even remotely connected with wartime
propaganda focused on the marvels of the Japanese spirit.
To be sure, our understanding of Japan's ancient past has been
deepened and broadened by the work of secular-minded historians. As
we noted, some have looked beyond genealogical concerns to interactions
among hitherto-unexamined spheres of secular life, and others
have tried to assess the influence of techniques introduced from foreign
lands. But only a few have ventured outside the bounds of secular
change to assess the effects of the spiritual power believed toflowfrom
and through divine beings, sacred priests, kami rites, funeral services,
and sacred capitals. Even studies of religious practices in ancient times
are likely to be based on visual, textual, and datable manifestations of
religious life, not on connections - let us say - between religious activity
and state policy. Consequently, most investigations of Japan's early
religious life can be characterized as detailed descriptions of particular
sects, priests, and texts - investigations that do not ask, for example,
why a powerful political patron preferred one doctrine to another. But
a change is now taking place as more historians begin to look beyond
the power of secular energy to that of widespread belief in divine
beings and forces. And some scholars are even venturing into holistic
research and making interpretations based on the use of conceptual
models.
19 Yuasa Yasuo took this position in Kodaijin no seishin sekai, vol. 1 of Rekishi to Nihonjin
(Kyoto: Mineruba shobo, 1980).
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TOWARD A HOLISTIC APPROACH
TOWARD A HOLISTIC APPROACH
Moves toward a more holistic approach to the study of Japan's ancient
past are now attracting attention. Ishida Ichiro has developed the thesis
that kami belief has provided, throughout Japan's history, its most basic
cultural values.20
Ienaga Saburo, a distinguished intellectual historian,
has disclosed a meaningful linkage, at different times and places, between
political interests and preferred Buddhist doctrines.21
Two Americans have also made important holistic studies. Joan
Piggott, in a forthcoming book on the Todai-ji (temple), demonstrates
that Emperor Shomu (A.D. 701-56) and his court were willing to use
much of their human and material resources to construct a statewide
system of temples because they hoped and believed this would bolster
imperial control at a time of economic strain and political instability.22
Allan G. Grapard, in a book on the Kasuga cult, rejects the old
assumption that the best way to deepen our understanding of Japanese
religious history is to dig deeply into one aspect of a faith while disregarding
other religious traditions. He claims, moreover, that our picture
of religion at any time and place in Japan will be flawed if we
examine only the two major faiths (kami worship and Buddha worship)
apart from nonreligious currents generated by expanding clans
and imperial regimes. Claiming that the usual investigations of priests,
sects, and texts will not explain the essence of religious change,
Grapard hypothesizes that Japan's religiosity in the Nara period took
its character from developments at particular places where the beliefs
and practices of clans had a "combinative" relationship with imported
Buddhism and with social and economic developments, as clearly reflected
in discussions of legitimacy and power. Special significance is
seen in the fact that the Kasuga Shrine (the place for worshiping the
Fujiwara tutelary kami) and the Kofuku Temple (the place for honoring
Fujiwara ancestors) were built in Nara just when the Fujiwara clan
was rising to a position of power and influence at the imperial courts
A small but growing number of intellectual historians are now convinced
that a truer picture of ancient life can be drawn by using
20 Ishida Ichiro, Kami to Nihon bunka: Shintown josetsu (Tokyo: Pereikansha, 1983).
21 See Ienaga Saburo, Jodai Bukkyo shisd shi kenkyu (Tokyo: Hotei shobo, 1942); and Ienaga
Saburo, Nihon bunka ski, no. 187 of the Iwanami shinsko series, 4th ed. (Tokyo, Iwanami
shoten, 1984).
22 Joan R. Piggott, "Todaiji and the Nara Imperium" (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1987) is
used and cited in Chapter 7.
23 Allan G. Grapard, The Protocol of the Gods: A Study of the Kasuga Cult in Japanese History
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992).
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10 INTRODUCTION
conceptualized models, or paradigms, as analytical tools. Concluding
that traditional narrow, specialized treatments will reveal no more than
disconnected slices of past reality, they are constructing paradigms
(relatively unchanging fields of cultural energy) to help them see cultural
change as a whole. By using this approach, they will be better
able to analyze complex cultural interactions throughout history and
not be left to grope for the general picture after reading descriptive
studies of what happened in disparate historical fields over short periods
of time.
The earliest and most significant strides in this direction were taken
by Muraoka Tsunetsugu (i884-1946) before World War II when historical
writing was restricted and colored by Japan's preoccupation with
divine imperial descent and cultural uniqueness. After devoting considerable
research to the religious history ofthe West, Muraoka delved into
Shinto thought and found three basic characteristics: (1) "imperial
country-ism" (kokoku shugi), (2) "reality-ism" (genjitsu shugi), and (3)
"brightness-purity-ism" (meijo shugi).2
* In selecting "imperial countryism"
as his first characteristic, Muraoka seems - under the influence of
the contemporary preoccupation with Japan's single line ofsacred imperial
descent - not to have appreciated the historical fact that much kami
worship, especially at lower levels of premodern society, had little or no
connection with the priestly role of a Japanese sovereign. Moreover, his
second and third characteristics ("reality-ism" and "brightness-purityism")
should be reconsidered and reformulated from a broader perspective
than that of kami worship. Nevertheless, Muraoka's studies stimulated
and informed later thought on Japanese cultural paradigms, such
as the following.
Vitalism
Agreeing with Muraoka that kami belief lies at the very base of Japanese
culture but looking at cultural change, as a whole, a few historians
have identified a set of old and lasting beliefs tentatively labeled
vitalism. This paradigm symbolizes a relatively stable field of cultural
energy that swirls about the worship of kami for their mysterious
power to create, enrich, prolong, or renew any. form of life here and
now.2
' Early signs of vitalism can be found in female clay figurines
24 Muraoka Tsunetsugu, Nihon shisoshi kenkyu (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1939), pp. 419-68;
Delmer M. Brown and James T. Araki, trans., Studies in Shinto Thought (Tokyo: Japanese
Ministry of Education, publishing for UNESCO, 1964), pp. 1-50.
25 This paradigm was considered in a paper delivered at the Second (1968) International Conference
for Shinto Studies held in Claremont, Calif., by Delmer M. Brown, "Kami, Death, and
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TOWARD A HOLISTIC APPROACH II
(dogu) and phallic rods (bo) excavated from preagricultural Jomon sites
and thought to have been used in magic rites for benefiting human
life.26
In the later Yayoi period that began with the introduction of rice
agriculture around 300 B.C., divine beings (probably identified quite
early as kami) came to be worshiped through prayers (norito) and
festivals (matsuri) that would induce a clan's kami to use its lifecreating
and life-enriching power to produce a bounteous rice crop.2
?
Indeed, the vitalistic flavor of agricultural kami worship is still strong
in present-day Japan, not only in remote villages, but also at city
shrines where people turn to spiritual power for good health and
monetary gain.
Vitalism was explicitly expressed in the word musubi (creating or
creator). Musubi was attached to the names of the two kami that
produced the most famous creator kami couple of all: Izanagi and
Izanami. After sexual intercourse, Izanagi and Izanami gave birth
(umu) first to the islands of Japan and then to its seas, rivers, mountains,
trees, and grass. Next, according to the creation myth, Izanagi
and Izanami produced a kami of the sun (the Sun Goddess), whose
descendants were to rule Japan. The Sun Goddess was and still is
believed to have both a good (zenshin) and a bad (akujiri) side, but her
bad side did not and does not cause death or destroy life; it only
temporarily obstructs the bestowal of life-enriching benefits by the
good side.28
This paradigm is also highlighted by rites intended to remove anything
dead or dying (pollution or tsumi) from the place of kami worship
and from the bodies of kami worshipers. Such an abhorrence of
death accounts for the tradition that graveyards and latrines should
not be located within the grounds of a kami shrine and that care
should be taken to keep the shrine's precincts free of dead or dying
plants and animals. Some great shrines, notably the Ise Shrine where
Ancestral Worship," Proceedings (English), pp. 169-81 and (Japanese), pp. 170-86. Further
implications were explored in Delmer M. Brown, "Shintoism and Japanese Society," Ajia
bunka kenkyu, no. 6 (December 1972): 51-67. Ishida Ichiro has written several articles in this
general area, which are listed in Kami to Nihon bunka, pp. 215-16.
26 In searching for the religious meaning of Jomon figurines, Johannes Maringer compared
them with other primitive female statuettes possessing theriomorphic heads. She found a
"common psychic structure spanning all oceans and continents." See "Clay Figurines of the
Jomon Period: A Contribution to the History of Ancient Religion in Japan," History of
Religions 4 (November 1974): 129-39.
27 Several scholars have studied connections between kami worship and social change, but
Harada Toshiaki's contributions have been especially important. See his Nihon kodai shukyo:
zoho kaiteiban: Revised and enlarged ed. (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1970), and his Nihon kodai
shiso (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1972).
28 Ishida, Kami to Nihon bunka, pp. 158-9.
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12 INTRODUCTION
the Sun Goddess is worshiped, have for centuries been completely
rebuilt every twenty years, without reusing even one piece of wood
from the old building. Presumably this practice is based on the ancient
and enduring belief that old wood, having been subjected to organic
decay, blocks the bestowal of the kami's blessing. After all visible
pollution has been removed from the shrine and its grounds, invisible
pollution is removed by rites that include misogi (the removal of pollution
by immersion in water) and harai (waving a sacred implement in
front of whatever is to be purified).
The abhorrence of death - the dark side of vitalism - is further
underscored by the care that is consistently given to keeping kami and
kami rites uncontaminated by funerals, memorial rites, and prayers
for life after death. Although earlier distinguished scholars (especially
Yanagita Kunio) held that kami worship is essentially ancestor worship,
an increasingly large number of modern historians - including
the author of Chapter 6 - see significance in the following observations:
that no known ancient burial mound ever became the site of an
ancient kami sanctuary, that no early myth ever identified a kami as a
deceased human being, and that no early myth ever tells us that an
ancestral kami really died.2
? As early as the seventh century the imperial
clan began honoring its clan kami (the Sun Goddess) as its founding
ancestor, but the Sun Goddess was not a deceased ancestor.
At a somewhat later date, one kami (Hachiman) was worshiped as
the soul of a deceased king (Ojin), but Ojin had died several centuries
before his enshrinement, and his undying soul - not his corpse - was
enshrined as Hachiman. At the turn of the seventeenth century, the
souls of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-98) and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-
1616) were enshrined as kami, and in modern times the souls of other
prominent individuals - such as Emperor Meiji (1852-1912) - have
been enshrined. But what resides in the sacred objects of worship (the
shintai) of those shrines are their living souls. Important rites held at
every shrine - even at a shrine honoring the soul of a person who once
lived and died - are centered on requests for benefits in life, here and
now.
The abhorrence of death accounts also for a strong and persistent
inclination to keep kami worship uncontaminated by Buddhist teach-
29 Some kami, according to myth, did die (such as Izanami and Sarutahiko), but it is their living
souls that are worshiped. At the Tsubaki Grand Shrine, a stone coffin, said to have been the
one in which Sarutahiko was buried, is located beside the path to the main sanctuary. But the
sacred object of worship (the shintai) is not Sarutahiko's dead body but something in which
Sarutahiko's living soul is believed to reside.
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TOWARD A HOLISTIC APPROACH 13
ings on such subjects as the elimination of attachments to life, rebirth
in some Buddhist heaven after death, and memorial rites for the
souls of the deceased. Legal procedures compiled early in the tenth
century stipulate that various Buddhist terms - including the word
Buddha - be banned from kami worship at shrines. Although respected
studies delineate several stages of Shinto-Buddhist fusion in
ancient times, and the two faiths obviously influenced each other in
diverse and deep ways, every sanctuary was clearly identified as either
a kami shrine or a Buddhist temple. Even today, the head of a
family maintains both a kami shelf {kamidana) where blessings for
this life are sought and a Buddhist altar (butsudan) where deceased
members of the family are honored, but the two are kept apart. The
most basic beliefs of kami worship (its vitalism) were never seriously
undermined by Shakyamuni's teaching that enlightenment could be
achieved only by rejecting attachments to life. Thus Buddhist scholars
such as Watanabe Shoko concluded that the original message of
Shakyamuni (the historic Buddha) was never widely accepted by the
Japanese people.30
Even the most popular Buddhist movements of
today stress promises of health, wealth, and happiness in this life,
leaving the distinct impression that vitalism - and not what Ienaga
calls the "negation doctrine" (hitei no ronri) - has been dominant in
Japan's "new religions."
Although vitalism has deep religious roots and has been articulated
in religious terms, its influence is reflected in Japanese culture as a
whole. Historians detect, for example, a vitalistic tone in their country's
ancient art and literature, as well as in early expressions of historical
consciousness (see Chapter 10). Arising from life-affirming belief
and behavior, vitalism was therefore a powerful nonphysical force
affecting Japanese attitudes in all areas of life in ancient times and in
later periods as well.
Priestism
Muraoka's first characteristic of kami belief and action ("imperial
country-ism") points to another early and lasting paradigm, one referred
to here as priestism. At the base of Japan's extensive and enduring
system of priestly rule - ranging from village heads at the bottom
of society to emperors and empresses at the top - lies the common
30 Shoko Watanabe,Japanese Buddhism: A Critical Appraisal (Tokyo: Kokusai bunka shinkokai,
1968), pp. 53-110.
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14 INTRODUCTION
assumption that any community (village, kingdom, kingdom federation,
or state) approaches its particular tutelary kami mainly through a
ritually selected charismatic individual.
According to ethnological studies carried out by Harada Toshiaki and
others, the priest of an ancient agricultural community was probably
selected annually by a ceremonial "drawing of kami straws" (kamifuda),
a rite still performed in shrines in remote mountain villages. In later
Yayoi times when clans and small kingdoms were formed, chieftains
and kings continued to perform priestly roles for life and as a hereditary
right. Even today, most kami festivals at all levels of society are conducted
by priests who have inherited their positions and expect to
perform their priestly functions indefinitely. Likewise, the founder of
nearly every modern "new religion" (whether of a kami or Buddha
persuasion) is commonly succeeded by a person who retains that high
sacral post as long as he or she wishes.
Priestism was (and still is) strengthened by a Buddhist patriarchal
tradition that distinguishes one temple from another by patriarchal
line. A line emerged and was extended as every temple head (patriarch)
transmitted his inherited version of Buddhist truth to his favorite
disciple who, in turn, transmitted it to his successor, generation
after generation. Buddhist patriarchalism was firmly established in
those continental kingdoms and empires through which Buddhism
spread northward and eastward to Japan. But after this religion was
introduced to Japan, its priestism was reinforced by (and reinforced)
the native practice of worshiping kami through a succession of sacred
(kami-possessing) hereditary priests. (Note, however, that the two
priestly modes, one native and the other foreign, exerted their influence
on Japanese society differently: Kami priestism moved upward
from village heads at the bottom of society, and Buddhist priestism
moved downward from rulers at the top.) Chief priests at important
Buddhist temples were expected - even ordered - to conduct worship
in ways that would benefit the ruler and his family and would protect
him from natural disaster and military defeat. Thus political leaders
not only performed priestly functions at kami-honoring festivals but
also patronized Buddha worship, appointing priests as temple heads,
assigning them political responsibilities, and awarding them ranks
within the imperial order.
Before the close of the ancient period in 784, priestism gained further
strength from the increased power and prestige of the Buddhist
priests who headed great temple complexes with extensive private
estates (shoen). And in the later Heian period (784 to 1180), this pheCambridge
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TOWARD A HOLISTIC APPROACH 15
nomenon was strengthened by Buddhist abbots of powerful new sects
(the Tendai and the Shingon) who administered huge temple systems,
commanded large armies, and held high court ranks and offices. And
after the thirteenth-century rise of popular Buddhism (focused on the
spread of the Zen, Pure Land, and Nichiren sects), priestism was
fortified and expanded by priests who headed complex temple systems
patronized by military regimes and townsmen. As networks of popular
Buddhist temples gained political and military power - at times seizing
and maintaining control of whole provinces - this priestly influence
spread rapidly to towns and villages at lower levels of society and
in widely scattered regions.
Confucianism also added crucial support to priestism, not so much
through its own priesthood (although a few Confucian temples were
built in ancient times) as through ethical principles that reinforced
control at every point in the emperor-headed hierarchy. These principles
occupied a key position (along with kami and Buddha worship) in
a state ideology that was articulated in the Seventeen Injunctions of
604. Most of these injunctions are studded with Confucian words and
phrases enjoining officials (even priestly ones) to honor their superiors
and perform duties in a loyal and efficient manner. As is clearly stated
in the Confucian Classics (on which instruction in the ancient university
system was based), any lower-ranking person (whether son, official,
vassal, or imperial subject) was obligated to obey his higherranking
superior. Thus any leader's control was increased - and
priestism was made an even more active field of cultural energy - by
teachings that ensured obedience from those standing on lower rungs
of the aristocratic ladder.
Priestism became an even more dynamic force because of the increasingly
strong hold that Japan's military code (bushido) had on the
hearts and minds of vassals and lords throughout a feudal age that
emerged around the twelfth century and lasted until the nineteenth.
Grounded in Confucian principles revised to place a vassal's loyalty to
his lord above a son's obedience (filial piety) to his father, bushido was
consistently upheld and glorified in literary tales, dramatic productions,
and school books focused on military values. After the seventeenth
century, the authority of a feudal lord (daimyo) was further
strengthened by Neo-Confucian philosophy. A lord's position had already
been reinforced by appointments received directly or indirectly
from the emperor (the highest kami priest in the land), by prestige
gained from his generous patronage of both kami shrines and Buddhist
temples, by the stewardship of land yielding income appropriate
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l6 INTRODUCTION
to his particular niche in the feudal order, and by vassal subservience
engendered by bushido ethics. But now his status was ideologically
justified by officially endorsed Neo-Confucian principles.
Priestism - the influence of charismatic leaders throughout society continues
to leave its imprint on inferior-superior relationships in
present-day Japan. American anthropologists recognize the influence
of bushido ethics within Japan's working class,*1
and the distinguished
Japanese anthropologist Nakane Chie has drawn attention to
"vertical relationships" in the whole of Japanese society.*2
The power
of the bushido tradition is also implicitly noted in the popular generalization
that "bossism" (oyakobun) is prevalent in most Japanese institutions.
Even foreign vistors are surprised at the authority of Japanese
leaders and the deference shown by followers. This is seen in such
nontraditional organizations as Christian churches, international business
firms, and radical student movements. The effects of priestism
can likewise be detected in Japan's Liberal Democratic party, which
has retained control of the Diet for most of the years since World War
II. The party is made up of cliques headed by charismatic leaders who
hold their positions indefinitely, even a scandal is not likely to dislodge
them. Thus priestism - deeply rooted in ancient religious beliefs
and practices and continuously nourished by military ideals and
Confucian ethics - has become a powerful and enduring field of cultural
energy, a paradigm that helps the historian see and assess the
importance of charismatic leadership in all areas of Japanese life,
especially in ancient times.
Particularism
Another paradigm, referred to here as particularism, stands poles apart
from the universalism of such world religions as Buddhism and Christianity.
Particularism revolves about the consistent and enduring belief
that every kami (whether of the folk or tutelary variety) bestows divine
blessings on its particular community in accordance with that community's
particular needs.
At the core of this paradigm lies the old and lasting belief that every
kami (even though invisible) resides in one particular sacred object (a
31 Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1946), pp. 43-75.
32 Nakane Chie, Tateshakai no ningen kankei (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1967).
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TOWARD A HOLISTIC APPROACH \J
kami body or shintai) located at one particular place." This belief
permeates the worship of folk kami (without formal shrines) as well as
the worship of tutelary kami who guard all living creatures within
clearly defined areas around their particular shrines. The shintai of a
folk kami is commonly an interesting rock or tree, but that of a tutelary
kami is usually something more grand: a nearby mountain, a
strategic offshore island, a mysterious jewel (magatama), an exotic
mirror, a bronze sword or bell, a famous statue, or a scroll painted by a
distinguished calligrapher. But whatever it may be, it is a valued symbol
of special importance to the community residing in that particular
place.
The particularity of kami worship is further highlighted by the
sacredness of land near or around a shintai. The sacred area of a folk
kami may extend to points no more than a few feet from its shintai, but
around the shintai of a tutelary kami it is more extensive, including (i)
the clearly marked grounds of the shrine where the shintai has been
placed and (2) the clearly marked area outside the shrine where members
of the community live. The former, always more sacred, is set
apart from the community's land by a sacred fence. One can usually
spot a shrine from some distance because it is normally surrounded by
an unspoiled growth of trees where one finds a kami gate (torn or
"bird-perching" [places]) made of two pillars topped by two beams.
The sacredness of shrine grounds is disclosed, first of all, by the
special care given to preventing contamination by death-connected
pollution (tsumi). Anyone entering the grounds is sure to be impressed
by its neatness and cleanliness and to become aware of gradations of
sacredness (particularity) determined by proximity to the shintai.
When moving from the torii at the entrance and approaching the kami
hall (shinden) at the rear where the shintai has been placed, a person
passes through increasingly sacred points in space before reaching a
spot beyond which only a high priest may proceed.
The space occupied by the community around the grounds of a
shrine is also sacred because of the age-old belief that all people,
animals, and plants living there are guarded by one particular tutelary
kami. Although villagers have always believed that their kami dis-
33 The nature and power of this paradigm were the subject of a paper presented at the First
(1965) International Conference on Shinto Studies held in Claremont, Calif., by Delmer M.
Brown, "Particularism of Shinto," Proceedings (in Japanese), pp. 9-16. Cultural implications
were considered in a lecture delivered by him at the International Christian University in
Tokyo, "Shintoism and Japanese Society," pp. 51-67.
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l8 INTRODUCTION
penses its blessings (if treated properly) to any living creature within
the village limits, they generally assume that their kami's blessings will
not be bestowed on anyone or anything outside the village. Ancient
myths reveal that clan boundaries, in some cases at least, were guarded
by certain kami, but no one seems to have believed (with notable
modern exceptions**) that any kami ever exercised its divine power
outside its particular area.
Territorial particularity emerged in ancient times at three geographical
levels: the village, the region, and the state. The oldest and
most basic kami-guarded territory has always been the village. Its
emergence - after the introduction and spread of wet-rice agriculture
and the use of iron approximately three centuries before the time of
Christ - came when farmers in the neighborhood of a common
source of water relied on one kami to protect them against droughts,
storms, epidemics, and predatory neighbors. Then a second level
appeared as civilization progressed: when clans worshiping their own
clan kami came to control a number of contiguous villages in a single
region. Clan chieftains (ujigami) not only administered clan affairs
but also functioned as the chief priests in the worship of clan kami,
administering (like the heads of subject villages) both secular and
sacral affairs. A clan chieftain did not stamp out the religious beliefs
and practices of conquered villages but insisted that his authority be
recognized and ritually affirmed by everyone in his domain.
The third level was reached when one powerful clan gained control
over other clans and set up first a clan federation and then the centralized
Yamato kingdom in central Japan. The dominant clan chieftain
(referred to in Yamato times as the "great king" or okimi) treated his
subject clans (and their clan kami) in the same way that clan chieftains
had treated villages and village kami at the second level. Thus a
funnel-shaped territorial order had appeared, one that - from a commoner's
point of view - extended upward and outward from the village
below to the region and kingdom above.
Although early kami beliefs and practices changed considerably
through the centuries, arising from interaction not only with worship
34 Although the Tsubaki Grand Shrine (see n. 29) is a very old tutelary shrine, a branch was
established in Stockton, California, in 1987, far from the particular area long guarded by
Sarutahiko. The chief priest of the Tsubaki Grand Shrine, Yamamoto Yukitaka, is clearly
aware that there has been a sharp break with tradition, as revealed in his statement that "[the
way of kami] is now taking us on new pathways that Shinto has never trod before. . . . Let us
join hands and hearts in the way of Kami, the way the divine in the universe has given us to
discover, and realize the highest and best of which mankind is capable - a world of peace,
truth, justice, and freedom." See Yukitaka Yamamoto, Kami no michi: Way of Kami (Stockton,
Calif.: Tsubaki American Publications, 1987), pp. 60, 101.
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TOWARD A HOLISTIC APPROACH 19
at different levels but also with imported faiths, the effects of spatial
particularity at these three different levels persist. No matter where an
individual believer (ujiko) lives, he or she still participates in village,
regional, and national festivals. Participation does not depend on conversion
to one kami or another but rather on the location of the believer's
residence.
Particularism is also manifested in the old and enduring belief that
each kami - whether of the folk or tutelary variety and whether worshiped
by a village, region, or state - exercises its mysterious power in
response to the needs of its particular community of believers. This
helps one understand why the prayers, rituals, and myths of a fishing
village differ from those of a farming village and why even the believers
of neighboring agricultural villages - facing differences of terrain,
soil, and weather - worship their kami in different ways. As new
needs arose in later times, kami beliefs and practices were altered
accordingly, and more quickly in the upper layers of society. After the
introduction of Buddhism and Confucianism in the sixth century, for
example, native kami beliefs, intermingled with imported faiths, continued
as the basic ingredient of an ideology serving to unify and
integrate the state, a process moving downward in society. In medieval
times, too, the worship of kami (especially the ancestral kami of military
clans) was used to unite feudal domains, although the ideology of
that day was deeply colored by Confucian principles, military values,
and Buddhist "reformation" teachings. Before World War II, ancient
myths and rituals of shrines honoring the ancestral kami of the imperial
clan (the Sun Goddess) became sources of strength for governmental
attempts to reinforce and popularize loyalty to the country's particularly
sacred and unique emperor. It was therefore through and around
kami symbols, myths, and beliefs that an intense identity, referred to
in those years as ultranationalism, was generated.
The postwar constitution, however, separated politics from religion,
making it illegal for the state to use kami beliefs for stirring up feelings
of loyalty to Japan's particular emperor and "nation body" (kokutai).
Moreover, secularization - fed by spectacular economic growth, a new
educational emphasis on universal values, and an "internationalization"
that draws attention away from what is uniquely Japanese - has induced
some Japanese to say that their country no longer needs an emperor
and to deny that they have any special interest in their country's
particular religious tradition. But centuries of stressing the uniqueness
of groups, especially those that have their own tutelary kami (the village,
the clan, and the state), has left a legacy of "groupism" that is
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2O INTRODUCTION
recognized and studied by scholars in various disciplines. Doi Takeo (a
psychiatrist) developed the thesis that dependence (amae) is vitally important
to understanding the Japanese mentality;** Nakamura Hajime
(a Buddhist historian studying Eastern ways of thinking) wrote that the
way that Japanese think is marked by "the tendency to emphasize a
limited social nexus";'6
Nakane Chie (an anthropologist) emphasized
the importance of placeness (ba) in Japanese society;" and Yamamoto
Shichihei (a commentator) claimed that whenever Japanese people assemble
for a specific purpose, nothing gets done unless they turn themselves
into "a virtual blood-kin group."38
Anyone trying to analyze any
aspect of modern-day Japanese life thus is likely to conclude that this
cultural phenomenon - associated with "groupism" but identified here
as particularism - must be taken into account.
The three paradigms discussed here, and others not yet worked out,
are useful for historical analysis, as they represent relatively stable
fields of cultural energy (physical and spiritual) that have shaped and
colored Japanese life from ancient times to the present. By recognizing
their power and realizing that each has been strengthened by interaction
with the other two, we obtain models that help us measure the
depth of historical currents, the rapidity of their flow, and the extent
to which they intermingle.
GREAT WAVES OF CHANGE
The results of research in several disciplines, carried out from broad
perspectives and based on rigorous analyses of Japanese experience as
a whole, make it possible to see four massive waves of change that
swept over Japan, fundamentally altering the character of life after the
introduction of agricultural and metallurgical techniques in the third
century B.C. The remainder of this Introduction will therefore attempt
to show, briefly and incompletely, how secular and sacred sources of
energy interactively account for these four waves or historical periods.
The full impact of the interlocking forces that produced these waves
can not be seen or imagined without first gaining some sense of how
35 Doi Takeo, The Anatomy of Dependence, trans. John Bester (Tokyo: Kodansha International,
1971), P- 17-
36 Nakamura Hajime, Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples: India-China-Tibet-Japan, revised
English trans. Philip P. Weiner (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1964), pp. 407-530.
37 Chie Nakane, Japanese Society (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1970), pp. 1-22.
38 Quoted in Jared Taylor, Shadows of the Rising Sun: A Critical View of the "Japanese Miracle"
(New York: Morrow, 1983), p. 72.
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GREAT WAVES OF CHANGE 21
relatively stagnant and primitive life was in earlier years. During the
first ninety thousand years of the stone age, only small ripples were
caused by the invention and use of more effective stone tools and
weapons. After about 7500 B.C., somewhat bigger ripples were made
by the manufacture and use of clay pots for storing and cooking food.
But throughout that very long preagricultural age, human life continued
to be sustained almost exclusively byfishing,hunting, and gathering
wild nuts and fruit. People then had no iron tools for acquiring and
preparing food, no knowledge of writing and reading, no ruling class,
and very little social differentiation. Only after they had learned how
to grow rice in flooded fields and to use iron tools and weapons did
they move rapidly toward civilization. This volume is therefore devoted
largely to the tag end of Japan's ancient past: to the millennium
known as the "ancient age" that began around 300 B.C. and ended with
the removal of the capital from Nara in A.D. 784. (See Chronology in
front pages of this volume.)
Yayoi ferment (ca. 300 B.C. to A.D. 250)
The late but rather abrupt spread of rice-growing and iron-making
techniques released economic, military, and religious energy that produced
the first great wave of change: the six centuries of ferment
known as the Yayoi period. Archaeologists have uncovered three major
types of evidence for the study of life in these years: (1) pottery
(Yayoi is the name of the place in Tokyo where pots of that period were
first found), (2) burial remains, and (3) bronze implements and remnants
of iron tools and weapons (see Chapters 1 and 5).
Realizing that improved methods of producing food and fending off
enemies made Yayoi life radically different, historians have long wondered
why the new techniques reached Japan at that particular time.
Okazaki points out in Chapter 5 that by the fourth century B.C.,
Chinese generals were commanding soldiers equipped with iron weapons
enabling them to establish China's first empire (the Ch'in) in 221
B.C. The dynastic history of the Former Han (206 B.C. to A.D. 8)
reports that a lord of northern China invaded Korea in the early years
of that dynasty, set up a kingdom in Korea that soon expanded his
control to most of the peninsula, and also introduced agriculture, silk
weaving, and law. But archaeologists have found evidence of rice production
in Korea much earlier than that (around 1000 B.C.) and of the
use of iron weapons as early as the fourth century B.C. Nevertheless,
studies in various fields leave little doubt that around 300 B.C. Korea
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22 INTRODUCTION
was subjected to a "continuous penetration of Chinese political, military,
and economic power" and that by 108 B.C. it was dominated by
three Chinese commanderies (Lo-lang, Chen-fan, and Lin-t'un).^ A
Chinese cultural explosion followed by aftershocks in surrounding
states thus opened channels for the flow of advanced agricultural and
metalworking techniques to lands as far east and north as Japan.
The rather sudden spread of these techniques to the Japanese islands
has long been attributed to Korean immigrants, but no agreement
has been reached on the timing, size, and makeup of the migrations.
Suzuki Hisashi's postwar studies of skeletal remains led him to
conclude that the Yayoi people - who had a larger physical stature that
he thought was due to improved living conditions - were Jomon descendants,
not Korean immigrants. The latest explanation, however,
is that it was Korean immigrants who brought new farming and
toolmaking methods to Japan, that these immigrants were leaders of
remarkable Yayoi development, that descendants of earlier Jomon people
adopted the new methods, and that as time passed the two people
were gradually fused.4°
Three early Chinese references to Japan indicate that the introduction
of agriculture and the use of metal was followed by extremely
rapid social change. The first reference is a brief note in the dynastic
history of the Former Han stating that "the Japanese people (the
Wajiri) are located in the Lo-lang seas, have more than ioo states, and
are periodically received [at the Lo-lang court]." The second, dated
A.D. 57 and included in the dynastic history of the Later Han (A.D. 25-
220), tells about a gold seal being presented to the king of the Japanese
state of Na. The third is a surprisingly detailed description of a
Yamatai kingdom that had more than seventy thousand households
ruled by hereditary queens and kings. This can be found in the history
of Wei (A.D. 221-65) compiled by a man who died in A.D. 297.4I
The first of these reports suggests that kingdoms strong enough to
send missions to Lo-lang in Korea had appeared in Japan before the
time of Christ, a conclusion weakened, however, by uncertainty as to
whether the wajin were residents of southern Korea or Japan. Suzuki
Yasutami is inclined to think that the wajin lived in both places and
39 Ki-baik Lee, A New History of Korea, trans. Edward W. Wagner with Edward J. Shultz
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984), pp. 14-16.
40 Yoshie, Rekishi no akebono, pp. 48-51.
41 The last two references to Japan in early Chinese dynastic histories were translated into
English by Ryusaku Tsunoda and L. Carrington Goodrich, Japan in the Chinese Dynastic
Histories (South Pasadena, Calif.: P. D. and lone Perkins, 1951), pp. 1-6.
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GREAT WAVES OF CHANGE 23
that other Koreans had migrated to Japan in those early years of the
Yayoi period.'*2
The second report shows that a kingdom sufficiently powerful to
send missions to China had emerged in Kyushu by the first century
A.D. The veracity of this report has been corroborated by the discovery,
in Kyushu, of a gold seal thought to be the very one mentioned in
the dynastic history of the Later Han. It was found on the island of
Shiga (in the present-day city of Fukuoka) in 1784, more than seventeen
hundred years after its reported presentation. On the seal are
inscribed Chinese characters that read: "[From] Han [to the] king of
Na." For the last two hundred years Japanese scholars have debated
the seal's authenticity, questioning especially the name of the king's
"country." Many think it was Na, but others favor Yamato. A consensus
seems to have emerged that the seal really was made in China, that
Han emperors customarily presented such seals to kings whose territories
were located beyond the empire's borders, and that some Japanese
kingdom was in contact with the Chinese court during the middle
years of the Yayoi period.«
Three different reasons are given for the seal's burial. First, it was
hidden after an invasion by a neighboring kingdom. Second, it was
buried in a dolmen (shisekibo) with the body of a deceased Na king.
Third, it was buried as a sacred treasure of the island's shrine (the
Shiga no Umi jinja). Naoki Kojiro finds weaknesses in each theory and
proposes the following set of probabilities: (1) After the seal had been
received by the king of Na, civil war broke out and the seal fell into the
hands of a chieftain based on the island of Shiga; (2) with the passage
of some time, Na came under the control of a kingdom bordering on
the Genkai Sea; and (3) because the seal's function as a symbol of Na
authority was lost, it was made a sacred object of worship (shintai) at
the Shiga no Umi Shrine and was buried in the ground for safekeeping.**
Most scholars agree or assume that the seal symbolized the
secular and sacral dimensions of a leader's authority.
Thousands of Yayoi period bronzes (mirrors, spears, swords, and
42 Suzuki Yasutami, "Ajia shominzoku no kokka keisei to Yamato oken," in Hara Hidesaburo
and Sato Sojun, eds., Genshi kodai, vol. 1 of Koza: Nihon rekishi (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku
shuppankai, 1984), pp. 205-10; and Gari Ledyard, "Galloping Along with the Horse-Riders:
Looking for the Founders of Japan," Journal ofJapanese Studies 1 (1975): 217-54.
43 Naoki Kojiro, Wakoku no tanjo, vol. 1 of Nihon no rekishi (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1973), pp. 225-
30. A similar seal was granted to the king of Tien in 109 B.C., and this too was discovered by
archaeologists. See Yu Ying-shih, "Han foreign relations," in Denis Twitchett and Michael
Loewe, eds., The Ch'in and Han Empires. 221 B.C. -A.D. 220, vol. 1 ofThe Cambridge History
of China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 459.
44 Naoki, Wakoku no tanjo, p. 227.
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24 INTRODUCTION
bells) made in China, or patterned after those that were, have been
found at sites in widely scattered regions of Japan. These bronzes were
acquired, it is thought, by religiopolitical rulers (kings) who valued
them as symbols of their power. Studies of the dating and distribution
of bronzes have enabled historians to see the outlines of change in
Japan's early relations with continental courts, to trace the course of
political centralization, and to appreciate a continuing preoccupation
with sacral authority. (See Map 1.2, Chapter 1.)
Although some of the early bronzes may have been used as weapons
(especially the swords called ka), most seem to have had little or no
practical value. The mirrors might have been used to see what could
not be seen directly, but the discovery that the backs of many were
well worn suggests that they had been hung around the necks of
ritualists (shamans) as symbols of their mysterious power. Such an
interpretation is consistent with the prominence of mirrors in later
imperial myths and with the confirmed fact that the sacred object of
worship (the shintai) at Japan's leading shrine (Ise) is a bronze mirror.
The symbolic character of bronze weapons is also underscored by the
observation that many are too big and clumsy for effective use as
weapons. Furthermore, the bronze bells often had no clappers, suggesting
that they were not valued as articles that could make marvelous
sounds.«
The distribution of Chinese bronzes found in Yayoi sites presents this
puzzling question: Why was no bronze bell included among the three
sacred imperial symbols (a mirror, a sword, and a jewel) of Yamato, the
kingdom that arose in central Japan where bronze bells have been
found? For years, archaeologists have realized that Japan of the Yayoi
period had two distinct cultural spheres: one in the west where large
numbers of bronze mirrors and weapons were accumulated, and another
in central and eastern regions where bronze bells were prized.*6
It
is surmised that the two spheres were linked with the continent differently:
that whereas kingdoms in the west were in touch with China and
Korea through ports located along the shores of Japan's southern island
of Kyushu, those in the north and east were in contact with the mainland
through ports along the Japan Sea, probably as far north and east as
the Noto peninsula. Because the predecessors of the Yamato kings had
45 Naoki has written an excellent summary of the distribution and dating of Yayoi graves and
ceremonial bronzes: See his "Haka to matsuri seidoki," in Wakoku no lanjo, pp. 174-205.
46 For a map showing the distribution of Yayoi bronzes, see Nihon rekishi chizu supplementary
vol., of Rekishi daijiten henshu iinkai, ed., Nihon rekishi daijiten (Tokyo: Kawade shobo
shinsha, 1986), map 5, insert 2.
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GREAT WAVES OF CHANGE 25
come from the west (as ancient myths proclaim), they may well have
favored mirrors, swords, and spears - not bronze bells.
Obviously iron ore was needed for making agricultural tools and
military weapons but neither written accounts nor archaeological finds
tell us much about the importation of ore. Yoshie Akio's sociological
study of ancient Japan led him to write that toward the end of the
second century A.D., Yamatai had achieved supremacy over some
thirty kingdoms by controlling access to Korean ore*7
But Yoshie did
not have enough evidence to be specific about the nature and volume
of iron imports. The large number of iron tools and weapons excavated
from Yayoi sites, the near absence of iron ore on the islands of
Japan, and references to iron imports in later Yamato times (see Chapter
2) suggest that Yamatai's interest in Korea was based on a continuing
demand for iron ore.
What sorts of things did the Japanese send to continental courts in
the Yayoi years to obtain valued bronzes and needed iron ore? Possibly
Chinese and Korean rulers were so pleased to receive tributary missions
from distant lands that they willingly handed over whatever was
requested, even if the envoys submitted only token tribute. But a
Chinese reference found in the history of the Later Han dynasty
(dated A.D. 107) reports that the Japanese sent 160 prisoners of war
(seiko) as tribute. Realizing that prisoners of war were commonly
treated as slaves, Tsunoda Ryusaku rendered seiko as "slaves" when
translating this passage into English.48
Again, we do not have enough
evidence for more than a hazy notion of how many prisoners of war (or
slaves) the Japanese sent to China in Yayoi times, but it is assumed that
tribute of this sort made it easier for the Japanese to acquire the bronze
implements and iron ore they wanted. Although 160 is a surprisingly
large number of seiko to be sent by a single mission, Naoki Kojiro
concluded that Japanese military conquests, at home or abroad, did
not produce a great number of prisoners and that Japan had not developed
a slave system nearly as extensive as that of ancient Greece or
Rome.«
The formation of the Yamatai federation of kingdoms has long been
identified with a centralization process that led, a few centuries later,
to the birth of the Japanese state. But only in recent times have scholars
used comparative studies in the sociology of religion to see deeper
meaning in the following reference to Queen Himiko of Yamatai, a
47 Yoshie, Rekishi no akebono, pp. 63-73.
48 Tsunoda and Goodrich, Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 2.
49 Naoki, Wakoku no tanjo, p. 230.
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26 INTRODUCTION
paragraph found in the aforementioned Chinese account of the third
century A.D.:
For a number of years, there was no ruler. Then a woman named Himiko
appeared. Remaining unmarried, she occupied herself with magic and sorcery
and bewitched the populace. Thereupon they placed her on the throne.
She kept one thousand female attendants, but few people saw her. There was
only one man who was in charge of her wardrobe and meals and [he] acted as
the medium of communication. She resided in a palace surrounded by towers
and stockade[s], with the protection of armed guards.'0
Whereas earlier historians tended to think of Queen Himiko as a
shaman who had delegated the handling of secular affairs to a male
relative, recent scholars - noting strong evidence of magic practices in
the earlier Jomon period, and symbolizations of secular and sacral
authority in the Yamato and post-Yamato periods - have come to see
her practice of "magic and sorcery" as highlighting the spiritual side of
Japanese sovereignty.
Relating this historical view of Yamatai rulership to the distribution
and character of ceremonial items found in Yayoi graves, Yoshie decides
that Yamatai (whether this federation of kingdoms was located in
Kyushu or central Japan is not yet clear51
) had been established and
maintained principally by the ceremonial power of priestly rulers, not
by the physical power of armies and material possessions. He deduced
that each kingdom within Yamatai was a community held together by
common magic beliefs and practices and that a priestly ruler had
delegated military and administrative tasks to one or more assistants.
Although there apparently was a distinction between religious and
administrative affairs, Yoshie believes that conflicts between kingdoms
could have been resolved only by a king or queen who functioned as a
conductor of magic rites.52
50 Tsunoda and Goodrich, Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, pp. 2-3.
51 J. E. Kidder reports that recent archaeological finds at Yoshinogari in Kyushu are being used
by some historians to support the claim that Yamatai was located in that area, not in central
Japan. Excavations made during the last three years reveal that Yoshinogari is the largest
Yayoi site ever found and that it was occupied for the longest period of time. A rather big
house surrounded by a moat stands among three hundred pit dwellings. More than two
thousand jar burials were found, mostly outside the moat. One Chinese-style mounded tomb
about two meters high was found somewhat apart from the other burials; it probably was for a
deceased leader. Two bronze daggers and three bronze-mirror fragments were also uncovered.
But the village is judged to have reached the peak of its development in the first
century A.D., a century or two earlier than the dates given in Chinese reports on Yamatai.
Kidder does not feel that these finds weaken his own conclusion that Yamatai was located in
central Japan; see report of a paper delivered by J. Edward Kidder at a meeting of the Asiatic
Society of Japan, Bulletin of the Asiatic Society ofJapan, no. 2 (February 1990): 3-6.
52 Yoshie, Rekishi no akebono, p. 70.
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GREAT WAVES OF CHANGE 27
The Yamato state (ca. A.D. 2SO to 587)
The beginning of the second great wave of historical change is associated
with the rise of the kingdom of Yamato in central Japan during
the third century A.D. Enjoying the fruits of greater agricultural production
and closer contact with strong Korean kingdoms, one Yamato
ruler after another enjoyed enough power and wealth to erect a massive
burial mound (an "ancient mound" or kofun) for his deceased
predecessor, usually a father or brother. These impressive burials,
together with hundreds of other mounds built for lesser lights, have
led historians to refer to these three Yamato centuries as the Burial
Mound period.
Although this was a time of spectacular economic growth and political
centralization, officials of the Yamato state did not keep written
records until the very end of the period. Consequently, these centuries
have long been thought of as a rather misty segment of Japan's ancient
past. But in recent years archaeologists have unearthed vast amounts
of data on Yamato life. By correlating this with archaeological finds in
Korea and China, examining what was written about Japan in contemporary
Chinese and Korean accounts, and attempting to disentangle
myth from the historical facts recorded in Japan's earliest chronicles,
scholars of different disciplines are beginning to make out the general
outlines of Yamato history. They are now beginning to understand
how active foreign relations, greater agricultural productivity, overwhelming
military might, and changing forms of kami worship interacted
with one another at successive stages of Yamato vigor, expansion,
and disruption (see Chapter 2).
Having obtained unmistakable evidence that a strong Yamato state
did arise in central Japan during the third century A.D., historians are
now asking why this state - much larger and stronger than Yamatai should
have come into existence at that particular time and place.
Research by Tsude Hiroshi53 and others supports the conclusion that
this was made possible by an enormous increase in the production of
rice. Improved methods of keeping fields flooded during the growing
season of the year was then spreading rapidly into areas with alluvial
soil, first on the Nara plain and then in outlying regions, and dryfield
farming was being developed.J4
The greater production of food at the beginning of the Yamato
period seems to have been largely due to the efforts and methods of
53 See Tsude, "Noko shakai no keisei," pp. 117-58. 54 Yoshie, Rekishi no akebono, p. 84.
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28 INTRODUCTION
Korean immigrants. As Yoshie notes, relations with China and Korea
were then quite different. In the previous Yayoi period, they had been
limited largely to the exchange of envoys and gifts, but in Yamato
times they were extended to migrations from, and a wider range of
contacts with, strong and independent Korean kingdoms: Koguryo,
Paekche, and Silla. Culturally, Yamatai may have lagged two or three
centuries behind contemporary Korean Kingdoms, but Yamato seems
to have been as strong as Paekche or Silla.55
The sudden spurt of agricultural production at the start of the
Yamato period was paralleled by greater military and political control
over land and people in remote regions of Japan and by the emergence
of more complex social institutions. Deceased rulers were then buried
in huge keyhole-shape mounds surrounded by small mounds for underlings,
and large residences for village chiefs were encircled by huts
for commoners. The entire social order was becoming stratified and
segmented by (i) lineal groups or clans (uji) that dominated the lands
and people of entire regions, (2) occupational groups (be) that served
clan chieftains and the kingdom's rulers by performing services and
manufacturing tools and weapons, (3) royal estates {miyake) that
handed over a large portion of what they produced to the current
Yamato king or queen, and (4) provinces (kuni) and districts (agata)
that served as arms of Yamato control. The leaders of all these groups
held hereditary ranks (kurai) and titles (kabane) that were marks of
status determined by proximity to the Yamato ruler (see Chapter 2).
As in other kingdoms located on the periphery of advanced cultural
centers of the world, the bottom of Yamato society was rather sharply
separated from its top. The former consisted mainly of farmers descended
from Yayoi period immigrants, whereas the latter were descendants
of nonagricultural specialists who had arrived from the continent
in Yamato times. Yoshie points out that the thrust of the two
types of foreign influence not only affected life differently over time
but also ran through Japanese society in opposite directions: Yayoi
period influence, flowing from the spread of imported agricultural and
metalworking techniques, moved upward from the base of society,
transforming the whole of Yayoi life, but Yamato period influence,
centered on imported administrative and military ideas and institutional
forms, radiated downward from the top of society, leaving its
deepest marks on the life of the elite.56
Yoshie observes, in addition, two different modes of control. The
55 Ibid., pp. 80-83, 94- 56 Ibid., pp. 73~76.
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GREAT WAVES OF CHANGE 29
first, a ceremonial mode, was commonly used by local village heads
throughout the Yayoi and Yamato periods. The second, a secular
mode, was utilized by Yamato kings and queens. Although leaders at
both social levels performed ceremonial as well as secular functions,
those at the bottom of society exercised their control mainly, in both
the Yayoi and Yamato periods, as priests and priestesses who, standing
between their communities and their community kami, were primarily
agents of kami will and blessing. This ceremonial mode, emerging
early and lasting a long time at the village level, was dominant even in
the rule of Queen Himiko of Yamatai, as is indicated in the contemporary
Chinese account just quoted.
A king of the later Yamato period, on the other hand, seems to have
controlled affairs largely through the exercise of physical (military,
economic, and political) power. This secular mode is most clearly seen
in the fifth-century reign of King Nintoku, who was buried in Japan's
largest and most impressive tomb and whose reign is known for its
remarkable expansion of control, successful military campaigns to distant
regions, and showy diplomatic missions to China. During these
years, the secular mode of control seems to have worked its way down
to the village level, as is suggested by the archaeological discovery that
pit (tateana) houses for commoners were being gradually replaced by
vertical (suichoku) houses built above the ground.5? Greater material
prosperity at the base of society surely made village heads less dependent
on the flow of power from popular belief in the village kami.
But Yamato rulers relied on sacral as well as secular modes of control.
Even though their military power, material wealth, and political
control were spectacular, they still used proportionately large amounts
of material and labor to build huge mounds for the burial of deceased
predecessors, paid close attention to rites performed at shrines in their
hegemonic spheres, and associated themselves with making or revising
myths that would sanctify a kami hierarchy headed by their own
ancestral kami. Such activity leaves little doubt that the Yamato kings
and queens were attempting to sanctify their positions as hereditary
agents of the country's most powerful kami.
Soga no Umako's decision not to occupy the throne after emerging
victorious from the civil war of 587 - even though he surely knew
that successful Chinese rebels had founded new imperial dynasties suggests
that he was well aware of the tradition by which only a
direct descendant of Japan's single line of priestly kings was entitled
57 Ibid., p. 90.
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30 INTRODUCTION
to enthronement, and of the fact that he was head of an immigrant
clan associated with the worship of a foreign faith. Nevertheless, two
offspring of Soga women were placed on the throne soon after the
Soga victory: Emperor Sushun (son of Soga no Iname's daughter) in
588 and Empress Suiko (daughter of another Iname daughter) in 593.
These arrangements indicate that Umako thought it best to have this
control sanctified by following the ancient gaiseki tradition of exercising
power as an in-law-relative of the emperor or empress, not by
placing himself on the throne.
Century of reform (587 to JIO)
Soga no Umako's military victory of 587 was followed by a ground
swell of reforms manifested in the enactment of a Chinese-style code of
administrative and penal law (the Taiho code) in 701 and the occupation
of a grand Chinese-style capital at Heijo (now Nara) in 710. The
changes wrought in this century were so rapid and wide-ranging that
one is tempted to compare them with reforms that were coupled with
the modernization of Japan in the nineteenth century. When trying to
understand the post-587 reforms, we notice first that they were
adopted at a time when channels of contact with the continent were
suddenly opened by two explosive events: the unification of the Chinese
empire by the Sui dynasty in 589 and the founding of the T'ang
dynasty in 618; and the seizure of control over Japanese state affairs by
an immigrant clan, the Soga.
The wave of change that followed was fundamentally different from
what had come at the beginning of earlier periods. In Yayoi times,
society had been transformed by the introduction of techniques for
growing rice and making iron tools and weapons and, in the Yamato
years, by a burst of economic and political power generated by sudden
increases in agricultural production and the use of new techniques for
expanding and maintaining political control. But what made change in
the so-called century of reform explosive was the introduction and
rapid spread of Chinese high culture: Chinese religious beliefs (Taoism
and Buddhism), Chinese ethical teachings (Confucianism), Chinese
artistic styles (painting and sculpture), Chinese literary tastes (poetry
and history), Chinese architecture (Horyu-ji), and Chinese law (ritsuryo
codes).
Buddhism was probably the most important of the several interactive
elements of Chinese high culture. After this "world religion"
received governmental backing in 587, Buddhist priests and temples
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GREAT WAVES OF CHANGE 31
became agents of a continuous flow of cultural imports that produced
what is known as the Asuka enlightenment. The importance of contributions
of Buddhist priests and temples to the enlightenment becomes
clear when studying developments at three great temple compounds
erected after the Soga seizure of control. These were the Asuka-dera
built by Soga no Umako (d. 626) and the Shitenno-ji and H6ryu-ji said
to have been founded by Prince Shotoku (574-622). Forty-three other
temple compounds were reportedly erected before 624. All these Buddhist
institutions - staffed by hundreds of priests and nuns trained in
the teachings, symbolism, and arts of Chinese Buddhism - were channels
for an outpouring of Chinese cultural influence that deeply colored
the religious, political, and social life of the Japanese people.
Commentaries on three Buddhist sutras said to have been written by
Prince Shotoku show that some Japanese were then serious students of
Buddhist scripture and may well have been committed to the practice
of Buddhist precepts. But a number of scholars believe that Buddha
was then treated like a native kami and that most Buddhist rituals
were forms of magic performed mainly for the benefit of patron clans.
Indeed, the linkage of temple compound to clan chieftain accounts for
the tendency to describe pre-645 Buddhist institutions as clan temples
(ujidera) and to see that they were valued primarily for their impressive
symbolizations of clan authority.
Whereas the immigrant clans were the principal founders and patrons
of Buddhist temples, the native clans - more closely affiliated
with the current emperor or empress than were the immigrant
clans - apparently continued to obtain and exercise sacral authority
as conductors of kami ritual. This polarity between the Buddhaworshiping
foreign clans and the kami-worshiping native ones has
been clouded somewhat by what early chronicles say about the Buddhist
activities of Prince Shotoku and Empress Suiko. Reports of the
prince's deep involvement in the study and practice of the foreign
faith certainly undergird his fame as the father of Japanese Buddhism.
But supporters of the polarity thesis cannot help but wonder
whether chronicle sources, the extant versions of which were compiled
after the Soga had been ejected from their seats of power in
645, did not exaggerate the prince's support of Buddhism and neglect
the belief that an emperor was, above all, the land's highest
kami priest.
Feeling that the prince was acting and thinking like a person slated
for enthronement, some historians have concluded that the prince
propounded an ideology of Japanese sovereignty that made a ruler the
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32 INTRODUCTION
high priest of kami worship and also the chief patron of Buddhism.
Outlines of such an ideology, reinforced with Confucian principles,
come down to us in the Seventeen Injunctions of 604, which may have
been compiled by the prince himself. Although the Soga chieftains saw
advantages in having their control sanctioned by an empress who was
the high priestess of kami worship, they were apparently unwilling to
share Buddhist patronage with the imperial clan. Accordingly, the
enthronement of Prince Shotoku's son was opposed by Soga leaders
after the death of Empress Suiko in 628 and again after the death of
Emperor Jomei in 641. Only when the Soga were ousted in 645 was the
emperor placed high above the practitioners of both faiths, becoming
the chief patron of Buddhism and continuing as the high priest of
kami worship.
Imperial edicts issued immediately after the coup of 645 state that a
Japanese sovereign should perform both spiritual roles, just as Prince
Shotoku had advocated. Connections between the Great Reforms of
645 and the Seventeen Injunctions of 604 are disclosed in the report
that when ministers of the new administration were assembled and
asked to swear an oath of allegiance to Emperor Kotoku, their oath's
first sentence carried the same message found in Article 3 of the earlier
injunctions: "Just as heaven overspreads and earth upholds, there is
only one imperial way."*8
Threatened by an expanding Chinese empire that was allied with
the increasingly strong Korean kingdom of Silla, the reformers moved
quickly to strengthen imperial control over both sacral and secular
affairs. In addition to following the Chinese practice of reinforcing
imperial authority with an ideological mix of three elements (in Japan
the three were kami worship [Shintoism], Buddhism, and Confucianism),
they moved to increase the emperor's physical power. Article 1
of the famous Four-Article Edict, issued on the first day of the first
month of 646, called for direct imperial control of the country's land
and people. The three other articles dealt with arrangements that
gradually transformed the old clan order into a Chinese-like state
system administered by officials appointed by, and made responsible
to, the emperor.59
For about four years, these reformers were actively engaged in erecting
a strong imperial state along Chinese lines. But much of their
energy and resources was spent on extensive military preparations
58 Nihon shoki Taika I (645) 6/19, NKBT 68.270-1; and Nihon shoki Suiko 12 (604) 1/1, NKBT
68.181-4; Aston, 2.197 and 2.129.
59 Nihon shoki Taika 2 (646) 1/1, NKBT 68.280-3; Aston 2.209-9.
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GREAT WAVES OF CHANGE 33
against a possible T'ang invasion of Japan. Allied with the Korean
kingdom of Silla, the Chinese did plan to destroy Paekche, the Korean
kingdom with which Japan had had close ties. As early as 651, some
Japanese officials advocated preparations for war against Silla; in 653
the crown prince (the future Emperor Tenji) left a new imperial palace
at Naniwa on the Inland Sea for a safer place in the region of Asuka; in
658 the Arima incident erupted over a succession dispute and disagreement
about how to deal with the Korean problem; in 660 T'ang and
Silla jointly attacked Paekche, capturing Paekche's capital and forcing
its king to surrender; in 663 a Japanese naval force, said to be made up
of four hundred ships sent to support a Paekche restoration movement,
was virtually wiped out; and in 668 the state of Koguryo (like
Paekche) was subjugated by the combined forces of T'ang and Silla.
Some members of Japan's imperial court, convinced that Japan was
the next kingdom slated for conquest, pressed the government to
strengthen defenses against invasion. And feverish attention was given
to erecting forts all the way from islands off the western shore of
Kyushu to mountains near the capital in central Japan (see Chapter 3).
Meanwhile officials were also giving close attention to plans for
building a strong bureaucratic state (empire) modeled on that of T'ang
China. In 667 the capital was moved from Asuka to a more defensible
position at Otsu on the southwestern shore of Lake Biwa, and in 668
an imperial order called for the compilation of a Chinese-style code of
administrative law (ryo). The death of Emperor Tenji in 671 was followed
by a bitter succession dispute that led to the civil war of 672 (the
Jinshin no ran) from which Tenji's brother Temmu emerged victor
and emperor. Historians are inclined to agree that Temmu enjoyed far
greater control than Tenji did, a conclusion based on the observation
that whereas Tenji had been supported by a number of strong clans,
Temmu was backed by smaller clans in outlying regions. Because no
clan or clan group was sufficiently strong to influence court decisions
after Temmu's time, control by occupants of the throne after 672 was
not seriously threatened until the middle of the eighth century.
Temmu and his immediate successors were therefore gradually able to
weaken the old "clan-title system" (ujikabane seido) and to set up a
"legal system" (ritsuryo set) similar to that of T'ang China.60
As Temmu and his immediate successors chipped away at the clans'
independence, they made many clan leaders contented officials of the
60 Modern scholars also refer to it as a despotic "imperial system" (tenno set). For an outline of
the bureaucratic structure created by the Taiho code promulgated in 702, see Chapter 4.
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34 INTRODUCTION
new bureaucratic order. Chieftains selected for appointments were
expected not only to carry out their secular duties but also to perform
priestly functions in an emerging shrine system. Major ceremonies at
clan shrines were beginning to take on the form of imperial rites held
at the time of a Daijosai, customarily celebrated after 691 whenever a
new emperor or empress was (and is) enthroned.61
Interdependence between a sovereign's secular and sacral functions
was made eminently clear by the state's new administrative structure
in which two great councils of roughly equal status were placed directly
under the emperor: the Council of State (Daijokan) that handled
secular affairs, and the Council of Kami Affairs (Jingikan) that presided
over kami affairs. The former was made up of eight ministries
(Central Affairs, Personnel, Civil Affairs, Popular Affairs, War, Justice,
Treasury, and the Imperial Household), and the latter was made
responsible for appointing and promoting priests, making decisions on
the form and content of kami rites, and establishing standards for
offerings made at different shrines at successive times of the year.
Buddhist affairs, the second wing of Japan's bifurcated religious system,
were not assigned to a separate council but to a Bureau of Buddhist
Priests and Aliens (Gemba-ryo) within the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
Why were Buddhist affairs relegated to a bureau within one ofthe ministries
and kami affairs not? Late-seventh-century reformers undoubtedly
felt, in spite of increasing official support for Buddhist temples, that
kami worship was the stronger arm of the two-winged religious system.
They were undoubtedly aware that the conduct ofkami rites had always
been a basic function of Japanese sovereigns and that the position of
every new sovereign was ritually sanctified and justified by affirmations
ofdirect descent from thehighest-ranking kami ofthe land. They apparently
understood that the contemporary phrase "unity of ritual and politics"
(saisei ittchi62
) expressed a basic concept of Japanese sovereignty.
61 A classic study is that by D. C. Holtom TheJapanese Enthronement Ceremonies with an Account
of the Imperial Regalia, 2nd ed. (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1972). Three more recent
studies are Robert S. Ellwood's The Feast of Kingship: Accession Ceremonies in Ancient Japan
(Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1973); Mayumi Tsunetada's Daijosai (Tokyo: Kokusho
kankokai, 1988); and Felicia G. Bock's "The Enthronement Rites: The Text of the Engishiki,
927," Monumenta Nipponica 45 (Autumn 1990): 307-37.
62 The first character (sai) in the word saisei ("ritual and politics") is the sinified equivalent of
the old Japanese word matsungoto. References to matsurigoto in ancient chronicles and documents
lead scholars to conclude that it meant something like "the doings of the divine,"
suggesting that all activities, but especially those of leaders, were thought of as human
responses to kami power and will. In pairing "ritual" (sai or matsurigoto) with "politics" (set),
Japanese officials were articulating a separation of the two, at least when thinking about
imperial rule. But by adding the two characters for "unity," they were saying that political
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GREAT WAVES OF CHANGE 35
The reformers seem also to have understood that Buddhism was
more foreign and secular than kami worship, that Buddhism had not
received open and direct support from the throne until the middle of
the seventh century, and that many Buddhist priests - particularly
those who had studied for years in China - were influential specialists
on Chinese bureaucratic forms and procedures. The Bureau of Buddhist
Affairs and Aliens was therefore placed alongside the Bureau for
Court Music (Gagaku-ryo) in the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Although
located on the secular side of the bureaucratic structure, both bureaus
added "poetic" reinforcement to imperial rule.
Just before the close of the century of reform, Japan's first Chinesestyle
capital was built at Fujiwara. This was a far more impressive
symbol of imperial power than were earlier bronze weapons, huge
burial mounds, or grand palaces. Like the Chinese capital at Ch'ang-an,
Fujiwara had north-south avenues intersected by east-west ones to
form wards (bo) that were the city's major geographical and administrative
units. As in China, wards located in the middle of the northern side
were set aside for an imperial palace compound. Archaeological investigations
at Fujiwara reveal that its layout was similar to that of Ch'ang-an
and that its principal buildings were constructed with stone foundations
and tile roofs in the Chinese fashion. Even provincial and district centers
were Chinese in appearance. The emergence of this unusual capital
system was surely meant to display power and majesty to foreign
envoys - especially those arriving from the Korean kingdom of Silla and
to bearers of tribute from outlying areas of Japan.
The sacred character of Fujiwara was enhanced by the construction
of imperial mounds directly south of the imperial palace, on
what Hayakawa refers to as a "sacred line." The mound placed closest
to the palace was for the burial of Emperor Temmu who died in
686. (The ashes of Empress Jito, Tenji's daughter and Temmu's
empress, were deposited in that same tomb after her death in 702.)
Then a second mound was built farther south on that "sacred line"
for the ashes of Emperor Mommu, whose death came in 707.6
* Such
activities, too, must be thought of as responses to kami will and power. This concept of the
oneness of religion and politics has continued down to modern times. (Its effects on the ideas
of present-day leaders is a subject of much debate and disagreement.) All major political
change in ancient times, as well as in later periods of history, has therefore been characteristically
bound up with appropriate religious change: new kami names and conceptions, new or
rebuilt shrines at politically appropriate places, and revised rites and prayers. Therefore saisei
ittchi underscores the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of understanding either political or
religious history apart from interaction between the two.
63 Hayakawa Shohachi, Ritsuryo kokka, vol. 4 of Nihon no rekishi (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1974),
P-99Cambridge
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36 INTRODUCTION
a precise geographical relationship between capital and mounds suggest
that the court was consciously attempting to further sanctify
imperial rule by a visual linkage between these two particularly impressive
imperial symbols.
The same objective is detected in the placement of the Fujiwara
capital beside the great Middle Road which, along with two parallel
roads, ran directly south to the Sacred Mountain (Mt. Miwa). The
men who planned the new capital were undoubtedly influenced by the
fact that many important kami preferred to reside on nearby mountain
peaks. The Fujiwara emperors, it was assumed, should be guarded by
the most powerful kami of that particular area,64
just as the earlier
Yamato kings had been associated with the worship of kami residing
on neighboring mountains (see Chapter 2).
The awesomeness of the Fujiwara capital as a sacred center of religious
and political authority was further enhanced by two great Buddhist
temples: the Great Official Temple (Daikan daiji) and the Healing
Buddha Temple (Yakushi-ji). The former had emerged first as a
Buddhist hall built by Prince Shotoku in 617 and was later handed
over to an imperial prince subsequently enthroned as Emperor Jomei.
In 674 Emperor Temmu had the temple moved to the Takaichi District
and named it the Great Official Temple. Finally, it was moved by
Empress Jito to Fujiwara where, from a position southeast of the
imperial palace, it was made responsible for Buddhist masses (ho-e)
and prayers (kito) for the benefit of the state.
The Healing Buddha Temple, on the other hand, traces its origins
back to 680 when Temmu ordered the founding of a temple as a prayer
for the recovery of his ailing principal empress, the woman who succeeded
him on the throne in 686 as Empress Jito. At the time of
Temmu's death, no decision had been reached as to where this new
temple should be built, suggesting that the empress had recovered and
no longer needed the healing Buddha's assistance. But after Temmu's
death, Jito selected a location southwest of the imperial palace and in
697 the temple's sacred object of worship (a great statue of the healing
Buddha) was dedicated. These two great temples, with their grand
statues and pagodas, added even greater luster to Japan's first Chinesestyle
capital, a truly sacred center of imperial rule. They also provided
additional evidence of Japan's preoccupation with both spiritual and
physical sources of authority.
64 See Senda Minoru, "Tojo senchi no keikan wo mini," in Kishi Hideo, comp., Tojo no seitai,
vol. 9 of Nihon no kodai (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1987), pp. 115-46.
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GREAT WAVES OF CHANGE 37
The Nara period (710 to 784)
A new capital was erected at Nara (then Heijo) in 710, the beginning of
a truly glorious time in the history of ancient Japan. The period did
not begin with the seizure of control by individuals who then turned
political and economic history in new directions, as at the start of the
previous century of reform, but with the construction of a grand
capital that was the center of remarkable cultural achievement for
more than seventy years. Historical accounts of the period usually
drew attention to similarities between Nara and Ch'ang-an (the capital
of China after the rise of the T'ang dynasty in 618) and to connections
with the previous Japanese capital at Fujiwara. Emphasis is also placed
on the emergence of a bureaucratic order based on laws of Chinese
origin and character (see Chapter 4), on the erection of great Buddha
temple complexes headed by the T6dai-ji and its great statue of
Rushana Buddha (see Chapter 7), on the organization of an intricate
and effective revenue-collecting system set up along Chinese lines (see
Chapter 8), and on the rise of political disturbances in the closing years
of the period when an empress twice occupied the throne (see Chapters
4 and 10). Each of these developments left its mark on much of
what was built, made, and written in the remarkable Nara period.
But a closer look at Nara grandeur suggests that a truer picture can be
drawn by noting the period's startling cultural achievements (see Chapter
9). Evidence of its surprising architectural advances can still be seen
in the remains of Buddhist temples and imperial palaces erected at Nara
and local administrative centers;6
5 of artistic creativity in the statues
and paintings preserved at Buddhist temples;66
of musical innovation
and improved living conditions in the instruments, furniture, and
clothes of Emperor Shomu deposited in the Shoso-in;6
? and of new
intellectual vigor revealed in several chronicles and gazetteers,68
two
65 Results of recent archaeological investigations are discussed in Naoki Kojiro, ed., Kodai wo
kangaeru Nara (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1985), pp. 223-51.
66 Minoru Ooka, Temples of Nara and Their Art, and Tsuyoshi Kobayashi, Nara Buddhist Art:
Todai-ji, vols. 7 and 5 of The Heibonsha Survey of Japanese Art (New York and Tokyo:
WeatherhiU/Heibonsha, 1975).
67 This famous storehouse contains over ten thousand items. See Ryoichi Hayashi, The Silk
Road and the Shoso-in, vol. 6 of The Heibonsha Survey ofJapanese Art (New York and Tokyo:
Weatherhill/Heibonsha, 1975).
68 The first two chronicles (the Kojiki completed in 712 and the Nikon skoki in 720) are
discussed in Chapter 9. The third (the Shoku Nihongi) covering the period from 697 to 791
was presented to Emperor Kwammu in 797 (see n. 2). The gazetteers, which were submitted
by the several provinces in response to an imperial order issued in 713, supply geographical
information, details about provincial products, and local legends. All of the one received from
Izumo (compiled in 733) has been preserved and was translated with notes by Atsuhara Sakai,
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38 INTRODUCTION
anthologies,69
some twelve hundred documents stored in the Shoso-
in,70
a large number of printed mystic formulas (darani) inserted in
small wooden pagodas,?1
thousands of memos written on wooden tablets
(mokkan),72
and hundreds of epitaphs carved in stone and wood.
With such a wealth of historical evidence and deep and widespread
interest in Japan's ancient past, hundreds of scholars specializing in
one or another area of Nara period history have written thousands of
books and articles that help clarify our picture of Japanese life more
than twelve hundred years ago. They have also shed light on such
knotty interpretative questions as the following.
/. How do we account for such cultural achievement in Nara times? This
achievement was not simply a Nara period phenomenon, for most
major developments of the period had antecedents running back at
least to the Great Reforms of 645. It is likely, moreover, that the
destruction of historical evidence during and after the upheaval of that
year left pre-645 achievement in the dark. The Nihon shoki, in an item
for the thirteenth day of the sixth month of 645, reports that
when Soga no Emishi and those allied with him were crushed on the 13th day
[of this month], the imperial chronicles, the provincial chronicles, and [other]
valuable articles were completely burned. [But] Esakai Fune no Fubito
"The Izumo Fudoki or Records of Customs and Land of Izumo," Cultural Nippon 9 (1941):
141-95, vol. 3 (1941) (missing), and vol. 4 (1941): 108-49. Only fragments from those of four
other provinces (Hitachi, Harima, Bungo, and Hizen) remain. What is left of the Hitachi
report was translated with notes by Atsuhara Sakai, "The Hitachi Fudoki or Records of
Customs and Land of Hitachi," Cultural Nippon 8 (1940): i45-85;vol. 3(1940): 109-56, and
vol. 4(1940): 137-86.
69 These were the Kaifu-so (a collection of Chinese poems compiled in 751) and the Man'yoshu (a
collection of approximately 4,500 Japanese waka thought to have been compiled by Otomo
no Yakamochi, who died in 785). Both works are discussed in Chapter 9 of this volume.
70 These include valuable information not found in the Shoku Nihongi and deal mainly with the
building and operation of the Todai-ji. The documents were used by Joan R. Piggott for her
research on "T6dai-ji and the Nara Imperium."
71 In 770 Empress Shotoku ordered miniature wooden pagodas made - and darani placed in
each one of them - for presentation to the major Buddhist temples in and around the capital.
The purpose was to pacify the souls of those who had perished in the Fujiwara no Nakamaro
uprising of 764. Several of the pagodas, measuring about nine inches high and three and a
half inches across the base, are among the holdings of the Kyoto National Museum. The
darani found in them were once thought to be the world's oldest extant printings, but Denis
Twitchett has informed me that archaeologists have found a similar darani in Korea, confidently
dating it 751 or before. Because the printed characters include forms invented during
the days of Empress Wu, Twitchett deduced that they could not have been printed before
about 693 (letter from Twitchett to Brown, May 23, 1990).
72 A few of these tablets date back to the last half of the seventh century, but some twenty
thousand were written in Nara times. Most were attached to goods submitted in payments of
taxes (cho and yd") or as offerings (ni-e).
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GREAT WAVES OF CHANGE 39
rushed in, seized the burning provincial chronicles, and presented them to
Prince Naka no Oe."
Historians conclude that the chronicles referred to here were those
that, according to an earlier entry in the Nihon shoki, had been compiled
by Prince Shotoku (574-622) and Soga no Umako (d. 626) in
620.74
Umako would logically have favored the inclusion of anything
underscoring Soga connections with the imperial line or adding glory
to the Soga record. Leaders of the anti-Soga coup of 645, on the other
hand, would certainly have been displeased with any pro-Soga bias.
We cannot help but reason, therefore, that it was the victors, not the
defeated Soga, who engineered the burning. We have no idea of what
or how much was burned, but Japan's later cultural achievement
probably would not seem so amazing if we could now read chronicles
written before 645.
And yet what is preserved of Nara culture is still impressive, leading
Denis Twitchett to ask how a largely illiterate society suddenly developed
enough literate people to make the ritsuryo state function.7
* One
decisive factor, it seems to me, was the Japanese response to an expansive
T'ang empire that, in alliance with the Korean kingdom of Silla,
destroyed two other Korean kingdoms (Paekche and Koguryo) in the
660s. Convinced that Japan, too, would be attacked, officials of the
post-645 government first strengthened military defenses in the Inland
Sea and then pressed for change on all fronts that would transform
Japan into a powerful Chinese-style empire. When urging these diverse
and interlocking enterprises, the reform leaders had not only the
advice and assistance of Japanese individuals who had spent several
years in China but also the services of hundreds of literate and knowledgeable
refugees from the defeated kingdoms of Paekche and
Koguryo. Soon after arriving in Japan, many received appointments to
positions of great responsibility in their fields of expertise, including
high posts in an emerging statewide educational system. The contributions
made by Korean refugees certainly hastened the cultural developments
for which Nara has become justly famous, reminding us that the
rapid advances made by Japan during those years were not unlike
those made after Commodore Matthew C. Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay
more than a millennium later. In both cases the Japanese felt threatened
by foreign powers and responded by adopting an array of reforms
73 Nihon shoki Kogyoku 4 (645) 4/13, NKBT 68.264; Aston, 2.193.
74 Nihon shoki Suiko 28 (620), NKBT 68.203; Aston, 2.148.
75 Letter from Twitchett to Brown, May 13, 1990.
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40 INTRODUCTION
needed to strengthen their state. The years that followed both periods
of foreign danger were times of amazing cultural achievement.
2. Why was a new capital built at Nara? Until a few years ago, historians
tended to assume that Empress Gemmei (661-721) - who was on
the throne at the time - had simply decided to build a larger and more
grand capital than Fujiwara, one more nearly like the Ch'ang-an of
China. Nara did become three times the size of Fujiwara, but not
nearly as large as Ch'ang-an. However, it is now generally agreed that
Gemmei's principal reason for wanting a new capital was to carry out
the wishes of her son Emperor Mommu (683-707), the previous occupant
of the throne who had ordered in 697 that a search be made for a
proper capital site. Although Mommu may have wanted his own reign
sanctified by a new Chinese-style capital, the timing and circumstances
of the decree suggest that he, like his grandfather Temmu, was
influenced by the ancient belief that his imperial son and heir should
reign at a new capital.
The view that both Fujiwara and Nara were built for the next male
occupant of the throne has caused historians to question the common
assumption that Fujiwara and Nara were intended to be permanent
capitals, an assumption seemingly supported by the fact that three
sovereigns reigned in Fujiwara and seven at Nara. But more recent
historical study suggests that in both cases the capital builders were
motivated by the desire to erect a new capital for a male successor.
This conclusion is reinforced by a new interpretation of a sentence
found in Gemmei's rescript of 707: "I ascended the throne in accordance
with a general law established by Emperor Tenji, a law that
must not be altered for as long as heaven and earth exist and the sun
and moon revolve about the globe."76
Ever since the time of Motoori
Norinaga, scholars have assumed that Gemmei was referring to a law
incorporated in Tenji's administrative code. But because no such law
was included in the later Taiho and Yoro codes, the view is now
questioned and a new one advanced: that Gemmei was referring to a
Chinese principle endorsed by Tenji that an emperor should always be
succeeded by his eldest son.n Tenji must have used this principle to
justify his wish to be succeeded by his eldest son Prince Otomo and
not by his brother the crown prince who, following his victory in the
civil war of 672, was enthroned as Emperor Temmu. Now it is thought
76 Shoku Nihongi Keiun 4 (704) 7/17, KT sec. 1, 3.31.
77 See Hayakawa, Ritsuryo kokka, pp. 135-6.
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GREAT WAVES OF CHANGE 41
Jomei (35) 1 Kogyoku (36)
I—1—Tenji (39)—'—Temmu (40)—1—Jito (41)
Shiki Prince Otomo
Kusakabe—r—Gemmei (43)
Gensho (44) ' Mommu (42) 1—- (Fujiwara
Lady)
K6nin(49)--
Komyo 1 Shomu (45)
Deposed
grandson
of Emperor
•-(Takano Koken (46) Temmu (47)
Lady) Shotoku (48)
Kwammu (50)
Figure I.i. Break in imperial line. Temmu's enthronement after 672
was followed by eight reigns of men and women who were his descendants,
but in 770 a Tenji grandson (Konin) was enthroned. Dashed
line indicates spousal relationship; solid line, offspring. (Reign numbers
are in parentheses, as recorded in the Gukansho chronology; see
Brown and Ishida, trans., The Future and the Past, pp. 264-78.)
that Gemmei was stressing the correctness and permanence of the
same law and for the same reason: to sanctify the enthronement of an
imperial son. Just as Fujiwara had been built by Temmu for his son
Prince Kusakabe, Nara seems to have been for Mommu's son Shomu,
who was Temmu's grandson (see Figure I.i).
The theory that the two capitals were erected for imperial heirs has
been clouded by circumstances surrounding the reigns of three empresses:
that of Jito (645-702), who was enthroned after the death of
her spouse (Temmu) in 686, and those of Gemmei and Gensho, whose
reigns followed the early death of their son and brother (Mommu) in
707. As Hayakawa pointed out, all three had an interim character:
They came when an empress was trying to carry out the wishes of her
deceased spouse, son, or brother (previous occupants of the throne)
regarding such important matters as succession and capital building.
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42 INTRODUCTION
Empress Jito's reign certainly had such a character. She attempted to
complete Temmu's plan to have law codes compiled and to have his
grandson succeed her. The interim character of the next two reigns by
empresses is also clear, but different. Unlike all previous reigning
empresses, neither had been the spouse of a deceased occupant of the
throne. But Gemmei was Mommu's mother and Gensho his elder
sister. Evidence that both were trying to carry out Mommu's wish to
be succeeded by his son Shomu, plus the new interpretation of what
Gemmei meant when she cited "the general law of Emperor Tenji,"
support the view that when ordering the construction of the Nara
capital Gemmei was intent on fulfilling Mommu's wish to have his
eldest son (Shomu) rule from a new "sacred center."
3. Why did Shomu have the capital moved four times between 740 and
74S? Unlike his father Mommu, Shomu did not order, as far as we
know, a search for a propitious site on which to build a new capital for
his male successor. This may have been because his two-year-old male
heir by a Fujiwara daughter (Empress Komyo) died in 728. Within the
following year, Komyo was promoted to principal empress (kogo), a
position that entitled her to follow her husband to the throne. But it is
felt that no new capital or palace was planned for her. Possibly Shomu
intended that the last of his four new capitals (the one erected beside
the old one in Nara) would be for his daughter Koken, who did reside
there during her two reigns, first after 749 as Empress Koken and
again after 757 as Empress Shotoku. But in the absence of documentary
evidence as to what motivated Shomu to build four new capitals
within five years, historians are now inclined to think that not one was
for the next male occupant of the throne.
What, then, led Shomu to undertake four such expensive building
projects during thosefiveyears? Naoki Kojiro surmises that each decision
to move the capital was connected with a shift in clan influence at
court (see Map 4.2). The first was to an area of Tachibana strength
(Kuni), the second to Fujiwara territory (Shigaraki), and the third to a
place (Naniwa) favored by more than one clan (see Chapter 4).
Hayakawa Shohachi and others wonder, however, whether the court
was not then swayed by the Chinese view that the empire should have
more than one capital. The T'ang emperors had capitals in east and
north China as well as at Ch'ang-an, and two of Shomu's capital moves
(to Shigaraki and Naniwa) were to palaces (miya), not capitals (kyo).7
*
78 Ibid., pp. 263-7.
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GREAT WAVES OF CHANGE 43
But specialists are now inclined to think, on the basis of both historical
and archaeological evidence, that all four capitals were constructed in a
rather desperate attempt to obtain a larger measure of divine assistance
for the emperor's troubled imperium.
Just a few months before the move to Kuni in 740, Shomu faced a
rebellion led by a high-ranking member of the Fujiwara clan, Fujiwara
no Hirotsugu (d. 740) who was Empress Komyo's nephew. Origins of
the rebellion can be traced back to the smallpox epidemic of 735-7,
which had resulted in the death of four high-ranking Fujiwara officials.
Thenceforth Fujiwara clansmen were overshadowed by a clique
headed by Tachibana no Moroe (684-757). Several Fujiwara men,
including Hirotsugu, were transferred (demoted) to posts in distant
provinces. Eventually, Hirotsugu decided that Fujiwara fortunes
could be restored only by military action. But his rebellion failed.
Four days after Hirotsugu's defeat and capture, Shomu made an imperial
visit to Ise Shrine, where the Sun Goddess (the ancestral kami of
the imperial clan) is still worshiped. We do not know precisely why he
went to this rather distant shrine at that particular time, but current
circumstances suggest that he wished to ask the Sun Goddess for
protection and assistance. Instead of returning directly to Nara from
Ise, Shomu proceeded to Kuni in the province of Yamashiro and, early
in the following year, reported to Ise that the capital had been moved
to Kuni.
The building of a palace at Shigaraki in 742 was also connected with
endeavors by Shomu to obtain spiritual protection and assistance, this
time from a Buddhist deity (Rushana) rather than from his ancestral
kami. In the tenth month of that year Shomu ordered the erection of a
great Rushana statue (fifty-two feet high) at Shigaraki, a statue that
was to become, after the work was moved to Nara, the centerpiece of a
statewide Buddhist temple system. Shomu's grandfather Temmu had
already taken steps to create such a temple system, and apparently for
the same reason, but in the chaotic aftermath of the epidemic, construction
was stepped up. In 737 - the year in which the four high
Fujiwara officials died of smallpox - Shomu handed down an edict
that two guardian Buddhist statues, and copies of a chapter of the
Great Wisdom Sutra, be sent to each provincial temple. Then in 740 at
about the time of the Hirotsugu rebellion but before Shomu sent his
message to Ise - he ordered the distribution of ten more chapters of
the same sutra. And in 741 - after the rebellion had been quashed but
before the move to Shigaraki had been made - Shomu handed down a
rescript in which he referred to the provincial temples as institutions
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44 INTRODUCTION
"for the protection [of the empire by the divine power] of the Four
Heavenly Kings of the Golden Light Sutra" and stated that these
temples were meant "to protect the country against all calamity, prevent
sorrow and pestilence, and cause the hearts of the people to be
filled with joy."79
A linkage between the building of a new capital at Nara in 745 and
the making of the Rushana Buddha is suggested first by the fact that
work on the statue was shifted from Shigaraki to Nara as soon as
Shomu decided to move the capital to the new Nara site. A further
connection between the building of capitals and of temples has been
revealed by archaeologists who find that the Todai-ji, standing at the
heart of the emerging statewide temple system in which the great
Rushana statue was the principal object of worship, was built within
the very area set aside for the new Nara capital. Historians are therefore
inclined to think that Shomu's major reason for building four new
capitals between 740 and 745, as well as for making a great Buddha
statue and founding the Todai-ji, was to make certain that he and his
imperial state received a greater measure of divine protection and
assistance.
4. What were the state's major policy objectives during the reigns of
Shomu's daughter? An imperial rescript issued immediately after the
enthronement of Empress Koken (718-70) in 749 announced the adoption
of a new era name: Heavenly Peace and Victorious Buddhism
(Tempyo Shoho). A study of what was done and written during the
next two decades indicates that this really was a time when serious and
continuous attention was given to the preservation of peace and the
support of Buddhism. Peace was not preserved, but Buddhist priests
and temples enjoyed more state support then than at any other time in
Japanese history.
Three years after Koken ascended the throne, the great Rushana
statue was dedicated, and in that same year (752) the Todai-ji was
granted income from five thousand households in thirty-eight provinces
to cover building and operating costs. Two years later a distinguished
Chinese priest named Ganjin (688-763) arrived and, shortly
afterward, conducted ordination rites for both the empress and her
imperial father. But the high point of Buddhist patronage came during
Koken's second reign when the priest Dokyo (d. 772) (thought to have
been the empress's lover) was awarded higher offices and titles than
79 Shoku Nihongi Tempyo 12 (741) 3/24, KT 3.163-4.
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GREAT WAVES OF CHANGE 45
had ever before been held by a commoner. Decades of such generous
backing made Japan something like a Buddhist state. So these years
might well have been referred to as a time of Victorious Buddhism.
But it was hardly a time of Heavenly Peace. Economic difficulties
following the terrible epidemic of 735-37 and the Hirotsugu rebellion
of 740 were exacerbated by heavy demands for labor and materials
needed to complete ambitious building projects. These included not
only four new capitals but also the great Saidai-ji (the western counterpart
of the Tddai-ji) and various provincial temples. While Empress
Koken (named Shotoku during her second reign) was trying to direct
the spiritual power of Buddha to the protection of the state and making
certain that kami prayers were offered up and cosmological harmony
maintained, the country was being torn by internal strife that
led to the civil war of 764. The imperial forces won. But the empress
died in 770, and after her death, the Fujiwara-led opposition managed
the appointment of a successor who was descended from Emperor
Tenji (not Temmu), as well as the exile of Dokyo. Fourteen years later
the capital was moved to places outside Nara, bringing the great Nara
period to a close. Thus Koken had not simply failed to maintain
Heavenly Peace but also to have a Temmu descendant follow her on
the throne, allowing a break in an imperial line of descent that had
lasted for nearly a century (see Figure I.i).
5. What was the nature of the conflict between Koken and Nakamaro? In
attempting to understand the essential nature of the strife that plagued
Japan during the final years of the Nara period, scholars readily see a
bitter and continuing conflict between two opposing groups: one
headed by the empress and her beloved Dokyo and another by Fujiwara
no Nakamaro (706-64). Some are inclined to think of the conflict
as one between an empress group committed to enhancing the throne's
spiritual authority through the worship of Buddha and an aristocrat
group steeped in the tradition that a Japanese sovereign was, above all,
the highest priest or priestess of kami worship.
Such a view seems to attach undue importance to Dokyo as a Buddhist
leader. He was not the official spokesman for the Buddhist priesthood.
His influence was based almost exclusively on his close association
with the empress, not on unified Buddhist backing. Moreover,
the empress seems to have realized that the legitimacy of her imperial
position was rooted in the belief that she and her predecessors were
descendants of the Sun Goddess (see Chapter 10). Finally, we see no
strong signs of anti-Buddhist feeling among Fujiwara opponents.
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46 INTRODUCTION
A more tenable theory is now advanced: that the two opposing
groups were divided over the issue of whether a Japanese sovereign
should assume direct control of state affairs, as in China, or should
function mainly as a high priest or priestess of kami worship, as in preTemmu
Japan. Emperor Temmu and his descendants who occupied
the throne until the time of Koken's death in 770 did try to handle
state affairs directly, issuing imperial edicts (setnmyd) when dealing
with such crucial matters as designating an imperial heir, appointing
ministers, and enacting new administrative codes. Both Empress
Koken and her mother Empress Komyo were obviously drawn to the
autocratic style of China's famous Empress Wu.
Fujiwara no Nakamaro and his followers, on the other hand, favored
the pre-Temmu practice of having a sovereign devote his attention
mainly to ritual, and delegate the handling of secular affairs to an
imperial in-law who was also head of the country's most powerful clan
(a gaiseki or "in-law" clan). Rule of this type had been firmly established
as early as the fifth century, and the Soga-dominated state affairs
as a gaiseki clan between 589 and 645. Following the Soga defeat in
645, the Fujiwara clan enjoyed more influence than did any other
nonimperial clan, but it did not have gaiseki status, largely because
Temmu and his successors were assuming responsibility for both secular
and sacral affairs of state. Even so, several Fujiwara men received
high ministerial appointments, and in 727 one Fujiwara lady (Komyo)
was promoted to the position of principal empress. But after the death
of four high-ranking Fujiwara officials in the smallpox epidemic of
735-37 and the demise of Komyo in 760, Fujiwara no Nakamaro and
his followers became convinced that under the autocratic rule of Empress
Koken (then reigning as Empress Shotoku), Fujiwara fortunes
could be improved only by resorting to the use of armed force. So
troops were mobilized and sent into action known as the Nakamaro
rebellion of 764. Nakamaro was defeated, but the Fujiwara retained
enough power to have Koken succeeded by a descendant of Emperor
Tenji (not of Emperor Temmu), to send Dokyo into exile, and to
arrange the appointment of several Fujiwara leaders to ministerial
posts.
By making sure that Koken would not be succeeded by a prince of
the Temmu line, Fujiwara leaders generated another great wave of
change that submerged the old imperial order and washed up a powerful
Fujiwara system of control. Ever since the Great Reforms of 645,
emperors had wielded both secular and sacral control, but after 770
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GREAT WAVES OF CHANGE 47
their sway over secular matters was sharply reduced, leaving them
with little more than priestly functions. On the other hand, Fujiwara
ministers began to take responsibility for such mundane matters as
mobilizing troops, collecting taxes, and making political appointments.
This shift of secular control from emperors to Fujiwara officials
was intertwined with at least three subcurrents of great historical
significance. The first was the building of an impressive new capital
at Heian, which became Japan's "sacred center" for an indefinite
number of reigns, not for just the next emperor. The second was the
creation of new bureaucratic arrangements - often involving the use
of old offices in new ways - that permits one to conclude that the
Nara period ritsutyo order was beginning to look more and more like a
Fujiwara-dominated bureaucracy. And the third was the building of
two Buddhist temple complexes - one on Mt. Hiei for temples of the
Tendai sect and another on Mt. Koya for the Shingon sect - that
enjoyed vast landholdings protected by their own Buddhist soldiers
(sohet) and that, in continuous interaction with the priestly emperors
and Fujiwara clansmen, shaped and colored aristocratic culture
throughout the following Heian period (794-1180).
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CHAPTER 1
THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
Japan's oldest extant chronicles, the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki, describe
the trek of Kamu-yamato-ihare-biko no Mikoto from south
Kyushu to the Yamato plain accompanied by hand-chosen clan (uji)
heads. He is referred to by later historians as the first emperor, posthumously
called Jimmu. At every step he was opposed by well-entrenched
people whose conquest often required ingenuity and guile. The degree
of their decimation seems to have been determined by the degree of
their physical abnormality. For the bulk of his adversaries, the killing of
their chiefs was all that was needed to bring them into line. But in
extreme cases, such as the Tsuchigumo (earth spiders) who were people
too primitive even to have responsible chiefs, pockets had to be eliminated
by a process that was not completed until at least the time of the
ruler Keikd, sometime in the fourth century A.D. When the physical
and social differences were too great, it seems that assimilation was
inconceivable and neighborly relations impossible.
These stories may look at first like an unnecessarily candid admission
of the presence of other peoples, as the Eight Island Country of
Japan was implicitly created for the enjoyment of the descendants of
the Sun Goddess (Amaterasu). But by stressing the existence of others,
the chosen were sharply distinguished from the undeserving, and
the Yamato people could legitimately place themselves at the top of a
scaled social ladder. The right to rule was therefore not predicated on
prior occupation or existing status but on the act of divine creation.
Beyond that there had to be proof of worthiness and a demonstration
of dependence on the counsel of native deities called kami.
What basis in truth there may be for these stories will long be
argued. There is, however, no question but that various groups existed
on the Japanese islands before one particularly powerful clan initiated
a centralization process that led to the formation of the Yamato kingdom.
The first Chinese historians to mention Japan spoke of the people
collectively as Wo (Japanese: Wa), and they implied the existence
of numerous advanced tribes or chiefdoms. These historians also de-
48
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THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN 49
scribed in some detail the largest and most prominent locality, called
Yamatai. Indeed, the Japanese certainly would not have called themselves
Wa, which apparently was a pejorative term. Local people
doubtless identified one another by the names of places and natural
features and later by occupations, in a slowly emerging self-awareness
fostered by Chinese attitudes toward their neighbors. Tribal names,
clan names, family names, and eventually personal names gradually
emerged, such as Kumaso, Emishi, Nakatomi, Imibe, and Keitai. The
pre-Yamato people discussed in this chapter were the precursors of,
and participants in, the process that led to the emergence of the Japanese
state.
When first identified by historians, ancient peoples often show little
cultural distinctiveness. Any differences must therefore be determined
by archaeological means, through types of pottery, stone tools, pit
dwellings, skeletons and burial styles, subsistence systems, and other
remaining evidence of social life. Periods are therefore marked by
typological terms for which consistency is a forlorn hope. Problems of
translation further complicate the situation. Some terms are more
useful in their Japanese form, such as Jomon and Yayoi, and others are
not, hence Paleolithic and Mesolithic. Japanese terms have emerged in
irregular fashion: Jomon is descriptive, used initially to characterize
pottery decoration, and Yayoi is a place name, although it has been
used only in this century for the area. Neither term - and Yayoi less
so - embodies diagnostic traits like those of Paleolithic and Mesolithic,
but three generations of experience have established them as
indicators of specific cultural developments. On the other hand, the
terms Old Stone Age and Preceramic have a history in Japan of only
thirty years, and Soso-ki (Subearliest) Jomon far less.
We now see the following general process of development: first,
bands roaming about rather widely; second, people using Mesolithic
inventions to ensure their survival; third, Jomon people of different
regions living a more sedentary tribal life based mainly on food gathering;
and fourth, Yayoi agricultural societies ruled by shaman chieftains
and engaged in metallurgy and other activities linked with the emergence
of social stratification. The critical agents in this process were
geography and floral-faunal resources. Throughout much of this early
period these were basic factors of change in a land that was not yet
separated from the continent by water. Long afterward, when the level
of the seas rose and the islands of Japan were formed, their development
was affected by prolonged isolation from the continent, a time of
dramatic maturation and subsequent decline of the Jomon culture.
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5O THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
Finally, increasing contact with the continent, after about 500 B.C.,
was associated with the introduction of continental rice and the emergence
of Yayoi's agricultural economy, leading directly to the times of
recorded history (see Chronology at the beginning of this volume.)
THE PRE-JOMON PERIOD
The Late Paleolithic stage (ca. 28,000-10,500 B.C.)
The Japanese islands are visible projections of the great east Asian
continental shelf. A generally accepted view sees the existence of land
bridges until about twenty thousand years ago, making the whole area
accessible to immigrants. Then increasingly warm Late Pleistocene
temperatures caused the sea to rise,floodingthe lowlands and forming
islands. Earlier land bridges and inundations had existed. Under moderating
climatic conditions, the last inundation separated the islands
from the continent and created an environment in which a distinct
insular culture began to take shape.
The progressive shaping of the Japanese islands began with the
opening of a sea passage between Yaku Island of the Osumi group and
the smaller islands of the Ryukyu chain (now the Tokara Strait), and
between Japan and Korea (the Tsushima Strait), both of which are
located over elevated parts of the continental shelf. The two straits are
now about 140 meters deep. This process occurred later in the north
where a somewhat higher segment of the continental shelf left a narrow
spit, which eventually became the Tsugaru Strait. The Soya
Strait, between Hokkaido and Sakhalin, which is 60 meters deep, is
the shallowest of all. Until it and the Bering Straits were opened, these
regions had overland routes to north Asia and North America, but
they were probably not fully opened until the beginning of the Christian
era. The longer period of contact and replenishment from north
Asian faunal sources accounts for the more northern character of Japan's
animal life.
During Middle Pleistocene times, randomly fluctuating temperatures
forced continental animals to migrate to the east, seeking more
suitable habitats. The most prominent of these were the Oriental elephants
(Stegedon orientate). Somewhat later, as the temperature rose,
they were displaced by Naumann elephants (Palaeoloxodon namadicus
naumanni) that crossed the Korean bridge. They were joined by giant
deer (Megacervus), an elklike creature from the north China plain, and
various mammoths, chiefly Mammuthus primigenius, that entered HokCambridge
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THE PRE-JOMON PERIOD 51
kaido from Siberia. Numerous bones and teeth and a few virtually
complete skeletons of elephants have been recovered from scattered
sites, mainly from the bed of the Inland Sea and, more recently, from
the marshy edge of Lake Nojiri.1
They had adapted themselves to the
changing weather and were able to survive alongside the brown bear
(Ursus arctos) and the Japanese deer (Cervus nippon).
The geology of Japan exhibits little actual glaciation during the Pleistocene
age except on the summits of the Japan Alps where the highest
peaks rise to three thousand meters and in the Hidaka Mountains in
Hokkaido where peaks are somewhat lower, up to two thousand meters.
In this last Ice Age, as atmospheric dust from considerable volcanic
activity reduced the solar radiation and kept the temperatures low, ash
was spewed out over large areas of the country, producing thick layers of
fertile soil. The Kanto Loam of the major eastern plain of Japan was
formed by substantial eruptions of the Hakone volcanoes to the south
and the Akagi volcanoes to the north. First was the Tama Loam, which
began about 350,000 years ago and was followed by three Late Pleistocene
depositions: the Shimosueyoshi, Musashino, and Tachikawa. The
Musashino Loam, or Musashino Upland, was formed at a time of cooling,
when conifers were the chief growth in the woodland areas. The
deteriorating climate forced northern wildlife, including horses and
bison, to move into this region from the loess area of north China,
entering by way of the Korean bridge. Brown bears, wolves, monkeys,
Japanese deer, and mammoths mingled with southern animals to make
this a time of extraordinary variety in Japanese fauna.
Mammoths never reached Honshu, perhaps cut off by the formation
of the Tsugaru Strait or deterred by an undesirable climate to the
south. Temperatures fell after the formation of the Musashino depositions
to about 9°C below present averages, creating subarctic conditions
at the beginning of the Tachikawa deposition, roughly 35,000
years ago. The Tachikawa Loam reached a depth of approximately five
meters, in some places over a span of around 25,000 years. The modest
conifer growth of the time consisted largely of spruce and larch.
These deposits from the Hakone volcanoes are especially well stratified
in the south Kanto plain, as the upper atmospheric winds tended
to carry the ash from successive volcanic eruptions in an easterly
direction. Gradations within this Tachikawa Loam, consisting of eight
geological layers (Layers III through X), help archaeologists recognize
the stages of cultural change. No other region of Japan provides nearly
1 Nojiri-ko hakkutsu kenkyu-kai, Nojiri-ko (Tokyo: Kyoritsu shuppan, 1975).
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52 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
as many time-depth data. It is often said that Japan lacks wellstratified
Paleolithic sites, indicating considerable mobility caused by
relatively poor environmental conditions. But this is not the case with
the Kanto plain. The cultural remains there reveal nine successive
stages of habitation, starting around thirty thousand years ago. Claims
for an even earlier occupation by Paleolithic people, such as the existence
of Lower Paleolithic life before about 35,000 B.C. at Babadan
and Zazaragi and related sites in Miyagi Prefecture could be strengthened
by more precise geological and artifactual associations, clearer
evidence that "artifacts" were manufactured, sharper technological
distinctions between "Lower" and "Upper" Paleolithic tools, and
more reliable dates for these early times.2
In 1947 an amateur archaeologist noticed stone artifacts and debris
below the usual Jomon strata in the Kanto Loam at Iwajuku in
Gumma Prefecture. By 1949 these were identified as preceramic and
eventually recognized as Paleolithic.3 At about the same time, geologists
agreed on the concurrent existence of land bridges and that the
presence of Paleolithic people in Japan was no longer unreasonable.*
Thousands of Paleolithic sites, scattered throughout the main islands,
have been found since then. Most are rather far inland, and surprisingly
few are in caves. Indeed, among the many caves known to have
been occupied in early times, only four contain Paleolithic layers, and
all of these are located on the island of Kyushu. Several rock shelters
elsewhere have yielded Paleolithic artifacts.
Despite considerable volcanic activity, the Kanto plain afforded the
most hospitable environment during the Paleolithic period. Crossed
by five major rivers (Sagami, Tama, Ara, Tone, and Kinu), fed by
innumerable springs and tributaries, adequately supplied with sources
of stone from gravel beds, sheltered by the refuge of mountains in the
distance, and blessed by a mild winter climate and mixed flora and
fauna, the Kanto plain and its foothills provided satisfactory yearround
subsistence. Protracted periods of habitation and periodic re-
2 Serizawa Chosuke, "Saiko no karyudo tachi: Kyu-sekki jidai," (in Narasaki Shoichi and
Yokoyama Koichi, eds.; Kodai-shi no hakkuisu, vol. i (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1974), pp. 97-116;
Serizawa Chosuke, "The Scone Age of Japan," Asian Perspectives 19 (1978): 10-14.
3 Sugihara Sosuke, Gumma-ken Iwajuku hakken no sekki bunka (Tokyo: Meiji daigaku kenkyusho,
1956).
4 Minato Masao, Gorai Masao, and Hunahashi Mitsuo, eds., The Geologic Development of the
Japanese Islands (Tokyo: Tsukiji shokan, 1965), pp. 349-53. Studies in the 1980s have since
questioned earlier research and raised serious doubts about the conventional dates. The thirtieth
anniversary issue of Quaternary Research: Daiyonki-kenkyu (Tokyo: Tokyo University
Daiyon-ki kenkyu kai, 1968) deals with tectonic movements, deep-sea tephras, flora and
fauna, formation of terraces and lowlands, and related topics, some of which suggest a considerably
earlier disappearance of the land links with the continent.
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THE PRE-JOMON PERIOD 53
turns to familiar sites indicate that the region was by then a suitable
place for human life.
People moved into the southern Kanto plain during its first habitable
stage around thirty thousand years ago, and despite fluctuations
in temperature, it was continuously occupied. About eight thousand
years later, there was a stage of heavier plant growth, as is revealed by
a layer of much darker soil known as Black Band II, presumably
formed when slackened volcanic activity permitted more vegetation,
creating a kind of humus. A gradual warming, about twenty thousand
years ago, fostered the growth of vegetation composed of herbs
(Scabiosa), weeds of the thistle family (Compositae), and sagebrush
(Artemisia). Grasses (Gramineae) were rampant in open spaces, and
maples (Acer) and deciduous oaks (Quercus) were on the increase.
Between about twenty thousand and thirty thousand years ago, the
temperature dropped to its coldest level, approximately 7°-8°C below
present averages, and the subalpine forest fell to three hundred to four
hundred meters lower than it is currently. Tundra grew in the mountainous
districts of north Honshu. Little bands of people left rather
coarse cultural artifacts in the lower layers of south Kanto sites, best
represented along the Nogawa stream and consisting of large, heavyduty
flake and pebble tools along with some large (and a few partially
backed) blades of irregular shape. Although most of these early tools
were made of sandstone, slate, and chert, some were of andesite and
obsidian, and a few were of agate. Agate was brought from mountains
north of the plain or from Yamanashi Prefecture.
Chunks of obsidian for making fine-edged tools were carried great
distances. Most of the material originated in the Shinshu Mountains of
Nagano Prefecture, at least 150 kilometers from the Nogawa sites, but
occasionally the material came from the Hakone Mountains 80 kilometers
away. The use of obsidian at places far from its sources suggests
that it was collected on hunting expeditions and served as an item of
trade in order to ensure a steady supply of this high-quality volcanic
glass.
The population increased noticeably between about fifteen thousand
and eighteen thousand years ago, as temperatures continued to
rise. Southern land bridges were flooded, and the population tended
to become concentrated in the best hunting and foraging areas. Oaks
were plentiful. Willows (Salix) and hackberry (Celtis) multiplied, and
shrub-sized hazel (Corylus)flourishedin many areas. Much of the
traditional big game was dying out, and the wild nuts, berries, and
other plant foods that had once been largely supplements came to be
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54 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
basic ingredients of the human diet. Greater dependence on flora
lessened the people's mobility, and striking changes were taking place.
The sites became larger and more numerous, increasing the quantity
of cultural remains.
In the southern Kanto sites, this expansion is most evident in Layer
IV. Backed blades were widely used, and projectile points were first
chipped on one side and later on both. Because greater range and
balance were demanded, bifacial points of small and refined size were
made. Clusters of unworked fist-sized stones from the river gravel
beds - many of which are fire blackened, heat reddened, and often
cracked - had appeared in all earlier occupation layers. They can now
be found in Layer IV in great numbers and are associated with signs of
cooking, including the use of heated stones for roasting meat. Recent
recognition of the significance of these stones adds to our knowledge
of Paleolithic life beyond that provided by the usual artifact debris of
camp sites.5
Major points of entry to "Japan" were widely separated from one
another: The Hokkaido bridge was far to the north, and the Korean
and Ryukyuan bridges far to the south. But the areas around the
northern bridge were too cold for human survival for long periods,
leaving the moderately temperate Korean route from north China and
the more temperate southern avenue as the major points of entry. The
earliest chopper-using people probably came in by the Korean bridge
nearly thirty thousand years ago. There can be little doubt that new
arrivals constantly appeared on the scene during the next ten thousand
years while the southern land bridge still existed. The north finally
became hospitable under warming temperatures, making Japan more
accessible from north Asia, but this did not occur until shortly before
that bridge was flooded, after which access became impossible except
by sea.
Fragmentary human bones claimed to be Paleolithic have been
found in Akashi (Hyogo Prefecture), Kuzu (Tochigi Prefecture),
Ushikawa, Mikkabi, and Hamakita (Shizuoka Prefecture), and in a
few other sites, but taken collectively they provide few data on the
physical appearance of Japan's early inhabitants. The so-called Akashi
Man was named after a 1931 discovery of a small left pelvic bone that
was destroyed in Tokyo during World War II and that is known today
only through a cast. Naora Nobuo, who found the bone, maintained a
5 J. Edward Kidder and Oda Shizuo, Nakazanya iseki (Tokyo: International Christian University
Archaeology Research Center, 1975), pp. 176-9, 204-17.
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THE PRE-JOMON PERIOD 55
Paleolithic date against almost universal opposition and proposed a
Sinanthropus relationship. He was at least partially vindicated when a
Paleolithic stage of human existence in Japan was finally proved. Although
argument over the bone itself is likely to continue, it has been
made less important by the discovery of other skeletal material with
claims of roughly equal antiquity.
The Kannon-do cave in Hiroshima Prefecture yielded a femur fragment
with a fossil antler; and the Hijiri-dake cave in Oka Prefecture
contained cranial fragments and fossil bear bones with Paleolithic artifacts,
the only case of human skeletal material being found together
with artifactual remains. The skull fragments were compared by Ogata
Tamotsu with those found in the burials of the Upper Cave at Choukou-tien
in the Peking area.6
The Mesolithic stage (ca. 10,500-7500 B.C.)
A brief and unusual drop in temperature, which caused the sea to fall
between twenty and forty meters below its present level, was followed
by a period of rapid warming (and rise in the sea level) about
twelve thousand years ago, lasting a little over two thousand years.
The subalpine forest receded quickly then, and wildlife headed for
higher and cooler altitudes, followed by their Paleolithic hunters.
Caves were sought out, perhaps because they offered relief from the
rising temperature.
Fauna were greatly depleted as land areas were sharply reduced in
size, and with their improved hunting techniques, the larger population
killed off the heavier and slower animals. Some species were
unable to adapt themselves to the warmth. Roe, musk, and giant deer,
tigers, panthers, wildcats, bison, rhinoceroses, north Asian horses,
and Naumann elephants all died out. Wolves and brown bears barely
survived. The more adaptable creatures lived to become important
sources of food for later Jomon people: Japanese deer, wild boars (Sus
leucomystax), raccoon-dogs (Myctereutes procyonoides), Tohoku hares
(Lepus brachyurus), and badgers (Meles anakuma). Before the new forests
acclimated to warmer conditions had appeared, grasses, ferns,
weeds, and other ground plants and shrubs flourished.
To the chronological divisions for the Jomon period an earlier division
was added to accommodate a stage known as S6so-ki, which I
6 Ogata Tamotsu, "Dokutsu iseki shutsudo no jinkotsu shoken josetsu," in Nihon kokogakkai,
ed., Nihon no doketsu iseki (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1967), pp. 391-2.
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56 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
have called "Subearliest" Jomon. Since it does not have full Jomon
characteristics, its transitional features permit calling it Mesolithic.
Cultural developments in Japan were greatly affected by worldwide
changes of climate. Two local inventions, apparently arising in response
to such climatic change, revolutionized life and immeasurably
increased chances of survival: the bow and arrow in the north and
pottery in the south. Both can be explained as indigenous responses to
deteriorating subsistence conditions. Neither seems to have been introduced
from the outside.
Improved hunting techniques were most conspicuous in the mountains
of north Honshu. Numerous long slender spear points have been
recovered from many caves and rock shelters of the period. Such
points were used - more in some areas than other - as far south as
Shikoku. The larger ones found in the subalpine zone were probably
for hunting bison and giant deer, and the smaller ones in temperate
zones, for Japanese deer and wild boar.7 The smaller ones were used
interchangeably as darts and arrowheads, as the supply of larger game
dwindled and hunting turned to smaller and quicker animals.
For example, Layer IX in the Kamikuroiwa rock shelter in Ehime
Prefecture on the island of Shikoku (with a radiocarbon date of 10,215
± 600 B.C.), contained spearpoints, but no arrowheads, and the oldest
pottery of Shikoku. Layer VI (with a date of 8135 ± 320 B.C.), on the
other hand, had many arrowheads.8
The progressive effectiveness of
hunting techniques is well illustrated in the faunal remains of the two
layers. The earlier Layer IX contained large quantities ofJapanese deer,
boars, bears, and monkeys and also some Japanese serows, badgers,
Japanese wolves, lynxes, frogs, and ring-necked pheasants, but to
Layer VI, otters and giant flying squirrels were added. In Layer IV,
with rouletted Jomon pottery (dating about 7000 B.C.), in addition to
the usual creatures found in quantity (deer, boars, raccoon-dogs, and
monkeys) the bones of martens, badgers, many Japanese dogs, rabbits,
giant flying squirrels, ermines, rats, and pheasants were excavated. In
the Iwashita cave in Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu,
Layer VI showed deer; Layer V had both deer and wild boars; and
Layer IV had otters, raccoon-dogs, rabbits, and Japanese monkeys.9
7 Yasuda Yoshinori, "Prehistoric Environment in Japan: Palynological Approach," Science Reports
ofTohoku University 28, no. 2 (1978): 171.
8 Carbon 14 dates from the Mesolithic are converted directly to B.C. dates, with the caution that
modest adjustments are required. These are generally too recent up to about six thousand
years ago. Calibration for older dates is more speculative.
9 Suzuki Michinosuke, "Jomon jidai soso-ki shoto no shuryd katsudo," Kokogaku jdnaru 76
(1972): 16-17.
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THE PRE-JOMON PERIOD 57
Shikoku's direct land connections with Honshu permitted a natural
enrichment of fauna and, as time passed, allowed for substantially
larger catches than those of less fortunate places in Kyushu.
Not one but several types of evidence - stratigraphic relationships,
typological developments, and a sequence of radiocarbon dates suggest
that northwest Kyushu was the home of Japan's earliest pottery.
These show that the making and use of pottery spread from
Kyushu to other parts of the country. The oldest known pots were
found in Layer III in the Fukui cave at Nagasaki, with a date converted
to 10,750 ± 500 B.C.; Layer II has a date of 10,450 ± 350 B.C.
The lowest ceramic layer (Layer IX) in the Kamikuroiwa rock shelter
at Ehime is dated to 10,215 ±
600 B.C. The oldest layer in the
Iwashita cave at Nagasaki is thought to be 9250 ± 130 B.C. These
dates become more recent as we move from Kyushu to Shikoku and
Honshu. They are doubtless subject to some calibration, but by just
how much is now hard to say. Doubts about the extreme antiquity of
pottery in Japan usually have been grounded in the possibility of
contamination by volcanic action, a phenomenon certainly not limited
to Japan. But the earliest dates are for charcoal samples in
pottery-bearing layers deep in caves and rock shelters where at least
later volcanic fallout should have had no noticeable effect. The one
dubious date is for a shell from the Natsushima shell mound, placed
in the Earliest Jomon period after people had begun to subsist on
lower riverine and marine foods. But even that is substantiated by
the date of a charcoal sample from the same site.
The location of Fukui on the northwest coast of Kyushu suggests
continental connections, but as of this writing the oldest date for
Chinese pottery is still substantially later than the earliest Jomon
pieces, and no known comparable pottery has been found in China.10
Old pottery may eventually be uncovered on the continent. If so, it
should be in a Mesolithic context and/or be recognizably transitional.
Subearliest Jomon pottery is extremely primitive and breaks into
sherds the size of postage stamps. The restored vessels are small, round
bottomed, low fired, and dirt brown in color. At the Sempukuji cave,
not far from the Fukui cave, the excavator claims to have found even
older pottery with pellets decorating the otherwise plain surface - a
"bean pattern." The Fukui cave pottery, on the other hand, has a
10 One dubious date of 8920 ± 240 B.C. is given for a shell associated with cord-marked pottery
at Hsien-jen-tung, Wan-nien, Kiangsi Province (China). Otherwise, dates of 5630 ± 410 and
5415 ± 410 B.C. are available for bone found with coarse red Neolithic pottery from Tsengp'i-yen,
Kueilin, Kuangsi Province.
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58 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
decoration that consists oflinear-relief and raised parallel ridges that are
generally wider in the south and narrower in the north. It has been
found on a roughly south-north line from Kyushu to Yamagata Prefecture.
This Fukui-type pottery is followed at many sites by nail-marked
pottery. But sites yielding both types are seldom found west of the
Kansai area. The people who made them were apparently leaving southwest
Japan for cooler regions.
The invention of pottery making was not limited to Japan. Wherever
it was made, it was quite likely a product ofaccident and astute observations.
Conditions in Kyushu at that time offered only marginal chances
of survival. The inhabitants who stayed on were driven to find alternative
sources ofnourishment. Boiling otherwise indigestible plants, especially
certain grasses and ferns, made them edible and sometimes even
palatable. Making pottery was probably the housewife's chore, as all the
raw materials - clay, water, andfirewood- were outside her back door.
Pottery contributed greatly to the quality of life. It enlarged the range of
action, freeing people from fixed water sources. Storage techniques
allowed habitation near nut-yielding forests, contributing to a more
sedentary life and to a population increase into the Middle Jomon.
Before the Jomon period came to a close, pots were used not only for
cooking and storage but were adapted also for burial, ritual, and aesthetic
use. They reflected at a personal level the interests of the smallest
communities and were the first artifacts to register cultural change.
Microblades as well as pottery were used in Kyushu. These were
small flake bladelets hafted perhaps on a handle and aligned for reaping
grasses and ferns. Elsewhere these microliths may have been attached
to the end of a tapered shaft and used as projectile points but
were soon superseded by arrowheads.
Microblades are a well-known type of tool found in Sakhalin and
Siberia, west to the Yenisei valley, and represent a major cultural link
between Japan and north Asia at about the close of the Paleolithic
period, before land connections were severed by the rising sea.
THE JOMON PERIOD
The Earliest Jomon stage (ca. 7500-5000 B.C.)
The Kuroshio, a warm-water current sweeping up from the south, and
the Oyashio, a cooler current from the north, met along the east coast
to provide exceptionally good spawning grounds for marine fauna.
Shellfish in bays, inlets, and tidal pools were discovered to be a rich
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THE JOMON PERIOD 59
source of food, even during the winter months, and supplemented the
diminishing supply of animal life. The word jdmon (literally, "cord
pattern") comes from a description of pottery found in the first shellmound
excavation of modern archaeology. The excavation was made
by an American scientist, Edward S. Morse, who came to Japan in
1877 and proceeded shortly thereafter to excavate the shell mounds of
Omori, which he had noticed when traveling by train between Yokohama
and Tokyo. In his book The Shell Mounds of Omori (1879) Morse
refers to the excavated pottery as "cord-marked," noting especially a
great profusion of such pottery. For a time, this was described as
"Ainu school pottery" or "shell-mound pottery," but a literal translation
of Morse's original description (jdmon) gradually came to stand
for the entire period in which such pottery was produced.
Typology lagged until the 1930s but then rapidly developed after a
chronological system was set up by Yamanouchi Sugao around 1937.11
His scheme divided the Jomon period into Earliest, Early, Middle,
Late, and Latest, a temporal arrangement in which all types of pottery
were placed in historical order, paralleled by cognate types found
throughout the country. Moreover, Yamanouchi's stages were of about
equal length. Progressively more detailed studies of hundreds of pottery
types did little to change this scheme, but the advent of new dating
techniques makes it clear that although the basic sequence is tenable,
the strong regionality ofculture is obscured if the scheme is left unqualified.
Local differences created substantial time overlaps, and each
phase became somewhat shorter with greater cultural complexity.
Use of the Jomon term begs the question of whether the period is
genuinely neolithic. The hunting of fossil creatures was basic to the
economic life of the preceramic stage, hence the term Paleolithic. The
addition of microliths and pottery to an essentially hunting economy is
regarded as characteristic of a Mesolithic age, but there are no signs of
plant cultivation in early Jomon. The possibility of simple manipulation
of cultigens in later Jomon stages is being debated. The period is
therefore protoneolithic. For want of a better name, Jomon is thus the
most useful.
Following the discovery of "pre-Jomon" pottery in Kyushu and
elsewhere, Yamanouchi added an earlier stage that he called Soso-ki
(the "grass-roots" stage). It has been adopted by some and rejected by
others on the ground that the pottery is not "Jomon" and that the
11 Yamanouchi Sugao, "Jomon doki keishiki no saibetsu to taibetsu," Senshi kokogaku 1 (1937):
29-32, used the stages Soki, Zanki, Chuki, Koki, Bunki.
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60 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
subsistence system of this phase was Paleolithic-style hunting. Some
Westerners use this term, which I call Subearliest in order to distinguish
the phase from, and to show its relationship to, Earliest Jomon.
Some prefer "Incipient."
Natsushima is the site of the oldest deposit of shells left by early
people in the Kanto plain, with radiocarbon dates of 7290 ± 500 and
7500 ± 400 B.C. Its lowest layer contained mostly oysters and Anadara
granosa, a warm-water mollusk.12
Shells in that layer, which yielded
the Earliest Jomon bullet-shaped pots, included those of Yamato
shijimi (a freshwater clam), as well as perch and gilthead bones (both
freshwater fish), suggesting habitation near the mouth of a reasonably
large river. Asari and hamaguri (clams) were commonly found on the
top layers with slightly later pottery, where gilthead was replaced by
red seabream (madai) that inhabits deeper waters. The bay was then
moving inland, forcing the Jomon people to retreat to higher ground
and inundating some earlier community sites. '3
By and large, the sites of this phase are rather few, and their cultural
content is relatively meager. Bone fishhooks, usually not barbed, were
rapidly improved along the northern coast. Arrowheads were small,
used more frequently by inland hunters. Plant bulbs and starchy roots
were dug with large, adzlike tools that were made of sandstone, slate,
or other soft stone. Nuts and possibly seeds were pulverized with
grinding stones.
Hanawadai in Ibaragi Prefecture is the first recognizable Earliest
Jomon community site.1
'' Five house pits lying about 10 meters apart
contained two successive Hanawadai pottery subtypes, probably meaning
that not more than three houses were occupied at any one time.
The little bands of occupants could hardly have numbered more than
ten or fifteen. One pit is not quite square, measuring 4.6 by 3.8
meters, and has twelve holes for posts. Outdoor fireplaces were used.
Seemingly inconvenient bullet-shaped pots stood upright in the soft,
loose surface soil. Dogs were kept around the house, the Canis familiaris
japonica (small, short-haired, Spitz-like dogs) that were perhaps
ancestors of the present-day Shiba.
Most of the few human skeletons excavated from sites of this phase
have been found intentionally buried among the shells, lying on their
12 Sugihara Sosuke and Senzawa Chosuke, Kanagawa-ken Natsushima ni okeru Jomon bunka
show no kaizuka (Tokyo: Meiji daigaku bungaku kenkyusho, 1957).
13 Esaka Teruya, Jomon doki to kaizuka, vol. 2 of Kodai-shi hakkutsu (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1973),
pp. 89-90.
14 Yoshida Itaru, "Ibaragi-ken Hanawadai kaizuka gaiho," Nihon kokogaku 1 (1948): 27-33.
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THE JOMON PERIOD 6l
backs in flexed positions. They dramatize the severe conditions faced
by the people of that day. The earliest known Jomon man was uncovered
in 1949 below a shell layer in the Hirasaka shell mound in
Yokohoma City. He stood rather tall for a Jomon person: about 163
centimeters. His lower left molars were worn down to the jawbone,
probably caused by years of pulling leather thongs across them, and
X-rays of his bones showed growth interruptions, interpreted as nearfatal
spells of extreme malnutrition during childhood. The joints testify
to early aging. Virtually unused wisdom teeth are partial evidence
for a life expectancy of about thirty years, an estimated average
through the Middle Jomon, with an increase of only one year during
the next two millennia, until the adoption of rice as a dietary staple.
Subcultural divisions of the Earliest Jomon period are located in the
south, the Kanto, and the north. From Kyushu to the Kanto plain,
pointed-bottomed pots were decorated by rolling a carved stick over the
surface. In the Kanto a rudimentary form of cord marking was used.
But to the north of that plain and at about the same time, decorative
techniques were dominated by shell marking and imprinting.
The last complete listing of sites published for each prefecture by
the Cultural Properties Commission shows 2,530 for the Earliest
Jomon, or 9 percent of the Jomon aggregate. Almost half of these are
located in the lowlands of the Kanto (1,213), with Tokyo claiming the
lion's share (349). The mountainous Chubu region follows (377), then
the Tohoku in the north (249), and Kyushu in the south (243). The
entire Chugoku region has only 83, or 3.28 percent of the total. (See
Map 1.1.)
Koyama Shuzo calculated the population of the Earliest Jomon to be
around 21,900.'J Inhabitants had moved to higher land in the valleys of
the lower-central mountains and established communities to the northeast.
Concentration in these areas throughout most of the Jomon period
can be accounted for by a variety and abundance ofplant, mammal, and
sea life, where northern and southern environmental zones overlap in
central Japan. With the exception of the Latest Jomon, and possibly the
Middle Jomon, the Kanto sites are usually more numerous and frequently
larger. Over half of the Earliest Jomon population was strung
out along the banks of Kanto streams, with ready access to water supplies,
for the same reason that earlier and later people - amounting to
teeming millions in modern times - congregated there. Yet until the
15 Koyama Shuzo, "Jomon Subsistence and Population," Senri Ethnological Studies, no. 2 (Miscellanea
no. 1) (Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology, 1978), pp. 6-7, 56.
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62 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
K. e Y
1 KURJOHWAA A PALEOUfH/C
2 HWAZUMI S-M
3 ANCffS • J6M0W P6R.IOP STfES
4 KA1^0Hi\f4A .s-fA
6 HANAWAt**! S-M
Map I.I Paleolithic and Jomon period sites. Notation s-m after site
name indicates shell mound.
medieval centuries it was always a rather uninventive area - with the
possible exception of the unusual sixth-century haniwa - where relatively
little initiative was demanded for survival.
The EarlyJomon stage (ca. 5000-3500 B.C.)
Consistent warming and a rising sea level pushed the coastal population
farther inland during the Early Jomon period, with the temperature
peaking several degrees higher than today toward the end of this
stage. Water flooded low valleys, and some Kanto sites are as much as
fifty kilometers from the present shore. In the Kitakami plain of the
Tohoku region a few sites lie about thirty kilometers inland, but elsewhere
the steep eastern coast prevented such extreme marine aggression.
Farther south, the Inland Sea joined the ocean, leaving Shikoku
and Kyushu as islands.
The shell mounds of this stage contain chiefly freshwater clams
(Yamato shijimi or Corbicula japonica, and marine haigai or Anadara
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THE JOMON PERIOD 63
granosa) and oysters (magaki or Crossostrea gigas).l6
Animal bones - not
numerous - are chiefly those of deer, boars,flyingsquirrels, and Siberian
mountain lions. Investigations indicate that mainly older deer were
hunted, that the fast-breeding wild boars were killed indiscriminately,
and that mountain lions were dying out. In the more isolated areas of
western Japan, animal life was reduced, leaving fewer resources for
human survival. The higher temperature encouraged the growth of the
evergreen oak forests (Quercus) that covered much of west Japan.
The warmer temperature was also conducive to the growth of warmwater
Anadara granosa as far north as the Daigi shell mound near
Matsushima Bay, although its habitat is now south of Tokyo. On the
other hand, the coldwater mollusk (Pecten yesoensis), now thriving in
northeast Honshu, could not stand the warmth and is therefore missing
from the Early Jomon shell mounds of that area.
Around the middle of the Early Jomon, reliable food sources and
somewhat longer stays near the coast produced a dramatic increase in
population. According to Koyama's calculations, the Early Jomon
population numbered around 106,000, or five times that of the Earliest
Jomon, an increase unmatched at any other stage of the Jomon
period.
Small Early Jomon villages, developed on bluffs, had pit houses
grouped in the form of a horseshoe. The presence of pottery of several
successive types at a single site indicates continuous habitation.
As this occurred, family demands fostered advances in house construction.
The older, poorer shelters or huts were now transformed
by the introduction of substantial inner posts strong enough to hold a
roof over a rectanguloid floor. Rainwater shed by the pitched roof was
drained off through surrounding ditches. Kaya (a miscanthus) was
probably the roofing grass, fifteen centimeters of which would have
been enough to keep the interior dry. Toward the end of the Early
Jomon, the inner space took the form of a square with rounded
corners. Some fireplaces were moved inside, though rarely were
placed in the middle of the floor. Indoor living now offered more
attractions.
Houses were occasionally extended to accommodate growing families,
but archaeological evidence reveals few repairs and almost no
overlapped houses so often found at Middle Jomon sites. The fortyeight
houses of the Minabori shell mound, located on a rather level
16 Kaneko Hiromasa, "Gyoro no tenkai," in Esaka Teruya, ed., Jomon doki to kaizuka, vol. 2 of
Kodai-shi hakkutsu (Tokyo, Kodansha, 1973), pp. 119-24.
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64 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
plateau in Yokohama and distributed to form a rough arc, had doors
facing an open space to the north.17
Because successive rebuilding did
not alter this fundamental plan, it is thought that use of the common
area had become well established. An improving economy is suggested
by storage pits found both inside and outside houses. Such pits were
lined by alternating layers of leaves and nuts in order to keep most of
the pit's contents dry, allowing cupboard raids to expose only a little at
a time.
Most of the house pits of Minabori contained Kurohama-type pottery
belonging to the middle years of the Early Jomon. These flatbottomed
pots were designed for cooking, and their new shapes made
them more practical for indoor living on intensely used floors that
were tamped hard. A short-lived spell of tempering the clay with small
fibers - a practice that perhaps started in the Tohoku and moved
south - may have been connected with attempts to strengthen the
walls of the pots when increasing their size and experimenting with
flat bottoms. Heavy cord marking is typical, and before the Early
Jomon phase was over, Moroiso-type pottery appeared, bearing imprinted
and incised decorative arcs and parallel lines made with the
end of a small split bamboo stick.
Recent excavations at the Torihama shell mound in Mikata-cho of
Fukui Prefecture point up hitherto unknown advances in the Early
Jomon.18
One of the rather few kitchen middens found on the west
side of Japan, it lies beside the Hasu River in a laurel (laurilignosa)
forest area dominated by oak. These excavations show that boars,
deer, monkeys, raccoon-dogs, bear, serows, otters, martens, and badgers
were hunted; several kinds of fish were caught; and a variety of
freshwater shellfish, saltwater mollusks, clams, oysters, and ark shells
were collected. Walnuts, hazelnuts, and acorns were also gathered.
But of special interest are the bottle gourds {Lagenaria siceraria) and
"green beans" (Phaseolus sp.) that were pea shaped and found in long
narrow pods averaging eleven centimeters in length and thirteen beans
to a pod. Many Japanese archaeologists regard both as cultivated
plants, indeed suggesting that pollen changes indicate environmental
alterations caused by clearing and that trees of foothill forests were cut
and used for building materials, wooden tools, and firewood.'»
17 Mikami Tsugio, ed., Nihon no akebono, (vol. 1 of Zuzetsu Nihon no rekishi (Tokyo: Shueisha,
I974)> PP- 106-7.
18 Toriyama Kaizuka kenkyu gurupu, ed., Toriyama kaizuka 1980 Nendo chosa gaiho: Jomon
zenki wo shu to sum teishitsuchi iseki no chosa gaiho, 2 (Fukui-ken kyoiku iinkai, 1981).
19 Yasuda, "Prehistoric Environment," p. 242.
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THE JOMON PERIOD 65
Preserved remarkably well are ropes, reed baskets, and many
wooden objects, including oars, boards, adzes, bows, and carved
bowls and a comb which are the oldest pieces of lacquer ever found in
Japan. Other innovations were polished stone axes, bone needles, and
thimblelike bone rings. Vertically angled blades were changed to adzshaped
tools by the use of right-angled tree forks, probably for better
hacking and digging of new forms of vegetation.20
Torihama is no longer an isolated case. Gourd seeds have also been
found in the Early and Latest Jomon sites of Gifu and Saitama. The
Middle Jomon Idojiri "bread," which has long defied analysis, is now
thought to have contained some eight skins of beans. The Middle
Jomon Tsurune settlement site in Takayama City, Gifu Prefecture,
yielded two carbonized beans (Leguminosae) that are reportedly similar
to a cultivated continental Asian bean for which there was nothing
comparable in Japan.21
The MiddleJomon stage (ca. 3500-2400 B.C.)
The Middle Jomon culture emerged rapidly in the central mountains
of Japan around 3500 B.C., flourished for roughly a thousand years,
and faded almost as rapidly. It was a warm stage with temperatures
that slowly dropped but never declined to today's average.
Explanations for this dramatic florescence of culture include different
theories: that it was associated with the external introduction of
domesticated root plants, that it was a product of an indigenous development
of primitive agriculture, that it arose from an exploitation of
rich nut crops on the southern slopes of the Yatsugatake Mountains,
and that it was linked with an escape from the insufferable summer
heat of the lowlands. It is likely that the introduction of yams and taro
(said to have come from south China) and the application of plant
manipulation techniques (including the transplanting of horse chestnut
seedlings at lower areas) contributed to a population explosion.22
Yams (yamanoimo: Dioscorea japonica) and lily bulbs (ubayuri: Cardiocrinum
cordatum) were cultivated for their starchy content and preserved
for winter use. Starch was leached out in springs, and chunks
were steamed on wicker trays in pots to make rolled bread (koppepan).
Charred bread was unearthed in house no. 4 at Sori and in house
20 Ibid., p. 203.
21 Reported by several participants at the Old Cultural Properties (Kobunkazai) Symposium in
Nagoya (November 1979), sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education.
22 Esaka Teruya, Nihon bunka no kigen (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1967), pp. 88-94.
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66 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
no. 9 at Tonai, at the Idojiri sites in Nagano Prefecture.2
* Horse
chestnuts also produced large quantities of starch with relatively little
effort. The proliferation of adz or axelike tools made of stone unfit for
cutting trees, such as sandstone and slate, is taken as evidence of
spading needed for cultivating starchy roots and bulbs.
The rise of an incipient agriculture would not have required the
introduction of foreign flora. Long residence in an area could have led
to the selection and some manipulation of root plants to improve
yields. Escape from the heat is less facetious than it might at first
appear to be. Resources were plentiful along the coast, but animal life
was more abundant in marginal forest areas. Nagano Prefecture alone
has 2,408 Middle Jomon sites, many at altitudes of between eight
hundred and twelve hundred meters. The average drop in temperature
of one-half degree centigrade for every one hundred-meter increase
in elevation would make a difference of four or five degrees
between the mountains and the plain, certainly a difference that added
considerable comfort. Animals avoided the steamy coastal heat, and
people followed. Winters in the mountains were windy and cold, but
seasonal trips to lower ground - made more practical with chunks of
obsidian being used as a medium of exchange - were probably made.
The higher forest line in central Japan was an appropriate area for
all nut crops. Acorns (chiefly Quercus serrata, Q. mongolica, Q. acutissima,
and Q. dentata), walnuts (chiefly Juglands sieboldiana), chestnuts
(Castanea crenata), and horse chestnuts or buckeyes (Aesculus
turbinata) all were available in the Chubu. Walnuts grew in northern
zones; they had grown only in south Japan in the cold Earliest Jomon.
Chestnuts thrived in the north and in the Chubu region, and acorns
could be found on the east coast, in the Chubu region, and toward the
southwest.
The sequence of harvests in the overlapping central zone (horse
chestnuts in early September, chestnuts in September to early October,
acorns and walnuts in October and November) offered great advantages.
Chestnuts were the most practical. They could be efficiently
stored after they had been heated to kill the vermin, and dried, but
like horse chestnuts, they are far inferior to walnuts and acorns in
caloric value. Walnuts are the most nutritious but the least efficiently
stored. Many species of oaks yield a variety of acorns. Nuts from
evergreen, shiny-leafed oaks (especially Cyclobalanopsis) in west Japan
can usually be eaten with little preparation, but those from deciduous
23 Fujimori Eiichi, Idojiri (Tokyo: Chuokoron bijutsu shuppan, 1966), pp. 139-42.
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THE JOMON PERIOD 67
trees (especially Q. mongolica) in the east contain bitter tannic acid that
needs to be leached out in running water for days or even months
before they become edible.2
* This accounts for the location of many
Middle Jomon sites near springs. Supplementary foods included wild
grapes, butterburr (Petasites japonicus) for the salinity of the flower
buds, bracken or young fronds of eagle fern stalks (Pteridium aquilinutri),
kuzu vine (Pueraria lobata), an arrowroot starch, and several
kinds of mushrooms. Meat was only nominally important in the Middle
Jomon because of the abundance of other foods.
Middle Jomon sites frequently occupy thousands of square meters
and include scores of house pits, many of which were rebuilt, frequently
in overlapping locations. Few sites contain only one pottery
type; most have several. The usual house was round, about six meters
in diameter, with a floor forty to fifty centimeters below the surface.
Five or six posts, each up to forty centimeters across and deeply sunk
below the floor, supported a conical superstructure. Fireplaces were
located in the middle, sometimes outlined with stones or provided
with a bowl or pot. The hearth furnished light and warmth in the
evening and became the center of family life around which developed,
over the millennia, highly ritualized relationships.
Of the house pits of the Ubayama shell mound in Chiba Prefecture,
one occupied 12.2 square meters and contained five skeletons, four
adults and one child. Because the disarray of the bones rules out the
possibility of burials, these persons must have died by accident or
violence. Whether or not they were members of the same "family,"
each had an average housing space of 2.45 square meters. Another
house pit at a different site shows, by its extra postholes and shifted
hearths, that it had been enlarged seven times, each addition averaging
three square meters. From such information and the usual size of a
Middle Jomon house, it can be deduced that an average abode could
comfortably accommodate five occupants. Judging from the pottery
types, five to eight houses were normally in use at a given time.
Supporting posts were often repositioned, fireplaces relocated, and
surrounding ditches redug, perhaps more frequently than natural deterioration
required. Abrupt changes of fortune, such as disease, death,
and poor harvests, might have been signals to move, as the spot would
have been perceived to be ill fated and therefore to be vacated. But the
area itself was usually too good to be abandoned. A ritual removal is
exceptionally well attested to at Yosukeone (a branch site of Togariishi)
24 Watanabe Makoto, Jomon jidai no shokubutsu shoku (Tokyo: Yuzankaku, 1975), pp. 53-55.
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68 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
in Nagano Prefecture, the site of a somewhat-larger-than-average community.
Pits of twenty-eight houses have been uncovered. Some were
rebuilt only a few meters away, using fireplace stones that matched
holes left in earlier houses. Standing stones,figurines,and stone phalli
of the second set of houses had been moved from the first. When the
entire village was abandoned, the fireplace stones of only five houses
remained in place.25
Known Middle Jomon sites numbered 10,893 in 1966, or 2.47 times
that of Early Jomon. Of these, 36.5 percent are in the Kanto region and
27.49 percent in the Chubu, the highest ever recorded for the central
mountainous belt. This belt, when joined with the western end of this
transverse zone, contains 73.5 percent of the Middle Jomon sites. The
entire population of Japan at that time, estimated to have been 262,500,
was much larger than at any other Jomon stage. On the other hand, in
the area extending from the Kinki to the southwest - the whole southern
half of the country - can be found only 3.67 percent of all Middle
Jomon sites. They are very scarce in Shikoku. Kyushu continues to
have relatively few: Earliest: 243 sites, Early: 233, and Middle: 221.
A more settled and leisurely life, with more mouths to feed, led to
the making of large vessels that were often florid. For the first time
there was variety: upright pots for cooking and storage, large bowls for
cooking, narrow-necked vessels for steaming foods, and cups for drinking.
There were also lamps and other objects for ritual use. For pottery
developed in the mountains during the early Middle Jomon, coarse
clay was used for thick walls and plastic decorations that included
ridges, handles, and rim ornaments. In the latter half of the Middle
Jomon, potters turned to dense oblique cord marking.
Pottery of the early half of the Middle Jomon is classified as
Katsusaka (a site in Kanagawa Prefecture dug around 1926) and as
Otamadai or Atamadai (a shell mound in Chiba Prefecture reported
since about 1894). Pottery for the later half is known as Kasori E (a
spot in the often-excavated Kasori shell mound in the same prefecture,
dug especially since 1937). All were fired in the open at a relatively low
temperature, with Katsusaka becoming burnt reddish, Otamadai dirt
brownish, and Kasori E salmon orange.
In north Japan, pots followed the Early Jomon tradition, having
roughly cylindrical shapes and bearing heavy cord marking. In south
Japan, they were rather nondescript. The Middle Jomon people
25 Tsuboi Kiyotarij ed., Jomon bunka ran, vol. i of Nihon rekishi (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,
1967), pp. 118-21.
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THE JOMON PERIOD 69
avoided or failed to occupy the east side.of Kyushu, and the volcanic
activity of Mt. Aso in north Kyushu was then so violent that the area
was too hazardous for habitation. Earliest Jomon pottery of that area
lies in a lower layer of volcanic ash, and Late and Latest pottery was
found in an upper layer, with none for Middle Jomon, indicating that
Middle Jomon people gave this area a wide berth.
Mountain dwellers made the more dramatic Katsusaka pottery and
related types, whereas lowland and coastal dwellers produced the more
modest Otamadai pottery and its subtypes. The latter extends from
Tokyo to Lake Kasumigaura in Ibaragi and southern Fukushima.
Some relationships apparently formed between the two, causing
Katsusaka houses to contain many Otamadaifireplacebowls.
The trademark of Otamadai is pottery in which clay is tempered
with phlogopite, a kind of mica found mainly in mountains north of
Tokyo but also in clay and sand deposits along old streambeds in the
Kanto region. The Otamadai pottery is widely distributed, despite the
rather limited sources of mica, raising questions about production,
sites, trade, the transportation of clay, distribution systems, and, of
course, tribal relationships. As intriguing as these questions are leading
to speculation about intermarriage and dowries or gifts between
tribal groups - their answers are currently little more than
guesswork. This "fool's gold" added a fine decorative element to
Otamadai pots and also gave them greater functional value, for it
produced a more heat-resistant clay that baked well and contracted
less while drying.
The Katsusaka people, in contrast with the Otamadai, had a hyperactive
subculture centered in Nagano Prefecture and diffused toward
opposite coasts. Scores of sites are located by springs on the terraces
and plateaus of the Yatsugatake Mountains along the eastern edge of
the route to the obsidian sources in the Shinshu Mountains south of
Lake Suwa. It was in these cooler mountains where the sturdy houses
and indoor fireplaces were first constructed and from which they
spread to the lower regions of Honshu.
Notable features of Katsusaka pottery are its many snake motifs and
animal-like heads in rim decorations. These snakes are accepted as
representing mamnshi, the most poisonous snake on Japan's main islands
and one that prefers higher altitudes and cooler weather. Snake
cults survive in several regions today, especially in mountainous areas
and around Lake Suwa. The toxicity of the mamushi bite upsets mental
faculties before death, and the Jomon people, who must have known
this, may have regarded the effects as a form of spirit possession. Just
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7O THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
the hibernation and skin shedding of snakes must have caused
Katsusaka people to conclude that this creature was truly mystical.
Pottery rim-heads with rodent-shaped faces, having slant eyes and
sometimes harelips are found most frequently on steaming vessels.
These faces may have been a protective symbol.
Clay figurines first appeared in Earliest Jomon, but their number
increased noticeably in Middle Jomon, particularly in the mountains.
Their faces are animal-like, and their bodies are upright with enlarged
breasts and exaggerated buttocks. A few heads are crowned by a coiled
snake, suggesting incipient snake-cult ceremonies performed by female
shamans. Figurines and lamps are found together in houses too
often to be coincidental, but how Jomon people connected them is far
from clear.
One fire-destroyed house at the large Hiraide site in Nagano Prefecture
was set well apart from others, and it contained almost all the
figurines recovered from that site.26
Stylistically dissimilar and therefore
not in the house of their maker or makers, the figurines were
apparently abandoned in what may have been a polluted parturition
house that was intentionally burned. Thefigurinesmay have afforded
protection during childbirth, after which they were abandoned. Over
a thousand were found at the unique ritual site of Shakado in
Yamanashi Prefecture, all in small pieces, where, it is believed, they
were broken in order to effect cures.
Phallic stones appear in all sizes, from a few centimeters to two
meters in height. When their original positions can be determined,
they stood at the entrance to or on a kind of platform in the house. If
inside they were usually accompanied by one or more figurines. The
relationship between the two suggests a greater awareness of the role
of males in the fertility process.
Clusters of ritual objects are rare, but pit dwelling no. 3 at Idojiri in
Nagano must have been that of a group leader, either male or female.
It contained all the ritual trappings of the time, as though this person
either controlled or was involved in every aspect of the group's ceremonies:
a lamp, a pot with a rim head, figurines, stone phalli, and a
barrel-shaped vessel.
Early Middle Jomon symbols found in the mountains were connected
primarily with birth and regeneration, but those from the latter
half of Middle Jomon, found more frequently in the lowlands, seem to
have been associated with the care of the dead. As the culture mel-
26 Hiraide iseki chosakai, Hiraide (Tokyo: Asahi shimbunsha, 1955), pp. 46-48, 151-3.
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THE JOMON PERIOD 71
lowed and spread, people producing Kasori E pottery buried "placenta
pots" under entrances to their houses and used large inverted
pots for remains of the dead, chiefly those of children.
Placenta burial is ethnologically known to have been practiced in the
Suwa region of Nagano.27
However, the discovery of traces of an infant
in a pot found in Miyagidai of Suwa City supports the claim that such
pots were used primarily as burial jars. The practice of burying remains
in inverted pots spread from the mountains into the Kanto and,
before the end of Middle Jomon, as far north as Morioka in Akita
Prefecture. Such pots have no bases or have holes drilled in their
bottoms, as though ritually "killed" and made unfit for any other use.
At inland sites the remains of adults may have been placed in enlarged
postholes of abandoned house pits located on the fringe of a village.
Location no. 7 of the International Christian University site (in Mitaka
City of metropolitan Tokyo) had unpractically large postholes in two
house pits. The floors of these houses were heaped with broken pots
and other debris, apparently disposed of there by the villagers. On the
floors of the houses are sometimes found scores of chipped stone axes
or adzes made of materials ranging from slate or sandstone to the
harder andesite and hornfels. Over three hundred have been recorded
for the floor of a single house, suggesting a great deal of breakage and
replacement. Most retain a cortex, that is, a part of the original waterworn
surface.
Arrowheads are chiefly of obsidian or chert in V or triangular
shapes. They are rather small in the Chubu and Kanto areas but
somewhat larger in Tohoku and southern Hokkaido. The stone spoon
(ishisaji) is a small stemmed knife that perhaps originated in the north
during Earliest Jomon. By Middle Jomon it had become larger and
was often made of poorer stone. At first, the knife was perhaps used as
a scraper and cutter of skin and meat, but by the Middle Jomon it may
also have become a reaper or peeler.28
Hammers and grinding stones
for cracking and pulverizing nuts are common.
The effort expended in digging the ground, cutting trees, and preparing
food produced sturdy physiques, and as people's muscles enlarged,
so did the bones to sustain them. Hard manual work, such as
kneading clay for making pots, pounding and grinding nuts and
starchy plants, was done by women. This exercise lengthened their
clavicles (collarbones). But the heavier work and other activity that
27 Fujimori Eiichi, Jomon no sekai (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1969), p. 214.
28 Fujimori Eiichi, "Jomon chuki ni okeru ishisaji no kinoteki henka ni tsuite," Kokogaku zasshi
49 (1963): 35-43Cambridge
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72 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
resulted in broken bones took its toll on five times as many men as
women.29
Softer foods and improved tools spared teeth from the inordinate
wear experienced by their ancestors, leaving men at this time
with slightly better teeth than women, perhaps due to the latter's loss
of calcium during pregnancy. Middle to Late Jomon dentition shows a
very high level of carbohydrate consumption.*0
Serious environmental deterioration began around 2400 B.C.3» Excessive
rains for consecutive seasons ruined the nut crops and disheartened
the populace, which had little choice but to go elsewhere. Most
settled in the lower river valleys and near the coast, abandoning their
montane practices and turning to seafood for basic diet. From a high
of 2,995 sites in the Chubu, the number plummeted to 918 in the Late
Jomon and to 250 in the Latest Jomon.
The Late Jomon stage (ca. 2400-1000 B.C.)
Such unsettled conditions characterized the early centuries of the Late
Jomon stage, as the search for adequate subsistence intensified. But
the moves of people into other regions, which had begun several hundred
years earlier, was the reverse of what had occurred at the beginning
of the Middle Jomon. Kasori E type pottery was therefore far
more widely distributed than any type found in the earlier half of the
Middle Jomon, appearing in areas from the Kinki to southern Tohoku.
The total number of known sites throughout the country
dropped by 39 percent, as the middle areas of Japan were depleted by
emigrations to the Kinki, Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu. In south
Japan the number of Middle Jomon sites was low but more than
doubled in Late Jomon. There was a 10 percent increase in the north,
where 27.23 percent of all Late Jomon sites are located. Such mobility
had the effect of eroding regional distinctions and mixing local traits.
Cord marking, the trademark of Jomon pottery, wasfinallyintroduced
to Kyushu, and a special kind of decoration confined to zoned areas on
the vessels, known as erased cord marking (surikeshijomon), was used
all over the country, making it the most common of Jomon pottery
styles.
29 Tamotsu Ogata, "Physical Changes in Man During the Jomon Period of Japan in Accordance
with the Climatic and Geological Alterations," in Anthropology, vol. I of Proceedings of the
Eighth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (Tokyo: Science
Council of Japan, 1968), 95-97.
30 Christy G. Turner, II, "Dental Anthropological Indications of Agriculture Among Jomon
People of Central }apan," AmericanJournal ofPhysical Anthropology 51 (November 1979): 633.
31 Tsukada Matsuo, Kafun wa kataru (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1974), pp. 177-8.
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THE JOMON PERIOD 73
Coastal communities expanded, leaving the remains of many immense
kitchen middens. One of the two Kasori shell mounds is 170
meters long, and the other 100. Middens are scattered around bays
and major rivers, largely in north, east, and south Japan. A few have
been found in such scattered areas as Hokkaido; on the Sanriku coast
of north Honshu and Matsushima Bay; along the Tone, Ara, Tama,
Tsurumi, Ooka, Hanamizu, and Sagami rivers of the Kanto; in the
Atsumi and Ise bays of the south Tokai coast; along the Inland Sea;
around the Ariake and Kagoshima bays of Kyushu; and on islands
farther south. The generally rugged, beachless Japan Sea coast has
very few middens. Rings on shells show that most of the clamming
was done in early and late spring (65 percent) followed by late summer
(15 percent). Larger fishhooks were used, and detachable barbed harpoon
heads were developed in north Japan. Deep-sea fish, especially
tuna (maguro) and bonito (katsuo) supplemented the supply of inshore
fish. Porpoises, salmon, and trout were important food sources for the
northern population. Dugout canoes, in some cases made by burning
out logs, were about six meters long and paddled with one or more
oars, aided by some kind of outrigger. Deer and boar bones are rather
common in Late Jomon sites, but gradually deer disappeared from
northern areas, perhaps because of overhunting. Fewer boar bones are
found in the Latest Jomon sites. By and large, the acquisition of food
had a seasonal cycle, beginning with clamming in the spring and
continuing with fishing in the summer, nut gathering in the fall, and
hunting in the winter.
Most Late Jomon villages continued to be occupied into the Latest
Jomon phase. Their shallow pit houses have been hard to locate. In
the Kanto, one or more in a group of about ten had floors that were
paved with smooth stones. These appear to have been houses of shaman
chiefs, as some contained phalli and abnormally shaped pots; but
not all of these floors had holes for posts, and some may have been
open places for communal rites.
In the Late Jomon, chipped stone axes - profuse in the Middle
Jomon - virtually disappeared. There was less need for them in
coastal areas, and food gathering elsewhere was more diversified. The
few found are often not large, and some are pecked, ground, and
polished. Most are broken. Arrowheads may be tanged and were used
with a one-piece bow about a meter in length, a weapon thought to
have had a range of between fifty and sixty meters. Because small
points could not have been very effective against large creatures, they
were probably tipped with alkaloid poison from the root of aconite
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74 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
(ranunculaceous genus), a poison so deadly that only 0.4 grams is
required to dispatch an animal weighing up to 50 kilograms (a small
deer). Aconite grew throughout the country in cooler times; nowadays
it is limited chiefly to north Japan, and its use has been declared
illegal.
The rugged flamboyance of Middle Jomon pottery was replaced by
trim shapes and modest linear decoration in Late Jomon. Pots, vases,
bowls, ewers and a few bizarre shapes were now made in manageable
sizes, all with thin walls of rather fine clay and, in contrast with those
of the Middle Jomon, with decorations that reveal an appreciation of
shape. Somewhat more controlled firing produced a dirt brown color.
Red paint was occasionally applied, for either decoration or waterproofing.
Northern pieces were often polished. Zoned cord marking continued
into Latest Jomon, except in Kyushu where it was rapidly replaced
by black polished walls of the Goryo type of pottery. Goryo is
radically different, looking as though an effort was made to simulate
metal. It is concentrated in central Kyushu, not in the north. Without
clear Jomon antecedents, it must reflect the influences of China's
Black Pottery, introduced - as rice may have been - directly from the
Chinese east coast. Kanto sites often yield vessels with mat marks on
their bases, defined sharply enough to allow us to recognize many
different weaves at a single site. Basketry was a developed but still
unsystematized art, each maker evidently searching for the most satisfactory
weave.
Clothes are thought to have been made from long narrow strips of
mulberry bark removed from young trees. These supple strips were
rendered more pliable by light pounding on a stone and woven into
serviceable, long, sacklike vests. The straw rainwear cape worn until
recently by farmers is a relic of this style.
Social development is reflected in the ritual use of open and centrally
located spaces between houses, the emergence of the cemetery
concept, and the construction of stone circles in north Japan. The
Kainohana shell mound north of Matsudo City in Chiba Prefecture
contained the discards of people from Middle through Latest Jomon.*2
At least thirty-five house pits have been identified. Among the shells is
the usual selection of bones: those of turtles, whales, dolphins, monkeys,
and birds. Fish bones are fewer than expected, considering the
large number of net weights. Many ritual objects have been recovered
from the site, mostly taken from the communal space of public use.
32 Bunkazai hogo iinkai, Kainohana kaizuka (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kdbunkan, 1973).
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THE JOMON PERIOD 75
Such objects include eight stone phalli, thirteen stone swords {sekiken:
shafts with an elliptical section narrowed to a blade along one edge),
twenty-seven perforated clay disks, sixteen clay plaques, and sixteen
clay figurines. Toward the end of the Latest Jomon, a much smaller
population seems to have used the space more intensively, as more of
the ritual objects found there belong to this period.
Two houses - perhaps those of successive Late and Latest Jomon
shaman/chiefs - with Horinouchi and Angyo pottery, contained several
ritual objects. One had three stone phalli, two figurines, one
plaque, and four fragmentary stone swords, and the other had four
figurines, two clay plaques, two perforated clay disks, and four
chunks of stone swords.
Dozens of figurines are often recovered from large shell mounds,
which probably means that by this time almost every household possessed
one. Zoomorphisms of mountain types gave way to more obvious
human features, as if interest in the fertility of nature as a whole
had shifted to the fertility of humans. Several figures of north Japan
are of persons in a squatting position, perhaps representing childbirth
or flexed burials. Those may have been used for facilitating childbirth
and simulating interments or as effigies for the exercise of sympathetic
magic when attempting to cure a person's sickness.
The skeletal remains in many shell mounds are concentrated in
"cemeteries," sometimes in pairs within a "reserved" area, such as that
at Ebijima in Iwate Prefecture. By devoting a special area to burials,
Late Jomon people were isolating the dead, allowing the gap to be
bridged by mediums who eventually drew the rational world of the
living further away from the spirit world of the dead. This development
is undoubtedly related in some way to an increasingly large
number of skeletons painted with red ochre (evidence of secondary
burials) and to a trend toward burial in aflexedposition. Whether the
paint was seen as a preservative or a simulation of blood (the substance
of life), whether flexed positions suggested the completion of a life
cycle, or whether a corpse was wrapped in order to prevent a return to
life, considerable religious evolution is indicated. But flexed burials
never became exclusive. Tsugumo had 179 skeletons, but after archaeological
recording became more thorough, a precise tabulation of burial
positions shows that 55 out of 57 wereflexed.In the Latest Jomon, the
Yoshigo shell mound of Aichi where 307 burials were counted, 148 out
of 161 in-place skeletons wereflexed.33A majority lay in an easterly
33 Bunkazai hogo iinkai, Yoshigo kaizuka (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kdbunkan, 1952).
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76 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
direction. At both Tsugumo and Yoshigo, shell bracelets and clay
earrings were associated with female skeletons, probably symbolizing
social status.
Another ritual practice, for which a southern origin has been
claimed even though it is found no farther south than the Inland Sea,
was the removal and filing of teeth. This was done at an early age,
apparently no later than the age of about fifteen, and about 70 percent
of the total were males. The practice moved into the Tokai, Kanto,
and south Tohoku from Early Jomon onward, reaching a peak in
Latest Jomon. It was especially popular in the south Tokai region. In
about 20 individuals at the Ikawatsu shell mound in Aichi, the canines
are usually missing and the incisors filed. At the Yoshigo shell mound,
114 out of 121 skeletons had some teeth knocked out, but only four
had undergone filing, two men and two women. In no group of burials
is the practice consistent, and in some shell mounds it is totally absent.
Such inconsistencies are best explained by intermarriage between practicing
and nonpracticing neighbors.
Late Jomon inhabitants of north. Japan left the remains of many
sacred areas encircled with stones. Although the stones close to the
surface have often been removed by farmers who saw them only as
nuisances, over thirty such sites still exist. Stone placements are
thought to have been connected somehow with the salmon-fishing
season, and some with cemeteries as well. The most spectacular circles
are at Oyu in Akita Prefecture, where thousands of stones form two
huge pairs of concentric circles about eighty meters apart.34
Set between
each pair are stones in the shape of a sundial, having one centrally
upright stone with other stones radiating from it like the spokes
of a wheel. These "sundial" circles have been given calendrical value.
It is usually believed that whatever their use, the stones were brought
from a river and put in place before the fishing season and that many
dead were buried in rectangular pits within such stone rings. It may be
assumed that people were drawn to the rings each year for seasonal
rites. The ceremonial theory is reinforced by the lack of ordinary
residences in that neighborhood and by the presence of Late Jomon
pottery that is small and of strange and nonutilitarian shapes.
Both signs of minor specialization in crafts and clearer forms of
communication were now beginning to appear. Clusters of similar
objects exceeding local needs, in various states of completion, or made
of materials from distant places are the best evidence. For example,
34 Bunkazai hogo linkai, Oyu-machi kanjo resseki (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1953).
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THE JOMON PERIOD 77
the Shomyoji shell mound in Kanagawa Prefecture yielded far more
fishhooks than would be expected for the size of that community,
leading to the conclusion that fishhooks were made available to neighbors.
Kainohana had tools of different kinds of stone from several,
quite diverse sources. Elsewhere, pots for salt evaporation have been
identified. Dried seafoods, including seaweed, from the coast must
have been exchanged for obsidian and perhaps bone and horn artifacts
from inland areas. Asphalt, used for repairing clay pots and figurines
and for attaching spearheads and arrowheads, comes from only a few
places in Akita, and yet objects touched with asphalt are distributed all
over the Tohoku region.
The Latest Jomon stage (ca. 1000-300 B.C.)
The conventional view is that in south Japan, the Latest Jomon period
began around 1000 B.C. and ended in the third century B.C., at about the
time that rice and perhaps metals were introduced. But discoveries of
the last decade may force a revision of stages, especially in Kyushu
where economic changes were beginning to occur. The north continued
to have a large number of sites dating from the Latest Jomon. A phenomenal
52.47 percent of Latest Jomon sites are in the Tohoku,
whereas the Kanto - farther south - has an all-time low of 10.24 Per
"
cent. From a countrywide total of 6,687 sites for Late Jomon, the
number dropped to 3,135 in Latest Jomon. Life in the north was not
uncomfortable during this fairly warm stage. The ample supply of horse
chestnuts, chestnuts, and walnuts was augmented by deer, salmon, and
other seafoods. Evidence of forest destruction around some sites suggests
a dynamic balance between a gathering economy and a limited
plant-manipulating one. Shell mounds on marshy and high-ground
sites contain great quantities of finely fashioned small, polished, burnished,
or lacquer-painted vessels, many demonstrating a ritual use.
Each member of the family may have had his or her own cup or bowl.
Other, usually larger, vessels were made for heavier domestic use. Figurines
are numerous in both Kanto and Tohoku sites, some being hollow
and frequently in quite grotesque shapes. The well-known "goggleeyed"
type includes a few rather large examples.
The northern culture of this stage, including that of south Hokkaido
(known as Kamegaoka after a site in northern Aomori Prefecture), is
today thought to have contained the distinctive life-styles of these
people whose pottery typology is that of the Obora shell mounds in the
southeast corner of Iwate Prefecture. House pits are rarely found
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78 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
there, and settlement plans are not clear. The dwellings may have been
constructed on the surface with Ainu-style Y-fork posts and horizontally
laid poles for floors and roofs.
Lacquer (Rhus vemicifera) was by now a specialized art. Applied to
red ochre pigment on pottery and wood, it may have been used first
for waterproofing, but its decorative potential was soon recognized,
causing its value to rise. The low, damp sites have produced lacquer
combs and baskets, most notably a ceremonial lacquered "sword."
After the Jomon period, preference was given to black lacquer.
Kyushu's population expanded considerably in consequence of Late
Jomon immigration. From the record low of 2.3 percent (221) of all
Middle Jomon sites, the proportion of Kyushu sites rose to 6.27 percent
(419) in Late Jomon and to 8.26 percent (261) in Latest Jomon.
Pressure on available resources mounted, and searches were initiated
for additional sources of food. Interior Kanto was apparently on the
verge of exhaustion, its floral replenishment too sluggish after ten
thousand years. The region's larger Late Jomon population seems to
have been too much for it. But Kyushu's proximity to the continent
was a major geographical asset.
Southwest Japan was then wet and cool. Rice (Oryza sativa) grain
imprints have been noticed on Latest Jomon pottery from eleven sites,
eight of which are in Kyushu.35 The first rice pollen was accompanied
by a striking increase of weeds (Artemisia), the usual testimony to some
forest reduction. There was no native rice, but rice pollen was much in
evidence by about 500 B.C., accompanied by Yusu-type pottery. There
is now good evidence for advances beyond what had been assumed.
The discovery in 1978 of scores of footprints in a rice paddy at the
Itazuke site in Fukuoka, at a level associated with Yusu pottery, requires
a reevaluation of this Jomon stage and perhaps a different
beginning point for the Yayoi period, if not a redefinition of Yayoi
culture. These footprints were made by a man, a woman, and a sevenor
eight-year-old child working in a slushy-bottomed rice paddy that
had been drained and dried out before being buried by later soil
deposits. The big toes in these prints project at a sharp angle, unlike
those of any known Japanese feet. The failure to wear slippers or shoes
does not explain their grotesque shape, which might have been caused
if clogs with thick, wedge-shaped thongs had been used almost as soon
as a child could walk.
A good case has been made for the light cultivation of native millet,
35 Sato Toshiya, Nihon no kodai max (Tokyo: Yuzankaku, 1971), pp. 77-80.
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THE JOMON PERIOD 79
hardy grain Gramineae plants called hie (Echinochloa frumentacea) and
awa (Setaria italica). Barley (Hordeum) is also identified with the Latest
Jomon period, and shortly after Itazuke (the important transitional
Jomon-to-Yayoi site) in Fukuoka Prefecture, a modest amount of
wheat (Triticum) was being grown.'6
The Jomon people were once identified with the Ainu, now occupying
parts of Hokkaido and often regarded as having northern caucasoid
connections. This view has been revised somewhat, and archaeologists
now consider only the Latest Jomon culture of the north as Ainu,
who can probably be associated with the historic Ezo or Emishi, people
who first appeared in Japanese literature as settlers in scattered
pockets. As a group, they were seen as a threat to Japanese expansion
only in the north. After a century of warfare, they slowly fell back,
having suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of Japanese armies
toward the end of the eighth century. They remained in the Tohoku
region, according to much more recent historical records.
Archaeologically, the Ezo had many cultural features in common
with the Japanese, but as they withdrew into Hokkaido, they remained
at a hunting-and-gathering stage of development, although
they may have made some major contributions to early Japanese
thought, especially to views of the spirit world. Nonetheless, the Japanese
ignored them as long as Hokkaido was thought to be devoid of
resources. The discovery of rich coal mines and a rice-growing potential
radically changed that attitude in the nineteenth century, however.
The Ainu skeletons are distant from those of modern Japanese, but
physical anthropologists regard the Jomon population as osteologically
rather close to the Hokkaido Ainu and the upper Paleolithic Eurasian
population.37 It should be remembered that migrations into Japan
came through two and sometimes three points of entry. There was
relatively little mixing; otherwise the pottery typology would be less
complex. Physical differences in the Jomon period people were not
very great and resulted primarily from improved nourishment and
greater exercise, not from racial mixing. The skulls are almost brachy-
36 Kokawa Shohei, "Shokubutsu-sei ibutsu ni yoru kodaijin no seikatsu to kankyo ni tsuite no
kenkyu," Shizenkagaku no shuho niyoru iseki kobunkazai no kenkyu, 1976 Reports, B-5 (Tokyo:
Kobunkazai kenkyukai, 1977)) pp. 1—13; Kotani Yoshinobu, "Implications of Cereal
Grains from Uenoharu, Kumamoto," Jinruigaku zasshi 80 (June 1972): 159-62.
37 Ainu and "Japanese" can be differentiated by skeletal material. The Ainu were apparently
one surviving group of various non-Japanese populations in pre-Yayoi Japan. See William W.
Howells, "Craniometry and Multivariate Analysis: The Jomon Population of Japan," Papers
of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University 57 (1966): 3, 36-38;
Yamaguchi Bin, "Physical Anthropology of the Jomon Population," Proceedings of the Thirtyfirst
International Congress of Human Sciences in Asia and North Africa 2 (1984): 927.
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80 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
cranic after Middle Jomon. Tsugumo and Yoshigo people had an average
height of 157 to 158 centimeters, somewhat shorter than Hirasaka
people. Some physical anthropologists tend to see much physical continuity
from Jomon to historical times, maintaining that the changes
were of degree, not of kind. Never was a local population overwhelmed
or supplanted by enough newcomers to cause distinctive change.38
THE YAYOI PERIOD
Japan entered the civilized orbit of east Asia with the appearance of
rice-growing villages and the use of iron near the beginning of what is
known archaeologically as the Yayoi period. The Chinese referred to
these agricultural islanders as Wo (J: Wa), long before the people
apparently had a word for identifying themselves. China's interest in
its neighbors to the northeast emerged from cultural curiosity and
trading interests. Yayoi corresponds roughly to the Former and Later
Han dynasties of China (206 B.C. to A.D. 220), although Yayoi began
somewhat earlier and ended a century or more later.
The name Yayoi comes from Yayoi-cho, a northern section of the
University of Tokyo campus. Late in the nineteenth century, an army
firing range was situated opposite the back gate of the university
overlooking the town of Nezu. The small Mukogaoka shell mound lay
just northwest of the range in a grassy area normally populated by
rabbits and raccoon-dogs. Archaeologists excavated there several
times. The first pot uncovered is listed in one of the digger's memoirs
as a find of 1884. But the Yayoi name of the area entered geography
books somewhat later.
Initial study made it clear that Yayoi materials were not Jomon, but
more than half a century passed before these Yayoi finds were dated and
their significance was recognized. A formal report was not made to the
Archaeological Association until March 1, 1923, after a lapse of time
that attests to the quandary that the findings created. For a long time the
period even lacked a name. Neil Gordon Munro excavated another site
to verify his suspicions regarding their distinctiveness. In his massive
corpus PrehistoricJapan (1911), he called the period Intermediate and
described its bronze bells and weapons in his Yamato section, associating
them with later mounded tombs. The landmark discovery of Yayoi
culture came in 1943 with the finding of and subsequent ambitious
excavation ofthe Toro village site in south Shizuoka City. (See Map 1.2.)
38 Suzuki Hisashi, Hone (Tokyo: Gakuseisha, i960), pp. 51-68.
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THE YAYOI PERIOD 8l
K E Y
1 KIK.UMO
I IMAKAWA
3 irAZ.UK.6
+ MIYANOMAE
1 Yusi
? IHARA
1
* ' ^ ^ ^ ^
BRONZE WEAPONS |
BROMZ£ BELLS 1
Map i .2 Yayoi period sites and concentration areas of bronze weapons
and bells.
As a result of such developments, this period - frequently referred to as
the first stage of Japanese history - has become the subject of intensive
historical study.
Speculation on the origins of the Yayoi culture has given rise to
theories ranging from foreign invasion to indigenous development.
Virtually all cultural features of the period were introduced from
China and Korea through north Kyushu, and arrived at irregular
intervals over hundreds of years. The Latest Jomon sites in the
Tsukushi area of Kyushu total only 106 (Nagasaki: 40, Saga: 16,
Fukuoka: 50), but the number of Yayoi sites (within only five hundred
years) rose sharply to 681 (252,172, and 257, respectively). Eventually
more Yayoi sites were found farther south (Kumamoto: 472, Kagoshima:
588, Miyazaki: 94) where rice did well under warmer conditions
but where metal was virtually nonexistent. The three thousand
or four thousand inhabitants associated with the 261 sites (scattered
around the island of Kyushu) of the waning Jomon centuries were not
numerous enough to resist invasion.
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82 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
One view ofYayoi culture that once caught the popular imagination like
the theory of a later "invasion" ofJapan by horse riders - is that it is
connected with the Hsu Fu naval expedition dispatched by Ch'in Shihhuang-ti
in 219 B.C. to search for the Taoist isles of the immortals. This
was an elaborately mounted and well-stocked expedition, lacking nothing,
as the romanticized story goes. Hsu Fu reappeared some nine years
later with a request for more bowmen, and his description of the islands
he visited fits Japan. But iron and bronze did not arrive in Japan at the
same time, not even as close as the nine years between the two visits.
Even less likely is the introduction of rice by Hsu Fu, as his fleet
departed from the Shantung coast, far north of the rice-growing areas of
China.
The indigenous development theory, based on such ideas as the
cultivation of wild-rice seeds that had drifted to Japan, can be disposed
of in fewer lines. It presupposes a culture of considerable vigor, which
is far from the case. The Jomon culture of south Japan was debilitated,
virtually exhausted. Desperation could not have led the people to
domesticate nonexistent plants or to produce iron and bronze without
technological tutoring. The "woman's knife," a continental reaper,
was introduced, but surely not for harvesting domestic plants.
The beginnings office cultivation and metallurgy
Yayoi culture is complex because its earliest elements arrived from
continental fringe areas where unsinicized cultures are harder to define.
Other elements came from Korea and from areas where the Han
dynasty had consolidated its control and established an intricate network
of trade. Yayoi culture replaced that of the Jomon in north
Kyushu but did not supplant the people, adding depth to existing
Jomon traditions as it moved up the island of Honshu. In cooler areas
fewer inhabitants felt that rice was essential to existence, especially
because the effort required to grow rice was too great for the results
achieved.
An accelerated pace of change on the continent hastened human
displacement during the two centuries that followed the collapse of the
Chou dynasty, the centralization of the Ch'in, and the empire building
of the Han. Japan had always received its share of refugees and advantages
from the violence of China's dynastic upheavals. The establishment
of commanderies in north Korea under the domination of Lolang
in 108 B.C. placed Japan in touch with a major distribution center
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THE YAYOI PERIOD 83
of Chinese goods and, as long as Korea remained friendly, offered a
port to port trip to China that was safer than crossing the open sea.
Local pottery typology, imported Chinese bronze mirrors, and associated
Korean artifacts (such as stone replicas of daggers in both Korean
and Japanese sites) help date Yayoi artifacts in Kyushu. Fragments
of iron and bronze weapons, bronze mirrors, and spinning
equipment of Former Han times (first and second centuries B.C.) allow
us to place related finds in Early Yayoi. Later Han mirrors and other
Chinese artifacts of the first century A.D., on the other hand, permit us
to place related finds in the Middle Yayoi period, during which the
Yayoi culture moved up the Inland Sea to the Kinki and Tokai regions
and beyond. The major period of Yayoi expansion into the Kanto and
Tohoku continued from Middle to Late Yayoi, with rice cultivation
moving rapidly to more distant regions than was once thought. It was
being cultivated in northern Tohoku before the Yayoi period came to a
close.
Early Yayoi Ongagawa types of pottery, named after a river in northeast
Fukuoka Prefecture, are distributed in sites all the way from
north Kyushu to the Inland Sea and the Kinki, reaching Shizuoka on
the Tokai coast. Beyond Shizuoka lay dense cryptomeria forests,
which formed a rather strong deterrent to land clearance for farming
and beyond which Jomon traditions were deeply entrenched.
The Yusu pottery, the Latest Jomon type of north Kyushu, is difficult
to separate from the earliest Yayoi type. Gradually the firing of
Yayoi pottery became more standardized, and finished products took
on a rather consistent reddish brown color. Every family seems to have
filled its basic needs by making pots for cooking and storage, later on
producing ritual stands and vessels. Storage pots are the trademark of
Yayoi culture.
Excavations at several very large Yayoi period sites, usually made
before constructing a highway or urban housing complex, have
opened up new perspectives on the spread of rice cultivation and
satellite villages, as well as on changing burial practices and the consolidation
of tribal groups. The commonly held view that the Jomon and
Yayoi people sought out different environments because of different
life-sustaining needs has been disputed as a result of finds at two large
sites that contained both Jomon and Yayoi remains: the Kusakari shell
mound of Ichihara City in Chiba Prefecture, a site where a 100,000square-meter
area was excavated in 1983, disclosing 270 pit houses, of
which 76 were Late Yayoi, with the remainder Jomon, and the HiguCambridge
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84 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
chi Naijokan community site of Tatsuno City in Nagano Prefecture
where 133 pit dwellings were uncovered, 66 of which were Yayoi, with
the remainder Jomon (57), Burial Mound (2), and Heian (8).
Investigations made at two other large sites have produced valuable
data on burial practices over a considerable length of time: (1) the
Uenodaira site near Yamanashi City, which contained over 100 Yayoi
graves, and (2) the Hattori site of Moriyama City in Shiga Prefecture,
lying along the Noshu River, where an area of 360,000 square meters
was excavated and yielded 360 graves, mostly dating from the Middle
Yayoi.
In the Kanto and southern Tohoku, as well as at a few sites in the
Chubu region, burial systems have been found that evolved in late
Jomon times and continued into the Middle Yayoi, when they were
replaced by trenchlike burials grouped in squares. Human bones were
squeezed into narrow-necked jars that were then placed in a ring
inside round pits. The Tenjimmae site in Sakura in Chiba Prefecture
has seven pits, six of which contained nine burial jars each. At the
relatively small site at Izuruhara (684 square meters) in Sano in
Tochigi Prefecture were found thirty-seven burial pits, some of which
were filled with burial jars.
For the earliest stage of Japanese cultivation, rice growing had to
have been introduced from some area in the temperate zone between
about the thirtieth and thirty-fourth parallels, a zone that only touches
south Korea. For Japan it can be traced to the Yangtze delta region,
occupied during the Chou ascendancy by the Wu and Yueh kingdoms.
Yueh had absorbed Wu by the late Chou and was in turn absorbed by
the central state of Ch'u in 334 B.C. (Some of the phonetic elements of
the Japanese language have been linked to the speech of this area.)
Rice was dried, sometimes toasted, and could be efficiently stored
in compact spaces. But it was especially attractive to egg-laying moths.
The later Yayoi people devised elevated storehouses to counter the
humidity of summer rains and the predations of field mice. Carbonized
rice and pots with rice imprints are not at all infrequent in Yayoi
sites because of the toasting process. Toward the end of the period,
many sites yield tategine (straight wooden pounding sticks shaped like
elongated dumbbells) that were used for pulverizing grass to fertilize
seedling beds.
Japanese rice is short grained, awned, and highly nutritious. The
highest yield in the monsoon region comes from flooded paddy fields
of transplanted seedlings. Kyushu and Chugoku rice tended to be
thicker grained than Tokai and Kanto rice, due either to the existence
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THE YAYOI PERIOD 85
of a variety adapted to slightly cooler conditions in the east or to less
sunshine during the growing season.39
Paddy farming is the hallmark of Japanese agriculture, but rice
production at first included both marsh and dry-field planting. In
Kyushu and elsewhere, rice was only one of several food-production
systems of the Early Yayoi period. A number of shell mounds of that
stage have been found. Dwelling sites like Itazuke in Fukuoka have
yielded shells and the bones of boar and deer. With the passage of
time, Itazuke pollen becomes more frequently that of rice, water
plants, and pinus and less often the forest pollen of chinkapin and oak.
Pine always multiplied in the wake of much forest clearing. Other sites
show comparable environmental change.*0
The first agricultural communities
Itazuke, the site of a substantial Yayoi community, is situated south of
the present Fukuoka airport along the left bank of the Mikasa River.
Artifacts have been surfacing in that area for about a century. Excavation
at several places was started in the 1950s and has continued with
increasing interest, once Itazuke was recognized as a threshhold site of
Yayoi culture*1
It was inhabited in Earliest Jomon times, in the Latest
Jomon phase, and again in Early and Middle Yayoi. There are many pits
for storage and burial, but none is positively for a dwelling. Surface
dwellings may have been preferred, as depressed floors would have
been too damp for comfort; thus no settlement pattern is revealed.
Much of the Itazuke pottery is marginally Latest Jomon or Early
Yayoi, with coarse surface scraping and notched ridges around the
necks of vessels. Storage pots with lids, however, have distinctive
Yayoi shapes. Wooden stakes were used to outline rice fields. A long,
surrounding ditch has been identified as either a water supply system
or a defensive moat. Cultivating was done with wooden rakes and
hoes. Iron tools were essential to all woodworking, but as yet no iron
scraps have been found. Stone lunate reapers with paired holes (the
"woman's knife"), roughly polished axes, and clay spindle whorls
were the tools used in this new style of life, signs of economic and
cultural advance.
In the north part of the Itazuke site, occupying an irregular area of
slightly higher ground roughly forty by sixty meters in dimensions, lay
39 Sato, Nihon no kodai mai, p. 74. 40 Yasuda, "Prehistoric Environment," p. 242.
41 Fukuoka-shi kyoiku iinkai, Itazuke (Fukuoka: Chuetsu Fukuoka kojo, 1976).
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86 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
an isolated cemetery. It contained sixty-three jar burials and fifty rectangular
pits, at least a dozen of which were obviously designed to
accommodate wooden coffins. Thirty-seven of the jar burials are
thought to have been for children and twenty-six for adults, the children
usually in one jar and the adults in paired jars whose openings
were sealed with clay. Most of the rectangular pits were oriented north
and south, but either style might run in any direction.
Jar burials were extremely popular in Middle Yayoi and were at first
laid horizontally, as at Itazuke. Later, and in order to counter the
weight of the earth above, they were set at an angle and finally buried
upright, mouths turned down. Bones painted red have been found at
some sites but not at Itazuke. By Late Yayoi, simple pits for matwrapped
bodies had become common. A two-stage burial system continued
from Jomon times onward. Cemeteries average about ten jars
each in southwest Japan, but occasionally some were much larger.
Yoshinogari in Saga had about two thousand. The Kanenokuma graveyard
in Fukuoka contained 145 burial jars, both single and double,
dating from Early to Late Yayoi. A small number of jar burials have
been found in the Kinki, chiefly for the remains of children.
Some jars of the Middle Yayoi period, such as those at Sugu in
Fukuoka, are enormous in size and are seen as products of quasicommercial
activity by specialized potters. In a few sites in north
Kyushu, clustered jars were covered with immense stones in dolmenlike
formations, apparently following a Korean practice. Stone cists in
west Honshu, north Kyushu, and on the islands in the Korean strait
are also of a type introduced from Korea. Though somewhat more
pretentious than jars, they rarely contain grave goods.
Cemeteries with several kinds of burials reflect differences of age,
status, sex, and ethnic background, or combinations thereof. Doigahama
in Yamaguchi Prefecture is a case in point. Dating from the
second half of Early Yayoi, it is variously said to have included 121,
over 150, or more than 200 skeletons.4* The majority lay in extended
positions with their heads pointing east. Five scattered stone cists were
more or less in the middle of the cemetery and contained the skeletons
of adults. Only these included burial goods - articles of jasper and
shell ornaments. Some female skeletons found in cists lay at the feet of
male skeletons, and one stone cist had been lengthened to accommo-
42 Patricia Hitchins, "Technical Studies on Materials from Yayoi Period Japan: Their Role in
Archaeological Interpretation," Asian Perspectives 19 (1978): 159 (more than 150); Hiroshi
Kanaseki and Makoto Sahara, "The Yayoi Period," Asian Perspectives 19 (1978): 24 (more
than 200). Expanded digging since 1953 has revealed consistently more human remains.
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THE YAYOI PERIOD 87
date nine bodies. About sixty-nine men, twenty-eight women, and
most of the children were buried in the cemetery to the east, and
eleven men and thirteen women were placed to the north. Teeth mutilation
was still extensively practiced. A recognizable degree of segregation
is thought to indicate distinctions between blood relatives and
outsiders married into the group, an idea supported by practices that
have survived in western Japan until modern times.«
Recent interest in a possible association of Yayoi burials with later
mounded tombs, and in the origin of the latter, has focused attention
on rectangular pits grouped in squares, now referred to as "squaremoated
graves." Because these are more prominent in the Kinki,
connections between the two forms of burial seem more likely there.
At Ama and Uryudd in Osaka, Saikachido in Kanagawa, and even in
southern Tohoku, communities buried some of their dead in rectangular
pits, with the four sides paralleling those of a square mound surrounded
by a ditch. A pit center may have been used initially for a
single wooden coffin burial, but the usual form was that of a square
outlined with bodies. Rather deep burials left few visible surface
traces, but what is known places them closer to the Yayoi tradition of
subsurface burial than to the later "hilltop" style of the early mounded
tombs.
Objects found in or near jar burials of north Kyushu (pi of glass,
Han mirrors, jade beads, bronze halberds and swords) are similar to
goods put in Chinese graves of north Korea, except for the weapons.
These were symbols of status and were, in all likelihood, personal
treasures deposited in the graves of north Kyushu owners.
Large quantities of bronze objects were excavated from north
Fukuoka sites as early as the eighteenth century: Ihara (1781-8), fifty
mirrors; Mikumo (1822), thirty-five mirrors; and Sugu (1899), over
twenty mirrors.-* The Sugu material has been better preserved and is
therefore better known. It includes bronze daggers, halberds, sandstone
molds for weapons, jade objects, and burial jars. Such a concentration
of wealth has aroused a great deal of speculation about this
possibly being the location of Yamatai, the kingdom of Japan described
by Chinese historians in the Wei-chih section on the country of
Wo (Wa).
Such burial sites signify great cultural change. What may at first
43 Kanaseki and Sahara, "The Yayoi Period," p. 25.
44 Shimada Sadahiko and Umehara Sueji, "Chikuzen Sugu shizen iseki no kenkyu," Kyoto
leikoku daigaku bungakubu kokogaku kenkyu hokoku 11 (Kyoto: Kyoto teikoku daigaku, 1930),
pp. 40-55.
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88 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
have been little more than burials for settlements of shipwrecked fishermen
became, by Middle Yayoi, communities of farmers with social
elites or entrepreneurs owning and accumulating through trade certain
status symbols that suggest a sharpened awareness of economic differences
in an early step toward social stratification.
Two Late Jomon sites in Kyushu - Obarushita and Ikada in Nagasaki
Prefecture - have reportedly produced iron objects, but most
archaeologists have been skeptical about the appearance of iron before
Yayoi and have considered the bladelike items taken from the
Early Yayoi Saitoyama site in Kumamoto Prefecture to be the oldestknown
evidence of iron in Japan.« A more recent find of an iron
sword lying at the side of a skeleton in a wooden coffin in the large
cemetery of the Okamoto-cho, 4-chome, site of Kasuga City, Fukuoka
Prefecture, is at least as old. Both are thought to belong to the
second century B.C. The Chinese people's experience with high-fired
ceramics had led them to cast iron at temperatures over i,3OO°C.
This also was the method first used by the Japanese, although forging
would have been far more suitable for their level of technological
achievement. Most early Yayoi artifacts, of Chinese-style foundrymade
iron, were probably items of trade, but after the Chinese began
to forge iron in the Han dynasty - associated with their phenomenal
military progress - the forging process reached Japan. Very little
Early Yayoi iron has been found in Japan. A tabulation of Kyushu
sites made in 1974 shows that a total of 157 Middle Yayoi iron items
and 118 Late Yayoi ones have been found.*6
But iron is deceptive.
Unlike bronze, its deterioration is extremely rapid under the moist
conditions of Japan, and given a prolonged period of erosion, much
of it may have disappeared.
The argument that most iron goods were objects of trade is based on
the observation that the greater the distance is from points of entry,
the fewer iron objects will be found. But one suspects that the phenomenal
increase from Early to Middle Yayoi cannot be explained
simply in terms of trade with Chinese colonies. The more extensive
use of native ore for forging iron must have been a primary factor. Iron
axes, for example, were modeled on a finely developed continental
style of stone axe that was by then being locally made. As their production
increased, the number of stone axes decreased. The inevitable
search for ore must have spurred a rather rapid expansion of rice
45 Mori Koichi, ed., Tetsu (Tokyo: Shakai shisosha, 1974), pp. 20-21.
46 Kubota Kurao, Tetsu ko kogaku (Tokyo: Yuzankaku, 1974), P- 59Cambridge
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THE YAYOI PERIOD 89
cultivation in new areas, and the digging of wells made it possible for
innumerable branch communities to grow rice on higher ground. It is
believed that even small and remote villages used iron tools.
Iron may have been imported from the "iron mountains" of Korea,
but the Japanese may also have gathered limonite or iron sands from
their own riverbeds. Local production occurred in at least two places
in Kyushu: in Oita Prefecture to the east and in Miyazaki Prefecture
to the south, where primitive bloom furnaces appear to have been
capable of refining about ten kilograms of iron at a time.1
"
By Late Yayoi, and as far north as the Kanto, iron was used for such
tools as plows, hoes, and sickles for farmers; axes, adzes, chisels,
planes, scrapers, and gravers for carpenters; spearheads and fishhooks
for fishermen; and arrowheads, spearheads, swords, and halberds for
fighters. But only about fifteen pieces of iron have been discovered in
Late Yayoi sites of the Kanto itself, where in the deepening conservatism
of the north, cultural development was slow. And in the Tohoku,
only one piece has been found, a fishhook, in a shell mound on
Matsushima Bay in Miyagi Prefecture.
Wooden tools and utensils were especially useful in the marshy
fields of Yayoi times. The wood of cryptomeria (Japanese cedar) and
oak was usually selected, but wooden objects in the Karako site of
Nara Prefecture were made of cherry, mulberry, and zelkova. Apart
from farming tools, which were later tipped with iron, pieces of looms,
drills used in making fire, cups and bowls turned on a simple lathe,
small pieces of furniture (such as weavers' stools), trimly carved and
painted shields, wooden human effigies, and birds have been dug up.
The body of a koto, an ancient stringed instrument, was unearthed at
Kasuga City, Fukuoka Prefecture. Geta, large clogs used when transplanting
young rice plants, were discovered at Toro but, surprisingly,
no plow, although plows had appeared at earlier sites. One would
expect that at least fragments of their wooden frames would have been
preserved.
Craftsmanship was best in the Kinki. Pottery was sometimes
painted; wooden cups, bowls and utensils were meticulously carved;
and bronze bells superbly cast. A popular pattern in all Kinki arts was
the ryusui (flowing water), a series of parallel horizontal lines sweeping
back and forth, combed on pottery and drawn in wide relief on
wooden vessels and in thread relief on bells, evoking the impression of
water. Imaginative writers have had a field day with the bells, some-
47 Ibid., p. 61.
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90 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
times identifying this motif with sympathetic magic meant to ensure
adequate water for rice farming.
Yayoi pottery found north of Toro in Shizuoka Prefecture includes
pieces with highly refined cord marking and red painted surfaces.
That of north Honshu is almost as rich as northern Jomon pottery is in
its shape and variety of decoration, and it includes zoned cord marking
that can easily be confused with the Late Jomon style.
The traditional line of demarcation between north and south crosses
south Tokai. Rightly or wrongly, much is made of the different forest
patterns on the opposite sides of the Oi River: laurel to the west and
cryptomeria to the east. Middle Yayoi sites along or near this line show
a substantial increase in evergreen leaf trees and pine, which always do
well in unenriched soil after deforestation, usually attributable to farming.
On this line lies the Toro site of Shizuoka, where cord marking is
first encountered on Yayoi pottery.
Developed Yayoi communities
Toro is the most intensively analyzed of the mature, relatively selfsufficient
Yayoi agricultural communities.*8
The village, located along
the Abe River, prospered until a catastrophic flood wiped it out, leaving
the wooden debris of houses lined up in the direction of the flood's
flow. No iron objects and almost no personal possessions of any worth
have been found there, either because the villagers had ample warning
or because they returned to recover their valuables. But iron tools had
been used to shape the thousands of cryptomeria slats placed along the
edges of the rice paddies and beside the paths.
Toro had a highly developed rice cultivation system for over fifty
paddies occupying seventy thousand square meters (or about seventeen
acres) with sluice-gated irrigation ditches and wells available
when needed. The rice yield was too large for customary storage
methods, and there was almost no pottery. Toro and a few other
communities of that time and region constructed storehouses that
were raised, windowless structures standing one to two meters above
the ground and supported by six or more posts. Built with planks of
regular shape and with floors, doors, and a structural style making it
possible to include windows, these storehouses embodied the major
architectural advances of the time, and their status value as resi-
48 Oba Iwao, Toro iseki kenkyu (Tokyo: Ashikabi shobo, 1948); Nihon kokogakkai, Toro (Tokyo:
Mainichi shimbunsha, 1949); Komai Kazuchika, Toro no iseki (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1955).
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THE YAYOI PERIOD 91
dences was soon recognized. Individuals who could afford to build
them lowered the floors for convenience but then had to suffer the
discomfort of hearthless interiors during colder weather. Tribal leaders
and/or shamans made them into palaces (miya), taking one step
toward the earliest Shinto shrines (gu). Their architecture and names
were apparently interchangeable, reflecting the dual role of secularreligious
leaders.
Yayoi dwellings were sometimes erected over shallow pits - dug on
higher ground to avoid wet floors - which were usually oval in shape
(averaging six by eight meters) with four heavy posts set on sunken
wooden plates for support in the soft soil. Many houses seem not to
have had fireplaces, perhaps because of dampness. The style appears
to have originated in south Japan during a period that was in any case
warm. Houses in the southwest were usually square. Beams and
slanted poles were covered with thatch and crowned by an irimoya roof
with a flared section that served as a ventilator and sunshade. The
interior was banked with earth at the foot of the wall, forming a
surrounding bench supported by wooden slats and a dike for the
outside ditch.
The community was almost fully collectivized. At Toro, numerous
wooden tools were clustered on the floor of one house, suggesting
public rather than private ownership. One storehouse served about
five houses. Some Toro houses were so close together - no more than a
meter apart - that grain had to be dried in a common area. A multiplying
population certainly created a variety of social and political problems,
arising especially from competition for suitable land and the
control of water sources. Communities were subdivided into branches
that settled in highlands where wells were dug. Some added considerable
dry-land farming to rice growing. Millet, soybeans, red and broad
beans, and peas were raised. Traces of barley and wheat, neither of
which were native plants, have also been found. Peaches were introduced
and became a major fruit. Silverberry seeds, musk melon, and
wild grapes were available, and akebia vines were used for basketry.
The Chinese descriptions of Japan mention wars, and archaeological
findings support the veracity of those descriptions. There was a stage
of intense production of stone weapons, and the building of defensive
villages, especially from the eastern Inland Sea to the Kinki. Hunting
tools and then actual weapons were used in fighting. One person at
Doigahama had apparently been killed by a stone arrowhead that had
struck his skull, and a woman at Nejiko in Nagasaki Prefecture has a
bronze arrowhead in hers. Several skeletons at Yoshinogari are comCambridge
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92 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
pletely headless. Villages were located over a hundred meters in altitude,
higher than necessary for peaceful agricultural existence. This
appeared to be a time of tightening tribal ties when friends were
differentiated from enemies, a critical stage in the formation of power
centers, especially in the Kinki.
One lightly fortified village, with a ditch around it, was located at
Santonodai on the bluffs of Yokohama Bay, on a low plateau measuring
approximately n o meters from north to south and 80 meters from east
to west.49 Scores of houses were built and rebuilt there from the Middle
Yayoi to the Yamato period, with numerous overlapping pits. The
community must at times have been quite crowded. Rice was raised on
the lowland near springs on the east side of the hill where water could
easily be obtained and managed. Satellite villages were scattered
about. Eight houses, loosely distributed over the plateau, apparently
burned in one tragic day of destruction - by accident or hostile
attack - leaving in their wake the exact size and format of a Middle
Yayoi village. Seven house pits measured six to seven meters in diameter,
but one was over ten meters across and contained large pots. The
Late Yayoi houses here had storage pits inside them, and two large
deep shafts had been dug at the edge of the site where villagers may
have collectively stored their rice.
Local bronze production
Bronze and iron came to have the same patterns of use as on the
continent: bronze as upper-class symbols of status and weapons of
war, and iron as lower-class tools for manual labor and farming.
Bronze casting required highly trained artisans and the supervision of
a few production centers in order to ensure quality and controlled
distribution. But iron could be made in "backyard furnaces" with only
a little instruction. Consequently, bronze had greater ritual significance
in the Yayoi period than at any other time in Japanese history.
A second- or third-century B.C. "winged" arrowhead, discovered in
late 1979 at Imakawa in Fukushima, is probably the oldest bronze
object found in Japan. Other Yayoi bronze categories were heirlooms,
religious equipment, weapons, and decorative items that included Chinese
mirrors, northeast Asian mirrors with geometric thread-relief patterns,
dagger-swords, spearheads, halberds, sword ornaments, shield
whorl ornaments, bracelets, coins, vessels, and horse bells. Huo-chuan
49 Ito Nobuo, "Sumai," in Nihon no bijutsu 38 (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1969), pp. 22-23.
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THE YAYOI PERIOD 93
(J: kasen) coins, bronze mirrors, vessels, and sword ornaments were not
copied by the Japanese at the time, but daggers, socketed and tanged
spearheads, halberds, and small horse bells were at first reproduced and
then greatly enlarged as major religious symbols.
Yayoi bronze finds are concentrated in two geographical zones:
weapons in north Kyushu and as far east as the middle Inland Sea;
and bells in the eastern Inland Sea, the Kinki, and as far east as the
southern Tokai. The overlap in the Inland Sea is the first archaeological
indication that this was the critical arena of conflict between
Tsukushi tribes of the south and Kinki tribes of the east. The strategic
Kibi region in between controlled the traffic of vital materials
destined for the Kinki, making it necessary for any Kinki tribal
leader interested in consolidating his position and expanding power
to subjugate the Kibi, mollify its leaders, or resort to the use of
diplomacy. An early emperor tried to control the Kibi area through
intermarriage.
The earliest bronze swords and spearheads had probably been introduced
by the first century B.C. and locally reproduced within the next
hundred years, in all likelihood just in north Kyushu. Sandstone
molds for weapons and bracelets have been found at several sites. One
of the molds is a foreign one, probably brought in as a model. Immigrants
were directly involved at first, as the technical level is not
inferior to that of Korea. In time, local castings became progressively
longer, wider, and thinner. Japanese-made weapons were rarely interred
with the dead. But special deposits of several bronzes laid together
horizontally have been found, sometimes in graded sizes and
presumably buried at selected spots to ensure the fertility of crops and
the protection of territory. If placating spirits of earth and harvest was
intended, as is sometimes thought, these bronzes may have been periodically
unearthed and reburied.
Bronze bells (dotaku) represent very different technological problems
and solutions to them. Small bells (bataku, or horse bells), not
usually more than ten centimeters long, were first discovered in i960
(three in Kasuga City sites in Fukuoka and one in a site in Usa City,
Oita) and were thought to have come from Korea.*0
Conventional views were based on the assumption that no bronze
bells were cast in Kyushu, but this has been disproved by recent discoveries.
Stone and clay fragments of molds for small bells - previously
50 Takakura Hiroaki, "Kyushu no dotaku," in Kagawa Mitsuo, ed., Usa: tairiku bunka no
Nihon kodai-shi (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1978), pp. 201-12.
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94 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
found in the prefectures of Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo - have recently
been found in the Kyushu prefectures of Fukuoka and Saga. From the
debris of a workshop site at Yasunagata in Tosu City, Saga Prefecture,
came a fragment of a sandstone bell mold that had become discolored by
use, two molds for bronze spearheads, and some copper slag and a small
quantity of refined tin. The bell mold was for a Middle Yayoi bell about
twenty centimeters high, ofa type usually recovered from sites in prefectures
along the eastern shores of the Inland Sea.
The earliest bells taken from Inland Sea sites are small (between
twenty and twenty five centimeters high) and poorly made. Surface
flaws resulting from unescaped gases were patched and smoothed. A
small number, found only in Hiroshima and Okayama, bear elliptical,
straight, and curved relief lines drawn in crude attempts to represent
faces. Others from Hyogo and Shimane are also very mediocre productions.
It was not until about the second century A.D. that casters solved
technical problems. The wall panels and flanges of these bells have
pictorial or geometric patterns in sharp, linear relief. In the third
century, bells became increasingly thin walled, tall, and slender. The
thread-relief pictures were discontinued, and the decoration became
more crisp and stereotyped, probably reflecting a slackening intensity
of interest in ritual.
About 10 percent of the over four hundred known bronze bells
bear small thread-relief pictures that, ranging from early randomly
dispersed ones to later well-organized ones on panels, are remarkably
graphic representations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians,
fish, insects, ecstatic shamans, storehouses, couples pounding rice,
fishing, and hunting with a long bow and trained dogs. In sum they
illustrate hunting, collecting, preparing and storing activities, perhaps
as seasonal symbols used in ceremonies associated with planting
and harvesting.
The discovery of identical bells has led to the assumption that most
foundries existed in the Osaka-Nara area. The evidence for this is
seen in bells that are clearly products of the same mold. For example,
eight bells from widely scattered Kinki sites are thought to have been
cast in the same mold. Fromfiveother sets of two or more bells from a
single mold, at least one bell of each set was found in the Kinki. The
recent discovery of a mold in Ibaraki City in Osaka Prefecture reinforces
the view that foundries existed mainly in that area.
A few fragments of other molds have turned up by accident, but the
Ibaraki one has a complete sandstone matrix for a Middle Yayoi style
of bell 34 centimeters high. It was found with chunks of other bell
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THE YAYOI PERIOD 95
molds and with molds for casting curved beads (magatama), glass
magatama, and mouthpieces for bellows. A possible sandstone source
is about 30 kilometers away. Bells produced at Ibaraki have been
found up to 150 kilometers distant, one in the prefecture of Kagawa
on the island of Shikoku.*1
Manufacture and distribution in the Kinki
leads to further speculation that the increasing size and quantity of the
bells were directly connected with the rising power of a dominant
tribal group and that their distribution indicates the extent of the
group's influence over other tribes.
Bells are usually found isolated on terraces or hillsides above fertile
fields. Like weapons, they probably were ritually buried, doubtless
with elaborate ceremony in order to ensure a good harvest. They have
also been uncovered in caches of seven or eight or even more. The
most impressive collection contains fourteen bells of different sizes
and seven halberds - all found by chance in 1965 on a forested ridge at
Sakuragaoka-cho above the city of Kobe. Two of the bells bear panels
of relief figures. One is so unusual that it was quickly designated as a
National Treasure.
Any question about the source of bronze ingredients brings up the
Shoku Nihongi's reference to the discovery of copper in the Chichibu
region of Musashi Province (now Saitama Prefecture), an event sufficiently
important to warrant great celebration, and the adoption of
Wado (Japanese copper, or refined copper) for the name of the era that
began in 708 and ended in 711. But if it is true that no copper was
found locally before the early years of the eighth century, enormous
logistics problems would have existed.
The recovery of hundreds of Yayoi bronze weapons and bells - and
especially bronze mirrors, horse trappings, and other objects from
later ancient tombs - indicates a massive circulation of bronze, of
which only a small part is known today. Many of the bronzes thus
accumulated were used for casting the late-sixth-century Buddhist
statues, causing a great strain on the supply of metal, especially in the
closing years of the seventh century when large temples were having
monumental sixteen-foot bronze images made. Because this was after
Japan was driven out of Korea in 663 and was forced to trade directly
with China, most of the material may have been transported directly
from China. All this suggests that long before Buddhist statues were
cast, efficient barter and trade relationships had been established for
stockpiling foreign bronze.
51 Tsuboi, Jdmon bunka ron, p. 161.
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96 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
There seem to have been many sources for both raw and recycled
material: the use of Chinese or Korean ore, or both; the importation of
Chinese and/or Korean artifacts for melting down and recasting; a
combination of raw and recycled material; and the exclusive use of
Japanese ore. But the findings of research tend to rule out the lastmentioned
source, leading scholars to accept the Shoku Nihongi's date
for the discovery of copper. The current tendency is to favor the view
that most of the material was obtained by acquiring Korean and Chinese
bronzes and melting them down for recasting in desired forms.
Because there was little change in the metal mixture once percentages
for acceptable quality were determined, probably no more than one
source of materials was exploited. No matter how the material was
procured, an appropriate political setting had to exist or to be created.
The isotopic ratios of lead in fifty-three Japan-made bells, mirrors,
arrowheads, and horse trappings of Yayoi and Burial Mound period
artifacts have been compared with those of Chinese and Korean
galenas (lead sulphide) in Former Han mirrors from north China, in
Later Han and post-Han mirrors from central and south China, and in
one so-called fine-line and off-center knob mirror from Korea.52
The
tested bells were of all types and from different periods, ranging from
early to late. They have a relatively uniform composition of 90 percent
copper, 4 percent tin, 4 percent lead, and traces of other elements.
Comparisons showed that the two oldest bells were recasts of Korean
bronze artifacts, that thirty-three bells were of Chinese bronze dating
from the Former Han and that eighteen were bronze dating from the
Later Han.
Bronzes produced in Japan after 714 have only trace levels of lead,
or 5 or more percent that was intentionally added. The twelve Japanese
coins issued between 708 and 758 contain added lead, but the
bronze epitaph of O no Yasumaro, compiler of the Kojiki who died in
723 and whose grave was accidentally discovered in 1979, has less than
1 percent - typical of bronzes made in Japan during and after the
eighth century.
These discoveries have led to the conjecture that lead ingots were
imported from China in order to supplement the lead recovered from
recycling continental bronzes. Thus the volume of imported bronze
materials was probably much larger than previously imagined.
52 Mabuchi Hisao, "Seidoki genryo wa umi o wattatekita," Kagaku asahi 12 (1985): 23-27;
Yamazaki Kazuo, "Dokyo, dotaku nado seidoki no kagaku seibun," Kokogaku no shizen
kagaku 15 (1982): 13-21; Mabuchi Hisao and Hirao Yoshimitsu, "Namari doi caihi kara mita
dotaku no genryo," Kokogaku zasshi 68 (1982): 42-62,168.
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THE YAYOI PERIOD 97
Further evidence that many imported bronzes were melted down
can be obtained from studying the loss of tin content when imports
were recast in Japan. An analysis of three Chinese mirrors and one
Japanese copy shows that the Chinese mirrors are 20 percent tin but
that the Japanese copy is 13 percent. Six Japanese bells of different
periods proved to have a tin content of 12 percent or less, and tests on
a spearhead showed that it had very little.
Shamans and chieftains
To understand Japan at this time, we must consider Chinese descriptions
of the people of Wo (Wa), despite the long and heated debate
over the original location of Yamatai that drew attention to errors of
direction and distance. The Chinese authors of the Wei chih dated A.D.
297 described Hsieh-ma-t'ai - which the Japanese have usually called
Yamatai - as the strongest of many "states," "kingdoms," or "countries."53
In earlier accounts Wo was described as having around one
hundred countries, some thirty of which were known to be in direct
contact with China. The Chinese inability to gauge distances on water,
measured by travel days, produced a puzzle of overwhelming proportions.
A host of theories concerning the location of Yamatai - first
appearing in the Kamakura period - has clouded the information.
Perhaps the confusion was not entirely unintended, as many of the
descriptions are far from flattering, beginning with the one that accepts
Wo (dwarfs) as the name of Japan.
The accounts provide valuable glimpses into the religious practices
as well as the political and economic life of early Japan, and they
supply strong testimony of social differentiation in the Late Yayoi
period. Yamatai was victorious after years of warfare, and it was ruled
by Himiko (or Pimiko), a female shaman of extraordinary power who
was served by one thousand women and one man and guarded by one
hundred men but was accessible only to her brother. Chinese histories
state that she lived between A.D. 183 and 248.
These Chinese accounts report that in Japan the government collects
"taxes"; marketplaces are centers of trade in each district; upperclass
people are attended by others, a man of lower rank gets off the
53 For a translation, see Ryusaku Tsunoda and L. Carrington Goodrich, Japan in the Chinese
Dynastic Histories (South Pasadena: P. D. and lone Perkins, 1951), pp. 1-21. The most useful
Japanese volume, a history of the study and encyclopedia of the topic, is by Yasumoto Biten,
Yamatai koku handobukku (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1987), which capsulizes the theories of 157
writers and lists 363 separate studies in the bibliography.
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98 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
road and kneels to show his respect when meeting a man of higher
rank; and men of status have four or five wives. They also state that
the Japanese have several titles, for which there are no clear Chinese or
Korean equivalents,54
leading some scholars to accept this as impressive
evidence for the uniqueness of the Japanese language at that time.
Also, professional abstainers were said to have been employed. Unwashed
and unshaved, they did such things as accompany ocean travelers
in order to ensure the safety of their passage. If misfortune occurred,
they were killed because of the belief that they had broken
their vows. The Chinese accounts also report that the Wo ate with
their hands and drank heavily. Divination was practiced by burning
bones, mourning lasted for ten days, and burial was in a single coffin.
The accounts say that political chaos followed Himiko's death and that
an ineffectual male ruler had to be replaced by a thirteen-year old girl
to keep the peace. Himiko was reportedly buried in a large mounded
tomb, about one hundred meters in diameter, at which time one thousand
male and female attendants were immolated.
As elsewhere, Chinese compilers of dynastic histories showed a fondness
for large round numbers. Great distances were given in hundreds
and thousands of li (a li was probably about one-sixth of a mile). To
reach Yamatai, travelers leaving Tai-fang - the present Inchon on the
west coast of Korea - sailed south and then across the strait by way of
the islands of Tsushima and Iki to Matsuura, Ito, Na, and Fumi.
These first "countries" of Japan were long ago identified as places in
north Kyushu, but from there the trip to Yamatai required another ten
days by sea and thirty by land. This revealing statement, plus the fact
that land could be sighted during the island-hopping trip from Korea
(and Kyushu was not that far away), would seem to make it unnecessary
to give such an elaborate description of a place so close as
Kyushu. In any event, despite all the arguments to the contrary, the
description eliminates north Kyushu as the center of Wo. Hsieh-mat'ai
(Yamatai) was probably a Chinese phonetic word for Yamato of
central Japan.
The long and largely fruitless exercise of trying to locate Yamatai
was inspired by the need to disassociate Himiko from the imperial line
after it was realized that she could not be identified with "Empress"
Jingu. Tokugawa historians wanted an unbroken, male genealogy that
was more strictly defined than that delineated in the Nihon skoki,
54 Ranging between two to four and graded. Each "country" has its own titles; Yamatai alone
having four, a fact in itself that indicates a larger population and a more complex administrative
system.
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THE YAYOI PERIOD 99
whose compilers were attempting to maximize the antiquity and authority
of the Yamato line.
The existence of customs mentioned in Chinese accounts, such as
scapulimancy, have been verified archaeologically by the discovery in
several widely scattered Yayoi sites of bones bearing burnt pits.
Wooden coffins were simple in Japan, whereas wealthy Chinese were
buried in a box within a box. The Chinese claim that Japanese ate with
their fingers was probably correct, as is suggested by the lack of chopsticks
among the mass of wooden objects taken from Yayoi sites. The
Japanese are also said to have grown plants and trees and to have made
silk, linen, cotton, and hemp. Parts of wooden looms show that they
wove cloth twenty to thirty centimeters wide, and fragments of such
cloth have been recovered from wrapped human bones and bronze
mirrors. Impressions on the bottoms of pots from several sites seem to
be those of wild ramie fiber. The S-twisted warp weave had a warp of
six to ten threads and a woof of eleven to twenty-four threads.
Social stratification is frequently alluded to in the Chinese records,
as implied in the efforts of tribal leaders to secure territory and in the
consequent collective and personal needs for maintaining power. The
manufacture and use of bronze, and to a lesser extent the control of
textile distribution, must have contributed to social stratification. Archaeological
evidence provides strong support for this generalization,
despite arguments that burial variations within a single cemetery reveal
distinctions between foreigners and natives (which may still be
social differentiation) or represent temporal change.
The Tano site in Osaka demonstrates social grading. Amid vast
debris of mostly Middle Yayoi pottery have been found pits of both
small and large houses, the larger being associated with wooden coffins
and the smaller ones with burial jars.55 Most of the skeletons are of
adult males lying in an extended position on their backs. Coffins
located near large houses contained grave goods such as beads, bronze
bracelets, and nonlocal jasper; one coffin was painted on the interior.
Other burials contained nothing.
Considerable archaeological evidence points to trade - apart from
that involving bronze weapons and bells - all over the country.56
Some
of the evidence is indirect but suggests trade in rice, cloth, iron, stone
tools, wooden objects, salt, and other commodities and raw materials:
rice in north Tohoku sites where it is unlikely that rice was grown;
55 Murakawa Yukihiro, Tano (Tokyo: Gakuseisha, 1967), pp. 155-80.
56 Peter Bleed, "The Yayoi Cultures of Japan," Arctic Anthropology 9, no. 2 (1972): 16-17, 20.
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IOO THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
iron tools in sites where the local geology made iron production unlikely;
and pots at places that produced more salt than the local people
could use. The dispersal of more communities far from the coast
where the Jomon people had lived increased the demand for salt, and
salt-producing sites have been identified.s? North Kyushu has provided
particularly strong evidence of trade in stone tools. From Early
and Middle Yayoi onward, numerous rice reapers (women's knives)
made at the Tateiwa site in Iizuka City (Fukuoka Prefecture) have
been found in more than a dozen sites within afifty-kilometerradius,
whereas Tateiwa itself yielded twenty-six reapers, some unfinished.
Polished stone axes made at Imayama in Nishi-ku of Fukuoka City are
also widely distributed, many at a single site. Tateiwa and Imayama
are about forty kilometers apart: Tateiwa is thirty kilometers up the
Ongagawa River, and Imayama is at Imajuku on the coast. Many
polished stone tools at Tenjinzawa in Fukushima Prefecture suggest
that this was a production and distribution center. In the vicinity of
the Uryudo site of Higashi Osaka City (Osaka Prefecture), finished
wooden tools have been found at sites on the plain and many roughedout
tools at the borders of forests, as though the latter was where
people supplied the blocks and/or finished products for piedmont
residents.58
A male skeleton interred in a jar at Tateiwa had fourteen
shell bracelets on his right arm, all made from semitropical and tropical
shells, Strombus latissimus Linne, of the south Pacific area, the
closest source of which is the Ryukyu Islands.
It has been concluded that the fundamental Altaic characteristics of
the Japanese language were already established by Yayoi times, having
been brought by immigrants who passed through a sparsely occupied
Korean peninsula during the neolithic period, well before the northern
part of the peninsula was blocked off by Han expansion. Some secondary
Malayo-Polynesian linguistic features had entered Japan from a
southern coastal area. But the number of arrivals in Early Yayoi was
apparently not enough to overwhelm the existing language, although
there doubtless were modifications. If the fundamental characteristics
ofthe Japanese language were Yayoi or more recent, far less effort would
be required to trace their origins and connections. The small upper class
of Middle and Late Yayoi - if that is what it was - probably had little
effect on the language. Note that northern Korea did not adopt the
57 Yoshiro Rondo, "The Salt Industry in Ancient Japan," Salt (Essex: University of Essex,
!975)> PP- 62-63: Yayoi period salt-manufacturing sites on the coasts of Okayama, Kagawa,
Tokushima, and Wakayama prefectures.
58 Yasuda, "Prehistoric Environment," p. 235.
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THE YAYOI PERIOD IOI
Chinese language despite centuries of Chinese rule. Divergences between
Korean and Japanese must have been very great by the time of the
fourth-century ruler Yuryaku. Indeed, interpreters were needed by
Korean heads of be (saddlers, weavers, potters, and painters) when
communicating with their craftsmen.
Evidence for the physical characteristics of the Yayoi people comes
from about a thousand skeletons found in southwest Japan, mostly
belonging to Early and Middle Yayoi periods when the jar-burial system
(which provided the best conditions for preservation) was popular.
No evidence of population displacement has been found in the
physical remains of north Kyushu. Early Yayoi people in north and
west Kyushu were taller by an average of two centimeters, but they
were otherwise little different from their Jomon predecessors. It is
now known that the Early-to-Middle Yayoi people of northwest and
south Kyushu were rather similar to the Tsugumo people of the Late
Jomon.59 Not until the end of Yayoi was the impact of better nutrition
and new genetic types felt. By that time, differences between Yayoi
and Jomon people had become clear. Their faces were then markedly
flatter, beginning a slow trend toward mongoloid features that continued
until the sixteenth century. The stature for males had increased to
about 162 centimeters in the Early Yayoi but declined noticeably during
the Middle Yayoi. Longevity, it is estimated, was by then one year
longer. Like the Jomon people, the Yayoi people were not homogeneous,
but they were looking more alike by the end of the Yayoi
period. On the whole, the weapons-burying people of the southwest
tended to have long skulls, and those of the bell-burying people of the
east were rounder.60
Some nine thousand footprints of feet 23 to 25
centimeters long were found 3.5 meters below the surface of the Middle
Yayoi Uryudo site in Higashi Osaka City. The feet were 25 to 27
centimeters long at Itazuke, Even today the Kawachi people of central
Japan are regarded as smaller than those of Kyushu. Nutrition had a
greater effect on physical change than did new racial strains, although
the latter must have been quite important. Indeed, the dramatic
change in the size and height of the younger generation in Japan after
World War II is likewise attributed to the availability of larger
59 Naito Yoshiatsu, "Seihoku Kyushu shutsudo no Yayoi jidai jinkotsu," Jinruigaku zasshi 79
(1971): 246.
60 Kanaseki Takeo, "Yayoi jidaijin," in Wajima Seiichi, ed., Yayoi jidai, vol. 3 of Nihon no
kokogaku (Tokyo: Kawade shobo, 1966), pp. 460-71; Nagai Masafumi and Sano Hajime,
"The Ancient Inhabitants of Southwestern Japan," Proceedings of the Eighth International
Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, pp. 174-5.
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102 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
amounts and greater varieties of more nutritious foods, not to foreign
racial infusion. To a degree, the same can be said of the Yayoi people.
Koyama counted 10,624 Yayoi sites and calculated a total population
of 601,500, almost 3.7 times that of the Latest Jomon period.
Continuous and long occupation of a site, as shown by evolving pottery
types, indicates that the area was climatically stable and agriculturally
advantageous. Intermittent and short occupancy was probably
due to sudden or protracted weather changes that were extreme
enough to force the inhabitants to leave. In some cases they seem to
have returned, in others not. At the north Kyushu sites, occupation
was relatively short, but the Kinki sites were occupied continuously
for the longest periods of time, indicating that the environment there
offered the greatest benefits and safety.61
It was thus in the OsakaNara
area that the early rulers settled and maintained control until the
capital cities of Nagaoka and Kyoto were built at the end of the eighth
century. Even the later removal of capitals to other places did not
destroy Nara's image of stability and continuity.
Events of Middle-to-Late Yayoi - reflected in the stories of the first
emperor (Kamu-yamato-ihare-biko no Mikoto, or Jimmu) - centered
on the efforts of Yayoi chieftains to stake out claims to the best territory.
According to the Nihon shoki, Jimmu and his followers battled
their way from south Kyushu through the Inland Sea, overcame resistance
in the Kibi region, and, unable to penetrate the Kinki defenses
around Osaka, skirted the peninsula and entered from the lightly
occupied east to settlefinallyin the lower Nara basin.
At every step of the way, especially at the most hopeless moments,
Jimmu is said to have sought the advice of the kami and, after performing
sacrifices and practicing abstinence, fought successfully. The literature
makes it unmistakably clear that there was a blind reliance on
shamans and that a tribal leader served as a medium between his
people and the supernatural world. The Chinese accounts of shamans
and wars, the Japanese description of leaders pushing east into occupied
areas, and Late Yayoi archaeological evidence of the rise of a
power center in the Kinki all present a convincing picture of the
emergence of a strong tribal group in that area during the second and
third centuries A.D.
Another region reconsidered in the light of recent archaeological
finds is Izumo in western Japan. Apparently that region was occupied
by a far stronger political group than archaeologists and historians
61 Kanaseki and Sahara, "The Yayoi Period," p. 24.
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THE YAYOI PERIOD 103
have been willing to admit. According to the Kojiki and the Nikon
shoki, the region was a bastion of resistance, a major stumbling block
to outside control and therefore earmarked for subjugation. Modern
scholars have tended to accept the Yamato view of Izumo, seeing it as
something like a wretched netherworld to which obstreperous and
unreconstructed individuals were properly exiled. Indeed, Yomi no
Kuni, the land of the dead vividly described at the end of the famous
Izanagi-Izanami myth, was traditionally identified with a cave on the
Shimane coast. The hostility of the region evoked evil connotations
that were then personified in Susa no O no Mikoto, the brother of the
Sun Goddess who justified the righteous behavior of Yamato toward
the villainous Izumo.
Since 1984, when a logging road was being constructed, Izumo
suddenly rose high in the estimation of people when a cache of 358
bronze swords was uncovered at the Kojindani site, which is more
than the total number found elsewhere in Japan.62
Seven other sites in
Shimane Prefecture had yielded only 16 bronze swords. The site also
contained 16 bronze spears and 6 bronze bells. Kojindani is a hillside
site on the Hikawa plain, twenty-eight meters above sea level and six
kilometers west of Lake Shinji. The southern plain is watered by the
Hii River as it flows into Lake Shinji. The Great Izumo Shrine is
fifteen kilometers away, and this area contains numerous ancient
burial mounds.
All the Kojindani swords are of the tanged type, measuring between
fifty and fifty-three centimeters in length and so much alike that one
suspects that they were produced locally. They were found in a
hollowed-out oblong pit on the slope, aligned in four rows. A short
row on the west had 34 swords, the points of which alternately faced in
opposite directions. The next row of 11 swords were in a similar
arrangement, with the exception of four at the south end that all
pointed west. All the swords of the last two rows, one with 120 and the
other with 93, pointed east. A thin layer of blackish brown organic soil
lying directly over the swords appears to have been originally a cloth
covering, and the postholes found there are thought to indicate a
superstructure.
Susa no O no Mikoto's activities are first described in the mythological
sequence that preceded earthly events. Because of his reprehensible
behavior, he was ostracized from the Takamahara community of
62 Adachi Katsumi, "Shimane-ken Kojindani iseki doken hakkutsu chosa gaiho, Kokogaku
zasshi 70 (1984): 1-8, 144.
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IO4 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
kami and forced to descend to the bank of the Hii River. He established
himself there as the ruler of Izumo by slaying an eight-headed
serpent, the symbol of evil. From him was descended Okuni Nushi,
who was the chief protagonist of the Sun Goddess's descendants and
had to be brought to terms before Yamato could establish control over
the Eight Island Country.
Okuni Nushi is a kami with many local manifestations. In the Nara
basin he is Omono Nushi; in the Tokyo area Okunitama no Kami. He
is also known as Yachihoko no Kami, or the kami of eight thousand
spears. All of the weapon-connected myths are of Yayoi origin. Okuni
Nushi was pacified through a negotiated arrangement by which he
was established in a large palace with a generous income, in exchange
for his agreement to withdraw from political affairs. Thereafter, according
to the Nihon shoki, the Izumo rulers were responsible for the
conduct of religious affairs, and the Yamato rulers took care of political
affairs.
Later writers continued to associate the area with distinctive local
customs and gave it deferential treatment. One legacy lingered on into
historical times, a penalty not required of other leaders from other
regions: that when appearing at court, the governor of Izumo had to
swear a special oath of allegiance. The Izumo Shrine continued, however,
to be an important shrine throughout the Nara and Heian periods,
a visible reminder that the region had once held a position of great
influence. After 1248, the shrine was rebuilt on a much smaller scale
but was again enlarged somewhat in 1667.
At first glance, the Izumo region would appear too geographically
remote to constitute a threat to more centrally located political groups.
But apparently this was not the case. Direct trade with Korea may
have accounted for its unusual accumulation of wealth. Whatever the
reason, the fears reflected by Yamato rulers were not unfounded.
Izumo was a formidable political unit that successfully hoarded its
resources, and the area was better protected than was the Yamato
basin's low hills and open plain.
Another center was Tsukushi, the large lowland portion of north
Kyushu, where most of the early myths are set. The sun spear
(hiboko), figuring prominently in these myths, was undoubtedly a
special spear used by the bronze spear-honoring, male-dominated
Tsukushi clan group that had amassed great power and expanded
eastward toward central Japan. According to the recorded myths, the
sun spear (instrumental in creating the Eight Island Country of Japan),
was a grass-wrapped weapon used in luring the Sun Goddess
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THE YAYOI PERIOD 105
from her cave and in subduing the Izumo region. But as the bronzespear
people of Tsukushi entered the Kinki area, bronze bells and later
bronze mirrors - not spears - became their major religious symbols.
The matriarchal tradition of the east was taken over by the new arrivals
among whom male chieftains were dominant.
Long experience with female shamans in the east had fostered the
practice of venerating a female kami as the chief deity, but this early
eastern tradition was altered by later chronicle compilers who were
intent on sanctifying male-ruler descent. Some nine rulers before
Sujin were apparently fabricated in order to enhance the male line
with antiquity and seniority. Accounts of these reigns contain no verifiable
historical evidence. Still, by the time the Kojiki and Nihon shoki
were compiled, the idea of the state's highest kami being a female was
not considered contradictory, possibly because of the influence exerted
by strong empresses.
Mimaki-iri-biko-inie no Mikoto (later called Sujin), the tenth ruler
in the official chronology who died in A.D. 258 or 318, was probably
the first major Yamato ruler. The Kojiki says that he "first ruled the
land."6
* Sujin established a male-centered, quasi-religious pattern of
rule that was characteristic of the end of the Yayoi period and the
beginning of the Yamato period. One particular tumulus located south
of the city of Tenri and identified as that of Sujin is the first imperial
tomb to have a keyhole shape and other features of the late third- and
early fourth-century A.D. tomb style.
In reviewing early stages of human life on the Japanese islands before
the introduction of rice agriculture around 300 B.C., one first notes the
claims of archaeologists that a Lower Paleolithic culture existed in
northern Japan before 35,000 B.C. and as early as 180,000 years ago.
But more research is needed before such claims can be accepted.
Additional evidence is also required by those who are trying to push
back the dissolution of land bridges to earlier millennia and by those
advancing the theory that water craft were used to reach Japan in
Lower Paleolithic times.
But Upper Paleolithic culture, beginning about thirty thousand
years ago and lasting for about twenty thousand years, was widespread
throughout most of the country and regionally different. This
was succeeded by the Mesolithic (Soso-ki) period, in which pottery
63 Donald L. Philippi, trans., Kojiki (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, and Tokyo:
University of Tokyo Press, 1968), p. 208.
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IO6 THE EARLIEST SOCIETIES IN JAPAN
appeared and the bow and arrow were invented. The Earliest Jomon
(So-ki) period introduced the Jomon way of life with the discovery of
coastal seafoods and the formation of shell mounds.
The Early Jomon period (after about 7500 B.C.) was marked by
rising temperatures and a phenomenal population increase. In the
Middle Jomon period, large settlements appeared in eastern and central
regions, thriving on nut crops, starchy root vegetables, and the
meat of wild boar and deer. Toward the end of the Middle Jomon,
natural calamities disrupted established ways of obtaining food, forcing
most inhabitants to leave the central mountains. Climatic instability
was then accompanied by a rapid population decline. Some Late
Jomon sites contain a preponderance of ritual remains, suggesting
that people under stress were turning to ritual and ceremony. By the
end of the Jomon period the population was reduced to almost half
its maximum size and was widely scattered, the largest communities
continuing to exist in the north. These developments are commonly
attributed to environmental exhaustion and slow flora and
fauna replenishment.
As early as the Late Jomon (from about 1000 to 300 B.C.), rice was
being cultivated in northern Kyushu and, before the period came to a
close, in areas as far north as the Tohoku. The spread of wet-rice
agriculture early in the Yayoi period (around 300 B.C.) was linked, by
the second century B.C., with the introduction and use of iron and
bronze. After that, small Jomon communities in northern Kyushu
were absorbed or displaced by Yayoi immigrants from south Korea
and east China who were physically larger than the Jomon people (who
are now thought to be closely related to the Ainu). Yayoi immigrants
built moated villages with watchtowers, imported bronze weapons and
mirrors, as well as iron weapons and tools, and formed tribal alliances
with mechanisms of control described as small kingdoms. Both Chinese
accounts and archaeological finds indicate that these kingdoms
fought among themselves over land and access to water and metallic
ore.
Eventually some of their shaman leaders, utilizing both military and
ceremonial power, established federated kingdoms in northern Kyushu,
along the Inland Sea, and as far east as the Kinai and Izumo.
Those in western Japan were strongly influenced by continental cultures
and made much ritual use of bronze weapons and mirrors,
whereas those farther east - less influenced by the original Yayoi
immigrants - favored the ritual use of bronze bells. Large Yayoi communities
also emerged in the Kanto employing little bronze or iron,
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THE YAYOI PERIOD 107
yet organized their social life around the cultivation of rice. The strongest
federation, located in the Nara basin of central Japan, subsequently
developed into the Yamato state, whose leaders figured prominently in
the history of Japan and buried their predecessors in huge mounds
(kofun.)
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CHAPTER 2
THE YAMATO KINGDOM
The Yamato kingdom appeared on the Nara plain of central Japan
between about A.D. 250 and 300 and, during the next three centuries,
passed through successive stages of vigor, expansion, and disruption.
Because its "great kings" (dkimi)1
were buried in large mounds, these
years are commonly designated the Burial Mound {kofun)2
period.
That was when farmers converted vast tracts of virgin land into rice
fields; immigrants from northeast Asia introduced advanced techniques
of production from the continent; soldiers rode horses and
fought with iron weapons; armies subjugated most of Japan and extended
their control to neighboring regions on the Korean peninsula;
and kings dispatched diplomatic missions to distant courts of Korea
and China. But because no written Japanese records of that day have
been preserved, and Korean and Chinese accounts do not tell us much
about contemporary life on the Japanese islands, the Yamato period
has long been considered a dark and puzzling stretch of prehistory.
Until the close of World War II, Japanese historians tended to think
of this period as a time when the "unbroken" imperial line was mysteriously
and wondrously formed. But postwar scholars have discovered
new written evidence, seen historical significance in massive archaeological
finds, and viewed the whole of ancient Japanese life from different
angles. Egami Namio, for example, used Korean sources and the
findings of archaeologists to develop the thesis that in this period
1 The Yamato rulers were called "great kings," a literal translation of the word dkimi found in
two fifth-century inscriptions, on a sword found in the Eda Funa-yama burial mound in
Kumamoto Prefecture and on a sword excavated from the Inari-yama burial mound in Saitama
Prefecture. Although we have no proof that the word was used during earlier years of the
Yamato period, the construction of huge mounds in the southeastern corner of Yamato after
the middle of the third century suggests the appearance of rulers who may well have been
called something like dkimi. Not until the Taiho code of 701 do we have evidence that a
Japanese ruler was called an emperor or empress (tenno). See Kamada Motokazu, "Oken to be
min sei," in Genshi kodai, vol. 1 of Rekishigaku kenkyu kai and Nihonshi kenkyu kai, eds.,
Koza: Nihon rekishi (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1984), pp. 233-4.
2 The word kofun (ancient mounds) is commonly applied only to the huge burial mounds built in
Yamato after the middle of the third century. Archaeologists have, however, found earlier
mounds to which they refer as funkyu-bo (knoll mounds).
IO8
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THE YAMATO KINGDOM 109
Japan came to be ruled by horse-riding warriors who had invaded the
islands from north Asia,3 and Ishimoda Sho reexamined ancient
sources and found a heroic age.* But our knowledge of what was really
occurring between the rule in the third century of Queen Himiko
(reported in the Wei chih) and the reign from 592 to 628 of Empress
Suiko (who reestablished relations with China) continued to be quite
hazy and imprecise.
Much new research has been done in the last two or three decades,
permitting us to see at long last the general outlines of a process by
which clan control in the third century was replaced by a sinicized,
bureaucratic state in the seventh century. Probably no other period in
Japanese history has been subjected to so much illumination in such a
short time. The new light has come from a number of directions.
First, numerous historians - freed from prewar restraints against the
critical study of Japan's sacred origins - have analyzed eighth-century
chronicles, attempting to distinguish myth from history and to assess
interactions between the two.5 Other historians have looked closely at
diverse sources and seen the rise and expansion of Yamato from a
"broad East Asian perspective.6
Religious historians, mythologists,
3 Egami Namio, in his Kiba minzoku kokka (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1967), used archaeological,
mythological, and historical data on early non-Japanese peoples of northeast Asia to support
his conclusion that Sujin was a Korean king who invaded Japan with horse-riding soldiers
during the first half of the fourth century and that the Yamato state was founded in the last half
of the fourth century when the Kyushu center of power was moved to central Japan. His basic
thesis has been further developed, with an extensive use of Korean sources, by Gari Ledyard
in "Galloping Along with the Horse-Riders: Looking for the Founders of Japan," Journal of
Japanese Studies 1 (1975): 217-54. Recent archaeological investigations of ancient mounds
located in southeastern section of the Nara plain suggest that Yamato came into existence long
before the final years of the fourth century, but they provide no convincing evidence that this
kingdom was created by foreign invaders. This and other weaknesses of the Egami thesis were
revealed in Walter Edwards, "Event and Process in the Founding of Japan: The Horserider
Theory in Archaeological Perspective," Journal ofJapanese Studies 9 (Summer 1983): 265-95;
and in Edward Kidder, Jr., "The Archaeology of the Early Horse-Riders in Japan," Transactions
of the Asiatic Society ofJapan 20,3rd series (1985): 89-123. Egami nevertheless sharpened
interest in continental cultural influence on Japanese life during the Yamato period.
4 In his Nihon no kodai kokka (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1971), Ishimoda Sho concluded that
Japan's heroic age came between the third and fifth centuries. Ishimoda made important
contributions that have been clouded by disputes over the definition of terms and periods and
overshadowed by massive amounts of new archaeological data.
5 Ueda Masaaki provides an excellent summary in his Okimi no seiki, vol. 2 of Nihon no rekishi
(Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1975). Important studies can be found in Kodai, vols. 2-4 of Asao
Naohiro, Ishi Susumu, Inoue Mitsusada, Oishi Kaichiro, et al., eds., Iwanami koza: Nihon
rekishi (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975-76). Cornelius J. Kiley carefully analyzed kinship and
state development in his "State and Dynasty in Arcahic Yamato," Journal of Asian Studies 33
(November 1973): 25-49.
6 A pioneer work is Kito Kiyoaki's Nihon kodai kokka no keisei to higashi Ajia (Tokyo: Azekura
shobo, 1976). Suzuki Yasutami has outlined recent studies of early Japanese history from an
East Asian perspective, in his "Ajia shominzoku no kokka keisei to Yamato oken," Genshikodai,
vol. 1 of Koza: Nihon-rekishi (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1984), pp. 193-232.
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IIO THE YAMATO KINGDOM
and folklorists have also helped us understand that even agricultural
production and military expansion were then intertwined with the
worship of kami (deities). See Chapter 6. But by far the greatest
contributions have been made by archaeologists who have meticulously
investigated thousands of burial and village sites all over Japan
and compared their findings with the results of excavations made in
Korea and China.7
Other scholars have reexamined these new data
and detected, in their search for meaning and wholeness, distinct
patterns of social and cultural change.8
Utilizing the results of such research, we can now identify three
major currents of change in the Yamato period. The first, lasting for
around 150 years, took place when the Yamato kingdom flourished.
The second, with its high tide appearing in thefifthcentury, came when
the expanding power of the Yamato kings was manifested in overseas
military campaigns, in the construction of impressive mounds containing
iron weapons and horse gear, and in the development of extensive
irrigation systems. The third current, coming in the turbulent sixth
century, arrived when Yamato's kings, faced with setbacks at home and
threatening situations abroad, became preoccupied with such imported
administrative techniques as reading and writing, bookkeeping and the
registration of householders, and higher forms of Chinese learning.
YAMATO VIGOR
Although the Yamato kingdom seems to have had no official relations
with Chinese or Korean courts during its first century and a half of
vigorous growth, evidence from archaeological sites reveals deep and
wide-ranging continental influence.
The situation in northeast Asia
After the breakup of the later Han empire in A.D. 220, a number of
short-lived kingdoms arose in different regions of China. Two were in
contact with queens who ruled petty states in western Japan before the
rise of Yamato in central Japan: the kingdom of Wei (221 to 265) that
exchanged missions with the famous Himiko, and the Western Chin
(265 to 317) that was in contact with Himiko's female successor. But
7 Major studies of the last decade are listed in the archaeology sections of An Introductory
Bibliography for Japanese Studies (Tokyo: Japan Foundation, 1974-84), vols. 1-4, pt. 2.
8 An especially valuable recent study is Shiraishi Taiichiro's "Ninon kofun bunka ron," in
Genski-kodai, vol. 1, pp. 159-232.
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YAMATO VIGOR I I I
the collapse of Western Chin at about the time Yamato came into
existence was hastened by invasions of nomadic tribes from the north,
a disruption that was followed by the rise and fall of one kingdom after
another and that continued until the close of the sixth century. For the
last two or more centuries of the Yamato period, no Chinese ruler was
in a position to exchange diplomatic missions with kings as far away as
Japan.
And yet Chinese cultural achievements continued to affect Japanese
life in fundamental ways. Political dislocation within China may have
accelerated the outward flow of Chinese techniques and knowledge.
The incursion of nomadic tribes from the north seems to have forced
many cultured Chinese with ties to defeated regimes to seek refuge in
Korea and possibly Japan. Moreover, the destruction of Chinese colonies
in Korea at the beginning of the fourth century was clearly followed
by an exodus of Chinese to the islands of Japan. Although the
channels of cultural flow from China in those early years cannot be
accurately charted, it is becoming increasingly clear that most continental
advances were introduced through Korea. Still, the imports
were definitely Chinese in origin and character. It is thus generally
agreed that in these first years of the Yamato period, as well as in
earlier and later times, Japan lay within the Chinese cultural orbit.
In 313, just four years before the collapse of the Chinese court of the
Western Chin, the old Chinese Lo-lang colony in north Korea was
destroyed by Koguryo, the first of the three independent Korean
kingdoms to emerge during the fourth century. Shortly after that,
Paekche became prominent in the southwest, having amassed enough
military power by 371 to invade Koguryo, enter the enemy capital,
and kill its king. But Koguryo survived and became stronger. After
being subjected to this humiliating defeat, Koguryo introduced forms
of Chinese learning and control (Buddhism, Confucianism, and Chinese
penal and administrative law) similar to those that, about two
hundred years later, transformed the upper layers of Japanese society.
Then during the last half of the fourth century, a third Korean kingdom
appeared. This was Silla, the closest of the three to Yamato, on
the southeast part of the peninsula.
Very little is known about political or military relations between
these Korean kingdoms and Yamato during the first half of the fourth
century, but in 414 a stone monument was erected in north Korea, on
which was inscribed an eighteen-hundred-character memorial to King
Kwanggaet'o of Koguryo who had died the previous year. The inscription's
middle section, in which the king's exploits are detailed, conCambridge
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112 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
tains praise of his 399 victory against Japanese invaders. Although
there is considerable disagreement about what was actually written
and meant there - some scholars even claim that Wo (Japanese: Wa)
did not refer to people residing on the Japanese islands - the reference
suggests that Yamato had gained enough strength by the end of the
fourth century to dispatch armies across the Tsushima Straits to Ko-
rea.9
Overseas military activity of this type is corroborated somewhat
by traditions and myths concerning a female Yamato ruler, the famous
Queen Jingu, who must have lived at about that time and who is said
to have received help and guidance from various kami while personally
leading an expeditionary force against the Korean kingdom of Silla.10
New archaeological data provide convincing evidence that many
areas of cultural life on the Japanese islands were being profoundly
altered at that time by innovations introduced through the Korean
peninsula, giving the entire Yamato period a Korean and northeast
Asian coloration that is clearly seen in artifacts, burial practices, rituals,
myths, and language, a coloration surely not created by sporadic
military expeditions or diplomatic missions alone but by sizable migrations
as well. Therefore when concluding that Japan lay within the
Chinese cultural orbit in that early part of the Yamato period, as well
as before and later, one should remember that contact with the Chinese
center was mainly through the sinified kingdoms of Korea.
Ancient mounds
Because our principal source of information about Japanese life during
the Yamato period comes from burial mounds built for deceased leaders,
historians have given special attention to their nature, contents,
and distribution. Scholars who have studied burial practices all over
the world note, first, that large mounds were constructed for deceased
rulers in other parts of the world when and where kingdoms were
emerging under hereditary rule. In China, for example, huge mounds
9 See Ueda, Okimi no seiki, pp. 191-205 for a review of evidential problems. Lee Chin-hui,
"K6tai-6 hi to shichishito," in Kodai Nihon to Chosen bunka (Tokyo: Purejidentosha, 1979),
pp. 95-132, criticized traditional Japanese interpretations; Takeda Yukio reexamined earlier
views in "Kokaido-6 hibun shinbo nenjo no saigimmi," in Inoue Mitsusada hakushi kanreki
kinen kai, ed., Kodai shi ronso (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1978), vol. 1, pp. 48-84.
10 The Nihon shoki devotes Book 9 to her reign, Sakamoto Taro, Ienaga Saburo, Inoue
Mitsusada, and One Susumu, et al., eds., Nihon koten bungaku laikei (hereafter cited as
NKBT) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1967), vol. 67, pp. 330-61. W. G. Aston, trans., Nihongi,
Chronicles ofJapan from the Earliest Time to A.D. 6*97 (hereafter cited as Aston) (London: Allen
& Unwin, 1956), pt. I, pp. 224-53. The Kojiki treatment is in bk. 2, NKBT 1.229-38;
translated by Donald L. Philippi, Kojiki (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, and
Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1968), pp. 262-71.
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YAMATO VIGOR 113
were erected as early as the closing years of the Spring and Autumn
period (721 to 481 B.C.). In Korea, too, they were constructed for the
burial of kings who ruled each of the three kingdoms that arose and
flourished in the fourth century A.D., just when Yamato was expanding
under rulers who built enormous mounds for their deceased predecessors.
Although the mounds of each region had their own special
character, those erected in Japan and Korea (especially in Paekche and
Silla) during the fourth century were enough alike to suggest both a
parallel process of political centralization and a continuous and direct
flow of cultural imports from Korea to central Japan.
These large mounds did not suddenly appear in Japan at the beginning
of the Yamato period, however. Shiraishi Taichiro reports that
rather large ones were constructed on hills or knolls - a characteristic
feature of the early Yamato mounds - during the last part of the
previous Yayoi period. These were usually square in shape and surrounded
by moats, not unlike those found at that time and earlier in
China and north Asia. Toward the middle years of Yayoi - still a
century or so before the rise of the Yamato kingdom in central Japan such
knoll mounds (funkyubo) were built in a zone extending from
Chugoku and Shikoku in the west to the Kanto plain in the north-
east.11
Tsude Hiroshi points out that the digging of moats around
knoll mounds in middle Yayoi times had been paralleled by the practice
of surrounding a village with a ditch, dirt wall, or board fence and
that this had been a Chinese custom since the disturbed centuries that
preceded the founding of the Han dynasty in 206 B.C. Tsude surmises
that although these defenses in Yayoi Japan may have been installed to
protect a village against floods and wild animals, they were also meant
to protect the village from human enemies. Such defense works suggest
that individual relationships within the community were already
becoming close, and external relations tense, long before thirdcentury
Chinese chronicles report endemic military strife on the Japanese
islands.12
The knoll mounds of late Yayoi were not only quite large, ranging
between forty and eighty meters long, but had other characteristics of
a Yamato period mound. In addition to being built on a knoll or hill, a
few had the keyhole shape long thought to be a unique feature of the
later Yamato mounds. Moreover, many pre-Yamato knoll mounds had
horizontal stone cists for the burial of one particular person, and some
11 Shiraishi, "Nihon kofun bunka ron," pp. 161-2.
12 Tsude Hiroshi, "Noko shakai no keisei," in Genshi-kodai, pp. 131-6.
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114 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
were surrounded by clay tubes of a type later called haniwa.1
^ Such a
late Yayoi knoll mound has been found at the Makimuku site in
Sakurai in Nara Prefecture (quite close to the early Yamato burial
mounds) and also as far east as Ichihara in Chiba Prefecture. Some
historians are inclined to think that these large knoll mounds should
be classified as Yamato, but Shiraishi believes that they were made for
leaders at a pre-Yamato stage of centralization, for leaders who had
brought several agricultural communities (possibly all those in one
valley) under their control but had not yet accumulated power and
authority equal to that of a Yamato king. And yet these earlier knoll
burials leave the impression that an ideology of hereditary control had
begun to emerge, for they were clearly places to perform rites centered
on sacred ties between living and deceased as well as between rulers
and their divine ancestors.1
*
The Shiki center
Most of what we know about the first century of the Yamato period
comes from archaeological discoveries made in the southeastern corner
of the Nara plain, in the Shiki area at the base of Mt. Miwa (see Map
2.1). These discoveries were made largely at, or in the neighborhood
of, six mounds built between about A.D. 250 and 350 and in the
following order: (1) the Hashihaka in the city of Sakurai, 280 meters
long; (2) the Nishitonozuka in the city of Tenri, 230 meters; (3) the
Tobi Chausu-yama of Sakurai, 207 meters; (4) the Mesuri-yama of
Sakurai, 240 meters, (5) the Ando-yama (now referred to as the Sujin
tomb) in Tenri, 240 meters; and (6) the Shibutani Muko-yama (known
as the Keiko tomb), 310 meters. Although these six mounds, like a
few earlier knoll burials, have the famous keyhole shape as well as
horizontal stone chambers, they also have other features that permit us
to associate their construction with the emergence of the Yamato kingdom.
First, they are exceptionally large: Each of the six is at least
twice as large as any mound found in Korea. Second, they all were
13 A spectacular pre-Yamato knoll burial was found at the Tatetsuki site near Kurashiki in
Okayama Prefecture. The main portion of the square mound is forty meters across but has
projections on opposite sides that increase its width to between seventy and eighty meters. At
the top of the mound are five stone pillars with carved surface designs, and the mound is
surrounded by two rows of rocks with small stones spread between. It was for multiple
burials but had a special place for a wooden coffin that included various jewels and an iron
sword. Kondo Yoshiro's report is summarized in Shiraishi, "Nihon kofun bunka ran," p.
162.
14 Ibid., pp. 163-5. No clear connections have been made between pre-Yamato knoll mounds
and the "country of Yamatai" mentioned in the Wei shu, or between Yamatai and Yamato.
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YAMATO VIGOR 115
.v . Map
2.1 Shrines and burial mounds, Yamato. (Based on Nihon
rekishi chizu, 1986, Map 8.)
built, one after another, in the Shiki area. And third, they contained
impressive coffins made of split bamboo and pine and are surrounded
by large numbers of mirrors, weapons, tools, and ornaments. In sum,
the discovery of a series of such huge mounds built in the same Shiki
area roughly between A.D. 250 and 350 leaves little doubt that they
were for successive rulers of a new and expanding Yamato kingdom.
Earlier Yayoi knoll mounds had been for leaders of federations of
agricultural communities, but these later Yamato mounds, even in the
early part of this period, were for a line of powerful priest-kings who
stood high above all people in an increasingly large part of the Japanese
islands.1
'
Studies made by Tsude Hiroshi help us understand that the rise and
rapid growth of Yamato was made possible by a sharp increase in
agricultural production. His investigations of developments in the use
of iron for making agricultural tools, techniques for leveling off and
irrigating fields for wet-rice agriculture, and the expansion of upland
15 Ibid., pp. 170-1.
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Il6 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
farming lead him to conclude that the last part of the third century was
a time of explosive agricultural growth.16
This seems to have enabled
Yamato kings to marshal the human and physical resources needed for
constructing huge mounds, undertaking ambitious military campaigns
into distant parts of the country, and extending their control, before
the close of the fourth century, to territory as far away as the Korean
peninsula.
At the Makimuku site in the present city of Sakurai, where two of
these six burial mounds are located, pottery had been found dating
back to preagricultural times, that is, several hundred years before the
first Yamato mounds were built. About 150 meters west of these preYamato
digs, archaeologists have found two irrigation ditches about 6
meters wide and between 1.3 and 1.5 meters deep in which were
several early Yamato pots.17
Such finds suggest that stable communities
had existed in this part of the Nara plain before the appearance of
the Yamato kingdom and that the rise of Yamato was indeed abetted
by a sharp increase in rice productivity resulting, in part at least, from
the introduction of improved methods of keeping rice fields flooded
during the growing season.
As has been generally true of the rise of kingdoms in other parts of
the world, the birth of Yamato around the last half of the third century
was intimately connected with the worship of local deities (kami),
giving the Yamato kings both sacral and secular functions. By studying
myths that were continuously recast and revised before existing
versions were written down at the beginning of the eighth century and
by searching for the meaning of materials excavated from neighboring
religious sites, historians are beginning to detect a pattern of interaction
between the rule of early Yamato rulers and the worship of the
kami believed to reside on Mt. Miwa.
Ancient myths and traditions indicate that Mt. Miwa was (and still
is) a sacred mountain where particularly powerful kami were worshiped,
and now archaeological investigations reveal that all six of
these burial mounds were built at the foot of Mt. Miwa. Even before
historians were certain that Yamato's earliest kings had any special
connection with the kami residing on Mt. Miwa, they had become
interested in the Omiwa Shrine - the major religious institution for
the worship of the Mt. Miwa kami - as this was clearly a place where
ancient rites have been preserved. These historians seem to have been
16 Tsude, "Nogyo shakai no keisei," pp. 121-31.
17 Archaeological findings are summarized in Ueda, Okimi no seiki, pp. 56-87.
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YAMATO VIGOR 117
intrigued, above all, by the observation that the Omiwa Shrine, unlike
most other shrines, has no central hall of worship (shinden) for the
enshrinement of its "kami body" (shintai), that Mt. Miwa itself has
always been revered as the "kami body." In 1971, archaeologists investigated
sites on and around the sacred mountain, unearthing offerings
and religious symbols that point to a close link between the rule of
Yamato's first kings and the worship of Mt. Miwa's kami.
With incontestable proof of early connections between the new
Yamato kingdom and the ancient worship of a kami residing on Mt.
Miwa, scholars now see deeper levels of historical meaning in myths
that affirm sacred ties between the Yamato kings and particular kami,
especially in myths centered on King Sujin, who is thought to have
been buried in the fifth Shiki mound. The Nihon shoki devotes more
space to the Sujin reign than to any earlier one except the first, and it
states that Sujin was a ruler who gave serious attention "to the worship
of kami and to his heavenly duties."18
Early in the Sujin reign, according
to this chronicle, the kingdom suffered a number of calamities that
led Sujin to seek advice and assistance from the kami. Sujin is said to
have then received a revelation, transmitted to him by a princess, that
conditions would improve if the kami making the revelation were
worshiped. When asked which kami was speaking, the reply was, "I
am Omono Nushi no Kami worshipped within the borders of Yamato"
[and residing on Mt. Miwa]. Still another revelation indicated that
Omono Nushi wished to be worshiped in rites conducted by his own
child, Otata Neko, and we read that after such rites were held, the
calamities ceased.1
'
The sacred connection between the early Yamato kings and the
kami residing on Mt. Miwa is the subject of another myth recorded in
both the Nihon shoki and the Kojiki, but with differences. In the Nihon
shoki we read of a love affair between the kami of Mt. Miwa and a
princess named Yamato Totohi Momoso. This version has the kami
appearing only at night, causing the princess to request her lover to let
himself be seen. The kami acceded to her request saying that he would
enter her toilet case on the following morning, but he asked that she
not be alarmed by what she would see. When the princess opened her
toilet case, she saw a small but beautiful snake that horrified her. Her
reaction angered the kami, who turned himself into a human being,
upbraided the princess for disregarding his request, and dashed off
18 Sujin, Introduction, NKBT 67.236; Aston, 1. 150.
19 Sujin 7/2/15, NKBT 67.238-40; Aston, 1. 152-3.
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I l 8 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
toward Mt. Miwa. The princess was so unnerved that, according to
the story, she stabbed herself to death with chopsticks. Her body was
then buried in a mound called the Hashihaka (chopstick grave), one of
the six burial mounds located at the base of Mt. Miwa.20
The Kojiki
version is different but is still centered on a sacred marriage of the
Miwa kami to a female relative of an early Yamato king, a union from
which was born a son who founded the Miwa line of kings (kimi) and
conducted rites for the Mt. Miwa kami.21
Relating the implications of
these myths to archaeological finds on Mt. Miwa, Ueda Masaaki and
others deduce that Yamato's first kings sanctified and strengthened
their authority by identifying themselves with the already-established
worship of the Mt. Miwa kami.22
Having detected historical meaning in the mythological explanation
of ties between the kami of Mt. Miwa and the kings of Yamato - ties
that have now been confirmed by archaeological findings in the Shiki
area of Yamato - historians are paying closer attention to other items
in the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki (completed in the eighth century)
about events in the Sujin reign. In addition to reporting a Sujin preoccupation
with the power of the kami to prevent widespread disaster,
the Nihon shoki states that he raised armies, sent off princes on military
expeditions, dealt with a revolt, removed enemy heads, and observed
soldiers taking off their armor before escaping.2
' Although these items
may have been added at a later time - as were a number of words and
phrases found in this Sujin chapter - we are left with the impression
that the birth of the Yamato kingdom was facilitated by the use of
military force. The comment that Sujin received tribute from the
Korean kingdom of Mimana (Korean: Kaya) cannot be accepted as
historical fact, and yet it seems that Yamato had generated enough
power by the middle of the fourth century to undertake military action
in areas well outside the Nara plain.
The Saki center
After the middle of the fourth century, the Yamato kings were no longer
buried in the Shiki District of Yamato but farther north in Saki, in the
northwest corner of the present city of Nara. The burial mounds of Saki
include the Gosashi (now referred to as the Jingu tomb) which is 275
meters long, the Horaisan (now known as the Suinin tomb), 227 meters
20 Sujin 10/9/27, NKBT 67.246-7; Aston, 1. 158-9.
21 Bk. 2, NKBT 1.181-2; Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 203-4.
22 Ueda, Okimi no seiki, pp. 56-74. 23 Sujin 10/9/27, NKBT 67.244-6; Aston, I. 156-8.
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YAMATO VIGOR 119
long, and two others measuring more than 200 meters. These Saki
mounds, like those of Shiki, are thought to have been built successively
and not simply to console and honor the souls of the deceased Yamato
kings but to symbolize and affirm the divine authority transmitted to
living successors, the mound builders. Those kings buried in the Saki
mounds had apparently inherited the authority of their Shiki predecessors,
greatly expanded Yamato wealth and control, and passed such
accumulated power and authority to their lineal descendants.2
-*
Yamato expansion into other regions of Japan during these final
years of the fourth century seems to have provided the background for
tales, recorded in both the Nihon shoki and the Kojiki, of Prince
Yamato Takeru no Mikoto's military exploits. These include so many
passages about divine assistance received from kami and other supernatural
beings that one is tempted to dismiss them as myths without
historical significance.2
* But the inclusion of details about events that
may well have taken place, plus the heroic quality noted by Ishimoda
and others, suggest that they arose from successful military campaigns
that first brought regions to the west, and then to the northeast, under
Yamato control.
The last half of the fourth century when the Yamato kings were
buried in the Saki area was not simply a time of Yamato expansion
made possible by the use of armies equipped with iron weapons but
when the Yamato kings became deeply involved in kami worship at a
different kind of shrine: the Isonokami. Kings continued to honor the
kami of Mt. Miwa,26
but after palaces and mounds were built farther
north - apparently because the kings came to be tied to the strong
clans (uji) in that area - Isonokami seems to have become the leading
Yamato shrine. By studying its connections with the Yamato kings and
powerful clans and reflecting on the nature and implications of the
shrine's sacred treasures and unique traditions, historians are gaining
a clearer picture of the religiopolitical control structure that emerged
in Yamato during the final years of the fourth century.
Archaeological evidence supports the view that the Isonokami
Shrine did not become prominent until the locus of Yamato power had
been shifted to Saki. And myths recorded in the Nihon shoki chapter
for the reign of Suinin - the king said to have been buried in the
24 Shiraishi, "Nihon kofun bunka ron," pp. 171-3.
25 Nihon shoki Keiko 27/10 to Keiko 43, NKBT 67.298-311; Aston, 1. 200-11; Kojiki Bk. 2;
NKBT 1.209-27; Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 234-54; and see n. 4.
26 A 581 Nihon shoki report tells of several thousand Emishi making a vow of loyalty to the
Yamato court while facing Mt. Miwa: Bidatsu 10/2, NKBT 68.141-2; Aston, t. 96.
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120 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
second of the Saki mounds - were obviously devised and repeated in
order to sanctify the bonds between Yamato rule and Isonokami worship.
A key mythological story, pieced together from references scattered
throughout the chapter on Suinin's long reign, begins with
Suinin's asking his two sons what they would like most to have. The
eldest son, Inishiki no Mikoto, asked for bows and arrows, and the
youngest, for the throne. Both reportedly got what they wanted: The
elder son received his bows and arrows (suggesting military assignments),
and the younger son succeeded Suinin as king. This myth,
inserted as an item for the thirtieth year of the Suinin reign, was
apparently intended to explain how the younger son came to succeed
his father as King Keiko.27
But it also tied Isonokami worship to
Yamato rulers through Suinin's eldest son.
The Nihon shoki's entries for the thirty-fifth year of the Suinin reign
state that this eldest son (Prince Inishiki no Mikoto) had a thousand
swords made and that he was placed in charge of Isonokami's divine
treasures. Later on we read that he founded the Mononobe clan and that
thenceforth a succession ofMononobe clan chieftains served as custodians
of Isonokami treasures.28
Even if these entries were later additions
or revisions, they were undoubtedly meant to affirm the sacred connections
between the military interests of a Yamato king and his son, and
between the military functions of the Mononobe clan and the military
treasures of Isonokami. This mythological linkage certainly reflected a
very real and rapid expansion of Yamato control - made possible by a
far more extensive use of iron weapons - that became the subject of
recorded tales about the heroic military exploits of Prince Yamato
Takeru no Mikoto, who led campaigns to various parts of Japan, and of
Queen Jingu, who led military expeditions against overseas enemies.
The military character of Isonokami worship is disclosed not simply
in myths about its association with military clan leaders but also in
reports that indicate that the shrine's treasures were mainly weapons.
Although Ueda gives little or no credence to the Nihon shoki statement
that the sword that Susa no O no Mikoto used to kill the legendary
eight-headed serpent was deposited at Isonokami, he concludes that
many of the kingdom's iron weapons were stored at Isonokami during
the last half of the fourth century.2
' His conclusion is strengthened,
and infused with socioreligious meaning, by the deduction that the
most important buildings of a shrine in those days, especially at the
27 Suinin 30/1/6, NKBT 67.272; Aston, I. 179-80.
28 Suinin 39/10 and 87/2, NKBT 67.276-7; Aston, 1. 183-4.
29 Ueda, Okimi no seiki, pp. 141-2.
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YAMATO VIGOR 121
Isonokami, were its storehouses. Indeed, one particular fourthcentury
sword, still kept in the Isonokami storehouse, has attracted
special attention because it bears a dated inscription stating that the
sword was forged in Paekche during the year 369 for presentation to
the king of Yamato.
This famous gold-inlaid sword, the shichishito or "seven-pronged
sword" (designated as a Japanese National Treasure), was obviously
not meant to be a weapon but a symbol of authority. It looks like a
spear with three prongs on each side. Measuring about 75 centimeters
long, it has thirty-four characters inscribed on one side and twentyseven
on the other. Because of centuries of rusting, seven of the characters
cannot be deciphered. In 1873 a chief priest of Isonokami noticed
and reported that characters had been inscribed on the shrine's ancient
treasure. Early attempts to decipher them have led historians to decide
that this was the very same "seven-pronged sword" mentioned in the
Jingu chapter of the Nihon shokiJ° In fact, the three characters for
shichishito inscribed on the sword are the same ones used in the following
Nihon shoki report:
On the 10th day of the 9th month in the autumn of the 52nd year of this
reign, Kutyo and others accompanied by Chikuma Nagahiko presented a
shichishito and a seven knobed mirror, saying
"To the west of your minister's country is a river, the source of which is
Mount Ch'olsan ('Iron Mountain'). It does not take seven days to reach that
source. By drinking the water from diis river, and taking iron from the
mountain, presentations (of iron) can be made indefinitely to Your Majesty's
court."
Then, according to the Nihon shoki, a message from the Paekche
king's grandson was read. The prince expressed satisfaction that relations
had been opened up between the two kingdoms and said that he
expected to continue offering presents in order to ensure friendly
relations.3' The reference to iron mining on Mt. Ch'olsan suggests that
the envoy was well aware of the Yamato demand for iron ore with
which to make weapons and tools.
Years of research by both Japanese and Korean scholars have created
a fair degree of certainty - although much of the inscription has
not yet been worked out - that the sword was made in Paekche in 369,
subsequently presented to a Yamato king, and eventually placed in the
Isonokami storehouse. For years a debate has raged, mainly between
Japanese and Korean historians, as to whether the inscribed words
30 Studies of the sword are outlined in ibid., pp. 145-55.
31 Jingu 52/9/10, NKBT 67.358; Aston, 1. 251.
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122 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
meant that the sword was being presented to a superior or to an
inferior. Three different theories have emerged: (i) that it was presented
by a Paekche king to his Yamato superior; (2) that it was
presented by a Paekche king to his Yamato inferior; and (3) that it was
presented by an Eastern Chin ruler, through a Paekche king, to his
Yamato inferior. Although we may never obtain proof of what status
was assigned by a Paekche or Yamato ruler to his foreign counterpart
or whether the assigned status was accepted, the existence of the sword
with its dated incription stands as concrete and convincing evidence
that the rulers of Paekche and Yamato were in contact with each other
during the last half of the fourth century and that swords and iron
were then highly valued.'2
Paekche and Yamato
Paekche's relations with its neighboring kingdoms in the last half of
the fourth century help us understand what the sword presentation
signified. Its date is given in terms of an era name of Eastern Chin,
which emerged in south China in 317 and disappeared in 420. The use
of this era name in a Paekche inscription strengthens the view that
Paekche had accepted a tributary relationship with the Eastern Chin
court. As we noted, Paekche had begun to challenge the authority of
Koguryo after the collapse of Lo-lang in 313 and during the reign of
the Paekche king Kun Ch'ogo (346 to 375) fought a series of bloody
battles with its northern neighbor. The struggle had become quite
serious by 369 when the seven-pronged sword was made. Korean
accounts tell us that Paekche forces actually invaded Koguryo's capital
in 371 and killed the Koguryo king in 372. The Chinese chronicles
state that after winning these victories, Paekche sent tribute to Eastern
Chin, that Eastern Chin dispatched a mission to Paekche, and that a
Chinese envoy awarded the post of "commander for pacifying lands to
the east" to the Paekche king. Ueda feels that by establishing a tributary
relationship with Paekche, Eastern Chin was attempting to regain
control over Korean territory that had been seized by Koguryd when
Lo-lang fell. In 377 Paekche also sent tribute to the Chinese court of
the Former Tsou, suggesting that Paekche was attempting to have its
victories against Koguryo recognized by both Chinese courts. These
attempts to gain Chinese recognition may have contributed, consciously
or unconsciously, to a concurrent preoccupation with such
32 See n. 9.
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YAMATO VIGOR 123
basic forms of Chinese learning as Buddhism, Confucianism, and Chinese
law."
Paekche's interest in obtaining Yamato support was probably sharpened
by the expansionist tendencies of Silla, a kingdom located east of
Paekche and the third one to emerge during the fourth century. Silla
was then allying itself with Koguryd in opposing Paekche.** References
to Silla in Japanese chronicles, particularly in sections devoted to
the Jingu campaign against Silla, claim that the Yamato kings were
disturbed by Silla advances against small kingdoms along the Tsushima
Straits, an area where Yamato had traditionally exercised some
control. Thus Paekche and Yamato may have been drawn together by
a common desire to check Silla aggression.
But earlier views regarding Yamato's influence over kingdoms on the
southern tip of Korea, even entitling Yamato to tribute, are now questioned.
Little or no valid support can be found for the claim that Yamato
was then obtaining tribute from Mimana (K: Kaya). Ueda reminds us
that the Kojiki contains no references to Mimana, that the most specific
Nikon shoki items are for a later time in the Yamato period, and that
Korean sources include only a few comments about such a kingdom and
none at all about its being under Yamato control. As for Kaya, which
some historians assert was a Yamato colony, Ueda believes that neither
Korean historical sources nor archaeological findings support such a
claim.35
Nevertheless, the Jingu tradition, the presentation of the
seven-pronged sword (made in Paekche in 369) to a Yamato ruler, and
the 414 memorial inscription mentioning a Japanese invasion of Korea
in 391 indicate that Paekche desired Yamato's support.
The conclusion that Yamato's relations with the Korean kingdoms
had become more active during the last half of the fourth century when
burial mounds were being built in the Saki area around Nara has
been greatly reinforced by archaeological discoveries at sites all
over Japan that reveal a continuous flow of materials, techniques,
and immigrants from the Korean peninsula into Japan during these
33 The current Korean situation and relations between Paekche and Yamato in this first part of
the Yamato period are summarized in Ueda, Okimi no seiki, pp. 156-63; Suzuki, "Ajia
shominzoku no kokka keisei," pp. 198-203; and Ki-baik Lee, A New History of Korea, trans.
Edward W. Wagner with Edward J. Shultz (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1984), pp. 36-40.
34 Suzuki, "Ajia shominzoku no kokka keisei," pp. 202-3.
35 Ueda, Okimi no seiki, pp. 170-4. Yamao Yukihisa rejects the view that Yamato forces advanced
into central Korea from a place called Mimana. See Yamao Yukihisa, Nihon kokka no
keisei (Tokyo: Iwanami shinsho, 1977). Ki-baik Lee, in his A New History of Korea, makes no
mention of Mimana, referring always to the southern kingdom as Kaya. Here the Nihon
shoki's references to the kingdom as Mimana will be rendered as Mimana (Kaya) but elsewhere
as Kaya.
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124 T H E
YAMATO KINGDOM
years. Particularly significant excavations have been made on the
island of Okinoshima, the Munakata Shrine's "kami body" located
off the coast of northern Kyushu. This is where ships traveling to
and from Korea had stopped since early times to make offerings (nie)
in order to obtain (or to express gratitude for) a safe and successful
crossing. Recent investigations have been carried out at twenty-four
sites located about twenty meters from a boat landing where ceremonial
objects of various types have been found. These show that offerings
were placed on this sacred island continuously from the fourth
century (at the beginning of the Yamato period) to the ninth (when
the dispatch of official missions to China was discontinued). At the
Ganjo site on Okinoshima, archaeologists have found nine iron tools
that demonstrate definite connections between the Munakata Shrine
and southern Korea in the last half of the fourth century.36
Thus historians now are confident that the first century and a half of
the Yamato period was a time of vigorous growth and expansion. They
feel that court control had been extended to western and northeastern
regions of the Japanese islands, as is suggested by Yamato Takeru no
Mikoto's mythical military exploits and by new archaeological evi-
dence.37
The view that Yamato took part in Korean wars is reinforced
by (i) myths of Queen Jingu's divinely assisted and personally led
military expedition against Silla, (2) the seven-pronged sword bearing
the date 369, (3) the inscription carved on the 414 monument found in
north Korea, and (4) offerings made in Okinoshima as early as the
fourth century for a safe and successful passage between Korea and
Japan. With further investigations of thousands of archaeological sites
scattered all over northeast Asia, we are certain to learn far more about
changes in the life of the people living on the islands of Japan during
these early years of the Yamato period.
YAMATO EXPANSION
The second part of the Yamato period, roughly the fifth century, was
a time of spectacular development.38
This was when the largest burial
36 Extensive archaeological research was carried out in 1954, 1957—58, and again in 1969-71;
See Okazaki Takashi, Oda Fumio et al., eds., Munakata Okinoshima (Munakata taisha fukko
kiseikai, 1958 and 1961). Inoue Mitsusada analyzed the new evidence in "Kodai Okinoshima
no saishi," in Kodai chusei no shakai to shiso, vol. I of Ienaga Saburo kyoju Tokyo kyoiku
daigaku taikan kinen ronshu kanko iinkai, ed., Ienaga Saburo kyoju Tokyo kyoiku daigaku
taikan kinen ronshu, no. 1 (Tokyo: Sanseido, 1979), pp. 48-77; and Ueda discusses its significance
for early years of the Yamato period, Okimi no seiki, pp. 205-19.
37 Shiraishi, "Nihon kofun bunka ron," pp. 178-82.
38 Although the power base was moved from Yamato to the provinces of Kawachi and Izumi
early in the fifth century, the state will continue to be referred to as Yamato, for it was still
based in an area drained by the Yamato River.
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YAMATO EXPANSION 125
mounds were constructed; fairly complex irrigation systems were
built; the kings devoted more attention to military affairs than to
kami ritual; Yamato utilized a growing network of clans (uji) and
occupational groups (be) to increase its wealth and power; control
was extended to most of the Japanese islands and to parts of the
Korean peninsula; and the Yamato kings obtained appointments to
and recognition from the Chinese court of Southern Sung. We will
briefly describe these remarkable changes, giving special attention
to the reigns of Nintoku (who was buried in the largest mound)
and Yuryaku (who sent gifts and a memorial to the Southern Sung
court).
The Kawachi-Izumi center
After about A.D. 400, the largest burial mounds were no longer built
in the Saki area of northern Yamato but in southern Kawachi and
northern Izumi, across the Kongo Mountains to the west and near
the shores of the Inland Sea. The Furuichi group, within the present
city of Fujiidera, includes the Nakatsu-yama, which is 285 meters
long, and the Konda Gobyo-yama, known as the Ojin tomb, which is
420 meters long. Important burial mounds in the Mozu group of
Izumi are the Upper Ishizu Misanzai, known as the Richu tomb (365
meters long), the Daisen-ryo or great Nintoku tomb (486 meters),
and the Haji Nisanzai (290 meters). Historians and archaeologists are
now in general agreement that all five were built during the fifth
century and that they were constructed alternately in Kawachi and
Izumi.
Kondo Yoshiro agrees that the power center of Yamato, which had
been located at the foot of Mt. Miwa in southeastern Yamato, was
moved first to the Saki area in north Yamato around the year 350 and
then to Kawachi and Izumi after about 400, at the beginning of the
second part of the Yamato period. But he does not explain why these
moves were made. Shiraishi Taiichiro is inclined to think they resulted
from power shifts within or between clan federations that supported
the Yamato court, that when a different clan (or different clan combination)
surfaced, a great burial mound for a deceased king was built
within the area dominated by that clan.39
Hirano Kunio also advances
the thesis that the highest-ranking queen was then, as in later centuries,
a daughter of the most powerful court-supporting clan and that
39 Kondo Yoshiro, Zempo koenfun no jidai (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1983); Shiraishi, "Nihon
kofun bunka ron," p. 174.
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126 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
her son by a Yamato king succeeded him on the throne. Shiraishi
thinks that although clan groups may well have had connections of this
sort with the kings buried in the Shiki area of Yamato (such as the Sofu
group in north Yamato and the Katsuragi to the west) before 350, their
chieftains were not yet buried in impressive mounds. But with the
shift to the Saki area around 350, clan federations seem to have become
stronger, causing Shiraishi to wonder whether it was not the
leader of such a federation who was buried in the Gosashi mound.
After about 400, when burial mounds were built alternately in
Kawachi and Izumi, two powerful federations - one based in southern
Kawachi and the other in northern Izumi - appear to have dominated
the Yamato court, and to have also supported the enthronement of
blood-related kings who were later buried in huge mounds.*0
What was significantly different about these fifth-century burial
mounds? First, they are substantially larger than the earlier ones. Three
of the five listed are larger than the biggest (the 310-meter Keiko
mound) ever erected in earlier years. The Nintoku mound of Izumi is
486 meters long, covers approximately 60 hectares, and was originally
encircled by three moats and a larger number ofclayfigurines(haniwa).
Known as Japan's largest burial mound, its construction is thought to
have required a thousand or more men working from morning till night
for four years to complete. These post-400 mounds of Izumi and
Kawachi were, moreover, built on relatively level land - not on knolls
and hills, as in earlier times, where mound building required much less
labor. The great size of the Izumi and Kawachi burials, as well as their
construction on or near arable land, produced a far more impressive
symbolization ofeconomic and political power. If one bears in mind that
these later mounds also contained vast quantities of valued grave goods,
one cannot but conclude that they were built and stocked by the Yamato
kings, who now controlled far more territory and possessed much
greater wealth.
The second difference was that the Yamato rulers now gave more
attention to military affairs and less to kami ritual. This shift is noticed
first in the archaeological discovery that the fifth-century mounds
contained more weapons and military gear made of iron and fewer
ceremonial items such as bronze mirrors and sacred jewels. Particularly
significant are the contents of mounds erected for a Yamato
king's retainer. In one located near the Ojin mound, archaeologists
40 Hirano Kunio, "Iwayuru kodai ocho ron," Kokushigaku 103 (1977): 1-14; Shiraishi, "Nihon
kofun bunka ron," pp. 174-5.
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YAMATO EXPANSION 127
found 77 iron swords, 62 iron arrowheads, 203 iron sickles, and numerous
other iron implements.«'
The view that a fifth-century ruler was more like a secular ruler than
a priestly king is further substantiated by what is recorded in Nihon
shoki and Kojiki chapters on Ojin and Nintoku, two Yamato kings
buried in the Kawachi-Izumi area. Unlike the chapter for the earlier
Sujin reign, which is replete with myths about special ties between the
Yamato rulers and local kami, the Ojin and Nintoku chapters include
very few references to kami. Instead they concentrate on such secular
matters as receiving envoys from Korea, gathering immigrants for
building ponds, accepting tribute, going on royal hunting expeditions,
coping with royal love affairs, settling conflicting claims to the throne,
establishing title to rice lands, putting down a Emishi rebellion in
northern Japan, building palaces and irrigation systems, and raising an
army to invade Silla. The Nihon shoki does include an item about a
first-of-the-year festival, but most of it is devoted to comments about
the ladies drinking sake during the festivities and adorning themselves
with jewelry.•*
One ceremony held at the beginning of a new reign was religious in
character but did not involve the worship of a local kami. Called the
Yasojima festival and scheduled for the yearafter enthronement, it was
focused on priests and miko (shamans) proceeding to the capital at
Naniwa where the souls of the Yasojima ("eighty islands") were ritually
attached to the current Yamato king. In associated rites and
myths, the islands of Onogoro and Awaji are prominent, and instead of
honoring a local kami, the Yasojima festival underscores a Yamato
king's origins in distant places of the Inland Sea. Ueda notes that
Awaji was also prominent in the Izanami-Izanagi creation of the Japanese
islands and that the mysterious birth of Ojin - born to Jingu after
her return from a victorious campaign in Korea - linked kami "from
across the sea" to such distant lands as Izumo.43
The fifth-century shift in the locus of power to the Kawachi-Izumi
area, coupled with the concurrent military expansion and agricultural
development, has sharpened interest in the view that Yamato was then
headed by a new line of rulers. Few historians have gone so far as to
say that this was when horse-riding invaders seized control and started
a new royal line, but most would agree that a break appeared in the
Yamato kings' line of descent, a break that is suggested by the "across
41 Ueda, Okimi no seiki, p. 247.
42 Bks. 10 and 11, NKBT 67.362-417; Aston, I. 254-300.
43 Ueda, Okimi no seiki, pp. 239-41.
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128 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
the sea" character of the Yasojima festival. One cannot help but see, in
this connection, significance in the way Japan's early chronicles introduce
Ojin - the first Yamato king after the break - as the son of the
mythical and shamanistic Queen Jingu. The Kojiki contains the following
version of a dialogue among her, the Sun Goddess (the ancestral
kami of Japan's emperors), and the ritualist who was conducting a
Great Exorcism held after the death of Chuai and while Jingu was
pregnant:
Sun Goddess to Jingu: This land is the land to be ruled by the child that
is in your womb.
Ritualist to the Sun Goddess: Awesome great kami, what sex is the child
inside in the kami (possessed) womb?
Sun Goddess to Jingu: A boy.
Ritualist to the Sun Goddess: What is the name of the great kami who
speaks?
Sun Goddess to Jingu: This is the will of the Sun Goddess, and of the
three sea kami . . . [worshiped at Sumiyoshi].**
The Nihon shoki contains lengthy stories of Jingu's receiving guidance
and support from various kami during her overseas campaign against
the Korean kingdom of Silla and about the miraculous birth of Ojin.
Although it does not say that the Sun Goddess divinely selected Ojin
as the future "ruler of the land," it does state that "when [Ojin] was in
his mother's womb, the kami of heaven and earth granted him three
Korean provinces."45
A study of the names of the Yamato kings also suggests that a new
descent line began with Ojin. After noting that the Yamato kings did
not have clan names, Ueda calls our attention to the practice of inserting
the word iri into the names (imina) of kings descended from Sujin.
Then he notes that iri disappears from the names of kings after Ojin
and that this king and his successors were given names that included
the title wake. The earner iri (entered) tide suggested that a kami of
Miwa was believed to have entered (or divinely possessed) each king
on a descent line beginning with Sujin, whose burial mound is thought
to be one of those located at the foot of Mt. Miwa. But wake, used in
the personal name of Ojin and his successors and denoting divine
possession, was mythically linked to kami worshiped at shrines as far
north as the prefectures of Fukui and Noto. So the wake title and its
associated myths may indicate the start of a new royal line connected
44 Bk. 2, NKBT 1.229-31; Philippi, Kojiki, bk. 2. chap. 93, pp. 259-61.
45 Ojin, Introduction, NKBT 67.362; Aston, 1. 255.
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YAMATO EXPANSION 129
with the coastal regions north of the Nara plain. The mysterious,
distant, and sea-connected origins of Ojin are also embedded in traditions
of his being born to the shamanistic Jingu in northern Kyushu
and arriving at Naniwa in a boat.46
The military strength and material wealth of fifth-century Yamato
arose in large measure from great increases in the production of rice.
Historians have long been fascinated by a Nihon shoki item for the
fourteenth year of the Nintoku reign telling about the construction of
a great canal that channeled water from the Ishikawa River to uncultivated
areas of four Kawachi districts: Upper and Lower Suzuka and
Upper and Lower Toyura. This vast irrigation project apparently increased
the area of land devoted to rice production by several thousand
acres, enriching the peasants and alleviating the threat of poor crops.*7
Because the Nihon shoki was compiled over two centuries later, historians
have wondered whether the compilers did not assign to the
Nintoku reign an event that occurred much later. But archaeologists
have recently discovered a canal (the Furuichi no Omizo) and found
that repairs on it may have been made early in the fifth century.
Because the canal was dug near the burial mound thought to be that of
Ojin (the king whose reign immediately preceded that of Nintoku) and
repairs may have been made on the canal around the time this mound
was built, earlier suspicions about the veracity of the Nihon shoki
reference have been partially dispelled.*8
Other chronicle items report
the construction of canals, ponds, and dikes during the reign of
Nintoku.
Contributions made by immigrant technicians to boosting rice production
is revealed in the Kojiki's outline of Nintoku's accomplishments.
Although the account is devoted mainly to the women he
married and the children he sired, the final sentences report the
establishment of particular be (occupational groups) and end with the
statement that a Korean group was conscripted to complete several
irrigation projects, including building the Mamuta River embankment
and digging two ponds and two canals.** The Nihon shoki also
contains a story about the Mamuta embankment that, according to
the Kojiki, had been constructed by a Korean group. Inserted in a
Nihon shoki entry for the eleventh year of the same Nintoku reign,
the story is introduced with comments about the difficulty of repairing
two breaks in the Mamuta dike.
46 Ueda, Okimi no seiki, pp. 75-87, 220-8, 246.
47 Nintoku 14/11, NKBT 67.396; Aston, 1. 283. 48 Ueda, Okimi no seiki, pp. 242-3.
49 Bk. 3, NKBT 1.265-7; Philippi, Kojiki, bk. 3, chap. 109, pp. 301-2.
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I3O THE YAMATO KINGDOM
One night, as the tale goes, Nintoku dreamed that the breaks could
be repaired if two of his officials, one from eastern Japan and one from
Kawachi, made offerings to the river kami. The two men approached
the kami differently. While the easterner threw himself into the river
as a sacrifice, the Kawachi man (probably an immigrant), after tossing
a gourd into the river, vowed to sacrifice himself only if the gourd
sank. The gourd simply drifted off, and yet the dike was successfully
repaired without an additional sacrifice of life.*0
This story is usually
cited when analyzing changes in Japanese attitudes toward kami, but it
also reveals Nintoku's preoccupation with the importance of irrigation
projects that increased rice production and with the value of immigrants
who knew how to build and repair dikes. On the basis of such
evidence, it is concluded that kings of fifth-century Yamato were able
to extend their control to other regions of Japan and to Korea not
solely because of their more extensive use of imported military techniques
but also because of economic benefits accruing from the work
of immigrants who knew how to construct and maintain irrigation
systems.
The fifth-century prominence of the Naniwa harbor and of the
Sumiyoshi Shrine - both located on the shore of the Inland Sea to the
west of Izumi and Kawachi in the southern part of Settsu - also point
to Yamato involvement in military and commercial activities in regions
along and beyond the Inland Sea. Situated at the mouth of the great
Yamato River, Naniwa became, during the fifth century, an active
harbor for all seaborne traffic with such important western regions as
Kibi, Tsukushi, and southern Korea. Although we have no detailed
reports on the number and size of boats that entered and left Naniwa
in those years, the port's importance is reflected in the myth that tells
of Ojin's arriving there by boat and also in chronicle reports that both
Ojin and Nintoku had built palaces there. The discovery of huge fifthcentury
burial mounds in Kawachi and Izumi has led us to determine
that Yamato expansion was based mainly on newly developed agricultural
land in those two provinces. But it is clear that much of this
military expansion and economic growth involved the transport of
soldiers and goods through the port of Naniwa.
Just as the Yamato kings buried before about A.D. 350 at the base of
Mt. Miwa were thought to have had sacred ties with kami residing on
that sacred mountain, and those buried farther north between about
350 and 400 were linked with the Isonokami Shrine, the fifth-century
50 Nintoku 11/4/16, NKBT 67.392-4; Aston, 1. 82.
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YAMATO EXPANSION 131
kings of Kawachi and Izumi had mythological and ritual ties with the
kami enshrined at Sumiyoshi, even though the secular functions of
kings had become more important than their sacral functions. Like
Naniwa, Sumiyoshi faces the Inland Sea and has had an "across-thesea"
character. Archaeologists have not yet found offerings made to
Sumiyoshi in the middle years of the Yamato period, but connections
between Ojin and Sumiyoshi are suggested by the myth that "gold and
silver lands beyond the sea" were bestowed on Ojin by the Sumiyoshi
kami while he was in his mother's womb and by the myth that Izanagi
and Izanami (divine creators of the Yamato king descent line) gave
birth to the Sumiyoshi kami.
Although the prosperity and expansion offifth-centuryYamato must
have made members of the court's governing elite more interested in
secular affairs than in kami mysteries, persons in high places were
surely impelled - at those early stages of thought and belief concerning
group leadership - to reinforce their authority with affirmations of belief
in the kami that had a mysterious power to dispense benefits at
crucial times and places. The Yamato kings of that day were constantly
immersed in the task of obtaining materials, techniques, and technicians
from - and establishing military and administrative control
over - lands located along and beyond the Inland Sea. And for such
endeavors the position and character of Sumiyoshi kami were propitious:
The shrine faced the sea, and its kami, believed to have sacred ties
to the Yamato king line of descent, were thought to possess a strange
and marvelous power to make any overseas venture successful.
Outlying regions
Although the Yamato kings buried on the Nara plain had extended
their control to a substantial portion of Japan's main islands in the
previous fourth century, Ojin and his successors of the fifth century,
operating from a powerful new center along the shore of the Inland
Sea, obviously exercised firmer control over more territory than did
their predecessors.
In an attempt to show how control was established and maintained,
Shiraishi has concentrated on archaeological evidence obtained from
large mounds erected in distant Upper Kenu, an area between the
cities of Maebashi and Ota in Gumma Prefecture. Mounds thought to
have been built there in the fourth century are between 120 and 130
meters long, but those constructed in the fifth century are larger, less
numerous, and have the same square-in-front and round-behind style
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132 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
of those built in the provinces of Kawachi and Izumi. The three
largest of these Upper Kenu mounds are (i) the Sengen-yama (in the
city of Takasaki), 171 meters long and probably built at the beginning
of the fifth century; (2) the Bessho Chausu-yama (in the eastern part of
the Upper Kenu area), 165 meters long and erected somewhat later in
that century; and (3) the Tenjin-yama (in the present city of Ota),
measuring 210 meters, the largest mound found in the whole of the
Tohoku region, which was constructed around the middle of that
same century.
Shiraishi has concluded that these three mounds were not for the
burial of local leaders, as the earlier and smaller mounds had been, but
for successive heads of an Upper Kenu federation of clans. To him the
evidence also suggests that the power of persons buried in these
mounds was not based primarily on control over a particular local
group but on ties with the Yamato kings. These ties are most clearly
revealed in the discovery that the body buried in the last and biggest of
the Upper Kenu mounds (the Tenjin-yama) had been placed in a long
stone coffin that was precisely like those made then in Kawachi and
Izumi, suggesting that the artisans had come from that great distance
to make coffins in the Kawachi-Izumi style. And this in turn provides
support for the conclusion that leaders of eastern Japan were developing
increasingly close ties with the Yamato court.*1
All the mounds erected in Upper Kenu after the middle of the fifth
century, following the completion of the great Tenjin-yama mound,
were smaller. Shiraishi thinks this was not due to a restoration of a
fourth-century type of leadership but to the tendency for local dignitaries
to become enmeshed in the Yamato control system, probably
through fictive family ties with individuals standing in pivotal positions
at court. Such local representatives of the central court were,
however, still in firm control of the local populace, as is suggested by
clay figurine (haniwa) representations of grand funeral processions and
by the remains of grand residences (surrounded by moats) built at
about the same time.*2
It is felt, however, that after the construction of
the large Tenjin-yama mound, the principal source of strength for
most high officials of Upper Kenu, as well as in other parts of the
Kanto region, no longer came from their positions as leaders of a local
petty state federation (which probably has been dismantled by then)
but from their positions as local representatives of the Yamato court.
Particularly concrete and convincing evidence of such a development
51 Shiraishi, "Nihon kofun bunka ron," pp. 178-9. 52 Ibid., pp. 179-82.
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YAMATO EXPANSION 133
is provided by a sword (inscribed with a date thought to be 471) found
recently in the Inariyama mound, south of the Tone River in Saitama
Prefecture. Grave goods accompanying the sword and the body, presumably
belonging to the sword's owner, indicate that the Inariyama
mound was not built for the owner of the sword but for an earlier
chieftain. The sword inscription reveals that it had been possessed by
the head (kashira) of a sword wielders' group (a be) that guarded the
palace of the current Yamato "great king" (okimi).™ Local military
officials such as the owner of this sword were appearing in other parts of
Japan as well, a conclusion reinforced by the discovery of another fifthcentury
inscription-bearing sword excavated from a mound in southern
Japan. The inscription on this sword, taken from the Edafuna-yama
burial mound near the present city of Kumamoto, has not yet been fully
deciphered, but it definitely contains the two characters for okimi,
indicating that its possessor, like the owner of the Inariyama sword in
northeastern Japan, was a Yamato agent in the southwestern region.
Thus we can be quite sure that Yamato kings like Yuryaku had extended
their control to most of Japan during the fifth century.'"
Mechanisms ofcontrol
The system that the fifth-century kings of Yamato devised for extending
and maintaining their hold over more land and more people, first
on the Nara plain and then beyond, can now be sketched. What we
see, far more clearly, is the rise of a network of local units and offices
incorporated, centuries later and after considerable change, into a
sinicized ritsuryo legal system.
Uji and Kabane. At the base of the system were agricultural communities
that had probably come into existence at the time of the introduction
and spread of wet-rice agriculture, when flat and well-watered
land was first developed for the cultivation of rice in paddy fields.
53 This gold-inlaid sword, found in 1978, was studied by Inoue Mitsusada, Ono Susumu, et al.,
Shimpojium tekken no nazo to kodai Nihon (Tokyo: Shincho, 1978); and its 115-character
inscription was translated (omitting the names of the owner's ancestors) in An Introductory
Bibliography for Japanese Studies, vol. 4, pt. 2, p. 1. Although many problems raised by the
inscription have not been resolved, it still is an extremely valuable source. It contains (1) the
oldest known Japanese genealogical record, (2) characters for "great king" (okimi) preceded
by a name identified as that of Yuryaku, (3) the name of a warrior group thought to have been
a be, and (4) a kabane title. It has become a basic reference for the study of many important
developments in the fifth century. See Kamata, "Oken to be-min sei," pp. 249-52. See also
Saitatna-ken kyoiku iinkai, Saitama Inariyama kofun shingai met tetsu ken shuri hokokusho
(Urawa: Saitama-ken kyoiku iinkai, 1982).
54 Ueda, Okimi no seiki, pp. 18, 32-33.
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134 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
Archaeological studies indicate that such communities, surrounded by
ditches and walls, were usually located on ground too high for the
cultivation of rice but near paddy fields. From earliest times, similar
concerns and interests bound members of such farming communities
into tight social groups that, from their position at the base of Japanese
society, shaped and colored subsequent social change. Farmers have
always had to deal with the common task of leveling land, building and
maintaining dikes and canals, keeping the fields flooded during the
growing season, and coping with the dangers of drought and storm as
well as the possibility of attacks by wild animals or aggressive neighbors.
And it was in such farming communities that lineal control
groups (called uji or clans) gradually emerged to become major units in
the Yamato control structure.
Everyone in an early community was apparently convinced that if
rice were planted at a propitious time, if rain were plentiful during the
growing season, and if protection against wild animals and human
enemies were adequate, the community's protective deity (kami) had
been exercising its mysterious power benevolently. Because the people
believed, both then and later, that they would receive divine assistance
only if offerings were made and festivals were held at the right time
and in the right place and manner, they paid close attention (especially
at crucial times of the year) to establishing and maintaining good
relations with the community's kami. Indeed, the principal functions
of a community head (at first selected ritually) was to perform rites
that honored and ensured the receipt of benefits from the community's
kami.
Third-century Chinese accounts and archaeological finds show that
around the middle years of the earlier Yayoi period (at about the time
of Christ), agricultural communities of a given region were brought
together into petty "states" or "small state federations," the second
stage of centralization. By the first century A.D. some of these petty
states on the southern island of Kyushu were strong enough to send
missions to the Chinese court. Although we have no detailed information
about the unification process or how it affected the life and organization
of either the nuclear community or the umbrella federation, the
following conclusions - relevant to the nature and role of the clans
that became the foundation of the Yamato control structure - can be
drawn: (i) A small state was formed by one agricultural community
that gained supremacy (probably by means of military force) over
neighboring communities; (2) a small state was headed by a king or
queen who stood above (but apparently did not replace) the heads of
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YAMATO EXPANSION 135
constituent communities; (3) a king or queen had a sacred relationship
to, and was the chief priest or priestess in the worship of, his or her
guardian kami, just as the head of each constituent community conducted
the worship of its community kami; (4) a state kami stood
above (but did not replace) the kami worshiped by the heads of petty
states; (5) a king or queen was often succeeded by a son or daughter;
and (6) the centralization process was associated with, if not accelerated
by, an increasingly widespread use of iron tools and weapons.
Clans of the fifth-century Yamato system, as well as its chieftain and
kami, developed and functioned somewhat like groups formed at the
earlier (second) stage of centralization, but with differences arising
from their special relations to the growth and development of Yamato.
The groups formed at this later stage - possibly called uji by a Yamato
king - were probably located in and around the Nara plain. They are
thought to have retained much of the social character of early Yayoi
agricultural communities and of petty states or state-federations that
had begun to emerge in Kyushu toward the middle of the Yayoi period,
but they were transformed into u/i-like lineal groups by familial,
religious, economic, and military ties with the Yamato kings. As the
Yamato kingdom gained more wealth and power, such groups, again
fundamentally altered by the functions they performed as parts of the
Yamato control system, appeared in regions outside the Nara plain.55
The Nihon shoki carries many references to clans in its chapters on
the reigns of Yamato's first kings, but such lineal groups probably did
not become strong instruments of regional control until around the
time of King Yuryaku in the fifth century. Words included in two
fifth-century inscriptions supply unmistakable evidence that the uji
had become basic units in the Yamato system. The first is on a bronze
mirror bearing a date identified as 443, a mirror possessed by the Suda
Hachiman Shrine in Wakayama Prefecture. The forty-eight Chinese
characters inscribed on it include the name and title of Kawachi no
Atai. Kawachi is thought to be the name of a clan, and Atai the kabane
title bestowed on its head by a Yamato king. The second fifth-century
55 Deductions regarding clan roots are based on a consideration of (i) Tsude's conclusions in
"Noko shakai no keisei," pp. 117-58, concerning the nature of agricultural life in the Yayoi
period; (2) Harada Toshiaki's studies, Nihon kodai shuhyo: zoho kaitei han (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha,
1970); and Nihon kodai shukyo (Tokyo: ChQokdronsha, 1971) of religion and
society in ancient times; (3) Inoue Mitsusada's ideas in Asuka no chotei, vol. 3 of Nihon no
rekishi (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1974), pp. 22-36, on the early development of clan and Kabane;
and (4) Kadowaki Teiji's studies, "Kodai shakai ron," Kodai, vol. 2 of Iwanami koza: Nihon
rekishi (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975), pp. 332-77, of the social side of the centralization
process. Kiley surveyed postwar studies of the nature and development of clans and kabane in
his "State and Dynasty," pp. 27-31.
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136 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
inscription, also including the name of a clan and the kabane held by
its head, is on the aforementioned Inariyama sword. There we read
that the owner, whose ancestors had served King Yuryaku and his
predecessors generation after generation, was Owake no Omi. The
word uji (clan) does not appear in the inscription, but historians conclude
that Owake was a clan name and that Omi was the kabane
bestowed on an Owake head by a Yamato king.'6
The discovery of these two fifth-century inscriptions bearing the
names of clans and kabane add credibility to clan references in the Nihon
shoki. Recent historical studies suggest, moreover, that all chronicle
items for the year after 400 are more accurate than had long been
supposed. Apart from the observation that post-400 reports contain
more detail about human events (suggesting that the compilers had
access to written sources later lost), comparisons with contemporary
Chinese and Korean historical accounts show that a number of passages
in the Nihon shoki were copied from or based on such foreign sources as
the Chinese dynastic histories ofWei and Southern Sung and on chronicles
of Paekche.57 The Nihon shoki's names and dates for fifth-century
kings are also in rough accord with those included Southern Sung
reports on ten tributary missions that Yamato sent to the Sung court.s8
Thus the Nihon shoki's references to clans are now used with greater
confidence to determine which clan had the greatest economic and
political importance and also to chart relationships between the clans
and the Yamato king's court. From such evidence we see that the
highest kabane titles were awarded to men who headed powerful and
strategically located clans and who were bound to one Yamato king
after another by real orfictivefamily ties. The most prestigious kabane
were bestowed as a hereditary right on clan leaders at the court, with
the lowest going to clan leaders in local areas. The highest two (omi
and mu.raji) were granted only to the heads of powerful clans who
served the Yamato kings directly and who resided in the neighborhood
of the capital. The head of the strongest was called a great omi or great
muraji. Historians who have studied the Yamato phase of Japan's centralization
process have therefore given special attention to the appearance
of clans whose heads held the title of great omi, appointments
sometimes linked with shifts in the Yamato king line of descent.
By examining references to kabane during the Yuryaku reign, Inoue
Mitsusada concluded that Yuryaku greatly expanded the use of kabane
56 Ueda, Okimi no seiki, pp. 32, 289, 372; Kamata, "Oken to be-min sei," pp. 249-52.
57 Inoue Mitsusada, Nihon shoki (Tokyo: Chudkoronsha, 1983), p. 138.
58 Shiraishi, "Nihon kofun bunka ron," pp. 204; Kiley, "State and Dynasty," pp. 31-40.
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YAMATO EXPANSION 137
appointments in order to strengthen his control and that his reign was
marked by the emergence of a new clan alignment. Some heads were
then receiving the grand title of great otni or great muraji. The
Katsuragi was no longer dominant at court, having been replaced by
the Heguri, Otomo, and Mononobe clans, which were valued for their
military strength and loyalty and whose heads were awarded the highest
kabane. Clan heads in outlying regions also came to hold kabane
during those years (as revealed in the inscriptions on the two fifthcentury
swords mentioned earlier), indicating that their clans had
been incorporated into the Yamato system. Such developments at this
time had a political significance comparable to the rise of the Soga to a
position of dominance at the end of the following century.5'
Having obtained a somewhat clearer picture of how clans and
kabane figured in the rapid increase of Yamato control after the middle
of the fifth century, historians can now understand why King Ingyo
(Yuryaku's father) ordered (according to both the Nihon shoki and the
Kojiki) persons who claimed they were kabane-holding heads of clans
to subject themselves to an ordeal (kugatachi). The Nihon shoki reports
that Ingyo issued the following decree in the third year of his reign:
In ancient times good governance consisted of people acquiring [proper]
positions and avoiding clan or kabane irregularities. But during the three
years of my reign, there has been [incessant] conflict between inferiors and
superiors, and the people have no peace. In some cases persons have mistakenly
lost their kabane and in others purposely [and fraudulently] laid claim to
a high clan position. Probably this is why we have not had good governance.
Although I lack wisdom, I must do something to rectify these irregularities.
The Nihon shoki goes on to report that Ingyo issued another decree
after obtaining advice from his ministers:
Nobles and bureaucrats [at the capital] and such officials as provincial governors
(Kuni no Miyatsuko) have been claiming that they are descendants of a
great ruler (Mikado) and have sacred origins. But ever since the appearance of
heaven, earth, and man, tens of thousands of years have elapsed and various
clans and thousands of kabane have appeared, making it difficult to know
whose clan and kabane claims are authentic. Consequently, I hereby order
that all clan heads and all kabane holders first purify themselves and then
subject themselves to a kugatachi ordeal [in order to determine whose claims
are true and whose are false].
Then, according to the Nihon shoki, a vat of boiling water was placed
on a certain hill, and all who claimed that they were clan heads or held
59 Inoue, Asuka no chotei, pp. 22-36.
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138 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
kabane titles were assembled and ordered to put their hands in the
boiling water, having been assured that if their claims were true their
hands would not be burned. The Nihon shoki's report ends with the
comment that many persons with false claims fled from the scene in
terror and that thereafter no one was inclined to claim falsely that he
was head of a particular clan or held a particular kabane.60
This account
demonstrates that the Yamato kings of the fifth century did
indeed consider kabane-holding clan chieftains to be crucial instruments
of Yamato control in regions beyond the Nara plain.
Be and kabane. Although large clans or lineage groups (uji) headed by
hereditary chieftains who held the highest kabane titles awarded by a
Yamato king were central to the expansion of Yamato authority, much
of Yamato's military and economic power was generated by occupational
groups (be) attached to the court or to its supporting clans.
These groups were similar in some respects to clans. Both resided in
clearly defined areas and were ruled by hereditary heads holding
kabane that had been granted by a Yamato king. But unlike a clan which
was higher up in the control structure and whose hereditary
leader had long ruled (and served as chief priest for) the residents of
that particular area - a be's head controlled the activities of a group
engaged in performing a crucial service or in making a needed product
for the court or one of its clans.
Recent historical and archaeological research by Kamada Motokazu
and others permits us to conclude that as early as the first years of the
fifth century, small and medium-sized occupational groups located in
and around Kawachi (called tomo and having hereditary heads) had
such special duties as guarding the palace, supplying water for the
court, and carrying out custodial chores. But with the expansion of
Yamato, the tomo spread to areas beyond the Nara plain and came to be
headed by officials designated as occupational group managers (tomo
no miyatsuko). Such groups seem also to have been called be, a word
probably introduced from Korea. In January 1984 an important archaeological
report on an iron sword found at Okadayama and bearing
the three characters for "Nukata be" was published. Unfortunately,
what is left of the inscription contains no date, but an analysis of
pottery found at the site from which the sword was taken indicates
that it was made late in the sixth century. The Nukata be has been
linked with the Nukata koshiro which, according to the Nihon shoki,
60 Ingyo 4/9/9 and 4/9/28, NKBT 67.437-8; Aston, 1.316-17.
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YAMATO EXPANSION 139
was established during the Ojin reign. Moreover, the Izumo fudoki
refers to a Nukatabe no Omi, and other eighth-century records show
that Izumo then had a district named Nukata. Thus the Okadayama
sword inscription, together with fifth-century inscriptions found on
the Suda Hachiman mirror and the Inariyama sword, permit historians
to conclude confidently that a fairly extensive and complex
occupational-group system had evolved by the closing years of the fifth
century.61
Nashiro and koshiro, special types of be, are frequently mentioned in
chronicle reports of Yamato kings who ruled in the fifth century. The
former was a special occupational group bestowed on a queen, and the
latter, on a royal heir. The Ingyo chapter of the Nihon shoki refers to a
number of each, suggesting that they had been established in widely
scattered regions of the country by the middle of that century. But
because of skepticism about the validity of evidence found in chronicles
compiled at a much later date, historians have not been willing
until recently to state that nashiro or koshiro existed as early as Ingyo's
day. This skepticism was largely removed, however, by a recent discovery
of fragments of household registers for the year 721, which contain
618 names of individuals associated with the Anaho be, a koshiro type
of occupational group created by Ingyo and bestowed on his son who
reigned (after about 453) from the Anaho palace as King Anko.62
Early occupational groups were originally established to assist the
court in the conduct of kami ceremonies and to provide personal
services. But with the expansion of the Yamato kings' power in the
fifth century and the spread of occupational groups from the court to
clans in outlying regions, an increasingly large number of these groups
(gradually coming to be referred to as be) served the court or a clan by
producing such valued articles as iron swords and bronze mirrors or
by performing technical tasks associated with the construction of huge
burial mounds and complex irrigation systems. Concurrent technological
revolutions in warfare and agriculture, both arising from an expanded
use of advanced techniques introduced from abroad, greatly
augmented the demand for a great variety and volume of goods and
services, which these occupational groups provided. Against the backdrop
of such technological and sociological change, then, we see new
significance in kojiki and Nihon shoki references to the increased activity
of numerous occupational groups {be) made up of Paekche immigrants.
Be of this type also bore names that refer to their specialized
61 Kamata, "Oken to be-min sei," pp. 252-8. 62 Inoue, Asuka no ckdtei, p. 31.
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I4O THE YAMATO KINGDOM
occupations: working in iron, raising horses, making shields, and the
like. The power and prestige of the Yamato leaders, and clan heads all
over the country, were based on the number and strength of the be that
they possessed.
Indeed, these occupational groups had become so important that
many clan names came to include the word be, as did several clans that
enjoyed special influence at court during and after the reign of
Yuryaku, such as the Mononobe and the Inbe. But the importance of a
strong occupational group to a powerful clan is probably most clearly
seen in the support that the yugei (quiver bearers) gave the Otomo, a
clan noted for its military might and influence at the Yuryaku court.
Foreign expansion
The expansion of the Yamato within the Japanese islands during the
middle years of this period was intertwined with its political and military
involvement in Korean affairs. The roots of this involvement run
back at least to the fourth century, as is suggested by characters inscribed
on the seven-pronged sword forged in Paekche during the year
369. But recent studies of relations among northeast Asian kingdoms
reveal the development of an entirely new situation at the beginning of
the fifth century, a situation that Yamato may well have seen as threatening,
or as offering opportunities for further expansion.6
*
Until the middle of the fourth century, Koguryo was the strongest of
the three Korean kingdoms, even considering people in the other two
(Paekche and Silla) to be its subjects. But then, and as we have noted,
Koguryo became embroiled in bitter battles with the Paekche kingdom
to the south. Approximately two years after Paekche had presented
the seven-pronged sword to the Yamato king in 369, Paekche
soldiers (according to the Samguk sagi) actually invaded the Koguryo
capital, thereby placing in jeopardy Koguryo's existence as an independent
kingdom.6
* But by the last decade of the century, Koguryo had
made a spectacular recovery, achieving enough military strength to
repel Japanese invaders in 391, to win battles against Paekche in 394,
and even to undertake aggressive action in north China during 395.
Faced with this comeback by KoguryS, Paekche leaders turned to
63 Sakamoto Yoshitane, Wa no Goo: Kuhaku no geseiki (Tokyo: Kyoikusha, 1984), pp. 11-32.
64 Kawanishi Hiroyuki suggested that even in these early years Paekche had requested military
assistance and that Yamato had supplied it: "Zenki Kinai seiken ron", Shirin 64 and 65
(September 1981); Suzuki, "Ajia shominzoku no kokka keisei," p. 201. The Samguk sagi has
been translated into Japanese by Inoue Hideo in his Sangoku shiki (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1980).
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YAMATO EXPANSION I4I
Yamato for military support, even sending its crown prince to Yamato
as a hostage in 397 - just as Silla had dispatched a princely hostage to
Koguryo in 392 when that kingdom was in dire need of military
support. So at the turn of the fifth century, right after Yamato had sent
an army against Silla, the Korean situation was marked by a deep and
lasting antagonism between two kingdom combinations: Koguryo and
Silla pitted against Paekche and Yamato.
Koguryo and Silla were closely associated with, and frequently sent
tributary missions to, the courts of north China, and Paekche and
Yamato allied themselves with courts of south China. After Paekche
began striking out against Koguryo in the 370s, Koguryo sent tribute
to the northern court of the Former Tsou; and at about the same time
Paekche dispatched a tributary mission to the southern court of Eastern
Chin. The invasion of Silla by Yamato at the turn of the fifth
century served to harden the lines that separated these two northeast
Asian tributary-kingdom systems by increasing (1) Silla's dependence
on Koguryo (in 402 Kogury6 engineered the enthronement of a new
Silla king), (2) Paekche's dependenceon Yamato (in 405 Yamato had
the crown prince, who had been sent to Yamato as a hostage, enthroned
as the king of Paekche), (3) Koguryo's influence in northeast
Asian affairs (in 413 the great King Kwanggaet'o even sent a tributary
mission to the Eastern Chin court of south China), and (4) Yamato's
interest in establishing closer relations with the Southern Sung court
of China (the Southern Sung history reports that ten tributary missions
arrived from Yamato between 421 and 478).
Although the Nihon shoki does not mention any of the ten missions
dispatched to the Chinese court of Southern Sung, considerable information
is included in the official Sung shu history. The ten were reportedly
sent by five Yamato kings. But it has been difficult to identify
these five because the compilers of the Southern Sung history used
only one Chinese character to name a king. Finally, and after much
disagreement and meticulous research, scholars now generally agree
that the first three missions (in 421, 425, and 430) were dispatched by
either Ojin or Richu, the fourth (438) by Hanzei, the next three (443,
451, and 460) by Ingyo, the eighth (462) by Ankd, and the last two
(477 and 478) by Yuryaku: Suzuki Yasutami believes that the dispatch
of Yamato's first mission to Southern Sung may have been recommended
by Paekche leaders who felt threatened by close ties between
its two strongest neighbors: Kogury6 and Silla.6
' But between 429
65 Suzuki, "Ajia shominzoku no kokka keisei," p. 204; and Kiley, "State and Dynasty," pp.
37-40.
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142 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
(when the Paekche court was torn by rivalry between pro-Yamato and
pro-Silla factions) and 455 (when war again broke out between
Koguryo and Paekche), Paekche was not seriously threatened by a
strong Koguryo-Silla alliance and apparently made no appeals to
Yamato for military assistance, although Yamato sent three missions to
Southern Sung during these relatively quiet decades.
Soon after the outbreak of war with Koguryo in 455, Paekche returned
to the practice of asking Yamato for military reinforcement. In
461 the king sent his own mother to Japan as a hostage, a sure sign that
his situation had indeed become desperate. According to the memorial
that Yuryaku dispatched to the emperor of Southern Sung in 478,
Yamato had been planning for some years to help Paekche by attacking
Koguryo, possibly ever since the outbreak of war between Paekche
and Koguryo in 455. Suzuki even suggests that such a plan may have
been mentioned in the Anko memorial to the Southern Sung in 462.**>
But as powerful as Yamato had become, apparently no sizable military
units were sent to Paekche in these years of disturbed relations among
Korea's three strong kingdoms.
But Koguryo invaded Paekche in 475, defeating its troops and killing
its king. According to the Nihon shoki, the Koguryo king rejected a
proposal to have Paekche destroyed, because "we have heard that
Paekche has long been a royal estate of Japan and, as is well known by
neighboring states, its king serves the Japanese emperor."6
? It is doubtful
that the Koguryo sovereign ever made such a statement, but we
can be sure - on the basis of what the Southern Sung account says
about the two missions received from Japan in 477 and 478 - that the
Yamato court was determined to do something about the defeat of
Paekche and the aggressiveness of Koguryd. This is most clearly revealed
in the memorial that Yuryaku sent to the Sung court in 478:
Our land is remote, far across the ocean. From times of old, our ancestors
have clad themselves in armor and helmet, crossed the hills and waters, and
spared no time for rest. They conqueredfifty-fivekingdoms of hairy men to
the east and sixty-six barbarian kingdoms to the west. Crossing the sea to the
north, they subjugated ninety-five kingdoms. The way to govern is to maintain
harmony and peace, thereby establishing order. Generation after generation
our ancestors have paid homage to your court. Your subject, ignorant
though he may be, has succeeded to the throne and is fervently devoted to
Your Sovereign Majesty. Everything he has is at Your Majesty's disposal. In
order to [send this mission] by way of Paekche, we have prepared ships and
boats. But Koguryd has defied law and schemed to capture them. Moreover,
66 Suzuki, "Ajia shominzoku no kokka keisei," p. 207.
67 Yuryaku 20 (476) /winter, NKBT 67.496-7; Aston, 1.368-9.
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YAMATO EXPANSION 143
Koguryo has made border raids and committed murder repeatedly. So we
have been forced to delay our mission and missed favorable winds. Whenever
we pressed on [with plans to dispatch a tributary mission], Koguryo became
rebellious. My deceased father (Ingyo) became indignant with this marauding
foe that had blocked our route to Your Majesty's court and, motivated by a
sense of justice, mobilized a million archers in preparing to launch a great
campaign [against Koguryo]. But before plans for the campaign could be
fully developed and implemented, my father and brother (Ank6) died, and
during the period of mourning a cessation of military activity was required.
But inaction does not produce victory. So we are again making preparations
for carrying out the wishes of my predecessors. The troops are in high spirits;
civil and military officials are prepared for action; and no one is afraid to
fight. Your Sovereign virtue extends over heaven and earth. If we can crush
this [Koguryo] foe and put an end to our troubles, we will continue to be loyal
[subjects]. I therefore implore Your Majesty to appoint me supreme commander
of the expedition, give me the status of minister, and award persons
under me with [appropriate] ranks and titles. Thus will we be encouraged to
remain loyal.68
Yuryaku did not obtain everything he requested: The Sung account
reports that he received only titles and offices that had been awarded
to his predecessors: "King of Yamato, and Pacifying General of the
East who is in Charge of the Military Affairs of Six Kingdoms
(Yamato, Silla, Mimana, Kaya, Chinhan, and Mahan)." The Yamato
section of the Southern Sung history indicates that Yuryaku asked not
only for an appointment as supreme commander of the expedition
against Koguryo but also for one that would put him in charge of
Paekche. But neither request was granted.
Yuryaku was undoubtedly disappointed by the Chinese emperor's
response but was not deterred, when hearing of the death of the current
Paekche king in the summer of 479, from having a Paekche royal
prince - apparently a son or grandson of the queen mother who had
been sent to Yamato as a hostage in 461 - placed on the Paekche
throne.69
Yuryaku might also have tried to implement his grand
scheme for sending a military expedition against Koguryo if he had
not become ill in 479, dying shortly afterward. While on his deathbed
his court became divided over the question of who should succeed
him. And his successors, judging from what we read in the Nihon
68 Sung shu 97:236-258, trans. Ryusaku Tsunoda and L. Carrington Goodrich, Japan in the
Chinese Dynastic Histories: Later Han Through Ming Dynasties (South Pasadena, Calif.: P. D.
and lone Perkins, 1951), pp. 23-24 (with minor editorial changes).
69 Nihon shoki, Yuryaku 23/4, NKBT 67.497-8; Aston, 1.368-9. Hirano Kunio studied YamatoKorean
relations during the fifth century in "Yamato oken to Chosen," in Genshi oyobi kodai,
vol. 1 of Asao Naohiro, Ishii Susumu, Inouye Mitsusada, Oishi Kaichiro et al., eds., Itvanami
koza: Nihon rekithi (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975), pp. 227-72.
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144 T H E
YAMATO KINGDOM
shoki, were more preoccupied with internal conflict than with proposals
for dispatching another expedition to Korea. The expansive fifth
century came to a close, then, at a rather quiet time in Yamato relations
with Korean kingdoms, at a time when Yamato was ruled by
King Buretsu, who was denounced in the Nihon shoki for accomplishing
nothing and never missing a chance to "personally witness cruel
punishments of all kinds."?0
Fifth-century archaeological discoveries demonstrate that expansion
into Korea was motivated not simply by an urge to extend control over
foreign territory but, rather, by a hunger for material and technological
gain. Myths concerning Jingu's victorious military expedition against
Silla - probably based on foreign campaigns organized early in the fifth
century - refer to Silla as a "land of treasure," as a country yielding
"precious treasure," "maps and registers," "gold and silver," and "figured
gauzes and silks," and as a kingdom that periodically sends "eighty
ships of tribute."71
The results of studies by Kito Kiyoaki support the
theory that explosive developments in the use ofiron weapons and tools
had created a vast and growing demand for iron ore, for which Korea
seems to have been the principal source. But there was also a continuing
demand for showy treasures such as bronze mirrors, swords, and bells.
We do not have enough information to know precisely how many of
these materials were brought into Japan by a particular channel, but it is
assumed that even though large amounts were received as gifts when
sending or receiving official missions (sometimes linked with the use or
display of military might), as much or moreflowedin as articles of trade
or loot. Demands for the services of individuals familiar with building
and administrative techniques might even have been greater than those
for exotic treasures. Immigrant technicians - whether military, agricultural,
or administrative - may have arrived as gifts or tribute from
Korean kingdoms. But many were undoubtedly prisoners of war subjected
to different degrees of servitude, or immigrants who may not
have migrated voluntarily.?2
YAMATO DISRUPTION
The Yamato kings had become extremely rich and powerful during the
fifth century, extending their influence to areas as far away as southern
Korea, but in the sixth century they were plagued by setbacks overseas
and disunity at home. Instead of being known, as Nintoku and
70 Buretsu, Introduction, NKBT68.8; Aston, 1.399.
71 Nihon shoki, Jingu, NKBT 67.330-42; Aston, 1.224-35.
72 Suzuki, "Ajia shominzoku no kokka keisei," p. 208.
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YAMATO DISRUPTION 145
Yuryaku had been, for victorious campaigns in distant places and the
completion of ambitous building projects, Keitai and Kimmei, the
most prominent of the sixth-century kings, are noted for their military
failures in Korea, challenges to their authority in the provinces, and
the roles they played in bitter succession disputes at court. This notwithstanding
developments such as the following prepared Japan for
reform in the seventh century: the growth of power centers outside the
Nara plain, further improvement in Yamato's control system, the
spread of higher forms of Chinese culture, and appointments to high
office of able leaders who were familiar with Chinese technology and
learning. Each is a significant aspect of the sixth-century prelude to
the Asuka enlightenment that began around the time of Empress
Suiko's enthronement in 593.
End of the gloriousfifthcentury
Until recently, historians have tended to think of Keitai's enthronement
in 507 as marking the end of Yamato's glorious fifth century, a view
based in part on the commonly accepted reputation of Keitai's predecessor
(Buretsu) as "an incomparable bad ruler."" Moreover, the chronicles
state that Buretsu died without having named a successor, leading
the kingdom's ministers to back a fifth-generation descendant who
resided somewhere beyond the Nara plain. Such statements about the
selection of Keitai suggest a break in the line of royal descent, as well as
a new locus of power. But it is now felt that the line was not actually
broken then because Keitai's father came from the Wakanoke clan, as
had Yamato kings since the reign of Ingyo early in the fifth century. It
had long been the custom, when resolving a question of succession, to
assign special weight to the clan connections of a candidate's mother. A
clan enjoying the signal honor of having one female member after another
give birth to one king after another was referred to as a gaiseki (inlaw)
clan. But it was back in Ingyd's time, not with Keitai, and
Wakanoke replaced Katsuragi as the gaiseki clan. Moreover, no evidence
has been found to support the view that with the reign of Keitai,
the court's power center moved to a new location. It seems, then, that
the enthronement of Keitai was accompanied by neither a sharp break
in the line of royal descent nor a new alignment of power at court.74
73 Gukansho, chap. 3, NKBT 86.134; Delmer M. Brown and Ichiro Ishida, trans., The Future
and the Past: A Translation and Study of the Gukansho, an Interpretative History ofJapan Written
in 1219 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979), p. 24.
74 Inoue, Asuka no chotei, pp. 68-77.
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146 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
But serious trouble did arise a few years later, largely as a result of the
rapid growth of two Korean kingdoms (Paekche and Silla) that were
expanding southward toward an area (Mimana) where Yamato had long
exercised considerable influence. The first recorded sign of danger
came in 512 when an envoy from Paekche arrived at the Yamato court
with an official request that four districts of Mimana (K: Kaya) be
recognized as parts of Paekche. After a long debate about how to respond,
the Yamato court finally decided to yield. The Nihon shoki
suggests that several officials had serious misgivings about this decision
and claimed that the two men who favored compliance had been
bribed." But the same conciliatory stance was taken the following year
when Paekche asked that still another district be recognized as its territory.
On that occasion the Yamato court even sent troops to force
Mimana to accept Paekche suzerainty. Such consistent support of
Paekche - even handing over territory - may well have been motivated
by a realistic appraisal of Paekche's military strength, but another factor
was surely uneasiness over Silla's expansion in the direction of
Mimana.76
Yamato's position in southern Korea continued to deteriorate, and
in 527 the court decided to send a military force of sixty thousand
troops to recapture areas that had been conquered by Silla. But because
the troops had to be diverted to Kyushu for quelling a rebellion,
they did not reach Korea until two years later. By that time the situation
in Mimana had worsened. After his arrival, the Japanese commander
(Kenu no Omi) invited the kings of Paekche and Silla to join
him in a conference, but neither accepted the invitation, instead
merely sending representatives. A high-ranking Silla officer eventually
did arrive with three thousand soldiers but then proceeded to plunder
four villages in the Mimana area. After Kenu no Omi had failed,
month after month, to obtain cooperation from either Paekche or
Silla, discontent welled up even among the Mimana people. Finally, in
529 a Mimana king asked the Yamato court to recall its commander.
On his way back to Japan, Kenu no Omi became sick and died, and a
few months after Keitai's death (probably in 531), the Mimana kingdom
was incorporated into Silla.77
This development, and not the
circumstances of Keitai's enthronement, marks the end of Yamato's
glorious fifth century.
75 Keitai 6/12, NKBT 68.28-30; Aston, 2. 8-9.
76 Keitai 7, NKBT 68.28-30; Aston, 1. 12-13; Inoue, Asuka no chotei, pp 82-83.
77 Nihon shoki Keitai 21 to 25, NKBT 68.43-47; Aston, 1. 15-25. See Inoue, Asuka no chdlei,
pp. 101-2, and Lee, A New History of Korea, pp. 41-44.
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YAMATO DISRUPTION 147
A new power base
Before turning to the troubles faced by the court in such outlying
regions as Kyushu and the Kanto, we should note Yamato's new
power base. Following earlier moves from Shiki to Saki around the
year 350 and from Saki to Kawachi-Izumi in roughly 400, this move
was made some time during the sixth-century reign of Keitai, probably
during his troubled last years. Keitai's palace and burial mound, as
well as those of his successors, were erected in the southwestern corner
of the Nara plain, at the foot of Mt. Miwa where the Yamato court had
been located during the first century of the Yamato period.
Archaeologists have amassed large amounts of data from sixthcentury
finds in that part of the Nara plain, but many interpretative
uncertainties remain. No one seems to be sure which Yamato king was
buried in which mound, and no general agreement has been reached
on the question of why the palaces and mounds were shifted to this
new location. Some historians have suggested that court officials were
afraid that Naniwa and its environs were too vulnerable to attack from
the sea and that military defeats in Korea would be followed by an
invasion from Silla. But it is more likely that the court was subjected
to pressure from such strong clans as the Soga who, as increasingly
powerful supporters of Yamato rulers, undoubtedly insisted that the
court be located near their particular power bases.?8
Inoue Mitsusada drew a map of the area between Naniwa and Mt.
Miwa showing that the new center was strategically located. Keitai's
Iware palace and burial mound, as well as those of his immediate
successors, were near the town of Yagi where Yamato's main east-west
road crossed its main north-south one. The former linked Yagi to the
western provinces of Izumi and Kawachi and to the port of Naniwa
beyond, whereas the latter connected it with the northern part of
Yamato and the northern provinces of Yamashiro and Omi (see Map
2.2). In addition to enjoying the benefits of overland contact with
neighboring provinces, Yagi had other advantages. It was on the
Asuka River (a part of the Yamato River system thatflowedby Naniwa
into the Inland Sea); it was in the section of the Nara plain (at the foot
of Mt. Miwa) where the Yamato kings had reigned for the first century
or more of Yamato history; and it was near Soga territory.?'
Archaeologists generally agree that the burial mounds of the last
third of the Yamato period (roughly the sixth century) differed from
78 Shiraishi, "Nihon kofun bunka ron," p. 177. 79 Inoue, Asuka no chotei, p. 117.
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148 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
Map 2.2 Last Yamato base. (Based on Nihon rekishi chizu, 1986,
Map 8.)
those of earlier centuries: They were smaller, more numerous, and
built in clusters all over the country. And yet the Mise Maru-yama
mound - thought to have been for the burial of King Senka or his
younger brother Kimmei, who is thought to have died in 570 - is the
sixth-largest burial mound ever built in Japan. Around the middle of
the eighteenth century it was opened up and, according to reports,
proved to have the longest burial chamber on record, measuring
twenty meters long. Later mounds, smaller and more numerous, were
built in clusters throughout Japan's main islands, and Shiraishi feels
that this was because (1) the power and authority of a Yamato king
were no longer sharply differentiated from that of royal officials stationed
throughout the country, (2) the authority of old clan-federation
heads was in decline, and (3) the new type of clans (which had immigrant
connections that provided services to the court of a more technical
sort and which held such high offices as occupation group manager)
was becoming stronger.80
80 Shiraishi, "Nihon kofun bunka ron," pp. 176-7; Inoue, Asuka no chotei, pp. 118-20.
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YAMATO DISRUPTION 149
Rebellion in Kyushu
Of the problems faced by the Yamato court before and after its base
was moved back to the southwestern corner of the Nara plain, those
associated with the refusal of a clan leader of northern Kyushu (a man
by the name of Iwai who was governor of Tsukushi Province) to
comply with court orders to provide troops and supplies for an expedition
against Silla were particularly serious. The Nihon shoki states,
with some bitterness, that Iwai had accepted bribes from Silla and had
actually obstructed the mobilization of troops. Consequently, the army
assembled for the Korean campaign had to be diverted for action
against Iwai.81
Within a few months Iwai was defeated and killed, but
court leaders were undoubtedly afraid that such rebelliousness might
develop elsewhere. Because the steps taken in Kyushu, after the Iwai
defeat, were taken in other regions and altered the form and functions
of institutions subsequently incorporated into the Chinese legal (ritsuryo)
system, let us look more closely at the Kyushu situation.
The island of Kyushu has three zones, each bordered by mountains
and seas and having its own special relationship to the continent and
central Japan (see Map 2.3). The northern zone, facing the Genkai Sea
and separated from the middle zone to the southeast by the Tsukushi
Mountains, was dominated by the Munakata clan. As noted earlier,
the kami of Munakata were enshrined on an offshore sacred island (the
"kami body") where archaeologists have discovered offerings that disclose
early and continuing relations with Korea. But the Munakata
clan was also allied with the Yamato court, as is indicated by early
myths (recorded in both the Nihon shoki and the Kojiki) which affirm
familial ties between the ancestral kami of Munakata and the ancestral
kami (the Sun Goddess) of the Yamato kings.
On the southern side of Kyushu is another zone which, facing the
Pacific Ocean, is cut off from the central zone by the Kyushu Mountains.
This is the isolated and agriculturally deficient area occupied in
ancient times by the Kumaso and Hayato peoples. The central zone,
lying between the Tsukushi and Kyushu mountain ranges that cross
Kyushu and separate the three zones, has three fertile plains. At its
southwesterly end are the Tsukushi and Kumamoto plains, and at its
opposite end, northeast of the famous Mt. Aso, is the Oita plain.82
There were unusual changes and developments in this central zone
81 Keitai 21/6/3 to 21/8/1, NKBT 68.34-36; Aston, 1.17-18; Inoue, Asuka nochotei, pp. 93-102.
82 Toshio Noh and John C. Kimura, eds., Japan: A Regional Geography of an Island Nation
(Tokyo: Teikoku shoin, 1983), pp. 29-46.
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150 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
PACIFIC. OCEA.N
Map 2.3 Kyushu plains. (Based on Toshio Noh and John C. Kimura,
eds., Japan: A Regional Geography of an Island Nation, p. 30.)
throughout the Yamato period. And it was on its Tsukushi plain that
Iwai accumulated the power that enabled him to disregard the commands
of King Keitai. His clan must have made that somewhat elevated
land of this well-watered plain more productive by constructing
irrigation systems of the type that had brought rapid economic growth
to Kawachi during the previous century.
Until recently, Iwai's refusal to cooperate with the Yamato court's
military expedition against Silla in 527 has been largely discredited as a
myth. But archaeological investigations reveal that such a man actually
did live in Tsukushi at that time and that he undoubtedly had gained
enough independent strength to disregard orders from the Yamato
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YAMATO DISRUPTION 151
court. Before considering the results of these investigations, let us look
at what was written about Iwai in the Chikugo fudoki, a gazetteer
compiled in the eighth century and quoted in the Shaku Nihongi. He
was buried, according to this source, in a mound located over two
miles south of Kamitsu Yame no Agata (inside the present city of
Yame in Fukuoka Prefecture), a mound that was about 21 meters
high, 180 meters from east to west, and 120 meters from north to
south. The Chikugofudoki also tells us that sixty stone carvings of men
and shields had been placed on each side of the Iwai burial and that a
kind of shrine (gatd), with a stone human figure inside, was built at its
northeast corner. Three stone horses, three stone palaces, and three
stone storehouses were reportedly erected in front of the gatd. The
gazetteer also includes an old man's story about Iwai, picturing him as
a strong and cruel man who had built a huge mound for his own
burial. The story ends with details of Iwai's disgraceful flight from the
battlefield at the time of defeat by Yamato troops and of the Yamato
soldiers' becoming so angered by their failure to find him that in
frustration, they knocked off the heads of the mound's stone horses.83
On the northern side of the present city of Yame, atop a low eastwest
hill called the Stone Man Mountain, archaeologists have found
and investigated several ancient mounds. One measures 176 meters
long, n o meters wide at its round rear, and 130 meters wide at its
square front. This mound not only is near where the Chikugo fudoki
says that Iwai's mound was built, but it also has roughly the same
measurements. Moreover, it is the largest burial mound ever found in
north Kyushu and the third largest in the whole of Kyushu. It has a
40-meter square extension on its northeast corner, precisely where the
gazetteer said that Iwai had built his gatd. Stone items found on or
around the mound include flat stone figurines of men (sometimes
shaped as groveling servants and sometimes as soldiers carrying quivers)
that are probably remnants of the stone figures mentioned in the
ChikugofudokiM Thus historians are now quite certain that Iwai was a
historical governor of Tsukushi who really was powerful enough to
challenge Yamato authority in the closing years of the Keitai reign.
Royal land in outlying regions
Strong clans were emerging in most regions of Japan in those days,
particularly on the Kanto plain and the Kibi plateau where huge areas
83 Inoue, Asuka no chotei, pp. 95-97. 84 Ibid., pp. 97-99.
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152 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
of land had apparently been opened up (probably with the use of
advanced irrigation techniques introduced from Korea) for the cultivation
of rice. Such developments undoubtedly enriched clans in various
parts of the country. But until the outbreak of the Iwai rebellion, the
Yamato court had not faced threatening opposition. It is therefore
significant that both the Nikon shoki and Kojiki report that soon after
the court had taken steps to quell the Iwai rebellion, similar administrative
measures were instituted in both the Kanto and the Kibi. One
was to create new royal estates (miyake) that were quite different from
those that had been established at earlier dates in other parts of the
country.
Immediately after describing the defeat of Iwai, the Nihon shoki
mentions in an item for the twelfth month of 528 that Iwai's son
presented the Kasuya royal estate to the coun and asked that his life
be spared.8
s This shows that a royal estate, an old institution, was
being used in a new way. Scholars generally agree that a royal estate,
whether old or new, was a piece of land whose inhabitants, buildings,
and produce were possessed by a Yamato king as a hereditary right.
The early royal estates were, however, located mainly in and around
the Nara plain and were administered directly by the Yamato court.
The chronicles state that a fourth-century king, Keiko, had been
granted the Yamato royal estate while he was crown prince. Recent
archaeological investigations indicate that this estate was located
around the present village of Miyake in the Shiki District of Yamato
and was situated on low marshy ground suitable for wet-rice agriculture,
an area drained by several rivers that join the Yamato and where
huge burial mounds were built during the fifth and early-sixth centuries.
By setting up a royal estate in such an area, the court was apparently
thinking mainly of increasing its revenues. Studies of other royal
estates mentioned in the chronicles - such as the Yosami in Kawachi,
the Shikama within the present city of Himeji, and the Mamuta connected
with the aforementioned Mamuta dikes of Kawachi - disclose
that each was a choice piece of land possessed and managed directly by
the court. Although the Awaji royal estate was made up of fishing
villages, it functioned like other royal estates by supplying fish and
marine products directly to the court.86
Later royal estates such as those set up in Tsukushi and elsewhere
after the Iwai rebellion were similar to the earlier ones in that they were
productive pieces of land possessed and managed directly by the court.
85 Keitai 22/12, NKBT 68.36; Aston, 2. 17. 86 Inoue, Asuka no chotei, pp. 142-4.
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YAMATO DISRUPTION 153
But they also were different in important respects. First, the later estates
were not located in central Japan but in outlying regions of special
economic and strategic value to the Yamato court and, second, they
were obtained and managed through provincial governors (Kuni no
Miyatsuko). In earlier times, most governors seem to have had their
own estates (also called miyake) which were, as in the Iwai case, primary
sources of gubernatorial income. But the royal estates emerged in distant
provinces after a Yamato king had used military force against (or in
support of) a provincial governor: They were presented to a king by
governors who then managed them for the court. Thus the later royal
estates were both sources of income and instruments of military and
political control.8
?
A Nihon shoki item for the second year of the reign (535) of Ankan
(Keitai's successor) contains a list of royal estates established in more
than a dozen provinces.88
Doubts have been expressed about the accuracy
of a report that so many estates were established in a single year
and during a reign that was only two years long. Historians have
therefore tended to think that the chronicle listed those set up over a
somewhat longer period of time. But we now realize that around 535,
right after the rebellion in Tsukushi and the military defeats in Korea,
the court probably did establish numerous royal estates hurriedly as a
means of strengthening its hold on important provinces in that distant
region. This view is supported by the observation that many of the
royal estates listed were located in Kyushu where strong clans might,
if not firmly controlled, complicate the Yamato's efforts to solve the
Korean problem.
In 536, just after the reported establishment of numerous later-style
royal estates in Tsukushi, the Nihon shoki states that the court had all
such estates of three Kyushu provinces (Tsukushi, Hi, and Toyo in the
central zone) amalgamated into a single Nanotsu royal estate as a
"provision against extraordinary circumstances." Even the great Soga
no Iname was asked to send grain to Nanotsu.8
' Evidence of this sort
suggests that the Iwai rebellion of 527, followed by the Silla seizure of
Mimana in 531, caused the court to establish royal estates in this key
region as instruments of court control.
Royal estates were soon established in other regions outside central
Japan. Particularly significant were the four set up on the Kanto plain
not long after the defeat in Korea and Keitai's death. The circum-
87 Ibid., pp. 144-5. 88 Ankan 2/5/9, NKBT 68.54-55; Aston, 2. 31-32.
89 Nihon shoki, Senka 1/51, NKBT 68.58-59; Aston, 2.34-35.
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154 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
stances of this action are outlined in a Nihon shoki item for the first
year of the Ankan reign. After a long dispute over who should be
appointed governor of Musashi (a province including the present city
of Tokyo), a contender named Omi fled to seek support from Yamato.
The court then stepped in with military force, appointed Omi as governor,
and had Omi's rival executed. Omi then presented to the court
four districts of his province as royal estates.90
As a result of recent archaeological investigations, it is now known
that mounds built in Upper Kenu Province (Gumma Prefecture of
today) around the beginning of the fifth century were much larger
than earlier ones. These findings demonstrate that the governor of
Upper Kenu and his clan had amassed considerable wealth and power
by using advanced agricultural methods for coverting virgin land into
rice fields. Because the governor of Upper Kenu supported Omi's
rival for the post of governor of Musashi, and the burial mounds of
Upper Kenu were then larger, it is deduced that the governor of that
province had become strong enough to interfere in political and military
affairs of the neighboring province of Musashi and that such
interference was checked only after the Musashi governor had asked
for, and obtained, military aid from Yamato. The presentation of royal
estates to the Yamato court by the Musashi governor as soon as Upper
Kenu advances had been blocked suggests that these estates (like those
established in Kyushu) were later-style royal estates used to increaase
the Yamato's control over this important region to the northeast.91
Policy disputes
The impact of the disastrous military failure in Korea during the year
529, preceded by a serious rebellion in the heartland of Kyushu, seems
to have rocked the foundations of the Yamato kingdom, for Keitai's
death was followed by a two-year dispute over succession and by a new
clan alignment at court. We do not know precisely when Keitai died
but it was probably in 531 when Yamato was facing military defeat in
Korea. Some scholars think that Keitai was assassinated. It is generally
agreed that his death was followed by a confrontation between the
supporters of two branches of the Yamato ruling clan: the backers of
Ankan and Senka against the supporters of Kimmei. After carefully
weighing the evidence found in reports that are often contradictory,
Inoue concluded that Keitai's death came in 531 (after the Iwai rebel-
90
ic cuiinuucu uiai xs.cii.ai a ucaiu waiiic in 331 ^auci uic iwai icuc
Ankan 1/12/4, NKBT 68.53-55; Aston 2.31. 91 Inoue, Asuka no chotei, pp. 153-6.
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YAMATO DISRUPTION I55
lion of 527 and Kenu no Omi's disgraceful retreat from Korea in 530);
that Keitai had selected his son Ankan as his successor, but in the face
of strong opposition, a two-year interregnum preceded the reign of
first Ankan and then this brother Senka; and that Kimmei did not
become king until 540, not immediately after Keitai's death in 531 as
some sources state.92
Behind this long succession dispute lay not only bitter rivalry between
clan leaders who supported one or the other of two royal lines
but also differences over the question of how the Korean problem
should be solved. Although numerous clan chieftains were involved in
the dispute, the principal ones were Otomo no Kanamura (great deity
chieftain in the Keitai reign) and Soga no Iname (promoted to great
imperial chieftain in the Senka reign). Otomo no Kanamura, the leading
supporter of Keitai's sons Ankan and Senka, favored a strong
policy toward Silla, whereas Soga no Iname backed the enthronement
of Kimmei and opposed the suggestion that another military expedition
be sent against Silla.
Lines were sharply drawn over the Korean issue in 540 when the
recently enthroned Kimmei asked his ministers how many soldiers
were needed to conquer Silla. In his reply, Great Deity Chieftain
Mononobe no Okoshi blamed Otomo no Kanamura for the sorry state
of Japan's foreign affairs, pointing out that Kanamura had been responsible
for the first great mistake, made back in 512, of recommending
that the court yield to Paekche's request for four Mimana districts.93
Okoshi might well have added - although the Nihon shoki report does
not say he did - that members of the Otomo clan had already participated
in two unsuccessful expeditions to Korea: thefiascoof 529 and
the expedition to aid Paekche in 539. Okoshi insisted that this was no
time to send more troops, as Kanamura advocated. From the Kimmei
conference of 540 emerged two interrelated decisions: (1) not to send
more troops against Silla but to continue relying on Paekche to protect
Yamato's interests and (2) to remove Otomo no Kanamura from his
position as top minister at court, a position into which Soga no Iname
gradually moved.
The decision to refrain from sending troops against Silla cannot be
construed as a general rejection of all proposals to use military force
outside Japan. Military expeditions, as well as military supplies and
equipment, were subsequently dispatched to Korea at opportune
times in the constantly shifting pattern of relations among the penin-
92 Ibid., pp. 103-6. 93 Nihon shoki Kimmei i (540) 9/5, NKBT 68,65-66; Aston, 2.39.
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156 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
sula's three great kingdoms. It might therefore seem that no new
policy had been adopted. But a study of reports of contact between
Japan and the three Korean kingdoms during the remaining years of
the sixth century suggests that consciously or unconsciously, court
leaders were convinced that their primary attention should now be
given to the task of making Yamato stronger, not to sending armies on
foreign expeditions, at least for the time being. The court seems already
to have adopted the policy recommended in 583, over forty
years later, by a Paekche visitor and court adviser:
In governing a kingdom well, a ruler must do everything possible to protect
and care for his people. Why should he hastily mobilize troops and thereby
cause loss and destruction? He should instead try to make everyone - those
who serve him in high positions as well as farmers - prosperous and want for
nothing. After he has followed this policy for three years, food and soldiers
will become plentiful and the people will come to be treated well. Not fearing
disaster, they will - like the Yamato king himself - become concerned about
the kingdom's difficulties. Then the ruler can build a large number of ships,
line them up in his harbors and on the open sea, display them to visitors, and
arouse fear abroad. Then a wise envoy should be dispatched to summon the
Paekche king.*»
Just as Japan's Meiji leaders adopted, in the middle of the nineteenth
century, the slogan "Rich Country, Strong Army" when faced with the
West's overwhelming military might, Yamato ministers seem to have
agreed after the 540 conference that Yamato should henceforth concentrate
on efforts to maximize its wealth and control.
New control techniques
The Nihon shoki reports that Iname and others were sent by Kimmei
to the Kibi region in 555 with instructions to set up the Shirai royal
estate. It is further recorded, in an item for the next year, that Iname
was again sent to the same area to establish the Kojima royal estate.95
The Kibi plain, like the central zone of Kyushu, was agriculturally
rich and strategically important to maintaining contact with the continent.
But the steps taken in Kibi were different: (1) The highestranking
minister, a man who probably had Korean blood in his
veins, headed both missions; (2) a man by the name of Itsu was later
sent to the Shirai royal estate with instructions to have its farmers
registered; and (3) when registration produced the desired results,
94 Bidatsu 12 (583), NKBT 68.145-6; Aston, 2.98-99.
95 Kimmei 16 (555) 7/4 and Kimmei 17 (556) 7/6, NKBT 68.117; Aston, 2.77, 78.
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YAMATO DISRUPTION 157
Itsu was given the kabane title of scribe (fuhito).?6
Each of these
differences suggests that steps were being taken at that time to increase
control over, and income from, an important region by utilizing
imported managerial techniques at the recently established royal
estates.
Households had been registered in earlier times by the northern and
southern courts of China as well as by Paekche. And according to a
Nihon shoki report for the year 540 (almost thirty years before Itsu had
been sent off to register farmers of the Shirai royal estate), people of
various Japanese provinces had been registered, including 7,053 Hata
households.^? These early household registrations - important to implementing
the great reforms (taika) of later years - were limited to
foreigners like the Hata and Aya. But as indicated by references to
household registrations at the Shirai royal estate in Kibi, this technique
for keeping track of estate farmers was now being extended to
areas outside central Japan, presumably to the populace as a whole.
Yamato's efforts to have the Kibi royal estates managed efficiently
were made by officials (such as Itsu) who could read and write. Except
for the inscriptions on iron swords and bronze mirrors, no sixthcentury
written materials have been preserved. But several chronicle
references to persons holding the title of scribe leave little doubt that
their ability to keep records was highly valued. Surely a kingdom
attempting to increase its income from, and control over, distant regions
needed accurate records of several kinds. And because the Nihon
shoki's and KojikVs coverage of sixth-century events is increasingly
thought to be reliable, it is surmised that the compilers of those chronicles
were working from sources that were written down in this last
century of the Yamato period but are no longer extant.
Moves to register all residents and keep written records seem to have
been paralleled by endeavors to strengthen ancient local-government
organs as a means of tightening Yamato control. The first office to
receive such attention was probably that of district supervisor (agata
nushi), one that appeared in the Kinai region, long before this last part
of the Yamato period. It was a local office devoted mainly to supplying
the court with goods and services. But by the sixth century both the
districts and their supervisors were subjected to considerable change,
especially those in outlying regions. The change was associated with
and affected by the rise of later-style royal estates, as both districts and
96 Kimmei 30 (569) 1/1 and Kimmei 30/4, NKBT 68.127; Aston, 2.87.
97 Kimmei 1 (540) 8, NKBT 68.65; Aston, 2.38-39.
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158 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
royal estates were now largely administered by local officials acting in
the court's behalf.*8
A district (agata), like a royal estate (miyake), was a piece of territory.
But whereas the latter was characteristically a personal possession
of a Yamato king or clan chieftain, the former had usually been
occupied for many years by a local clan whose hereditary head handled
secular affairs and served as the chief priest in the worship of the
local kami. The establishment of a district, or the appointment of a
district supervisor (agata nushi), was therefore usually made by a king
when he was trying to gain control of that particular area. In distant
regions in earlier times, such designations and appointments were
largely nominal. But in and around central Japan, a district supervisor
quite early became a local agent under court control, even though
he was usually the hereditary head of an old clan. And with the
extension of Yamato control to outlying regions, district supervisors
were made responsible (like royal estate managers) to provincial governors.
Such extensions of court control - especially in the Kanto,
Kibi, and Tsukushi regions - produced a two-layered system of local
government (districts below provinces) that undergirded the later bureaucratic
ritsuryo order. The tasks of administering the later-style
royal estates, and districts headed by district supervisors, must have
greatly increased the demand for scribes who were familiar with imported
managerial techniques.
Foreign affairs
Although the court was now giving most of its attention to internal
affairs, chronicle items for the years after 540 contain numerous references
to the receipt of articles and artisans from Korean kingdoms,
usually in connection with an exchange of official missions. By 562 the
whole Mimana federation had been taken over by an increasingly
powerful Silla, which had extended its hegemony southward to the
shores of the Yellow Sea and could consequently dispatch diplomatic
missions by sea directly to China's Southern Court. Yamato seems to
have offered little or no military resistance to Silla's advances. In fact,
the chronicles continue to report contacts with Silla (including items
about "tribute" being sent for Mimana districts after 750) and sometimes
with Koguryo, including a fascinating Koguryo mission sent
98 These sixth-century institutional changes were analyzed in Inoue, Asuka no chotei, pp. 138—
65; and by Yagi Atsum, "Kuni no Miyatsuko sei no kozo," Kodai vol. 2 of Iwanami koza:
Nihon rekishi (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975), pp. 1—37.
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YAMATO DISRUPTION 159
across the Japan Sea in 570. But much more is written about relations
with Paekche, especially after the Paekche capital was moved to Puyo
in 538, the very year in which Paekche is thought to have first sent
Buddhist texts to the Yamato court (see Chapter 7).
Paekche was apparently far more worried than Yamato was about
the expansive tendencies of Silla, and as usual, Paekche-Koguryo
relations were strained. The foreign situation seemed especially dark
for Paekche in 548 when its northern borders were crossed by
Koguryo armies. Messages received from Paekche in the following
year complained of reports that the Japanese were behind attacks
made from the south. But Yamato authorities denied any such complicity,
declaring it incredible that the friendly kingdom of Ara "should
have gone so far as to send a secret message to Koguryo."" Four years
later the king of Paekche reported that he was then faced with an
alliance between Silla to the east and Koguryo to the north, and he
humbly requested military assistance. Shortly afterward the chronicle
includes what is commonly referred to as a report of the official introduction
of Buddhism to Japan. The theory that the Buddhist gifts
were tied to requests for military assistance is based on two pronouncements
by King Kimmei made at about the same time: first, that troops
were being sent to help Paekche and, second, that he wanted to obtain
books on divination, calendars, and drugs of various kinds.100
The
linkage between the dispatch of military assistance and the receipt of
books and scholars was even clearer in 554 when Kimmei reported in
the first month of that year that he was dispatching one thousand men,
one hundred horses, and forty ships, and when the king of Paekche
sent word one month later that he was presenting Korean replacements
for specialists in Confucianism, divination, calendars, herbs,
music, and Buddhism.101
Such developments suggest that the continental cultural influence
on Japan was beginning, around the middle of the sixth century, to be
colored more by a new interest in learning than by the traditional
preoccupation with advanced techniques of production and construction.
Thenceforth books and scholars in the fields of Buddhism, Confucianism,
Taoism, literature, and history were highly prized. But not
a single copy of the sutras or classics brought to Japan before the close
of the sixth century has been preserved, and we have virtually no
information about the influence of such materials on the intellectual
99 Nihon shoki Kimmei 9 (548) 4/3, NKBT 68.96-97; Aston, 2.62-63.
100 Nihon shoki Kimmei 14 (553) 6, NKBT 68.104-5; Aston, 2.68.
101 Nihon shoki Kimmei 15 (554) 1/9 and Kimmei 15 (554) 2, NKBT 68.108-9; Aston, 2.71-72.
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160 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
and religious life of court aristocrats. It is clear, however, that this was
a time of preparatory development in thefieldsof religion, governmental
administration, and education for the Asuka enlightenment and
later reforms. The Buddhist aspect of the movement will be discussed
in Chapters 3 and 7. The remaining pages of this chapter will therefore
be devoted to a survey of the roles played by two Soga leaders (Iname
who died in 570 and his son Umako who died in 626) in setting the
stage for the century of reform.
The Soga clan
Whereas the most influential clan chieftains at court before the rise of
Iname were military men, the Soga leaders enjoyed wealth and power
that flowed from imported techniques of production and administration.
But only the general outlines of Soga history can be gleaned from
written sources, largely because later chronicles were compiled by men
with an anti-Soga bias.102
In 623 Soga no Umako asked Empress Suiko to give him permanent
possession of the district of Katsuragi on the grounds that he was
descended from the gaiseki (imperial in-law) clan of Katsuragi. Although
Empress Suiko - herself a Soga - seemed to accept the validity
of Umako's claim, she did not accede to his request. Katsuragi
descent was also affirmed in 642 when Soga no Emishi (Umako's son)
built an ancestral temple (sobyo) named the High Temple of Katsuragi.
Although the chronicles do not provide much support for the Soga
claim of Katsuragi descent, there does seem to be some basis for the
view that Soga chieftains were descendants of Ishikawa Sukune, an
official who was called on to deal with a disrespectful envoy from
Paekche.
We are not certain that Ishikawa Sukune ever lived or that, if he did,
the Soga leaders were his descendants. But the Soga name was linked
often and quite early with Ishikawa individuals and places. There is,
moreover, an Ishikawa area of Kawachi that is drained by the Ishikawa
River, an area consisting of four districts made suitable for wet-rice
agriculture by the ambitious irrigation project discussed earlier. This,
then, may have been where the Soga first emerged as a powerful clan.
After Soga no Iname reached the position of great royal chieftain,
102 Details of following summary are found in the Bidatsu, Yomei, and Sushun chapters of the
Nihon shoki, NKBT 68.133-71; Aston, 2.90-120; and summarized in Inoue, Asuka no
chotei, pp. 182-92. Dynastic questions of the times are analyzed in Kiley, "State and
Dynasty," pp. 40-48.
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YAMATO DISRUPTION l6l
emerged on the winning side of the policy debate in 540, and made
important contributions to strengthening court control over the Kibi
region, he managed to have two daughters married to King Kimmei.
But Iname died before Kimmei's successor had been selected. Moreover,
Kimmei was not succeeded by a royal son born of a Soga woman
but by the son of a non-Soga woman, who ascended the throne as King
Bidatsu and reigned for fourteen years. At the beginning of Bidatsu's
reign, Soga no Umako replaced his father in the post of great royal
chieftain, though he seems not to have made much progress toward
gaining recognition as Japan's leading in-law {gaiseki) clan. This was a
time of general opposition to Buddhism, when Bidatsu actually issued
a ban against the practice of this foreign faith. In addition, Bidatsu's
highest-ranking queen was not a Soga. Yet after the death of this nonSoga
queen, Bidatsu made one of Iname's daughters his favorite
queen. And she was the woman who was enthroned in 593 as Empress
Suiko.
Bidatsu's death in 585 was followed by a stormy succession dispute
among the supporters of three candidates for the throne: (1) Prince
Oshisaka, the son of Bidatsu by his first queen and apparently the son
who had been named crown prince by Bidatsu; (2) Prince Takeda, the
son of Bidatsu by his second queen (the Soga woman who later became
Empress Suiko), and (3) Prince Anahobe, the fourth son of Kimmei
by the youngest of his two Soga queens (another Iname daughter).
The dispute centered on the chieftains of two powerful clans: Mononobe
no Moriya and Soga no Umako. After an exchange of insults at
the temporary interment (mogari) for the deceased Bidatsu, these chieftains
turned to the use of military force, and Umako emerged victorious.
His candidate for the throne as Bidatsu's successor, Prince
Anahobe, was thus enthroned as King Yomei in 587, placing Umako
in firm control of court affairs. Yomei's queen, another Iname daughter,
gave birth to four imperial sons, the first of which was the famous
Prince Shotoku (574-622). Now the Soga had definitely achieved the
status of gaiseki clan.
Still, Umako had not yet eliminated all opposition. As soon as
Yomei became ill, the old struggle with Mononobe resurfaced. Once
more, Umako and Moriya marshaled their forces for a showdown and
once again Umako, allied with the chieftains of other great clans, won.
Another Kimmei son by a Soga mother was enthroned as King Sushun
in 588. He was thus the second successive occupant of the throne to
have a Soga mother, strengthening the Soga's gaiseki position. New
policies were then adopted: Buddhism was openly supported, and
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162 THE YAMATO KINGDOM
plans were made to send a military expedition against Silla. But in the
fifth year of Sushun's reign, Umako began to hear rumors that the
king himself (Umako's nephew) was resentful and was planning a
coup. Reportedly reasoning that he would be killed if he did not take
decisive action, Umako arranged to have Sushun assassinated. At this
point Suiko was placed on the throne in 593 as the reigning empress.
Thus Soga no Umako was now in full control of court affairs, and the
Asuka enlightenment had begun.
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CHAPTER 3
THE CENTURY OF REFORM
Japan's history has been deeply marked by reforms adopted during
two long but widely separated periods of contact with expansive foreign
cultures. The first began around A.D. 587 when Soga no Umako
seized control of Japan's central government, made an extensive use of
Chinese techniques for expanding state power, and supported the introduction
and spread of Chinese learning. The second came after the
Meiji Restoration of 1868 when new leaders moved the country toward
industrialization and Western ways.
Japanese life was greatly altered by Chinese culture long before the
Soga seizure of power in 587 and long after the closing years of the ninth
century when a decision was made to stop sending official missions to
China. But during the intervening three centuries Japanese aristocrats
were understandably fascinated by the power and achievements of
China under the great Sui (589 to 618) and T'ang (618 to 907) dynasties,
giving rise to action and thought that gave Japanese life of those days a
strongly Chinese tone, especially at the upper reaches of society. The
first of the three centuries of remarkable Chinese influence - roughly
the seventh century and the subject of this chapter - was a time of
reform along Chinese lines. The second - the eighth century, which is
covered in Chapter 4 - is known as the Nara period, when Japan was
ruled from a capital patterned after the Chinese capital at Ch'ang-an.
And the third was a time when almost every aristocrat was immersed in
one aspect of Chinese learning or another.
Throughout the century of reform there flowed two broad and deep
currents of change: one arising from a strong and persistent urge to
build a powerful Chinese-style state and the other coming from an
increasing openness to diverse expressions of Chinese art and learning.
When tracing these movements through this century of reform, one
soon notices that they were accelerated and turned in new directions
not only by an ever-greater familiarity with Chinese achievements but
also by three political upheavals within Japan: (1) the Soga seizure of
control over state affairs in 587, which ushered in what has been called
163
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164 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
the Asuka enlightenment; (2) the coup of 645 followed by the adoption
of the Great Reforms; and (3) the civil war of 672 (the jinshin no ran)
after which new leaders were remarkably successful in making Japan a
strong and despotic state.
THE ASUKA ENLIGHTENMENT
Historians have tended to think of the Asuka enlightenment as beginning
with the 587 seizure of power by Soga no Umako or with the 593
enthronement of Empress Suiko, but the Chinese character of the
enlightenment suggests that the reunification of China in 589 may be
the most significant starting point, even though Japan did not send an
official mission to the Sui court until 600. Before considering the
political and cultural history of these early years of Japan's century of
reform, let us look at the question of how the rise of this new Chinese
empire affected Japan's channels of contact with the continent.
The Sui empire
After the collapse of the Western Chin in A.D. 317, north China was
overrun by non-Chinese people and torn by internal strife. For the
next 250 years or more, the country was divided by a succession of
regional states and kingdoms. Then in 578 a Northern Chou emperor
united most of north China, and in 581 a well-connected Northern
Chou general (the famous Yang Chien who is known as Emperor
Wen-ti) founded the Sui dynasty. In 589 he conquered the powerful
Southern Court of Ch'en and brought the whole of China under one
rule. The rise of the new empire was followed by the reestablishment
of tributary relationships with neighboring states and kingdoms
throughout most of east Asia. Visitors from such foreign lands as
Japan were impressed by China's massive building projects, which
included a walled palace-city about six miles long and five miles wide
and an empirewide canal system. The foreigners' attention was also
drawn to other achievements: a complex and effective bureaucracy
that reached local communities in distant regions, an extensive revenue
system, a huge military organization, and detailed codifications
of law. Foreign observers interested in state building could also see
that China's imperial rule had been reinforced by an ideology in
which Confucian rites honored its emperors as Sons of Heaven, Confucian
ethics valued obedience to heads of state, Buddhist texts deCambridge
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THE ASUKA ENLIGHTENMENT 165
picted rulers as agents of universal law, and Taoist teachings added
legitimacy to imperial control.1
The Korean kingdoms located near the China border (Koguryo and
Paekche) were affected earlier and more deeply by the new Chinese
empire than were states located farther away, that is, Silla and Japan.
Koguryo (the closest) reacted first by mobilizing troops to prevent a
possible Chinese advance to the north; Paekche quickly established
relations with the Sui court but did not feel seriously threatened; Silla
allowed three years to pass before sending a mission; and Japan made
no official contact until 600. Because Chinese influence on Japan was
affected by a rapidly shifting pattern of relations among the Korean
kingdoms, and between those kingdoms and China, an overview of
these relationships will help show how contacts with the continent
influenced Japan's Asuka enlightenment.
Holding a key position among Korean kingdoms paying tribute to
north China courts, Koguryo had traditionally sent tribute to one
northern court after another. And as soon as the Northern Chou was
replaced by the Sui in 581, Koguryo immediately sent tribute. But
when word reached the king of Koguryo in 589 that Northern Chou
forces had destroyed the southern Ch'en court and resurrected the
unified Chinese empire, he and his advisers assumed that Emperor
Wen-ti would soon send armies against Koguryo in an attempt to
reestablish the Chinese colonial system that had existed in Korea during
Han times. The Sui court probably did have such ambitions, as in
the following year Wen-ti condemned Koguryo for not sending a tributary
mission and demanded an apology. For a few years the new
Koguryo king (Yongyang) dealt with the Sui court in the traditional
fashion (sending tribute and accepting appointments), and their relations
remained amicable.
But in 598 Yongyang suddenly mobilized 10,000 horsemen and
attacked territory located on the Chinese side of the border. Emperor
Wen-ti immediately called up 300,000 troops, ordered an invasion of
Kogury6, and stripped the Koguryo king of his offices and titles.
Thereupon Yongyang apologized and accepted Sui appointments and
awards. The emperor's troops were then withdrawn, but they had
suffered heavy losses. For a time Sui-Koguryo relationships gravitated
toward normalcy, but reports recorded in the Sui shu indicate
1 Arthur F. Wright, "The Sui Dynasty, 581-617," in Denis Twitchett, ed., Sui ad Tang China,
$89-906, Pan I, vol. 3 of The Cambridge History ofChina (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1979), pp. 148-9.
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166 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
that the position of Chinese court officials who favored another campaign
against Koguryo was becoming stronger. Afraid that a powerful
and independent Koguryo might trigger resistance from other
peoples in northern regions, Wen-ti's successor (Emperor Yang-ti,
who reigned between 605 and 617) organized three campaigns against
this Korean kingdom between 612 and 614, after condemning it for
"nefarious collusion with the Khitan and Malgal and for violating Sui
territory." But not one of the three campaigns was successful. Indeed,
the cumulative expense and failure invited widespread disorder
and hastened the fall of the Sui dynasty in 618. Scholars have explained
the Sui's military failures in different ways, but clearly
Koguryo was then strong enough to defend itself against massive
attacks by the great Chinese empire.2
Paekche, to the south and west of Koguryo, had long occupied a key
position among those kingdoms (including Yamato of Japan) that paid
tribute to south China courts. Paekche's response to the rise of a new
Chinese empire, therefore, was quite different from that of Koguryo,
and more directly related to the nature and extent of Chinese influence
on Japan's Asuka enlightenment. Having paid tribute to the Ch'en
court of south China, Paekche's sympathies were with the south at the
time of the 589 war, from which the Sui emerged victorious and a new
Chinese empire was born. And yet, as soon as Paekche heard of the
Sui victory, it sent a congratulatory message to Wen-ti and made the
friendly gesture of returning a Chinese war vessel that had become
stranded on an island in the East China Sea. Wen-ti was delighted to
receive friendly overtures from Paekche and justified his liberal treatment
of that Korean kingdom by pointing out that its envoys had
come by sea from a distant land.
Silla, the third major Korean kingdom and the one farthest from
China, did not immediately send tribute to the Sui court and, moreover,
set out to strengthen its military defenses, apparently sharing
some of Koguryo's fear that Wen-ti would soon move to restore Chinese
control over the entire Korean peninsula. By responding to the
rebirth of China's empire in somewhat the same way as Koguryo did,
Silla was continuing to act like a member of the old northern alliance
(in which Koguryo's tributary relationship to the dominant north
China court had been a major factor), just as Yamato continued to
think of Paekche (the central state in the southern alignment) as the
principal supporter of, and Silla the major obstacle to, its effort to
2 Ibid., pp. 143-7Cambridge
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THE ASUKA ENLIGHTENMENT 167
regain rights and privileges in areas located on the southern tip of the
Korean peninsula.
The Nihon shoki claims that as early as 591, Emperor Sushun told
his ministers that Japan must regain control of Mimana (Kaya). And
in the next item of that chronicle we are given the names of individuals
placed in charge of the expeditionary force to be sent against Silla.
Three officers set out for Korea with more than twenty thousand
soldiers under their command. One was sent to Mimana and another
to Silla to elicit information about the Mimana situation. We are not
sure what happened after the troops arrived in Kyushu, but they seem
never to have been transported across the Tsushima Straits to Korea.
Finally, in 595 the expedition's commander returned to the capital.*
Why did Soga no Umako and the Japanese court decide to take
military action at this time of uncertainty surrounding the rise of the
new Chinese empire? One view has it that Umako, now in full control of
Japanese affairs, wanted credit for expeditiously resolving the Korean
problem. But he and his colleagues - well aware that Silla (Japan's old
enemy) had not yet sent tribute to the Chinese emperor - may have
concluded that Japan had an excellent opportunity, while Koguryo was
preoccupied with its relations with China, to force a restoration of the
rights and privileges that Japan had once enjoyed in Mimana. In any
case, the Sui shu reports that in 594, the king of Sillafinallysent tribute
to the Sui court. Now all three Korean kingdoms had become incorporated
into the Sui tributary system. This may explain, in part at least,
why Japan then dropped the idea of sending an expedition against Silla.
But within three years, the Korean situation was again destabilized,
this time by another outbreak of war between China and Koguryo, a
war that began in 598 (according to the Sui account) with an invasion
by Koguryo of Chinese territory. Japan's old ally Paekche, whose
rivalry with Koguryo had been long and bitter, soon became involved
in the conflict by offering military support to China. Emperor Wen-ti
was delighted with the offer, but Koguryo retaliated by invading
Paekche and preventing the delivery of the promised assistance. Not
long afterward, Umako and his group decided that the situation on the
continent was ripe for another attempt to improve Japan's position in
Korea. But their approach this time was different: In addition to
sending an army against Silla in 600, Japan dispatched an official
mission (the first in more than a hundred years) to China. The Nihon
3 Sushun 4 (591V8/1 and 4/11/4, in Sakamoto Taro, Ienaga Saburo, Inoue Mitsusada, and Ono
Susumu, eds., Nihon koten bungaku taikei (hereafter cited as NKBT) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,
1967), vol. 68, pp. 169-71 and Suiko 3 (595)/7, NKBT 68.174-5.
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168 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
shoki claims that the army of more than ten thousand was successful in
Silla, forcing its king to hand over six strongholds and to promise
annual payments of tribute. But the same report concludes with the
statement that as soon as Japanese troops were withdrawn, Silla
reinvaded Mimana.4
Although the official mission to China was apparently considered
diplomatic reinforcement for a military expedition against Silla, and
the expedition ended in failure, the reestablishment of direct contact
with a reunified China was an event of special significance in the
history of Japan. Until 600 the flow of Chinese methods and ideas
had reached Japan largely through Korea, especially Paekche. But
henceforth there was an increasingly voluminous and direct flow
from China. As important as this event was, however, the Nihon
shoki does not mention it, possibly because the contact did not help
Japan resolve its Korean problem or possibly because the Chinese
response was not something the chroniclers wished to record. But the
Sui shu offers considerable details of the mission and provides a fairly
long account of contemporary conditions in Japan as reported by
Japanese envoys.
After hearing the memorial and the explanations supplied by members
of the mission, Emperor Wen-ti admonished Empress Suiko for
approaching his court in such a rude manner. He was apparently
annoyed mainly by the way that she referred to herself and by the way
that Japanese envoys explained her relationship to Heaven. When the
Yamato kings had sent missions to the Sung court in the fifth century,
they had assumed the posture of foreign kings serving China's Son of
Heaven. But instead of following that precedent, Suiko used her Japanese
name (including the word for Heaven) and her title (dkimi or
"great queen").5
To Emperor Wen-ti, Suiko's identification of her
position with Heaven must have been particularly irksome, for it suggested
that she considered herself an equal of the Son of Heaven. We
do not know whether the drafters of the memorial were ignorant of the
proper way to address a Son of Heaven or were consciously drawing
attention to the power that Japan had accumulated since the previous
official contact more than a century before. But at the close of the
Chinese summary of what the Japanese envoys had to say about conditions
in Japan, this comment was made: "Both Silla and Paekche
4 Suiko 8 (6oo)/2, NKBT 68.176-7.
5 By this time, Japanese myths and names commonly linked Japanese kings and queens with
ancestors who had descended to the Japanese islands from the Plain of High Heaven.
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THE ASUKA ENLIGHTENMENT 169
consider Wo [Japan] to be a great country, replete with precious
things; and they pay her homage."6
After this first contact with the Sui court, Yamato history was colored
by two different but related types of endeavor: the use of Chinese
administrative techniques for increasing the power of the state, and
the introduction of various forms of Chinese learning. Although administrative
change was directly related to seventh-century reform,
cultural change - especially that connected with the official adoption
and spread of Buddhism - seems to have given the Asuka enlightenment
its basic character.
Official support ofBuddhism
The earliest and brightest rays of the enlightenment emanated from
the activities of the immigrant priests who participated in the construction
of temples as master craftsmen (temple carpenters, roof-tile and
roof-spiral makers, wall-painting artists, sculptors, and wood carvers),
providing expertise for building and equipping the forty-six Buddhist
temple compounds founded during the Asuka period. These compounds
included three famous ones: the Asuka-dera, the Arahaka-ji,
and the Ikaruga-ji. Many of their immigrant priests - as scholars of
such non-Buddhist forms of learning as Confucianism, Chinese law,
and Chinese literature and history - made crucial contributions to the
Asuka enlightenment.
Great works of Asuka art created by foreign priests and preserved as
Japanese national treasures include (1) the Shaka triad (Shaka sanson),
Northern Wei-style statue of Shaka and two attending bodhisattvas
made in 623; (2) a standing wooden statue of Kannon (known as the
Kudara Kannon) with south China characteristics and thought to have
been made during the first half of the seventh century; (3) paintings on
the sides of a small lacquer altar (the Tamamushi no zushi);? and (4) a
statue of the healing Buddha (Yakushi nyorai) which bears an inscription
stating that the statute was completed in 607. All of these national
treasures are kept at the Horyu-ji (the name given to the Ikaruga-ji after
it was rebuilt sometime in the seventh century), a truly remarkable
6 Sui shu 8i:i3a-i6b, trans. Ryusaku Tsunoda and L. Carrington Goodrich, Japan in the
Chinese Dynastic Histories: Later Han Through Ming Dynasties (South Pasadena, Calif.: P. D.
and lone Perkins, 1951), p. 32.
7 This altar, 2.3 meters high, resembles a small palace on a pedestal. On its pedestal have been
painted a golden bodisattva aura (Konkdmyo) and a Buddhist saint sacrificing its life to a tiger.
It is said to have been used by Empress Suiko in worshiping a guardian Buddha.
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170 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
institutional representation of the enlightenment. Other national treasures
have come down to us from those times, of which some are
thought to be on a par with thefinestobjects of art produced in contemporary
China including a tapestry (the tenju koku shu-cho)* belonging to
the Chugu-ji nunnery and a wood carving of the Buddha of the Future
(Maitreya) held by the Koryu-ji in present-day Kyoto (see Chapter 10).
Before sketching the process by which institutional foundations
were laid for such cultural development, let us look briefly at Japan's
increasingly wide use of the Chinese system of writing. For centuries,
the Japanese had seen Chinese characters carved on imported mirrors,
seals, and swords. It is assumed that by the fifth century the Japanese
were keeping various types of written records in Chinese although
only inscriptions on mirrors and swords, and the memorial that
Yuryaku addressed to the Sung court in 478, have been preserved. But
what has come down to us supports the assumption that Japan's first
chronicles, particularly the Nihon shoki and the Kojiki, were based on
fifth- and sixth-century sources that are no longer extant, as well as on
information obtained from Paekche chronicles.
Although the knowledge of writing must have been used in those
preenlightenment years mainly for keeping accounts, verifying state
appointments, and certifying lines of genealogical descent, a few sixthcentury
items in the Nihon shoki point to a growing interest in other
types of written materials. For example, one entry for the year 513
states that the king of Paekche (Muryong) sent, as tribute, a scholar of
the five Confucian Classics.9
And three years later Paekche sent another
Confucian scholar to replace the one who had arrived in 513.10
As we noted in Chapter 2, Paekche's contacts with China had been
largely with the southern courts, a conclusion substantiated by the
Liang shu (Liang dynastic history) entry that reports the dispatch of a
scholar of Confucian rites (/i) to Paekche in the year 541. From such
spotty evidence it is surmised that Confucian ideas were reaching
8 Preserved only in fragments, this tapestry is an embroidered mandala representing Buddhist
heaven and eternal life (tenjukoku), which Prince Shotoku was believed to have attained at the
time of death. Designed by immigrant artists, it depicts the figures of one hundred tortoise
shells bearing the names of deceased persons. The tapestry was embroidered by Prince
Shotoku's consort and her attendants, and it has an inscription recorded in the "Jogu
Shotoku Hod teisetsu," published in Hanawa Hokiichi, ed., Gunsho ruiju, rev. ed. (Tokyo:
Heibonsha, i960), vol. 5.
9 The authenticity of this report is reinforced by its parenthetical comment that the name of the
Japanese person accompanying the mission was rendered somewhat differently in a particular
Paekche source; see Keitai 7/6, NKBT 68.28-29.
10 Keitai 10/9, NKBT 68.33-35.
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THE ASUKA ENLIGHTENMENT 171
Japan several decades before Umako's seizure of power in 587, by way
of Paekche from the southern court of Liang."
But books on and scholars of other subjects were also arriving, and
many were supplied in response to specific requests made by a Japanese
king. The most convincing evidence of a broader and deeper
interest in Chinese learning appears in a 553 entry of the Nihon shoki.
After disclosing that Paekche envoys had come to ask for military
assistance, the entry states that five scholars of the Confucian Classics
had arrived to replace a Confucian scholar sent to Japan at an earlier
date and that nine Buddhist priests had come to take the place of seven
scheduled to return. In closing, the report adds that the following
additional specialists had arrived in Yamato from Paekche on a rotational
basis: one diviner, one calendar specialist, one physician, two
herbalists, and four musicians.12
When we link this reference with
sixth-century archaeological findings and official actions taken during
the enlightenment years, we see that an increasingly large number of
court officials were aware - long before the Soga seizure of power - of
the political and personal benefits to be obtained from knowing how to
read and write Chinese characters. That is, these officials were learning
about Chinese ideas of governance as laid out in the Confucian
texts, adopting Buddhist symbols and practices favored by the Chinese,
and studying Chinese divination, calendar making, medicine,
herbs, and music.
Because Buddhism lay at the center of the sinified cultural mixture
known as the Asuka enlightenment, special attention should be given
to the way that Buddhism joined Paekche's interests to Soga's fortunes.
The connection is revealed in both the timing and wording of
the first known reference to the presentation of Buddhist statues and
Buddhist scriptures to the Yamato court by a Paekche king. This
presentation seems to have been made in 538, the year in which King
Songmyong of Paekche had been forced by Koguryo pressure to move
his capital from Ungjin to Puyo, farther south and farther away from
the Koguryo border. According to theJogu Shotoku Ho-o tei-setsu, this
was when Songmyong sent King Kimmei a Buddhist statue and several
volumes of Buddhist scripture. The Nihon shoki version of the
event (dated 552 rather than 538) is preceded by the statement that
King Songmyong had made a plea for military aid that would
11 Inoue Mitsusada, "Teiki kara tnita Katsuragi no uji," in Inoue Mitsusada, Nihon kodai kokka
no kenkyii (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1965).
12 Kimmei 15/2, NKBT 68.108-9.
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172 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
strengthen his defenses against aggressive neighbors: Koguryo and
Silla. In a separate item for the same year, the Nihon shoki tells us that
the Buddhist gifts were accompanied by a memorial in which Sdngmyong
made these points: Great men of the past (including the duke
of Chou and Confucius) had full knowledge of the doctrine; people in
states as far away as India revered Buddhist teachings; and Buddha
himself predicted that his law would spread to the east.1
* Songmyong
seems to have been arguing, in order to obtain needed military support,
that Buddhist universalism had benefited and would continue to
benefit the builders of strong states everywhere, especially in such
eastern lands as Yamato.
Upon receiving the Buddhist statue and scriptures and hearing what
had been said about the wondrous power of Buddha's teachings,
Kimmei is said to have "leapt for joy." When he asked his ministers
what they thought about honoring the statue, they offered conflicting
views. Soga no Iname, head of an increasingly powerful immigrant
clan, recommended official sponsorship, reiterating the view that all
states to the west worshiped Buddha and that he saw no reason that
Yamato should be an exception. Nakatomi no Muraji, head of an old
conservative clan, insisted that adoption would anger the native kami.
Kimmei therefore compromised by not extending his royal blessing to
the foreign faith but instead allowing Iname the freedom to honor the
statue in whatever way he wished.
The disagreement between the two clans over the question of
whether Buddhism should be officially sponsored reflected fundamentally
different assumptions about the authority of a chieftain to rule his
clan, or a king to rule the Yamato state: Whereas the immigrant clans
felt that their chieftain could or did receive religious authority from
the imported Buddhist faith, the older and more conservative clans
had become accustomed to the worship of clan kami for which their
chieftains were high priests. Thus the Buddhist question was not
simply a matter of individual conversion but, rather, a political and
social issue that made adoption impossible as long as conservative
clans were in control of the court.
Not until 587, nearly a half-century later, was the balance of power
altered, and only then was Buddhism officially recognized. The military
clash of that year was between immigrant-connected clans such as
13 Kimmei 13/10, NKBT 68.100-3. Both the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki state that during the
fifth-century reign of Ojin, a scholar named Wang Jen brought from Paekche ten volumes of
the Confucian Analects and one volume of a Liang dynasty primer. But these reports, meant
to glorify Kawachi no Omi's ancestors as court scribes, were probably fabricated.
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THE ASUKA ENLIGHTENMENT 173
the Soga and Japan-rooted clans like the Mononobe. While troops
were being drawn up for the showdown, Soga no Umako vowed to
propagate the Buddhist faith throughout the land if he and his allies
should win. Accordingly, not long after his victory, envoys arrived
from Paekche bringing Buddhist priests, Buddhist relics, temple builders,
metalworkers, potters, and painters. Work was soon started on a
great Buddhist temple, the Asuka-dera, that came to stand at the very
center of enlightenment activity.'« The Nihon shoki goes on to tell of
nuns returning from Paekche, a search for timber with which to build
Buddhist halls, the conversion to Buddhism of aristocratic young ladies,
and the arrival at court of Chinese Buddhist priests.1
' But 593
was truly a remarkable year in the history of Japanese Buddhism. In
that year Empress Suiko (just enthroned) ordered her court nobles to
support Buddhism; Prince Shotoku (just appointed crown prince)
became involved in the Buddhist activities that led to his reputation as
the father of Japanese Buddhism; and Buddhist relics (probably imported)
were placed below the Asuka-dera's central foundation stone.
A 594 entry in the Nihon shoki states that this was when the heads of
the leading clans were competing with one another in erecting Buddhist
temples "for the benefit of their [deceased] chieftains and par-
ents,"16
and a 595 item notes that two Buddhist priests (one from
Paekche and one from Koguryo) arrived, preached their religion
widely, and became mainstays of Japanese Buddhism.'7 Finally the
first great Buddhist temple compound, the Asuka-dera, was completed
in 596.
Until recently, neither the precise location of the original Asukadera
nor the size and location of its buildings were known. But as a
result of meticulous research carried out between 1956 and 1957, archaeologists
located the great temple compound and identified and
measured each of its main structures. They discovered the foundations
of a pagoda built at the center of the compound, three golden halls
(kondd) erected on three sides of the pagoda, a large main gate at the
compound's southern entrance, a corridor running around the halls
and pagoda, and a lecture hall outside the corridor to the north.18
This
temple compound is historically significant on several counts: It was
the first large continental-style building ever erected in Japan; it occu-
14 Sushun 1 (588)/3, NKBT 68.168-9. The Asuka-dera was later called the Hoko-ji (Propagation
of Buddha Law Temple), but the original name will be used here.
15 Sushun 3 (59o)/io, NKBT 68.68-69. 16 Suiko 2 (594)/2/i, NKBT 68.174-5.
17 Suiko 3 (595V5/10, NKBT 68.174-5.
18 Nara kokuritsu bunkazai kenkyujo, Asuka-dera hakkutsu chdsa hokokusho (Nara: Nara
kokuritsu bunkazai kenkyujo, 1958).
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174 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
pied a central position in Japan's first "permanent" capital; it was the
first in a series of great state-sponsored compounds divided into square
areas; it had a layout and style similar to those of Buddhist temples
already built in Korea; and it possessed a clan-temple (ujiderd) character
common to all Buddhist institutions founded in these early decades
of the reform century. What is left of the great Asuka-dera
provides concrete and impressive evidence that Japan then stood at the
threshold of a new China-oriented period of history.
Another Buddhist temple built in those early Asuka years, the
Arahaka-ji (later known as the Shitenno-ji or Four Heavenly Kings
Temple) has meaning of a different sort. It seems to have originated
with vows that Prince Shotoku (not Soga no Umako) took in 587 when
opposing clan camps were mobilizing troops for war.19
These vows, as
well as later references to the Four Heavenly Kings and their temple at
Arahaka-ji, are linked with the prince. Moreover, the Arahaka-ji was
not built in the Asuka capital, as was the Asuka-dera built by Soga,
but in the port city of Naniwa, some distance to the west and closer to
Ikaruga where the prince's palace was later erected. Indeed, the emergence
of Arahaka-ji as an important temple seems to have been connected
with the rise of Prince Shotoku to a position of great influence
in both internal and foreign affairs.
A tenth-century treatise on the life of Prince Shotoku flatly states
that the statue of the Four Heavenly Kings, made when the prince
took his 587 vow, was installed (at the Arahaka-ji) facing west in order
that its mysterious power could be captured for "subjugating foreign
enemies." The Four Heavenly Kings, prominent in the famous Benevolent
King Sutra (Prajna Paramita Sutra), were honored for their
mysterious power to protect the state. This sutra, central to the early
history of Buddhism in both China and Korea, is rated as one of the
most important to the history of Japanese Buddhism. And yet it was
not mentioned in Japanese chronicles until 660, the sixth year of Empress
Saimei's reign. Even the sutras on which Prince Shotoku is
reputed to have written commentaries did not include the Benevolent
King Sutra. Thus one wonders whether the Nihon shoki's references to
Arahaka-ji as the Four Heavenly Kings temple and to a Four Heavenly
Kings statue made by Prince Shotoku himself were not added at a later
date, possibly nearer the middle of the seventh century when Japan
was far more worried about the danger of foreign invasion and far
19 Sushun, Introduction (587)77, NKBT 68.163.
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THE ASUKA ENLIGHTENMENT I75
more involved in the "protect the country beliefs" expressed in the
Benevolent King Sutra.20
Although we have doubts about early Asuka connections among the
Arahaka-ji, Prince Shotoku, and the Four Heavenly Kings, recent
archaeological investigations show that a temple compound actually
was constructed in Naniwa in the closing years of the sixth century and
that it included a centrally located pagoda, a golden hall, a lecture hall,
and both a central and a southern gate. A large number of Asuka
period tiles have been found there including some like those excavated
from the Asuka-dera site. Also, the ground plan of the compound
indicates that it was built early in the Asuka period and that the Nihon
shoki may have been correct in reporting that its construction was
started in 593.1 (Inoue) am inclined to think, however, that the temple
was not completed until the closing years of the Asuka period, when it
became another majestic structure like the contemporary temple compounds
erected in Paekche and Silla.
A third temple of early Asuka period, one which has attracted more
attention than either the Asuka-dera or the Arahaka-ji, is the Ikaruga-ji
(now the Horyu-ji). Built near Prince Shotoku's palace, the Horyu-ji
houses great national treasures of Asuka times. From excavations made
before World War II, two important discoveries were made. First, the
prince's palace, where the Nihon shoki says he resided after 605, was
located in the eastern part of the present Horyu-ji compound. Second, a
great Asuka period temple compound was built a short distance south of
the prince's palace but outside the precincts of today's Horyu-ji. The
remains of this ancient compound (referred to here as the Ikaruga-ji)
and of the prince's Ikaruga palace provide hard evidence around which
we can now construct the general outlines of Prince Shotoku's emergence
as a dominant figure in state affairs at the turn of the seventh
century, just when the state began actively to adopt Chinese methods
and ideas for increasing its strength and control.
Archaeological evidence of the existence of an Asuka period residence
and temple compound at Ikaruga indicates that in about the
year 600, Prince Shotoku was moving, or was being moved, from the
Asuka capital to Ikaruga some twenty kilometers to the north, at the
foot of a mountain in the western corner of the Yamato plain. Some
have concluded that the prince's move to Ikaruga coincided with his
retreat from politics, but I (Inoue) believe that he wanted a base closer
20 Inoue Mitsusada, Asuka no chotei, vol. 3 of Nihon no rekishi (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1974)1 pp.
205-6.
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176 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
to Naniwa, the gateway to Korea and China. The move did come at
about the time the prince was developing a more positive foreign
policy, as reflected in the dispatch in 600 of an expeditionary force
against Silla and a diplomatic mission to the Sui court of China.
Noting that Ikaruga is quite far from the Asuka capital and outside
what is thought to have been Soga territory, some historians have
reasoned that the prince had come to enjoy the support of a non-Soga
immigrant clan (such as the Kashiwade) whose territory was in the
Ikaruga area. That view is supported by recent investigations of the
Fujinoki burial mound, located just 350 meters from the Ikaruga-ji
and thought to have been built in the last half of the sixth century.
Whether the descendants of the person buried there had any special
connection with Prince Shotoku is not definitely known, but the location
and size of the mound (40 meters in diameter and enclosing a
stone chamber 16 meters long) provides strong evidence that a clan
chieftain of extraordinary power and wealth had gained control of that
area before Prince Shotoku moved into his Ikaruga palace and built
the Ikaruga temple.
The Fujinoki tomb also has a Korean appearance, which suggests
the person buried there was from a clan that, like the Soga, was made
up largely of immigrants with close cultural ties to Korea. 16 Yusuke
concluded that the harness found in the tomb was a Korean import.
He also stated that the native Japanese of that day would not have
known the meaning of the ornamental patterns carved on saddle fittings
found in the Fujinoki mound, nor how to make such fittings.21
The imported grave goods excavated from this mound, the Korean
style of the three great temple compounds built at the beginning of the
Asuka period, the continental character of Asuka period national treasures
stored at the Horyu-ji, the prominence of Korean priests among
the 1,384 clerics (815 priests and 569 nuns) serving in the forty-six
temple compounds built by 624, as well as Korean connections with
the Soga-dominated court, all suggest that huge strides were being
taken (during the Asuka enlightenment) toward the establishment of
an urban civilization that was definitely Korean in character.
Preparations for reform
The urge of the Japanese to use continental methods and ideas for state
building became stronger after the mission in 600 to the Sui court,
21 Japan Times, April 23,1985, p. 11.
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THE ASUKA ENLIGHTENMENT 177
when Crown Prince Shotoku was beginning to overshadow Soga no
Umako in the handling of state affairs. The prince's rise to prominence
was reflected in the 601 decision to start building a new palace
for him at Ikaruga and in the 602 selection of his younger brother as
commander of a new expeditionary force sent against Silla. After that
he was linked with the introduction of continental methods of strengthening
the state, highlighted by the 603 adoption of a system of court
ranks similar to those of Koguryo and Paekche, the 604 formulation of
the famous Seventeen Injunctions, and the 607-8 diplomatic exchange
with the Chinese court. Although questions have been raised about
what part (if any) the prince played in these developments and
whether the injunctions were actually written that early, each of these
developments was prominent in the pre-645 prelude to the so-called
Great Reforms.
Although a system of "caps and ranks" (kan'i) had existed in China
as early as the Wei dynasty of the third century A.D., the system
adopted by Japan in 603 was closest to, and most directly influenced
by, sixth-century Koguryo and Paekche. They all shared the Sui practice
of wearing caps made of purple silk, decorated with gold and
silver, and presented to persons whose rank was indicated by feathers
of different kinds. The names of the ranks varied from state to state,
but those adopted in Japan had a stronger Confucian character than
did those in Koguryo. Each of the twelve Japanese ranks was named
after the greater or lesser measure of one particular Confucian virtue
(presumably in a descending order of importance): (1) greater virtue
(toku), (2) lesser virtue, (3) greater benevolence (jiti), (4) lesser benevolence,
(5) greater propriety (rat), (6) lesser propriety, (7) greater sincerity
(shin), (8) lesser sincerity, (9) greater justice (gi), (10) lesser justice,
(11) greater knowledge (chi), and (12) lesser knowledge.22
As in Korea, the bestowal of caps and ranks was paralleled by a
change from appointments based on hereditary status to those based
on ability and achievement. Whereas the old titles (kabane) had been
granted to clan and occupational group chieftains as hereditary rights,
the new caps and ranks were granted to individual officials who were
qualified by experience to perform the special functions of a given
office. When Ono no Imoko was appointed head of the 607 mission to
the Sui court, he was undoubtedly thought to be well qualified for this
important assignment, as he was then at the fifth rank (greater propriety).
But upon his return and because his mission was deemed success-
22 Suiko 11 (6o3)/i2/5, NKBT68.180-1,
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178 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
ful, he was advanced to the first rank (greater virtue). Even holders of
low-ranking kabane in the old order were awarded high caps and ranks
at the time, presumably because they were able and experienced. For
example, a Korean immigrant by the name of Kuratsukuri no Obitotori,
originally holding a kabane title lower than that held by the heads
of leading clans, was awarded the third rank (greater benevolence) for
successfully casting a Buddhist statue honored by the Asuka-dera.
That promotion, according to one scholar, gave him the same rank as
that held by a nobleman who was a favorite of Prince Shotoku. It
seems clear that the new caps and ranks helped strengthen imperial
control by conferring status on appointments and promotions based
on merit.
The pace of such a development cannot be accurately measured, but
chronicle references of the Suiko period leave no doubt of the greater
reliance on experienced and skilled officials who were appointed and
promoted on the basis of their ability to perform specialized administrative
tasks and who possessed caps and ranks. Under the old clan-title
system, occupational group managers (tomo no miyatsuko) performed
managerial functions for the court and various clans, but during the
Suiko period and after the institution of the cap-and-rank system, a
new and very high managerial post appeared: imperial secretary
(maetsukimi or taifu). The first-known mention of such an official is
made in the Nihon shoki account of envoys from Silla and Mimana
(Kaya) being received at court. After the envoys had approached the
empress and presented their memorials, four imperial secretaries, serving
four ministers (three of whom held the kabane title of omi and one
the title of muraji), reported to Soga no Umako what had transpired.2
*
Following Empress Suiko's death in 628 and at a crucial point in
long discussions over who should be her successor, Soga no Emishi
(who dominated political affairs after the death of his father in 626)
tried to get the imperial secretaries attached to officials (holding the
kabane titles of omi and muraji) to convince Prince Shotoku's son
(Prince Oe) that Empress Suiko had wanted someone other than Oe to
be her successor.^ On the basis of such evidence Seki Akira decided
that the imperial secretaries, who participated in imperial conferences
attended by high-ranking ministers, were under imperial orders to
report directly to the throne about what the ministers were saying and
thinking about particular issues.
23 Suiko 18 (6IO)/IO/9, NKBT 68.194-5.
24 Jomei, Introduction (628), NKBT 68.218-19; Inoue, Asuka no choiei, pp. 234-5.
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THE ASUKA ENLIGHTENMENT 179
At lower levels of government, officials were selected more frequently
for their ability to perform specialized functions. The largest
number were probably the occupational group managers engaged in
the use of imported techniques for producing weapons and tools,
building palaces and temples, and making statues, bells, paintings,
and other symbolic and decorative works of art. Most of these managers
(as well as the be or tomo they managed) were probably immigrants
who were given such appointments because of their expertise and
achievements, not because of birth in a prominent clan.
Although more officials at both central and local government levels
were now selected and ranked for their ability to perform particular
managerial functions, bureaucratization was not nearly as advanced as
it was in Paekche. To be sure, Japanese imperial secretaries were now
carrying out specialized functions at court, but they were not yet like
the six Paekche ministers (chwap'yong) who headed the departments
for royal affairs, state finances, public ceremonies, palace security,
penal matters, and provincial defense. In foreign affairs the court
assigned certain officials (shdkyaku) the responsibility of welcoming
visiting envoys, but the shdkyaku were not associated with anything
like Paekche's ten departments for external affairs. Japan also had
managers of royal estates and occupational groups, but these were not
tied to a complex governmental structure of the type found in
Paekche.2
' Although the 603 cap-and-rank system was followed by
significant advances toward a new bureaucratic order and prepared the
way for the Great Reforms of later years, these bureaucratic arrangements
were well behind those of Paekche. The old clan-title (ujikabane)
order was still quite strong.
Although we are certain that the rank system was instituted in 603
(this is verified by a statement appearing in the Chinese dynastic history
of Sui), the dating of the Seventeen Injunctions is still a subject of
discussion and disagreement. Spelled out in a Nihon shoki item for the
first day of 604,z6
they contain words and phrases suggesting that they
were written down at a much later date. Historians who argue that they
are spurious tend to point first to the office of provincial inspector (kuni
no mikotomochi) mentioned in Injunction 12 and remind us that this
office did not appear until after the Great Reforms of 645. But the court
may have been sending imperial inspectors to outlying provinces as
early as Asuka times to inspect the royal estates and other court-
25 Inoue, Asuka no ckotei, pp. 238-40; Ki-baik Lee, A New History of Korea, trans. Edward W.
Wagner with Edward J. Shultz (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 53.
26 Suiko 12 (604)74/3, NKBT 68.180-6.
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180 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
controlled property in one or more provinces. A second point made by
the doubters is that Injunction 12 seems to have been based on the
assumption that Japan's bureaucratic system was already in place,
which is not true. But as we noted, an increasingly large number of
officials had been appointed - long before 645 - because they were
qualified to handle particular administrative tasks. It therefore seems
logical to conclude that the Asuka leaders may well have been inspired
to write out injunctions that might make these officials more effective
instruments of imperial control.
Somewhat similar injunctions had been handed down by Chinese
emperors for centuries. As was made clear by Okada Masayuki, five
such injunctions were proclaimed by a Western Chin emperor back in
the year 268. In 544 a Western Wei emperor addressed six injunctions
to local officials, enjoining them to (1) carry out administrative affairs
with compassion, (2) value learning, (3) make the land productive, (4)
use persons who are able and good, (5) hand down penalties sparingly,
and (6) tax fairly. But these differed from Japan's Seventeen Injunctions
in basic ways. Whereas the six Western Wei injunctions were
addressed to local officials and were firmly grounded in Confucian
principles, those of Japan were directed to central government officials
and were rooted, with a strong Confucian coloration to be sure, in
genealogical thought and belief. It is thought, therefore, that the Japanese
injunctions (rules and principles for officials to follow in exercising
absolute obedience to the emperor) were appropriate to the political
concerns and conditions of Asuka times.
The first three of the Seventeen Injunctions provide foundations of
ideological support for the remaining fourteen. Injunction 1 affirms the
primacy of the Confucian principle of "harmony above and friendliness
below" by which officials are enjoined to obey the emperor and their
parents. Injunction 2 advocates conversion to Buddhism, declaring that
this will enable an official not only to transform bad into good but also to
follow established teachings (presumably Confucian as well as Buddhist)
and to straighten out everything crooked. But Injunction 3 seems
to me (Brown) to provide the most central pillar of ideological support
by equating the emperor with Heaven and stating that imperial orders
must always be obeyed. Injunctions 4 through 17 tell officials just how
they should serve the emperor in accordance with Confucian and Buddhist
teaching: to act with propriety (4), to prescribe penalties cautiously
(5), to hand down punishments impartially (6), to fill offices
with able persons (7), to rise early and work late (8), to act in good faith
(9), not to hold others in contempt (10), to recognize meritorious service
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THE ASUKA ENLIGHTENMENT l8l
(I i), not to arrogate the ruler's authority to oppress the people (12), to
treat underlings fairly (13), not to be jealous (14), not to put personal
consideration above the public weal (15), not to trouble farmers at
planting and harvesting times (16), and to consult others and reach a
consensus on important issues (17). These injunctions reflect Confucian
principles and stress absolute obedience to the emperor and can be
thought of as expressions of a Confucian-oriented, emperor-centered
state ideology.
For centuries, historians have wondered why the famous Seventeen
Injunctions included no references to kami belief or to the kami origins
of the imperial line. A legal scholar of the Meiji period, Ariga
Nagao, concluded that the person or persons who had written the
injunctions had decided, in the face of arbitrary behavior by leaders of
the Soga clan, that a Confucian ideology explaining how a state should
be governed was more useful than was an ancient belief in kami descent.
But it should be remembered that Japanese envoys sent to the
Sui court in 600 had said, according to the dynastic history of Sui, that
the Japanese had their own conception of imperial authority: "The
Queen of Wa deems Heaven to be her elder brother and the sun her
younger brother."2
? Ishimoda Sho concluded that the compilers may
have omitted references to the ruler's divine descent from kami and
relied on the Chinese conception of "heaven overspreads and the earth
upholds" because the Sui emperor had stated that the Japanese view of
rulership was unknown in China. But even though there are no direct
references to kami origins, it is clear that the special position of the
emperor - as set forth in Injunction 3 on absolute obedience - was
firmly grounded in beliefs about his sacred descent. But probably the
articulation and institutionalization of these beliefs did not come until
the reign of Temmu in the last half of the seventh century.
A third significant event, following the adoption of ranks and the
formulation of the Seventeen Injunctions, was an exchange of official
missions with the Sui court in 607 and 608. Since the first mission of
600 and the rise of Prince Shotoku to a position of influence at court,
Japan had moved slowly toward a foreign policy position centered on
relations with the reestablished Chinese empire. Old attitudes toward
the Korean kingdoms (antagonism toward Silla and Koguryo and
friendship with Paekche regarding the restoration of Japanese interests
in southern Korea) had not been abandoned, but military expeditions
were no longer sent against Silla, and more attention than ever was
27 Sui shu i8:ija-i6b; Tsunoda and Goodrich, Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 29.
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182 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
given to the use of continental techniques for strengthening the state.
It was in the context of this new Sui-centered view of foreign affairs
that the Japanese government sent its second mission to China in 607.
These were years of rapid change on the Asian continent. In 604 the
year in which the Seventeen Injunctions are said to have been
written by Prince Shotoku - the founder of the Sui dynasty (Emperor
Wen-ti) died. He was succeeded by Yang-ti, who moved immediately
to beautify the capital, build canals in various parts of the empire, and
display military might in aggressive action against neighboring peoples.
In 607, the year the Japanese mission was dispatched, Yang-ti
toured the northeast and established contact with the T'u-chiieh, a
Turkish people of Mongolia and central Asia. Koguryo had also established
relations with those same people, causing Yang-ti and his court
to conclude that Koguryo was a menace. Paekche and Silla had long
been preoccupied with the possibility that they would again be invaded
by Koguryo troops, and so they were not displeased to hear that
Koguryo's relations with the Sui empire had soured. Both Paekche
and Silla sent envoys to the Sui court complaining of Koguryo's aggression
and requesting that it be punished.28
Surrounded by enemies,
Koguryo opted to establish friendly relations with distant Japan. As
early as 605, before the open break with Sui, Koguryo had sent gold to
Japan for a Buddhist statue at Asuka-dera.29
At this critical juncture the Japanese decided to send envoys to the
Sui court.3° The dynastic history of Sui relates that the chief of that
mission (Ono no Omi) explained his objective in these words: "Our
queen has heard that beyond the ocean to the west there is a Bodhisattva
sovereign who reveres and promotes Buddhism. For that reason, we
have been sent to pay her respects. Accompanying us are several tens of
monks who have come to study Buddhist teachings." The same source
also states that Ono no Omi submitted a memorial containing this
sentence: "The Child of Heaven (tenshi) in the land where the sun rises
addresses the Son of Heaven {tenshi) in the land where the sun sets."31
Japanese and Chinese historians have long debated the question of
whether this memorial was intentionally insulting. Certainly Yang-ti
was angered for he is said to have turned to his foreign minister and
ordered: "If memorials from barbarian states are written by persons
who lack propriety, don't accept them." From the Sui point of view,
28 Wright, "The Sui Dynasty," pp. 143-4; Inoue, Asuka no chotei, pp. 246-7; Lee, A New
History of Korea, p. 47.
29 Suiko 13 (6o5)/4/l, NKBT 68.186-7. 30 Suiko 15 (6o7)/7/3, NKBT 68.189.
31 Sui shu, Ta-yeh 3 (607); Tsunoda and Goodrich,Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 32.
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THE ASUKA ENLIGHTENMENT 183
Japan was no more than an isolated and insular state to the northeast.
Japanese court officials, however, were apparently no longer willing to
have their ruler referred to as merely a Wa king or queen.
Although Yang-ti was upset by the wording of the memorial, he
could not overlook the possibility of obtaining Japan's support for his
plans to put Koguryo in its place. He therefore ordered the wellconnected
P'ei Shih-ch'ing to accompany Ono no Omi back to Japan.
Both the Sui chronicles and the Nihon shoki provide considerable
detail about the places they visited (such as Paekche) before arriving at
Naniwa in the sixth month of 608, where a new building had been
erected for properly receiving the Chinese envoy and his entourage of
twelve. When the party arrived at Asuka, P'ei Shih-ch'ing delivered a
message that, according to the Nihon shoki, stated:
The emperor of China greets the Wo empress.
Your envoys . . . have arrived and made their report.
Having been pleased to receive the command of Heaven to become emperor,
We have endeavored to extend virtue (toku) everywhere, irrespective of
distance.
We are deeply grateful that the Wo empress - residing in the seas beyond bestows
blessings on her people, maintains peace and prosperity within her
borders, and softens manners and customs with harmony.
Being grateful that you have sent tribute from such a great distance, We
send P'ei Shih-ch'ing . . . to convey Our greetings.»2
The Sui chronicle says nothing about a message being handed to the
Japanese empress but does mention that she was pleased to grant P'ei
Shih-ch'ing an audience and that she answered him as follows:
Because We had heard of the great Sui empire of propriety and justice located
in the west, We sent tribute. As barbarians living in an isolated place beyond
the sea, We do not know propriety and justice, are shut up within Our
borders, and do not see others. Now that the streets have been cleared and a
visitor's hall has been decorated, We await the Sui envoy, wishing to hear
about the restoration of the Chinese empire."
Obviously the Japanese version of the Yang-ti message to Empress
Suiko and the Chinese report of what she said to P'ei Shih-ch'ing have
been edited: Surely Yang-ti did not refer to Suiko as an empress, using
the same character found in the Chinese word for emperor, and surely
Suiko did not express ignorance of "propriety and justice" right after
instituting a ranking system with four ranks bearing names of different
degrees of propriety and justice.
32 Suiko 16 (6o8)/8/i2, NKBT68.190-1.
33 Sui shu Ta-yeh 4 (608), Tsunoda and Goodrich, Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 33.
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184 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
Both reports, however, reveal a strong Japanese interest in what was
going on in China. One statement made in the Chinese account of what
the empress said to P'ei Shih-ch'ing has a ring of truth: She wanted to
hear about the restoration of the Chinese empire. But a more direct
expression of Japanese curiosity can be found in the Chinese report that
the Japanese had sent several students to study Buddhism. Moreover,
when P'ei Shih-ch'ing returned to China in 608, he was accompanied by
eight more students sent to China for study.*« One bore the name of a
powerful Chinese immigrant clan associated with the Soga, and the
names of three others indicate that they too (or their ancestors) had
come from China, had a knowledge of Chinese that would make it easier
for them to achieve their objectives in China, and were not selected
because they belonged to an old kabane-holding clan but because they
held (or would hold) appointments based on merit - that they were, or
would become, members of Japan's incipient bureaucracy.
Later references to these same students reveal that most of them
remained in China for more than twenty years and, after returning to
Japan, occupied influential positions in various fields. At least three
(Takamuko no Kuromaro, the priest Min, and Minabuchi no Shoan)
became leading architects of reform.
THE GREAT REFORMS
Before considering the reforms adopted after 645, let us look briefly at
two aspects of their historical background.
The Vang empire
Koguryo envoys arrived in Japan during the summer of 618 and reported
that their state had successfully repelled an invasion of Chinese
armies.35
We do not know whether they had come to request military
assistance or simply to express satisfaction with their victory against
the great Chinese empire. But not long afterward, and possibly as a
result of defeats suffered at the hands of Koguryo, the Sui dynasty was
destroyed by rebels whose leader was enthroned as Emperor Kao-tsu
(r. 618-26), founder of the T'ang dynasty.
T'ang rule (618 to 906) came at a particularly glorious time in
Chinese history. T'ang art (especially its sculptures and paintings) and
literature (notably its poetry) are regarded as truly remarkable human
34 Suiko 16 (6O8)/9/II,NKBT68.192-3. 35 Suiko26 (6l8y8/i, NKBT 68.201-3.
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THE GREAT REFORMS 185
achievements. Indeed, institutional and social changes made during
the Tang period have led such distinguished scholars as Naito
Torajiro to say, mainly because of the importance assigned to the
appearance of an increasingly complex and extensive bureaucracy of
officials selected largely on the basis of merit, that this was when China
moved into the modern age. The rapid economic growth of those
years, arising from increased agricultural production and expanded
commerce, has led some scholars to suggest that by the thirteenth
century, China was on the verge of becoming a capitalist society. In
any case, as one of the world's most impressive empires, Tang left the
stamp of Chinese civilization on the neighboring peoples of Asia.36
The first T'ang emperors were bent on restoring and extending
China's imperial greatness. But realizing full well that the collapse of
Sui had been due in the main to military failures against Koguryo, the
T'ang rulers were quite cautious on that front. Koguryo dispatched
tribute to the T'ang court as early as 619; Paekche did likewise in 621;
and Silla followed suit in 624. And the kings of all three Korean
kingdoms accepted T'ang appointments, indicating their incorporation
into the T'ang tributary system.3?
Japan's old enmity toward Silla temporarily softened after the first
Japanese mission to Sui in 600 and the rise of Prince Shotoku to a
position of influence in foreign affairs. Improved relations with Silla
account, in part at least, for the Nihon shoki's report that a large number
of people migrated from Silla to Japan in 608 and that envoys from Silla
and Mimana (Kaya) arrived - and were well received - in 610. But
following the demise of Sui and the rise of T'ang in 618, Japan again
became hostile toward Silla. When that state sent "tribute" to Japan in
621 but did not follow the precedent of bringing along Mimana emissaries,
Japanese officials interpreted this break with tradition as a clear
indication that Silla had absorbed, or was going to absorb, Mimana.*8
Not long after the death of Prince Shotoku in 622, a faction at court
advocated war with Silla and closer cooperation with Paekche, and an
army of "tens of thousands" reportedly invaded Korea in 623.39 Scholars
explain Japan's foreign policy reversal in two ways: that the Sui
collapse suggested to Japanese leaders that their old position in Korea
could now be regained and that the death of Prince Shotoku left the
hawkish Soga no Umako in sole control of foreign affairs.
36 Denis Twitchett, "Introduction," Cambridge History of China, vol. 3, pp. 8-38.
37 Inoue, Asuka no chotei, pp. 256-7.
38 Suiko 29 (621), NKBT 68.204-5; Inoue, Asuka no chotei, p. 261.
39 Suiko 1 (623)77, NKBT 68.206-9.
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l86 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
But relations with Silla were soon improved, possibly because Japanese
leaders were suddenly made less belligerent by Silla's conciliatory
moves. The court was surely affected also by reports and recommendations
made in 623 by two Chinese Buddhist priests and two Chinese
medical doctors who had arrived in Japan by way of Silla. Reporting
that the Japanese students who had been sent to China in 608 had completed
their studies, these Chinese visitors recommended that the Japanese
students be brought home. After passing along the observation
that the T'ang empire had become strong and well regulated, they also
advised that Japan establish and maintain relations with the T'ang
court.*0
We do not know whether these priests and doctors had been
sent by way of Silla for the purpose of heading off Japanese attacks
against Silla or whether they (and the Japanese students in China with
whom they had apparently been in contact) were simply pointing out,
on the basis oftheir observations ofT'ang power, that Japan would benefit
from regular relations with this new and flourishing Chinese empire.
Whatever the reason, there are no more reports of Japanese military
action against Silla. But in spite of the advice received from the doctors
and priests, Japan did not send an official mission to the T'ang court
until 630 - after the death of three influential Asuka period leaders:
Prince Shotoku in 622, Soga no Umako in 626, and Empress Suiko in
628. Meanwhile, the Chinese empire was becoming strongerand wealthier
than ever under Emperor Tai-tsung, who reigned from 626 to 649.
Japan's delay in establishing relations with T'ang was probably due
to unsettled conditions in both lands. China was not reunified until
624; a violent coup brought about the overthrow of Kao-tsu in 626;
and an unpleasant succession dispute erupted in Japan after Empress
Suiko's death in 628. But when the mission was finally organized in
630, its assistant head was one of the Chinese doctors (E'nichi) who
had arrived in Japan by way of Silla seven years earlier.41
Both the
dispatch of the mission and E'nichi's position as second in command
suggest that the earlier recommendations made by E'nichi and his
three Chinese colleagues had been taken seriously. After the envoys
arrived at the T'ang court, Emperor Tai-tsung first announced that
Japan, being so far away, need not send tribute every year. Then he
announced that a high-ranking aristocrat (Kao Piao-jen) had been
appointed head of a mission to accompany the envoys home and to
extend personal greetings to Japan's new emperor.1
*2
40 Suiko 31 (623), NKBT 68.205-6. 41 Jomei 2 (630)78/5, NKBT 68.228-9.
42 Hsin Tang shu Chen-kuan 5 (631), Tsunoda and Goodrich, Japan in the Chinese Dynastic
Histories, p. 39.
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THE GREAT REFORMS 187
This first official T'ang mission to Japan, arriving in 632, was significant
on three counts. First, it went by way of Silla - as did the Chinese
doctors and priests - and arrived in Japan in the company of a Silla
mission, suggesting that Silla had already achieved a special position in
T'ang's relations with the Korean kingdoms and was expected to serve
as a mediary in future contacts between the T'ang court and Japan.
Second, the Japanese court arranged an elaborate welcome that symbolized
a new and official interest in the powerful and expanding
T'ang empire. And third, several Japanese who had gone to China for
study as far back as 610 returned home with the Chinese envoys,
providing Japanese authorities with reliable sources of information on
various aspects of Chinese civilization.«
Opening channels of direct contact with the T'ang was complicated
somewhat by the reemergence of conflict and rivalry among the Korean
kingdoms. Even though they had been incorporated into the
T'ang tributary system, they continued to invade one another's territory.
Because of these squabbles, T'ai-tsung again became suspicious
of Koguryo's intentions. In 631 - at about the time that the T'ang
mission was on its way to Japan by way of Silla - T'ai-tsung heard that
Koguryo had built a monument in honor of its soldiers killed in wars
with Sui China, and he promptly ordered military retaliation. Chinese
armies demolished the hated monument and gathered up the remains
of Chinese soldiers who had died in Koguryo. Assuming that T'ang
was considering further military action, the king of Koguryo built
more than a thousand forts at places where the Chinese might strike,
and he sought to improve his relations with Paekche.
As early as 630 both Koguryo and Paekche sent envoys to Japan
and, according to the Nihon shoki, offered tribute, possibly attempting
to obtain support if invaded by Chinese troops. In 631 Paekche's king
even had a member of his own royal family delivered to Japan as a
hostage, a traditional sign of a state's urgent need for military assistance.
The other Korean kingdoms involved in the T'ang-Koguryo
confrontation also sought Japanese backing. In the face of an impending
T'ang attack on Koguryo, Japan seemed at first to stand on the
sidelines. And yet its decision in 630 to send an official to the T'ang
court and to establish more friendly relations with Silla, suggested a
pro-T'ang tilt, although Japan's long-standing ties with Paekche could
not be easily forgotten or severed. Not much happened during the
630s either to sharpen the confrontation or to force Japan into one or
43 Jomei 4 (632)/8, NKBT 68.288-9; Jomei 5 (633)71/26, NKBT 68.230-1.
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188 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
the other of the two camps. Still, in 639 and 640 more students who
had studied in China returned home by way of Silla.
Then in 641, after a T'ang official returned from a tour of inspection
of Koguryo, Emperor T'ai-tsung decided that the time had come for
military action. By the following year Koguryo, too, was mobilizing
for war, and in 643 T'ai-tsung warned both Koguryo and Paekche to
break off aggressive activity against Silla. But the new king of
Koguryo disregarded these warnings, and so T'ai-tsung ordered his
troops to attack this uncooperative Korean kingdom and requested
Paekche and Silla to provide support. In the sixth month of 645, just
as T'ai-tsung and his armies were crossing the Liao River, Prince Naka
no Oe (the future Emperor Tenji) and his group were setting up a new
government in Japan, having thwarted the control by the Soga that
had lasted for more than fifty years. It was therefore under the shadow
of a powerful and expanding T'ang empire that Japan's great reforms
(taika kaishin) were adopted.
Political upheaval
After Emperor T'ai-tsung's preparations for war in 641 against Koguryo,
all three Korean kingdoms were beset by internal and external
strife as they sought to strengthen themselves for anticipated invasions.
Japan, too, could not help but be affected. The Japanese internal
upheaval of 645 did not arise directly from disagreement over
foreign policy issues but, rather, from more than a decade of growing
struggle for power at court. On one side was a group of clans headed
by the Soga, and on the other was an increasingly strong group of
imperial princes, court officials, and clan chieftains who had been
united by common feelings of irritation with (1) the arbitrary and
ruthless behavior of the Soga ministers, (2) the consistent Soga opposition
to and eventual elimination of Prince Shotoku's son, and (3) the
failure of the Soga regime to make an effective and extensive use of
men familiar with Chinese techniques for increasing political control.
Antagonism between the two groups broke out after the death of
Empress Suiko in 628 over the question of who should succeed her.
The empress had not named a new crown prince to replace the recently
deceased Prince Shdtoku, but two princes had strong claims to
the throne: Prince Tamura, the son of King Bidatsu's crown prince
(who never became emperor), and Prince Yamashiro no Oe, the son of
Prince Shotoku. Both were grandsons of former emperors, but Prince
Yamashiro no Oe seems to have had the strong claim: His grandfather
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THE GREAT REFORMS 189
had been emperor more recently; his father Shotoku had shared rulership
with Empress Suiko; and his mother was a daughter of Soga no
Umako. And yet Soga no Emishi, who had replaced Umako as head of
the Soga clan in 626, did not want the son of the deceased Crown
Prince Shotoku enthroned, probably because he preferred an emperor
whose rule would be largely symbolic. Whatever the reason, Emishi
schemed to induce leading clan chieftains to accept a fabricated report
that Empress Suiko had wanted Prince Tamura to succeed her. But
two high-ranking aristocrats, Shotoku's son Prince Yamashiro and an
Emishi uncle by the name of Sakaibe no Marise no Omi, refused to
accept this as an authentic expression of imperial will. According to
the Nihon shoki account (which has an anti-Soga bias), Prince Yamashiro's
meeting with the empress in her last hours left him with the
distinct impression that she expected him to succeed her. Nevertheless,
Prince Yamashiro decided to go along with the engineered consensus,
stating that he would follow the teachings of his father and be
"patient, not wrathful."^
But Sakaibe no Marise was impatient and angry. At a final meeting
of chieftains, he hotly announced that he had nothing more to say
and stomped out. As head of the Sakaibe branch of the Soga clan and
brother of the deceased Soga no Umako, he soon created another stir
when at a Soga meeting set up to make plans for building a tomb for
Umako,45 he openly aired his views on the succession issue. Emishi
could not abide such opposition, even from his father's brother. He
therefore ordered his troops to surround the Marise residence, forcing
the strangulation of Marise and the suicide of his eldest son.
Then Prince Tamura ascended the throne as Emperor Jomei. But
Emishi's ruthless action against a member of his own clan aroused
resentment that, after further provocation, culminated in the coup
of 645.
Emperor Jomei's death in 641, just as T'ai-tsung was calling up
troops for a massive invasion of Koguryo, refueled the old conflict
over who should occupy the throne: either Prince Yamashiro (son of
Crown Prince Shotoku) or Crown Prince Naka no Oe (Jomei's eldest
44 Jomei, Introduction (628), NKBT 68.226-7.
45 The Ishibutai tomb, thought to have been built for Soga no Umako, is located on a slope near
the village of Asuka. It has an inner chamber 7.7 meters long, 3.5 meters wide, and 4.7
meters high, as well as an entering corridor 20 meter long and 2.5 meters wide. As a result of
archaeological research carried out there between 1933 and 1935, we now know that the
entire mound was about 51 meters square and was surrounded by a ditch and, farther out, by
an embankment that gave the entire tomb an area 81 by 83 meters. Nearby, archaeologists
also found what is thought to have been the remains of Umako's palace. See Inoue, Asuka no
chotei, pp. 264-5.
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190 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
son). Because Crown Prince Naka no Oe was then only sixteen years
old and not mature enough to rule, Prince Yamashiro was again the
strongest candidate. But Emishi still did not want him to become
emperor and favored, instead, another son of Jomei: Prince Furuhito
no Oji, whose mother was a daughter of Umako. Emishi did not,
however, receive much backing for the proposal and had to agree that
Jomei's empress should follow the Suiko precedent and ascend the
throne. She thus reigned as Empress Kogyoku (642 to 645).
During early months of Kogyoku's reign, Emishi's son Iruka seized
control of administrative affairs, gaining the reputation of being even
more authoritarian than his father: He was said to have been such a
terror that "robbers dared not pick up anything dropped along the
road."46
But before the year was out and while Iruka was exerting
pressure on people to supply more labor for the construction of two
tombs (one for his father and another for himself), he was openly
berated by the sister of Prince Yamashiro for acting like an emperor
and employing forced labor for his own personal ends. Being even less
able than his father to accept criticism or opposition, Iruka resorted
immediately to the use of military force. As a result, some twentythree
descendants of Prince Shotoku, including Prince Yamashiro and
several members of his immediate family, were driven to suicide. Such
brutal treatment of an illustrious branch of the imperial family horrified
even Iruka's father Emishi.
By the next spring, three important aristocratic figures were working
out a plan to forcibly remove Iruka and his clan from positions of
power. The triumvirate was made up of (1) a bureaucrat by the name
of Nakatomi no Kamatari who came to be known as Fujiwara no
Kamatari (614-69), founder of the Fujiwara clan; (2) a son of Emperor
Jomei, the future Emperor Tenji (626-71); and (3) the son of
the high-ranking Soga no Ishikawa Maro (d.649), a clan chieftain
whose father had favored the enthronement of Prince Yamashiro
back in 629. From a review of the backgrounds and interests of these
three men, the roles they performed at the time of the coup, and the
posts they were awarded in the post-645 government, we can see
something of the proreform, anti-Soga character of their rebellious
movement.
Nakatomi no Kamatari, the principal architect of the coup, has been
referred to as an early bureaucrat, as he held a high rank and office
that were bestowed on him mainly because of his demonstrated ability
46 Kogyoku 1 (642)/i/i5, NKBT 68.236-7).
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THE GREAT REFORMS 191
and achievement. As early as 629, when Emishi was trying to force
clan leaders to accept the fabricated report that Empress Suiko had
wanted Prince Tamura to follow her on the throne, Kamatari's father
was one of the four imperial secretaries whose views were decisive in
the selection of Prince Tamura to ascend the throne as Emperor Jomei.
Kamatari's father was therefore influential but had not yet become a
Soga opponent or a reform advocate. Kamatari held the same high
rank and office as his father did and probably attended high-level
court conferences (byogi). According to the Nakatomi clan chronicle
(the Kaden),^ Kamatari was fond of learning, read widely, and displayed
a special interest in a Chinese classic on military strategy (the
Liu-fao), suggesting a persistent preoccupation with foreign and internal
affairs. After 632, when the Buddhist priest Min returned from
twenty-five years of study in China and began lecturing on divination
(shueki), Kamatari frequented Min's temple. After 640, the year in
which Minabuchi no Shoan returned from his thirty-three years in
China, Kamatari regularly called on Shoan. So it is thought that by the
640s, Kamatari had become a studious and inquiring bureaucrat who
was concerned with the burning political question of what the eastward
advance of T'ang meant for Japan.
At the time of the 641 dispute over who should succeed the deceased
Emperor Jomei, Kamatari seems to have favored the candidacy of
Prince Yamashiro. Then after the decision to choose Empress Kogyoku
and the forcible elimination of Prince Yamashiro and all the
members of his immediate family, Kamatari took steps that led directly
to the coup of 645. He first approached two imperial princes:
Prince Karu (who was later enthroned in 645 as Emperor Kotoku) and
Prince Naka no Oe (who ascended the throne in 661 as Emperor
Tenji). Kamatari apparently felt that if one of these two princes should
become the emperor, he should actually rule and not simply be a front
for some clan chieftain. But in order to establish imperial rule of this
kind, he knew that the Soga must be ousted from their positions of
control and that this could be done only with military might. He
therefore contacted Soga no Ishikawa Maro, a military man who was
not on good terms with Iruka and whose father had held reservations
about Emishi's forcing the enthronement of Jomei. With the military
backing of this Soga malcontent, Kamatari was able to devise a plan
47 The first of the two Kaden volumes was written by "the great minister," probably Kamatari's
grandson Fujiwara no Nakamaro who was chancellor between 760 and his death in 764.
Nakamaro, who may have compiled this part of the Kaden while he was chancellor, seems to
have had access to sources not available to the compilers of the Nikon shoki.
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192 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
for establishing the kind of imperial rule that he felt would enable
Japan to meet the challenge of the expanding T'ang empire.
The compilers of the Nihon shoki were obviously aware that the
assassination of Soga no Iruka on the twelfth day of the sixth month of
645, during a court ceremony in which memorials from the three
Korean kingdoms were being read to Empress Kogyoku, was truly
important. But before discussing the details of what transpired, they
described (in items for the eleventh month of the previous year)
Iruka's nefarious activities: building two great mansions (one for himself
and one for his father) that were like imperial palaces, calling Soga
offspring princes and princesses, erecting a moat-encircled house that
looked like a castle, storing up military weapons, and making certain
he was guarded constantly by fifty sturdy soldiers from the east. Between
these reports and the one dealing with the coup itself, the
compilers inserted two items (one for the first month and the other for
the fourth month of 645) regarding mysterious developments: The
first was the humming of a band of monkeys that could not be seen
(interpreted as messengers from the Sun Goddess), and the second was
about a Korean monk who had learned (from a tiger) how to cure any
disease, even how to make a barren mountain green. Then a short item
for the eighth day of the sixth month (four days before the palace
coup) tells us that Prince Naka no Oe had secretly revealed his plan to
have Iruka killed.
The Nihon shoki report of the coup begins by explaining that although
Iruka was a suspicious man who always carried a sword,
Nakatomi no Kamatari had shown entertainers how to get him to put
his sword aside. Prince Naka no Oe made the following preparatory
moves: closed the palace gates, bribed certain guards, hid a long spear
at a convenient place in the Great Hall of State (Daigokuden) where
the memorials were to be read, arranged for the support of soldiers,
and ordered four armed men to kill Iruka. But at the appointed time,
key men in the plot became frightened: The body of the man reading
the memorials became "moist with streaming sweat, his voice was
indistinct, and his hands shook." Even the four designated killers
were apparently intimidated by Iruka's prestige. And so Prince Naka
no Oe himself rushed forward and with a sword "cut open [Iruka's]
head and shoulder." Before dying, Iruka protested his innocence and
pleaded for an investigation. Then Prince Naka no Oe placed his case
before the empress, stating that the Soga wished to destroy the imperial
house and to subvert imperial authority. Finally he asked her: Do
you want Soga descendants to replace imperial descendants? When
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THE GREAT REFORMS 193
the Empress withdrew to consider, the four assassins attacked and
killed the wounded Iruka, thereby bringing to a close a half-century of
Soga control. Empress Kogyoku immediately abdicated and Prince
Furuhito (Iruka's favorite candidate for the throne) entered the Buddhist
priesthood. The political stage was thus set for the entry of three
famous reform-minded leaders: Prince Naka no Oe with imperial
dignity, Nakatomi no Kamatari with clan power and knowledge of
modern ways to govern, and Soga no Ishikawa Maro with military
might.1
*8
The Great Reforms
The day after Iruka was killed, Kamatari recommended that Prince
Karu (the younger brother of Empress Kogyoku and a student of
Confucianism) occupy the throne as Emperor Kotoku and that Prince
Naka no Oe take charge of state affairs, just as Prince Shotoku had
done during Suiko's reign. Under Kotoku and his crown prince, three
ministerial positions were created and filled: (i) minister of the left for
Abe no Uchi Maro no Omi, whose father had also been an imperial
secretary during the reign of Empress Suiko; (2) minister of the right
for Soga no Ishikawa Maro, the rebels' military commander; and (3)
minister of the center, a ministerial position unlike any that had existed
in China, for Nakatomi no Kamatari, making him something like
a personal adviser to the emperor and the crown prince.
The China specialists were also appointed state scholars (kuni no
hakase). The first was Min, the Buddhist priest who as a "recent
Chinese immigrant" had gone to China for study in 606, stayed for
twenty-two years, and was regularly visited by Kamatari after returning
home. The second was Eon, a learned Buddhist priest who had
returned to Japan in 640 after thirty-two years of study abroad. These
two priests had observed and studied the formation of China's centralized
bureaucratic structure, based on codifications of penal and administrative
law, and had firsthand knowledge of a Chinese empire that
exercised remarkable control over affairs in surrounding states and
territories. In close association with Kamatari, they made important
contributions to the formulation and implementation of Japan's reform
program.
The new government immediately dispatched imperial messages to
the kings of Koguryo and Paekche. The tone of the one to Ko-
48 Kogyoku 4 (645)/6/i2, NKBT 68. 262-3.
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194 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
guryo - the state with which Japan had had the least contact - was
quite friendly: "Past [relations] have been of short duration, but
[their] future is unlimited. So we should continue to call on each
other in a friendly manner." But criticism and demands can be found
in the imperial message to Paekche, the Korean state with which
Japan had had the longest and closest association. After explaining
that the "tribute" presented by Paekche was being returned because
it was insufficient, Paekche ministers were asked to clarify their
position as soon as possible.& Although earlier contacts with T'ang
through Silla had revealed a tilt toward the emerging T'ang-Silla
alliance, no message was sent to Silla. Instead, friendliness was expressed
toward Koguryo and demands were made on Paekche, suggesting
that Yamao Yukihisa may be right in concluding that the new
government intended to do nothing more than improve relations with
the three Korean kingdoms. The decision made toward the end of
645 to move the capital to the port city of Naniwa suggests that the
new leader wanted to have their base at the port where diplomatic
missions were embarking and disembarking.
The reformers first moved to maintain and strengthen the government's
control. An early and particularly significant step was taken
when Emperor Kotoku and his crown prince called a meeting of their
new ministers and had them swear an oath of allegiance. Questions
have beeen raised about the authenticity of this oath recorded in the
Nihon shoki, but the first sentence expresses the same theme found in
the Seventeen Injunctions of 604: "Just as heaven overspreads and
earth upholds, there is only one imperial way."'0
By asking the new
ministers to take this oath, the crown prince and Kamatari were not
simply adopting a traditional method of cementing loyalty but, rather,
were explicitly affirming the principle that an emperor (and his
advisers) - not the chieftain of a powerful clan - should rule the state
directly. The same note was struck in an imperial edict addressed,
about two weeks later, to the two military leaders who had just been
appointed ministers of the left and right: "You are to administer the
affairs of the empire by strictly obeying Japan's sacred rulers and
being faithful to them."5"
Another early measure taken to increase governmental control was
49 Taika I (645)/7/io, NKBT 68.272-3. Both messages were introduced with the following
phrase: "This is the mandate of the emperor of Japan who is a manifest kami [akitsumikami],"
but this conception of Japanese sovereignty probably did not emerge until the time of
Temmu.
50 Kotoku, Introduction (645X6/19, NKBT 68.270-1.
51 Taika 1 (645)7/12, NKBT 68.272-3.
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THE GREAT REFORMS 195
aimed at Buddhist temples. During the eighth month of 645 imperial
messengers were sent to the "big temple" (probably the Kudara-dera,
the building of which was started in 639 and completed in 641) after
Jomei's death and in response to an order issued by Empress Kogyoku.
Although enjoying imperial associations, the Kudara-dera was,
like other Asuka temples, essentially a clan institution. So when the
reformers moved to increase imperial control, they had to concern
themselves with ways of downgrading Buddhist temples as symbols of
clan power and upgrading them as instruments of imperial rule. First
they adopted the T'ang practice of placing ten Buddhist masters in
charge of the temple affairs.52
The ten were, like the state scholars, old
China hands. The priest who headed the list is thought to have migrated
to Japan from Koguryo; another had arrived from south China;
a third had studied long in China; and a fourth had been a student of
Buddhism in Koguryo. None of them seems to have had any direct tie
with Paekche, another indication of the new government's preference
for T'ang models and teachers.
Priests and laymen were also assigned to posts at certain temples, and
imperial messengers were dispatched to report that any temple built by
a person holding a position as high as occupational group manager (totno
no miyatsuko) could obtain financial assistance from the government. By
adopting such measures, the reformers weakened these institutions as
symbols of clan power, making them instruments of governmental control
and using them for the introduction and absorption of Chinese
culture. Although such old temples as the Asuka-dera and the Kudaradera
continued to retain much of their original clan character, after 645
even they were seen as important temples in an increasingly strong
state-oriented Buddhist system.
The new government also attempted to keep dissidents from obtaining
possession of weapons, especially in outlying regions. When imperial
messengers were sent to the eastern provinces in the eighth month
of 645, they were instructed not only to establish a system of provincial
inspectors (kuni no mikotomochi) but also to have all weapons
collected, except those in areas near Emishi territory, and deposited in
government storehouses.ss A few weeks later the enforced collection of
weapons was extended to the entire country. The government was
trying thereby to obstruct any attempt by a discontented clan chieftain
to overthrow the government.*
52 Taika I 645/8/8, NKBT 68.276-7. 53 Taika 1 (6455/8/5, NKBT 68.274-5.
54 Taika i (645)78/5 and 7/13, NKBT 68.272-5.
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196 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
Another set of orders was aimed at removing sources of popular
discontent. The day after the emperor issued an edict demanding that
his ministers be faithful, he handed those same ministers another edict
requiring them to make sure that the imperial secretaries, provincial
inspectors, and other emperor-appointed officials be gentle and considerate
in their use of commoners for labor on public projects. Later
instructions to provincial inspectors warned them not to violate the
judicial prerogatives of local officials, not to go about with an entourage
of more than nine attendants, and not to deal directly with the
irregularities of local officials, but simply to submit reports after ascertaining
the facts. Finally, a Chinese arrangement was adopted for
permitting anyone to report complaints that were not properly considered
at lower levels.
The new government was only two months old when it ordered a
census taken and a land survey made in order to facilitate the collection
of revenue from all peoples and lands. These orders were first carried
out in the eastern provinces, just after, and in connection with, the
dispatch of provincial inspectors. Imperial messengers were also sent to
the six districts (agata) around the capital and finally to all provinces of
the land to make certain that people everywhere had been registered
and their land surveyed. In an imperial edict issued in the eleventh
month of 645, such endeavors were explained and justified:
Since ancient times, and in every imperial reign, people and their land have
been designated as imperial be, and the names of these be have been passed on
to posterity. In like fashion, clan chieftains with the title of omi, muraji,
occupational group manager, or provincial governor have each set up their
own be, used those people (tami) in willful ways, and divided up the mountains
and seas, the woods and plains, and the lakes and fields of the several
provinces and districts. Conflict among the clans over these possessions has
been incessant. Some chieftains have taken over tens of thousands oishiro of
rice land, and others lack enough land for a place to insert a needle. When the
time comes for paying taxes, these omi, muraji, and occupational group managers
first take their own cut and then divide up or hand over [to officials of the
central government] what is left. When building palaces and burial tombs,
they force be people to perform labor at their personal whim. The Book of
Changes says: "Increase die losses for those above and die advantages for
those below. In this way property will be undamaged and the people unharmed."
But now the people are more destitute dian ever because powerful
clan chieftains divide up the land, sell it to farmers, and collect yearly tribute.
Henceforth the selling of land is forbidden. No one is permitted to become an
unauthorized landlord or to increase, by one iota, the miseries of die weak."
55 Taika I (6465/11/19, NKBT 68.278-9.
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THE GREAT REFORMS 197
In addition to taking a census and making a land survey, the new regime
was attempting to ensure popular acceptance of its new policies.
The imperial edict issued on the first day of the first month of 646
and referred to here as the Four-Article Edict56
is comparable to the
Five-Article Oath of 1868. Each was issued by an emperor at a time
when new leaders had decided to make bold and sweeping political
changes - in the name of the current emperor - that would help the
country to meet the threat of invasion by foreign powers, at first
Chinese and then Western. Unfortunately, the historical significance of
the Four-Article Edict has been clouded by questions about its authenticity
and by a tortuous and largely undocumented process of implementation.
But new evidence and additional study suggests that it was
an imperial proclamation that, by outlining the Great Reforms, stood
midway between the Seventeen Injunctions of 604 and the Taiho code
of 701.
Discovering that the Four-Article Edict contained words and phrases
identical with those occurring in later administrative codes, historians
have been forced to conclude that the edict could not have been written
that early, that it must have been misdated or fabricated. For a time I
(Inoue) went along with such scholars as Tsuda Sokichi who claimed
that the edict could not have been written as early as 646. But further
reflection led me to realize that (1) steps taken during the first six
months of the new administration were in accord with the reforms for
which the edict called and that (2) later orders and reports (recorded in
the Nihon shoki) may be seen as attempts to implement those reforms. I
also found that offices and titles in use after the promulgation of the
Taiho code in 701 had existed at an earlier date, leading me to conclude
that the Nihon shoki compilers had revised the edict's wording.
Although this theory has been subjected to considerable criticism,
several scholars have published findings that support it. Tanaka Tei's
genealogical studies of the Wake clan, for example, show that the first
Wake clan chieftain held a rank first established in 649 and occupied
the position of district supervisor (kori no miyatsuko), that this man's
son and grandson held the same rank and position, and that the Chinese
characters used for recording this rank and position were those
used in both the edict and the later Taiho code. Moreover, thirty-three
wooden blocks (mokkari) bearing the characters for "district" were
excavated in 1966 at Fujiwara where the imperial capital was located
between 694 and 710. On thirty of them the character for "district"
56 Taika 2 (646)/!/!, NKBT 68.280-3.
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198 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
was the one in common use before 701, and on the remaining three
was the one used in the Taiho code. Such evidence suggests that
compilers of the Nihon shoki, who completed their work by 720, thus
attempted to modernize the phraseology of the Four-Article Edict,
squaring it with subsequent codifications of administrative law.
Article 1 of the edict proclaims that the clan possession of people
and land be abolished and that the confiscated property (people and
land) be used henceforth for sustenance households (hehito or jikifu)
granted to high-ranking officials of the imperial government or for
allotments of goods (fuhaku) granted to lower-ranking imperial officials.
Even the most skeptical scholars generally do not doubt that this
article, making up what is referred to as the introductory section, was
written during or before 646. It was a logical product of the concept of
direct imperial rule expressed in the Seventeen Injunctions of 607 and
reiterated in edicts handed down immediately after the reform leaders
seized control in 645. Moreover, the idea that direct imperial rule
meant direct imperial control of all lands and all peoples was not only
reflected in other imperial edicts issued as early as the eighth month of
646 but also lay at the base of later codifications of administrative law.
Indeed, Article 1 was the first clear, authoritative statement of the
basic (Chinese) idea underlying the revolutionary process by which the
old clan order was gradually but surely transformed into a monarchical
state administered by officials appointed by, and responsible to, the
emperor.
Article 2 proclaimed that the capital was to be divided into four
wards headed by able persons, that the home provinces around the
capital were to be headed by new-line provincial inspectors (kuni no
mikotomochi) and divided into districts headed by supervisors who
could read and make calculations, and that a system of post stations,
barriers, and guards was to be enacted. Clearly, the aim was to establish
a local government structure administered by officials of ability
who were responsible to the imperial court. The form of the structure
was undoubtedly influenced by developments in Korea, as well as by
the sixth-century rise of districts {agata) headed by supervisors (agata
no nusht) who served the Yamato kings.57
57 In areas outside the home provinces, direct imperial control was established first through
districts (agata) and district supervisors (agata nushi), rather than through provincial supervisors
(kuni mikotomochi). The creation and use of districts and district supervisors to extend
imperial control are revealed in a Hitachi kunifudoki report of 649 that states that parts of two
old provinces (headed by a kuni no miyatsuko) were made into a district (kori) headed by a
district supervisor (kori no miyatsuko). The official who made this change was called a soryo, a
new title for an official who was somewhat like a provincial supervisor. The history of the
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THE GREAT REFORMS 199
Article 3 provided for the registration of households and the survey
of land. It stipulated that fifty households were to make up one village
(sato) with a headman (osa) who was to supervise the households
within his village, direct the planting of fields and mulberry bushes,
prevent and deal with crime, and enforce the payment of produce and
service taxes (etsuki). As preparation for the land survey, the article
stipulated that an area thirty-by-twelve paces would be one tan, that
ten tan would make up one cho, and that two sheaves and two bundles
of rice should be paid as tax on one tan of rice land (about 3 percent of
the yield).
Article 4 added details about these taxes, stating first that new
produce and service taxes (etsuki) were to be created. The new ones
were (1) a fixed field tax (ta no mitsuki) paid in locally produced cloth
(amounts of different types of cloth for each cho of land were spelled
out); (2) a fixed household tax (hegoto no mitsuki) paid in local produce
(amount per household stated); (3) a horse tax of one horse for every
one hundred households (for every two hundred households if the
horse were a good one); (4) a weapons tax of a sword, armor, bow, and
arrows for each person; (e) a corv6e tax of one worker for every fifty
households (in place of the old tax of one for every thirty households);
and (f) a "rice lady" (uneme) tax of one good-looking sister or daughter
for every official of the rank of assistant district supervisor or above
(one hundred households were to provide rations for the courtesan
who was to be sent to the court with one male and two female attendants,
and the amount of cloth and rice that could be paid in lieu of
one courtesan was the same as that paid in lieu of one corvee worker).*8
During the later months of 646 one imperial edict followed another,
a series of reminders that the state was now being ruled directly by the
emperor. Some edicts reiterated what had been previously proclaimed.
In some cases they condemned (or outlawed) improper behavior by
officials, and even by husbands and wives. One famous edict issued in
the third month of 646 dealt with burials and began with a quotation
from an edict once issued by a Chinese emperor:
creation of local government organs responsible to the emperor was therefore paralleled by
the emergence of new districts and provinces headed by officials serving the court. Old clanconnected
officials were not eliminated, but their power and control were gradually reduced.
See Inoue, Asuka no chotei, pp. 322-5.
58 Article 4 of this famous edict says nothing about the allocation of land among individuals or
about the collection of taxes on such allotments - prominent features of the Taiho administrative
code promulgated in 702. But this does not mean that taxes of this sort were not collected
immediately after the Great Reforms of 645. Rather, at this early date, the court was undoubtedly
giving primary attention to assessments on produce and services. Other differences are
discussed in Inoue, Asuka no chotei, pp. 325-9.
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200 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
In ancient times the dead were buried in graves on high ground. Dirt was not
piled up, nor were trees planted. Coffins were meant to last only until the
body decayed, as were the clothes placed on it. So henceforth I want burial
mounds built only on land that cannot be cultivated and in such a way diat
after a generation has passed, they will not be recognized as graves. No gold,
silver, bronze, or iron is to be placed in them; traditional funeral chariots and
figures are to be represented in clay; and the joints of the coffin are to be filled
with no more than three layers of lacquer. No jewels are to be placed in the
mouth of the deceased, and no jeweled jackets or boxes are to be left beside
the corpse. These all are vulgar practices.&
The Japanese edict did not require the adoption of such ancient Chinese
burial practices but did stipulate that the size and contents of
mounds be in accord with the deceased's position and rank in the
imperial government. For example, a high official could be buried in a
square, Chinese-style mound of about the size of Soga no Umako's,
the inner stone chamber of which could be no larger than nine-by-fiveby-five
shaku. Somewhat smaller chambers could be built for the
burial of a lower-ranking official, but none at all for a commoner. Even
the number of days spent on the construction was limited. The edict
ended with a ban on the sacrifice of retainers and animals at the time of
burial and on the custom by which a eulogist cut his hair or stabbed his
thighs before presenting a eulogy. Such measures were meant to make
sure that burial mounds - always believed to sanctify the power and
authority of the current emperor or chieftain - would show precisely
what position and rank the deceased (and his successor) held in the
imperial order.
The importance assigned to imperial ranks accounts for the establishment
of two new ranking systems, one announced in 647 and the
other in 649. Both were made stronger instruments for state building
by adding high ranks - probably prized more because of their T'ang
flavor - bestowed on ministers who served the emperor directly and
loyally.60
As in other actions taken in these early years of reform the
influence of state scholars who had studied and lived many years in
T'ang China can be detected.
Although the flow of imperial edicts tells us much about the nature
and process of reform during the years after 645, a decision made by
the crown prince about two months after the Four-Article Edict was
handed down seems to have been particulary significant for the
empire-building enterprise. In accordance with this decision, as re-
59 Taika 2 (646X3/22, NKBT 68.292-3.
60 See Inoue, Asuka no chotei, pp. 314-17; and Richard J. Miller, AncientJapanese Nobility, the
Kabane Ranking System (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974).
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THE IMPERIAL STATE 201
ported in a Nihon shoki item for the twenty-second day of the third
month of 646, the crown prince (the future Emperor Tenji) turned
over eighty-one royal estates (miyake) and 524 persons of royal occupational
groups (be) to the emperor, explaining that just as "Heaven does
not have two suns, a country does not have two rulers" and that the
emperor should be served by everyone.61
Probably not many clan
chieftains followed the prince's lead, but his action, together with the
discovery of burial mounds of precisely the size permitted in the edict
on burials, indicates that at least some leaders were obeying the edicts
and subjecting themselves to direct imperial rule.
THE IMPERIAL STATE
In 650, when the reform government was about four years old, T'ang
China allied itself with the Korean kingdom of Silla. To the Japanese
this was a frightening sign of China's intent to dominate the Korean
peninsula and possibly Japan as well. This alliance, followed by Chinese
military advances, aroused Japan's concerns that shaped governmental
policies for decades. The effects can be detected in three massive
currents of historical change in these years. Thefirsthad a military
character and was manifested as resistance against T'ang advances in
Korea and, later on, as frantic attempts to strengthen the country's
defenses against invasion. The second was an administrative current
marked by an extensive use of immigrants and other persons familiar
with continental techniques. The third took the form of internal political
tension that led to civil war in 672 and the establishment of a regime
intent on creating a Chinese-style empire in Japan.
T'ang expansion and Japan's response
The 650 alliance between T'ang and Silla was aimed at Paekche. For
T'ang, the difficulties it faced in Paekche were secondary to its drawnout
war with Koguryo, and for Silla, trouble with Paekche could not
be disentangled from problems with its neighbors, especially Koguryo
to the northwest and Japan across the Tsushima Straits. In Japan, the
implications of the alliance were ominous, leading to a split among the
leaders over the issue of whether the country should take immediate
military action against Silla or simply strengthen its defenses.
Lines were sharply drawn in 651 when envoys from Silla arrived in
61 Taika 2 (646V3/22, NKBT 68.292-3.
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202 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
Tsukushi dressed like T'ang officials. The Japanese court decided that
the mission should be sent home, and the ranking minister of the left
(Kose no Tokuda) addressed a memorial to the throne in which he
advocated preparations for war:
If we do not attack Silla now, we will come to regret it. We should assemble a
great fleet of ships and deploy them on the seas between Naniwa and
Tsukushi. Then we should summon Silla envoys and demand an accounting
for offenses their state has committed. [Backed by such a display of force], we
should then get what we want.62
But no such action was taken. The crown prince and his advisers many
of whom had firsthand knowledge of the situation on the
continent - elected instead to strengthen diplomatic ties with the
T'ang court.
Within a few months they had dispatched to China a mission divided
into two groups taking different routes: the first, made up of 121
persons, proceeded by way of Silla (the northern route), and the second,
with 120 aboard, sailed across the East China Sea (the southern
route). Both contained several scholars and students, suggesting that
the main objective was to obtain more information about the T'ang
control techniques and cultural achievements. The second group met
with disaster soon after leaving port, and only 5 or 6 persons returned
safely. But the first reached its destination and arrived back in Japan
during the seventh month of 654, bringing with it several people who
were soon to become active and prominent in their country's political
and cultural affairs.
Before this group's return in 654, a second mission was sent to the
T'ang court. Departing in two ships headed for China by way of Silla,
it included officials who had already spent several years in China,
including Takamuko no Kuromaro (appointed state scholar by the
reform regime) and Buddhist priest E'nichi (the teacher of Kamatari's
son). When this mission arrived at the T'ang capital and submitted its
gifts and messages, Emperor Kao-tsung greeted it with a statement
that included these words: "Your country has close contact with the
Korean states of Silla, Koguryo, and Paekche. If an urgent situation
develops there, you should dispatch an envoy to us and ask for help."63
Kao-tsung's statement suggests that political interests, as well cultural
ones, had impelled members of Japan's imperial court to send
this second mission to T'ang. The Nihon shoki says nothing to indicate
that the Japanese had heard anything about Chinese plans to send
62 Hakuchi 2(651), NKBT 68.317. 63 Inoue, Asuka no chotei, p. 348.
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THE IMPERIAL STATE 203
military expeditions into Korea, although Emperor Kao-tsung had
already decided, in response to a request for assistance from Silla, to
send an expeditionary force against Koguryo.
Japan's crown prince and ministers must have learned, somehow or
other, about the Tang-Silla alliance and the plans for joint military
action against Koguryo, for the crown prince decided in 653 to abandon
the new imperial palace in the port city of Naniwa and to build a
new one in the Asuka region of the Nara plain. Emperor Kotoku
objected, but the crown prince and key ministers of the court withdrew
to Asuka anyway. We have no record of why the emperor and the
crown prince took different positions on this question. But it would
appear that the former did not see too much danger in the foreign
situation and that the latter (the future Emperor Tenji) wanted the
capital in a place that could be more easily defended against foreign
invasion.
Emperor Kotoku remained on in Naniwa but died a lonely death
there a few months later. Although the crown prince was in line for the
throne, he apparently preferred to govern as crown prince. Therefore
his mother, the former Empress Kogyoku, was enthroned a second
time as Empress Saimei. A new palace was built for her, not in Naniwa
but in the safer inland area of Asuka. This was the Futatsuki palace
located on the peak of a mountain and surrounded by stone walls,
something like the mountain strongholds of Korea. The Nihon shoki
explains that a new canal had to be dug for the two hundred boats that
were used for transporting rocks to the foot of the mountain where the
palace's stone walls were being constructed. The heavy demand for
labor and materials caused people to say that the "canals have been
built by a foolish heart" and to predict that no matter how strong the
forts are made, they will eventually fall.6
*
Such popular discontent - possibly aggravated by the crown prince's
appeasement policy as well as by his expensive defense projects - was a
factor in the Arima incident of 658. Imperial Prince Arima, the eldest
son of Emperor Kotoku by a daughter of the minister of the left, had
strong claims to the throne at the time of his father's death in 654. But
his hopes were dashed when the crown prince's mother was enthroned
as Empress Saimei. The record suggests that Prince Arima was also
upset by the miseries of the people and that he was drawn into a plot
against the throne by Soga no Akae, a grandson of Soga no Umako and a
prominent leader of the defeated Soga clan.
64 Saimei 2 (656), NKBT 68.328-9.
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204 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
While Soga no Akae was guarding the Futatsuki palace in the empress's
absence, he is said to have told Prince Arima that the current
administration had made three serious mistakes. First, it had built
huge public storehouses where the wealth of the people was being
piled up. Second, it had undertaken to dig long canals on which public
revenue was wasted. And third, it had decided to transport large rocks
by boat to high places in the mountains.6
' The first complaint pointed
directly at the policy of increasing public revenue, but the other two
stemmed from the post-653 policy of strengthening defenses against a
possible invasion from abroad.
At first such talk convinced the prince that the time for drastic steps
had come. But then both the prince and Soga no Akae decided that the
situation was not yet ripe for rebellion. At this point Akae leaked the
contents of their discussion to government authorities. Prince Arima
was then arrested and strangled, and his principal backers were sent
into exile. But the chronicles say nothing about punishment for Akae.
Indeed, he was soon appointed to a post in distant Tsukushi but, at the
beginning of Temmu's reign in 672, became minister of the left. Much
remains unclear about the Arima incident of 658, and yet chronicle
reports suggest that the burden of constructing defenses against a
possible invasion from abroad was arousing discontent.
In 660, two years after the Arima incident, T'ang and Silla made a
joint attack on Paekche, the Korean state with which Japan had had
particularly close relations ever since Japan lost its Korean territory
(colony) of Mimana nearly a century before. T'ang military operations
in a region where Japan had always had special interests must have
caused hawkish members of the court to feel they had been right, nine
years earlier, to see signs of danger in the Silla envoys' coming to Japan
dressed in T'ang robes. Until 660 the T'ang-Silla alliance had been
directed against Koguryo, and joint attacks on Koguryo were made as
early as 655; but in the third month of 660 Emperor Kao-tsung suddenly
decided - ostensibly in response to a plea from Silla for assistance
in warding off Paekche invasions of Silla territory - to make a
coordinated military attack on Paekche. A force of 100,000 men under
the Chinese commander Su Ting-fang assisted by a Silla prince
crossed the East China Sea from the Liaotung peninsula, landed on
the Paekche coast, and coordinated its attack with a Silla force from
the east led by Kim Yusin. At the same time King Muyol of Silla
placed two of his sons in command of a force of 50,000 that marched
65 Saimei 4 (658)/! 1/3, NKBT 68.334-5.
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THE IMPERIAL STATE 205
against Paekche from the opposite direction. Within four months the
Silla armies, having won a decisive victory against the Paekche troops
near the present-day city of Yonsan, joined the T'ang armies and
captured the capital city of Sabi (Puyo). The king of Paekche surrendered
and his proud state disappeared.66
Emperor Kao-tsung seems to have been fully aware that joint military
action against Paekche would upset the Japanese, possibly causing
them to rush to Paekche's aid, for he made special efforts to keep the
Japanese envoys from hearing about his plans. We know this because a
member of the Japanese mission that was then in China included a
scholar, Iki no Muraji Hakatoku (later one of the compilers of the
Taiho code), who kept a diary. After describing an interview that
members of his mission had with Emperor Kao-tsung - during which
the emperor asked many questions about the recent Japanese campaigns
against the Ainu (written up in the Nihon shoki) - Hakatoku
wrote that suddenly in the twelfth month of 659, he and other members
of the mission were taken into custody and prevented from leaving
Ch'ang-an. Charges against them were soon dropped, but the
emperor handed down an order stating that because an "eastern campaign"
was being waged in the following year, the Japanese visitors
would not be permitted to depart. Only in the ninth month of 660, a
month or so after Paekche had been destroyed, were the Japanese
envoys allowed to depart.67
But as soon as the T'ang armies had been withdrawn from Paekche
and plans were made for the resumption of the long-standing conflict
with Koguryo, a restorationist movement developed within Paekche,
and its leaders appealed to Japan for help. According to the Nihon shoki,
the appeal was made by messengers who arrived in Japan during the
tenth month of 660, a month after the Japanese envoys to T'ang had
been released. The messengers from Paekche asked not only for troops
but also for the return of Prince P'ung, a member of the Paekche royal
family who had been sent to Japan as a hostage in 631 and whom
restoration leaders planned to enthrone as king of a new Paekche.68
By the time these messengers had arrived in Japan, Japanese court
leaders must have known that they faced a truly threatening situation
abroad. They had already received numerous firsthand reports of
T'ang power and expansion and must have heard that Paekche had
66 Inoue, Asuka no chotei, pp. 369-71; and Denis Twitchett and Howard J. Wechsler, "Kaotsung
(Reign 649-83) and the Empress Wu: The Inheritor and the Usurper," in Cambridge
History of China, vol. 3, p. 282.
67 Saimei 5 (659)/7/3, NKBT 68.338-41. 68 Saimei 6 (66o)/io, NKBT 68.346-7.
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206 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
been crushed by a coordinated pincer attack from the T'ang and Silla
armies. They undoubtedly feared that Koguryo, too, would be eliminated
and that Japan itself would soon be threatened by T'ang might.
No one at court seems, therefore, to have opposed support for the
rebels. (In fact, a decision to provide help may actually have been
made before assistance was requested.) Empress Saimei quickly took
the uprecedented step of going to Tsukushi in order to assume personal
command of the expeditionary force.
The empress and other key members of the court (including the
crown prince and Kamatari) left the capital for Tsukushi in the twelfth
month of 660, two months after the arrival of the restorationist plea.
Meanwhile, the T'ang emperor was making plans for a massive invasion
of Koguryo. The Paekche leaders undoubtedly made certain that
this information was rushed to Japan. Shortly after arriving in Kyushu,
the empress received the Japanese envoys who had been prevented
from leaving Ch'ang-an. Hakatoko, the scholar member of the
mission who had been keeping a diary, wrote about being received by
the empress and added, "Everyone here is saying that Japan will soon
be faced with Heaven's retribution."69
Not long after their meeting, the empress died. Prince Naka no
Oe - Emperor Jomei's son who stood at the head of the triumvirate
that pulled off the 645 coup and who had administered state affairs as
crown prince under three sovereigns - did not now hesitate to occupy
the throne as Emperor Tenji and to expedite the mobilization for war
in support of Paekche. By the eighth month of 661, armies had been
formed for the expedition, and before another month had passed,
Prince P'ung had been returned to Paekche. Probably the first military
units were sent to Korea at about that time, although the Nihon
shoki says that this did not occur until the following year when Prince
P'ung was installed as the new king of a restored Paekche. Meanwhile,
Emperor Kao-tsung had ordered his troops to invade Kogury6 from
the north, having asked Silla to support the operation with armies and
supplies.
Then suddenly during the third month of 662, T'ang forces were
withdrawn from Koguryo, presumably in order to deal with the
Paekche restoration movement that had gained legitimacy from the
enthronement of a new king, and aided by Japanese troops and supplies.
During the previous several months of 662 the rebels had increased
their control over areas around the old Paekche capital, and
69 Saimei 7 (66O/5/23, NKBT 68.350-1.
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THE IMPERIAL STATE 207
for a time they were able to hold out against the armies of Silla and
T'ang. But early in 663 Silla's attacks were stepped up, and the
Paekche restoration leader (Poksin) was forced to seek further assistance
from Japan, presenting some T'ang prisoners as evidence that
his armies were putting up a good fight. Japan had already sent thousands
of troops, considerable amounts of supplies, and a fleet of 170
ships. In the fifth month of 663, Kao-tsung is said to have mobilized
100,000 soldiers for a campaign against the Paekche recalcitrants and
to have ordered Silla's King Munmu to send armies to attack Paekche
from the east.
Both T'ang and Korean sources (the Chiu T'ang-shu and the Samguk
sagi) report that Silla troops, accompanied by ships loaded with supplies,
moved down the Kum River where they joined T'ang forces in
the eighth month of 663, that a historic naval battle was fought at the
mouth of the Kum River, and that four hundred Japanese ships were
sunk. The Nihon shoki also describes the twenty-seventh day of the
eighth month of 663:
The T'ang again assembled their ships for battle, and in a short time Japanese
forces were defeated. Many of our men were thrown into the water and
drowned, and our ships were unable to maneuver. Commander Echi no
Takatsu prayed to heaven for victory, gnashed his teeth in anger, slew tens
of enemy soldiers, and died in battle. It was after this that King P'ungchang
of Paekche, with several retainers, boarded a ship and fled to
Koguryo.'0
To this report was added the comment that people were now saying
that Paekche no longer existed. Japan, having lost its foothold in the
Korean kingdom of Mimana (Kaya) a century before (in 562), was
now completely excluded from the Asian continent. The T'ang empire,
on the other hand, had made Paekche into a strong base for its
attempt to subjugate the entire Korean peninsula. This was a sharp
blow to Emperor Tenji and Nakatomi no Kamatari - Japan's famous
reformers - that presented new dangers, both abroad and at home.
Before the year had passed, the Chinese commander in charge of the
Paekche occupation sent an official, Kuo Wu-ts'ung, to Japan with
messages and presents. Already, a puppet king had been set up in the
old Paekche capital of Ungjin, and attempts had been made to cement
ties between the kings of Paekche and Silla. It is therefore assumed
that Kuo-Wu-ts'ung's primary objective was to persuade Japan to
recognize occupied Paekche as an integral part of the Chinese empire.
70 Tenchi 2 (663)78/27, NKBT 68.358-60.
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208 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
Because Kuo-ts'ung had not been sent by Emperor Kao-tsung or by
the king of an independent Korean state, he was not invited to the
Japanese capital or given the royal treatment accorded an official diplomat.
Indeed, Kuo and his party never got closer to the capital than
Kyushu. But the Nihon shoki states that - after the lapse of five
months and the receipt of an imperial decree ordering the mission to
leave - Kuo received presents from Minister of the Center Nakatomi
no Kamatari and was entertained.?'
The Chinese did their best to encourage Paekche and Silla to
become friendly and cooperative components of the T'ang empire.
The kings of the two states were first required to meet and take vows
of friendship. Then in 665 they were brought together again, this
time at Ungjin where they worshiped various deities together and
accepted some of each other's blood. Even old border disputes were
settled.
During the ninth month of 665, a second mission arrived in Japan
from T'ang-controlled Paekche. This one, headed by a high official
from the T'ang court and made up of 254 persons, submitted documents
with acceptable wording. Consequently, the party was allowed
to proceed to the capital where it was properly welcomed. Not long
after that, Japan dispatched envoys to the T'ang court, the first sent to
China since the collapse of Paekche in 663. So within approximately
two years, Japan had reestablished friendly relations with not only
Paekche and Silla but T'ang as well.
But in 667 the Japanese view of the foreign scene was again darkened
by Emperor Kao-tsung's decision to try, once more, to conquer
Koguryo, which had successfully checked the military advances of one
Chinese emperor after another since the early seventh century. Encouraged
by internal dissension within Koguryo and the likelihood of
substantial military assistance from both Silla and Paekche, T'ang
armies crossed Koguryo borders in 667 and headed for P'yongyang, its
capital. These armies had to be withdrawn but were once more sent
against Koguryo in the following year, after they were placed under
the command of a naval officer (Liu Jen-kuei) who had succeeded in
repelling Japanese ships at the mouth of the Kum River in 663. By the
ninth month of 668, the coordinated attacks of T'ang and Silla - not
unlike earlier ones against Paekche - brought about the fall of P'yongyang
and the collapse of Koguryo.
In the face of a T'ang takeover, Koguryo sent two missions to Japan
71 Tenchi 3 (664X6/4, NKBT 68.361-2.
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THE IMPERIAL STATE 209
in 667. Their objective, as in the case of the Paekche missions dispatched
a few years earlier, was to obtain military assistance. But by
this time the Japanese court had lost its taste for military intervention
on the Korean peninsula. Moreover, it had now made its peace with
the Chinese occupation regime in Paekche and even sent off a mission
to the T'ang court. Just before the arrival of the second group of
Koguryo emissaries, envoys had also entered Japan from SiUa, the first
since 651 when Japanese officials were upset by Silla officials appearing
in Chinese robes. Now the Silla envoys (no doubt dressed as
before) were well received, indicating that the Japanese had come to
accept both Paekche and Silla as integral parts of the expanding T'ang
empire and were not tempted to respond to the Koguryo request for
military assistance.
Defense measures
The three T'ang invasions of the Korean peninsula during the 660s the
first, joint military action with Silla against Paekche in 660; the
second, the destruction of the Japan-supported Paekche restoration
in 663; and the third, the subjugation of Koguryo in 668 - caused
Japanese leaders to become quite frantic about the possibility of a
T'ang invasion of Japan. Having noted the attention given to defense
in the early 650s, after word had reached the court about a T'angSilla
alliance, it is not surprising to find that now, following the rout
of Japanese naval and ground forces in 663, far more attention was
given to the task of strengthening defense.
In the wake of the Kum River disaster, the Japanese moved immediately
to build forts on Tsushima and Iki (islands located between the
southern tip of Korea and Kyushu) and at strategic places in northeastern
Kyushu. Along this fortified line were installed watertowers by
which information on enemy movements could be quickly transmitted.
The military headquarters were established at Dazai-fu, high in
the mountains behind Hakata Bay. Dazai-fu was in turn protected by
forts constructed on peaks to the north and the south, as well as by
what was called a water fortress (mizukt) built along the Mikasa River
thatflowedfrom Dazai-fu to Hakata Bay. The Nihon shoki merely tells
us that the water fortress, constructed in 664, had high embankments
for the storage of water. The remains of eastern and western gates
reveal the fortress's original location and size. Some historians theorize
that the water fortress was essentially a reservoir from which water
could be released against approaching enemy soldiers, but others wonCambridge
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210 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
der whether it was meant to supply water for the moats of neighboring
strongholds. Remains of mountain forts built to the north and south of
Dazai-fu indicated the presence of stone walls within which fairly large
structures (with stone foundations) had been built, probably for the
storage of weapons and food.
After 667 when the T'ang had begun to organize joint military
action against Koguryo and the Japanese had become more disturbed
than ever about a possible T'ang invasion of their country, preparations
to defend Japan became fevered. On the island of Tsushima, for
example, a stone wall 6 meters high and 2,370 meters long was
erected. In addition, new forts were constructed at strategic positions
along the Inland Sea, for Japanese leaders now feared that enemy
forces (T'ang or Silla) might make a successful landing in Kyushu and
advance up the Inland Sea toward the capital. Assuming that enemy
soldiers might force their way past the Nagato fort at the western
entrance to the Inland Sea, they erected another major fort in 667 at
Yashima on a 300-meter-high promontory to the west of the Takamatsu
harbor where the Inland Sea approach to the capital could be
better guarded. In that same year the Takayasu fort was erected on a
mountain near the capital, at a position from which defenders could
watch for an enemy advance on the capital from the Inland Sea.72
But
at none of these defense works - earthen or stone forts, watchtowers,
armories, or water fortresses - do we find evidence of techniques not
known in Korea, suggesting that here (as in many other areas) Japan
was benefiting from an extensive use of skilled refugees from Paekche.
Korean expertise
References in the Nihon shoki to Korean migrations to Japan after the
T'ang invasions ofKorea in the 660s, together with evidenceofa concurrent
spread of Korean styles and methods in whatever the Japanese were
making and doing point to a substantial influx of Korean artisans,
builders, administrators, and various specialists: persons with continental
know-how whose services could be used to strengthen the state,
increase its revenues, and tighten its control. Chronicle references to
such migrations provide evidence of two distinct waves: one from
Paekche after its demise in 663 and another from Koguryo after it had
been eliminated in 668 (see Map 3.1).
The first extant account of the arrival of refugees from Paekche
72 Inoue, Asuka no chotei, pp. 395-8.
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THE IMPERIAL STATE 211
Map 3.1 Fall of Paekche and Koguryo. (From Denis Twitchett, ed.,
Sui and Tang China 589-906, Part I, vol. 3 of The Cambridge History
of China, Cambridge University Press, 1978, p. 283.)
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212 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
appears in a 665 report that one high-placed Paekche refugee was
granted court rank in Japan and four hundred Paekche commoners
were settled in the province of Omi, probably at a place where the
government was opening up some new land for the cultivation of rice.
Then an item for the following year mentions that two thousand more
men and women from Paekche were settled in provinces to the east
and that the government had agreed to cover their living costs for a
period of three years. Finally, a 669 chronicle entry states that two
former Paekche ministers of state (including a man who was later
granted court rank) arrived in Japan with more than seven hundred
Paekche men and women who were subsequently settled in the Kamo
District of Omi Province. All these Koreans arrived in what may be
called the post-663 Paekche wave.
The second wave was made up of persons whofledfrom Koguryo to
Japan after 668, when their country was forced into the T'ang empire.
Some migrations of this type were deemed sufficiently important for
inclusion in the contemporary official chronicle, but only some years
later. The first second-wave entry was for the year 687, stating that 56
persons from Koguryo were then settled in the province of Hitachi.
The second one (dated 716) reports that 1,799 more were placed in
Suruga (present-day Shizuoka Prefecture) as well as in other provinces
to the east.73 The lateness of the reports on Koguryo arrivals suggests
that members of this post-668 wave were motivated by reports of
opportunities in Japan.
Many immigrants, whether from Paekche or Koguryo, were members
of the elite who had lost, or felt they might lose, their positions
under T'ang rule and who knew that their skills and education would
be appreciated in Japan. Convincing support for this conclusion is
provided by a Nihon shoki report for the year 671 that as many as
seventy Paekche officials were awarded Japanese court rank.7
* At the
top of the list stood two Paekche officials on whom was bestowed the
fourth rank junior grade. One of these, Satthek Syo-Myong, was referred
to as a vice-minister of justice, a man who was one of the six
officials assigned to the department set up for compiling the Omi
administrative code. (According to the Kaden, he was also selected
because of his literary distinction to write the epitaph for Nakatomi no
Kamatari who died in 669.) The third Paekche official on the list,
Kwisil Chip-Sa, was awarded the fifth rank junior grade and was
73 Ibid,, pp. 399-400. 74 Tenchi 10 (671)/!, NKBT 68.376-7.
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THE IMPERIAL STATE 213
referred to as the head of the department of education, probably chief
of the University Bureau (Daigakuryo) set up at about that time. Six
others were awarded the sixth rank junior grade: Four were specialists
in military science and two in medicine. More than fifty were granted
the seventh rank junior grade, including two more medical men, a
person familiar with the Confucian Classics, a devotee of yin-yang
(on'yo) philosophy, and fifty or so followers of a high-ranking specialist
in military science. The various fields in which these immigrants specialized,
as well as the high ranks they received, leave little doubt that
the Japanese court was determined, at this time of increasing anxiety
about T'ang advances in the direction of Japan, to make extensive use
of Korean experts for an accelerated and wide-ranging program of
modernization.
State control
The introduction of advanced foreign methods and techniques was
probably most evident in the military field, but the Tenji court was
also adopting other continental methods for increasing state control.
As early as 664, just a few months after Japan's humiliating defeat in
Korea, Emperor Tenji ordered his younger brother (Crown Prince
Oama, who was to become Emperor Temmu) (1) to revise and increase
the number of court ranks; (2) to appoint the heads of clans and award
large swords to the strongest, small swords to the less strong, and
shields and bows to those who were also occupational group managers;
and (3) to appoint occupational group heads as kakibe and yakabe.™
A chronicle statement that this order was carried out in 671,76
seven
years later, has led some historians to believe that it was not handed
down until 671. But a study of the wording and contents of the two
references makes us think that seven years might have been required
to align appointments with appropriate stipends and ranks and that
the 664 order was part of an ambitious attempt to use continental
models and experts for erecting a strong, hierarchical system of state
control.
The fact that Tenji's order was implemented in 671, the very year that
so many Paekche officials were awarded high ranks for services rendered
in specialfieldsofknowledge, suggests that this was one aspect of
a multidirectional drive to construct a tighter, continental-style administrative
system. Two other political developments between 667 (when
75 Tenchi 3 (664)72/9, NKBT 68.360-1. 76 Tenchi 10 (67i)/i/6, NKBT 68.376-7.
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214 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
T'ang was pressing Silla to join it in military operations against
Koguryo) and 672 (when civil war broke out in Japan) make these years
an important turning point in Japanese history: (1) the removal of the
capital of Otsu in the province of Omi during the third month of667 and
(2) the formal enthronement of Tenji as emperor in the first month of
668. These two events, as well as the new administrative arrangements
and the granting of court rank to Paekche refugees, are seen as byproducts
of the current preoccupation with danger from abroad.
Tenji's decision to have his palace built outside the Nara plain, on a
narrow strip of land between mountains and the southwestern shore of
Lake Biwa, has been considered by some historians as a step required
by the rise of increasingly strong feeling of discontent among important
clans in the Asuka region, where the previous imperial palace had
been located. But we think of this decision, made immediately after
the T'ang and Silla moves against Koguryo were reported, as an extension
of the crash program to fortify strategic points along the Inland
Sea and on mountains overlooking the plain that lay between the
Inland Sea and the Asuka capital. For defensive purposes, the new
Otsu capital had two advantages: It was quite far from Naniwa shores
where enemy forces might land, and it was convenient for overland
communication with the eastern and northern provinces from which
crucial military support might be obtained.
Likewise, the long delay in holding Tenji's enthronement ceremony,
coming after he had already ruled for six years, can be thought of as
resulting from a desire to avoid unnecessary expenditures of time and
resources while extraordinary steps were being taken to strengthen the
country's defenses against a possible invasion. Scheduling the enthronement
ceremony in 668, after a new imperial palace had been
built and occupied, was probably considered useful for affirming and
sanctifying imperial authority in the face of critical danger, both at
home and abroad.
One other significant event before 672 was the handing down of the
imperial order in 668 that administrative laws (ryo) be compiled. Because
no such compilation is now extant and no mention of such an
order can be found in the Nihon shoki, readers may be a bit uneasy
about concluding that Tenji actually took such action. Nonetheless,
historical evidence for this conclusion has been discovered in the following
items, and in the way they reinforce one another:
1. A statement in the kaden (the first volume of which was thought to
have been compiled between 760 and 764 by Kamatari's second son)
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THE IMPERIAL STATE 215
reveals that (a) in 668 Emperor Tenji ordered Kamatari to compile
ceremonial regulations (reigi) and a code of law (ritsutyd), (b) Kamatari
was selected to head the compilation because he was considered
the leading intellectual of the day and was familiar with ancient
writings, and (c) articles (jorei) for such a code were actually written.
2. An item in the introduction to the Konin kyakushiki (amendments
to penal and administrative law compiled in 820) stating that a
twenty-two-volume administrative code was compiled in 668.
3. A Nihon shoki report that Emperor Tenji adopted ceremonial regulations
(reigi) in 670.
4. A Nihon shoki item stating that the crown prince was appointed
chancellor (daijd daijin) and that other persons were named minister
of the left, minister of the right, and senior counselor (gyoshi
daibu) on the fifth day of the first month of 671.
5. A Nihon shoki announcement that "cap ranks" (koburi no kurai) and
laws (won) were promulgated on the following day.
6. A Nihon shoki item that states that Emperor Temmu called imperial
princes and ministers into the Great Hall of State (Daigokuden) on
the twenty-fifth day of the second month of 681 and said: "We
want to have the penal and administrative [ritsuryo] codes and laws
revised. Work together in getting this done. But if you become too
deeply involved in such work, state affairs will suffer. Therefore
the work should be divided among you.""
The most detailed evidence is in Item 1. But standing alone it does not
carry much weight because the first volume of the Kaden was probably
not written until a century later. And yet by comparing the contents of
this history with what is in the Nihon shoki, it seems that although the
compilers of both had access to many of the the same sources, the
author of the Kaden had some additional ones. Moreover, Item 1 states
that Kamatari was asked to compile ceremonial regulations (reigi) and
a code of law, both of which appeared in Chinese formulations. The
compilers of Item 2 had no reason to fabricate the statement that a
code had been compiled in 668. To be sure, the Nihon shoki does not
record that Tenji ordered the formulation of a law code, but Item 3
states that ceremonial regulations were promulgated in 670. Items 4
and 5 would make more sense if a code had been assembled before
671. Finally, the use of the word revised in item 6 indicates that a code
was already in existence, and according to Chinese tradition this code
77 Temmu 10(680/2/25, NKBT 68.444-5.
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2l6 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
would have been the one compiled at the beginning of the previous
Tenji reign.
When taking an overall view of events in these last years of Tenji's
reign, between the coronation of 668 and the emperor's death in 672,
we can detect unmistakable signs of two parallel historical movements:
an increasingly intense and multifaceted effort to strengthen the nation's
defenses against the possibility that T'ang and its ally Silla might
move to destroy Japan, just as they had destroyed Paekche in 663 and
Koguryo in 668, and a radier feverish drive to strengdien the state by
creating a continental-style control system backed by the formulation
and implementation of an administrative law code. Both movements
were affected by a growing fear of foreign invasion and by the realization
that T'ang (as well as the subjugated Korean kingdoms of
Paekche and Koguryo) had control mechanisms that were far more
advanced than those of Japan.
The civil war 0/672
The origins of the conflict that erupted into civil war during the year
672 - thereby propelling a new set of leaders into positions of power can
be traced back to the discontent aroused by Emperor Tenji's
efforts to build an extensive defense system and to the Arima incident
of 658. (See Map 3.2.) Old clan rivalries, often highlighted by attempts
of Soga leaders to recapture the positions of control they had
once enjoyed, were in evidence at every successive stage of disruption.
But the discontent and rivalry did not break out into civil war until
powerful groups became divided over the question of who should be
the next emperor.
Tenji and his court had decided in 664 that he should be succeeded by
his younger brother Prince Oama, who was then appointed crown
prince and later became Emperor Temmu. But before his formal enthronement
in 668, Tenji apparently had a change of mind, coming to
prefer Prince Otomo, his favorite son by a beloved courtesan. Perhaps it
was Tenji's change of heart that caused his younger brother, the crown
prince and the future Emperor Temmu, to create a scene at a party given
in the new Otsu palace during 668, by suddenly seizing a spear and
ramming it into the floor. The Kaden's account of the incident states
that only the intervention by Kamatari prevented further violence.78
78 According to this Fujiwara account, Emperor Temmu was thenceforth indebted to Fujiwara
no Kamatari. The compiler of the first volume, a grandson of Kamatari, was implying that
Kamatari's death in 669 had unfortunately removed that great man's stabilizing leadership,
just when the discord between Tenji and Temmu was erupting into open conflict.
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THE IMPERIAL STATE 217
\
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Map 3.2 Troop movements in the civil war of 672. (Based on Inoue
Mitsusada, Asuka no chotei, 1974, p. 430.)
For the next three years discord between the two brothers (Emperor
Tenji and the future Emperor Temmu) did not result in an open break.
But in 671, two years after Kamatari's death, Tenji revealed his true
intentions when making ministerial appointments in accordance with
the new administrative arrangements. To no one's surprise he appointed
Soga no Akae (prominent in the Arima incident of 658) as
minister of the left and Nakatomi no Kane (a brother of Kamatari) as
minister of the right. But to the crown prince's chagrin he named
Prince Otomo (his favorite son) to the office of chancellor, the highest
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2l8 THE CENTURY OF REFORM
ministerial post of all. The prince knew that under the terms of the
new administrative code, a chancellor had to be an imperial son acting
as regent (sessho) for the emperor. So this appointment left little doubt
that Tenji was planning on being succeeded by Prince Otomo, not by
the crown prince.
In the tenth month of that same year, Emperor Tenji became ill and,
according to the Nihon shoki, called the crown prince to his bedside
and told him: "All matters are henceforth to be left in your hands."
But the crown prince is said to have demurred on grounds of ill health
and to have recommended that state affairs be handed over to the
empress consort and to Prince Otomo. Finally, he is reported also to
have asked for permission to seclude himself in the Yoshino Mountains
in order to devote himself to Buddhism. Tenji apparently agreed to
both requests, whereupon the crown prince, accompanied by attendants
and immediate members of his family, left the capital. A later
entry in the Nihon shoki states that the crown prince had been advised,
in advance of the meeting, to be very careful about what he said in the
emperor's presence, suggesting that neither he nor the emperor was
saying precisely what he thought or wanted.79
A few days before the emperor's death, Prince Otomo and the
leading ministers of state vowed, in front of a Buddha figure, to obey
the emperor's commands, which presumably included die command
that Otomo, and not the crown prince, be enthroned as the next
emperor. Although the Nihon shoki presents the official view that the
Temmu reign began as soon as the Tenji one ended, it also shows that
ten months (including two months of military combat) passed before
Temmu was able to return to the capital and take up the reins of
government. Consequently, the chronicle's coverage for these months
has a strange cast: It treats the ultimately successful prince (Temmu)
as the emperor (tenno) who is fighting a just cause from outside the
Otsu capital, whereas it refers to the ultimately unsuccessful prince
(Otomo) and his supporters as persons "at the capital" (miyako).
Scholars have long studied the available evidence to determine who
really was emperor before Temmu's military victory in the tenth
month of 672. The Mito historians who compiled the Dai Nihon shi
between 1657 and 1906 decided that Prince Otomo had been enthroned
and that he was therefore the emperor of Japan during this
ten-month period. Later, a famous early modern historian, Ban
Nobutomo (1775-1846), took the same position. And then in 1870
79 Tenchi 10 (67i)/io/i7 and Temmu, Introduction (671), NKBT 68.378-9, 382-3.
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THE IMPERIAL STATE 2IO.
Prince Otomo was posthumously named Emperor Kobun. So the imperial
chronologies now list Kobun's reign before Temmu's. But we
still have no proof that Prince Otomo was ever actually enthroned.
Some historians believe that Tenji's empress consort was placed on the
throne without being formally enthroned and that Prince Otomo, as
the heir designate, handled state affairs in her behalf, just as Temmu
had recommended. But possibly no one occupied the throne during
those disturbed months, in which case Otomo would still have handled
state affairs as chancellor.
The outbreak of war came in the sixth month of 672 when according
to the Nikon shoki, Temmu issued the following order:
We hear that ministers at the Omi court are plotting against us. The three of
you are therefore to proceed immediately to the province of Mino and to
report to 0 no Omi Homuji, who is in charge of my Yuno estate in the district
of Ahachima. Tell him the main points of our strategy and have him first
mobilize troops in his district and then get in touch with the provincial
governors and have them mobilize armies and immediately block the Fuwa
road [to the capital]. We are starting now.80
This first order, as well as later information about the support provided
(or withheld) by clan chieftains in various parts of the country,
indicates that the key question was which side could obtain the backing
of leaders in Japan's eastern and northern provinces. By heading
off across the mountains to the eastern provinces of Iga and Ise,
Temmu and his sons were moving quickly and directly to obtain support
from regions to the east and north. Word was soon received that
the Fuwa road had been successfully cut, but Temmu still had difficulty,
as only small bands of soldiers came to his support. (See Map
3.2.)
But Temmu's prospects for success suddenly brightened when the
governor of Ise Province sentfivehundred soldiers to close the Suzuka
pass by which Temmu might be pursued from the capital. Then the
governors of other eastern provinces (Owari and Mino and possibly
Shinano and Kai) joined up, enabling Temmu to move from defense to
offense at the beginning of the seventh month. Meanwhile, Prince
Otomo, realizing that Temmu had cut his lines to the east and north
and was obtaining support from leaders in those regions, set out to
obtain military forces from areas in the west and south. But the governors
of Kibi and Tsukushi refused to cooperate, possibly because they
saw no chance of defeating Temmu and his backers from the north and
80 Temmu I (672)76/22, NKBT 68.386-7.
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22O THE CENTURY OF REFORM
east. But the excuse given by the governor of Tsukushi, as recorded in
the Nihon shoki, is instructive:
From the beginning, the province of Tsukushi has provided protection against
external trouble. Did we build lofty battlements overlooking the sea and surrounded
by deep moats in order to cope with internal trouble? If we were now
to hold ourselves in awe of the prince's command and mobilize troops, the
province would be left unprotected. And then if the expected foreign trouble
should suddenly materialize, the state would soon be overturned.81
So even at this time of internal strife, the situation abroad could not be
overlooked.
The final thrust against the capital was made by two of Temmu's
armies: one crossing the mountains into Yamato from Ise and the other
advancing down the Fuwa road toward the capital. In about three
weeks both armies had won decisive victories. At that point Prince
Otomo committed suicide; his minister of the right was executed;
other high officials and their heirs were sent into exile; and Temmu,
now truly the emperor, moved into the new palace (the Asuka
Kiyomihara) in Yamato. From an entirely different power base,
Temmu and his supporters now moved the course of history in a new
direction: toward the development of an imperium known as the Nara
state, the subject of Chapter 4.
81 Temmu I (672)/6/26, NKBT 68.391-3.
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CHAPTER 4
THE NARA STATE
This chapter will be devoted to the remarkable century that began
with the civil war of 672 (jinshin no ran) and ended with the removal of
the capital from Nara in 784. In these years the occupants of the
throne, while attempting to rule directly in the Chinese manner, gradually
shifted their attention from military preparation to (1) the development
of religious rites and institutions, both Shinto and Buddhist, that
would enhance the sacral side of their authority; (2) the building of
T'ang-style capitals that would sanctify and legitimize their rule over
the emerging Japanese state; and (3) the establishment of a bureaucratic
system (like the one in T'ang China) that would increase state
control over all lands and peoples. The Ise Grand Shrine where the
ancestral kami of the Imperial clan is worshiped, as well as the Todai-ji
where the universal Buddha continues to be honored as the central
object of worship, stand as lasting monuments to the religious activity
of emperors and empresses who ruled first from Fujiwara and then
Nara. The remains of political centers throughout the country have
come down to us as concrete evidence of ambitious capital-building
projects centered on Nara, thereby justifying the practice of referring
to the years between 710 and 784 as the Nara period. Finally, what we
know of the Taiho administrative code (modeled after Chinese codes)
indicates that the formulation and implementation of law were basic to
the rise of Nara's bureaucratic state, leading a number of scholars to
characterize the period as the time of a "penal and administrative
legal" (ritsuryo) order.
Although all these activities - military, religious, political, and
legal - were carried out concurrently, historians detect three distinct
waves of change. The first, beginning with Emperor Temmu's victory
in the civil war of 672 and ending with the drafting of the Yoro code in
718, saw the laying of the foundation for a strong and centralized
imperium. The second, starting with the completion of the splendid
Nara capital in 710 and ending with the dedication of the imposing
statue of the Rushana Buddha in 752, was marked by the erection of
221
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222 THE NARA STATE
spectacular symbols of imperial authority. The third, dating roughly
from the Fujiwara no Hirotsugu rebellion of 740 and continuing to the
removal of the capital from Nara in 784, witnessed a continuing erosion
of imperial control.
LAYING THE FOUNDATION
Before considering what Emperor Temmu (d. 686) and his successors
did to increase the strength and unity of Japan's imperial state, let us
look at contemporary political conditions.
The external and internal situation
Long before Temmu had reached the throne by winning the civil war
of 672, he had become well aware of threatening developments
abroad. In 663, when a Japanese naval force of some four hundred
ships was roundly defeated in Korean waters by the combined might
of T'ang and Silla, Temmu was thirty-three years old. As crown prince
and younger brother of the reigning emperor, he would have been
privy to reports received in 668 that the Korean state of Koguryo had
been incorporated into the T'ang empire. Like other persons at court,
he was undoubtedly disturbed by signs of T'ang's westward expansion
and shocked to hear in 671, just before the outbreak of civil war, that a
huge T'ang mission was on its way to Japan. He and other officials
learned of this mission from a report dispatched by the governor of
Tsukushi stating that
six hundred T'ang envoys headed by Kuo ts'ung and escorted by Minister of
the Left Sen-teung of Paekche with fourteen hundred men - a mission of two
thousand persons transported in forty-seven ships - have arrived at the island
of Hichishima. The envoys are afraid that because the number of their men
and ships is large, an unannounced arrival will alarm the Japanese guards and
cause them to start fighting. Consequently, Doku and [three] others are being
sent to give advance notice that the mission intends to proceed to the imperial
court.1
Probably only six hundred members of the mission were Chinese (the
other fourteen hundred were apparently Japanese prisoners captured
in 663), but the approach of such a large mission at this particular time
must have created consternation at the Omi court and at Temmu's
1 Nihon shoki Tenji 10 (671) 11/10, Sakamoto Taro, Ienaga Saburo, Inoue Mitsusada, and Ono
Susumu, eds., Nihon koten bungaku taikei (hereafter cited as NKBT) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,
1967), vol. 68, p. 379.
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LAYING THE FOUNDATION 223
residence in the Yoshino Mountains. But apparently the mission's
objective was merely to obtain Japanese assistance for the Chinese
occupational base in Paekche, which was then facing rebellion in
Paekche and aggressive action by the neighboring kingdom of Silla.2
In 672, while Temmu was winning decisive military victories within
Japan and assuming the duties of emperor, an even more threatening
situation emerged in Korea. After hearing earlier reports of the collapse
of Paekche and Koguryo, Japanese leaders were confronted with
an alliance between T'ang China and Silla. Then as Japan's civil war
was coming to a close, word was received that Silla, Japan's old enemy,
was breaking its ties with T'ang and moving to seize control of the
entire Korean peninsula. The first sign of Silla's ambitions surfaced
when its leaders sent troops to the support of Koguryo rebels. But in
673 the break became open and irreversible as Silla armies captured a
Paekche fort and seized the surrounding territory. T'ang was, of
course, angered by such action and made plans in 674 for retaliation,
but war was avoided when the Silla king apologized. Nonetheless, the
king and his generals appeared to be more determined than ever to
make Silla the dominant state of Korea.
By 676 Silla had extended its control over so much of Korea that
China was forced to move its occupation headquarters from P'yongyang
to a safer place in Liao-tung and to recall its officials from
Koguryo, thereby leaving Silla with hegemony over all territory south
of the Taedong River. In 678 the Chinese talked again of invading Silla
but did not because more urgent problems had arisen at other points
along the empire's outer rim. Therefore, in the years of Temmu's
reign, Japan was faced with a different but nevertheless serious threat:
a powerful Silla - traditionally hostile to Japan - that had expanded
its authority to all but the northern reaches of Korea by driving back
the mighty T'ang.
This foreign threat made Temmu and his court painfully aware of
internal divisions and disunity, arousing in him and his court a determination
to unify and strengthen the state as quickly as possible. In
planning new reforms and pressing for the implementation of old
ones, they still followed Chinese models. But a study of the measures
taken after 672 suggests that Japanese planners were also influenced
2 Because the Chinese mission was still in Tsukushi at the time of Tenji's death, court messengers
were sent there to report his death. The Nikon shoki states that the Chinese envoy sent a
message of condolence to the court. We do not know the contents of the message. Because
fairly large amounts of cloth were sent as gifts to the envoy, we can assume that material
assistance had been requested; Temmu i (672) 3/18, 3/21, and 5/12, NKBT 68.384-5.
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224 THE NARA STATE
by the weaknesses of the two defeated Korean states (Paekche and
Koguryo), as well as by the strengths of the victorious Silla.
When comparing Japan's organizational arrangements with those of
the Korean states, Temmu and his ministers must have noted that
Paekche and Koguryo had been plagued by disunity and dissension,
which seemed to account for their subjugation by Chinese armies. And
when looking at the state system of the victorious Silla, Japanese
leaders undoubtedly saw that its kingly control was firmly rooted in a
ministerial support reinforced by the principle of harmonious discussion
(wahaku). Whereas the king of Paekche stood well above and
apart from his ministers and the Koguryo king's position was largely
nominal, the ruler of Silla headed a political order that seemed to be a
product of ruling-class will. Therefore when Temmu began to build
what has been called Japan's imperial system (tenno-sei), he and his
advisers gave special attention to Silla's ritual mode of control as well
as to Chinese conceptions of sovereignty.
Faced with foreign danger, internal disunity, and continental modes
of rule, the Temmu court made three overlapping policy decisions: to
build a military force in which all clans were under imperial control, to
place the land and people of the country under the priestly rule of the
emperor, and to fashion an administrative order along Chinese lines.
The implementation of the first policy made Japan look something like
a clan-based military state; the second gave it a theocratic character;
and the third produced a Chinese-style political order.
Clan control
Temmu's plans for defense were broader and deeper than those of his
predecessor Tenji, as he envisaged a unified military force. His early
moves included the formation of imperial armies in outlying regions as
well as in and around the capital. Then came efforts to convert every
clan chieftain into a strong and loyal military commander. Local officials
were assigned greater responsibility over military affairs, and
highways were improved in order to increase troop mobility. Thus
Hayakawa Shdhachi concluded that Temmu's imperial system had a
strong military base.3 But the base was definitely shaped by clan
power and clan interests.
Having recently ascended the throne with the support of clans that
were discontented with the previous regime - clans that felt their tradi-
3 Hayakawa Shohachi, Ritsuryo kokka, vol. 4 ofNihon no rektshi (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1974), pp.
32-37Cambridge
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LAYING THE FOUNDATION 225
tional interests and customs had been compromised* - Temmu was
determined to bring all these groups under his control, to force them
to abandon their private possessions of land and people, and to award
to clan chieftains positions and ranks commensurate with their loyal
service to the imperial state.
Reforms before 672 had been carried out by powerful chieftains
who served as minister of the left and minister of the right, but Emperor
Temmu left these posts vacant and appointed a member of his
own branch of the imperial clan to the new position of counselor
(nagori). Although a counselor had ranked below a minister in the
recently created bureaucratic order, under Temmu a counselor was
more like a private secretary to the emperor.5 Other members of
Temmu's branch of the imperial clan were given posts of great responsibility:
Temmu's consort Princess Uno (later Empress Jito) became a
key adviser; her son Prince Kusakabe, after being named heir apparent
in 681, assisted the emperor; and another imperial son, Prince
Otsu, received important assignments in 683.6
Thus the most influential
persons at the Temmu court were not chieftains of nonimperial
clans but members of Temmu's branch of the imperial clan, leading
scholars to think of the Temmu reign as one dominated by imperial
relatives (see Figure 4.1).
Although the heads of strong clans were not prominent at court
after the civil war of 672, they were by no means ignored. Indeed, care
was taken to recognizing their status in the imperial system. A law of
682 stipulated that when considering the promotion of an official,
special attention be given not only to his service record but also to the
status of his clan. Then in 684 Temmu superimposed a new title
(kabane) system on the old, establishing eight titles to be awarded to
clan chieftains in accordance with their standing in the emerging imperial
system. The top four titles were new. The first (mahito) was to be
held only by members of the imperial clan; the second (asomi) by clan
chieftains with blood ties to the imperial clan; and the third and fourth
(sukune and imiki) by chieftains of loyal nonimperial clans. The remaining
four (michi no shi, omi, muraji, and inaki) were old titles to be
awarded only to chieftains of nonimperial clans.7
4 Yoshie Akio, Rekishi no akebono kara demo shakai no seijuku e: Genshi, kodai, chusei, vol. i of
Nihon tsushi (Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppansha, 1986), p. 123.
5 Hayakawa Shohachi, "Ritsuryo daijokan-sei no seiritsu," in Sakamoto Taro hakushi koki kinenkai,
ed., Zoku Nihon kodaishi ronshu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1972), vol. 1, pp. 552-60.
6 Prince Otsu's mother was Princess Ota, a Tenji daughter who died in 667.
7 Richard J. Miller, Ancient Japanese Nobility: The Kabane Ranking System (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 52-58.
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226 THE NARA STATE
Emperor
Jomei (35)
Emperor
Tenji (39)
Imperial
Consort
Ota
I
Empress
Gemmei (43)
I
Empress
Jito(41)-
T
Emperor
- Temmu (40)
i
i
i
I
Prince
Otsu
1
Prince
Kusakabe
Emperor
Mommu (42)
Empress
Gensho (44)
Figure 4.1. Government by imperial relatives. Dashed line indicates
spousal relationship; solid line, offspring. (Reign numbers are in
parentheses, as recorded in the Gukansho chronology; see Brown and
Ishida, trans., The Future and the Past, pp. 264-78.)
As Richard Miller showed in his analysis of the title system, the
highest new titles were set aside for clan chieftains who had supported
Temmu during the civil war of 672. The Nakatomi clan, for example,
received preferential treatment. Originally holding the old title of
muraji, it was granted (after 672) the second-highest of the new titles
(asomi). Other clans that had backed Temmu got no more than sukune.
And clans that had not supported Temmu received no new title, being
permitted merely to retain their old titles. By placing emperorconnected
and emperor-supporting clans at the pinnacle of a clearly
defined hierarchical order, Temmu had thus created what has been
called "the new nobility."8
Spiritual authority of the emperor
Modern historians tend to see major currents of political and social
change, even those in ancient times, as arising mainly from shifts in
8 Ibid., p. 141.
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LAYING THE FOUNDATION 227
military power and economic wealth (physical sources of power and
authority), but the aristocratic leaders of ancient Japan apparently felt
that major currents of change had arisen, and would continue to arise,
principally from shifts in the power and will of supernatural forces and
divine beings (spiritual sources of power and authority). Under the
influence of ritually unified Silla, Temmu was clearly attempting to
bolster his imperial position by means of the priestly authority traditionally
enjoyed by clan chieftains. It is thus not surprising to find that
the official chronicle of that day (the Nihon shoki) includes numerous
references to what Temmu and his successors did to sanctify their
positions by means of their association with, and patronage of, important
religious practices and institutions.
Relatively calm relations with the outside world during the last two
decades of the seventh century caused Japanese leaders to be less
preoccupied with the possibility of military invasion from the continent
and more interested in any and all nonmilitary ways of unifying
and strengthening the imperial state. No Japanese mission was sent to
the T'ang court in the last years of the seventh century, although one
was dispatched not long after the promulgation of the Taiho code in
701 and six others went before the Nara period came to a close in 784.
To be sure, diplomatic missions were periodically exchanged with the
Korean state of Silla, where Chinese influence was strong, and with
Parhae (P'o-hai), whose territory extended from the Liaotung peninsula
into northeast Korea. But Japan had stopped sending military
expeditions against Korean states. Moreover, Japanese envoys were
then less interested in territorial and military matters than in such
cultural activity as acquiring Buddhist and Confucian texts, gathering
information on Chinese science and art, and becoming familiar with
T'ang methods of political and social control. They seem to have been
especially fascinated with Chinese techniques and ideas that would
reinforce the foundations of a Nara state headed by an emperor whose
authority was both secular and religious.
Although most modern scholars have concentrated on the introduction
of Chinese bureaucratic forms and procedures during the Nara
period, several recent studies are leading us to appreciate what Temmu
and his court were doing to build an imperial order held together
ritually, not just militarily and administratively. Particularly significant
were the steps taken to place the emperor at the top of what might
be described as a four-layered system of kami worship. At its apex was
a hierarchy of kami in which the ancestral kami of the imperial clan
(the Sun Goddess) stood above the ancestral kami of all other clans. At
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228 THE NARA STATE
the second layer was a hierarchy of priestly rulers in which the emperor
outranked other clan chieftains. At the third was a ritual system
in which the most important rites, and the most generous offerings,
were by and for the emperor. Finally, there was a shrine system in
which the Ise Grand Shrine for the worship of the imperial clan's
ancestral kami was placed above all other shrines for the worship of
ancestral kami.
Temmu also took special steps to sanctify his own imperial position
by demonstrating, and nurturing belief in, his divinity as a direct
descendant of the greatest kami of all: the Sun Goddess. He is thought
to have initiated the practice of issuing imperial edicts that began with
these words: "Hear ye the edict of an emperor of Japan who is a
manifest kami {akitsukami)" a practice followed by imperial successors
throughout the Nara period.* And soon after winning the civil war
of 672, Temmu reinstated the practice of having an imperial princess
take up residence at the Ise Grand Shrine to worship the Sun Goddess
on his behalf.10
By taking such action, he and his successors not only
affirmed their divinity but also placed the Sun Goddess above all other
kami of the land, a position that she still holds.
Temmu also had offerings and prayers made at other key shrines,
and he used the Council of Kami Affairs (the Jingikan, which had no
Chinese parallel) for making himself the chief priest of kami worship
at shrines all over the country." Finally, he issued an order, recorded
in the preface to the Kojiki (see Chapter 10) that an imperial chronicle
be compiled explaining that the ties between the kami line and the
imperial line are the "warp and woof of the Japanese state and the
foundations of imperial rule" and should therefore be clearly denned
and recorded. Because the Kojiki focused on the direct descent of
emperors from the Sun Goddess, we can assume that Temmu's purpose
in having it compiled was to sanctify his authority in one more
respected way.
Although Temmu and his immediate successors were intent on laying
the ritual and institutional foundations for Japanese rulers as high
priests of kami worship, they seem to have given as much or more
attention to a second source of sacral authority: the worship of Buddha.
Immediately after the Great Reforms of 645, the government moved to
reinforce imperial authority with Buddhist rites, causing the leading
9 Nihon shoki, Temmu 12 (683) 1/18, NKBT 68.456-7.
10 Nihon shoki, Temmu 2 (673) 4/14, NKBT 68.412-13.
11 Nihon shoki Temmu 5 (676) 9/21, NKBT 68.425-7.
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LAYING THE FOUNDATION 229
temples to lose their clan character and to become imperial institutions.
After Temmu's military victories in 672, activity of this sort was accelerated
and broadened. In 673, the year of Temmu's enthronement, the
great Takechi no Odera temple was erected by imperial command, and
in 680 the construction of the famous Yakushi-ji was begun. Before
Temmu's reign came to a close in 686, the imperial court began to give
financial support to important temples founded in earlier years (such as
the Kawara-dera and the Asuka-dera) and to place Buddhist priests in
the offices of high priest (sojo) and vicar general (sozu), who were
ordered to offer up prayers for the prosperity of the state. Thenceforth,
sutras expounding the doctrine that Buddhist worship could benefit the
state were recited, upon orders handed down by the reigning emperor
or empress, at temples within the capital and in the outlying provinces.
But the full thrust of imperial patronage came in the second phase of
the Nara period.
Building capitals to support imperial authority
The spiritual authority of the Japanese ruler was strengthened not only
by kami worship at the most important shrines and by Buddha worship
at the leading temples but also by the construction of Chinesestyle
capitals. Whereas shrines and temples reinforced the position ofa
sovereign as a divine mediatory with unseen powers, impressive
foreign-style capital cities symbolized his position at the "sacred center"
of Japan's this-worldly order. (See Map 4.1.)
Recent archaeological studies show that the imperial palace built at
Naniwa sometime after 645 had a Chinese-style audience hall (daigokuden),
and that certain buildings erected at Otsu (Tenji's capital) and
Asuka no Kiyomihara (Temmu's capital) were also Chinese in appear-
ance.12
But a full-scale Chinese-style capital was apparently not built
until the reign of Empress Jito (686 to 697). The chronicles state that
the empress selected a site for the new capital at Fujiwara, which was
located on a plain north of the previous capital at Asuka no Kiyomihara.
Fujiwara was to face south, with mountains on its three other
sides (Kagu to the east, Miminashi to the north, and Unebi to the
west). Construction was started in 694. Investigations of Fujiwara begun
in 1934, discontinued in 1945, resumed in 1966 - have revealed
12 Temmu had constructed a capital around his Asuka no Kiyomihara palace, but the exact
location is unknown. Probably he had planned a Chinese-style capital but died before it was
completed.
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230 THE NARA STATE
•
SITE of ASUKA
PALACE
D6RA " '
Map 4.1 Fujiwara capital.
the location and size of the capital's buildings and streets. Fujiwara
was probably modeled after Lo-yang, the capital of the Chinese kingdom
of Northern Wei. The pillars of its principal buildings were
placed on stone foundations in the Chinese manner; their roofs were
covered with Chinese tiles; and the palace zone (including the imperial
palace and governmental office buildings) was a square located on the
north side of the capital, as in China. The palace zone (a square)
occupied an area of 1.05 square kilometers within a capital that was 3.2
kilometers long, from north to south, and 2.1 kilometers wide. As the
center of imperial rule during the reigns of Jito and Mommu (686 to
707), it must have convinced everyone, even envoys arriving from
Silla, that the Japanese emperor was indeed divine and mighty. But as
we shall note, Fujiwara was much smaller and not nearly so splendid
as the capital that was built later at Heijo, now Nara.
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LAYING THE FOUNDATION 23I
Legal supports for imperial authority
Japanese students who had spent several years in China before the
beginning of the Great Reforms in 645 understood that law, and especially
administrative law (ryo), was a powerful support for China's
empire, a support that could be used to strengthen the state of Japan.
They must have known, too, that Chinese administrative law, in addition
to delineating the forms and functions of offices for accumulating
revenue and services, had instituted arrangements for reinforcing an
emperor's spiritual authority. The reforms adopted in Japan during
and after 645 were therefore linked with the promulgation of laws that
defined and justified both the secular and sacerdotal authority of an
emperor.
Emperor Tenji, who reigned from 661 to 671, is said to have ordered
the compilation of an administrative code in twenty-two volumes, but
no copy of this Omi code has been preserved. Then in 681 Temmu
reportedly instructed his ministers to "reform the law," suggesting
that there really was an Omi code and that Temmu's order led to the
compilation of what is known as the Asuka no Kiyomihara administrative
code. The latter, also in twenty-two volumes, is thought to have
been modeled on the Chinese Yung-hui code of 651 and to have been
promulgated in 689, the third year of Jito's reign. '3 It, too, no longer
exists.
Then came the Taiho penal and administrative code of 701. Because
only fragments of it have been preserved, we have no detailed knowledge
of its contents. But references made in contemporary accounts together
with what is written in later commentaries on administrative
law (the Ryo no gige compiled in 833 and the Ryo no shuge, a few
decades later) and the assumption that the Taiho code was similar to
the later Yoro penal and administrative code of 718 - lead us to reason
that the following administrative arrangements were written into law
between the beginning of Temmu's reign in 673 and the promulgation
of the Taiho code in 702:
1. Household registration. A system for keeping track of households
was instituted in 670 with the appearance of household registers
(koseki). In 689 Empress Jito ordered that registers be kept in accordance
with articles of the Asuka no Kiyomihara code, an order said to
13 A few years ago it was commonly held that a penal code was compiled at this time, but now
the opposite view prevails. See Ishio Yoshihisa, Nihon kodaiho no kenkyu (Kyoto: Horitsu
bunkasha, 1959); and Aoki Kazuo, "Ritsuryo ron," in Nihon rekishi gakkai, comp., Nihon
shi no mondaiten (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1968).
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232 THE NARA STATE
have been implemented the following year. Because these registrations
were used for assessing taxes from the land and services from the
people, they were important and frequently revised.
2. Tribute collection. Before 680, tribute (taxes) took the form of rice
collected from a household according to the area of land that it cultivated.
But after 680, tribute was collected from individuals rather than
households.
3. Administration of local areas. Before the beginning of Temmu's
reign in 673, most local affairs were administered by clan chieftains.
But after the Asuka no Kiyomihara and Taiho codes had been promulgated,
nearly all local units - sixty provinces (kuni) divided into districts
(kort) containing villages (sato) of fifty households each - came
under the jurisdiction of the imperial court.
4. Administration of central affairs. As early as Temmu's reign, a
central administrative organ called the Office of Senior Controller
(Daibenkan) existed, but it did not include a chancellor (daijo daijin), a
minister of the left, or a minister of the right. The provisions of the
Asuka no Kiyomihara code of 689 changed the name of this supervisory
body to Council of State (Daijokan) and added these three ministers,
placing them over three high offices already in existence: those of
the senior, middle, and junior counselors. Sometime after the Asuka
no Kiyomihara code had made these alterations, two new offices were
created: Central Affairs (Naka no Tsukasa) and Inner Court Affairs
(Miya no Uchi no Tsukasa).14
These were in accord with earlier Chinese
models, making us wonder why the Japanese were so late in
adopting them. Both dealt with court affairs and therefore reflected
the current urge to strengthen the sacral as well as the secular authority
of the emperor.
5. Administration of military affairs. The Asuka no Kiyomihara code
provided for provincial military units made up of one young male
conscript from each household.J
s More details of the arrangement
were supplied in the Taiho code.
The government was run by a system of offices ranging from those
closest to the emperor to others at more distant places and at lower
levels. These offices had histories of their own, coming into existence
at different times with different names and functions. Here we shall
14 Sato Sojun, "Ritsuryo daijokansei no tenno," in Kodai, vol. I of Hara Hidesaburo et al., eds.,
Taikei Nihon kokkashi (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppansha, 1975), pp. 184-5. Denis
Twitchett pointed out that these offices were not parts of a Chinese "outer court" but agencies
for managing the imperial household and inner palace.
15 See Naoki Kojiro, Asuka Nara jidai no kenkyu (Tokyo: Hanawa shobd, 1975), pp. 262-6.
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LAYING THE FOUNDATION 233
Emperor
1Council of
Kami Affairs
/
Four mil
1Council of State
Chancellor
Minister of the Left Minister
/
/
listries
1. Central affairs
2. Personnel
3. Civil affairs
4. Popular affairs
Four /
senior counselors
yAFour ministries
5. War
6. Justice
7. Treasury
8. Imperial
household
of the Right
1
Other offices
Censors
Guard units
Capital section
Dazaifu
Figure 4.2. Nara bureaucratic order. (Based on information from
Hayakawa Shohachi, Ritsuryo kokka, p. 36.)
survey merely the ones that were probably named and defined in the
Taiho administrative code of 701 and the Yoro code of 718.
At the apex of the structure was the emperor, whose will was expressed
in decrees (mikotonori) and edicts (semmyo). Important decisions,
such as those pertaining to appointments and promotions of
high-ranking officials, were recommended at meetings of the Council
of State but were carried out only with imperial approval. The two
codes placed no limitations on imperial authority, thus giving the
emperor, legally at least, despotic control.
Under the emperor were two councils that had equal standing: the
Council of State, generally overseeing secular affairs, and the Council
of Kami Affairs, running affairs in the area of kami worship (see
Figure 4.2). Although the two councils were organizationally at the
same level, the Council of State's highest minister (the chancellor)
held a higher rank than did the highest official of the Council of Kami
Affairs. But the chancellor also had some responsibilities that lay outside
the bounds of secular administration: He served as the emperor's
guide and teacher and was given the task of harmonizing movements
of the world with Chinese principles of yin and yang.
Below the chancellor, the minister of the left, and the minister of
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234 THE NARA STATE
the right were four senior counselors. In consultation with one another,
counselors and ministers made important policy decisions and
recommended appointments and promotions for high-ranking officials.
Under these six men were the heads of three administrative
offices, referred to as the Council of State's three departments: the
Department of Junior Counselors (Shonagonkan), the Department of
the Controller of the Left (Sabenkan), and the Department of the
Controller of the Right (Ubenkan). The first included three junior
counselors authorized to serve as custodians of the imperial and Council
of State seals, and the last two were responsible for transmitting
imperial orders (senji), distributing orders issued by the Council of
State (kampu), and handling communications between the council
and its eight ministries.
The first four ministries were under the minister of the left, and the
next four were under the minister of the right, as follows: (i) The
Ministry of Central Affairs (the Nakatsukasa-sho) ranked above all
other ministries and was the main link between the emperor and the
Council of State. Its minister gave advice on numerous court matters,
supervised the court chamberlains, and drafted imperial edicts. Under
him were ten secretariats, including the Secretariat for the Empress's
Household (Chugushiki). (2) The Ministry of Personnel (Shikibu-sho)
supervised personnel affairs. Within it were two important bureaus:
one for higher learning (Daigaku-ryo) and another for nobles who held
a court rank but occupied no office (Sammi-ryo). (3) The Ministry of
Civil Affairs (Jibu-sho) had two important bureaus: one for Buddhist
priests and nuns and aliens (Gemba-ryo) and another for court music
(Gagaku-ryo). (4) The Ministry of Popular Affairs (Mimbu-sho) was
responsible for administering household registers, taxes, irrigation,
paddy fields, and the budget. (5) The Ministry of War (Hyobu-sho)
took care of personnel matters pertaining to soldiers and other military
affairs. (6) The Ministry of Justice (Gyobu-sho) handled legal affairs.
(7) The Ministry of the Treasury (Okura-sho) dealt with state property,
weights and measures, prices, and related matters. (8) The Ministry
of the Imperial Household (Kunai-sho) managed food, clothing,
and personnel problems of the imperial household. Inside each ministry
were several, often several tens of, administrative organs of three
types: secretariats (shiki), bureaus (ryo), and offices (tsukasa).
Outside the ministerial structure were a number of important
boards and administrative units, including, first, the Board of Censors
(Danjodai) that was engaged in exposing the illegal activities of officials
and upholding standards of correct bureaucratic behavior. Also
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LAYING THE FOUNDATION 235
there were the headquarters of the various guard units, beginning with
the five that guarded the imperial palace: the gate guards (emon-fu),
the left guards (saeji-fu), the right guards (neji-fu), the left military
guards (sahyoe-fu), and the right military guards (uhyoe-fu). The central
government had, in addition, a right and left bureau of cavalry and
a right and left bureau of armories. Other offices outside the eight
ministries included two that were responsible for the left and right
sectors of the capital.
Organs of government outside the capital included, first of all, the
Dazai headquarters (Dazai-fu) located near the harbor of Na in
Kyushu from which the nine provinces of Kyushu, as well as the
islands of Iki and Tsushima, were administered. Each of the country's
sixty or more provinces16
was headed by a governor who usually had
under him ten or more districts headed by district supervisors. Each
district contained between two and twenty villages (sato) made up of
fifty households each. A governor was appointed for a six-year term,
but the district supervisors, usually selected from the local gentry, had
no fixed term of office. The Taiho administrative code contained no
articles dealing with village heads, but it is assumed that they were
influential farmers. '7
The country was divided into the Kinai (made up of five provinces
around the capital'8
) and seven regions: the Tokai (provinces on the
eastern seacoast), the Tosan (eastern mountain provinces), the Hokuriku
(northwestern provinces), the Sanyo (Inland Sea provinces), the
San'in (mountain provinces behind the San'yo), the Nankai (southern
provinces), and the Saikai (provinces on the western seacoast). In
principle, every province had one or more military corps of one thousand
soldiers. The number of corps for a province was not specified in
the Taiho code, but it is estimated that every three districts had at least
one. Kyushu, facing the continent, had a special military organization
16 The Nihon shoki carries items indicating that provinces existed before the codes were compiled
in the closing years of the seventh century. See Naoki Kojiro, "Taihoryo-zen kansei ni
tsuite no ni san no kosatsu," in Inoue Mitsusada hakushi kanreki kinenkai, ed., Kodaishi
ronso (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1978), vol. 2, pp. 17-20.
17 An excellent study of the Nara period administrative structure is Richard J. Miller's Japan's
First Bureaucracy: A Study of Eighth Century Government (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
East Asia Papers no. 19, 1978). Valuable information about the Council of Kami Affairs
(Jingikan) was supplied by Felicia G. Bock in chap. 2 of Engi-Shiki Procedures of the Engi Era
[Books 1-5] (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1970), vol. I, pp. 17-24. An important earlier
study was made by George B. Sansom in "Early Japanese Law and Administration," Transactions
of the Asiatic Society ofJapan (hereafter cited as TASJ) 9 (1932): 67-109 and 11 (1934):
117-49-
18 Izumi was split off from Kawachi to make five provinces instead of the original four:
Yamashiro, Yamato, Settsu, and Kawachi.
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236 THE NARA STATE
under its Dazai headquarters that was made up of conscripted troops
(tsuwamono) and guards (sakimori).
Down through the administrative structure - from the heads of offices
around the emperor to those in charge of local offices in distant
regions - ran a hierarchy of office titles and ranks. Heads of the highest
offices held the title of director (kami) who had assistants (suke),
secretaries (jo), and clerks (sakan). (These four office titles were written
with different characters but pronounced in the same way when
held by officials serving in different ministries and agencies.) According
to the Yoro adminstrative code of 718, the number of officials in
the two councils and eight ministries totaled 331. If lower-ranking
officials are added, the total was 6,487.
Ranks provided a more precise indication of status than titles did,
for officeholders with the same title had different ranks yielding different
stipends and perquisites. The Taiho code set aside four imperial
ranks (hon) for princes and near relatives of the emperor and thirty
court ranks (kurai) for persons lower in the aristocratic order. The son
or grandson of a nobleman holding the highest imperial rank was
automatically awarded a junior fifth rank lower grade court rank when
he reached the age of twenty-one. Special treatment for anyone with a
fifth rank or above - apart from the rights that their sons had to a high
rank when they turned twenty-one, irrespective of ability - is revealed
by the generous stipends and retainers they received (see Table 4.1).
University students - almost exclusively young men of aristocratic
birth - who passed the civil service examinations were usually appointed
to positions with such titles as "lower-class officials" (toneri) or
attendants to imperial princes (chdnat). But for years they often held
no court rank at all. Even after thirty or more years of excellent
service, they commonly rose no higher than junior sixth rank upper
grade. And even a young man who passed the examinations with
distinction seldom reached eighth rank upper grade.
Governmental positions were customarily filled by persons holding
appropriately high ranks. In some cases a high-ranked aristocrat
would discover that no position appropriate to his rank was available,
causing him to be referred to as a person having rank but no office
(sammi). But usually the eldest son or grandson of a high-level aristocrat
did receive an appropriate office with stipends and retainers, as
shown in Table 4.1, even if he did no work. Thus members of the
same clans tended to dominate all the offices of Japan's emerging
administrative order, generation after generation. Probably that was
precisely what the architects of the system had intended.
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LAYING THE FOUNDATION 237
An aristocratic officeholder, whether stationed at court or in a distant
province, received his stipends twice a year: once in spring and
again in autumn. In addition to lands and households for his rank (iden
and ifu), he was granted lands and households for his office (shikiden
and shikifu). The households were the major source of his income.
From each, whether for rank or for office, he received craft and labor
levies (cho and.yd) and half of the rice tribute (so). A minister of the left
or minister of the right was entitled to two thousand households of
about forty villages, approximately the number of households in a
province the size of Suo or Nagato, and such income was tax exempt.
But an official at or below senior sixth rank upper grade did not fare
so well. If he got no more than the official stipend listed for his rank,
he probably did not have enough to support his family. Therefore an
official at or below the level of provincial governor was forced to make
ends meet by finding ways to supplement his income.
An aristocratic official also received preferential treatment when
violating the law, for punishments varied with the criminal's status.
Such favoritism was particularly clear when an official of high rank
committed one of the eight serious crimes (hachigyaku) against society
and the state, such as conspiracy or disloyal behavior. Five types of
punishment with increasing degrees of severity were prescribed: whipping,
beating, penal servitude, exile, and execution. But if an official
held the third rank or above, he would not be punished, even if he had
committed one of these serious crimes. If he were both the chief
administrator and the chief judge, he was in a position to judge
whether he himself had committed a crime and, if so, what his punishment
would be. In any case, only the Council of State could inflict the
death penalty. A provincial governor, the heads of the left and right
administrative offices at the capital, and the minister of justice could
do no more than exile an offender, and district supervisors and lowranking
officials at the capital could inflict punishments no more severe
than whipping or beating.
The highest officials of the state made up a select group from Yamato
and Kawachi that included the emperor, members of his household,
and leaders of such old and powerful clans as the Fujiwara, Otomo,
Isonokami (formerly Mononobe), and Abe (a Fuse branch). The total
number of individuals in this elite group (fifth rank or higher) probably
came to no more than 125. Provisions of the Taiho code, as noted,
protected the exclusiveness of this group by allowing their high ranks
and offices to be passed on to their sons and grandsons.
The authority of the emperor at the top of this select group was
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TABLE 4 . I
Allowances according to the Taiho code (I)
Court
rank
ist hon
2nd hon
3rd hon
4th hon
Sr. ist
Jr. ist
Sr. 2nd
Jr. 2nd
Sr. 3rd
Jr. 3rd
Sr. 4th
Jr. 4th
Sr. 5th
Jr. 5th
Sr. 6th
Jr. 6th
Sr. 7th
Jr. 7th
Sr. 8th
Jr. 8th
Daisho
Shosho
Faddy
fields
(««)
8 0
60
50
40
80
74
60
54
40
34
24
2 0
12
8
Sust.
Hsehlds.
(M)
8 0 0
600
400
300
300
2 6 0
2 0 0
170
130
100
Pongee
(hiki)
10
8
6
4
Stipends
Silk
(urn)
10
8
6
4
Hemp
(tan)
10
43
36
29
excise
Cloth
(jo)
360
300
240
180
Pongee
(hiki)
3°
20
14
8
30
3°
2 0
2 0
14
12
8
7
5
4
3
3
2
2
1
1
1
1
Seasonal
Silk
(ton)
3°
20
14
8
30
3°
2 0
2 0
14
12
8
7
5
4
3
3
2
2
1
I
1
1
stipend
Hemp
Cloth
(ton)
100
60
42
22
100
100
60
60
42
36
22
18
12
12
5
4
4
4
3
3
3
3
Hoes
(ko)
140
100
80
30
140
140
100
100
80
60
30
30
2 0
2 0
15
15
15
15
15
10
10
5
Personal
retainers
accorded
(number)
100
80
60
40
0 0
100
80
80
60
60
40
35
25
2 0
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Allowances according to the Taihd code (II)
Personal
Paddy fields Sustenance retainers
Government post (ch6) households (kd) (number)
Minister of state 40 3,000 300
Ministers of left and right 30 2,000 200
Counselors (dainagon) 20 800 100
Middle counselors {chunagon) 200 30
Advisers (sangi) 80
Note: Chmagon by the regulation of 705; sangi by that of 730.
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24O THE NARA STATE
great but not unlimited. He could issue an edict ordering the appointment
of a crown prince or minister, but his edict had to be countersigned
by the chancellor, minister of the left, or minister of the right.
On the other hand, the following matters could not be acted on by the
Council of State until its recommendations had been reported to the
emperor and approved by him: (i) scheduling important state ceremonies
like the Great Feast of the Enthronement (Daijosai), (2) increasing
or decreasing the government's operating costs, (3) altering the
number of officials, (4) inflicting punishments by death or exile, and
(5) forming or abolishing districts. The emperor could approve or
disapprove a recommendation but could not make amendments. Usually
he approved. In principle, then, the emperor had dictatorial
power, but in practice, his power was limited by the consultative
authority of the Council of State."
How did relationships between the emperor and the Council of State
differ from those of a T'ang emperor served by three state organs: the
Secretariat (Chung-shu sheng), the Chancellery (Men-hsia sheng), and
the Department of State Affairs (Shang-shu sheng)? The heads of these
Chinese bodies were the state's highest administrators, but they were
no more than instruments of inquiry and did not have complete authority
over their own departments. The Secretariat's highest officer would
draft imperial edicts after receiving instructions from the emperor, and
officials of the Chancellery would examine the draft and make revisions.
Other departmental heads could see memorials and report their
views to the throne. The Secretariat, which administered the six
boards, would see that an edict was implemented after it had been
examined and revised by the Chancellery. But the Chancellery did little
more than look for textual deficiencies and usually did not consider the
edict's contents. China's highest state officials, therefore, did not have
nearly as much authority as did their counterparts in Japan.
Heads of Chinese aristocratic clans were also relatively weak, as we
can see when comparing the ranks given to the sons and grandsons of
high-ranking officeholders with those received by their Japanese counterparts.
Chinese law stated that the heirs of first-rank officers were
entitled to senior seventh rank lower grade, whereas in Japan they
would receive fifth rank lower grade. A study of the ranks bestowed
on the sons of officials at lower levels of the aristocracy also shows that
the Japanese were treated better.
19 Seki Akira, "Ritsuryo kizoku ron," Kodai, vol. 3 of Asao Naohiro, Ishii Susumu, Inoue
Mitsusada, Oishi Kaichiro et al., eds., Iwanami koza: Nihon rekishi (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,
1976), PP- 38-63.
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NARA AND TODAI-JI 24I
But what made the Japanese bureaucratic structure quite different
from that of China was the Council of Kami Affairs, which was placed
under the emperor at a position equal to that of the Council of State.
The compilers of the Taiho code, though giving close attention to
Chinese law, were obviously intent on preserving and using traditional
sources of sacral authority. Because the Japanese law provided crucial
support for the emperor's spiritual and secular authority, historians
commonly think of these years as the high point of the "administrative
and penal law (ritsuryo)" order.
NARA AND TODAI-JI
The death of Emperor Mommu (Temmu's grandson) in 707 at the
age of twenty-five came at the beginning of the Nara period's second
phase, when a grand Chinese-style capital and a statewide system of
Buddhist temples (centered at the Todai-ji) were built. Mommu's
death was followed by an upheaval at court from which emerged
two powerful and influential leaders: Fujiwara no Fuhito (659-720)
and Emperor Shomu (701-56). Both became deeply involved in
activities that helped to make this a time of remarkable cultural
achievement.
The upheaval of the court
Whenever an emperor or empress became ill, it was customary for
prominent shrines and temples to offer up prayers for a speedy recovery.
The Shoku Nihongi's lack of such references during thefivemonths
that preceded Mommu's death thus suggests that he may have been
murdered. The chronicle supplies considerable information about a
succession issue that divided the court and that probably was linked
with Mommu's untimely death. The major question was whether the
next emperor should be Prince Obito (the future Emperor Shomu,
whose mother was Fuhito's daughter) or a Mommu son with a nonFujiwara
mother (see Figure 4.3). Because Mommu had no brothers,
three living sons of Temmu were also eligible candidates for enthronement.
But none of these princes was selected. Instead, Mommu's
mother ascended the throne as Empress Gemmei. This was considered
to be a partial victory for those who favored Obito's candidacy, as
Gemmei stated that she wanted Obito to succeed her. The enthronement
of Gemmei therefore led Fujiwara no Fuhito to feel that he would
soon have the power and prestige customarily held by a maternal grandCambridge
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242 THE NARA STATE
Empress Empress Emperor
Gemmei (43) Jito (41)
I
I
L.
Prince
Kusakabe
I
Temmu (40)
Lady
Fujiwara no
Miyako
I I
• Emperor Empress
Mommu (42) Gensho (44)
Emperor
Shomu (45)
Figure 4.3. Mommu's successors. Dashed line indicates spousal relationship;
solid line, offspring. (Reign numbers are in parentheses, as
recorded in the Gunkasho chronology; see Brown and Ishida, trans.,
The Future and the Past, pp. 264-78.)
father of a reigning emperor, and he moved closer to that coveted goal
in 714 when Prince Obito was appointed crown prince. But Fuhito died
four years before the prince was enthroned as Emperor Shomu in 724.
The details of Fuhito's rise to power are not known, but as the son
of Fujiwara no Kamatari (614-669), one of the three principal architects
of the 645 rebellion and the subsequent Great Reforms (see
Chapter 3), he was obviously born on a very high rung of the aristocratic
ladder. Although not yet forty at the time of Mommu's death in
707 and only at junior second rank, Fuhito is thought to have been the
most influential man at court, strong enough to affect the course of
events leading to the enthronement of a woman who wished to be
succeeded by his grandson.
Two events of historical importance occurred in the year after
Mommu's death: the discovery of copper in the province of Musashi
and an edict by Empress Gemmei announcing that the capital was
being moved to Heijo (hereafter referred to as Nara), which was north
of Fujiwara on the northern rim of the Nara plain. The first event was
considered sufficiently important for the court to decide that 708 was
to be the first year of the Wado (Japan copper) era and for historians to
link the discovery of copper with the rise of a more highly developed
exchange economy and a sudden increase in the number of bronze
statues.
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NARA AND TODAI-JI 243
The Nara capital
When Empress Gemmei issued her edict of 708 stating that the capital
was to be moved to a new site, she said that sacred signs indicated that
Heijo (Nara) - surrrounded by three mountains to the east, north, and
west - was a propitious location20
(see Map 4.2). She undoubtedly was
influenced by other considerations, such as the ancient custom of moving
the capital at the beginning of a new regime and the desire to have a
successor rule from a new and more impressive palace. But the increasingly
influential Fujiwara no Fuhito probably had his own reasons for
favoring the move. More concerned with strategic and economic questions
than with geomancy and divination, he probably understood
quite well that although Fujiwara had had ready access, by overland
roads, to the Inland Sea harbor of Naniwa, Nara was close to rivers by
which goods could be transported to and from Naniwa by boat. He and
his colleagues at court must have appreciated that Nara was no more
than six kilometers south of the Kizu River (navigable all the way to
Naniwa) and that Nara was closer than Fujiwara was to the Saho River
(flowing into the Yamato River that emptied into the Inland Sea at
Naniwa). Thus Nara probably had, in addition to the propitiousness of
mountains on three sides, economic and strategic advantages superior
to those of any other place in the entire Yamato Province.
Recent archaeological investigations have disclosed special geographical
ties between Nara and Fujiwara. Moving north from the
avenue that ran along the western side of the old capital, one entered
the Great Suzaku Avenue that passed through the middle of the new
capital. And proceeding north from the street that ran along the eastern
side of Fujiwara, one entered Nara's East Capital Avenue. (Only
the latter's West Capital Avenue was not a straight-line extension of a
Fujiwara avenue.) Nara was therefore not only laid out in the square
fashion of a Chinese capital but also had avenues that ran in precisely
the same direction as - or were exactly parallel to - those of Fujiwara
to the south. Why were the builders so careful to establish such a
precise geographical relationship between the two capitals? As far as
we know, the question was neither raised nor alluded to in contemporary
sources, but we seem to see here a concrete expression of the
belief that a sovereign reigning at Nara was to be honored as a direct
lineal descendant of predecessors who had reigned at Fujiwara.
20 Shoku Nihongi, Wado 1 (708) 2/15, in Kuroita Katsumi and Kokushi Taikei henshukai, eds.,
Shinlei zoho: Kokushi taikei (hereafter cited as KT) (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1982), vol.
1, p. 34.
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244 THE NARA STATE
Map 4.2 Ancient capitals, shrines, and temples. (Based on Hayakawa
Shohachi, Ritsuryo kokka, 1974, inside backcover.)
As grand as Nara was, it covered no more than one-fourth of the
area of China's capital at Ch'ang-an (which had an estimated population
of 1.2 million) and it was not surrounded by high walls as in
China. Still, Nara with a population of around 200,000 was about
three times as large as Fujiwara, indicating that it had become a political,
economic, and religious center of a powerful imperium.
But the spiritual authority of the emperor was enhanced not only by
the building of an impressive Chinese-style capital but also by the
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NARA AND TODAI-JI 245
erection of beautiful, massive Buddhist temples. Soon after Empress
Gemmei moved her palace to Nara, temples originally built in Fujiwara
or elsewhere in the Asuka area (especially the Asuka-dera,
Yakushi-ji, Daian-ji, and Kofuku-ji) were rebuilt at the new capital.
Moreover, additional temples were constructed in provinces all over
the country for an emerging Buddhist system.
The Fuhito regime (708 to 720)
Even though Fuhito was the most powerful official at the time of
Emperor Mommu's unexplained death in 707, seven years passed
before his grandson Obito was named crown prince, and ten more
years before Obito was enthroned as Emperor Shomu. Fuhito was
unable to realize his ambitions for Obito sooner because influential
aristocrats favored the enthronement of an imperial son with an imperial
mother: either Prince Hironari or Prince Hiroyo, who were sons of
Ishikawa no Toji. Only when Fuhito and his supporters succeeded in
having Ishikawa no Toji expelled from the court in 713 were they able
to arrange the appointment of Obito as crown prince. But even that
did not end the struggle, for Obito was not enthroned after Empress
Gemmei decided to abdicate in 715. The empress elected (or was
forced) to pass the throne to her own daughter, who reigned as Empress
Gensho (680-748).
Why did Obito - the future Emperor Shomu - fail to reach the
throne in 715? One view is that he was then too young (only fifteen) to
assume the responsibilities of an emperor. But Obito's father Mommu
was placed on the throne at about that same age. A more convincing
theory is that Obito's candidacy met with disfavor because his mother
was a Fujiwara and thus not a member of the imperial clan. For nearly
a century the fathers and mothers of all occupants of the throne had
been members of the imperial clan, and this old tradition could not be
easily broken, even by Fuhito21
(see Figure 4.3).
Although Fuhito did not live to see his grandson's enthronement,
his influence at court was nonetheless considerable. He was appointed
minister of the right in 715 at the beginning of Gensho's reign and
continued to hold that high office until his death in 720. Only two
other officials outranked him: the chancellor and the minister of the
21 The mother of Prince Otomo was not a member of the imperial clan, which may be why the
Nihon shoki does not admit that Otomo ever occupied the throne. If he did become emperor,
an exception was made to the long tradition that both the mother and father of an emperor
should be members of the imperial clan.
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246 THE NARA STATE
left. Prince Hozumi had been named chancellor in 705 but died before
the beginning of Gensho's reign in 715, and no new chancellor was
appointed while Fuhito was alive. Isonokami no Maro was minister of
the left but died in 717. His post, too, was left vacant. In this way the
dominance of court affairs by an emperor's relatives - a practice established
in the previous century - was abolished by Fuhito and his Fujiwara
relatives.
After the discovery of copper in 708, the Fuhito regime moved to
stimulate trade by minting coins (see Chapter 8) and three years later,
to facilitate the transport of goods by setting up post stations (eki)
around the capital, to lighten the indebtedness of commoners by reducing
interest charges on private rice loans (shi-suiko) to 50 percent, and
to help farmers by preventing nobles and local aristocrats from occupying
public lands.22
Even though the economy of Nara and its environs
was stimulated by such measures during the twelve years of the Fuhito
regime, numerous construction projects became a heavy drain on the
state's resources. As early as 711, the empress issued an edict in which
she stated: "We hear that of late many laborers brought to the capital
from the various provinces for construction work have been deserting.
Although desertion has been prohibited, it continues."2
* And another
edict handed down five years later noted the misery and discontent
among people engaged in supplying and transporting goods.2
*
Attempts were made to improve the administration of local affairs,
thereby increasing the government's control over natural and human
resources. For example, in 712, after the Ezo people of northern Japan
had been subjugated, the northern province of Dewa was created. The
provincial governors were also ordered to attend more carefully to the
collection of revenues and the prevention of tax evasion. Household
registers were revised, and eleven governors were assigned a new supervisory
role. But the most famous administrative measure of the
Fuhito years was the compilation of the Yoro administrative code,
probably started in 717. Although a draft of the revision was not
completed until after Fuhito's death and was not promulgated until
757, legal work of this type is thought to have strengthened a bureaucracy
that was endeavoring to increase state income and state control.
22 State loans (ko-suiko) were a Nara period form of taxation, a source of income yielding as
much as 100% interest per annum. See Chapter 8 of this volume.
23 Shoku Nihongi, Wado 4 (711), 7, KT 1.45.
24 Shoku Nihongi, Reiki 2 (716) 4/20, KT 1.64-65.
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NARA AND TODAI-JI 247
Prince Nagaya's regime (721 to 729)
After Fuhito's death in 720, the highest position in the Council of
State was occupied by Prince Nagaya (684-729), a senior counselor of
senior third rank. One day after Fuhito's death, Prince Toneri was
appointed acting chancellor, a post that had been left vacant for five
years. At the same time, Prince Niitabe was placed in charge of the
five imperial guards and of the crown prince's guards. And in the first
month of 721 Prince Nagaya was promoted to minister of the right
(Fuhito's old position) and advanced to junior second rank. This
meant that key positions were now held by imperial princes: Toneri
and Niitabe were sons of Temmu, and Nagaya was his grandson. Thus
the Fujiwara men who had been at the center of the political stage
while Fuhito was alive became outsiders who held only minor posts.
But the Fujiwara influence was not insignificant. Fuhito's widow
Agata Inukai no Michiyo could still alter the course of events at court.
She had served near, and had been trusted by, both Empress Gemmei
and Empress Gensho, and it was probably because of her influence
that Fusasaki was appointed to the newly created post of minister of
the center (naishin) in the tenth month of 721. Although this new
position did not permit Fusasaki to participate in council deliberations,
it did give him the responsibility of consulting with the empress
and assisting her in the expression of imperial will. Michiyo's influence
may have been due in part, however, to her marriage connections
with the imperial clan, as she had been the wife of an imperial prince
before marrying Fuhito.
An even clearer sign that the Fujiwara still had considerable influence
on court affairs emerges from events after the abdication of Empress
Gensho in 724, when Fuhito's grandson wasfinallyenthroned as
Emperor Shomu. We do not have enough reliable evidence to know
precisely why Shomu was selected. Possibly it was because Prince
Nagaya had decided that the turbulent political situation could be
stabilized only by recognizing the legitimacy of Obito's position as
crown prince. But it seems that Shomu's enthronement came at the
beginning of a resurgence of Fujiwara control.
Economic difficulties may have been another factor. In 722, not
long after the rise of Prince Nagaya's regime, the government announced
an ambitious plan to place 1 million more chd of land (over
2.5 million acres) under cultivation. Then in the following year a law
was issued allowing a farmer to leave newly cultivated land to his
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248 THE NARA STATE
heirs, but if the new rice land were supplied with water from ponds
and ditches already in existence, the developer would enjoy tenure
only during his lifetime. Even though a ten-day ration of food was
offered every year to a farmer engaged in reclamation work, the program's
results were disappointing. Probably the government had
grossly overestimated the amount of arable land by as much as 300,000
cho, and it is thought that officials may have been unduely sanguine
about the amount of such land in northeastern Japan.
Although economic strain may have contributed to Prince Nagaya's
difficulties in retaining control over court affairs, political opposition
headed by men and women of the Fujiwara clan was probably the
major cause. The first clear indication that Nagaya was losing control
came in the ninth month of 927 when Lady Asukabe - Shomu's empress
and Fuhito's daughter who later became Principal Empress
Komyo - gave birth to Prince Motoi, a child who was appointed
crown prince before he reached the age of one. This was a great coup
for members of the Fujiwara clan, who could now look forward to
Shomu's being succeeded by a prince born of a Fujiwara mother.
Young Prince Motoi died, however, before he reached the age of
two. Emperor Shornu soon acquired another son, named Prince
Asaka, but his mother was not a Fujiwara. Meanwhile, Lady Asukabe
had given birth to Princess Abe (the future Empress Koken) but
Prince Asaka was Shomu's only son, making it likely that this child
would eventually become the next emperor: a truly gloomy prospect
for Fujiwara leaders. Then, amidst the intense rivalry over the question
of who would follow Shomu to the throne, Prince Nagaya was
accused of plotting a rebellion, whereupon a force of military guards
under Fujiwara no Umakai (694-737) surrounded Nagaya's residence.
Although Prince Toneri and Prince Niitabe objected to the use of
force, they could do nothing to prevent either the suicide of Prince
Nagaya or the exile of seven high officials accused of taking part in the
plot. An item in the Shoku Nihongi for the seventh month of 738 states
that the charges against Nagaya were false, leaving the impression that
the prince and his supporters had been victimized by Fujiwara
schemes to bring about the collapse of the Nagaya regime and the
reemergence of Fujiwara men to preeminent positions at court.
The Fujiwara-fout's regime (729 to 737)
Immediately after Prince Nagaya's suicide, Lady Asukabe - the daughter
of Fuhito and the sister of Umakai - was advanced to the position of
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NARA AND TODAI-JI 249
empress (kogo) and named Komyo. This title qualified her by law2
' to
become a reigning empress upon the death of her imperial spouse. But
according to the requirements of that same law, the title could be held
only by a woman of the imperial clan. Fujiwara no Fusasaki (Fuhito's
son who had been appointed minister of the center) and Lady Fujiwara
no Miyako (Emperor Shomu's mother and Fuhito's daughter) figured
prominently in the maneuver by which an exception was made in Empress
Komyo's case. Five days after she was promoted, the era name
was changed to Tempyo (Heavenly Peace), an action that was undoubtedly
meant to sanctify and celebrate the occasion.
Once Empress Komyo became Shomu's most likely successor, the
council was reconstituted. Prince Toneri was given the honorary post
of acting chancellor and two of Fuhito's sons were promoted: Fujiwara
no Muchimaro (680-737) to senior counselor and Fujiwara no Fusasaki
(681-737) to consultant. Two years later, two more sons Fujiwara
no Umakai (684-737) and Fujiwara no Maro (695-737) were
added to the council.26
Of the ten men who held positions in
Council of State posts in 731, four were therefore sons of the deceased
Fuhito, causing people to refer to the new government as "the regime
of the four Fujiwara sons." Ironically, they came to power by contravening
laws in a system devised largely by their grandfather Kamatari
and their father Fuhito. Henceforth, such violations made it increasingly
difficult for officials to preserve the state's legally defined bureaucratic
structure.
After about 730, Emperor Shomu, with at least the tacit approval of
the Fujiwara-dominated council, became more active in increasing the
throne's spiritual authority by patronizing the Buddhist faith. He continued
to associate himself with kami rites at ancestral shrines around
the country and to value Nara as a symbol of imperial authority, but he
soon revealed a special interest in Buddhism by initiating the reconstruction
of the Daian-ji (which was eventually to become one of "the
seven great temples of Nara"), the establishment of a sutra-copying
department within the principal empress's household, and the ordination
of an increasingly large number of Buddhist priests.27
25 There were four consorts: principal empress (kogo), imperial consort (kisaki), imperial spouse
(fujin), and imperial concubine (Am). AH held imperial ranks Qum) as stipulated in the Yoro
code and probably in the Taiho code as well. Three earlier principal empresses had occupied
the throne: Suiko (593-628), Kogyoku (642-5), and Jito (686-97).
26 The following four Fuhito sons founded four famous branches of the Fujiwara clan:
Muchimaro, the southern branch; Fusasaki, the northern; Umakai, the ceremonial; and
Maro, the capital. All four sons died of smallpox in 737.
27 See Joan R. Piggott's "Todaiji and the Nara Imperium" (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University,
1987). PP- 95-97Cambridge
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25O THE NARA STATE
The greater demand for priests probably lay behind the 731 decision
by the government to abandon its order of two decades' standing that
the popular Buddhist priest Gyoki (668-749) sto
P propagating his
beliefs among the common people. Despite the ban, Gyoki continued
to preach, expounding on Buddhist teachings of causality (inga) and
retribution (oho). What seems to have irritated government officials
was that poor farmers - who were relied on to pay tribute and supply
labor - were being drawn into religious groups that became involved
in digging irrigation ponds and ditches and in constructing roads and
bridges, projects that benefited rich farmers and district supervisors
more than they helped the state.28
But after hearing in 730 that tens of
thousands of Gyoki's disciples had gathered, for days on end, at places
around the capital where he was preaching,2
' the authorities took a
different tack, deciding that all male disciples over the age of sixty-one
and all female disciples over fifty-five, could become certified priests
or nuns if they really respected Buddhist teachings.*0
A few years later,
after the terrible smallpox epidemic of 735-7, Gyoki and his followers
were even invited to participate in the government's program of building
temples and making Buddhist statues for an emerging system of
state-supported temples.
During the years when the Council of State was controlled by the
four Fujiwara brothers, measures were adopted for increasing the
amount of cultivated rice land that could be allocated and from which
tribute could be collected. The government also took steps to decrease
the state's financial burden (abolishing conscription in 730), to lighten
the tax burden (halving taxes in 731), to improve the living conditions
of the common people (establishing charitable institutions and infirmaries),
and, in 732, to reinforce its control over outlying regions (replacing
the keepers of the peace around the capital with military peace
officers). Such activities suggest that the Fujiwara regime continued to
worry about signs of discontent among the people and instability at
court.
Then in 735 Japan was hit by a smallpox epidemic that was rumored
to have been introduced by a ship from Silla. As the horrible disease
spread in the direction of the capital, Emperor Shomu asked the
priests at leading shrines and temples around the country to pray for
relief. But the epidemic continued to spread. By the eighth month of
28 Most of what we know of Gyoki's activities can be found in the Gyoki nempu in Ichishima
Kenkichi, comp., Zoku Gunsho ruiju (Tokyo: Kokushokai, 1907), vol. 3.
29 Shoku Nihongi, Tempyo 2 (730) 9/29, KT 1.123.
30 Shoku Nihongi, Tempyo 3 (731) 8/7, KT 1.126.
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NARA AND TODAI-JI 251
737, ten officials of fourth rank or higher were dead, including all four
of the Fujiwara brothers (Muchimaro, Fusasaki, Umakai, and Maro)
who had dominated the council for the past eight years. Some scholars
have estimated that approximately one-third of the entire population
perished during those two years. Not only did the four Fujiwara brothers
die and the economic and social life of the people sustain serious
damage, but Shomu and his new regime were driven, more strongly
than ever, to build a statewide system of Buddha worship in order to
enhance the emperor's spiritual authority and to direct the power of
Buddha to the protection of the state and its people.
Tachibana no Moroe's regime (737-749)
The demise of the four Fujiwara brothers was accompanied by a shift
of power toward nobles closely related to the emperor and away from
aristocrats belonging to such great nonimperial clans as the Fujiwara,
even though Emperor Shomu (who had a Fujiwara mother and a
Fujiwara empress) continued to reign. The shift was most clearly seen
in two council appointments made in 737 and 738. First, Prince
Suzuka (a ranking imperial son and a younger brother of Prince
Nagaya) was appointed as acting chancellor. Second, Tachibana no
Moroe (684-757) was advanced to minister of the right, the very
position that had been held by Fujiwara no Muchimaro before his
death a few months earlier. The princely stature of Suzuka was unmistakable,
but Tachibana no Moroe's court connections were also impressive.
Descended from Emperor Bidatsu and a half-brother of Empress
Komyo, Moroe was once considered a member of the imperial clan
and called Prince Kazuragi. But in 736 he was removed from the
imperial clan and named Tachibana no Moroe.
After being promoted to minister of the right and advanced to
senior third rank, Moroe was not seriously challenged by members of
the great Fujiwara clan. Indeed, the only Fujiwara on the council at
the time was Fujiwara no Toyonari (704-65), Muchimaro's eldest son,
who had the relatively low rank of junior fourth rank lower grade.
Furthermore, all those clans that had opposed the four Fujiwara
brothers - such as the Otomo, Saeki, and Agata-Inukai - were Moroe
backers. This group, referred to as the "princely clique," wished to
strengthen its anti-Fujiwara stance by having Prince Asaka (whose
mother was not a Fujiwara) ascend the throne as Shomu's successor.
But as powerful as the "princely clique" had become, it was not able to
keep Shomu and his influential Empress Komyo from disregarding
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252 THE NARA STATE
the candidacy of Prince Asaka and selecting their own daughter, Princess
Abe (later enthroned first as Empress Koken and then as Empress
Shotoku) for the position of crown princess, the first woman to be
selected by a reigning emperor as his successor. Although the Fujiwara
influence was waning within the council, the emperor and his principal
empress were still able to maneuver their daughter (whose mother
was both a Fujiwara and an empress) into being named as heir to the
throne.
Tension and rivalry between imperial and nonimperial clans continued
throughout the Moroe period, breaking into open warfare when
Fujiwara no Hirotsugu (d. 740), the eldest son of Umakai, became
upset over his transfer (in 738) to a low-ranking post in distant
Dazai-fu. He complained that two China specialists (Kibi no Makibi
and the priest Gembo) were the principal cause of the current difficulties
at the capital, and so he requested their dismissal. At the same
time he used his official position at Dazai-fu to mobilize troops for a
rebellion. But the government dispatched an expeditionary force of
seventeen thousand that soon defeated the rebels and executed Hirotsugu.
As soon as Emperor Shomu received word of the military
victory, he made a tour of the eastern provinces, apparently realizing
that the execution of Hirotsugu would not end the old conflict between
the imperial princes and Fujiwara clansmen and hoping that
his royal presence might prevent the outbreak of rebellion in other
parts of the country.
Although Shomu and the Moroe regime faced no more military
uprisings, the intense rivalry continued, accounting probably for subsequent
decisions to move the capital to first one site and then another.
Upon completing his eastern tour, Shomu did not return to Nara but
instead proceeded to the detached palace at Kuni in the province of
Yamashiro and announced a few months later that Kuni was to be the
new capital. Indeed, between 741 and 745 Japan had three new capitals:
first at Kuni in Yamashiro, then at Shigaraki in Omi, and finally
at Naniwa in Settsu. Although the reasons for so many moves within a
period of four years are not known, we assume that each was based on
altered conditions in the continuing struggle between the Moroe regime
and the Fujiwara clan. Because Tachibana no Moroe's power was
centered in the southern part of Yamashiro where Kuni was located,
that was undoubtedly the site preferred by him and his princely supporters.
Shigaraki in the province of Omi, on the other hand, was in a
region where the Fujiwara were strong, suggesting that the choice of
Shigaraki came at a time of Fujiwara ascendancy. Finally, the move to
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NARA AND TODAI-JI 253
Naniwa was probably made because it was a site that all the groups in
and around the court could accept.3'
One aspect of the growing struggle between Moroe's supporters and
the Fujiwara clansmen was a court confrontation between two factions
headed by powerful women: Retired Empress Gensho who was allied
with Moroe and Empress Komyo who was backed by the Fujiwara.
Significantly, the move in 745 of the capital to Shigaraki (the Fujiwara
base) came after the appointment in 743 of Fujiwara no Nakamaro
(706-64) as consultant and the death in 744 of Prince Asaka, whose
candidacy for enthronement (favored by the Moroe group) had been
disregarded by Shomu and Empress Komyo. Understandably, suspicions
soon arose that Prince Asaka's death was due to foul play by
members of the Fujiwara faction.
The Moroe administration adopted a number of measures meant to
alleviate the human miseries caused first by the dreadful smallpox
epidemic of 735-7 and then by demands for massive amounts of material
and labor to build and operate such huge Buddhist temples as
Daian-ji and Yakushi-ji. A few months after gaining control of the
Council of State, Moroe and his backers abolished the practice of
conscripting military guards for duty in the Kyushu area (sakimori).
This practice had also been banned early in the regime of the four
Fujiwara brothers but was subsequently revived. Then in 738 the
government rescinded the law that an able-bodied person from each
household (a kondei) must be conscripted for military service, and in
739 the number of officials assigned to a district office was reduced. In
fact, military forces were eliminated except for units in such strategically
important provinces as Mutsu and Nagato and provinces under
the jurisdiction of Dazai-fu. Private lending (shi-suiko) was also prohibited
in 737. This measure reduced interest rates for farmers but benefited
local officials who could henceforth increase their income from
public loans (ko-suiko). Finally, in 740, local government was simplified
by abolishing villages (sato) - systematized during the earlier
Fuhito period - and creating towns (go) made up of two or three
villages.
Probably the most spectacular economic measure was that enacted
in 743, permitting a farmer who opened up virgin land for the cultivation
of rice to gain title to that land in perpetuity (see Chapter 8). This
decision violated the basicritsuryoprinciple that all land (as well as all
people) belonged to the state. The new policy may have increased the
31 See Naoki Kojiro, Asuka Narajidai no kenkyu (Tokyo: Hanawa shobo, 1975).
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254 THE NARA STATE
amount of cultivated land and added to the state's revenue, but because
only local officials and rich farmers could afford to undertake
reclamation projects, it is thought that this measure accelerated the
accumulation of privately owned land, making the rich even richer
and gradually undermining the ritsuryo system.
The council's attempts to reduce the miseries of the people did not,
however, halt the gradual deterioration of Tachibana no Moroe's influence
in the council. After Shomu returned to Nara - where the capital
was again located after 745 - he became seriously ill. He never again
enjoyed good health, and his illness fueled the old dispute over who
should succeed him. Prince Suzuka, the only serious Moroe rival on
the council, died during that same year. When no one was appointed to
replace him as acting chancellor, the tension between the princely and
the Fujiwara factions increased. At the same time, Fujiwara no
Fujimaro (706-64) was rising to higher positions in the Council of
State, advancing even faster after the death of Retired Empress Gensho
in 748. Shomu abdicated the following year, and his daughter Princess
Abe (who had a Fujiwara mother) occupied the throne as Empress
Koken, thereby bringing the years of Moroe control to a close.
The statewide Todai-ji system
Another spectacular development in the mid-Nara period was the erection
of an extensive Buddhist system. Historians have long appreciated
the cultural significance of the T6dai-ji compound and its huge
statue of Rushana Buddha (Vairocana), and economic specialists have
ferreted out evidence of the great expense incurred in building and
operating this huge system. But only recently have we begun to understand
why Japan's aristocrats (both imperial and nonimperial) were
willing to use, over such a long period of time, a large share of their
material and human resources for the support of Buddhist ceremonies
and institutions (see Chapter 7).
The imperial clan had actively supported Buddhism ever since the
beginning of the Asuka enlightenment at the end of the sixth century,
and especially after the Great Reforms of 645. But Emperor Shomu
pressed the building of the temple system toward completion during
his twenty-five year reign. His endeavors seem to have been supported
by all the important individuals at court and by all three regimes that
had dominated affairs while he was on the throne: the regimes of
Prince Nagaya (721 to 729), the Fujiwara Four (729 and 737), and
Tachibana no Moroe (737 and 749).
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NARA AND TODAI-JI 255
The post-645 reform leaders had centered their attention on building
a Chinese-style empire in Japan (see Chapter 3), apparently
assuming - as did the Sui emperors and Empress Wu of the T'ang
dynasty - that their authority would be materially enhanced by the
construction of an impressive new capital. Even before moving to
erect a grand Chinese-style capital at Nara, Japanese officials had
placed Buddhist worship and Buddhist temples under imperial control.
Quite early, one particularly large and spectacular temple was
linked to the emperor and placed above all others; imperially appointed
priests were charged with administering temple affairs; and
laws were issued that brought most Buddhist functions (including the
certification of priests) under the jurisdiction of the imperial court.
When considering the temple system that was nearing completion in
the middle years of the Nara period, one readily notices the provincial
temples (kokubun-jt), the great T6dai-ji compound, and finally the
Todai-ji's great central object of worship, the fifty-three foot statue of
Rushana Buddha (Vairocana). All of these were erected at the peak of
an emperor-oriented Buddhist development that had started nearly a
century before.
State-supported Buddhist temples had existed in China as far
back as the fifth century, and Shomu's grandfather Temmu had
ordered - nearly fifty years before the edict of 741 - the construction
of Buddhist chapels (dojo) in every province of the land. As early as
694, Empress Jito had distributed copies of the Golden Light {Konkomyo)
Sutra and ordered that they be read early in the first month of
every year. But in 741, before the country had recovered from the
terrible smallpox epidemic of 735-7 and soon after the Hirotsugu
rebellion of 740, Shomu issued an edict requiring every province to
build both a monastery and a nunnery where Buddhist ceremonies
were to be conducted on a regular basis by certified priests and nuns
and where Buddhist statues and sutras were to be kept and honored.
His purpose, according to the edict, was to "protect the country
against all calamity, prevent sorrow and pestilence, and cause the
hearts of believers to be filled with joy."*2
The discovery of engraved
tiles at provincial temple sites all over the country suggests that by the
end of the Nara period every province had its own official temple, the
local base of the state's emerging Buddhist system.33
Shomu's edict of 743 concerning the construction of a huge gilded
32 Shoku Nihongi, Tempyo 13 (741) 3/24, KT 1.163-4.
33 Hayakawa, Ritswyo kokka, pp. 271-2.
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256 THE NARA STATE
bronze statue of Buddha, though nothing new in either China or
Japan, was - like the edict of 741 regarding the building of a Buddhist
monastery and nunnery in every province - a prayer for the peace and
prosperity of the state. But the two edicts were based on the teachings
of different Buddhist sutras. Whereas the edict of 741 highlighted the
Golden Light Sutra (each provincial monastery and nunnery was even
given a name that included the words for that sutra), the later edict
referred to the teachings of the Kegon Sutra (the statue itself was a
representation of Rushana, the central Kegon Buddha). The question
of why there was this shift from the Golden Light to Kegon teachings
within the short span of two years is discussed in Chapter 7. Here we
shall merely note that the edict of 743 invited everyone, high or low, to
help meet the cost of making the statue, even if his or her contribution
were no more than "one blade of grass or one clod of earth."
The casting of the statue, begun at Shigaraki in 743 but stopped and
restarted at Nara two years later, was not completed until 749. Its
completion was delayed by seven casting failures and the need, it is
said, to obtain 338 tons of copper and 16 tons of gold.34 Two extraordinary
events in 749 have also been associated with the final stages of
work on the Great Buddha: the fortuitous discovery of gold in the
northern province of Mutsu just eight months before the casting was
completed,35
and a revealed message from Hachiman, a kami worshiped
at the Usa Hachiman Shrine in northeastern Kyushu, stating
that it wanted to be worshiped at the capital so that it could join all
other "heavenly and earthly kami" in supporting the great statuemaking
enterprise. The first development, the discovery of gold, so
delighted Shomu that he reported the good news to major shrines
around the capital and then went before the Great Buddha, attended
by some five thousand priests, to read an edict in which he referred to
himself "as a servant of the Three Treasures" of Buddhism and declared
that the newfound gold was a "blessing bestowed on us by
Rushana Buddha."36
The oracular message from Hachiman was followed
by a decision to have a portion of Hachiman's kami body
(shintat) brought to Nara, amidst much pomp and ceremony, and
enshrined near T6dai-ji, where a Hachiman shrine still exists.37
34 These conclusions were reached by Joan R. Piggott on the basis of research in documents
preserved in the Todai-ji storehouse (the famous eighth-century Shoso-in), "Todaiji and the
Nara Imperium," p. 128.
35 See Hayakawa, Ritsuryo kokka, 4.274-5.
36 Shoku Nihongi, Tempyo Shoho 2 (749) 4/1, KT 1.197.
37 See Ross Bender, "The Political Meaning of the Hachiman Cult in Ancient and Early Medieval
Japan" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1980).
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AUTHORITY CRISES 257
When the work of casting the Rushana statue was moved from Shigaraki
to Nara in 745, the place selected was on the grounds of the existing
Yamato provincial temple,*8
which eventually became the Todai-ji. As
early as 748, before the statue wasfinished,a plan was drawn up for an
audience hall (daigokuderi) in which to house the Great Buddha. According
to research by Joan Piggott, this was a building measuring 300 feet
from east to west, 166 feet from north to south, and 150 feet high. A
compound of about four square miles is said to have included six other
halls, two pagodas, and numerous residences for priests. By the time
the huge statue was dedicated in 752, the Todai-ji had been granted five
thousand households in thirty-eight provinces to cover the construction
and operating costs, providing an annual income (according to calculations
by Takeuchi Rizo) equal to 146,700 bushels of unhuUed rice.39
The dedication of the Great Buddha in 752 was an even more spectacular
manifestation of the importance assigned to the new Buddhist
system. Although Shomu had become a retired emperor by this time,
he was present and accompanied by his famous empress Komyo, his
daughter Empress Koken, seven thousand courtiers, and about ten
thousand monks for what was probably the most impressive ceremony
ever staged by a Japanese sovereign.'*0
For the thousands of highranking
officials in attendance, the symbolic meaning of the Todai-ji
and the Great Buddha was underscored not only by their size and
grandeur but also by their exoticism. Hayakawa surmises that the
gilded statue and its great hall - with lacquered pillars, white walls,
blue tiles, and brightly colored banners - had a foreign appeal as
strong as that seen in the colored pictures painted, more than a century
before, on the walls of the Takamatsu burial mound.*1
Although the statewide Buddhist system continued to grow and
prosper during the remainder of the Nara period, political disturbances
were beginning to alter the course of Japanese history, moving
it toward a break in the imperial line (no more emperors or empresses
descended from Emperor Temmu) and toward the removal of the
capital from Nara.
AUTHORITY CRISES
When the thirty-two-year-old daughter of Emperor Shomu and Empress
Komyo ascended the throne in 749 as Empress Koken, she issued
38 See Hayakawa, Ritswyo kokka, 4.272-3.
39 Piggott, "Todaiji and the Nara Imperium," p. 132.
40 Ibid., pp. I33-9J. Also see Chapter 8. 41 Hayakawa, Riuuryo kokka, 4.278-9.
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258 THE NARA STATE
an edict proclaiming the start ofa new era called Tempyo Shoho, "Heavenly
Peace and Victorious Buddhism." The following two decades did
seem to be a time of victorious Buddhism: The Great Buddha statue was
dedicated in 752; the distinguished Chinese priest Ganjin (6818-763)
arrived in 754 and soon performed ordination rites for the empress and
her imperial father; a new temple (the Saidai-ji), meant to be as grand as
the T6dai-ji, was founded in 765; Buddhist temples were treated liberally
in a 765 revision of the land-development law; and in 766 and 767
the priest Dokyo received higher titles and offices than had ever been
bestowed on a commoner.
But these years were not peaceful. The authority of the empress (on
the throne for a second term as Shotoku) was challenged in 764 by
opponents who resorted to the use of armies. And five years later, her
authority was challenged by a kami oracle that stated the country
would be better off if the next occupant of the throne were the Buddhist
priest Dokyo. Finally, Shotoku was replaced in 770 by a prince
born into a different branch of the imperial line, and then in 784 the
capital was removed from Nara, bringing the fabulous Nara period to a
close.
Although the more than twenty years of the Shomu reign outlined
in the previous section were noted for two impressive building complexes
(the capital city of Nara and the T6dai-ji-centered Buddhist
system), the following two decades obtained their character from activities
surrounding three individuals deeply involved in a series of
authority crises: (1) Shomu's daughter (718-70), who reigned from
749 to 758 as Koken, dominated Emperor Junnin from 758 to 764 as
retired empress and then occupied the throne a second time, as
Shotoku, between 764 and her death in 770; (2) Fujiwara no Nakamaro
(706-64) who ordered armies to attack imperial forces in 764;
and (3) Dokyo (d. 772) who, closely allied with Shotoku, was the
Buddhist priest selected by a Japanese kami to succeed her as Japan's
next emperor.
A succession of powerful empresses
Although the Nara period emperors were stronger than those of any
other period in Japanese history and Shomu apparently dominated
both sacral and secular affairs during his long reign, a close reading of
the available evidence shows that the Nara period was a time of strong
influence by four successive empresses (see Figure 4.4). First, Gemmei
(661-721) was strong enough to block the enthronement of
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AUTHORITY CRISES 259
Emperor
Jomei (35)
T
Emperor
Tenji (38)
Empress Empress , Emperor
Gemmei(43) Jito (41) | Temmu (40)
I
. Prince Fu)iwara no
Kusakabe Fuhito
III II
Empress Emperor 1 Miyako Komyo
Gensho (44) Mommu (42) | i
Emperor n -1
Shomu (45)
Empress
Koken (46)
Emperor
Junnin (47)
Empress
Shotoku (48)
Figure 4.4. Temmu's line and Fuhito's daughters. Note: Junnin was
a grandson of Temmu (no Fujiwara linkage); Koken and Shotoku are
the same person. Dashed line indicates spousal relationship; solid
line, offspring. (Reign numbers are in parentheses, as recorded in
the Gukansho chronology; see Brown and Ishida, The Future and the
Past, pp. 264-78.)
Shomu in 715, although Shomu had been appointed crown prince in
713. She favored instead the enthronement of her own daughter Empress
Gensho and apparently made it impossible for Shomu to reach
the throne until 724, three years after her death. Second, Gensho
(680-748), like her mother Gemmei, consistently used her authority
to have princes appointed to high positions in the council, apparently
preferring a regime like the one of Tachibana no Moroe. Third,
Komyo (701-60), as one of Fuhito's daughters, used her position to
make certain that Fujiwara men received key appointments and rapid
promotions. She was surely behind the arrangements that resulted in
the formation of the "regime of the four Fujiwara brothers" in 729, the
year she was appointed empress. But as long as Gensho was alive,
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260 THE NARA STATE
imperial princes continued to be appointed to high-level positions,
especially after the smallpox epidemic of 735-7. Only after Gensho's
death in 748 did Empress Komyo and Emperor Shomu succeed in
getting their daughter (Koken) enthroned as Shomu's successor, and
only then did Fujiwara aristocrats begin to rise rapidly on the bureaucratic
ladder.
The fourth and most famous Nara period empress was Koken (r.
749-58) who later reigned as Shotoku (r. 764-70). She was - like her
mother Komyo - an independent and strong-willed woman who apparently
identified herself with the autocratic Empress Wu (r. 691-
705) of China. By selecting a four-character era name at the beginning
of her first reign, she seems to have been consciously modeling her
rule after that of Empress Wu, as a four-character era name had appeared
in China only during the Wu reign.42
And yet we see no particularly
new political currents or policies during the nine years of
Koken's first reign except for an accumulation of power by Fujiwara
no Nakamaro. Possibly she did not show much independence of mind
during these years because she was still in her thirties. But a more
significant factor was the continuing influence of her mother, Principal
Empress Komyo, for it was Komyo after all, not Koken, who was
Nakamaro's principal supporter. When Koken stepped down from the
throne in 758, she may well have thought that she could now obtain, at
long last, the political leverage of a retired empress. But Koken does
not seem to have played a decisive role in public affairs until after
Komyo's death in 760. Only then did she, as Empress Shotoku, tangle
with and destroy Fujiwara no Nakamaro, oppose and exile Emperor
Junnin, and promote the Buddhist priest Dokyo to the highest position
ever held by a commoner.
The rise of Fujiwara no Nakamaro
In 743, when the capital was moved from Kuni near the Tachibana
power base to Shigaraki close to important Fujiwara holdings, Nakamaro
was appointed to the Council of State, largely because he was
backed by his powerful Fujiwara aunt, Empress Komyo. Later promotions
and appointments made him the leading rival of Tachibana no
Moroe, supported by Retired Empress Gensho. Although Gensho died
42 Empress Wu Tse-t'ien (622-705) was Kao-tsung's consort. After the latter's death in 683, she
controlled the empire as dowager empress while two of her sons occupied the throne. In 690
she had herself enthroned as sovereign empress and declared the beginning of a new dynasty.
In 695 and again in 696, she adopted era names written with four Chinese characters.
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AUTHORITY CRISES 26l
in 748 and Koken was enthroned the following year, Tachibana no
Moroe continued on as minister of the left until 756, just a year before
Koken's abdication. Nevertheless, Nakamaro and his group were becoming
stronger, mainly because of the power that Nakamaro held as
head of the office (the Shibi chudai) that handled the principal empress's
(Komyo's) affairs. This office, standing outside the bureaucratic
structure defined in the Taiho administrative code, was staffed with
high-ranking officials who performed increasingly important functions.
Its name, similar to that of a Chinese office administering the
affairs of state under Empress Wu at the turn of the eighth century,
suggests that Komyo - who supported, and was being supported by,
her ambitious nephew Nakamaro - was planning to rule Japan in the
Empress Wu manner. Because Nakamaro, as head of this office, was
taking responsibility for matters previously handled by the council and
the council itself now included an increasingly large number of officials
from the Fujiwara clan, Tachibana no Moroe's influence was in decline.
During the year 755, rivalry between the two groups - one formerly
headed by Retired Empress Gensho supporting Moroe and the other by
Empress Komyo backing Nakamaro - came to the breaking point
when Moroe reportedly became bold enough at a drinking party to
criticize Empress Koken openly. Nakamaro and his party used the
incident as an excuse to press for Moroe's resignation. The situation was
made even riper for intrigue and conspiracy when after Shomu's death
in 756, an edict was issued elevating to crown prince a person not
favored by the Fujiwara faction. Within a few days the Fujiwara leaders
retaliated. Two prominent heads of the anti-Fujiwara group were arrested
and placed in confinement on the charge that they had been
disrespectful to the reigning empress. In the following year, Tachibana
no Moroe died; a new crown prince (the future Emperor Junnin and a
Nakamaro relative) was appointed; and Nakamaro was given another
important extralegal ministerial position, that of shibi naisho.
But Nakamaro's control was not yet firm, as Tachibana no Moroe's
eldest son Naramaro was assembling support for a coup. Fujiwara no
Nakamaro soon got wind of the activity and hastened to stamp out
Tachibana's opposition force. He had the former Crown Prince
Funado executed and sent his own elder brother Toyonari (who had
been minister of the right) into exile at Dazai-fu. In an apparent
attempt to head off the popular discontent that had been aroused by
his ruthless elimination of opponents, Nakamaro decreased from sixty
to thirty the number of days a farmer had to work for the government,
halved the rice assessments, and reduced other forms of tribute. In
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262 THE NARA STATE
that same year, the Yoro codes (incomplete at the time of Fuhito's
death in 720) were promulgated, and the distinguished service of Fujiwara
no Kamatari (prominent at the time of the 645 reforms) was
posthumously recognized. In 758 Nakamaro moved to colonize the
territory of the Ezo people to the north by building frontier posts in
Mutsu and Dewa and, at about that time, to work out a plan for
conquering the kingdom of Silla, even issuing an order that five hundred
ships be built for an overseas expeditionary force. The events of
757 and 758 indicated to people in and around the court that the
Nakamaro regime had become remarkably strong. But two unforeseen
developments hastened the regime's decline and fall: the death of
Empress Komyo in 760, and Retired Empress Koken's decision in 762
to handle personally the really important affairs of state.
Koken against Nakamaro
Although modern historians may have difficulty comprehending the authority
that Nakamaro obtained from the support of Empress Komyo
(Fuhito's daughter, Shomu's empress, and Koken's mother), the Nara
aristocrats probably had no such difficulty: They undoubtedly understood
the political implications of Komyo's death in 760. Nakamaro
surely hoped or assumed that Koken would replace her mother as his
principal supporter, but by the time Koken had yielded the throne to
Junnin in 758, she had set her heart on becoming not merely the source
ofimperial authority (as retired empress) but also the person to exercise
it. By then she had already placed under her own wing the imperial
guards (chue-fu) who had been under Nakamaro since 756.« But it was
not until 762, after Junnin had occupied the throne for four years, that
relations between Koken and Nakamaro reached the breaking point.
Just how and when the rift came about is not known, but scholars
generally agree that it coincided with the development of intimate
relations between Koken and Dokyo (d. 772), a Buddhist priest who,
in the fourth month of 762, used his mysterious healing powers to cure
the empress of some illness. At that time the empress was forty-five
years old and Dokyo was around sixty. The nature of the intimacy is
not known, but according to the Nihon ryoiki written at the beginning
of the ninth century, "the priest Dokyo and the retired empress shared
the same pillow." In the sixth month of 762, Koken became so irri-
43 See Sasayama Haruo, "Chue-fu no kenkyu - sono seijishi teki igi ni kansuru," Kodaigaku 6
(1957): 274-302: and Naoki Kojiro, Asuka nara jidai no kenkyu (Tokyo: Hanawa shobo,
1975), PP- 221-6.
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AUTHORITY CRISES 263
tated with Emperor Junnin that she suddenly left the detached palace
at Hora and took up residence at a Buddhist temple in Nara, where she
immediately issued an edict (as retired empress) stating that "henceforth
the emperor will conduct minor affairs of state, but important
matters of state, including the dispensation of swards and punishments,
will be handled by me."« Clearly, she had decided to exercise
the authority that had been previously enjoyed by her mother, Empress
Komyo.
Because Nakamaro, who had joined Komyo in endorsing Junnin's
enthronement, was threatened by Koken's decision, he immediately
took steps to strengthen his own control: He named two of his sons
(Kuzumaro and Asakari) to the council and gave two other sons military
appointments, one in the capital and the other in the provinces of
Echizen and Mino. But the opposition now gathering about Koken
was taking countermeasures: Fujiwara no Masaki, a Fujiwara clansman
who was critical of Namakaro's policies, was appointed middle
counselor, and Kibi no Makibi, an anti-Fujiwara specialist on China
who had been exiled to Kyushu, was brought back to the capital and
appointed supervisor of construction at Tddai-ji. Although the sudden
and sharp decline in Nakamaro's fortunes was due above all to his
strained relations with Koken and her beloved Dokyo, Nakamaro had
also alienated fellow clansmen, who were now drifting to the support
of the retired empress.
By 764 Nakamaro was planning a coup d'etat that would restore in a
single stroke his power and prestige. Using the authority of his ministerial
office, he seized control of military affairs in the provinces near the
capital, dispatched additional soldiers to regions under his control,
and increased the size of the provincial militia. But his plans were
leaked, and Koken and her group immediately took possession of the
imperial seals and the post station bells (ekirei) needed to mobilize the
troops. Then her commander's forces clashed with Nakamaro's guards
and, within seven days, seized and executed Nakamaro. Thus the
rebellion was quashed, leaving Retired Empress Koken in full charge
of state affairs.
Koken and Priest Dokyo
As soon as the 764 rebellion had been put down, Koken saw to it that
Dokyo was advanced from junior Fifth to junior third Rank and ap-
44 Shoku Nihongi, Tempyo Hoji 6 (762) 6/3, KT 2.287.
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264 THE NARA STATE
pointed minister prelate (daijin zenshi). She had Nakamaro's elder
brother Toyonari - who had been exiled because he had opposed
Nakamaro - brought back to the capital and reappointed as minister
of the right. Then she had Emperor Junnin removed from the throne
and exiled to the island of Awaji. In the edict issued at this time, she
stated that she had received from her father Emperor Shomu the
authority to select and depose successors to the throne and added that
Shomu had also observed that only persons obedient to his daughter
should succeed her. In this way Koken was not only justifying the
deposition of Junnin and her occupation of the throne for a second
reign as Empress Shotoku but also suggesting that someone like
Dokyo, who had been very obedient, was an appropriate successor.
Empress Shotoku immediately added troops to her imperial bodyguards
and placed them under the command of her chief military
officer, Fujiwara no Kurajimaro. She also increased the number of
officials in the council by adding to it clansmen who had supported her
in the struggle against Nakamaro and imperial princes, Buddhist
priests, and aristocrats from the provinces.« In 765 her administration
restricted the amount of land that aristocrats and non-Buddhist institutions
could develop and privately own, but the restrictions were not
applied to Buddhist temples. Tacit approval was thus given for a further
increase in the amount of rice land privately owned by these
religious institutions (see Chapter 8).
Favoring temples in this way was only one manifestation of the
administration's pro-Buddhist policy. Another can be detected in the
changes made in Dokyo's position after Nakamaro's death: In 765 he
was appointed prime minister prelate (daijddaijin zenshi); in 766 he
was named Buddhist king (H6-6); and in 767 his authority was increased
by the creation of an Imperial Office for the Buddhisi King
(Ho-6 Kyushiki). The only other person in Japanese history to hold
such high titles and offices was the famous Prince Shotoku who, as
prince regent, was designated more than a century earlier as Divine
Virtue Buddhist Prince (Shotoku Ho-6) and Great Buddhist Prince
(Ho-6 Dai-6). We should point out, however, that Dokyo did not gain
distinction for learning or religiosity in the practice of Buddhism at an
official temple. Instead, his reputation was based mainly on occult
powers supposedly gained from esoteric rites performed at secluded
mountain retreats. His rapid and remarkable rise to a position very
near the top of the imperial government was due almost entirely to
45 Piggott, "Todaiji and the Nara Imperium," pp. 72-81.
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AUTHORITY CRISES 265
favors received from Empress Shotoku, not to any broad-based support
of the Buddhist priesthood.46
As high as Dokyo's positions were,
they appear not to have given him responsibilities outside the field of
religion. Even his high appointments as prime minister priest and
Buddhist king suggest that he was thought of mainly as a Buddhist
priest, not as an official with responsibility for secular affairs. At times
he was active in programs involving the worship of both kami and
Buddha, such as in the construction of temples at shrines (jinguji) and
in the holding of Buddhist rites that were Shinto in character, but his
responsibilities were consistently within the spiritual realm.
Usa Hachiman and Dokyo
In 769, the head of the Kami Affairs Department at Dazai-fu reported
that Hachiman, the famous kami worshiped at the Usa Hachiman
Shrine in northeastern Kyushu, had made the following oracular statement:
"If Dokyo is made emperor, the country will become tranquil."
The Shoku Nihongi tells us that Dokyo was delighted to hear this but
that the empress asked Wake no Kiyomaro (733-99) to find out what
Hachiman had really said. The oracle message that Kiyomaro received
was quite different: "No person should ascend the throne who has not
been born in the imperial line."47
The chief priest of the Usa Hachiman Shrine may have been trying
to ingratiate himself with Shotoku and Dokyo by passing along the
first version, and Fujiwara no Nagate (714-71) and other members of
the Fujiwara clan seem to have arranged for Kiyomaro to bring back
the second. We do not know what really happened except that efforts
to make Dokyo the emperor were blocked. And yet Dokyo was not
punished, indicating that Shotoku did not think that he himself had
initiated, or been involved in, the plot.
In the eighth month of 770 Shotoku suddenly died at the age of
fifty-three, without having selected a successor. A succession dispute
ensued. Eventually Fujiwara no Momokawa (732-79) succeeded in
engineering the selection of Prince Shirakabe (grandson of Tenji) as
heir to the throne. Momokawa and other Fujiwara leaders had arranged
the forgery of an edict by Shotoku that proclaimed that
Shotoku had wanted Prince Shirakabe to be her successor. But she
certainly would have opposed this nomination, for only Temmu's de-
46 Piggott concluded that the priests at the various temples in the capital were actually opposed
to Dokyo's "despotic oversight." See her "Todaiji and the Nara Imperium," p. 118.
47 Shoku Nihongi, Jingo Keiun 3 (769) 9/25, KT 2.369.
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266 THE NARA STATE
scendants had occupied the throne since his death in 686. Other developments
point to a new power alignment: Dokyo was removed from
his high offices shortly after Shotoku's death and was exiled to the
province of Shimotsuke; Prince Shirakabe was enthroned at the age of
sixty-two as Emperor Konin; Fujiwara no Yoshitsugu (716-77) was
named minister of the center; and Fujiwara no Momokawa (732-79)
was promoted to consultant.
During Konin's reign, lasting until 781, the government devoted
much effort to increasing the state's income because financial conditions
had been deteriorating rapidly ever since 749, when Koken had
first occupied the throne. Unnecessary offices not listed in the administrative
code were abolished, resulting in the dismissal of numerous
provincial and central government officials; and all loans other than
those authorized by provincial governors were banned, probably
benefiting officials more than commoners. The new regime eliminated
the conscription of farmers and was more severe than earlier
regimes had been in attempting to control vagrancy. It also enacted
some military reform, shifting the burden of military service from
poor to rich farmers.
The Fujiwara leaders were also determined to upset the tradition
that Temmu's descendants alone should occupy the throne, for they
were convinced that any Temmu emperor or empress would continue
to favor direct imperial rule and oppose control by a nonimperial clan,
particularly the Fujiwara. Shortly after the beginning of Konin's
reign, the empress (a daughter of Shomu named Princess Igami) gave
birth to Prince Osabe. The young son was soon appointed crown
prince, and his mother was named empress consort. This displeased
the Fujiwara. Charging the empress consort with having put a curse on
the emperor, they had her demoted and Prince Osabe exiled. The
details of just what transpired are not clear, but apparently Momokawa
was making certain that no prince of the Temmu line would occupy
the throne.
The imperial son, Prince Yamabe, that was finally selected as
Konin's successor was definitely a descendant of Tenji, and he was
enthroned as Emperor Kammu when Konin abdicated in 781. Although
Kammu was the second Tenji-descended emperor, the struggle
between the two lines' supporters continued. Not long after the death
of Konin in 782, a plot was exposed, and a great grandson of Temmu
(Kawatsugu) was charged with complicity and sentenced to death.
The determination of the new leaders to keep Temmu's descendants
from occupying the throne was linked with their desire to have the
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AUTHORITY CRISES 267
capital moved from Nara, where three strong empresses and two emperors
of the Temmu line had reigned. Thus the move of Emperor
Kammu (a Tenji descendant) to Nagaoka in 784 marks the close of
Japan's amazing Nara period.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
CHAPTER 5
JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
Japan's prehistory was marked by the gradual transmission of techniques
and artifacts from the continental civilizations of Asia, especially
China and Korea. Imported technology - the cultivation of rice
in paddy fields, and bronze and iron metallurgy - enabled the Japanese
to create a settled and stratified society, and diplomatic contact
with foreign governments contributed to the formation of the Japanese
state. Thus continental influence in prehistoric times prepared the
way for the conscious adoption of sophisticated Chinese political and
cultural patterns in the sixth and seventh centuries. This chapter will
use archaeological findings and Chinese records to examine relations
between Japan and the continent, beginning with Japan's transition to
an agrarian society and ending with the dawn of the historical age.
Long before any other East Asian people, the Chinese developed the
building blocks of advanced civilization: agriculture, metal technology,
and a writing system. Archaeological findings in China suggest
that settled farming communities (such as the Yang-shao in the Yellow
River basin and the Ta-p'en-k'eng of the southeastern coast) can be
dated as early as the fifth millennium B.C.1
The Shang state, which
rose in the Yellow River valley around 1750 B.C., was based on a
writing system and advanced bronze technology. About a thousand
years later, the Chinese began to make tools out of iron.2
Their irontipped
plows enhanced agricultural productivity, and iron weapons
contributed to victory in war, most notably in the case of the Ch'in, the
state that formed China's first empire in 221 B.C.
Chinese culture and technology often came to Japan through Korea,
which adopted agriculture and metals somewhat before Japan did. By
the fourth century, the Koreans were growing rice, had passed through
a bronze age, and were beginning to turn to iron for weapons and tools.3
1 Kwang-chih Chang, The Archaeology of Aticienl China, 3rd ed. revised and enlarged (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979), pp. 83-85.
2 Ibid., pp. 209-95, discusses the Shang state, and for the use of iron, see pp. 350-57.
3 Ki-baik Lee, A New History of Korea, trans. Edward M. Wagner with Edward J. Shultz
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard-Yenching Institute, 1984), pp. 9-12, 14-16.
268
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JOMON AND YAYOI PERIODS 269
Some of these developments began to spread into Japan in the fourth or
third century, but it was not until the sixth century A.D. that the Japanese
made extensive use of writing or attempted to form a centralized
state.
Archaeologists have established the following relative chronology
for the prehistoric cultures of Japan: first a Paleolithic culture, followed
by the hunting-and-gathering Jomon culture, the agrarian Yayoi
culture, and finally the Burial Mound culture, which takes its name
from the huge mounds that entombed its leaders. An absolute chronology,
however, remains a thorny problem. Archaeological findings can
establish few absolute dates, and scholars' estimates often vary by
several hundred years. In this chapter, estimates of dates will be based
on both archaeological and documentary evidence: carbon-14 dating,
datable items imported from China or Korea, and accounts of Japan in
Chinese histories. It is somewhat misleading, however, to refer to
prehistoric "periods" as if they began and ended in particular years.
For example, the rice cultivation that marked the beginning of Japan's
Yayoi culture flourished in southwestern Japan when the northeast
was still in the hunting-and-gathering stage. Therefore, although this
chapter will often refer to the Jomon or the Yayoi "periods," the
reader should keep in mind such qualifications.
JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT IN THE JOMON AND YAYOI
PERIODS
The narrow stretch of ocean between the southern tip of the Korean
peninsula and the northern coast of Kyushu was a natural passageway
for traffic between Japan and the continent in prehistoric times. Archaeological
findings indicate that the peoples of Kyushu and Korea
were in contact some five thousand years ago. In addition, the oldest
traces of rice cultivation in Japan, along with tools of Korean origin,
have been found in northern Kyushu. Thus the sites in this region are
central to a study of prehistoric contacts between Japan and the continent.
Evidence from northern Kyushu sites dating from the Jomon
period to the beginning of late Yayoi times will form the basis for the
first portion of this chapter.
Continental influence on theJomon culture
Postwar archaeologists have determined that Japan was inhabited in
Paleolithic times, probably by people who crossed land bridges from
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27O JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
the continent to the islands. Tribal societies developed, based on a
hunting-and-gathering economy and characterized by pottery decorated
with elaborate patterns, as if made with twisted cords. This
"cord-pattern" pottery gave the name Jomon to the culture that dominated
the Japanese islands until the fourth or third century B.C.
Findings at Jomon sites dating around 3000 B.C. suggest that there
was some contact between the peoples of southern Korea and northern
Kyushu, Japan's southernmost island and the region closest to the
continent. Pottery found at the neolithic Chtilmun ("comb-pattern")
site at the Tongsam-dong shell mound in Pusan has been compared
with northern Kyushu's Sobata-style pottery, an early Jomon type.
Their shapes and markings are similar, and both types were made by
mixing asbestos and talc with the clay, leading some scholars to argue
that Sobata pottery was derived from a Korean prototype.1
' Contact
between Korea and Japan continued throughout the Jomon age, and
pottery of middle and late Jomon types has also been discovered at
Tongsam-dong. The absence of Korean pottery at middle and late
Jomon sites, however, indicates that Korean cultures exerted little
influence over Japan during these periods. In fact, the Jomon culture
seems to have evolved relatively independently, with little influence
from the continent.
This situation, however, changed dramatically at the end of the
Jomon age. For example, carbonized rice grains and stone implements
like those of Korea's Mumun (undecorated) pottery culture have been
unearthed at sites that also contain Yusu-style pottery, a late Jomon
type. This indicates that rice growing had been transmitted from Korea,
a conclusion substantiated by the discovery of argicultural tools
such as axes, knives, blades with handles, and polished arrowheads at
the late Jomon Nabatake site in Karatsu City, Saga Prefecture,5
and at
Nijomachi Magarida in Itoshima District, Fukuoka Prefecture.6
The Itazuke site in Fukuoka City is particularly important to the
study of the transition between the Jomon and the Yayoi cultures.
Itazuke, the site of a village located on a plateau bordering wet lowlands,
contains remains from both the late Jomon and the early Yayoi
4 Kim Won-gy6ng, Han'guk kogohak kaesdl (Seoul: Ilchisa, 1973); Esaka Teruya, "Seihoku
Kyushu chiho no Jomon bunka to Chosen hanto nambu no senshi bunka," Kokogaku janaru
183 (1980): 12-14.
5 Investigated by the Karatsu City kyoiku iinkai. See Kagawa Mitsuo, "Sobata bunka ni tsuite,"
in Karatsu wan shuhen iseki chosa iinkai, Matsuro koku Saga-ken Karatsu-shi Higashi
Matsuura-gun no kokogakuteki chosa kenkyu, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Rokkaku shuppan, 1982), vol. 1,
pp. 71-75-
6 Investigated by the Fukuoka Prefecture kyoiku iinkai.
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JOMON AND YAYOI PERIODS 271
periods, sometimes in the same stratum. The oldest evidence of rice
cultivation in Japan has been found at this site. Both late Jomon Yusu
pottery and pottery of the Itazuke I type, manufactured in the early
Yayoi period, are marked with imprints made by unhulled rice. Strata
containing only Yusu-style pottery - definitely from the late Jomon
period - also yield evidence of rice cultivation, including carbonized
rice grains and stone axes of Korean lineage that were probably used
for making wooden agricultural tools.7
These findings indicate that
the people of the Yusu pottery culture practiced a fairly advanced
form of rice cultivation.
These discoveries raise an important question: How did the techniques
of rice growing come to Japan? Because there is no evidence of
rice cultivation at earlier Jomon sites, scholars believe that rice was not
grown in Japan until the late Jomon period.8
But the Jomon people
had already begun to grow other crops, such as the root vegetables
they had once obtained by gathering.' Rice, however, does not grow
wild in the Japanese islands; thus it can be assumed that its cultivation
was introduced from abroad. The most likely source is the Yangtze
River basin of central China, where rice was grown in irrigated fields
in prehistoric times. How rice reached Japan from the Yangtze basin is
a subject of much debate, however. Some scholars argue that cultivation
techniques were introduced directly from central China to both
Korea and Japan simultaneously, and others believe that such techniques
came from south China through the Ryukyu island chain and
the stepping-stone islands south of Kyushu. A third theory is especially
convincing: that rice cultivation was first transmitted from the
Yangtze basin to the Shantung peninsula, then to Korea, andfinallyto
Japan.10
Similarities in early agricultural technology, based on similarities in
topography and climate, suggest that rice growing may well have come
to Japan by way of Korea. Among the strongest evidence is the presence
of Korean stone implements at the Itazuke site. Some could have
7 Mori Teijiro and Okazaki Takashi, "Itazuke iseki," in Nihon kokogaku kyokai, ed., Nihon
noko bunka no seisei, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Tokyodo, 1960-61), vol. 1; Fukuoka-sbi kyoiku iinkai,
Itazuke iseki chosa gaikd: Itazuke shuhen iseki chosa hokoku sho 5, 1977-8 nendo: Fukuoka-shi
maizd bunkazai chosa hokoku sho 49 (1979); Okazaki Takashi, "Kome o chushin toshite mita
Nihon to tairiku: Kokogakuteki chosa no gen dankai," in Kodai ni okeru kdeki to bunka kotyu,
vol. 13 of Ishimoda Sho et al., eds., Kodaishi koza (Tokyo: Gakuseisha, 1966), p. 209.
8 Kim Chdng-hak, Kankoku no kokogaku (Tokyo: Kawade shobo shinsha, 1972).
9 Okazaki Takashi, "Nihon kokogaku no hoho" in Hirano Kunio and Okazaki Takashi, eds.,
Kenkyu shityo, vol. 9 of Kodai no Nihon (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 1971), p. 42.
10 Okazaki, "Kome o chushin toshite mita Nihon to tairiku," pp. 181-216. Also see Chapter 1
of this volume.
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272 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
come directly from China, as implements of the same types have been
found in both China and Korea. But one type of tool, a grooved axe
with a square shaft, is peculiar to Korea. On the other hand, archaeologists
have found no exclusively Chinese tools at northern Kyushu sites
dating from the end of the Jomon period. Thus it seem unlikely that
rice cultivation was introduced directly from China.11
The variety of rice grown in Japan - first in northern Kyushu and,
later, all over the islands - also suggests that rice came to Japan from
the Korean peninsula. Japanese rice is of the short-grained variety
known as Oryza sativa japonica. Though both this variety and the
longer-grained indica rice were grown in the Yangtze basin, only
japonica is grown in Korea and Japan. Therefore, if rice had been
introduced directly from the Yangtze to Japan, some indica grains
might well have been found at Japanese sites, indicating that the type
was cultivated on at least an experimental basis.12
Furthermore, rice
was grown early enough in Korea to have been transmitted to Japan in
late Jomon times. The oldest traces of rice cultivation in Korea have
been found at a Mumun site at Hunam village in Kyonggi Province in
west central Korea. Using radiocarbon dating, archaeologists have
determined that rice was grown in Korea as early as the first half of the
first millennium B.C.13
The hypothesis that rice came to Japan by way
of Korea is also supported by other evidence of early contact between
the two people, such as similar mound-building techniques.l
*
Early Yayoi: agriculture and the use of metal
The widespread adoption of rice cultivation distinguished the Yayoi
culture from the earlier Jomon and laid the foundation for a settled
society. That is, the growing of rice as the staple crop required people
to settle in permanent villages, where cooperative methods of planting,
irrigation, and harvesting evolved. The Yayoi rice-growing culture
spread rapidly from northern Kyushu to the region of central Honshu
around present-day Nagoya. There, climate and topography retarded
11 Okazaki Takashi, "Nihon ni okeru shoki inasaku shiryo: Chosen hanto to no kanren ni
furete," in Nishitani Tadashi ed., Kokogaku kara mita kodai Nihon to Chosen (Tokyo:
Gakuseisha, 1978), p. 103.
12 Okazaki, "Nihon ni okeru shoki inasaku shiryo," p. 102.
13 Kim Won-gy6ng, "Discoveries of Rice in Prehistoric Sites in Korea,"Journal ofAsian Studies
41 (May 1982): 515.
14 Matsuo Teisaku, Kila Kyushu sMsekibo no kenkyu (Saga: Matsuo Teisaku sensei kanreki kinen
jigyokai, 1957); Mori Teijiro, "Nihon ni okeru shoki no shisekibo" in Kim Che-w6n hakushi
koki kinen ronso henshu iinkai, ed., Kim Che-w6n hakushi koki kinen ronso (Seoul:
Ulyumunhwasa, 1969), pp. 60-67.
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JOMON AND YAYOI PERIODS 273
the northward advance of agriculture, and for a time, northern Japan
remained a society of hunters and gatherers.
The introduction of metal technology from the continent enhanced
agricultural production, influenced methods of warfare, and helped
create a stratified society in which elites possessed metal implements,
weapons, and jewelry. Metal culture, like the growing of rice, was
introduced to Japan from Korea. Archaeological findings indicate
that by the third century B.C., the Koreans had created an advanced
metal culture. Iron and bronze weapons, agricultural tools, and datable
coins had been introduced from the northeastern Chinese state of
Yen. Bronze items from the Scytho-Siberian culture of the Eurasian
steppe - horse trappings, for example - have also been found at Korean
sites.15
The Koreans first learned techniques of casting iron and
bronze and, later, of forging iron, thus enabling them to manufacture
their own metal weapons and tools. Some of these items were introduced
into northern Kyushu.16
Northern Kyushu's proximity to the Asian continent allowed the
Japanese to circumvent the stages through which a metal culture typically
evolves. In China, for example, a sophisticated bronze culture
developed in the Shang dynasty, producing weapons and intricately
decorated vessels. The use of iron came next: Cast iron was first used
in the seventh or sixth century B.C., and then forged iron took precedence
in the Warring States period (ca. 403-221 B.C.).'? The Japanese,
on the other hand, may have begun with forged iron items imported
from Korea.18
The use of bronze seems to have come later, and the
Japanese did not go through a cast-iron stage. Findings at early Yayoi
sites in Kyushu include items made of forged iron, but bronzes do not
appear until the end of the period.
Iron implements may even have come to Japan as early as the late
Jomon age. The tip of a forged-iron blade has been discovered at
Saitoyama, Kumamoto Prefecture, in a shell mound that contained
both late Jomon Yusu and early Yayoi Itazuke I-style pottery. The
blade appears to be that of an axe with a socket for the insertion of a
wooden handle, and it was probably manufactured in China or Ko-
rea.19
Other findings that point to the early use of iron include frag-
15 Oda Fujio, "Tekki," in Tateiwa iseki chosa iinkai, ed., Tateiwa iseki (Tokyo: Kawade shobd,
1977). P- 240; William E. Henthorn, A History of Korea (New York: Free Press, 1974), pp.
15-16.
16 Mori Koichi, "Kokogaku kara mita tetsu," in Mori Koichi, ed., Tetsu (Tokyo: Shakai
shisosha, 1974), pp. 21-22.
17 Oda, "Tekki," p. 240. 18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.; Mori, "Kokogaku kara mita tetsu," pp. 20-21.
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274 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
ments of daggers found at two early Yayoi sites, one in Kumamoto and
one in Yamaguchi Prefecture.20
Iron articles imported from Korea
during the Yayoi period included weapons such as halberds, swords,
spears, daggers, and arrowheads and tools such as axes and knives.
For the most part, these items were best suited to everyday use, in
warfare or in farming, as were the iron implements made later in
Japan.
Bronzes were first imported from Korea at the end of the early Yayoi
period. Imported bronzes - including swords, spears, mirrors, and
bracelets - have been found at a number of burial sites in northern
Kyushu. At the Ukikunden site in Karatsu City, Saga Prefecture,
archaeologists found a burial ground where bodies were interred with
bronzes in large urns, a common Yayoi practice. Furthermore, the
bronzes found at this site resemble those cast in Mumun Korea. Such
items include swords, spears, and mirrors incised on the back with
patterns of fine lines and with two or more knob handles.21
Bronzes of
this type, discovered at early Yayoi sites in Fukuoka and Saga prefectures,
suggest close and continuing contacts between Korea and northern
Kyushu. Discoveries at some dozens of sites in western Japan
(Tsushima Island and Saga, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Yamaguchi, and
Shimane prefectures) have also yielded pottery in the Korean Mumun
style, along with native Japanese Yayoi period ware, leading some
scholars to believe that Koreans had immigrated to Japan and had set
up household there.22
Middle Yayoi
Japan's close relations with Korea continued throughout the middle
Yayoi years. Sites at Okamoto-cho in Kasuga City, Fukuoka Prefecture,
and Yasunagata in Tosu City, Saga Prefecture, have yielded a
number of bronze swords and spears of Korean origin.2
* Such items,
along with the techniques to produce them locally, were transmitted
eastward, enabling people as far east as the Kinai District of central
Honshu to cast their own bronze implements. Conspicuous among the
Kinai bronzes were bells (dotaku) patterned after Korean horse trap-
20 Mori, "Kokogaku kara mita tetsu," pp. 20-21. See also Chapter 1 of this volume.
21 Investigations were conducted in 1957, 1965, and 1966. See Kondo Kyoichi, "Doken, dobo,
doka," in Matsuro koku, 1.398-409.
22 Goto Naoshi, "Chosenkei mumon doki," in Mikami Tsugio hakushi shoju kinen ronbunshu
henshu iinkai, Mikami Tsugio hakushi shoju kinen ronbunshu: Toyoski kokogaku ronshu (Tokyo:
Hoyu shoten, 1979).
23 Investigated by the Tosu City kyoiku iinkai.
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JOMON AND YAYOI PERIODS 275
pings but much larger in size. These were probably ceremonial items
buried in village agricultural rites.
Yayoi culture was profoundly affected by changes on the Asian
continent: the establishment in 206 B.C. of the Former Han dynasty,
China's first stable and enduring empire, and the Chinese invasion of
Korea less than a century later. In 109-108 B.C., armies of the Han
emperor Wu-ti invaded the Wiman Choson kingdom, centered in the
present P'yongyang region, and established four military garrisons in
northern Korea.24
The administrative center was the capital of the Lolang
colony, located in the vicinity of the old Choson capital. Archaeological
remains of Lo-lang dating from the Former Han, Later Han,
and Wei dynasties have been found across the Taedong River from
P'yongyang. These remains, including grave sites and remnants of the
earth ramparts that once surrounded the city,2
* indicate that the inhabitants
of Lo-lang - many of whom were Chinese immigrants or
their descendants - wrote with Chinese characters, built Chinese-style
roofed buildings, and used implements made of iron. In short, the
urban culture of China had been transmitted to northwestern Korea.
Through Lo-lang and another outpost established later at Tai-fang
near present-day Seoul, the Chinese established contacts with the
Yayoi people. The first description of Japan in written history appears
in the Han shu, a Chinese history completed by Pan Ku in about A.D.
82. According to this account, the "Wa" people living on islands in the
ocean near Lo-lang "are divided into one hundred countries. Each
year envoys from the Wa bring tribute [to Lo-lang]."26
More details
about the Wa can be found in the Wei chih, compiled in the third
century.27
This account, which will be examined in detail later in this
chapter, includes a lengthy description of a Chinese delegation's visit
to Wa. The report of this and other missions are substantiated by
archaeological findings at northern Kyushu sites, several of which
correspond to the Wa "countries" cited in the Wei chih.
Northern Kyushu sites of the middle Yayoi period contained
bronzes of Chinese manufacture, transmitted through Lo-lang.28
It
24 Lee, A New History ofKorea, pp. 19-20.
25 Sekino Tadashi, Heijo fukin ni okeru Rakuro jidai no funbo, Chosen Sotoku-fu koseki chosa
tokubetsu hokoku 1 (Seoul: Chosen Sotoku-fu, 1919); Sekino Tadashi, Rakuro jidai no iseki,
Chosen Sotoku-fu koseki chosa tokubetsu hokoku 4 (2 vols.) (Seoul: Chosen Sotoku-fu, 1927).
26 Pan Ku, Han shu (Peking: Chung-hua Shu-chu, 1964), vol. 28B, p. 1658.
27 Ch'en Shou yu, San-kuo chih (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chu, 1959), vol. 30, pp. 854-58, trans.
Ryusaku Tsunoda and L. Carrington Goodrich,Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories (South
Pasadena, Calif.: P. D. and lone Perkins, 1951), pp. 8-20.
28 Komai Kazuchika, Rakuro gunchi shi (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku bungakubu kokogaku kenkyushitsu,
1965).
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276 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
seems likely that Japanese delegations visited Lo-lang and returned
with these items, including mirrors that date from Former Han. These
mirrors seem to have been especially prized by the Japanese, who
often placed them in large burial urns. The discovery of datable Chinese
mirrors adds precision to the dating of Japanese sites and allows
us to define the middle Yayoi period as the first century B.C. and the
early part of the first century A.D.
Important middle Yayoi burial-urn sites in northern Kyushu include
(1) Omagari (Higashi Seburi village, Kanzaki District, Saga
Prefecture), which contained a bronze mirror from the late Former
Han;2
' (2) Mine (Futsukaichi, Fukuoka Prefecture), where a narrow
bronze sword and a mirror dating from the middle of the Former Han
were found in 1857; (3) Higashi Oda Mine (Yasu, Asakura District,
Fukuoka Prefecture), where a mirror from the late Former Han and a
bronze sword were found in 192953° and (4) Kashiwazaki Tajima
(Karatsu, Saga Prefecture^1
(thought to correspond to Matsuro, one
of the Wa "countries" visited by the third-century Chinese delegation),
which yielded a Former Han bronze mirror.
These abundant findings make several other northern Kyushu sites
particularly important to a study of connections between Japan and
the continent. For example, when the Mikumo site (Maebara, Itoshima
District, Fukuoka Prefecture) was first discovered in 1822, it
produced a number of items of continental origin, along with a Yayoi
burial urn. According to reports written at the time, these findings
included Korean-style bronze swords, spears, halberds, glass beads,
and thirty-five Former Han bronze mirrors of various sizes, all but two
dating from the dynasty's later years.& All of the mirrors except one,
however, have been lost. The site was rediscovered in 1974, but the
Yayoi urn had been removed. Similar articles were found, however, in
another burial urn nearby. These included twelve glass and one jadeite
magatama (comma-shaped ritual jewels) and ten mirrors, nine from
the late Former Han and one from the dynasty's middle years. Another
important middle Yayoi site is at Sugu Okamoto (Kasuga City,
Fukuoka Prefecture), thought to correspond to the country of Na
29 Saga-ken kyoiku iinkai, Fulazukayama: Saga tobu chukaku kogyo danchi kensetsu ni tonumau
mated bunkazai hakkutsu chosa hokokusho: Saga-ken bunkazm chosa hokokusho no. 46 (1979).
30 Nakayama Heijiro, "Kurisugata tekken oyobi zenkanshiki kyo no shinshiryo," Kokogaku
zasshi 17(1927): 1-18.
31 Saga-ken kyoiku iinkai, Kashiwazaki isekigun: Saga-ken bunkazai chosa hokokusho, No. 53
(1979)-
32 Aoyagi Tanenobu and Kashima Kyuheita, Ryuen koki ryakuko, hoko no ki (Tokyo: Bunken
shuppan, 1976); Fukuoka-ken kyoiku iinkai, Ihara Mikumo iseki hakkutsu chosa gaiho: Shotva
49 nendo (Fukuoka: Fukuoka-ken kyoiki iinkai, 1975).
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JOMON AND YAYOI PERIODS 277
mentioned in the Wei chih. Materials discovered in 1899 in a burial urn
from a dolmen grave site include bronze swords, spears, halberds,
glass beads, and fragments of thirty-odd Han mirrors dating from the
middle to late Former Han.«
The Tateiwa site at Iizuka City, Fukuoka Prefecture, is rich in
objects imported from the continent and preserved in burial urns.
Though the site includes strata from the entire Yayoi age, its most
significant findings are from the middle period. There are thirty storage
pits containing carbonized cereal grains, indicating that Tateiwa
was the location of a farming village where both rice and millet were
grown. The village was also a center for the production and distribution
of stone tools made from local materials. Iron agricultural tools
were produced there as well, and later, iron was forged and bronze
items cast. The village was clearly prosperous: Its chiefs had the economic
and political power to obtain the continental goods that have
been found in burial urns at the site. Moreover, the spread of continental
articles to the environs of Tateiwa suggests that the village was the
nucleus for regional trade and development.^
Some thirty-nine burial urns, mostly from the later years of the
middle Yayoi period, were discovered at Tateiwa in the mid-1960s.
Significant findings include weapons of bronze and iron, iron woodworking
tools, and a set of tubular glass beads. The skeleton of a
young man was found in one of the urns. On his right forearm were
fourteen bracelets made of gohoura shells, a spiral conch shell common
to the south-seas region. Ten mirrors cast in the late Former Han were
also found at the site, six of them in a single urn. These findings
indicate that goods were exchanged with people of the south seas as
well as with the Chinese and the Koreans at Lo-lang.
Though the people interred in the urns at Tateiwa were not buried
as grandly as were the chiefs of the later Burial Mound period, the
quality of the grave goods suggests that they were powerful leaders.
For instance, one urn contains six especially fine mirrors. Three of
them are decorated with a pattern of concatenated arcs and the others
with concentric rings. Both types are inscribed with poems written in
Chinese characters - poems that the Yayoi people, still illiterate,
could not read. The poems include selections from the Ch'u tzu, a
33 Nakayama Heijiro, "Sugu Okamoto shutsudo no kyohen kenkyu," Kokogaku zasshi 18 and
19 (1928-29); Umehara Sueji, Sugu Okamoto hakken no kokyo ni tsuite, Chikuzen Sugu shizen
iseki no kenkyu: Kyoto leikoku daigaku kokogaku kenkyu hokoku, 11 (Kyoto: Kyoto teikoku
daigaku, 1930).
34 Okazaki Takashi, "Ketsugo," in Tateiwa iseki, pp. 384-386, 400.
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278 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
collection compiled in the Former Han dynasty and enlarged in the
Later Han.35
The discovery of large numbers of Chinese mirrors at middle Yayoi
burial sites in northern Kyushu indicates that mirrors functioned as
symbols of political and religious authority. This contention is supported
by the way in which mirrors were buried and by evidence
found in Japanese folklore.
The inclusion of a large number of mirrors in a single burial urn
was peculiar to northern Kyushu in the Yayoi period. Mirrors were
not generally used as grave goods at this time in other regions of
Japan, even in the Kinai, where the practice became common in the
Burial Mound age.36
Nor does the northern Kyushu practice parallel
that of the Korean peninsula. Though mirrors have been found at
Lo-lang, none are from the Former Han, and seldom was more than
one mirror found in a single Lo-lang burial plot. By contrast, one urn
at Tateiwa contained six Former Han mirrors, and more than thirty
apiece have been found in single urns at Sugu Okamoto and at
Mikumo. This suggests that the people buried in the urns were
community leaders whose political authority was symbolized by the
large number of imported mirrors that they had obtained and had
taken to their graves.37
Mirrors such as those found at Tateiwa were probably used in shamanistic
ritual.38
Legends recorded in the eighth-century Japanese
chronicles Kojiki and Nihon shoki point to the ritual importance of
mirrors in shamanistic sun worship. When Amaterasu, the kami
(deity) of the sun, shut herself up in a dark cave and refused to show
her face, a mirror was used to lure her out.3
? In a later Nihon shoki
episode, Amaterasu declared the mirror to be a symbol of herself.*0
Moreover, some of the clay images (haniwa) found at Burial Mound
grave sites include representations of shamans holding mirrors. Because
the leaders of Yayoi communities derived their authority in part
from their shamanistic role, the mirrors found at northern Kyushu
35 Mekada Makoto, trans., Shih ching: Ch'u tz'u, vol. 15 of Chugoku koten bungaku taikei
(Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1969).
36 Tanaka Migaku, Kokyo, No. 178 of Nihon no bijutsu (Tokyo, Shibundo, 1981), p. 18.
37 Okazaki, "Ketsugo," p. 396. 38 Tanaka, Kokyo, p. 18.
39 Nihon shoki, bk. 1 of Sakamoto Taro, Ienaga Saburo, Inoue Mitsusada, and Ono Susumu,
eds., Nihon koten bungaku taikei (hereafter cited as NKBT) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1967),
vol. 67, pp. 112-17; trans. W. G. Aston, Nihongi: Chronicles ofJapan from the Earliest Times to
A.D. 697 (hereafter cited as Aston) (London: Allen & Unwin, 1956), pt. 1, pp. 43-49; Kojiki,
NKBT 1.80-81, trans. Donald L. Philippi, Kojiki (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, and Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1969), pp. 83-85.
40 Nihon shoki, bk. 2, NKBT 67.152-3; Aston, 1.83.
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JOMON AND YAYOI PERIODS 279
gravesites probably symbolized that authority, as well as the wealth
sufficient to obtain foreign goods.
Like mirrors, bronze weapons also had ritual value. Several Nihon
shoki tales emphasize the sacred character of spears. When the kami
Izanagi and Izanami thrust their "jewel-spear of heaven" into the
ocean, the brine that fell from its tip formed the islands of Japan.-*1
Amaterasu's grandson, dispatched from heaven to Japan, also was
given a spear to "rule the land" and to "subdue it to tranquillity."42
The sizes and shapes of spears cast in middle Yayoi Japan, moreover,
suggest that they had a ritual function. These, in contrast with the
small spears imported from Korea in the early Yayoi period, ranged in
length from fifty to ninety centimeters, too large and unwieldly for
combat. Some were placed in graves as ritual objects that symbolized
authority and power, but the longest were buried elsewhere, as if for
some religious purpose.«
The findings at Tateiwa indicate that as the Yayoi period progressed,
iron articles began to replace both bronze weapons, no
longer very functional, and common stone weapons and tools. This
development raises two questions: When were iron goods first manufactured
in Japan, and where did the material come from - from
imported ingots or from Japanese materials?** Some of the iron articles
found at Tateiwa, such as ring-handled knives and daggers, were
apparently imported from Lo-lang. But long halberds, some more
than fifty centimeters, have no continental prototypes, suggesting
that they were made in Japan, perhaps from imported ingots. In
other words, the manufacture of iron articles may have begun in the
middle Yayoi period. The blacksmiths, like the later artists and technicians
who played such an important role in seventh- and eighthcentury
Japan, may have been immigrants from the continent.«
Other findings at northern Kyushu sites indicate that the Yayoi Japaneses
first imported continental goods and then used imported materials
to make their own copies. For instance, both continental and
native glass products have been found at Tateiwa, Sugu Okamoto,
and Mikumo. Native products were probably first made in the middle
Yayoi period, using recycled glass, that is, broken objects melted
41 Nihon shoki, bk. 1, NKBT 67.80-81; Aston, 1.11.
42 Nihon shoki, bk. 2, NKBT 67.140-41; Aston, 1.69. Also see Mizuno Seiichi, Higuchi
Takayasu, and Okazaki Takashi, Tsushima, Genkai ni okeru zettd: Tsushima no kokogaku-teki
chosa, vol. 6 of Toho kokogaku sokan otsu shu (Tokyo: Toa kokogakkai, 1953), p. 28.
43 Tateiwa iseki, Charts 2 and 3 following p. 192; Okazaki, "Ketsugo," p. 392.
44 Ibid., p. 392. 45 Ibid., p. 393.
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28O JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
down and reused.46
The manufacture of iron articles may have a
similar history.
The Tateiwa community was probably supported first by the growing
of rice and millet, later by the maufacture and distribution of stone
tools, and later still, by the forging of iron implements and the casting
of bronzes. The leaders of Tateiwa - and other communitites like it in
northern Kyushu - maintained contacts with Lo-lang in order to obtain
valuables such as mirrors, which they used as symbols of their
authority. Thus it seems that community leaders had mustered considerable
wealth and political power: enough, perhaps, to extend their
authority over small regions the size of a present-day district.4
? The
process of political consolidation, based in part on the control of continental
imports and technology, led to the formation of the petty states
that characterized the late Yayoi period.
Late Yayoi: diplomatic exchanges with China
By the first century A.D., the small states of northern Kyushu had
begun to establish diplomatic contacts with China. The increased
trade that resulted stimulated the flow of goods and technology to
those already in power. In addition, rulers who were recognized by the
Chinese court rose in authority and stature among their own people.
Thus foreign relations played an important part in stabilizing the
political situation in Yayoi Japan and contributed to the further consolidation
of political power.
Diplomatic contacts between the Yayoi states and the Chinese court
are recorded in Chinese sources and substantiated by archaeological
findings. According to an item dated A.D. 57 in the Hou Han shu (The
history of the Later Han, written about 445), Emperor Kuang-wu
presented a seal and a ribbon to the ruler of the Wa state of Na,
thought to have been located near present Fukuoka City.48
In 1784 a
gold seal, inscribed with the motto "the king of Na of Wa of Han," was
discovered underneath a boulder at Shikanoshima in Fukuoka.4
' The
46 Ibid. 47 Ibid., p. 400.
48 "[Representatives of] the country of Na in Wa brought tribute to the court in the Chien-wu
era (A.D. 25-55) and the second year of the Chung-yuan era (A.D. 57). The messengers called
themselves ta-fu [a title indicating a middle-ranking official]. [They came from] the extreme
southern sea [coast] of Wa." See Fan Yeh, Hou Han shu (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chu, 1955),
vol. 85, p. 2821.
49 Kamei Nammei, "Kin'in no ben," in Kin'in iseki chosadan, Shikanoshima (Fukuoka:
Fukuoka shiyakusho, 1975).
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JOMON AND YAYOI PERIODS 28l
seal, with a knob in the form of a serpent, is nearly square and measures
about 2.35 centimeters across.'0
There is strong evidence of this seal's authenticity. When measured
with a ruler from the beginning of the Later Han dynasty, the surface
of the seal is just about one ts'un square - in other words, a standard
linear unit in the Chinese measuring system of that time.*» The inscription
on the seal corresponds to that on seals given to the rulers of other
independent states.*2
Although the serpent-shaped knob is rather unusual,
seals with similar knobs were presented to "barbarian" states
south of China in the Han, Wei, and Chin dynasties.53
According to the Hou Han shu, the seal and ribbon were presented
to the delegation from Na in return for tribute offered to the court.
That is, the Chinese regarded Na as a tributary state. In the official
Chinese view, states outside the Chinese empire owed homage to the
emperor, and if they sought to establish diplomatic relations with the
court, they had to do so as tributaries, not as sovereign states. The
exchange of goods and delegations was seen in this light: Foreign
states offered tribute to the Chinese court in return for gifts and for
recognition of the legitimacy of the foreign ruler and of the state itself.
Thus the Chinese empire obtained foreign goods without compromising
its view of itself as superior and self-sufficient. Foreign rulers, on
the other hand, obtained valuable Chinese objects that could be used
as symbols of power or distributed among followers as inducements or
rewards. In addition, recognition by the great Chinese empire undoubtedly
bolstered a ruler's legitimacy and strengthened his claims to
hegemony over neighboring territory.
The gold seal was probably not the Chinese emperor's only gift to
the king of Na, who no doubt received bronze mirrors and other
valuable articles as well. In fact, the northern Kyushu sites have
yielded quite a few mirrors dating from the Wang Mang interregnum
and the beginning of Later Han.
According to records dated between 1781 and 1789, a number of
such mirrors were found at the Ihara site at Maebara, Itoshima District,
Fukuoka Prefecture. The mirrors and several swords were discovered
in a jar thought to have been a burial urn.s* Rubbings of the
mirrors reveal that all were cast in the same pattern: Raised borders
marked off a square surrounding a single knob, and images of four
mythological beasts (the deities of the four directions: the azure
50 Okazaki Takashi," 'Han Wa Nakoku 6' kin'in no sokutei," Shien ioo (January 1968): 90-99.
51 Ibid. 52 Ibid., p. 272. 53 Ibid., p. 271. 54 Aoyagi and Kashima, Ryuen hoki ryuko.
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282 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
dragon, the white tiger, the red sparrow, and the tortoise with a serpent
wound around it) were arranged around the square. The
eighteenth-century records note that the swords, made of iron, had
been badly damaged by rust and that three magatama also were discovered
at the site.
Additional Chinese mirrors made in the same periods have been
unearthed, along with other late Yayoi articles, at the Sakura no Baba
site (Karatsu, Saga Prefecture). A coffin made from two burial urns
joined at the mouth contained twenty-six barbed bronze bracelets,
three comma-shaped bronze ornaments, small jewels, a fragment of an
iron sword, and two mirrors.55
On both mirrors, raised lines mark off
a square surrounding a central knob; one of the mirrors is also decorated
with patterns of floating clouds and images of the four directional
deities. The designs indicate that the mirrors were imported
from China in or about the first century A.D. The ornaments, however,
were probably made in Japan. The bracelets were modeled on ornaments
made from gohoura shells, and the comma-shaped articles resemble
the suijigai, another south-seas shellfish. The only weapon is the
iron sword; there are no bronze swords or spears.*6
The findings at Shikanoshima, Ihara, and Sakura no Baba mark the
beginning of the late Yayoi period. Artifacts such as the gold seal and
Later Han mirrors allow us to surmise that the period began sometime
between the latter half of the first century A.D., when the seal was
presented to the king of Na, and the early years of the second century.57
During these years, the Japanese manufactured most of their
own bronzes, and except for mirrors, bronze imports were rare. Tools
were commonly made of iron, and weapons made of iron began to
replace those of stone, first in northern Kyushu and then elsewhere in
Japan. Political leaders consolidated their control over substantial territory
and represented themselves as "kings" to foreign observers. The
states of "Wa" became part of the Chinese tribute system of trade and
diplomatic relations.
This discussion of continental influence during the Jomon and
Yayoi periods has been based largely on the results of archaeological
investigations at northern Kyushu sites. The rich store of continental
imports from the early and middle Yayoi periods has come primarily
55 Haraguchi Shozo, "Saga-ken Sakura no Baba iseki," in Nihon kokogaku kyokai, Nikon noko
bunka no seisei (Tokyo: Tokyodo, i960), vol. 1.
56 Okazaki, "Nihon kokogaku no hoho," p. 38.
57 For a discussion of the Later Han mirrors found at Tateiwa, see Okazaki Takashi, "Kagami to
sono nendai," in Tateiwa iseki, pp. 336-49.
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THE "COUNTRY" OF YAMATAI 283
from northern Kyushu; there are few Han mirrors, for example, at
contemporary sites in the Kinai. Eventually, however, continental influence
began to spread northward: Late Yayoi sites in the Kinai have
yielded an abundance of Chinese mirrors or their Japanese imitations.
Other items, such as bracelets made of south-seas shells or their
bronze and stone replicas, were also carried to the Kinai, and in the
Burial Mound period, such items were transmitted as far as the Kantd
region of eastern Japan.
THE "COUNTRY" OF YAMATAI IN THE LATE YAYOI
PERIOD
According to Chinese records compiled in the late third century, Japan
(the land of Wa) was composed of a number of small states, thirty of
which maintained relations with the Chinese court. One of these
states, Yamatai, maintained hegemony over its neighbors. Yamatai and
other "Wa" states are described in detail in the Wei chih, compiled by
Ch'en Shou-yii (233-97) as part of the San-kuo chih (History of the
Three Kingdoms).58
The Wei chih account of the Wa people appears in
a chapter on "eastern barbarian" peoples that also describes the Puyo
of northern Manchuria, the eastern Okcho of northeast Korea, and the
Samhan (three Han tribes: the Mahan, Pyonhan, and Chinhan) of
southern Korea. The chapter provides valuable data on the political
organizations, social systems, and customs of these people.
In his introduction to the chapter, Ch'en Shou-yii explained that the
Chinese sometimes dispatched embassies, accompanied by interpreters,
to countries to the east. His source for his description of Yamatai
and its neighbors was the report of such an embassy. The Wei chih
account also describes tributary missions from Wa to the Wei court.
Though several of Yamatai's subordinate states have been located,
no general agreement has been reached on the location of Yamatai
itself.59
Scholars have spent much time and effort on this question, as a
satisfactory answer would help determine how far the third-century
Japanese had progressed in the process of political consolidation that
58 Ch'en Shou-yii, San-kuo chih, vol. 30, pp. 854-8, trans. Tsunoda and Goodrich, Japan in the
Chinese Dynastic Histories, pp. 8-20. Also see Ikeuchi Hiroshi, Man-Sen shi kenkyu, josei hen
(Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1951); Inoue Hideo, Kodai Chosen (Tokyo: Ninon hoso
shuppan kyokai, 1972); Yi Pyong-su, Han'guk kodaesa, trans. Kim Sa-yop, Kankoku kodaishi,
2 vols. (Tokyo: Rokkd shuppan, 1979).
59 Since the end of the Edo period, many theories have been advanced concerning the Wei
account of the Wa people and Yamatai. Leading theories are summarized in Saeki Yusei,
Yamatai koku kihon ronbunshu, vol. 1 of Sogen gakujutsu sosho (Osaka: Sogensha, I98i);andin
Mishina Shoei, Yamatai koku kenkyu soran (Osaka: Sogensha, 1970).
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284 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
preceded the formation of a unified Japanese state. The two regions
favored for the location of Yamatai are the Kinai, where Japan's central
government was finally established, and northern Kyushu, the
most advanced region in the early and middle Yayoi periods and the
closest to the Asian continent.
[Translator's note: Recent archaeological findings at the northeastern
Kyushu site of Yoshinogari, located in the town of Kanzaki in Saga
Prefecture, conform in several important ways to details of the Wei
chih account. Some scholars have concluded, therefore, that Yoshinogari
is probably the nucleus of one of the "countries" that the Chinese
mentioned. Until the excavation at Yoshinogari, the largest-known
Yayoi villages were in the Kinai region; indeed, the absence of Kyushu
sites analogous to the Kinai sites was one of the Kyushu theory's main
weaknesses. The village and its adjacent burial mound occupy an area
of more than twenty-five hectares, making Yoshinogari the largest
Yayoi community discovered so far and thereby eliminating one drawback
of the Kyushu theory. In addition, archaeologists have found the
first physical evidence to corroborate certain details in the Wei chih
account: postholes that seem to be those of a stockade and two watchtowers,
perhaps like the ones that appear in the description of the
compound of Yamatai's ruler.
The village was probably established at the end of the early Yayoi
period and then inhabited continuously throughout Yayoi times. The
importance of the community is indicated by the number of its dwellings,
its large collection of stoutly constructed storehouses, and its
perimeter defenses: the aforementioned stockade and an outer moat
that surrounded the village and burial mound. By early 1989, when
the preliminary reports were issued, archaeologists had discovered
remains of some 350 dwellings, including 280 late-Yayoi pit dwellings;
the village may have included as many as 100 dwellings at a single
time. Other findings include 50 storage pits; 60 raised-floor storehouses
from the late Yayoi period; 2,350 graves, including 2,000 urn
burials; and numerous pottery utensils and items made of stone, glass,
shell, bronze, and iron. The extension of the outer moat to its final
length of one kilometer - and thus the expansion of area under the
control of village chieftains - probably took place in the second half of
the middle Yayoi period. A double inner moat enclosing the central
portion of the village is thought to date from the late Yayoi age.
Archaeological findings indicate that the community was prosperous
and technologically advanced, especially in the middle and late
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THE "COUNTRY" OF YAMATAI 285
Yayoi periods. Items discovered in these strata include bronze swords,
fragments of Later Han and Japanese mirrors, glass beads, and two
molds for casting bronzes. The product of one is uncertain, but the
other was used to manufacture a shield ornament with hooked projections
(totnoe) surrounding a circular center. Examples of this ornament,
peculiar to Japan, have been found in Kyushu, Shikoku, and
the Kinai region, but until the Yoshinogari discovery, no mold for the
item had been found. The community at Yoshinogari, in other words,
had obtained prestigious items manufactured abroad and had learned
the continental techniques to produce such items for themselves. The
excavation of the moat and the reclamation of hilly land for rice fields
also demanded advanced engineering skills, and the burial mound, a
two-tiered structure dating from the middle Yayoi period, was made
with sophisticated construction techniques surprising for the time.
The burials in the mound indicate the development of a stratified
society and strong local leadership. The main occupant of the mound,
interred in a large urn found near the center of the upper tier, was no
doubt a powerful village chieftain, possibly the community's "first
ancestor." Three other urns in the upper tier are pointed so that their
occupants faced the central urn, suggesting the importance of the
person buried in it. Special rituals honoring dead chieftains may have
been performed at a center just south of the mound, marked off by a
shallow ditch and two structures perhaps similar to the torii at Shinto
shrines. The mound itself is approached by a path lined on either side
by burial urns, perhaps those of the chieftains' retainers. The tidy
arrangement of many of the graves and their apparent relationship to
the mound and its central occupant point to a considerable degree of
regulatory power on the part of community leaders.
At the edge of the graveyard are several pits containing fragments of
pottery utensils, probably ritual funeral vessels. Grave goods in the
burial urns include beads of various shapes, items of bronze and iron,
and bracelets made of imogai and gohoura shells, an indication of commerce
with people of the south seas, where these shellfish can be
found. Perhaps the most interesting grave goods were found in one of
the urns in the upper tier of the mound: a bronze sword with a slender
blade and a transverse handle, and tubular glass beads of a startling
blue color, including two over 6.5 centimeters in length, the largest yet
discovered at a Yayoi site. The inside of the urn is colored red with
cinnabar, no doubt an expensive item for the time, and the sword and
the beads are unusual objects for this period, indicating the high status
of the occupant of the urn.
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286 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
Discoveries at Yoshinogari provide evidence of the warfare that often
accompanies the development of agricultural societies. The size of
the moat (6.5 meters deep and 3 meters wide) and the existence of the
stockade and watchtowers indicate that the community was sometimes
under siege, threatened perhaps by warfare as mentioned in the Wei
chih account. Among the skeletons in the burial urns are one without a
head, one with a broken thighbone, and one whose body was apparently
pierced by a dozen arrows: all indications of violent death, possibly
in battle.
Until the Yoshinogari site has been completely investigated, scholars
will be unable to assess fully its importance to the Yamatai question.
Other conclusions are more certain, however. As Mori Koichi observed,
scholars examining the routes of transmission of continental
culture must now pay more attention to the Ariake coastal region,
where Yoshinogari is located. In particular, the Yayoi Japanese of that
region may have been in direct contact with the people of Jiangnan in
east central China. More generally, the community at Yoshinogari was
certainly an important center of wealth, power, and the absorption of
continental culture in late Yayoi times.]
Scholars have based their arguments (regarding the location of Yamatai)
on texts of the Wei chih printed in the twelfth century.60
Although
these printed texts are probably accurate copies of the handwritten
manuscripts that preceded them, the manuscripts themselves may
have contained a number of copying errors that are causing problems
in regard to the Yamatai question. For instance, it has been argued
that the name of the country the Chinese visited should be pronounced
Yamaichi, not Yamatai; in that case, the name could refer neither to
Yamato in the Kinai nor to Yamato in Kyushu, two major candidates
for Yamatai.
In order to locate Yamatai accurately, we cannot rely solely on the
information in Chinese texts and on the comparison of place names in
these texts with place names known in Japan. The reason is that by
doing so, scholars have come up with more than ten candidates for
Yamatai in Kyushu alone. On the other hand, archaeological findings
cannot yet furnish a definite answer either.61
Even so, the Wei chih
account provides valuable information about the lives of people in the
60 The San-kuo chih first appeared in print between iooo and 1002. The oldest extant printed
texts date, however, from the twelfth century: One dates between 1131 and 1162 and the
other, held by the Imperial Household Agency, from 1190 to 1194.
61 Okazaki, "Nihon kokogaku no hoho," p. 39.
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THE "COUNTRY" OF YAMATAI 287
late Yayoi period, information that can be corroborated by archaeological
findings.
The visit to "Wa" took place after the Chinese, temporarily ousted
from the Liao-tung and Korean peninsulas, sought to reestablish their
control over these important border regions. The political complexion
of the Korean peninsula had changed considerably since the Former
Han established colonies there in 109 B.C. During the following 250
years, the Chinese dominated the Koreans, either controlling them
directly through the Lo-lang administrative structure or indirectly
through the tributary system. During the reign of the Later Han
emperor Huan (A.D. 147-89), however, the Chinese grip on Lo-lang
weakened, and the Samhan and Ye tribes of southern Korea freed
themselves temporarily from Chinese domination. These changes
were due not only to a decline in Chinese power but also to advances
made by the Koreans themselves, as they moved from a stone to an
iron age.
In the last years of the Later Han, the empire lost de facto control of
the Liao-tung peninsula in southern Manchuria to the Kung-sun, a
family of military commanders who extended their control to the Lolang
area and set up an outpost south of Lo-lang at Tai-fang (K:
Taebang), bordering the area controlled by the Samhan and Ye. The
Later Han empire collapsed in 220, and China was split into three
kingdoms: the Wei in the north, the Wu in the southeast, and the Shu
Han in the west. During the 230s, Wei armies invaded Liao-tung,
Manchuria, and northern Korea, establishing administrative structures
in Liao-tung and at Lo-lang and Tai-fang. The third-century
Chinese thus had the opportunity - and the motivation - to reestablish
contacts with the peoples at the far eastern edge of Asia.
Though the Japanese (the Wa) did not occupy lands bordering Wei
territory, they were close enough to come within the Wei's purview.
Chinese relations with the Wa were established through the Tai-fang
commandery and conducted under the tributary system just described.
The Wa obtained valuables such as textiles and bronze mirrors
from the Chinese, and the positions of Wa rulers were legitimized
by the Chinese court's recognition.
The Wei chih section on the Wa - far more detailed than the one
appearing in Former Han records - begins with an account of the visit
of a Chinese delegation to some of the "countries" of Wa, which owed
allegiance to a queen whose capital was located at Yamatai.62
For some
62 Tsunoda and Goodrich, Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, pp. 8-20.
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288 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
seventy or eighty years, the Wa countries had been at war with one
another, but peace was finally established when the queen, an unmarried
shaman named Himiko, took control of the entire region. In the
year 238 she sent a delegation to Tai-fang to request an audience at
court in Lo-yang, the Wei capital. The Wei emperor Ming issued the
following edict in the twelfth month of that year (early in 239, by
Western reckonings):
Herein we address Himiko, queen of Wa, whom we now officially call a
friend of Wei. The governor of Tai-fang, Liu Hsia, has sent a messenger to
accompany your vassal, Nanshdmai, and his lieutenant, Toshi Gyuri. They
have arrived here with your tribute, consisting of four male slaves and six
female slaves, together with two pieces of patterned cloth, each twenty feet in
length. You live very far away across the sea; yet you have sent an embassy
with tribute. Your loyalty and filial piety we appreciate exceedingly. We
confer upon you, therefore, the title of "queen of Wa friendly to Wei,"
together with the decoration of the gold seal with purple ribbon. The latter,
properly encased, is to be sent to you through die governor. We expect you, O
Queen, to rule your people in peace and to endeavor to be devoted and
obedient.
Your ambassadors, Nanshomai and Gyuri, who have come from afar,
must have had a long and fatiguing journey. We have, therefore, given to
Nanshomai an appointment as lieutenant colonel in die imperial guard, and
to Gyuri an appointment as commandant in the imperial guard. We also
bestow upon them the decoration of die silver seal with blue ribbon. We
have granted them audience in appreciation of their visit, before sending
them home with gifts. The gifts are these: five pieces of crimson brocade
with dragon designs, ten pieces of crimson tapestry with dappled pattern,
fifty lengths of bluish red fabric, andfiftylengths of dark blue fabric. These
are in return for what you sent as tribute. As a special gift, we bestow upon
you three pieces of blue brocade with interwoven characters, five pieces of
tapestry with delicate floral designs, fifty lengths of white silk, eight taels of
gold, two swords five feet long, one hundred bronze mirrors, and fifty
catties each of jade and of red beads. All these things are sealed in boxes and
entrusted to Nanshdmai and Gyuri. When they arrive and you acknowledge
their receipt, you may exhibit them to your countrymen in order to demonstrate
diat our country thinks so much of you as to bestow such exquisite
gifts upon you.6
^
Several diplomatic exchanges followed. In 240 a Wei representative,
dispatched from the Tai-fang commandery, presented the queen
with an imperial rescript and a seal with a ribbon, along with gifts of
gold brocade, tapestry, swords, and mirrors. Three years later an
eight-member Wa delegation to Wei presented the emperor with
63 San-kuo chih 30, p. 857; trans. Tsunoda and Goodrich, Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories,
pp. 14-15, with minor editing changes.
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THE "COUNTRY" OF YAMATAI 289
slaves, native brocade, red and blue silk, a fabric robe, cloth,
cinnabar, and a wooden bow with short arrows. In 245, the Wei court
awarded Nanshomai a yellow pennant, to be presented from the Taifang
commandery.6
'*
The next report on the diplomatic relations between Wa and the Wei
court concerns the Wei's mediation in a dispute between two rival Wa
states. Himiko, at odds with the king of Kunu, had sent an envoy to
the prefect of Tai-fang to ask for Chinese support. The government at
Tai-fang issued a proclamation "advising reconciliation."6
' The proclamation
was carried to Wa by Chang Cheng, an officer of the Wei
border guard who apparently stayed in Wa for a number of years
afterwards, possibly as a political or military adviser.66
When Himiko
died, the Wei chih reports, a man was appointed as her successor, but
he could not keep order and was replaced by a thirteen-year-old girl,
no doubt a shaman like Himiko. As representative of the Wei court,
Chang Cheng recognized the girl as the ruler, and she renewed tributary
relations with the court, offering gifts of slaves, pearls, jade
magatama, and brocade.6
? The Wei chih account of diplomatic relations
between Wa and Wei ends with this episode.
Archaeological findings and textual studies attest to the accuracy of
the Wei chih account of diplomatic relations between Wa and Wei.
According to Oba Osamu, the imperial edict issued to Himiko by the
Wei emperor Ming follows the standard form set during the Han
dynasty for edicts of this type.68
The phraseology used in Himiko's
investiture appears in other sources: an edict issued by the Emperor
Ming in 229, investing the ruler of the Central Asian state of Kushana,
and seals granted by the Western Chin court to the rulers of the
Tibetan peoples Ti and Ch'iang.6
* The title given to Nanshomai, moreover,
also appears in the inscription of a silver seal with a Western Chin
dynasty date. The seal was discovered in Inner Mongolia, along with
two gold seals from the same period. The Western Chin court proba-
64 San-kuo chih 30, p. 857; trans. Tsunoda and Goodrich,Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories,
p. 15.
65 San-kuo chih 30, pp. 857-8; trans. Tsunoda and Goodrich, Japan in the Chinese Dynastic
Histories, pp. 15-16.
66 Okazaki Takashi, "Sanseiki yori nanaseiki no tairiku ni okeru kokusai kankei to Nihon:
kinenmei o motsu kokogaku gakuteki shiryo o chushin to shite," in Kondo Yoshiro and
Fujisawa Choji, eds., Kofun jidai, vol. 4 of Nihon no kokogaku (Tokyo: Kawade shobo
shinsha, 1966), 1.615.
67 San-kuo chih 30, p. 858; trans. Tsunoda and Goodrich,Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories,
p. 16.
68 Oba Osamu, Shin Gi Wa 0 (Tokyo: Gakuseisha, 1971).
69 Enoki Kazuo, Yamatai koku, Nihon rekishi shinsho (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1973). Just where the
seals were found is unknown.
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290 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
bly had possession of the Wei emperor Ming's edict and copied its
phrases directly.70
The silken goods mentioned in the decree are similar to those
found at grave sites in the Uighur cities of Loulan and Niya (in
present-day Sinkiang Province, China) and at the Astana site in
Turfan.71
Only a few silken fibers have been found at Japanese sites,
but this is not surprising, as silk is very hard to preserve in a humid
climate such as Japan's. On the other hand, bronze mirrors keep very
well, and many mirrors - some perhaps the very ones given to
Himiko - have been found at Yayoi sites. So far, five mirrors bearing
Wei dynasty dates have been discovered at Japanese sites. As I will
explain later, these dated mirrors may have a bearing on the location
of Yamatai.
Although the location of Yamatai is still a matter of dispute, some of
the places that the Chinese visited early in their journey have definitely
been identified: The distances and directions cited seem to be accurate,
and the place names given in the text often resemble present-day place
names. The Wei chih account reports that the Wa occupied mountainous
islands to the southeast of the Tai-fang commandery. Beginning at Taifang,
the Chinese sailed along the west coast of the Korean peninsula,
passing various Korean "countries," and then turned southeast along
the coast of Kou-ya-han, more than seven thousand li from Tai-fang.72
(Kou-ya-han is thought to have been the Kimhae region of southeastern
Korea, an area that borders the Naktong River in South Kyongsang
Province.) From there the Chinese crossed a three thousand-/! stretch of
ocean, passing the islands of Tsushima and Iki. Finally they arrived at
Matsuro, which probably corresponds to the Matsuura District of
northern Kyushu. An overland trip of five hundred li to the southeast
brought the envoys to the country of Ito, probably the vicinity of the
Yayoi period sites of Mikumo and Ihara.
According to the Wei chih, Ito was governed by hereditary kings
subordinate to the "queen country" of Yamatai, Himiko's domain. Ito
was a way station along the route between Wa and Korea:
70 Okazaki Takashi, (Zusetsu) Chugoku no rekishi 3: Gi Shin Nanbokucho no sekai (Tokyo:
Kodansha, 1977); Li I-yii, "Nei Meng-ku ch'u-t'u ku-tai kuang-yin te hsin tsu-Iiao" (Peking:
Wen-wu ch'u-pan she, 1961), p. 9; and Li I-y\i, "Nei Meng-ku ch'u t'u wen-wu kung-tsotui,"
Nei Meng-ku ch'u t'u wen-wu hsiian-chi (Peking: Wen-wu ch'u-pan she, 1963).
71 "Hsin-chiang Wei-wu-erh Tzu-chih ch'u Po-wu-kuan," Ssu-ch'ou chih lu, trans, in Okazaki
Takashi, Kan To no senshoku - shiruku rodo no shinshutsudohin (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1973).
72 In 1975, accompanied by Professors Inoue Mitsusada, Hirano Kunio, Otomasa Shigetaka,
and Kadokawa Harutoshi, I crossed the Tsushima Strait from Pusan to northern Kyushu in a
wooden boat of the type that the third-century Chinese envoys to Japan might have used.
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THE "COUNTRY" OF YAMATAI 291
When the ruler sends envoys to visit the Chinese capital, or when the Tai-fang
prefecture or the various Han [Korean] countries or prefects send envoys to
die Wa country, diey are all made to stop at die port for inspection, so diat
messages and gifts to die queen may reach her without mishap.73
Two officials responsible to Himiko were stationed at Ito: a governor
and an inspector whose responsibility was to watch over the provinces
north of Yamatai and to keep them properly respectful of the queen.
The governor was probably someone skilled in dealing with Chinese
visitors - perhaps it was even Nanshomai or one of the men who had
accompanied him on embassies to Lo-yang or Tai-fang.
One hundred li to the southeast of Ito lay the country of Na. Archaeological
research and a comparison of ancient and modern place
names indicate that Na can be identified with an area of the present
Fukuoka City. The Chinese had made contact with the people of Na
some two hundred years earlier: It was the king of Na who had been
given a gold seal in A.D. 57 by the Later Han emperor, a seal thought
to be the one discovered at Shikanoshima in Fukuoka. Traces of the
name Na appear in the ancient place name Nanotsu and in the name of
the Naka River that flows through the Fukuoka flatlands. From Na
the Wei envoys journeyed one hundred li to the east until they reached
the country of Fumi. From this point in the journey, it is difficult to
identify the place names mentioned. The envoys took twenty days,
according to the account, to cross the ocean from Fumi to Toma, the
next destination, and the journey between Toma and Yamatai took ten
days by sea and another month overland.
Some of the Wei chili's information on Wa daily life can be corroborated
by archaeological findings. According to the account, Wa crops
included rice, hemp, and mulberry trees. We know that rice was
grown in Japan from the end of the Jomon period, and scraps of hemp
cloth have been found at a middle Yayoi period site in Fukuoka Prefecture.^
Mulberry trees were grown to provide food for silkworms, and
it seems that the Wa were technically advanced enough to weave some
of their own silks, as native brocade was listed among the gifts to Wei
in 243.75 The weapons cited in the Chinese account include spears,
shields, and short wooden bows that used arrows tipped with bone and
iron, implements that have been found at Yayoi sites. Stone arrow-
73 Tsunoda and Goodrich, Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, pp. 12—13.
74 Wajinden no michi kenkyukai and Minamoto Kodo, Maboroshi nojoo Himiko: Yamatai koku e
no michi: kodai Nihon no nazo to roman (Fukuoka: Asahi shimbun seibu honsha kikakubu,
1980), p. 101.
75 Okazaki, "Sanseiki yori nanaseiki no tairiku ni okeru kokusai kankei to Nihon," p. 616.
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292 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
heads were not mentioned by the Chinese, and in fact, stone weapons
had just about been replaced by iron ones by late Yayoi times.
Decisions regarding journeys and other important matters were
made through divination by scapulimancy, using the shoulderblades of
deer. Similar methods, using tortoise shells as well as animal bones,
were practiced elsewhere in northeast Asia, especially in Shang dynasty
China. In these practices a question would first be posed, and
then holes would be drilled in the bone or shell, which would then be
heated. The answer was revealed by the shape and direction of the
fissures that appeared. Archaeological sites have yielded evidence that
scapulimancy, using the bones of deer and wild boar, was practiced in
Japan during the Yayoi period. More than sixty bones with artificial
holes and fissures have been discovered at sites on Iki Island, and
evidence of tortoise shell divination has been found on Tsushima.?6
Tortoise shell divination is still practiced on Tsushima today, and oracle
bones are used in shrines in the Kanto region.
The Yamatai queen Himiko was a shaman thought to possess spiritual
powers. Though an adult, she remained unmarried and was assisted
in ruling the country by her younger brother, who dealt with
secular affairs. A thousand women attended her, but only one man,
who served her food and acted as her medium of communication with
her people. The Himiko described in this account resembles the shamans
of northeast China and Korea, in other words, she was a medium
whose function it was to communicate with the kami.77 The Wei chih
also reports that Himiko's palace was surrounded by lookout towers
and stockades and that she was constantly guarded by armed men.
When she died, a mound 145 meters in diameter was made for her
tomb, and more than one hundred slaves were buried with her.
Among Himiko's gifts, some items were designated as "special" and
had perhaps even been requested by the Wa. One hundred bronze
mirrors were included on this list. Mirrors were prized, as we have
seen, before Himiko's time and were frequently used as grave goods,
an indication of their ritual value. Because Himiko was a shaman, it is
not surprising that she and her people especially valued the mirrors
received from the Wei court. She probably collected mirrors as symbols
of power and used them in shamanistic rites. Some scholars have
76 Wajinden no michi kenkyukai and Minamoto, Yamatai koku e no michi, p. ioo; Kimuia
Kitaro, "Nagasaki-ken Ikishima shutsudo no bokkotsu," Kokogaku zasshi 64 (March 1979):
pp. 9, 17-18; Kanzawa Yuichiro, "Yayoi jidai kofun jidai oyobi Nara jidai no bokkotsu
bokkon," Shundai shigaku 38 (1976).
77 Kanzawa, "Yayoi jidai kofun jidai oyobi Nara jidai no bokkotsu bokkon."
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THE "COUNTRY OF YAMATAI 293
suggested that mirrors were used in rituals related to sun worship, a
theory born out by references (cited earlier in this chapter) to mirrors
in connection with the Sun Goddess Amaterasu.
Five mirrors bearing Wei dynasty dates have been found in Japan:
two mirrors dated 239, one at the Koganezuka tomb (Izumi, Osaka
Prefecture), and one at the Kamihara Shrine (Kamo, Shimane Prefecture);
and three examples dated 240, at the Shibazaki Kanizawa tomb
(Takasaki, Gumma Prefecture), at the Morio tomb (Toyooka, Hyogo
Prefecture), and at Nanyo City, Yamaguchi Prefecture.?8
The mirrors
are between twenty-two and twenty-three centimeters in diameter. All
are decorated with images of deities and animals, and all but one have
borders of a sawtooth design;7
* the exception is the Koganezuka mirror,
which has a plain border. The mirrors - and others like them
discovered elsewhere - were unearthed from tateana tombs (with entrances
tunneled vertically into the earth's surface) dating from the
early Burial Mound period.80
The years inscribed on the mirrors were the years in which the Wa
delegation arrived in the Wei capital of Lo-yang, were promised gifts
by the emperor, and returned home to present them to the queen.
Thus it is possible that these mirrors were among those given to
Himiko. Moreover, because the mirrors are similar in design to many
mirrors found in the Kinai region,81
theories placing Himiko's capital
in the Kinai would seem to stand on firm ground.82
However, scholars
disagree on where the mirrors of this design were actually cast, even
though the inscriptions on the mirrors themselves suggest that they
were of Chinese manufacture. These inscriptions list the artisans as
bronzecasters surnamed Ch'en, a name that is clearly Chinese. Moreover,
some of the mirrors have inscriptions that state, "The copper [for
this mirror] was mined in Hsu-chou and the artist lives in Lo-yang."
As I shall demonstrate, however, information provided by these inscriptions
may be misleading.
78 Suenaga Masao, Shimada Satoru, and Mori Koichi, "Izumi Koganezuka kofun," in Nihon kokogaku
kyokai, ed., Nihon kokogaku hokoku (Kyoto: Sogeisha, 1954), vol. 5; Hasuoka Noriaki,
"Shimane-ken Kamo-cho Kamihara jinja kofun shutsudo no Keisho sannen Ch'en Shih saku
juretsu shiki shinjukyo," Kokogaku zasshi 58 (December 1972): 89; Goto Shuichi, Kokyo shuei,
2 vols. (Tokyo: Otsuka kogeisha, 1935-42); Umehara Sueji, "Izushi-gun Kami-mura kofun,"
in Hyogo-kencho, ed., Hydgo-ken shiseki meisho tennen kinenbutsu chota hokoku 2 (Hyogo-ken:
Hyogo-kencho, 1926); Tanaka Migaku, Nihon genshi bijutsu (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1979).
79 Tomioka Kenzo, Kokyo no kenkyu (Kyoto: Tomioka Masutaro, 1920).
80 Umehara Sueji, "Jodai kofun shutsudo no kokyo ni tsuite," in Kokogakkai, ed., Kagami
tsurugi oyobi lama no kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1940).
81 Kobayashi Yukio, Kofun jidai no kenkyu (Tokyo: Aoki shoten, 1961).
82 Takahashi Kenji, "Kokogakujo yori mitaru Yamatai koku," Kokogaku zasshi 12 (1922), pp.
20-43.
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294 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
As early as 1920, Tomioka Kenzo pointed out that no mirrors with
sawtooth borders and deity-animal designs had been discovered at Wei
dynasty sites.8
3 This suggests that the mirrors did not come from Wei.
Despite their inscriptions, they may have been made in Japan sometime
after the mid-third century and thus cannot be used to help us
locate Yamatai.
One of the strongest arguments for this view comes from the Chinese
archaeologist Wang Zhong-shu, assistant director of the Institute
of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, who
uses archaeological findings in China to investigate the problem.8
*
Professor Wang pointed out major differences between "Wei" mirrors
found at Japanese sites and third-century mirrors discovered in China.
Many mirrors have been found at Ying-ch'eng in Hupei Province, the
site of the ancient capital of Wu, which controlled central and southeast
China at the same time that Wei was dominant in the north. A
number of these mirrors bear inscriptions marking them as products
of the Later Han, Wei, and Wu dynasties. Though many are decorated
with designs of deities and animals, they have plain borders, not the
sawtooth borders found on all but one of the Japanese examples.
Moreover, the Japanese mirrors are larger than most of the thirdcentury
mirrors found at Chinese sites.
Many archaeological investigations of other Chinese sites that contain
third-century artifacts have been conducted during the last several
decades. No prototypes of the Japanese examples have been found in
the extensive tomb excavations made at Lo-yang, the Later Han capital.
Though findings in Chekiang Province (in a region of the lower
Yangtze River basin developed in the Later Han) include some mirrors
with deity-animal designs, as well as examples with images of other
types, most are made of iron, not bronze. Finally, most of the Wei
dynasty mirrors found so far do not have the deity-animal design.
Instead, common Wei designs include the concatenated arc, the central
square, and images of dragons, and the mirrors are sometimes
marked with inscriptions expressing the wish for promotion to high
office.
The argument that the Japanese "Wei" mirrors were indeed of Chinese
manufacture rests in part on the inscription identifying as Chinese
both the artist and the source of the material. Mirrors found in
China, however, do not generally have such inscriptions; in only one
83 Tomioka, Kokyo no kenkyu.
84 Wang Zhong-shu, "Notes on the Triangular-rimmed Bronze Mirrors with Mythical Animal
Designs Found in Japan," Kaogu {Archaeology) 4 (1981): 346-58.
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THE "COUNTRY" OF YAMATAI 295
case is there a similar inscription regarding the copper, on a mirror
excavated from the San Tao mound in Liao-yang, Liao-tung Province.
Thus Professor Wang argues that the inscription on the Japanese mirrors
is misleading. He believes that the mirrors were cast in Japan, not
China, and that the artist was an immigrant from Wu, where mirrors
of a similar but not identical type have been found. If this is indeed the
case, then the "Wei" mirrors found in Kinai region tombs could not
possibly be the ones given to Himiko in the third century. That is, one
of the strongest arguments for locating Yamatai in the Kinai region
could very well be invalid.
In attempting to determine the location of Yamatai, scholars have
relied not only on archaeological findings such as mirrors but also on
the calculations of distances and directions over water and land recorded
in the Wei chih. If the text is accepted literally, it appears that
the Wei envoys proceeded from the Korean peninsula in either a southern
or a southeastern direction to arrive at the countries of Wa. In the
Wei period, moreover, the Chinese believed that the Wa lived directly
to the east of present-day Fukien. Such indications led Japanese scholars
such as Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) to argue that Yamatai was
in Kyushu.8
5 In contrast with the theory that sets Yamatai in the
Yamato area of the Kinai, the Kyushu theory has many different
candidates for the exact location of Himiko's country.86
Because the
information given in the Wei chih is incomplete and sometimes inconsistent
with geographical facts, however, scholars been unable to agree on
the location of Yamatai.
Certain details of the Wei chih suggest that the Chinese never actually
reached Yamatai but merely reported what they had been told by
the Japanese. For the initial portion of the journey, distances over land
and water are given in li, a Chinese linear measure. But these calculations
halt abruptly when the Chinese reach Fumi; after that, distance
is measured in travel time. A seventh-century Chinese dynastic history,
the Sui shu, complains of the Wa: "These barbarians do not know
how to measure distance by li and measure it by days."87
This suggests
that in the Wei chih, distances in travel time were based on hearsay
evidence from the Japanese rather than on calculations made by Chi-
85 Motoori Norinaga, Gyoju gaigen, in Dai Nihon bunka, vol. 8 of Motoori Norinaga zenshu
(Tokyo: Chikuma shobo, 1972). The Kyushu theory was later elaborated by Shiratori
Kurakichi in "Yamatai koku ni tsuite," Kokogaku zasshi 12 (1922): 8-15.
86 Minamoto Kddo, "Ranritsu sum 'Yamatai koku'," in Wajinden no michi kenkyukai and
Minamoto, Yamatai koku e no michi, pp. 176-7.
87 Wei Cheng et al., Sui shu (Peking, Ku-chi Ch'u-pan she, 1973), vol. 81, p. 1825; trans.
Tsunoda and Goodrich, Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 28.
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296 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
nese who had actually taken the journey. There is also an abrupt break
in the quality of the descriptive passages after the Chinese leave Ito.
Tsushima, Iki, Matsuro, and Ito are accurately and often pictorially
described, as anyone who has traveled in the area can attest.88
After
that, however, the vividness fades and the same details - the listing of
population figures and the titles of officials - are repeated for each
place. This also suggests that the Chinese proceeded no farther than
Ito.
In short, we are still far from determining the actual location of
Yamatai. Professor Wang's studies cast doubt on a major argument for
locating Himiko's country in the Kinai, and ambiguities and inconsistencies
in the Wei chih itself make it difficult to rely on the text's
geographical information.
Yet the Wei chih account of the third-century Wa contains valuable
information on Yayoi society. The Wa people were farmers and fishermen
who had already begun to form a stratified society. The Chinese
visitors seem to have been impressed by the orderliness and peacefulness
of the Wa: The women were neither quarrelsome nor jealous,
even though the men had several wives; there were no thefts; litigation
was rare; taxes and labor services were collected easily; and granaries
and markets were established in each province.
Dress, manners, and social customs are described in detail. The
men wore loosely fastened clothing made of wide pieces of cloth and
wrapped strips of bark around their heads, perhaps in the fashion of
today's headband (hachimaki). Women dressed their hair in loops and
wore unlined robes lipped over their heads. People painted their bodies
with cinnabar and red earth. Men and boys tattooed their faces and
bodies, a practice originally intended to frighten away large fish and
waterfowl that annoyed them when they were diving for food. The Wei
chih account also notes that people were buried in single coffins covered
with mounds of earth. During a mourning period often days, the
survivors abstained from meat, and the head mourners wept and lamented.
Others gathered to sing, dance, and drink wine, and the
family of the deceased purified themselves by washing in water, much
as later Japanese have performed ablutions at Shinto shrines. When
the Wa people set out across the sea to China, one person was chosen as
a professional abstainer. He was not permitted to comb his hair,
delouse himself, or wash his clothes, nor could he eat meat or have
sexual contact. If the sea voyage was successful, this "fortune keeper"
88 My conclusions are based partly on firsthand observations.
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JAPAN AND THE THREE KOREAN KINGDOMS 297
was given slaves and goods, but if the voyage met with disaster, he was
killed in the belief that he had violated a taboo.
The Wei chih account also contains important data on relations between
the Chinese court and the Japanese communities that eventually
were consolidated into the Yamato state. Like other leaders of tribes
and communities throughout East Asia, Himiko and her successor
were anxious to maintain tributary relations with China, the source of
the continent's dominant culture. Such relations provided the Wa with
valuables that could be distributed to supporters and used as symbols
of power. China's recognition of Himiko's authority must have enhanced
her position among her own people and strengthened her claim
to hegemony over neighboring territory. Japan's relations with the
Chinese court were thus of great importance in the slow process of
political consolidation and cultural development in the late Yayoi and
early Burial Mound periods.
JAPAN AND THE THREE KOREAN KINGDOMS
When Himiko died in the middle of the third century, Japan was
made up of petty states, some joined in a federation that gave allegiance
to a single shamanistic ruler. By the sixth century, a central
government had been established in the Yamato basin in central
Honshu. Though control of distant provinces was far from complete,
the Yamato court's authority was acknowledged from Kyushu to eastern
Japan; and in battles with tribal peoples, Yamato forces were
steadily pushing the frontier northward. Contacts with the Asian continent
during these three centuries - generally known as the Burial
Mound period - played a crucial role in the establishment of Yamato
authority and the formation of the Japanese state.
The Chinese empire, which had once dominated much of East Asia,
had disintegrated, and the land was now beset by civil war. In the
middle of the third century, China's Three Kingdoms (the Shu Han,
the Wei, and the Wu) were reunified under the Western Chin (265-
316). This short-lived dynasty fell in 316 in the face of invasion from
peoples living beyond the northern frontier. Its successor, the Eastern
Chin (317-420), retreated to the Yangtze valley and maintained control
over southern China until the beginning of the fifth century.
Meanwhile, the north was fragmented by various nomadic invaders.
China was divided between north and south for more than 250 years.
Successive dynasties, some of them lasting for only a few decades,
ruled in both regions.
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298 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
In the fourth century, the people of Korea took important steps
toward political consolidation, forming three major kingdoms and a
separate league of smaller states. At the beginning of the century,
northern Korea was still dominated by the Chinese commanderies,8
?
but in 313, when the Western Chin was about to collapse, the rising
northern Korean state of Koguryo conquered Tai-fang and Lo-lang.
The Chinese who had lived in these commanderies were stranded in
Korea, and many intermarried with Koreans. For a time, the old
commanderies were not completely absorbed by the Koguryo state but
remained as repositories of Chinese culture. In southern Korea
emerged two kingdoms, Silla and Paekche. The small states in the
region dominated by the Samhan tribes formed the Kaya federation,
which maintained close relations with the Japanese.
Koguryo: Korea's first sinified kingdom
The oldest of Korea's three kingdoms, Koguryo, drew its strength
from two sources: its adoption of Chinese culture and methods of
governance and its embrace of techniques of mounted combat from
northeast Asian warriors. The Koguryo state was based on a military
alliance formed in the third century by tribes in the Yalu River basin.
Koguryo armies rapidly gained strength and extended their area of
control. The account of the Chin dynasty in the Chinese history Tzuchih
fung-chien records Koguryo's encounters with the Former Yen
(the regime established by the Hsien-pei people that controlled the
Liao-tung peninsula), the Wei, the Samhan states of southern Korea,
and the Western Chin itself.*0
In 313, during the reign of King Mich'on,
Koguryo forces invaded the Lo-lang and Tai-fang commanderies.
Though Koguryo was at first victorious, conflicts with Yen and
Paekche resulted in military disaster in the mid-fourth century. According
to the Tzu-chih fung-chien, Yen armies attacked the Koguryo
capital of Hwando-song in 342 and burned the palace to the ground,
violated Mi-ch'6n's grave, and captured the king's mother, the queen,
and fifty thousand others. The Koguryo king himself was killed in 371
during an invasion by Paekche.
Koguryo's losses indicated its need to reorganize both its army and
its political structure. Under King Sosurim (r. 371-84), Koguryo
89 Komai, Rakurd gunchi shi.
90 Ssu-ma Kuang, Tzu-chih fung-chien (Peking: Ku-chi Ch'upanshe, 1957).
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JAPAN AND THE THREE KOREAN KINGDOMS 299
adopted Chinese-style governmental forms and other elements of Chinese
culture, including Buddhism.91
A university was established;
Chinese-style laws were promulgated; and by 393 nine Buddhist monasteries
had been built in the P'yongyang area. The warrior king
Kwanggaet'o (r. 391-413) expanded Koguryo's territory to the north
and east, taking portions of Manchuria and the Liao-tung peninsula,
and drove back an alliance of Paekche and Japanese troops that threatened
Koguryo's southern border.
Kwanggaet'o's successor Changsu (r. 413-91) tightened his grip on
the former Chinese commanderies, in part by opening diplomatic relations
with the Eastern Chin. In 413, Changsu sent an emissary to the
Eastern Chin court, which formally designated him as the "ruler of
Lo-lang." The recognition by the Eastern Chin of Koguryo's sovereignty
over Lo-lang forced the Chinese living there to submit to
Koguryo rule. In 427 Changsu further tightened his control of the area
by moving his capital from the Yalu River basin to the old Lo-lang seat
of government (present-day P'yongyang).
Later in his long reign, Changsu established relations with both the
northern and southern Chinese courts. These ties facilitated the consolidation
of the Koguryo state and the expansion of Koguryo power.
In 475 Koguryo forces took the Paekche capital of Hansong (located in
the present Kwangju area, Kyonggi Province) and killed the Paekche
king. By then Changsu's Koguryo had become a great kingdom, encompassing
the old strongholds of Chinese culture in Liao-tung, Lolang,
and Tai-fang and stretching southward to the valley of the Han
River.
The sinification of Korea was hastened by lingering Chinese influence
in the former commanderies at Tai-fang and Lo-lang. For example,
Koguryo adopted the Chinese practice of using era names (auspicious
names assigned to periods within a monarch's reign), although it
eventually adopted its own era names. Roof tiles inscribed with the
characters for "Great Chin Yuan-hsing" (403-5, in the reign of the
Emperor An-ti of Eastern Chin) have been found at the remains of an
earth-walled village in southern P'yongyang, where the headquarters
of Lo-lang is thought to have been located.'2
Even after the commandery
came under Koguryo's control, it retained a certain autonomy:
Roof tiles found at Lo-lang and Tai-fang indicate that the people
91 Kim Pu-sik, Samguk sagi, 2 vols., bk. 15 of Sin Ho-y6l, ed., Samguk sagi (Great books)
(Seoul: Tongso Munhwasa, 1978), vol. 1, p. 405.
92 Komai, Rakuro gunchi thi.
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300 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
there used Chinese era names until 427, when the Koguryo king
Changsu moved his capital to the P'yongyang area.«
The Anak tomb and its wall paintings
The Chinese of the Liao-tung peninsula also brought high culture and
technology to Koguryo, especially in the fourth century, when many
Chinese fled to northern Korea to escape the invading Hsien-pei. The
tomb of one such refugee, apparently a man of wealth and distinction,
has been discovered at Anak village in North Hwanghae Province.
The tomb's chambers and murals resemble those of Wei and Chin
period tombs in Liao-yang on the Liao-tung peninsula.9
*
The Anak tomb, a stone chamber discovered in 1949, is particularly
valuable for its wall paintings and for the burial records inscribed in
ink on one of the chamber's walls. Results of initial investigations
conducted by archaeologists and ethnographers from North Korea's
Institute of Archaeology were published in 1951. According to the
Chinese scholar Yeh Pai, who deciphered the inscription published in
that report, the tomb is that of a man named Tung Shou, who died in
357. Yeh argued that this was the same Tung Shou who appears in two
Chinese histories, Chin shu and Tzu-chih fung-chien, a refugee from
Liao-tung who fled Hsien-pei invaders in 337.95
Though some Korean
scholars maintained that the tomb was that of King Mi-ch'on, the
formal Korean report issued in 1958 accepted Yeh's conclusions.96
Layers of horizontal flat stones provide the ceiling for the tomb,
which is entered through a small rectangular hallway that opens onto a
larger anteroom. Off the anteroom are two smaller rooms, one to the
east and one to the west; a square inner chamber, bordered by a
narrow corridor on its north and east, is situated at the back of the
tomb. The rooms are modeled after those in the interior of a house.
Although the tomb has been looted of most of its valuables, four
black-lacquered coffins remain, three in the inner chamber and one in
the anteroom.
The wall paintings in the tomb provide valuable information about
the clothing, weapons, and daily activities of both warriors and villag-
93 Umehara Sueji, "Chosen hokubu shutsudo kinen sen shuroku," Shinagaku 7 (1933-35), PP-
121-28.
94 Fujita Kunio, "Ryoyo hakken no san hekiga kofun," Myujiamu 59 (1956): 13-16.
95 Fang Hsuan-ling, ed., Chin shu (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, 1974), vol. 109, pp. 2815-16.
96 Lhee Chin Hye, "Kaihogo Chosen kokogaku no hatten (zoku), Kokuri hekimen kofun no
kenkyu," Kokogaku zasshi 45 (1959), pp. 203-224. Fujita, "Ryoyo hakken no san hekiga
kofun"; and Okazaki Takashi, "Angaku daisan-go fun no kenkyu," Shien 93 (1964): 90-3.
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JAPAN AND THE THREE KOREAN KINGDOMS 301
ers. The fresco on the upper south wall of the anteroom depicts a
procession of seven soldiers and is inscribed with the characters chart li
(warrior) written in red. The four men on the right are dressed in long
robes and carry banners, and the three on the left wear short kneelength
trousers. On the left side of the east wall is a fresco of a wrestling
scene that features two bearded men dressed only in loincloths,
like the Japanese sumo wrestlers of today. Figures of several men are
painted on the side walls of the west entrance. The buckles of the belts
on the men's trousers are decorated with gold ornaments with pendants
in a pattern of flowering branches. The two figures on the walls
of the west room appear to be portraits of Tung Shou and his wife,
who was buried with him. Tung Shou, a bearded gentleman wearing a
round black hat and a long red coat, is shown seated beneath a canopy.
The other portrait depicts a stout woman seated on a raised platform,
shaded by a canopy, and attended by serving women. The east room's
frescoes portray a carriage in a coach house, trays laden with food, and
oxen and horses eating. A village scene shows a well with a bucket
suspended on a pole above it; beside the well, a woman washes rice to
remove dirt and bran. The ceiling of the anteroom is decorated with a
pattern of birds and bullfrogs, animals that represent the sun and the
moon in Chinese yin-yang symbolism. The centers of the ceilings in
both the inner and the west chambers are decorated with a lotus-petal
pattern, Korea's oldest example of a common Buddhist symbol.
From a historian's point of view, one of the most interesting frescoes
is the ten-meter-long painting on the east wall of the north corridor.
This depicts a procession of warriors with the weapons, armor, and
horse trappings used in Koguryo mounted warfare. Fifty-seven riders
and 250 attendants on foot accompany the central figure, a man seated
in an ox-drawn carriage. The procession is led by a band of men
blowingflutesand striking drums and gongs. Foot soldiers, dressed in
armor made of small iron platelets held together with thongs and
braid, carry shields, spears, and long swords with attached rings.
Other attendants carry banners, flags, bows, and quivers full of arrows.
On the edges of the procession are mounted warriors dressed in
armor like that of the foot soldiers and bearing long spears. Horses are
also armored and decorated with bells. Additional riders, carrying
parasols, follow the figure in the carriage.
The Anak findings suggest the importance of both China and the
northeast Asian warrior peoples to the development of Koguryo. When
the frescoes at Anak are compared with archaeological findings elsewhere,
it is clear that weapons and military gear were introduced to
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302 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
Korea by the Hsien-pei of Liao-tung, with whom Koguryo had fought.
Though the clothing of the fresco's central figure is Chinese, the foot
soldiers and cavalrymen are dressed in a manner common among both
the Hsien-pei and northern Korean mounted warriors of the fourth
century. Other Koguryo tombs resemble Anak in their construction
style and their murals depicting military scenes. It thus seems likely
that burial practices were transmitted from China to Korea, perhaps by
refugees such as Tung Shou and by the residents of the former Chinese
commanderies at Lo-lang and Tai-fang, who found themselves stranded
in Koguryo during the turmoil of the fourth century.
Evidence from burial mound sites indicates the extent to which
Koguryo's tomb contruction methods, burial practices, and equestrian
culture - transmitted from both China and northeast Asia - was
passed on in turn to Japan. Like the Koreans of Koguryo and
Paekche, the Japanese dug their tombs by tunneling horizontally into
the flank of a hill, a technique adopted from China. The large keyholeshaped
tombs of Burial Mound Japan are variations of this style. The
grave goods in Japanese mounds such as the keyhole-shaped Otani
tomb in Wakayama City, constructed in the mid-fifth century, include
military equipment and equestrian trappings, some made in Koguryo
styles.97 The mound, thought to be that of the Ki clan of regional
hegemons, contains a box-shaped coffin made from stone slabs and
covered with a lid resembling a roof. Items like those found in
Koguryo tombs include armor for mounts, iron horse masks, saddles,
harnesses, and harness ornaments such as bells and bronze ornaments
made in openwork or low-relief design. Such items were probably
imported from Koguryo or made in Japan by immigrant craftsmen.98
The "general's tomb" and King Kwanggaefo's stele
Archaeological remains from the fourth and fifth centuries attest to the
power of Koguryo in its expansionist phase. Moving north and east,
King Kwanggaet'o attacked the Sushen in southeast Siberia, the Puyo
in Manchuria, and the Yen on the Liao-tung peninsula. His exploits
are commemorated by a sketch on the wall of a tomb in South
P'yongan Province that resembles the Anak tomb. The sketch is that
97 Higuchi Takayasu and Kyoto daigaku kokogaku kenkyushitsu, Otani kofun: Wakayama-shi
Otani (Wakayama: Wakayama-shi kyoiku iinkai, 1959).
98 Egami Namio, Nihon bijutsu no tanjo, trans. John Bester, The Beginnings ofJapanese Art (New
York and Tokyo: Weatherhill/Heibonsha, 1973)1 p. 148; Amasaku Ken, "Aspects of Yayoi
and Tumulus Art," The Beginnings ofJapanese An, p. 174.
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JAPAN AND THE THREE KOREAN KINGDOMS 303
of a castle labeled in ink as the "Liao-tung fortress," one of the king's
important conquests. Kwanggaet'o's fame extended southward as
well: A copper bowl with an inscription dated 415 honoring him as a
"great and good ruler" has been found in a Silla tomb."
A tomb thought to be that of Kwanggaet'o himself is located in the
old Koguryo capital of Kungnae-song on the northern bank of the
Yalu River in present-day Manchuria. The "general's tomb," as it is
called, is constructed of masonry and measures over thirty meters high
and ten meters square.100
The opening of the chamber, like that of the
Anak tomb and others in Paekche and Japan, is tunneled horizontally
into the flank of the mound. The impressive size of the tomb, larger
than those commonly found in China, indicates the power and wealth
of Koguryo and its king.
King Kwanggaet'o's commemorative stele was erected by his son
Changsu in 414, the year after Kwanggaet'o's death. Made from a
boulder about 8.5 meters high, the stele is inscribed on all four sides
with records of Kwanggaet'o's exploits, including the conquest of
sixty-four walled cities and fourteen hundred villages and the defeat of
the Wa in 399 on behalf of Koguryo's ally Silla.101
The dates found on
the stele (from 395 to 410) are Chinese-style era names that correspond
to those recorded in the Samguk sagi, a twelfth-century compilation of
ancient Korean records and legends. From this we can conclude that
by the fourth century, Koguryo had adopted era names of the same
type used at the Chinese commanderies of Tai-fang and Lo-lang.
The rise of Paekche
The Korean kingdom of Paekche was formed from the tribes of Mahan,
an ancient south Korean state referred to in the Wei chih. The man
known later as Paekche's first king, Kun Ch'ogo, unified the fifty-odd
Mahan tribes and, in 371, personally led a large army that attacked the
Koguryo stronghold at present-day P'yongyang, killing the Koguryo
king. Paekche then temporarily held the Lo-lang and Tai-fang areas.
In 372, Paekche established relations with the Chinese court of Eastern
Chin, which recognized Kun Ch'ogo as "the general who has subdued
99 Kim Che-won, Kydngju Nosd-ri Houch'ong kv>a Onnydngch'ong, vol. 1 of (Tae Han'guk) Kungnip
Pangmulgwan kojok chosa pogo (Seoul: Ulyumunhwasa, 1948).
100 Ikeuchi Hiroshi and Umehara Sueji, Tsuko, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Shinkyo Nichi-Man bunka
kyokai, 1938-40).
101 Yi Chin-hui, Kokaido-6 rydhi no kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1972); Saeki Yusei,
"Kokuri Kokaido do-6 ryohibun sai kento no tame no josho," Nihon rekisht 287 (April
1972): 2-4.
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304 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
the east, and governor of Lo-lang and Tai-fang." Koguryo's setback
was only temporary, however, and Paekche was eventually pushed
southward to the present Kongju-Puyo region in southwest Korea.
Like Himiko of Wa, the Paekche kings sought China's recognition
of their rulership and their regional hegemony. In the late fifth and
sixth centuries, Paekche established relations with the successive
southern Chinese dynasties, including the Sung, Southern Ch'i, and
Liang: In 521, according to the Chinese history Liang shu, an edict
issued by the Liang emperor Wu-ti conferred on the Paekche king
Muryong (r. 502-23) the title of "pacifier of the east."102
Some nineteen
years later, the Liang court again acknowledged Muryong's authority
as king of Paekche and his position as "pacifier of the east."
Close relations with Liang were continued by Muryong's son King
Song (r. 523-53), who received similar recognition.
The tomb of the Paekche king Muryong
Paekche royal tombs have been discovered at the kingdom's last two
capitals, Ungjin (modern Kongju) and Sabi (modern Puyo). In July
1971, one of the tombs at Kongju was definitely identified as that of
King Muryong, a ruler described in the Samguk sagi as a heroic,
humane, and righteous man with handsome features and a charismatic
personality.103
The tomb, along with several others, is located in a hilly
region on the outskirts of Kongju. Muryong's tomb and one other
have been carefully investigated and are open to the public. Both
tombs are made of tile-covered walls and are entered through horizontal
corridors. The smaller of the two was decorated with murals depicting
the legendary Chinese deities of the four quarters (a dragon, a
tiger, a phoenix, and a tortoise entwined by a serpent). The tiles are
incised with patterns resembling Chinese coins.
The larger tomb, entered by an arched doorway, measures nineteen
by twenty-one meters. The tiled chamber walls are decorated with
patterns of lotus petals, Chinese coins, and latticework. Two stone slabs
carved with burial records were originally placed at the opening of the
entrance hallway, and iron coins of a type circulated in China between
the Early Han and T'ang were placed on top of the slabs. Grave goods
included a blue porcelain jar with four handles, of a kind made in the
ancient Chinese province of Yuen (now Chekiang Province), as well as
102 Okazaki, "Sanseiki yori nanaseiki no tairiku ni okeru kokusai kankei to Nihon," p. 635.
103 Tae Han Minguk Munhwajae Kwalliguk, Murydng Wangnung, trans. Nagashima Kimichika,
Bunei oryo (Tokyo: Gakuseisha, 1974); Kim Pu-sik, Samguk sagi, p. 504.
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JAPAN AND THE THREE KOREAN KINGDOMS 305
stone lions, a bronze tou (a long-stemmed, lidded Chinese-style food
container), two bronze mirrors, and pottery. The wooden coffins of the
king and queen were placed on a low platform in the burial chamber.
According to the burial records, the tomb was constructed in 525 for
Muryong, who had died two years before. The queen, whose death
came in 526, was later entombed with her husband.
The king's coffin contained a pair of shoes, a bronze sword, and a
gilt bronze crown hung with small ornaments and decorated with
patterns of flowers in vases. The queen's coffin, decorated with a
scenic woodcarving, held a gold crown and a hair ornament (both
decorated with a lotus pattern), filigreed comma-shaped jewels, gold
earrings hung with ornaments in the flowering branches pattern, a
silver bracelet, and a pair of shoes. The inscription engraved on the
bracelet gives the artisan's name and the zodiacal designation for the
date when it was made, and it indicates that that bracelet was made
especially for the queen. An alcove on one wall of Muryong's burial
chamber contained a small blue porcelain candleholder with the remains
of a burned-out wick. The candleholder, like the four-handled
jar mentioned earlier, was made in China's Yiieh Province, famous for
its production of porcelains.
Archaeological investigations of the Kongju tombs substantiate the
Chinese accounts of Muryong's relations with the Liang court. For
example, the Liang imperial edict of 521 referring to Muryong as
"pacifier of the east" is echoed in the burial records preserved in his
tomb. The tiles of the king's burial chamber resemble those of a Liang
tomb discovered in i960 in the Nanking region where the capital was
located. An inscription on the wall of the smaller Kongju tomb indicates
that the tiles on its chamber walls were made under the auspices
of the Liang court for the use of an important official.10
'*
Students of Japanese history know Paekche best as the kingdom
that transmitted Buddhism and other elements of Chinese culture to
Japan. Buddhism had come to Paekche itself late in the fourth century,
introduced, according to traditional accounts, by the Indian monk
Marananda, who immigrated from China in 384. Subsequent contact
between Paekche and the Chinese courts resulted in a heavy flow of
Buddhist scriptures and art, as well as Chinese artisans and scholars,
to the Korean kingdom. Close relations with Liang were established at
a time when Buddhism flourished in southern China, and many Bud-
104 Kim Ki-ung, Kudara no kofun (Tokyo: Gakuseisha, 1976); Kim Ki-ung, Shiragi no kofun
(Tokyo: Gakuseisha, 1976).
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306 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
dhist temples were constructed in the Liang capital. Enthusiastically
adopted by the ruling classes of Paekche, Buddhism was soon passed
on to the Japanese. According to traditional accounts, this occurred
during the reign of King Song, Muryong's son and successor. Clothing
and ornaments from Muryong's tomb, similar to those found in tombs
in both China and Japan, indicate that Paekche was a major link
between these two cultures during Japan's Burial Mound period. The
debt that Japan owed to Paekche continued through the sixth century,
when many art treasures were imported to grace the Buddhist temples
of the capital region of Asuka.
The rise of Silia and the spread of Silia culture
At the end of the fourth century, a third Korean kingdom, later to be
called Silla, emerged in the region of southeast Korea dominated by
the Saro tribe. The new state, based in the old Chinhan region
(present-day Kyongju) allied itself with Koguryo, no doubt to counter
the influence of the Japanese, allies of Paekche and the Kaya states. In
the fifth and sixth centuries, as the three Korean kingdoms contended
for territory and for control of the peninsula, Silla extended its borders
to the north and west, annexing one of the Kaya states.
Shortly after Silla came into being, its rulers opened relations with
the Eastern Chin court in southern China. Silla was the last of the
three Korean kingdoms consciously to adopt Chinese culture, but
when sinification came, it was rapid and thorough. Steles erected in
the sixth century commemorating the conquests of Silla's kings used
Chinese-style era names when recording dates.10
' Tribal names were
abandoned, and even the state's name Silla was taken from a Chinese
proverb. King Pophung (r. 514-40), the first of the Silla kings to
sponsor sinification, assumed the Chinese title of wang (king). The
Chinese writing system was adopted, and Silla soldiers developed a
method of using Chinese characters to represent Korean sounds. Buddhism,
unofficially introduced in the fifth century, was recognized by
the court during Pophung's reign, and Silla monks sent to China for
study returned with additional knowledge of Chinese culture.
Archaeological findings at Kyongju, site of Silla's capital, reveal the
nature and extent of Chinese cultural influence. Temple pagodas and
worship halls were patterned after Chinese models. Important temples
105 Dates and locations of these steles are (i) 555, northern Seoul; (2) 561, South Kyongsang
Province; (3) 568, two locations in North Hamgyong Province.
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JAPAN AND THE THREE KOREAN KINGDOMS 307
established in the early years of the Silla kingdom include Bunhwangsa,
site of Korea's oldest datable pagoda, a square-based structure
made of stones cut to resemble bricks; Hwangryongsa, Silla's
largest temple; and Sach'onwangsa, built in 669, according to traditional
accounts, to protect Silla against the armies of China.106
The
valley of Kyongju is dotted with tombs, some dating from the early
Silla period. Archaeologists have not yet identified any as the burial
place of a particular king, but several, such as the Kumgwan, Sobong,
and Chonma mounds, are large and grand enough to be royal tombs.
Following Chinese practice, the builders of Silla tombs constructed
stone chambers and covered them with mounded earth. This style,
which differed from that common in Paekche and Koguryo, was transmitted
to the Japanese. Articles made of gold were often deposited in
these tombs, and some, such as crowns, belt buckles, and ornaments
with pendants, are similar to those found among the Hsien-pei. Threelegged
bronze wine vessels, glass ornaments, and items made of blue
porcelain from Yueh Province all were imported from China.
Although Silla was the last of the three Korean kingdoms to form
and the latest to adopt Chinese culture, it proved to be the strongest
contender for control of the peninsula. Silla's rise was abetted by the
attacks on its northern neighbor by the Sui and T'ang dynasties. In
598 Sui used Koguryo's attack on the Chinese territory of Liao-hsi as a
pretext to invade the Korean kingdom. The forces of the Sui emperor
Wen-ti were defeated and forced to withdraw, but Wen-ti's successor
Yang-ti ordered a renewed series of land and sea invasions of Koguryo,
beginning in 612 and lasting until 614. The Chinese were repeatedly
defeated with huge losses. Thirty years later under the T'ang dynasty
emperor Tai-tsung, China again attacked Koguryo in 645-7 and was
once again repelled. Finally in 660 T'ang China allied itself with Silla
in southeast Korea, and their combined forces first conquered Paekche
in 660 and then Koguryo in 668. The once great kingdom of
Koguryo became a T'ang protectorate; but in 676, Silla, aided by
remnants of the two defeated armies, drove the T'ang from their
northern Korean stronghold. Korea's first unified kingdom was
thereby established, with its capital at Kyongju. The flourishing culture
of Silla influenced a wide region, stretching from Manchuria in
the north to Japan across the sea.
106 Edward B. Adams, Kyongju Guide: Cultural Spirit of Silla in Korea (Seoul: Seoul International
Tourist Publishing, 1979), pp. 51, 55, 135. The lower stories of the Bunhwangsa
pagoda are intact and can be viewed today; the other two temples have been destroyed, but
their foundation stones remain.
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308 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
Japan and Korea in the Burial Mound period
According to the Wei chih, when the Wa queen Himiko was buried, "a
great mound was raised" to serve as her tomb.107
Himiko's tomb has
never been located, but hundreds of tombs dating from the third
through the sixth centuries have been found all over Japan. Some
tombs follow the Kyongju construction style, but others are dug vertically
into the earth or horizontally into a hillside as in Koguryo and
Paekche. Such burial practices give the age its name: the Burial
Mound period. During these centuries, Japan grew from a society of
small agrarian communities into a consolidated kingdom under the
control of a monarch supported by chieftains of strong clans. This
state, based in the Kinai District of central Honshu, is known as
Yamato (see Chapter 2).
In the early years of the Burial Mound period, China - the source of
much of the advanced technology that made its way to Japan in the
Yayoi age - was beset by civil war. We hear no more of direct contact
with Chinese courts after the end of the third century. The source of
bronze mirrors dried up, and the Japanese were forced to manufacture
this important ritual item for themselves. Fortunately, they had already
learned enough technical skills from continental prototypes and
tutors to produce such mirrors ably, as we can see from the many fine
domestic examples found at archaeological sites. Chinese patterns
were sometimes copied, often in abbreviated or stylized forms, but the
Japanese also developed their own motifs.108
The confused situation in China forced Japan to turn to Korea as a
source of high culture, technology, and luxury items. Though the
Korean kingdoms were in general more advanced than Japan was
during this period, there was not the overwhelming gulf that had
marked earlier relations between the Wa people and the Chinese
courts. The Japanese did not see themselves as tributary to the Korean
kingdoms and felt free to interfere militarily on the peninsula. This
attitude toward Korea is reflected in the Nihon shoki, which pictures
the Kaya states (Japanese: Mimana) as a colony under the direct control
of the Yamato court. But Korean sources do not substantiate this,
and the nature of relations between Kaya and Japan remains a subject
of much dispute. Whether a colony, a tributary state, or an ally, however,
the Kaya league had the closest relationship to Japan of all the
107 San-kuo chih 30, p. 858; Tsunoda and Goodrich,Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 16.
108 Tanaka, Kokyo, pp. 24-27.
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JAPAN AND THE THREE KOREAN KINGDOMS 309
Korean states. Kaya provided a foothold on the peninsula for the
Japanese until the middle of the sixth century, when the small states
were absorbed by Silla.
Perhaps the most important reason that the Japanese were anxious
to maintain relations with southern Korea - and to define these relations
in their own terms - was to guarantee access to Korean sources
of iron. Iron, scarce in Japan, was crucial to both farming and warfare.
Late Yayoi period weapons were made of iron, not stone or bronze,
and any clan that wished to retain control of its territory had to maintain
its supply of iron. Iron was also used extensively in agriculture for
hoeing, digging, and plowing and for making wooden tools. Thus a
control of the iron supply was important to clearing land and increasing
agricultural yields, which provided the economic base for the
expansion of powerful clans. As the Yamato rose to power and took
steps toward forming a centralized state, the need to maintain control
over the iron supply must have seemed paramount.
This need for iron motivated the fourth-century Japanese to develop
close ties not only with Kaya but with Paekche as well. These ties are
described in the Japanese chronicles written some four centuries later
and substantiated by a contemporary source, the inscription on a
sword found at the Isonokami Shrine in Nara Prefecture. According to
this inscription, the sword was a gift of the Paekche king in 369. This
sword may be the same one presented, according to the Nihon shoki, to
Queen Jingu by the king of Paekche in 252.10
9 (The discrepancy in
dates need not trouble us, as many accounts in the Nihon shoki appear
to be dated too early.) Both parties took advantage of the alliance:
From 391 to 399 Japanese armies supported Paekche when it was
attacked by the combined forces of Silla and Koguryo, and Paekche
helped the Japanese establish diplomatic contact with the southern
Chinese courts in the fifth century.
The Nihon shoki portrays the relationship between Paekche and
Japan as peaceful and cooperative. For example, the chronicle reports
that in 512, the Paekche king Muryong sent an "envoy with tribute" to
the Yamato court. The envoy also bore a message requesting Yamato
to cede four districts of Mimana (or Kaya) to Paekche. According to
this message, the districts were so close to Paekche that "their fowl
and dogs [could not] be kept apart," and they were so far from Japan
that it would be difficult for the court to maintain control in the face of
109 Nihon shoki, bk. 9, Jingu 52/9/10, NKBT 67.358-9; Aston, 1.251; Daisanji Okinoshima
gakujutsu chosakai, Munakata Okinoshima, 3 vols. (Fukuoka-ken, Munakata-gun, Genkaicho:
Munakata taisha fukko kiseikai, 1979), vol. 1, p. 469.
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310 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
Silla's expansion. A Yamato court official was ordered to implement
Muryong's request, but his wife argued against it, declaring that certain
kami had bestowed on the ruler Homuda (King Ojin, who probably
reigned in the early fifth century) "the gold and silver lands beyond
the sea, namely, Koryo (Koguryo), Paekche, Silla and Imna
(Mimana)." Nevertheless, the districts were ceded to Paekche in accord
with the wishes of the Yamato ruler.110
This account, and others
written in the eighth century, leave little doubt that by that time the
Japanese wanted to believe that the sixth-century Korean kingdoms
had been tributary to the Yamato state.
Relations with Silla and Koguryo were not nearly so peaceful, and
they sometimes deteriorated into armed conflict. One such episode
was the conflict in 399, when the combined forces of Japan and
Paekche attacked Silla and were driven back by Silla and its ally
Koguryo.111
Despite such an uneasy relationship, however, trade
among them continued. Some of the iron ingots found at Japanese
sites may have come from Silla, and the iron weapons may have come
from Koguryo. According to the Nihon shoki, the Yamato court entertained
guests from Koguryo in 324, and "ministers and functionaries
were assembled and made to shoot at the iron shields and targets"
presented by the visitors.112
Whatever the official relationship between
Japan and the Three Kingdoms, iron implements and the technique of
making them came to Japan from all parts of the peninsula, along with
methods of tomb construction, glazed pottery manufacture, and
mounted warfare.
In the fifth century, the Japanese resumed direct contact with China,
probably through the agency of Paekche. Although the situation in
China was far from stable, it was once more settled enough to make
diplomatic contacts possible and fruitful. Like Himiko, Japanese rulers
of the Burial Mound period sent tribute embassies to the Chinese
courts and sought Chinese acknowledgment of their authority.
Chinese sources record thirteen visits of envoys from "five kings of
Wa" to the Eastern Chin, Sung, Ch'i, and Liang courts between 413
and 502. The first of the five is thought to have been King Nintoku,
though there is a discrepancy between the dates noted in the Chinese
records and the traditional dates (313-99) assigned to Nintoku's reign.
The Chinese records note that the embassies from "Wa" came with
n o Nihon shoki, bk. 17, Keitai 6/12, NKBT 68.26-29; Aston, 2.7-9.
111 This episode is documented by the inscription on King Kwanggaet'o's stele.
112 Nihon shoki, bk. 11, Nintoku 12/8/10, NKBT 67.282-3; Aston, 1.282; Okinoshima,
1.359-61.
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JAPAN AND THE THREE KOREAN KINGDOMS 3II
tribute and that the Wa king (Nintoku) received an imperial appointment
in 421. In 438 and 443, Wa kings (probably Hanzei and Ingyo)
were designated as "generals who have subdued the east," a title also
given to the last of the five kings (probably Yuryaku). Thus Japanese
rulers sought and received Chinese confirmation of their dominant
positions."3 The benefits of reestablishing relations with the Chinese
courts were economic as well as political, and Japan was once more in
touch with a source of mirrors, silken goods, and technology such as
methods of raising silkworms.1
'4
In the later years of the Burial Mound period, Japanese clans accumulated
regional power and began to form alliances, a process that
culminated with the extention of Yamato control to nearly all of Japan.
Contacts with the continent were crucial to this centralization process.
Luxury items such as gold ornaments and elegant horse trappings
might serve as symbols of authority; and iron, as we already noted,
enhanced the technologies of warfare and of agriculture. But the influence
of the continent was not limited to tools and weapons, or even to
the skills needed to produce them. Immigrants from the Korean
peninsula - some perhaps Chinese-lineage refugees from Lo-lang and
Tai-fang - played an important role in the transmission of political
ideas and administrative methods. Many important court figures in
Ojin's reign, for example, were immigrants from Paekche.115
During
Kimmei's reign, a Korean named W6-jin-mi was assigned the task of
keeping a record of the taxes levied on shipments.116
Immigrants of all
social strata contributed to the political and economic development of
Burial Mound Japan. An item in the Nihon shoki, dated in the seventh
year of Ojin's reign, relates that men from Korea (Koguryo, Paekche,
Silla, and Kaya) were ordered by the monarch to construct an irrigation
pond,117
and laborers from Silla were employed on afloodcontrol
project during Nintoku's reign.118
The introduction of the Chinese writing system in the fifth century
was one of Paekche's most important gifts to the Japanese. By the
middle of the next century, the Yamato court was utilizing written
records to facilitate administrative matters and thus to extend and
solidify its political control. Literacy among the aristocracy also enhanced
the acceptance of another import from Paekche, the religion of
113 Okazaki, "Sanseiki yori nanaseiki no tairiku ni okeru kokusai kankei to Nihon," p. 637.
114 Okazaki, "Kokusai kankei to Nihon," p. 638. 115 Ibid.
116 Nihon shoki, bk. 19, Kimmei 14/7/4, NKBT 68.104-5; Aston, 2.69. Also see Okazaki,
"Kokusai kankei to Nihon," p. 638.
117 Nihon shoki, bk. 10, Ojin 7/9, NKBT 67.366-7; Aston 1.257.
118 Nihon shoki, bk. 11, Nintoku n/10, NKBT 67.394-5; Aston, 1.281-2.
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312 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
Buddhism. According to the Nihon shoki, the Paekche king sent an
image of the Buddha and several volumes of scriptures to the Japanese
court in 552."' Though Buddhism occupied a precarious position for a
time, alternately embraced and rejected by the court, its symbolism
contributed to the consolidation of political and economic power (see
Chapter 7). Buddhism also stimulated the development of art and
architecture. Japanese styles were usually developed from continental
prototypes introduced by immigrant artists from Paekche and the
other Korean kingdoms. Monks from the continent also contributed
to Japan's absorption of sophisticated forms of Chinese learning, and
the Japanese monks who traveled to the continent in the eighth and
ninth centuries continued to infuse Japanese Buddhism with new ideas
and modes of expression.
Relations with the continent were crucial to the development of a
unified Japanese state based on a literate and technologically advanced
society. The control of relations with the continent was one decisive
factor in the formation of the Japanese state under the control of the
Yamato clan. The victors, based in the Kinai region, established the
line of hereditary sovereigns who occupied the throne in later periods.
Archaeological findings from the island of Okinoshima - off the coast
of Kyushu and far from Yamato - reveal the importance of sea routes
to the continent in this process and suggest ways in which these routes
were established and maintained by the Yamato court.
OKINOSHIMA, THE YAMATO COURT, AND THE
CONTINENT
Okinoshima, since prehistoric times the site of an especially sacred
shrine, lies in Genkai Bay, directly on the sea route between Kyushu
and the southeastern tip of the Korean peninsula. On the island is one
of three Munakata shrines, each dedicated to a female kami. Okinoshima
is important to our inquiry for two reasons: It was an early and
continuing locus of contact between Japan and the continent, and its
emergence as a religious site during the Burial Mound period can be
connected with the rise of the Yamato kingdom. Archaeological evidence,
such as a narrow bronze spear of Korean origin discovered at a
Yayoi site, indicates Okinoshima's importance in early contacts between
Japan and Korea. The richest store of archaeological treasures,
however, comes from the fourth through the ninth centuries: Reli-
119 Nihon shoki, bk. 19, Kinunei 13/10, NKBT 68.100-1; Aston, 2.65
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OKINOSHIMA, YAMATO, THE CONTINENT 313
gious artifacts, many of continental origin, have been found at twentythree
places in the forested, boulder-strewn vicinity of the shrine.120
An examination of the evidence at Okinoshima shows that religious
worship on the island developed in four stages, as ritual sites moved
from the tops of boulders to their shadows and then into the open air.
In the first stage, the fourth through the fifth centuries, magatama,
mirrors, knives, and swords were presented as offerings at iwakura
(also called iwasaka), boulder-top altars formed out of piled-up
stones.121
It was thought that when offerings were made, kami descended
to these altars. Objects found at these sites are similar to
Japanese grave goods from the same period: mirrors from Han and
Wei China and their Japanese imitations, bracelets made of dark green
nephrite, iron weapons and tools, and steatite articles.
In the second stage, from the fifth through the seventh centuries,
ritual objects were offered to the kami at sites in the shade of huge
boulders. These objects included Japanese imitations of Chinese
bronze mirrors, personal and equestrian ornaments, pottery of both
domestic and continental manufacture, metal miniatures of everyday
objects, and ritual articles of steatite. Some of these articles, such as
gold rings, equestrian ornaments, and iron ingots, are similar to those
found in Silla tombs dating from Korea's Three Kingdoms period
(from around the fourth through seventh centuries). Fragments of a
glass bowl of Sassanian Persian origin have also been found at one site,
indicating that some items had made their way to Japan from a very
great distance. Articles like those discovered at Okinoshima in this
second stage have also been found in Japanese tombs of the late fifth
and sixth centuries.
In the third stage, the seventh through early eighth centuries, rituals
were conducted partly in the shadows of boulders and partly in the
open. Ritual objects included those made of steatite - larger than earlier
examples - and metal miniatures of weaving and spinning implements.
Artifacts discovered at one site include two Eastern Wei gilt
bronze finials in the shapes of dragons' heads, and fragments of a
T'ang dynasty three-colored (san-ts'ai) long-necked vase.
One site dates from the final stage, the eighth through early ninth
centuries. Artifacts found at the open-air altar (kamudokoro) there include
small bronze mirrors, bronze bells (suzu), domestic and continental
pottery, metal miniatures, ritual objects made of steatite, and
bronze coins minted in Japan. Twelve small Japanese copies of T'ang
120 Okinoshima, 1.621. 121 Ibid., 1.622.
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314 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
three-colored ceramics have also been found. The steatite articles were
probably used in purification rites (katashiro) and include images of
humans, horses, and boats. The coins are of a type that were first
minted in 818 and became rare after the beginning of the tenth century.
The first and second stages are of special interest to this inquiry.
During this time Yamato gained firm control of distant regions, including
northern Kyushu. Although this was accomplished partly through
military action, the manipulation of religious symbols also played a
crucial role. Information gained from archaeological investigations on
Okinoshima and from related historical sources indicates the way in
which contacts with the continent affected the birth of the centralized
Yamato state.
A mountain that floats in the sea, Okinoshima ultimately derived its
sanctity from the belief that certain mountains were the homes of
kami. People believed that one of the three Munakata kami resided on
the island, just as they thought that kami lived on spectacular mountains
such as Miwa and Kasuga in the Kinai and Akagi and Futara in
the Kanto. Lowland farmers built mountaintop shrines to worship the
kami who might then make the rice crops prosper, and both farmers
and fishermen built shrines on Okinoshima, in hopes of abundant
yields.
Local clan chieftains also worshiped at Okinoshima, in hopes of
claiming special ties with the kami that would add religious sanction to
their political authority and help them extend their control over land
and people. The clan that dominated the area of the main Munakata
Shrine on the northern coast of Kyushu was called the Munakata no
Kimi. Several keyhole-shaped tombs in this area were probably built
for Munakata clan leaders. One, a large stone chamber with an opening
tunneled into the side of a hill, dates from the final years of the
Burial Mound period and is thought to be the grave of Munakata no
Kimi Tokuzen, who appears as father of an imperial consort in a Nihon
shoki episode dated 673.122
This suggests that by the seventh-century
reign of Emperor Temmu the Munakata clan had developed strong ties
with Yamato-lineage rulers.
The Munakata probably emerged as a powerful local clan in the
fourth century, when close contacts were first established between
Japan and southern Korea, especially Paekche. The clan's power base
lay along the coast of Genkai Bay, a natural harbor for ships sailing to
Korea. Local fishermen, who often sailed the open sea between
Kyushu and Okinoshima and then to Korea, were under Munakata
122 Nihon shoki, bk. 29, Temmu 2 (673) 2/27, NKBT 68.410-11; Aston, 2.322.
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OKINOSHIMA, YAMATO, THE CONTINENT 315
control. Ritual objects left at sacred places on Okinoshima were no
doubt taken there by these fishermen.
The three kami of the Munakata shrines were venerated not only by
the clan but also by the Yamato court. A brief quotation from the Nihon
shoki points to the reason. This passage states: "You three kami shall
descend to Michi-no-naka (the pathway to Korea) and help the imperial
descendants of heaven, who are to hold you in reverence."123
This
passage portrays the Munakata kami as the deities of a region - and by
implication a clan - that could link the Yamato court with Korea, the
source of high technology, culture, treasures, and iron. Other passages
in the chronicles show how highly these kami were regarded by
Yamato. In the reign of Yuryaku, the kami warned the ruler against a
planned invasion of Silla, and the invasion was called off.I2
* Both Kojiki
and Nihon shoki myths describe the Munakata kami as the daughters of
Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, claimed by the Yamato clan as their
ancestral kami.12
*
Items found at Okinoshima sites dating from the first and second
stages link the island with the continent. These articles include iron
ingots like those found in Silla tombs in the Kyongju and Pusan
regions. Weaving implements and their gilt-bronze miniatures have
also been found on Okinoshima. The Hizen fudoki suggests that the
people of the Munakata area excelled in weaving, and a Nihon shoki
item for Ojin's reign tells of a delegation sent to one of the southern
courts of China to obtain seamstresses, one of whom was given to
Munakata to serve its kami.126
This item may refer to one of the
delegations from "the five kings of Wa" noted in Chinese dynastic
histories.I2
7 At other archaeological sites in the Munakata region,
items similar to Okinoshima relics have been found, including pottery
and ritual objects made of steatite. It seems likely that some of these
were intended for use at the Okinoshima shrine.
The Yamato court sought the support of the Munakata chieftains,
who controlled the shortest sea route between Japan and the Korean
peninsula, as well as sailors familiar with that route. In return, the
court honored the Munakata kami and presented the shrine with valued
offerings.128
Thus religious beliefs and symbols were used to link
the court with a clan that occupied a strategic position in relations with
the continent.
123 Okinoshima, 1.477; Nihon shoki, bk. 1, NKBT 67.108-9; with a different interpretation in
Aston, 1.37.
124 Nihon shoki, bk. 14, Yuryaku 8/3, NKBT 67.480-1; Aston, 2.353.
125 Okinoshima, 1.475-8.
126 Hizen no kunifudoki, NKBT 2.384-5; Nihon shoki, bk. 10, NKBT 67.380-1; Aston, 1.271.
127 Okinoshima, 1.473. 128 Ibid., 1:472.
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3l6 JAPAN AND THE CONTINENT
The Munakata region served as a passageway between Japan and the
continent from the Burial Mound age through die first century of the
Heian period. Fifth-century missions to China may have sailed from
Munakata ports, and rites to ensure safety on the rough open sea were
probably conducted at Munakata's sanctuary on Okinoshima.129
Such
rituals were definitely held in later times; in 838, when an official
mission to China finally set sail from Hakata near Munakata, prayers
for the mission's safety were offered to the Munakata kami. Some of
the artifacts found on Okinoshima, such as the three-colored vase
from T'ang China, may have been presented by envoys grateful to
have returned alive.'3° After 894, when Sugawara no Michizane convinced
the court to discontinue such hazardous missions, ritual activity
at Okinoshima declined.1
*1
At the end of the Burial Mound period, Japan entered die domain of
written history. The court, operating from its power base on the
Yamato plain in the Kinai, had obtained the allegiance of clans in all
but the most distant regions of northern Japan. Written records were
now used to carry out government functions; Buddhism was enthusiastically
embraced; and Chinese technology stimulated such diverse
fields as calendar making, architecture, and the construction of irrigation
systems. Missions from Japan to China no longer sought only
luxury goods, or even Chinese recognition of a Japanese ruler's authority,
but sophisticated forms of learning as well.
If Japan was ready by this time for an episode of conscious, systematic
cultural borrowing, the situation in China was appropriate as well.
In 589, China was reunified under the Sui dynasty for the first time in
over 350 years. The Sui collapsed in the reign of its third emperor but
was replaced in 618 by the T'ang, a cosmopolitan, long-lived dynasty.
In search of new techniques to achieve control and strengdien political
authority, the Japanese of the mid-sevendi century attempted to emulate
China's centralized imperial system, its bureaucratic state, and its
methods of controlling the provinces and collecting taxes. In addition,
the military expansion of early T'ang posed a threat to Japan and
forced the court to strengthen its defenses, a process that contributed
to the centralization of the state. When the T'ang pulled back in the
late seventh century - leaving Japan unthreatened and Korea to Silla
rule - East Asia entered a long phase of stability and peace. During
the next hundred years, continental culture was sought, absorbed, and
adapted to the needs of a maturing Japanese civilization.
129 Ibid., 1.474. 130 Ibid., 1.624-5. 131 Ibid.
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CHAPTER 6
EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
From prehistoric times the Japanese have revered animistic spirits and
deities called kami. Eventually the worship of kami developed into a
religious system known as Shinto or "the kami way." The two Chinese
characters used in Japan for writing "Shinto" had been used for centuries
in China to refer to the supernatural or the mysterious. Adopted in
Japan at the end of the sixth century A.D., these characters were employed
to distinguish native kami worship from Buddhism (the Buddha
way), recently imported from the Asian continent. Early sources
suggest that Shinto was then synonomous with the old word kamunagara,
which denoted a "way" handed down by the kami themselves
without human revision.
By the time that Japan's native religion was identified as Shinto,
kami worship had moved beyond awe of natural forces to institutionalized
rituals believed to ensure protection and prosperity for the clans
(uji), and to provide religious sanction for the clan chieftains and
territorial rulers. This chapter will therefore be devoted mainly to
showing how kami beliefs and practices, while retaining their animistic
core, moved from simple to complex forms.
GENERAL PROBLEMS
The concept of kami
The standard translation of kami is "deity," a word suggesting the
Western concept of a transcendental divinity such as in the JudaeoChristian
God. But the gulf between divinity and humanity found in
the Judaic religions does not exist in Shinto. Even though the Shinto
kami are given credit for creating various parts of the universe, kami
are neither omniscient nor omnipotent, and unlike the ancient Greek
gods, they are not necessarily immortal.
The classic definition of kami is the one advanced by Motoori
317
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3l8 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
Norinaga (1730-1801), a distinguished scholar of Japanese history and
literature:
Kami are, first of all, deities of heaven and earth and spirits venerated at
shrines, as well as the humans, birds and beasts, plants and trees, oceans, and
mountains that have exceptional powers and ought to be revered. Kami
include not only mysterious beings that are noble and good but also malignant
spirits that are extraordinary and deserve veneration.1
Western scholars of Shinto tend to accept Motoori's definition: F. H.
Ross wrote that kami are mysterious beings associated with feelings of
"awesomeness" and "the holy,"2
and A. C. Underwood defined kami
as including all supernatural beings, good or bad.3
In general, the Japanese believed that any extraordinary phenomenon
possessed charismatic power. That is, the spirit of a kami might
reside in heavenly bodies such as the sun, moon, and stars or in the
forces of nature such as wind, rain, and lightning. Thunder, for instance,
was called "the kami that rumbles." Striking topographical
features such as oceans, rivers, and mountains, or even manufactured
objects (buildings, boats, combs, or hearths) might house a kami. A
charismatic ruler or aristocrat was often named a kami, and certain
animals were known as kami, such as tigers, wolves, hares, and serpents,
if they were exceptional for their species. An ancient myth even
tells of a peach seed with the power to repel evil demons and names the
seed Okamutsumi (the "great kami seed"). The charisma that a kami
possesses resembles mana, the extraordinary power that the people of
Melanesia associate with supernatural phenomena or fearsome objects.
Although some spirits were honored and feared by the ancient Japanese
and called kami, many were given other names with subtle differ-
1 Motoori Norinaga, Kojikiden pt. i, chap. 3, vol. 9 of Motoori Norinaga zenshu (Tokyo:
Chikuma shobo, 1976), p. 125.
2 Floyd Hiatt Ross, Shinto: The Way ofJapan (Boston: Beacon Press, 1965), p. 32.
3 A. C. Underwood, Shintdism: The Indigenous Religion ofJapan (London: Beacon Press, 1965),
p. 32. Other Western scholars have grappled with the essential nature of kami belief and
worship: see D. C. Holtom, "The Meaning of Kami," Monumenta Nipponica 3, no. 1 (1940):
1-27; 3, no. 2 (1940): 392-413; and 4, no. 2 (1942): 351-94; Richard Arthur Brabazon
Ponsonby-Fane, The Vicissitudes of Shinto (Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society, 1963); and
Jean Herbert, Shinto: At the Fountain-Head ofJapan (New York: Stein & Day, 1967). Studies
by two distinguished Japanese scholars of Shinto have been translated into English: Tsunetsugu
Muraoka, Studies in Shinto Thought, trans. Delmer M. Brown and James T. Araki
(Tokyo: Ministry of Education, 1964); and Genichi Kato, A Historical Study of the Religious
Development of Shinto, trans. Shoyu Hanayama (Tokyo: Ministry of Education, 1973). Other
Western works on Shinto are listed in Genichi Kato, Karl Reitz, and Wilhelm Schiffer,
comps., A Bibliography of Shinto in Western Languages, from the Oldest Times till 1952 (Tokyo:
Meiji jingu shamusho, 1953); and in Arcadio Schwade, Shinto Bibliography in Western Languages:
Bibliography on Shinto and Religious Sects, Intellectual Schools and Movements Influenced
by Shintdism (Leiden: Brill, 1986).
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GENERAL PROBLEMS 319
ences in meaning. There were tama (souls), mono (demons), tsuchi and
mi (animistic spirits), and chi and itsu (spirits that possessed magical
powers). Kami were chosen from that crowd of spirits, elevated in
rank, further sanctified, and later anthropomorphized. The kami of
the mountains, for instance, were thought to control the spirits, animals,
and plants in a specific mountain region, and the kami of the
ocean to control ocean life. In a later stage of development, such kami
were often given names and selected as tutelary deities by important
clans. The Ochi clan of Shikoku's Iyo Province (present-day Ehime
Prefecture) adopted a mountain kami as its tutelary deity (ujigami),
and an ocean kami was taken as the ujigami of the Azumi clan based in
the seacoast province of Chikuzen (Fukuoka Prefecture).
Finally, the most important kami often possessed the power to create.
Though there is no equivalent in Shinto to the Judaic God's creation of
the cosmos and everything in it, kami did give birth to familiar portions
of the universe. Myths tell us, for instance, that the husband and wife
kami, Izanagi and Izanami, created the islands of Japan.* Moreover, the
word tnusubi attached to the names of many kami - the high-ranking
Takamimusubi is one important example - connotes creative power.
Creator and life-giving kami such as Izanagi, Izanami, Takamimusubi,
and Amaterasu (the Sun Goddess who became the ancestral kami of the
imperial clan) all occupied high positions in the "myriad kami" pantheon
appearing in Japan's earliest recorded myths.
Ethics and ritual purity
The ethical content of Shinto is weak in comparison with that of such
universalistic religions as Christianity and Buddhism. Shinto stresses
ritual purity rather than ethics and morality, and Shinto rituals are
designed to counteract ritual pollution. The word tsumi indicates an
offense or pollution that must be neutralized by ritual cleansing. The
concept of tsumi also differs from the Christian concept of original sin,
an evil inherent in human nature and one that can be purged only by confessing
to God and receiving his forgiveness. The Shinto concept also
differs from the "carnal passions" that obstruct one's understanding
and acceptance of Buddhist truth. Tsumi, moreover, were not believed
4 Kojiki, bk. 1 in Sakamoto Taro, Ienaga Saburo, Inoue Mitsusada, and Ono Susumu, eds.,
Nihon koten bungaku laikei (hereafter cited as NK.BT) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1967), vol. 1,
pp. 54-57; trans. Donald L. Philippi, Kojiki (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1968), pp.
49> 53-54- Nihon shoki, bk. 1, NKBT 67.81-90, trans. W. G. Aston, Nihongi: Chronicles of
japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697 (hereafter cited as Aston) (London: Allen & Unwin,
1956), pt. 1, pp. 12-18.
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320 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
to result in retribution after death. Tsumi included offenses for which a
person was responsible as well as calamities over which he or she had no
control. Certain acts resulting in bodily harm to others were lumped together
with epidemics and natural calamities as forms of tsumi that were
referred to as "troublesome things" (magagoto). In general the ancient
Japanese equated physical purity and brightness with righteousness and
virtue; conversely, physical defilement and darkness were seen as evil
and injustice. Ablutions were used as magic rites to eliminate tsumi.
As Japanese mythology demonstrates, the concept of tsumi was
thought to have developed in the "age of the kami," long before
humans inhabited the earth. In one myth, the kami Izanagi visited his
dead wife Izanami in the land of the dead beneath the earth (Yomi no
Kuni). After Izanagi returned, he purified himself, by washing in the
ocean, from the pollution he had acquired in that dreadful place. The
kami of misfortune (Magatsuhi) was born from this pollution, and to
counteract that calamitous event, the kami of purity (Naobi no kami)
was born from the water. Accordingly, pollution originated in the land
of the dead and could be removed by washing in water, a ritual based
on Izanagi's action.5
Still another myth assigns archetypal offenses against ritual purity to
the age of the kami. This tale concerns the violent actions of Susa no
O, younger brother of the Sun Goddess, when he was in the heavenly
regions of Takamanohara. Susa no O violated his sister's rice paddies
in a number of ways: He destroyed the irrigation channels, the bamboo
irrigation pipes, and the divisions between the paddy fields; and
he sowed the field with tares and set up his own markers of occupancy.
In other words, he interfered in various ways with agricultural production.
He also committed defiling acts such as strewing excrement
around his sister's palace and throwing a piebald colt (which he had
skinned from back to front) into her room. Some theorize that the
designation of this act as an offense points to the post-645 ban on the
sacrifice of live animals.6
The tsumi termed "offenses of heaven," exorcised during the Great
Purification Ceremony (Oharae) conducted twice annually at the imperial
palace in ancient times, were equated with Susa no O's actions.
These tsumi included damage to sacred fields where rice was grown for
festival offerings and desecrations of sacred places, and they were
5 Kojiki, bk. 1, NKBT 1.63-71, Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 61-70; and Nihon shoki, bk. 1, NKBT
67-94-95* Aston, 1.24-25.
6 Kojiki, bk. I, NKBT 1.78-81, Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 79-80; and Nihon shoki, bk. 1, NKBT
67.111-17, Aston, 1.40-49.
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GENERAL PROBLEMS 321
apparently labeled "offenses of heaven" simply because they had first
occurred, according to the myths, on the High Plain of Heaven
(Takamanohara). The Oharae ceremony's ritual prayers (norito), recorded
in the tenth-century Engishiki, list a second category of tsumi,
"offenses of earth." These were probably so named because they included
misfortunes in human society and had no prototype in the
Takamanohara myths. These offenses included crimes and illnesses, as
well as wounding another person so that his or her blood was spilled,
desecrating a corpse, committing bestiality and incest, and contracting
leprosy. Also listed are sorcery, natural calamities, and insect blight.7
The fact that the norito did not cite actions that were in later ages
considered criminal, such as murder (without the spilling of blood)
and theft, only underlines the gap between the ancient Japanese view
of tsumi and more theologically advanced concepts of sin.
A special Oharae ceremony was conducted three months before the
Daijosai, the Great Feast of Enthronement that followed an emperor's
enthronement. This Oharae, held to purge ritual impurities that might
harm agricultural production, involved magical rites to expel such
tsumi to the land of the dead across the sea (Ne no Kuni)8
and to pray
for a bountiful harvest. Later on, the ceremony lost its agricultural
character, and rites were conducted to prevent such mundane misfortunes
as illness, natural calamities, and certain crimes. Thus, "offenses
of earth" were added to the list of "troublesome things" that
had to be purged. The Oharae ceremony customarily utilized a scapegoat,
a doll that took on all offenses and was cast into the river and
exiled. This rite mirrored the myth in which Susa no O was expelled
from heaven for his violent actions.9
7 Minazuki tsugomori no oharae, included in Kojiki, NKBT 1.423-6. The ritual appears in
English translation in Felicia Gressitt Bock, Engishiki: Procedures ofthe Engi Era, Books 6-10
(Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1972), pp. 85-87. For a comparison of the acts of pollution
committed by Susa no O with the "offenses of heaven" listed in the Oharae, see Philippi,
Kojiki, pp. 403-4.
8 The norito or ritual prayers in this Oharae ceremony refer to the land of the dead as Ne no
Kuni, a land beyond the sea. The ancient Japanese image of the land of the dead, however,
combined two concepts of separate origin. The concept of Ne no Kuni was probably derived
from south Asian beliefs that the netberland lay across the sea. The name, which means "root
country," suggests that Ne no Kuni was also seen as the original overseas homeland of the
Japanese people. Ne no Kuni eventually came to be identified with Yomi no Kuni, the land of
the dead beneath the earth in beliefs of north Asian lineage. For a discussion of Ne no Kuni,
see Yanagita Kunio, "Kaijo no michi," in Teihon Yanagita Kunio shu (Tokyo: Chikuma shobo,
1963), vol. 1, pp. 85-109.
9 The Engishiki, in Kuroita Katsumi, ed., Shintei zoho: Kokushi taikei (hereafter cited as KT)
(Tokyo: Yosnikawa kobunkan, 1937), vol. 26, p. 26; Bock, Engishiki, 1. 83, lists effigies
among the artifacts used in the biannual Oharae. For the Oharae ritual, see the Engishiki, KT
26.169-70, Bock, Engishiki, 2.87.
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322 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
The common element that links all tsumi is their danger to the cosmic
and social order.10
The primitive Japanese believed that society and the
cosmos were interrelated and that disturbing one could disturb the
other. As violations of the normal order of things, tsumi were to be
feared because it was thought that they would invite calamity. Improper
sexual relations, for instance, might lead to poor harvests. Thus rules
for conduct were not based on principles considered inherently moral,
and the danger caused by improper actions or unfortunate events might
be removed completely by conducting the appropriate magical rites.
Shinto literature and the structure of Shinto mythology
Various literary and historical works of the eighth to the tenth centuries
provide considerable information about Shinto practices and the
development of Shinto mythology. Particularly useful texts include the
semihistorical chronicles Kojiki (712) and Nihon shoki (720), compiled
under the auspices of the imperial court; fudoki, provincial gazetteers
also compiled under imperial orders; the Kotai jingu gishikicho and
Toyuke no miya gishikicho (804), records of the Grand Shrine at Ise;
Imbe no Hironari's Kogoshui (807), which records the history and
traditions of his family; and the Engishiki (Procedures of the Engi
period, 927) which includes ceremonial prayers (norito), descriptions
of imperial rites, and records of officially sanctioned shrines."
Shinto mythology is described most systematically in the "age of the
kami" chapters of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, chronicles compiled to
justify the efforts of one powerful clan, based on the Yamato plain of
central Honshu, to extend its rule over Japan and call itself the imperial
clan. The Kojiki, in particular, takes hitherto unrelated myths and
weaves them into a narrative tale that moves directly from the creation
of the universe to the creation of the imperial house. This neat sequential
arrangement suggests manipulation for political purposes. Indeed,
political rather than ethical or theological concepts lie at the core of
10 This hypothesis is advanced by Obayashi Taryo, "Kodai Nihon ni okeru bunrui no ronri," in
Obayashi Taryo, ed., Shinwa, shakai, sekaikan (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 1972), pp. 329-
56; and Matsumae Takeshi, "Shizoku shakai no shiso," in Furukawa Tetsushi and Ishida
Ichiro, eds., in vol. 1 of Nihon shisoshi koza (Tokyo: Yuzankaku, 1977), pp. 7-26.
11 Fudoki, NKBT, vol. 2, trans. Michiko Yamaguchi Aoki, Izumofudoki (Tokyo: Sophia University
Press, 1971); "Kotai jingu gishikicho," in Hanawa Hokinoichi, ed., Gunshoruiju (Tokyo:
Keizai zasshisha, 1898), vol. 1, pp. 1—51; Onakatomi no Matsugu et al., eds., "Toyuke-gu
gishiki cho," in Gunsho ruiju, 1.52-83; Imbe no Hironari, ed., "Kogoshui," in Gunsho ruiju,
16.1-19, trans. Genchi Kato and Hikoshiro Hoshino, Kogoshui: GleaningsfromAncient Stories
(London: Curzon Press, and New York: Barnes & Noble, 1972, reproduction of 1926
ed.).
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GENERAL PROBLEMS 323
this "official" formulation, and religious emotion is lacking. The
myths, embellished and modified to trace a single line of descent from
the ancestral kami to a succession of human rulers, were clearly meant
to strengthen and sanctify the imperial clan's control over the whole of
Japan.
According to the thesis proposed by the literary historian Tsuda
Sokichi, the myths were consciously manipulated by Yamato court
nobles of the sixth and seventh centuries. The principal kami - the
Sun Goddess, Susa no O no Mikoto, the creator kami couple (Izanagi
and Izanami), and the kami of Izumo (Onamuchi) - were not venerated
among ordinary people. Rather, myths about these kami, according
to Tsuda, were products of a conscious effort to construct a political
ideology for the Yamato court.12
Tsuda's is the most scientific,
critical, and objective of the scholarly explanations advanced before
World War II. In the ultranationalistic years preceding and during that
war, his theory was suppressed by the authorities, who claimed that it
showed irreverence to the imperial house. But after the war, when the
emperor renounced any claim to divine descent, Tsuda's thesis was
once more acclaimed and was further developed by other scholars.
But such an explanation seems to suggest too much conscious rationalism
by early Japanese aristocrats. Although it is undoubtedly true
that the myths were revised and structured during the sixth and seventh
centuries for political purposes and that the kami pantheon was
arranged with the imperial ancestor kami (the Sun Goddess) at its
apex, most scholars now maintain that these myths and kami originated
among the people, that the kami began as nature spirits, and
that the myths were originally animistic tales told by peasants and
fishermen.
Several factors point to this conclusion. Similar tales appear in popular
folklore. Even today, we can pick out primitive elements in the
shrine rituals that venerate these kami, and identify these elements
with local beliefs and customs. These myths, moreover, manifest influence
from other parts of Asia. For example, one Japanese myth about
the marriage of the creator kami Izanagi and Izanami is similar to tales
told in southeast Asian folklore. "3 The stories of how Izanami and
Izanagi gave birth to the islands of Japan and how Izanami was killed
and descended to the land of the dead also have their counterparts in
12 Tsuda Sokichi, Nihon koten no kenkyu (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1948), vol. 1.
13 Matsumoto Nobuhiro, Nihon shinwa no kenkyu (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1929), pp. 168-80; Matsumura
Takeo, Nihon shinwa no kenkyu (Tokyo: Baifukan, 1955), vol. 2, pp. 232-72; Matsumae
Takeshi, Nikon shinwa to kodai seikatsu (Tokyo: Yuseido shuppan, 1970), pp. 108-53.
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324 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
Polynesia.11
* Folk tales of the Miao people of southern China resemble
the tale of how the Sun Goddess became angry with her brother Susa
no O's violence, retreating to a cave and remaining there until she was
coaxed to come out.'s Korean myths contain motifs similar to that in
the one about the descent to earth of the Sun Goddess's grandson
(Hononinigi), whose descendants, according to the chronicles, became
Japan's emperors.16
Moreover, the Kojiki tale of the marriage between
a human maiden and the kami Omono Nushi is similar to Korean and
Manchurian myths.17
It thus is likely that these imported elements
were transmitted through migrations and visits over a long period of
time and were gradually incorporated into popular mythology. Thus
the chronicle myths seem to have emerged from popular sources and
then to have been consciously embellished, modified, and arranged for
political purposes.
Periodization
From the myths that appear in the chronicles and gazetteers (fudoki),
the general outlines of kami-worship development can be roughly
traced. Because Shinto is a complex belief system that has retained
primitive elements even while gradually becoming more sophisticated,
the myths themselves represent levels of evolution from simple animism
to a political ideology supporting the Yamato court. Of particular
value for such historical reconstruction is the Nihon shoki, which
contains different versions of a particular myth, in addition to the one
presented as "authentic." These variations often represent different
stages in a process of mythological and cultural evolution.
According to Mishina Shoei, Japanese mythology developed in
three distinct stages. In the "primitive-myth" stage of the Yayoi period
(approximately 200 B.C. to A.D. 250), apolitical myths functioned as
rituals of worship and petition designed to secure certain effects by
magical means. The next period, the "ceremonial-myth" stage (A.D.
14 Matsumoto, Nihon shinwa no kenkyu, pp. 157-94; Matsumae Takeshi, Nihon shinwa no shin
kenkyu (Tokyo: Ofusha, 1961), pp. 32-61.
15 Matsumura, Nihon shinwa no kenkyu, 3.71-73; Ishida Eiichiro, Momolaw no haha (Tokyo:
Hosei daigaku shuppankyoku, 1956), pp. 56-57. Obayashi Taryo discusses similarities between
southeast Asian solar eclipse myths and the Amaterasu myth in Nihon shinwa no kigen
(Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 1961), pp. 121-40.
16 Matsumura, Nihon shinwa no kenkyu, 3.510-16; Mishina Shoei, Nihon shinwa ton (Tokyo:
Heibonsha, i960), pp. 28-32, 122-143; Oka Masao, Ishida Eiichiro, Egami Namio, and
Yawata Ichiro, Nihon minzoku no kigen (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1958), pp. 70-73.
17 Torii Ryuzo, Yushi izen no Nippon (Tokyo: Isobe koyodo, 1925), pp. 428-48; Seki Keigo,
"The Spool of Thread," in Richard Dorson, ed., Studies in Japanese Folklore (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1963), pp. 267-8.
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GENERAL PROBLEMS 325
250 to 500 in the Burial Mound age), is characterized by myths focused
on rites for ensuring the production of good rice harvests. As the
Yamato court gradually extended its dominion during this period,
myths came to reflect the local chieftains' acts of submission to central
authority. The Yamato ruler's role as a sacred priest-king was strengthened,
and to some extent, secular government and worship were
fused. Thus Mishina's second-period myths contained both political
and religious elements that were reflected in rituals conducted by both
the Yamato court and local clans. In Mishina's third "political-myth"
period, myths lost much of their religious character as their political
overtone was deepened. This period began in the late sixth century
and ended in the eighth, when the myths - embellished and revised to
serve political ends - were recorded in the chronicles.18
Though I agree in general with Mishina's periodization, I suggest a
more complex scheme that traces the development of Shinto as a
whole. This four-part scheme, providing the framework for the remainder
of this chapter, takes in all aspects of Shinto from primitive
times to the end of the Nara period in 784. It has emerged from a
consideration not only of myths but also of beliefs, festivals, rites, the
institutionalized priesthood, architecture, and iconography.
In my first period, the Jomon-Yayoi age, the roots of Shinto developed
from animistic forms of nature worship. Though religious practices
were changed during the succeeding Burial Mound period, many
elements of early nature worship were retained. In this first period,
people venerated spirits of the mountains, the fields, and streams near
their villages, and they related tales that pertained to nature and the
origins of the most remarkable features of their environment. People
of this period developed magical rites to aid them in hunting, fishing,
and farming, and they told tales that explained the origin of these
rites.
During my second period - the fourth and fifth centuries and
roughly the first two centuries of the Yamato state - animistic spirits
were personalized, honored at special places of worship, and frequently
adopted as tutelary deities of local clans, which had seized
control of certain regions.
My third period, spanning the sixth and seventh centuries of
Yamato history, is highlighted by the Yamato court's use of Shinto to
18 Mishina, Nihon shinwa ron, pp. 66-69. A recent study of interaction between kami worship
and political control at the second "ceremonial-myth" stage was made by Robert S. Ellwood
in "The Sujin Religious Revolution," Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 17, nos. 1 and 2
(June and September 1990): 199-217.
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326 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
centralize its control. Efforts of this sort were made first in some
regions as early as the fifth century but were expanded and intensified
during the sixth and seventh. The extension of the court's sacred
authority eroded the clans' sacred authority as clan rituals and myths
were incorporated into the ceremonial structure that supported and
sanctified Yamato rule.
In my fourth and final period - the late seventh and eighth centuries
- the adoption of Chinese political and cultural forms was associated
not only with the formation of the sinified ritsuryo state but
also with the further development of Shinto as a prop for the centralized
power of the "imperial system." Though the imperial institution
was modeled on that of the Chinese bureaucratic state, ancient
Shinto rites, myths, and beliefs were also revised and affirmed,
thereby establishing the emperor as the highest Shinto priest of the
land and a direct descendant of the Sun Goddess. National chronicles
were compiled in this last period in order to record the official version
of Japan's historicized mythology and to show that each emperor
was descended directly from the Sun Goddess. A Council of Kami
Affairs (Jingikan) was placed directly under the emperor in the new
bureaucratic order, and Japanese emperors began to refer to themselve
in imperial edicts as manifest kami (akitsukami). At the same
time, Shinto itself was being changed by the culture imported from
China and Korea, perhaps most strongly by Buddhism, which influenced
all aspects of native beliefs, from ritual to iconography.
Scholars of modern-day Shinto often divide the religion into two
types: the popular Shinto ofvillage shrines, and the state Shinto of rites
performed under the auspices of the central government. The former is
rooted in early animistic worshipand focuses on the veneration ofmountain
kami, kami of thefields,roadside guardians, and kami that protect
the livelihood of the common people. State Shinto, on the other hand,
began to emerge in my fourth period when a strong centralized and
sinified legal order was formed and Japan's "emperor system" was developed.
But there has always been interaction between the two. Popular
beliefs have continued to lie at the base ofceremonies performed at state
shrines. State ceremonies have continued to affect popular kami worship
as local heroes were transformed into national heroes and as imperial
representatives were dispatched to validate and control worship at
local shrines. But state recognition and regulation gradually eroded the
original popular character of kami worship at the village level.
In order to reconstruct the history of ancient Shinto, the available
literature must be examined scientifically and critically. In addition,
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GENERAL PROBLEMS 327
archaeological methods must be applied to the study of religious artifacts,
and folklorists' methods must be used in the examination of
ceremonies currently conducted at Shinto shrines that undoubtedly
contain elements from the past. Our ability to retrace ancient Shinto
has been enhanced considerably by the proliferation of research in the
free intellectual atmosphere that followed World War II. The efforts of
many postwar scholars have solved some of the riddles of the ancient
period.
Basic research in this area has been carried out by numerous scholars.
Naoki Kojiro, Tsukushi Nobuzane, Okada Seishi, and I have
studied the origins of the worship of the Sun Goddess and of festivals
held at Ise Shrine, the most important national shrine and the one
where the Sun Goddess has been worshiped since the beginning of
my fourth period. Ueda Masaaki and Yoshii Iwao have examined
relationships between provincial clans and the ancient imperial court.
Mizuno Yu, Torigoe Kenzaburo, and I have conducted research into
the legends of Japan's Izumo region. Saigo Nobutsuna, Tanaka
Hatsuo, and I have studied court ceremonies such as the Great Feast
of Enthronement conducted at the beginning of a new reign and the
yearly winter festival, the Chinkonsai ("Soul-quieting festival"). In
the field of art history, important contributions have been made in
Shinto architecture by Fukuyama Toshio, Watanabe Yasutada, and
Inagaki Eizo. Kageyama Haruki's studies of iconography, Oba Iwao's
archaeological investigations, and Nishida Nagao's intensive examination
of old shrine documents have been important.1
' In this chapter,
19 Naoki Kojiro, Nihon kodai no shizoku to lenno (Tokyo: Hanawa shobo, 1965); Tsukushi
Nobuzane, Amaterasu no tanjo (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 1961); Okada Seishi, Kodai oken no
saishi to shinwa (Tokyo: Hanawa shobo, 1970), pp. 37-150; Matsumae Takeshi, Kodai densho
to kyulei saishi (Tokyo: Hanawa shobo, 1974); Matsumae Takeshi, Nihon no kamigami (Tokyo:
Chuokoronsha, 1974), pp. 90-182; Ueda Masaaki, Nihon shinwa (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,
i960); Yoshii Iwao, Tenno no keifu to shinwa, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Hanawa shobo, 1967 and 1976);
Mizuno Seiichi, Izumo shinwa (Tokyo: Yagumo shobo, 1972); Torigoe Kenzaburo, Izumo
shinwa mo seiritsu (Tokyo: Sogensha, 1966); Matsumae Takeshi, Nihon shinwa no keisei (Tokyo:
Hanawa shobo, 1970); Matsumae Takeshi, Izumo shinwa (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1976); Matsumae
Takeshi, "The Origin and Growth of the Worship of Amaterasu," Asian Folklore
Studies 38 (1978): 1—11; Matsumae Takeshi, Yamato kokka to shinwa densho (Tokyo:
Yuzankaku, 1986); Saigo Nobutsuna, Kojiki kenkyu (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1975); Tanaka
Hatsuo, Senso Daijosai (Tokyo: Mokujisha, 1975); Fukuyama Toshio, Nihon kenchiku shi
kenkyu (Tokyo: Bokusui shobo, 1968); Fukuyama Toshio, Nihon no yashiro (Tokyo: Bijutsu
shuppansha, 1962). Also see Yasutada Watanabe, Shinto Art: Ise and Izumo Shrines, trans.
Robert Ricketts (New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill/Heibonsha, 1974); Inagaki Eizo, Kodai
nojinja kenchiku (Tokyo: Bijutsu shuppansha, 1973); Kageyama Haruki, The Arts of Shinto,
trans. Christine Guth (Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1973); and Oba Iwao, Saishi iseki: Shinto
kokogaku no kisoteki kenkyu (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 1970). For detailed studies, see Oba
Iwao, ed., Shinto kokogaku ronko, 6 vols. (Tokyo: Yuzankaku, 1971); Nishida Nagao, Nishida
Nagao zenshu, 10 vols. (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1978-79).
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328 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
I shall use the results of this many-faceted and rapidly progressing
research.
THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO
Using these four periods as a chronological framework, I propose to
trace the evolution of Shinto from its origins in the magical rites of
preagricultural times to the establishment of a systematic religion supporting
the centralized state.
Period i: Genesis and early forms
Scholars have advanced a variety of theories to explain how the concept
of kami originated and developed. The most likely explanation
places the roots of kami worship in animistic forms of nature worship.
Evidence for this view can be found in both ancient texts and presentday
customs in which traces of primitive beliefs still linger. The
eighth-century chronicle Nihon shoki depicts a world full of demons
and animistic spirits: "In that land there were many kami that shone
with a luster like that of fireflies, and evil kami that buzzed like flies.
There were also trees and herbs that could speak."20
In some rural
areas even today, elderly villagers face the rising sun each morning,
clap their hands together, and hail the appearance of the sun over the
peaks of the nearby mountains as "the coming of the kami." Another
example, which combines animistic Shinto with Buddhism, is the
welcoming of the full moon with ritual chanting of Amida Buddha's
name; the moon is called nonosan or attosan, words used to refer to
either kami or Buddhas.
Some scholars maintain that the origin of Shinto lies in cults that
venerated heroes or worshiped ancestors, that kami were originally
human beings. Indeed, one aspect of Shinto as it developed in later
ages was the veneration of historical and legendary figures, or ancestors
of powerful families and clans. But as I shall demonstrate later in
this chapter, elements of hero and ancestor worship were added at a
later time. In the late Nara and early Heian periods, it was common to
deify dead humans and to revere them at shrines, especially if people
feared vengeance from their spirits for some political injustice. But in
the earliest stages of the development of Shinto, kami were worshiped
20 Nihon shoki, bk. 2, NKBT 67.134-5, Aston, 1.64.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO 329
at shrines and humans were buried in graves. The two were strictly
kept separate.
Finally, Shinto was not an entirely indigenous development. The
Shinto view of the cosmos, for example, is a complex and not wholly
integrated view that contains influences from various parts of Asia and
even Oceania. In this worldview, the physical universe is divided into
five parts, each governed by the appropriate kami. First, there is the
High Plain of Heaven (Takamanohara) where many of the most important
kami reside. Earth is the second part, and beneath the earth lies
the kingdom of the dead and of evil spirits (Yomi no Kuni). The
oceans make up the fourth part, called Watatsumi no Kuni, the domain
of all kinds of creatures, from ordinary fish to dragon kings.
Somewhere across the sea lies the fifth part: Tokoyo no Kuni, a Utopian
land whose denizens neither age nor die.
The division of the cosmos into three parallel levels also appears in
the shamanistic beliefs of northern Asia, for example, in Siberia, Mongolia,
and the Altaic regions. Tales of a "dragon king's palace" at the
bottom of the ocean can be found in the folklore of south Korea, the
south central regions of China, and southeast Asia and India, and
myths in China, south Korea, the Ryukyu Islands, southeast Asia,
Indonesia, and Polynesia speak of a Utopian land in the middle of the
sea. Thus elements of continental and island Asian culture were projected
onto aboriginal beliefs to form the nascent Shinto religious
system.
The search for Shinto's beginnings leads us to the prehistoric Jomon
and Yayoi periods. Though there is considerable discontinuity between
the beliefs of these early periods and later ones, certain primitive strains
were preserved in later religious practices. Our understanding of this
prehistoric era is based primarily on archaeological evidence. The difficulty
of interpreting such evidence makes it difficult, however, to reach
a firm understanding of prehistoric rituals, myths, or concepts of the
cosmos and divinity. But archaeologists have uncovered many artifacts
that seem to have been used for religious purposes in very early times.
For a somewhat later time, fragmentary historical evidence appears in
Chinese chronicles, amplifying and clarifying the archaeological data.
The neolithic Jomon culture was supported by hunting, fishing,
and gathering and later by primitive forms of agriculture. The succeeding
Yayoi culture, on the other hand, was an agrarian culture in which
bronze and iron implements were used and rice was grown as a staple
food. It is likely that religious practices during these periods reflected,
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330 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
in part, the methods that people used to make their living. Jdmon
culture artifacts suggest that people of those days carried out magicalreligious
rites to guarantee the fertility of human beings as well as the
fertility of the animals they hunted and the plants they gathered. After
primitive forms of agriculture were introduced, probably from abroad,
some of these rites took on an agrarian nature.
Perhaps the most striking of Jomon artifacts are the dogu, human
figurines that nearly all represent women whose exaggerated breasts
and distended bellies indicate pregnancy. Some were even shown with
a child protruding from the womb. Many have been unearthed near
residential sites, and their placement within stone enclosures or on top
of stone piles suggests that they were deliberately set apart, perhaps as
objects of worship. This has led scholars such as Kokubu Naoichi to
believe that the figurines were maimed, buried, and exhumed in magical
rites that symbolized death and resurrection.21
Many archaeologists
have surmised that the dogu represent female deities who managed
the procreation of the earth and of human beings. The folklorist
Hotta Yoshio identified primitive forms of the worship of fertilitymother
deities called yama no kami (mountain kami) in hunters' and
woodcutters' rituals that linger in the folk beliefs of northeastern Japan.
Hotta suggests that the figure of the yama no kami in present-day
folk beliefs originated from the prehistoric fertility goddesses represented
by dogu.22
Other Jomon artifacts, probably used in fertility
rites, are stone rods shaped like the male phallus. These rods have
been found in the centers or corners of rooms at the sites of Jomon
period houses and seem to have been objects of worship.
The functions of other items from the Jomon period are somewhat
more difficult to identify. Pottery is often decorated with images of
serpents, and in later times, at least, serpents were believed to be the
spirit of the water that was necessary for cultivation. Other artifacts
that may have been used in some form of magical-religious ritual were
clay and stone masks, and wooden plaques incised with human forms
or carved in the shape of human faces.
Some of the archaeological evidence from the middle of this period
demonstrates the transmission of elements from south Asian, southeast
Asian, and south Pacific island cultures. Jomon initiation rites that
involved ritual tooth extraction and the custom of tattooing - apparent
in the design of the dogu - were also practiced by southern peoples. In
21 Kokubu Naoichi, ed., Daichi lojujutsu (Tokyo: Gakushu kenkyusha, 1969), p. 135.
22 Hotta Yoshio, Yama no kami shinko no kenkyu (Nagoya: Ise minzoku gakkai, 1966), pp. 356 ff.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO 331
addition, it seems that the cultivation of taro root was introduced from
these areas.23
The importation of taro root cultivation may have given rise to the
belief in a "guest" kami or spirit (marebito), who was given credit for
introducing this early form of agriculture. In prehistoric times, according
to Orikuchi Shinobu, each village probably conducted yearly rites
on a set day to welcome the guest kami from Tokoyo no Kuni, the
Utopian land of boundless fertility across the sea. As a gift, the guest
kami would bring a bountiful harvest, and he was also responsible for
introducing and conducting coming-of-age ceremonies. Orikuchi finds
evidence for his hypothesis in literary works of later times such as the
Kojiki and the Man'yoshu, in extant New Year customs in the Tohoku
region of Honshu, and in Okinawan harvest festivals hailing a visitor
deity.24
Oka Masao points out the resemblance of these rites to those
practiced in Melanesia, New Guinea, and elsewhere in the south Pa-
cific.2
5 The masks unearthed from Middle Jomon sites might have been
used by people who assumed the guest's role at festival times. In sum,
the religious practices of the Jomon period probably involved fertility
rites that acquired agrarian elements, many from other Asian and Pacific
cultures, when cultivation was introduced.
Thanks to accounts written by Chinese visitors to Japan, we understand
the religion of the Yayoi culture somewhat more clearly than we
do that of the Jomon. Still, the evidence is fragmentary and often
requires some ingenuity to interpret. But it seems that the basic elements
of Yayoi religion included shamanism that used oracle bone
divination and other methods to guide the course of secular government,
and the worship of a "rice spirit" that accompanied the introduction
of wet-rice cultivation.
The Yayoi culture differs from the Jomon in its reliance on rice as a
staple food. Yayoi religion reflects the importance of wet-rice agriculture.
Harvest festivals described in literary sources and surviving rice-
23 Kanaseki Takeo, Ryukyu minzokushi (Tokyo: Hosei daigaku shuppankyoku, 1978), pp. 66-
151; Kokubu Naoichi, Nihon minzoku bunka no kenkyu (Tokyo: KeiyQsha, 1970), pp. 16-
120. These two scholars maintain that the taro cultivation of the later Jomon period was
brought from the south Pacific islands through the Philippine and the Ryukyu islands and
then to Japan. But Sasaki Komei argues in Inasaku izen (Tokyo: Nihon hoso shuppankyoku,
1971) that the original home of taro cultivation was southeast Asia. Ezaki Teruya and
Fujimori Eiichi maintain that primitive agriculture was practiced in the later Jomon period;
see Esaka Teruya, Nihon bunka no kigen (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1967), and Fujimori Eiichi,
Jomon nokd (Tokyo: Gakuseisha, 1970).
24 Orikuchi Shinobu, Kodai kenkyu, vols. 1-3 of Orikuchi Shinobu zenshu (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha,
1954).
25 Oka Masao, "Ijin sonota," in Yanagawa Keiichi and Tsuboi Hirobumi, eds., Nihon saishi
kenkyu shusei (Tokyo: Meicho shuppan, 1978), vol. 2, pp. 23-52.
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332 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
cultivation customs resemble those of southeast Asia and Indonesia,26
indicating that wet-rice agriculture may have been introduced from
southern regions. The important element in these festivals is the veneration
of the rice spirit, believed to dwell at harvest time in specially
reaped sheaves of rice. These sheaves were enshrined in a grain storehouse.
The ritual prayers (norito) that hint at primitive agrarian beliefs
identify the food kami Toyouke as the spirit of the rice. Another name
for her is Ukanomitama, a name that can be translated literally as
"food spirit."
Veneration of the rice spirit was an important element in the development
of Shinto. Shinto's indebtedness to Yayoi period agrarian ritual is
disclosed in the construction of shrine buildings at such early shrines
as the Ise Great Shrine, which consists of two main sanctuaries: one
for the worship of the Sun Goddess and another for the worship of the
food kami Toyouke. The main hall of both Ise sanctuaries is built with
a raised floor, ornamental roof crossbeams, and other architectural
details that historians believe typify grain storehouse construction.2
?
Such structures were probably used in the Yayoi period: an image of
one is cast in relief on a Yayoi period ceremonial bronze bell that was
found on the island of Shikoku.
Mythology underlines the religious importance attached to agriculture
by placing the origin of cultivation in the age of the kami. In the
Kojiki version of one such myth, the Sun Goddess's renegade brother
Susa no O murders a food kami, Ogetsuhime, and from her body
sprout five staple crops: rice, barley, millet, soybeans, and red beans.28
The Nihon shoki version of this tale names another food kami,
Ukemochi, as the murder victim and the moon kami Tsukuyomi as the
killer. From Ukemochi's body come not only grains and beans but also
silkworms, cattle, and horses.29
The German scholar Adolf Jensen
classified this myth as a "Hainuwele" myth that is similar to tales told
in the Solomon Islands, in which taro root sprouts from the corpse ofa
slain maiden named Hainuwele. Myths of this type, according to Jensen,
explain the origins of primitive agriculture.3° Similar tales have
26 Uno Enku, Maraishia ni okeru tomai girei (Tokyo: Toyo bunko, 1944), pp. 670-85; Iwata
Keiji, Kami no lanjo: genshi shukyo (Kyoto: Tankosha, i960), pp. 198-266.
27 See Fukuyama, Nihon no yashiro; Watanabe, Shinto An, pp. 32, 104-21; Gina Lee Barnes,
Prehistoric Yamato: Archaeology ofthe FirstJapanese State (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Center for Japanese Studies and Museum of Anthropology, 1988).
28 Kojiki, bk. 1, NKBT 1.84-85; Philippi, Kojiki, p. 87.
29 Nihon shoki, bk. I, NKBT 67.102-3, Aston, 1.32-33.
30 Adolf EUegard Jensen, Myth and Cult Among Primitive Peoples, trans. Marianna Tax Choldin
and Wolfgang Weissleder (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), pp. 107-12, 121-2,
166-8, and passim.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO 333
been told around the world, and Obayashi Taryo identified the Japanese
version as a product of the slash-and-burn cultivation of millet
practiced in south China.'1
One artifact characteristic of the Yayoi period is the dotaku, or
bronze bell. These bells are found mainly in western Honshu and in
the Tokai District. Though dotaku were undoubtedly employed in
religious ritual, we do not know whether they were used by the chieftains
of small principalities or by villages in public community festivals.
The dotaku were buried on hillsides near agricultural plains.
Perhaps they were temporarily stored underground between religious
festivals. Inscriptions on the dotaku depict flowing water, waterfowl,
fish, boats, and objects related to agriculture, and these have led some
scholars to conclude that the bells were used in agricultural festivals
and rites to pray for rain.32
It seems likely that they were also connected
with hunting and fishing rites. Bronze weapons such as swords,
spears, and halberds were buried much in the same manner as the
dotaku were. Their distribution was centered in northern Kyushu, but
their ritual significance is not clear.
A hierarchical social structure, the formation of small kingdoms in
certain regions, and the shamanic nature of the religion and government
in at least one region of Japan are documented in the Chinese
chronicle Wei chih, compiled in the third century. According to a
report by contemporary Chinese envoys who visited Japan, the small
kingdom of Yamatai - whose exact location is still the subject of much
scholarly debate - was ruled by a woman named Himiko.
[Himiko] occupied herself with magic and sorcery, bewitching the people.
Though mature in age, she remained unmarried. She had a younger brother
who assisted her in ruling the country. After she became the ruler, there were
few who saw her. She had one thousand women as attendants, but only one
man. He served her food and drink and acted as a medium of communication.
She resided in a palace surrounded by towers and stockades, and her armed
guards were in a state of constant vigilance.
The text also indicates that political actions were guided by a divination
method in which heat was applied to a deer's scapula and answers
to questions were deduced from the length and shape of the fissures
31 Obayashi Taryo, Inasaku no shinwa (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1973), pp. 23-103.
32 Fujimori Eiichi, Dotaku (Tokyo: Gakuseisha, 1964), pp. 236-56; Mishina Shod, "Dotaku
shdko," Kodai saisei to kokurei shinko (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1973), pp. 11-28. For pictures of
these bells, see Namio Egami, The Beginnings of Japanese An (Tokyo and New York:
Weatherhill/Heibonsha, 1973), pp. 138-40.
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334 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
that resulted.33 Such practices are found all over north Asia, perhaps
the best-known case being that of Shang dynasty China. Some scholars
have pointed to the parallels between Himiko and female shamans
active in more recent times in Okinawa. Like Himiko, the Okinawa
shamans dealt with religious affairs, whereas their brothers handled
secular affairs.
Though it is clear that Himiko was a shaman, we know little about
her religious duties. Possibly they involved some form of sun worship,
as the name Himiko suggests a child or priestess of the sun. Furthermore,
the Wei chih depicts Himiko's people as "water people" who
"were fond of diving into the water to get fish and shells" and "decorated
their bodies in order to keep away large fish and waterfowl."34 it
seems likely that these fishermen and divers were related to south
Chinese or southeast Asian seafarers who worshiped the sun.
Shamanism and divination by oracles formed a part of later Shinto,
and rites to ensure agricultural prosperity continued as one of Shinto's
most basic elements. All these were Yayoi period contributions to the
development of Shinto. But the name "Shinto" cannot be given properly
to either the Yayoi or, of course, the earlier Jomon beliefs and
practices. Certain features characteristic of Shinto - definite places of
worship that later developed into permanent buildings, or shintai
(kami body), the sacred objects in which the kami were thought to
lodge - simply did not exist during these times. More important, perhaps,
is the fact that Yayoi period artifacts are rarely found at sites of
ancient shrines established in later periods.35 This suggests a discontinuity
between Yayoi period religious practices and those of the succeeding
Burial Mound period.
Period 2: From primitive Shinto to clan Shinto
In the Burial Mound period (roughly A.D. 250 to 600), primitive forms
of shrine Shinto began to develop hand in hand with an evolving
political system. Animistic spirits were given specific names and functions,
and a permanent sacred space was set aside to worship them.
33 Wei chih 3O.25b-3ia, trans. Ryusaku Tsunoda and L. Carrington Goodrich, Japan in the
Chinese Dyiiastic Histories (South Pasadena, Calif.: P. D. and lone Perkins, 1951), p. 13.
34 Ibid., p. 10.
35 A few exceptions can be found. For example, fragments of a Yayoi period doiaku or bronze
bell have been discovered underneath the sacred rock at the Kamikura Shrine in Shingu,
Wakayama Prefecture. And a bronze sword, also dating from the Yayoi period, has been
unearthed in the precincts of the Izumo Grand Shrine.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO 335
Later on in the period, certain kami took on political functions as the
tutelary kami of powerful clans (ujigami).
Archaeological evidence is still crucial to our understanding of this
period. The fact that Burial Mound period artifacts have been unearthed
in the precincts of present-day shrines indicates that later
shrine Shinto developed directly out of this period's beliefs and practices.
Another form of evidence that we can now use with increasing
efficacy is that of mythology. In particular, the myths recorded in
eighth-century chronicles and gazetteers supply us with many tales
about the adoption of tutelary kami by powerful clans.
In the early part of this period, kami were regarded largely as spirits
of nature who resided in and controlled various topographical features.
The concept of sacred space had begun to develop, and kami
were thought to take lodging in readily identifiable locations. Some of
these lodgings were completely natural, such as great rocks (iwakura)
or giant trees (himorogi). Other locations were determined by people
who set rocks in a certain pattern (iwasaka) or made arrangements of
cut trees (also called himorogi). Kami were sometimes thought to descend
to such places temporarily at festival time and sometimes to live
there permanently. People would mark off these places of worship
with sacred rope (shimenawa) and decorate them with mirrors, swords,
beads, and lengths of cloth. Not until a later time were sacred objects
regarded as the shintai in which kami were believed to reside. There
were no permanent shrine buildings in these early days.
The utilization of natural features as sacred space can be found in
certain present-day shrine practices. Omiwa Shrine in Nara Prefecture,
for example, has no main hall to house the emblem of its kami.
In place of the main hall is the holy Mt. Miwa itself, which rises
behind the ritual hall and where prayers to the kami are offered.
Sacred rocks found on the mountain's summit are believed to be the
seat of the kami. Suwa Shrine in Nagano Prefecture also takes a holy
mountain as its main hall, and similar practices once characterized
Isonokami Shrine in Nara Prefecture and Munakata Shrine in Fukuoka
Prefecture.
By the Burial Mound period, people had begun to differentiate and
rank the kami according to their functions. The most important kami
were those of the sun and the moon and those given responsibility for
creation. Ranked below them were kami of the fields, mountains,
streams, and such and those related directly to people's daily lives,
such as kami of the hearth, fire, agriculture, or fishing. These kami
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336 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
were venerated at communal rites. They were not yet anthropomorphized,
nor were they organized into a hierarchical pantheon, and
early myths regarding these kami lack the political elements common
to myths of later times.
From at least the time of Himiko, religious belief had influenced the
conduct of secular government, and religious authority was used to
sanction the seizure and maintenance of temporal power. At the beginning
of the Burial Mound period, certain powerful clans began to
assume control over specific territories, and it seems that they found it
necessary to claim the religious authority attached to the worship of
their regions' important kami. In particular, they embraced such kami
as the kunitama (province soul) that protected a region's lands or the
water kami that guaranteed the area abundant rain and harvest. Clan
members claimed common ancestry, although many blood-tie claims
were probably fictitious. A tutelary kami was sometimes adopted as
the clan's ancestral kami. But judging from the names of kami listed in
the Engishiki, this was not a common development.*6
For example, the
Mononobe, Nakatomi, Izumo, and Munakata clans did not consider
their tutelary kami to be their ancestral kami.
Yanagita Kunio, the dean of Japanese folklore scholars, sought the
origin of shrines and the concept of kami in the deification of dead
ancestors. According to Japanese folk beliefs, a soul loses its individual
character either thirty-three or fifty years after death and thereupon
becomes a beneficent kami. Yanagita maintained that these kami were
thought to watch over and help their descendants. In the winter, the
kami would remain quietly in the mountains but would descend to the
plains every spring to guard the ripening grain in their descendants'
fields. After the autumn harvest they would return to the mountains.
Thus the winter "kami of the mountain" became the spring "kami of
the fields." In the second or fourth month of the old calendar, festivals
welcomed these kami, which were sent off again in the eleventh
month. Such rites are conducted even today.
Yanagita pointed out that at many ancient shrines, there are two
places of worship, one at the mountaintop and another in the village at
the foot of the mountain that housed the kami from the planting
season through harvest time. He argued that the mountain sanctuaries
that enshrine the tutelary kami of two Ise priest families, the Arakida
and the Watarai, were once actually the graves of these families' ances-
36 Ota Ryo, Zentei Nikon jodai shakai soshiki no kenkyu (Tokyo: Kunimitsu shobo, 1955), pp.
297-313; HaradaToshiaki, Jin/a (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1961), pp. 15-24, 107-10.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO 337
tors, and he concluded that this was the original function of mountain
sanctuaries in general."
Many folklore scholars today support Yanagita's hypothesis, but I
believe that there is much evidence to the contrary. Even when a
shrine consists of two separate places of worship, one on the mountaintop
and another at the foot, the kami enshrined at the mountain
sanctuary is not necessarily anyone's ancestor. Kami of the sun and
the moon or the mountain itself are often the objects of worship. In
fact, most of the examples that Yanagita cites as yama miya, or mountain
sanctuaries, are shrines to nature deities such as the mountain
kami of Hie Shrine in Shiga Prefecture and the female kami of Mt.
Fuji in Shizuoka Prefecture. Nor is it common to find graves, on
mountains or elsewhere, that are believed to be the shintai where the
kami reside. The shrines listed in the Register of Kami in the
Engishiki, moreover, are dedicated to nature kami such as Amaterasu
(the Sun Goddess), Tsukuyomi (the moon kami), or Watatsumi (the
kami of the sea). On the other hand, historical emperors, empresses,
or princesses were buried in graves away from the shrine precincts.*8
Sometimes, of course, historical or legendary figures such as King
Ojin or his mother, Queen Jingu, were enshrined as kami, but this
practice dates from the Nara period rather than from the period of
primitive Shinto.
The mountains, moreover, are not the only route by which kami enter
the world of human beings. The sea may be used as well. In some
festivals held at oceanside shrines, a boat containing a kami's shintai or
its substitute is set afloat on the water. For example, in the spring
festival of Miho Shrine in Shimane Prefecture, two sacred boats decorated
with sakaki leaves float on the sea and approach the shore. On
board each boat a man and a woman - who have undergone purification
rites - sit as substitutes for the kami. When they arrive, they disembark
and enter the shrine. It appears that rituals such as this originally represented
the welcoming of the kami from across the sea.*9
In other coastal
villages, it is believed that the kami came from across the sea in the form
of a stone, and the stone was later enshrined. At festival times a mikoshi
(the sacred portable carriage that houses theshintai), sometimes containing
this stone, is brought to the place where it was originally discov-
37 Yanagita Kunio, "Yama miya ko," in Teihon Yanagita Kunio shu (Tokyo: Chikuma shobo,
1963), vol. 11, pp. 295-358; Yanagita Kunio, "Senzo no hanashi," in Teihon Yanagita Kunio
shu, 10.114-52.
38 The Register of Kami comprises Books 9 and 10 of the Engishiki, KT 26.179-320; Bock,
Engishiki, 2.113-71.
39 Hagiwara Tatsuo, Matsurifudoki (Tokyo: Shakai shisdsha, 1965), vol. 2, pp. 167-70.
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338 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
ered.*5
Such kami certainly resemble the ancient marebito, the guest
kami who was believed to visit villages, bearing the harvest of rice and
other crops. These kami were undoubtedly fertility deities and were
naturally honored in important agricultural seasons, in spring when the
rice was planted or in the fall when the crops were harvested.
Both the mountains and the seas can be regarded as entrances to the
human world. Kami were thought to descend to mountains from the
heavens, and mountains were sometimes referred to as "ladders." At
the Kamo and Fushimi Inari shrines in Kyoto, kami are further assisted
down to earth by a branch from a sacred tree. The tradition of
the kami's descent from mountain to earth by branches probably has a
north Asian lineage, and that of the kami's arrival from a distant shore
probably has a southern lineage.*1
In later years the two traditions
became mixed. In any case, the resemblance between oceanside festivals
and harvest festivals that welcome a guest kami suggest that these
deities were thought of as travelers to the human world and should be
classified as nature deities, not ancestral spirits.
Nevertheless, some tutelary kami are believed to be blood ancestors
of their clans. Does this support Yanagita's theory? It appears that
even in these cases, clans adopted kami that were already worshiped as
nature spirits. As George Sansom pointed out, "Making your god into
an ancestor and making your ancestor into a god are not the same
thing."** The process by which one such kami became a clan ancestor
is reflected in a Kojiki myth that should be examined closely.
The myth concerns the ancestor and founder of the Miwa clan,
prominent among clans based near Mt. Miwa in the early years of the
Burial Mound period. The myth begins with Omono Nushi, the rain
kami of Mt. Miwa, coming nightly to the home of a daughter of the
chief of an occupational group (be) that manufactured pottery. The
daughter never really saw what her lover looked like and did not know
that he was a kami. But her curiosity understandably became quite
strong when she became pregnant. So one morning she attached a
thread to her lover's clothing and followed him. When she found him
at the Miwa Shrine, she realized that he was Omono Nushi appearing
in the form of a serpent. Later she gave birth to a son, a kami-human
ancestor of the Miwa clan.
40 Manabu Ogura, "Drifted Deities in the Noto Peninsula," in Dorson, ed., Studies inJapanese
Folklore, pp. 133-44.
41 Oka et al., Nihon minzoku no kigen, pp. 60—62.
42 George B. Sansom, Japan: A Short Cultural History (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts,
1962), p. 54.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO 339
Some generations later, Japan was stricken by a plague. The ruler
dreamed that Omono Nushi appeared, declaring that the plague would
be eradicated if he were appropriately worshiped at court. Discovering
that Omono Nushi had produced a human son, the ruler summoned
the son and placed him in charge of rites to venerate the serpent
kami.43
Archaeological evidence, and that of comparative mythology, support
the conclusion that this tale has a historical basis. Myths from
Manchuria and Korea tell of a woman who followed her lover by
attaching a thread to his clothing. In the middle of the fifth century,
moreover, potters migrated from Korea to Kawachi Province (not far
from Mt. Miwa) where archaeologists have found the remains of unglazed
ceramic ware called sueki.4
* Examples of this pottery, dating
from the sixth or seventh century, have been found at the foot of Mt.
Miwa in Yamato Province (Nara Prefecture). The potters had no
doubt moved to Yamato, carrying their legend along with their artisans'
techniques. Later, when the Miwa clan decided to claim religious
authority that stemmed from monopolizing the worship of the Mt.
Miwa rain kami, they must have been influenced by old Korean myths
in selecting a human descendant of their kami as the clan's founding
ancestor.45
This sort of myth is not uncommon, as it appears elsewhere in Japan
and in other parts of the world. Such tales also are sometimes found in
medieval sources. For example, a legend regarding the ancestry of the
hero Ogata Saburo appears in the medieval war epic Heike monogatari.
This legend, which resembles the Miwa tale, tells of a young woman in
Bungo Province (Oita Prefecture in Kyushu) who had a mysterious
lover. In order to find out what he looked like, the woman attached a
needle and thread to his clothing and followed the thread to his dwelling
place, a cave on the mountain Ubagatake. There she saw her lover
in his true form, that of a giant serpent, with a needle stuck in his
neck. She and her servants fled in terror. Later, the woman gave birth
to her lover's son who grew up to become the heroic founding father of
the Ogata clan. Subsequent generations of the clan were said to have
had the scales of a serpent's tail marked on their bodies, a sign of their
serpent-kami ancestry.
43 Kojiki, bk. 2, NKBT 1.178-81, Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 201-2.
44 It was in later times, of course, that the tale was set in Sujin's reign.
45 Matsumae Takeshi, "Miwayama densetsu to Omiwa uji," Sanpendo 19 (197s): 1 —11. Later
this thesis was republished in Matsumae Takeshi, Yamato kokka to shinwa densho (Tokyo:
Yuzankaku, 1986).
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34° EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
Variant forms of this legend can be found in other Japanese sources.
For example, there is the story, found in Honcho jinja kd (a collection
of shrine legends compiled by Hayashi Razan, 1602-57), about a famous
Confucian scholar of the Edo period. According to this version,
set in Hyuga Province (Miyazaki Prefecture), the young woman found
her lover dead, poisoned by the iron of a needle. In other important
details, however, the version agrees with the one that appears in the
Heike tnonogatariA6
Such myths do not represent the deification of actual clan ancestors,
as it is clear that the kami had been venerated before the clan claimed
to be his descendants. A clan that honored a nature kami might eventually
designate one ancestor as the clan's founding hero and claim that
he was descended from the worshiped kami. Myths told about the
hero's conception might follow the Miwa pattern: the visit of a kami to
a young woman, her impregnation, the birth of the hero child, and,
later, the designation of the hero's descendants as priests charged with
worshiping the kami. Such myths explained the origins of particular
lineages and occupational groups, affirmed the power of the clan chieftains,
and justified the clan's monopoly of a sacred authority derived
from the priestly role of clan chieftains.
Another interesting feature of the Miwa legend is that the kami
takes an animal form. There are many examples of this in Japanese
mythology: The hero Yamato Takeru no Mikoto encountered a kami
in the form of a white boar (or, in some versions, a serpent), and
Jimmu was challenged at Mt. Kumano by an evil kami in the form of a
bear. Watatsumi, kami of the sea, appears as a dragon or ward (sometimes
translated as crocodile and sometimes as shark).-»7
The serpent form is particularly common. Omono Nushi appears as
a serpent in several Nihon shoki episodes; in one, he takes the shape of
a small snake and hides himself in a princess's comb box/8
The serpent
was once regarded as the spirit of the water and rain, perhaps
46 Heike monogatari, NKBT 33.130-1, translated by Helen Craig McCullough in The Tale of
Heike (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988); Hayashi Razan, Honchojinja kd, vol. 7 of
Dai Nihon fukyo sosho (Tokyo: Dai Nihon fukyo sosho kankokai, 1920), pp. 38-39. Also see
Seki Keigo, Mukashi banashi to warm banashi (Tokyo: Iwasaki bijutsusha, i960), pp. 67-108;
Takagi Toshio, Zotei Nihon shinwa densetsu no kenkyu (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1973), vol. 2, pp.
216-26; Torii, Yushi izen no Nippon, pp. 428-54.
47 Toyotama Hime, Watatsumi's daughter, appears as a viani in myths recorded in the chronicles.
See Kojiki, bk. I, NKBT 1.144-5, Philippi, Kojiki, p. 157; and Nihon shoki, bk. 2,
NKBT 67.167, Aston, 1.95. The Yamato Takeru tale appears in the Kojiki, bk. 2, NKBT
1.218-19, Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 246-7, and Nihon shoki, bk. 7, NKBT 67.308-9, Aston,
1.208-9. The tale about Emperor Jimmu appears in the Kojiki, bk. 2, NKBT 1.150-3,
Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 167-8.
48 Nihon shoki, bk. 5, NKBT 67.246-7, Aston, 1.158-9.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO 34I
because its form resembles the jagged shape of the lightning bolt that
accompanies summer storms. Whatever the reason, the veneration of
the serpent as the rain (or thunder and lightning) deity appears not
only in Japan but also in China, Korea, southeast Asia, and India.
Other myths tell of the marriage of a female kami and a human
prince. In one tale, a prince weds the maiden Toyotama Hime, whose
true form is that of a dragon or, in some versions, a wani.w Orikuchi
Shinobu, Matsumura Takeo, and others take such myths as evidence
for totemic practices among the ancient Japanese.'0
But I maintain
that these tales, like the tales of the marriage of women and serpents,
are water-related myths with parallels in Korea, China, southeast Asia,
and India, as well as the Middle East and Europe.
The Japanese belief that kami take animal shape is not a form of
totemism. In primitive totemism, a particular animal species is related
to a certain clan; both are believed to have a common ancestor, and
their proliferation is thought to be interrelated. Thus the clan frequently
conducts magic rites to ensure the species' fertility, and clan
members distinguish themselves by wearing the animal's crest. Such
elements simply did not exist in the Japanese veneration of animal
kami. The Miwa clan, for instance, venerated one particular mythological
serpent, but serpents as a species were not especially honored.
The adoption of one specific serpent as an ancestor points to the
conscious embrace of the sacred (hence secular) authority that became
attached to the worship of an already important kami.
In short, the early Burial Mound period was one in which Shinto
took on the basic forms that characterize it today. Nature kami were
named, and their functions and places of operation were delineated.
Clans adopted kami as tutelary deities, sometimes claimed them as
ancestors, and monopolized their worship. The connection between
sacred and secular authority was further strengthened, and the stage
was set for sanctioning the positions and actions of the Yamato nobility
through religious means.
Period 3: Front clan Shinto to state Shinto
In the sixth and seventh centuries, the Yamato court gradually deprived
powerful provincial clans of their temporal power and magical-
49 Kojiki, bk. i, NKBT 1.135-45, Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 150-8; Nihon shoki, bk. 1, NKBT
67.164-85, Aston, 1.93-108.
50 Orikuchi Shinobu, Orikuchi Shinobu zenshu, vol. 2 of Kodai kenkyu (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha
1955)) PP- 269-309; Matsumura Takeo, Nihon shintva no kenkyu (Tokyo: Baifukan, 1955),
vol. 3, pp. 761-800.
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342 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
religious authority. The clans themselves formed a court nobility '>>yal
to the imperial clan, and their traditions were adopted by the imperial
line and used to enhance the emperor's authority. A solar kami,
Amaterasu (the Sun Goddess), was adopted as the imperial ancestor
and promoted to the highest seat in the kami pantheon. Thus we see
the beginnings of the organization and systemization of Shinto on a
nationwide scale.
The available written evidence, though increasingly contemporary,
must be interpreted carefully in the light of its obvious political bias.
To aid in evaluating the chronicles and other documents compiled
under imperial auspices, we should examine not only the archaeological
evidence but also local traditions, myths, and shrine ceremonies
that retain traces of the past.
The Yamato court's assumption of supreme religious authority was
a gradual process, involving the appropriation of local ceremonies,
myths, sacred treasures, and kami. Parallels between the rites and
myths of Yamato and other provinces demonstrate this process. To
begin with, powerful local clans strengthened the connections between
their sacred and secular functions. Those who had assumed religious
authority by monopolizing the worship of important kami came to
regard certain of their predecessors as kami also. Such individuals
combined secular with religious authority in a sort of "sacred kingship,"
affirmed by the possession of regalia and the periodic repetition
of ritual. Some of these rituals are conducted even today, although
priests lost their temporal power more than a millennium ago.
One example is the ceremony that confirms the accession of an
individual to the post of kuni no miyatsuko (provincial governor) of
Izumo, an office that once exercised territorial power over Izumo
Province (Shimane Prefecture) as well as priestly functions at the
Izumo Grand Shrine. According to tradition, the initial occupant of
this post was a kami who had descended from heaven to venerate
Onamuchi at the Izumo Shrine. The kami's transmission of his authority
to his "descendants" is confirmed in rites that sanctify each
new occupant of the post as a kami incarnate. The new priest communes
with his "ancestor" kami by sharing with him a meal cooked
by a fire made by rubbing sacred sticks and boards together, and in
water drawn from a sanctified well. Similar rites were also conducted
yearly, perhaps symbolizing the renewal of the governor's
authority and the rejuvenation of the cosmos and the earth.51
Most
51 Senge Takamune, Izumo taisha (Tokyo: Gakuseisha, 1968), pp. 211-12.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO 343
other provincial clans probably held such ceremonies in ancient
times.
Similar rites were conducted at the imperial palace. At the Daijosai
festival following his enthronement, the emperor shared a communal
meal with Amaterasu, his ancestral kami. Like the governor of Izumo,
the emperor also participated in similar rites, held yearly, that were
meant to renew his sacred power. In these rites, performed during the
Niinamesai (harvest festival) at the imperial palace, the emperor partook
of newly harvested rice believed to house the rice spirit.52
Like the emperor and the provincial governor of Izumo, provincial
priest-rulers were once regarded as incarnations of kami. According to
medieval records of the Suwa Shrine in Shinano Province (Nagano
Prefecture), the high priest assumed office in a rite called "the enthronement
ceremony." In this rite, the priest occupied a rock beneath a holly
tree and held three sacred symbols. It was believed that through this
rite, the priest became the incarnation of the kami worshiped at the
shrine.53 At festival time at both Izumo and Suwa, the priests sat in the
kami's seat and were venerated by other priests and laypersons. Other
shrines in Japan, such as the Munakata Shrine in Chikuzen Province
(Fukuoka Prefecture) and the Aso Shrine in Higo Province (Kumamoto
Prefecture) conducted similar rituals, which seem to date from a time
when the provinces were governed by sanctified rulers.
One of the best-known myths in the chronicles is the tale of the
marriage of the kami Izanagi and Izanami and how they gave birth to
the islands of Japan. Izanagi is also depicted as the father of the Sun
Goddess, the imperial ancestral kami. Emperors are thus linked with
the kami that are said to have created the very land they ruled.5*
Creation myths, however, were not limited to kami associated with
the imperial clan. Like the Yamato rulers who became Japan's emperors,
the clan chieftains - descendants of the sacred priest-rulers - were
conscious of old traditions. A legend recorded in the Izumo fudoki,
compiled in 733 by nobles of the Izumo clan, tells of the province's own
creator kami, Yatsuka Mizu Omi Tsunu. This kami would travel to faroff
places such as Silla in Korea and the Noto peninsula in north
Honshu. When he saw a piece of land he favored, he would work his
spade into it, haul it back to Izumo as if he were harpooning afish,and
attach it to the Izumo coast. This Izumo creation myth explains the
52 Engishiki, KT 26.172, Bock, Engi-shiki, 2.92.
53 Fujimori Eiichi, Suwa taisha (Tokyo: Chuokoron bijutsu shuppan, 1965), pp. 15-18.
54 Kojiki, bk. 1, NKBT 1.70-71, Philippi, Kojiki, p. 70; Nihon shoki, bk. 1, NKBT 67.95,
Aston, 1.27-28.
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344 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
many capes and inlets on the jagged coastline of the Shimane peninsula
where the Izumo Grand Shrine is located.55 Yet another creation myth,
related in a poem in the eighth-century collection Man'yoshu, tells of the
mountain-building activities of two important kami.*6
The creator kami adopted as ancestor of the imperial clan was, in
fact, once the kami worshiped by other people. The Izanagi creation
myths were originally tales told by the fishermen of Awaji Island,
where the worship of this kami originated. In fact, Izanagi appears as a
fisherman's kami even in the Nihon shoki, which includes versions of
myths other than those officially adopted by the court. In these tales,
recorded in chapters on the reigns of the fifth-century kings Richu and
Ingyo, Izanagi was simply the tutelary kami of Awaji Island, a kami
worshiped by fishermen with offerings of pearls. He had no connection
with the imperial clan."
From the fourth century, however, Awaji was linked to the Yamato
court. The island was responsible for supplying the court with table
salt and other ocean products, and it was under the court's direct
jurisdiction. In the reign of Ojin, Awaji was a major holding of the
Azumi clan that controlled the fishermen of all provinces and supplied
the imperial dining table.*8
It was probably through such connections
that the Izanagi-Izanami legends were spread throughout Japan and
introduced to the court.
The imperial clan claimed descent from Izanagi and the Sun Goddess
through the latter's grandson, dispatched to earth from Takamanohara.
Other clans told similar myths about their kami ancestors.
The Kuji hongi, an early Heian period text that records the traditions
of the Mononobe clan, tells how the clan's ancestral kami Nigihayahi
descended from heaven in a boat made of stone. He carried with him
ten kinds of sacred treasures, including two mirrors, a sword, jewels
(that bestowed life, brought perfect health, resurrected the dead, and
drove off evil spirits), and a scarf that repelled harmful insects. Attended
by other kami, Nigihayahi landed on Mt. Ikaruga in Kawachi
Province.59
This tale - too well known, perhaps, to be suppressed,
despite its obvious parallels with the imperial ancestor's descent - also
appears in an abbreviated form in the Nihon shoki.60
Other clans also
claimed descent from kami who had come from heaven in a similar
55 Izumo fudoki, NKBT 2.99-103, Aoki, Izumofudoki, pp. 81-83.
56 Man'yoshu, vol. 2, NKBT 5.232-3, trans. H. H. Honda, The Manyoshu: A New and Complete
Translation (Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1967), p. 104.
57 Nihon shoki, bk. 13, NKBT 67.426-7,446-8; Aston, 1.307, 322-3.
58 Nihon shoki, bk. 13, NKBT 67.364-5; Aston, 1.256. 59 Kuji hongi, KT 7.25.
60 Nihon shoki, bk. 3, NKBT 67.188-9; Aston, i . n o - u .
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO 345
fashion. The Izumo provincial governor's family was one of these
clans. The Shinsen shojiroku, a text compiled in 815 that lists the names
and lineages of important clans, traces the ancestry of the head of the
Yoshino Kuzu clan to a kami from Takamanohara.61
A myth recorded in both the Kojiki and the Nihon skoki tells how
Ame no Hiboko, son of the king of Silla in Korea, sailed to Japan
bearing magical jewels that calmed the winds and waves.62
Ame no
Hiboko appears in the chronicles as a human being, but the Harima
fudoki identifies him as a kami from Silla who challenged the powerful
kami Onamuchi.63
Ame no Hiboko was probably venerated by Korean
immigrants. Moreover, myths about the descent of kami from heaven
were sometimes set in Korea rather than in Japan. In an extant fragment
of the Chikuzen fudoki, for instance, a powerful northern
Kyushu family claimed as its ancestor a kami named Hiboko (identified
by some scholars as Ame no Hiboko) who had descended to a
mountain peak in the northern Korean kingdom of Koguryo.6
* The
sacred symbols that Ame no Hiboko bore parallel regalia traditionally
carried by kami who came down from heaven, and they indicate that
Ame no Hiboko - like the ancestor of the imperial clan and other
important clans - was once seen as the descendant of a heavenly kami.
Perhaps the central element of state Shinto, as it developed later,
was the veneration of Amaterasu (the Sun Goddess) as the imperial
ancestor. By claiming descent from a kami who could be regarded as
supreme, the imperial clan justified its seizure and maintenance of
temporal power. Like many other elements in the mythological structure
that affirmed imperial-clan power, sun worship was common
throughout Japan. Indeed, the names of many kami refer to the sun.
Ame no Hiboko, for instance, means Spear of the Heavenly Sun. In
one Kojiki tale, his wife Akaruihime (Shining Princess) was originally
a red, sunlike jewel who was transformed into a beautiful woman.65
Other clans besides the imperial clan venerated a sun kami from whom
they claimed descent. My recent research and that of others show that
many kami worshiped at shrines listed in the Engishiki were kami of
the sun, kami with names like Amateru (Heaven Shining) and
Amateru Mitama (Heavenly Shining Sacred Spirit).66
61 Shinsen shojiroku, Gunsho ruiju, 16.177.
62 Nihon shoki, bk. 6, NKBT 67.260-1; Aston, 1.168-9; Kojiki, bk. 2, NKBT 1.254-8;
Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 291-3.
63 Harima fudoki, NKBT 2.304-7. 64 Chikuzen fudoki, NKBT 2.503-4.
65 Kojiki, bk.2, NKBT 1.254-7; Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 292-3.
66 These shrines are listed in the Register of Kami in Books 9 and 10 of the Engishiki, KT
26.179-320; Bock, Engishiki, 2.113-71.
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346 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
The festivals and traditions of Amateru Shrine on the island of
Tsushima are colored by elements of sun worship. In the Kuji hongi,
the Tsushima kami is called Amenohi Mitama (Heavenly Sun Spirit)
and is claimed as an ancestor by the local powerholders, the Tsushima
no Atae. The Kuji hongi relates that this kami descended from heaven
along with Nigihayahi, ancestor of the Mononobe clan.6
? The legend
of the Tsushima kami's descent was probably once an independent
tradition but was later absorbed into the myths of the Mononobe clan,
much as other provincial myths were absorbed into the imperial myth
structure.
Another clan that worshiped a sun kami was the Owari. According
to the chronicles, that clan's ancestor was a son or younger brother of
the Sun Goddess's grandson, Hononinigi.68
Once, perhaps, the Owari
traced their descent back to Amateru Mitama (Heavenly Shining Sacred
Spirit) or to Ama no Oshihi (Heavenly Great Sun). The sun kami
venerated by the Otomo clan rode a stone boat down from heaven,
according to the Man'yoshu;69
in the chronicles, this kami becomes an
attendant of Hononinigi.7° A branch of the Otomo clan was called the
Himatsuri (sun worshipers), and many of the clan's heroes in legends
of subsequent generations had the character for "sun" in their names.
Though the tales of the Owari and the Otomo clans were later subsumed
into the imperial mythological structure, they probably once
represented independent traditions.
The kami worshiped by the Izumo clan was also a sun kami. His
name, Ame no Hohi, means Heavenly Grain Sun, and his sons are
called Ame no Hinadori (Heavenly Sun Bird) and Takehi Nateru
(Brave Sun Shining). Myths tell us that Ame no Hinadori descended
from heaven bearing the sacred treasures that became the clan's rega-
lia,71
and initiated the Izumo fire festival (cited earlier in this chapter).
Other items in the chronicles also mention Ame no Hohi but assign
him a less-than-heroic role. According to tales in the Kojiki and Nihon
shoki, Ame no Hohi was sent to earth to prepare the way for
Hononinigi's descent by securing the submission of Onamuchi, the
powerful kami who ruled Izumo. Instead, however, Ame no Hohi
67 Sendai kuji hongi, KT 7.25-26.
68 Kojiki, bk. I, NKBT 1.124-7; Philippi,Kojiki, p. 137. SeePhilippi,Kojiki, pp. 634-5, fora
note on the ancestry of the Owari (Wopari) clan.
69 Man'yoshu, vol. 4, NKBT 7.372-3; Honda, The Man'yoshu, p. 321.
70 Kojiki, bk. 1, NKBT 1.127-9; Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 139-41; Nihon shoki, bk. 2, NKBT
67.156; Aston, 1.86.
71 Nihon shoki, bk. 5, NKBT 67.250-1; Aston, 1.162.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO 347
surrendered to Onamuchi and failed to return to Takamanohara.72
The Izumo myths provide us with another example of an independent
tradition of sun worship and a kami who bore sacred treasures from
heaven, myths and treasures that were then appropriated by the imperial
clan.
We do not know for certain when the imperial clan decided to
choose a sun kami as its ancestor, or why the Sun Goddess, worshiped
at Ise, was chosen. It appears that Takamimusubi was originally the
tutelary deity of the imperial clan, and many elements of the worship
of Takamimusubi were retained in court ceremonials of later periods.
He was considered responsible for the emperor's long life and prosperity,
and he was one of the eight kami venerated in the Hasshinden, the
palace chapel of the government's Council of Kami Affairs. Moreover,
he also played an important role at the Chinkonsai (the annual winter
festival held in order to rejuvenate the emperor's soul) and the
Kinensai (the spring agricultural festival).
"Musubi," the final portion of Takamimusubi's name, means "the
creating spirit." In other words, he was an agricultural kami. He was
enshrined along with seven other kami in a temporary sanctuary near
the sacred fields where rice was cultivated for the Daijosai.
Amaterasu was not enshrined at the Hasshinden in the imperial
court, although from the middle of the Heian period the emperor did
venerate her elsewhere in the palace. Nor did she originally figure in
the Daijosai. Moreover, in the simplest and apparently oldest myth
concerning the imperial ancestor Hononinigi, the grandfather Takamimusubi
sends him to earth as a newborn baby, wrapped simply in a
coverlet.73
The story that later came to represent the founding of the
imperial line originally seems to have told how Takamimusubi, the
kami of productivity, sent to earth the rice kami, Hononinigi, whose
name means "rich harvest of rice." The Kojiki version of the myth
casts Hononinigi as the Sun Goddess's grandson and sends him to
earth in grand fashion, accompanied by regalia and attendant kami.™
These were undoubtedly embellishments added at a later time.
Oka Masao has argued that the parallel Takamimusubi and Amaterasu
myths represent the contact and fusion of people of southeast
Asian lineage (who worshiped Amaterasu) with north Asian Tungusic
people who invaded Japan in the third and fourth centuries and
72 Kojiki, bk. I, NKBT i . m - 1 3 ; Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 120-2; Nihon shoki, bk. 2, NKBT
67.134-5; Aston, 1.64.
73 Nihon shoki, bk. 2, NKBT 67.140; Aston, 1.70.
74 Kojiki, bk. 1, NKBT 1.125-9; Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 137-41.
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348 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
brought with them the worship of the heavenly kami Takamimusubi.
According to Oka's theories, these north Asian people subjugated
Japan's earlier agrarian inhabitants.75
But I maintain that Amaterasu
was originally a local sun kami consciously adopted by the imperial
clan in an effort to enhance its power. The parallelism of the myths is
based not on the amalgamation of two different racial cultures but on
the linkage between the Yamato court and the Ise shrine.
It was probably fishermen and other seafaring people of Ise to the
east of Yamato who originally worshiped the Sun Goddess and transmitted
tales that later occupied positions of importance in the imperial
mythology. According to the Nihon shoki, Amaterasu (the Sun Goddess)
was first worshiped at the imperial palace, but in the reign of
Sujin, her sacred mirror (her shintaf) was enshrined in a Yamato village,
and an imperial princess was appointed to conduct rites in her
honor.76
In the next reign, a more suitable place of worship was sought
as an imperial princess traveled around the country with the mirror,
finally reaching Ise. The Sun Goddess then expressed her wish to be
enshrined at the place, which became the Inner Shrine at Ise.77
The
myth justifies the imperial adoption of the Ise sun kami as its ancestral
kami by claiming that the Sun Goddess was originally worshiped at the
palace and was later moved to Ise. Further, it justifies the custom,
practiced since the early sixth century, of choosing in every reign an
imperial princess to serve the Ise Shrine as a said or shaman. The
legend itself was probably fabricated in the seventh century or even
later.78
Amaterasu may have been adopted as the imperial ancestor in the
following way: In the fifth and sixth centuries, the Yamato court
maintained extensive political, military, and diplomatic contacts with
the kingdoms of Korea. Sun worship was common in the Korean
kingdoms, and royal founding ancestors were frequently named as
children of the sun.79
In order to deal with these kings on an equal
75 Nihon minzoku no kigen, pp. 60-62, 87-89.
76 Nihon shoki, bk. 5, NKBT 67.238-9; Aston, 1.151-2.
77 Nihon shoki, bk. 6, NKBT 67.269-70; Aston, 1.176.
78 The first said as a historical person was probably Princess Sasage, appointed during the reign
of Keitai (507-31), Nihon shoki, bk. 17, NKBT 68.24-25; Aston, 2.6. According to apparently
reliable evidence in the Nihon shoki, said were sent to the Ise Shrine in every subsequent
reign. References to said serving earlier than Keitai's reign - in other words, during the
reigns of Sujin and Suinin - are probably not based on historical fact.
79 For example, King Chumong, the founder of the Koguryo kingdom, King Hyokkose,
founder of Silla, and King Suro, founder of Kumgwan. See Ha Tae-hung and G. K. Mintz,
trans., Samguk Yusa: Legends and History of the Three Kingdoms of Ancient Korea (Seoul:
Yonsei University Press, 1972), pp. 45, 49, 43. King Suro was actually born from an egg,
according to the account, but the egg is considered a symbol of the sun.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO 349
basis, the Yamato rulers had to claim lineage of equal dignity. They
also felt that their ancestral kami ought to belong exclusively to the
imperial clan. Their original tutelary kami, Takamimusubi, was unsuited
for such a purpose, as by that time he had been adopted as an
ancestral kami by a number of other clans. So the Yamato court looked
around the regions under its control for a sun kami suitable as an
imperial ancestor. Kami venerated by already powerful clans were
ruled out. Then the court's attention was drawn to Ise Shrine, dedicated
to a sun kami worshiped since ancient times by fishermen. The
shrine's location - to the east of Yamato, in the direction of the rising
sun - was a suitable place for the enshrinement of a sun kami; moreover,
there were few powerful provincial families there to challenge the
imperial clan's appropriation of that local kami.
The court dispatched an imperial princess to serve as shaman, and
representatives were sent from the Nakatomi and Imbe clans to serve
as high priests, standing above the priests of local clans. Two of the
ancient nature myths thought to have been told among Ise fishermen
were embellished and subsumed into the imperial mythology: the Ama
no Iwaya story, in which the sun hides itself in a cave and has to be
coaxed out, and the story of the quarrel between the sun and her
brother, the moon (Tsukuyomi), and how they went off to live separately
in the daytime and nighttime heavens.80
Not only were the myths of provincial clans appropriated and woven
into the Yamato court's mythological tradition, but the regalia - the
physical symbols of the clans' sacred power - were seized by the court
as well. This was an effective way of reducing the religious authority of
the local clans and of forcing them to take subsidiary positions in the
centralized Yamato system. For example, in a Nihon shoki item for the
sixtieth year of Sujin's reign, Sujin dispatched a general of the Mononobe
clan to seize the treasures brought from heaven by the Izumo
clan's ancestral kami and kept at the Izumo Shrine. Another Nihon
shoki account for the eighty-eighth year of Suinin's reign reports that
Suinin ordered the seizure of treasures brought from Korea by Ame
no Hiboko. Although most of Ame no Hiboko's descendants were
inclined to comply with the order, one hid a sword beneath his clothing.
But the sword was discovered and seized.81
These legends, and many others concerning the Yamato pursuit of
80 For the Ame no Iwaya story, see the Kojiki, bk. I, NKBT 1.82-83; Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 81-
86; and the Nihon shoki, bk. 1, NKBT 67.112-8; Aston, 1.41-49. For the Tsukuyomi story,
see Nihon shoki, bk. I, NKBT 67.102-3; Aston, 1.32.
81 Nihon shoki, bk. 5, NKBT 67.250-1, and bk. 6, pp. 277-8; Aston, 1.162, 185-6.
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350 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
centralized power, are centered on symbols of religious authority that
are prominent in the chronicle's chapters devoted to the reigns of
Sujin and his successor Suinin. Tradition assigns those reigns to the
first centuries B.C. and A.D., but they can probably be dated sometime
in the fourth century A.D. Sujin is given a position of special importance
by the Nihon shoki: He is the first emperor after Jimmu about
whom considerable detail is provided,82
and he is regarded as the ruler
who first pacified certain regions. In other words, many of the Yamato
court's efforts in the fifth and sixth centuries to reinforce its power
were projected backward in time to the reign of Sujin and his successor,
an apparent attempt to enhance imperial authority with the weight
of tradition. The fact that the Mononobe clan, which became militarily
powerful during Keitai's reign (507-31),figuresin some of these
earlier tales only serves to support the conjecture that the actual events
reflected in early legends probably occurred in the sixth century.8
*
At Japan's most important imperial-court ceremony, the Daijosai
celebrated at the beginning of each reign, the clans performed services
and told and acted out myths that symbolized their subservience to the
court. The Nakatomi clan of ritualists offered prayers for the emperor's
long life and health and for a bountiful harvest; the Imbe
presented the emperor with the three imperial regalia; the head of the
Kataribe (the storytellers' be) recited old legends; and the Mononobe
and Otomo clans guarded the palace. In the services performed and
tales related at the Daijosai, nobles of powerful clans affirmed their
fealty to the sovereign. The legends that explain these duties contain
elements from once independent traditions that were subsumed into
the imperial order.8
t
The court also incorporated many local shrines, honoring nature
kami, into a centralized system. Imperial messengers were dispatched
to local shrines, and the shrines were presented with sacred treasures.
Shinto on the local level was further systematized through the construction
of permanent shrine buildings. The court had a hand in this
process, too, as the sponsorship of shrine construction projects was
one way of increasing imperial authority and control at local levels.
82 Sansom, Cultural History, p. 32.
83 Nihon shoki, bk. 17, NKBT 68.35-37; Aston, 2.15-16.
84 For a description of Daijosai ceremonies, see the Engishiki, KT, 26.143-57; Bock, Engi-shiki,
2.30-56. Notable recent Western studies of the Daijosai are those by Felicia G. Bock, "The
Great Feast of Enthronement," Monumenta Nipponica 45 (Spring 1990): 27-38; Nicola
Liscutin, "Daijosai: Aspects of Its History and Meaning," Transactions of the Asiatic Society of
Japan 5 (1990): 25-52; and Carmen Blacker, "The Shinza or God-seat in the DaijosaiThrone,
Bed, or Incubation Couch?" Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 17 (JuneSeptember
1990): 180-97.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO 351
One reason, perhaps, for erecting permanent buildings was to enshrine
the shintai, sacred objects that had lately come to be regarded as
lodging places for kami. The shintai were often the sorts of sacred
treasures that the kami were thought to have brought with them from
heaven: mirrors, swords, spears, and jewels. It was in this period of
Shinto history, too, that permanent and important buildings were
constructed at the shrines of Ise and Izumo: The one at Ise took the
form of a grain storehouse, and the one at Izumo was modeled on a
priest's residence.
In short, many features of official shrine Shinto developed during
this period. At the popular level, the worship of nature kami probably
continued much as it had before. But popular Shinto was also affected
by the concept of the shintai and the construction of permanent shrine
buildings. The simple veneration of vaguely conceived kami and spirits
had begun to develop into a loosely organized religious system.
Period 4: The maturation of state Shinto
Early Shinto's final stage of evolution was paralleled by attempts of the
central government to build a bureaucratic state like that of China. In
the process, religion and polity influenced each other's development;
the political urge to make the Yamato king into a Chinese-style emperor
reinforced the Shinto hierarchical structure and organization;
and the religious stress on the emperor as child of the sun kept his
functions more sacred than secular, contributing to his eventual isolation
from politics. For a time, however, the emperor did play an active
role in governmental affairs, and his political position was strengthened
by the Shinto idea that his lineage was superior to that of any
other clan.
From the mid-seventh century to the end of the eighth, the ritsuryo
(Chinese penal and administrative law) period, the imperial court
adopted reforms modeled on the bureaucratic forms and legal practices
of T'ang China and actively encouraged the introduction of other
forms of Chinese culture. Superficially at least, the court intentionally
became a near replica of the T'ang court. One important difference,
however, was the establishment of the Council of Kami Affairs
(Jingikan) at the same level as the Council of State (Daijokan). The
Council of Kami Affairs, fundamentally different from any unit in the
Chinese bureaucracy, assumed control of Shinto affairs at both court
and local levels.
Under the new ritsuryo system, many chieftains of old local clans
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352 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
such as the Izumo governor were appointed as district supervisors
igunji), continuing to perform magical-religious functions, possessing
spiritual authority, and governing the territory and people of the same
clan. An appointment as district supervisor thus meant that a chieftain's
authority had been confirmed by a king.
Contemporary records, such as those kept by shrine officials, help
us evaluate the chronicles and other official histories. The chronicles
themselves were compiled during this period as an effort by the court
to use history to its advantage. Not only did the court order the
compilation of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, which traced Japanese
history from the mythical age of kami through early legendary emperors
to contemporary times, but it also ordered the compilation of
information and traditions about the provinces of other clans. The
resulting local gazetteers (fudoki) were often arranged so that they too
supported the imperial clan's claim to supreme authority. In the year
after the Nihon shoki was compiled, the court summoned its nobles
and officials and had scholars read and comment on the text of that
official chronicle.8
' Perhaps the court was attempting to affirm the
ideology of political unity (under emperors descended from the Sun
Goddess) by drawing attention to the official version of the state's
traditional myths and history.
In connection with its efforts to establish a centralized bureaucratic
order under the emperor, the court reformulated the old myths, creating
a kami pantheon headed by the Sun Goddess. Both she and
Takamimusubi were placed above the ancestral kami of other clans.
All were divided into two categories, the kami of heaven and the kami
of earth. This division has given rise to the hypothesis that the kami of
heaven were worshiped by an invading force and that the kami of earth
were venerated by the subjugated aboriginal peoples. Other scholars
have suggested that the division arose from a dualistic mode of
thinking - often found in primitive societies - according to which all
phenomena are seen as existing in pairs of opposites.
85 References to these initial lectures on the Nihon shoki can be found in several sources, some of
which have not been published. One such source is the Konin shiki-jo, Ono Hitonaga's
preface to his commentary on his own public lectures on the Nihon shoki, held in 812.
According to this source, Ono Yasumaro presented a lecture - the first in a series of seven
held in the Nara and early Heian periods - in 721. The Konin shiki-jo has not survived, but
portions are quoted in the Kamakura period collection Shaku Nihongi, KT 8.14. Another
source documenting Ono Yasumaro's lectures on the Nihon shoki is the Nihon keien tvaka, a
collection of poems written on the occasion of the lectures. The oldest copy of this unpublished
collection is kept at the Honmyo-ji in Kumamoto City. See the mid-Heian period work
in Minamoto no Takaakira, Saikyuki, vol. 28 of Kaitei shiseki shuran (Tokyo: Kondo kappansho,
1902), pp. 356-7.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO 353
In both Greece and China, similar distinctions were made between
celestial and terrestrial deities, but the offerings and methods of worship
differed. No such differences existed in Japan, however. The
chronicles simply designate Hononinigi and the kami who accompanied
him on his descent from heaven as the kami of heaven; those
already residing on earth were called the kami of earth. The criteria for
making the distinction were probably based on the relationship between
the court and the clan that venerated the kami in question. The
kami of heaven represented clans who were considered loyal retainers
of the imperial court, whereas those of earth represented clans whose
local power bases gave them a degree of independence.
The kami of especially important clans, moreover, were cited frequently
in the chronicles. During this fourth period, the Fujiwara
(formerly Nakatomi) clan became the most powerful of the court nobility,
dominating other clans such as the Otomo and Mononobe. The
Fujiwara undoubtedly influenced efforts to revise and embellish the
mythology in the chronicles and thefudoki. Thus the prestige that the
Fujiwara had attained is reflected in the importance of the roles assigned
to their three guardian kami: Takemikazuchi, Futsunushi, and
Ame no Koyane.
In their effort to forge ideological underpinnings for imperial authority,
the court had myths of "the age of the kami" arranged in a logical
sequence, beginning with the creation of the universe and ending with
the divine birth of the first human emperor. The Kojiki relates these
myths in their most coherent sequence. Each tale leads into the next,
forming a logical narrative that links the emperor with the primeval
creator kami.86
Although no such coherent sequence exists in the
Nihon shoki, which contains many tales irrelevant to the main narrative,
the basic theme is the same: the divine origins of a single line of
priestly emperors.
The Kojiki arranges the myths in this way: Seven generations of
kami follow the appearance of three primeval creator kami, and finally
Izanagi and Izanami enter the scene. First they produce an island from
the middle of the ocean; then after their marriage there, they give
birth to the main islands of Japan. Izanami then produces the fire kami
and in so doing is burned to death. Her husband goes to the land of the
dead in search of his deceased spouse and, upon his return, purifies
himself in the ocean, creates three kami (the Sun Goddess, Tsukuyomi,
and Susa no O), and assigns them to three parts of the universe.
86 Kojiki, bk. I, NKBT 1.42-147; Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 47-159.
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354 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
The tale of Susa no O's violent offenses follows. Angered, the Sun
Goddess hides herself in a cave and has to be coaxed out, and Susa no
O is exiled to the land of Izumo. The Kojiki then tells how Susa no O
defeats the monster serpent Yamata no Orochi and marries the princess
that the serpent was about to devour. Susa no O's descendant
Onamuchi takes charge of Izumo. Then the Sun Goddess's grandson
Hononinigi is dispatched to earth, where he settles on the island of
Kyushu and persuades Onamuchi's descendants to hand over the rule
of Izumo. Three generations of descendants then rule the land. The
second volume of the Kojiki continues with the story of later descendants,
beginning with the nation's founder (Jimmu) who leads an
expedition to central Honshu and settles in the Yamato basin.
Both the chronicles and court ceremonies emphasize the emperor's
role as the "child of the sun." Like other provincial (or clan federation)
priest-kings, the emperor came to be regarded as a kami incarnate.
Perhaps the most significant of the rituals stressing this concept
was held at the Daijosai, conducted upon the emperor's accession to
the throne. In this ceremony, the emperor communed with Takamimusubi
and other kami by sharing with them a meal prepared from rice
grown in consecrated fields. (Later, the Sun Goddess replaced Takamimusubi
as the central figure in this rite.) During this fourth period,
the Daijosai was clearly distinguished from the yearly harvest festival
(the Niinamesai), and its sacred affirmation of imperial authority was
emphasized. The ceremonies that other clans held to symbolize their
submission to the throne were made into rituals, giving them their
most complex and impressive form.
Though Shinto was well on its way to becoming an institutionalized
religion that supported the state, the agricultural elements were retained.
One of the customs that developed during this fourth period
reminds us of Shinto's earlier roots: Every twenty years the buildings
at Ise Shrine are torn down, and new ones are built at an alternative
site. At one time this custom was practiced not only at Ise but also at
the Sumiyoshi Shrine in Settsu Province (Osaka Prefecture), the
Katori Shrine in Shimofusa Province (Chiba Prefecture), and the
Kashima Shrine in Hitachi Province (Ibaraki Prefecture).87
Once, as
we have seen, the kami were thought of as visitors, and temporary
sanctuaries were built to welcome them. Later on, permanent shrine
buildings were erected. The custom of periodically destroying and
87 The chronicle Nihon koki, vol. 5 of the Rikkokushi (Osaka: Asahi shimbunsha, 1929), compiled
in the early Heian period, describes these early shrine customs. Also see Inagaki Eizo,
Jinja to reibyo (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1971), pp. 178-9.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO 355
reconstructing shrine buildings seems to hark back to a time when
kami were housed in structures built only at festival time.
During this period, imported Buddhism challenged and influenced
Shinto, finally embracing it to form a syncretic faith. Immediately
after Buddhism was introduced in the sixth century, disputes arose
between its adherents and clans which maintained that their kami
were offended by the adoption of a foreign religion. But Buddhism
was regarded as an efficacious form of magic that ensured the welfare
of the emperor and state. It was argued, moreover, that Buddhism
was an integral part of the Chinese culture that was sure to strengthen
the state and enhance imperial authority. Finally Buddhism was a
support of the state. Its doctrines were spread among the nobility,
some of whom comprehended Buddhist teachings with increasing
degrees of sophistication. The court sponsored the construction of
temples and supplied them with sacred images; Buddhist monks were
invited to recite the sutras at court; and Buddhist rituals were included
in state ceremonials. Court-supported Buddhism nourished
especially in the Nara period (710-94), when great temples were
constructed in the new capital, monks were given official ranking and
their ordination was regulated by the state, and in all provinces temples
were built under official auspices. The function of the official
Buddhism of this period was to ensure the welfare of the state. The
salvation of individual souls or the rebirth of individuals after death
were concerns left largely to the unordained clergy, who also practiced
magic, divination, and shamanic methods of healing and were
persecuted for their heresy.
The aristocratic Buddhist faithful did not abandon the native kami
but simply, it seems, assigned different functions to Shinto and Buddhism.
Shinto explained the origins of the Japanese state and sanctified
the position and functions of emperors, even though aristocrats
below the emperor claimed descent from other kami. Shinto, moreover,
linked the court to its own past and to the animistic nature
worship that still underlay the whole structure of Japanese society.
Buddhism, on the other hand, provided a metaphysical cosmic view
elaborated by sophisticated teachings. The Japanese state order was
seen as a reflection of the Buddhist world order. For example, Emperor
Shomu (r. 724-49) installed a statue of the Rushana Buddha
(Vairocana) as the central object of worship at the great T6dai-ji. In the
doctrines of the Kegon sect, Vairocana occupies the center of the
cosmos, and all the Buddhas who surround him are his manifestations.
The emperor seems to have related his idea of imperial hegemony to
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356 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
the centrality of Rushana within the Buddhist system.88
Thus Buddhism
could be used to support the throne's supremacy, but the imperial
clan's claim to the throne was ultimately guaranteed by Shinto,
which declared the emperor to be a descendant of the Sun Goddess
and a kami incarnate.
At the end of the Nara period, Buddhism and Shinto began to form
a syncretic system. The kami were seen as sentient creatures, one step
higher than human beings but still possessed by carnal passions and in
need of the Buddha's salvation. On the other hand, kami were regarded
as guardians of the Buddhist law. The development of this
syncretism reflects similar efforts in India and China to incorporate
native deities into the Buddhist order.
The Nihon ryoiki, compiled in the early Heian period by the
Yakushi-ji monk Keikai, is thought to contain many folk tales that
reflect the popular Buddhism of the Nara period. Some of these point
to the existence of a Shinto-Buddhist syncretism at a popular level. In
one Ryoiki tale, the kami venerated at Taga Shrine in Omi Province
(Shiga Prefecture) appeared as a small white monkey and asked that a
Buddhist monk read the sutras to him. The Ryoiki also tells how En
no Ozunu, a legendary practitioner of both Buddhist and Shinto magic
arts, forced the fearsome kami of Mt. Kazuraki, Hitokotonushi, to
sling a bridge from Kazuraki to Kinpu, a distant mountain.8
» The
kami in both tales were connected with the imperial clan in legends
that appear in the Kojiki, if not in the Ryoiki itself: The kami of Taga
shrine is identified as Izanagi, and the Mt. Kazuraki kami revealed
himself to King Yuryaku (r. 456-79) when he visited that mountain.90
Beginning in the Nara period, the highest levels of Buddhism and
Shinto were affected by the belief that kami were guardians of the
Buddhist law. Buddhist temples called jingu-ji (shrine temples) were
established on the precincts of the nation's most important shrines,
such as Usa, Ise, Tado, Sumiyoshi, and Kashima. Buddhist monks
read sutras to the kami, and the kami themselves were often called
bosatsu (bodhisattvas). In 741, during the reign of Emperor Shdmu,
the court presented copies of the Lotus Sutra to the Usa Shrine, and
monks were sent to read the sutra to Hachiman, the kami worshiped
88 Daigan Matsunaga and Alicia Matsunaga, Foundations ofJapanese Buddhism (Los Angeles:
Buddhist Books International, 1974), vol. I, pp. 119-22.
89 Nihon ryoiki, NKBT 70.385-9, 135-7, trans. Kyoko Motomichi Nakamura, Miraculous
Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition: The Nihon Ryoiki of the Monk Kyokai (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 253-5, 140-2.
90 Kojiki, bk. i, NKBT 1.73; Philippi, Kojiki, p. 73; and Kojiki, bk. 3, NKBT 1.316-17;
Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 360-1.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHINTO 357
there. In 749, when the T6dai-ji and its great Rushana image were
completed, Empress Koken issued an imperial decree thanking Hachiman
for his assistance with the project.
The Shoku Nihongi describes Koken's visit to T6dai-ji on this occasion.
The empress was accompanied by her father Shomu, who had
ordered the making of the great Buddha statue, and by Oga Morime,
priestess of the Usa Grand Shrine. As a representative, perhaps, of
Hachiman, the priestess was carried to the temple on a purple-colored
palanquin. The empress had fifty monks pay homage to the Buddha
image and chant sutras, and various dances were performed in honor
of the Buddha and of Hachiman. Empress Koken then bestowed the
highest court rank on Hachiman.'1
Buddhism also influenced Shinto arts and architecture. There were
no images of kami before the development of Shinto iconography in the
Nara period. Though the earliest extant examples of Shinto images date
from the Heian period, records suggest that the practice ofmaking such
images began slightly earlier. For example, an image ofthe kami at Tado
Shrine of Ise was installed and venerated there, according to shrine
records dated 763. The text also names the kami a bosatsu.*1
The
Gishikicho, records of the Ise Shrine compiled in 804, mentions the
earlier completion of an image of Tsukuyomi as a man riding a horse.'*
By the end of the Nara period, Buddhist architectural style began to
influence the construction of shrine buildings. Early shrines such as
Izumo and Ise had been built in simple form that resembled native buildings
used for dwellings or storehouses. Natural, unpainted wood was
used. But shrines constructed in the Nara period, such as Kasuga in the
capital and Usa, were sometimes mere elaborate. Roofs took on curved
lines; pillars and railings were stained with vermilion lacquer; and the
pillars were set on foundation stones. The main hall at Usa, in particular,
was modeled on the Buddhist architectural style in which two symmetrical
halls are joined under one roof. Perhaps it was felt that such a
setting would be a suitable place for monks to recite sutras to the kami.**
Thus by the end of the eighth century, Shinto had evolved into a
complex religious system that supported the Japanese state, and it
formed a syncretic relationship with Buddhism. Though official Shinto
91 For the presentation of sutras to Usa Shrine, see Shoku nihongi, KT 2.165. F°r
the Usa
priestess's visit to the Todai-ji, see p. 206.
92 Ise no kuni Tadojinguji garan engi narabi ni shizaicho, in Hanawa Hokiichi, ed., Zoku gunsho
ruiju, vol. 27 (Tokyo: Zoku gunshoruiju kanseikai, 1927), 2.350.
93 Kotaijingu gishikicho, in Gunsho ruiju, 1.15.
94 Inagaki, Kodai nojinja kenchiku, pp. 78-81; Hayashino Masunori and Sakurai Toshio, Jinja
no kenchiku (Kyoto: Kawahara shoten, 1974), pp. 309-14.
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358 EARLY KAMI WORSHIP
would change after the Nara period, it was given a certain fixed form
when some of its basic myths were committed to writing. Shinto was
retained in the Japanese belief structure, even though it never developed
the metaphysical worldview or system of ethics that characterize
world religions. Perhaps this was because of its close connection with
Japanese Buddhism, which had enough metaphysics and ethics to serve
both. On the popular level, Shinto still functioned as the guarantor ofa
plentiful supply of food, whether from field, mountain, or sea. Thus
Shinto continued to be focused on people's most basic fears - illness,
natural disaster, infertility, and harvest failure - and to give them hope
that such disasters could be prevented by supernatural intervention.
In summary, the history of Shinto demonstrates the retention of primitive
elements, even as the religion evolved into more complex forms.
The kami that appear in the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki had their origin
in the animistic beliefs of the Jomon and the Yayoi periods. By the
seventh and eighth centuries, these primitive beliefs had been incorporated
into an official, written mythological system arranged to support
imperial power. Other primitive beliefs and practices - such as shamanism,
divination, and magic - were retained in Shinto, but with
considerable alteration.
The early development of Shinto reflects its animistic origins. Natural
objects such as rocks and trees must have seemed appropriate
lodgings for kami who were regarded as spirits of mountains or forests,
and the first buildings that enshrined kami were only temporary
structures. The ancient Japanese thought of kami as nature spirits, not
as their own dead ancestors. But in the Burial Mound period, powerful
clans began to trace their descent back to important local kami.
State Shinto developed as the Yamato court appropriated the worship
of provincial kami. During this period, certain features common
in present-day Shinto emerged: permanent shrine buildings and the
use of objects such as mirrors, swords, and jewels to house and represent
the kami.
In the final period of development, the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu,
was placed at the apex of the Shinto structure. The final systemization
of Shinto, culminating in the recording of officially approved versions
of the myths in the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki, accompanied the
adoption of Chinese-style governmental patterns. Even as Shinto became
an organized religious system that sanctioned the highest temporal
authorities, the newly imported Buddhism transformed the artifacts,
practices, and beliefs of Japan's ancient native faith.
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CHAPTER 7
EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
Much of the momentum for the spread of Buddhism from India to
distant regions of Asia was generated by the patronage of expanding
empires. After the historic Buddha's (Sakyamuni's) teachings were
embraced by India's first empire builder, the religion began to assume
the character of a "world religion" as emperors of the Mauryan empire
became believers and practitioners. Then when Buddhism moved, in
the first century A.D., across central Asia to China, Chinese emperors
of the Han dynasty welcomed Indian monks bearing Buddhist scriptures,
patronized ambitious translation projects that produced a great
corpus of sacred literature, and took an active interest in Buddhist
statues made in a Greek or northwest Indian style.1
Following the demise of the Later Han empire early in the third
century, China was torn by internal strife for more than three centuries.
A new empire was not formed until the rise of the Sui dynasty in
589. Meanwhile, Buddhism continued to prosper as Chinese kings
vied with one another in supporting Buddhist monks. They even
sponsored contests in the translation of Buddhist sutras. Two especially
famous monks enjoyed royal patronage during these years of
disunity: Kumarajiva (350-414), an eminent translator of Buddhist
texts, and Tao-an (312-85), known as the earliest Chinese systematizer.
Tao-an was the compiler of China's first comprehensive catalogue
of Buddhist texts (Tsung-U-chung-ching-mu-lu) that reportedly
contained 639 titles in 886 volumes.2
A second catalogue containing
2,211 titles in 4,251 volumes was compiled by Seng-yu (445-518) a
century later.
Sakyamuni's teachings were meant to show how enlightenment
1 For a summary treatment of the pre-Han background of Buddhism and its development in
China during the Han dynasty, see Kenneth K. S. Ch'en, Buddhism in China: A Historical
Survey (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 3-53. The origins of Buddhist
statues have been studied by Takada Osamu, Butsuzo no kigen (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1967).
2 Although Tao-an's compilation no longer exists as an independent work, its entries are incorporated
into fascicles 3 through 5 of Seng-yu's "Ch'u san-tsang chi-chi," in Taisho shinshu
daizokyo, 55.i5b-4oc.
359
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360 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
could be achieved and human misery eliminated by rejecting attachments
to anything impermanent, but at the hands of Chinese religionists
who studied Buddhist scriptures and founded Chinese schools
in this period of disunity, the religion was deeply influenced by Taoist
beliefs and practices.3 It came to be honored, especially in north
China, mainly for its magic power to provide material benefits and,
along with Taoism and Confucianism, as an ideological support for
kingly authority.
As powerful kingdoms emerged in Korea and Japan during those
centuries of Chinese disunity, their leaders were quick to see that
Buddhism occupied a central position in Chinese conceptions of sovereignty
and to conclude that the adoption of this religion, together with
other Chinese techniques for increasing the power of a state, would
facilitate their own efforts to tighten control over more territory and
more people. Thus the rise of the Korean kingdoms was paralleled and
colored by the kingly support of Buddhism. Because Japan stood at
the end of this northeast Asian line of Buddhist transmission and was
affected by steps taken at previous points along that line, this chapter
will open with a brief sketch of the spread of Buddhism into Korea's
three largest kingdoms.4
BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF THE KOREAN KINGDOMS
Of the three great Korean kingdoms to emerge during the fourth century
A.D., the first was Koguryo. Located directly across the northern
border of China and benefiting from the services of Chinese officials
who had served in north Korea, Koguryo was also thefirstto be affected
politically and culturally by ruler-supported Buddhism. Paekche, the
second independent kingdom to surface, was somewhat slower to adopt
Chinese methods and religious practices, for its position southwest of
Koguryo made it impossible for its envoys to reach the Chinese court
without crossing either Koguryo or the North China Sea. The third
Korean kingdom to be born in that fourth century was Silla. Situated
along the southeastern coast of Korea, its kings were even slower to turn
to Chinese forms of governance, but their later adoption of Chinese
techniques and ideas was sweeping and thorough. Much of the Bud-
3 Kamada Shigeo, Chugoku Bukkyo tsushi (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1978), pp. 18-24; Tsukamoto
Zenryu, Chugoku Bukkyo isiishi (Tokyo: Suzuki gakujutsu zaidan, 1968), vol. 1, pp.
45-47-
4 The first section of this chapter, "Buddhism and the Rise of the Korean Kingdoms," was first
written by Koyu Sonoda, translated by John W. Buscaglia, and condensed by Delmer M.
Brown, who wrote the remaining sections.
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BUDDHISM AND THE KOREAN KINGDOMS 361
dhism that reached Japan in the sixth century came from these three
Korean kingdoms and affected, and was affected by, rulership in ways
that were both similar and different. The process by which the kings of
each Korean state attempted to identify their rule with the worship of
Buddha reveals a central aspect of cultural life throughout Asia in these
early times: a persistent interaction between the role of a ruler as a
conductor of religious rites and his role as a possessor of political power,
an interaction reflected in the meaning and use of the Japanese words
ken'i (spiritual authority) and kenryoku (physical authority).
Koguryo
Koguryo was founded in A.D. 313 when a federation of non-Chinese
tribes of Tungus lineage succeeded in subjugating Lo-lang, China's
north Korean commandery.5 By the end of that century, direct Chinese
control over the area was largely eliminated as King Sosurim (r.
371-84) began to build a strong centralized state, to sponsor Buddhism,
to establish a National Confucian Academy (the T'aehak), and
to institute a Chinese-style legal system. The power that flowed from
these reforms enabled his successors, notably King Kwanggaet'o (r.
391-413), to increase the size and strength of Koguryo by winning
military victories against distant enemies. According to a memorial
stone erected in 414, King Kwanggaet'o even repelled Japanese (Wa)
invaders in the year 399.6
The origins of Buddhism in Koguryo are closely linked with events
occurring as early as the Sosurim reign. According to an old Korean
chronicle (the Samguk sagi), in 372 King Fu-chien of the north China
dynasty of Former Ch'in sent to Sosurim a Buddhist monk (Shun-tao)
bringing with him Buddhist scriptures and images. The same source
adds that Sosurim responded by sending an envoy to China who returned
to Koguryo two years later accompanied by another monk (Atao)
and that in 375 Sosurim erected two Buddhist temples: one for
each of the Chinese monks who were sent to Koguryo in diplomatic
exchanges with the kingdom of Former Ch'in. A third Buddhist temple
was built in 392 by Kwanggaet'o, the dedication for which included
these words: "Believing in Buddhism, we seek prosperity."7
5 Ikeuchi Hiroshi, Man-Sen shi kenkyu: josei hen (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1951), vol. 1,
pp. 85-107.
6 Ki-baik Lee, A New History of Korea, trans. Edward W. Wagner with Edward J. Shultz
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984), p.-38.
7 Kogugwan 9 and Kwanggaet'o 3, Samguk sagi, fascicle 18.
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362 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
The reign of King Kwanggaet'o is thought of as Koguryo's golden
age of political might and Buddhist splendor. At the very start of his
illustrious reign, Kwanggaet'o opened nine Buddhist temples. A few
years later, according to both Korean and Chinese sources, a Chinese
monk by the name of T'an-shih arrived in Koguryo with copies of
excerpts from dozens of sutras and vinayas in the Chinese Buddhist
canon. T'an-shih preached Buddhism in Koguryo for ten years, returning
to China in 405.8
A recently excavated tomb found on the outskirts
of P'yongyang, one judged to be that of a Koguryo aristocrat who died
in 408, contains a memorial inscription describing the deceased as a
"disciple of Sakyamuni."9
Tamura Encho's study leads him to conclude
that the words of the inscription may have been taken from the
Mi-le-hsia-sheng-ching sutra (translated into Chinese between 384 and
385), a copy of which was probably brought to Koguryo by T'an-shih
in 396.10
T'an-shih seems, however, to have become more famous for
his miraculous powers than for his knowledge of Buddhist scripture:
He was referred to as the "pure-footed priest" because his feet were
always clean, even after walking through mud."
In 1978 a remarkable archaeological discovery was made at the site
of a Buddhist monastery built by King Changsu (413-91) soon after
the Koguryo capital was move to P'yongyang in 427. Some one hundred
twenty meters from the monastery was a "King Tongmyong
tomb" with inscriptions and frescoes suggesting that Changsu was the
principal conductor of ceremonies performed at both the ancestral
tomb of King Tongmyong and the nearby Buddhist monastery.12
The
Samguk sagi contains information that gives us a sense of the tomb's
significance. We are told that each of the five ancient tribes of
Koguryo had their own ancestral tomb, worshiped their own patriarch,
and gathered in the tenth month of every year to perform a
tongmyong ("petition to the east") rite honoring a heavenly deity called
Susin.13
Further elucidation of the tongmydng has been supplied by
Mishina Shoei, whose studies of ancient Korean myths show that the
rite had a dual character: a harvest festival in which Susin waf "glcomed
to a sacred spot along the Yalu River in the eastern precincts of
8 "Hogen-ji Chisho daishi jakusho tohi," in Chosen sotokufu, ed., Chosen kinseki soran (Seoul:
Chosen sotokufu, 1919): 1.89.
9 Che-hi, "Atarashiku hakkutsu sareta Toku-ko-ri funbo," Chosen gaho (November 1979): 6-7.
10 Tamura Encho, Kodai Chosen Bukkyo to Nihon Bukkyo (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1970),
pp. 8, 81.
11 See Kao Seng Chuan. In Taisho shinshu daizokyo, 50, p. 392.
12 Hotta Keiichi, trans. "Atarashiku hakkutsu seiri shita Kokuri tomei 6 176," Kodaigaku
kenkyu 92 (May 1980): 19-23.
13 Cited in "Tung-i chuan" of Wei shu, fascicle 30.
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BUDDHISM AND THE KOREAN KINGDOMS 363
the ancient Koguryo capital, and an ancestral rite in which the tribes
worshiped their primordial patriarch. A tongmyong festival thus included
elements of both the agricultural mother-earth worship of
south Asia and the livestock-raising shamanism of north Asia.1
''
The location, construction, and style of King Tongmyong's tomb
and the religious outlook reflected in its inscriptions substantiate the
conjecture that the tomb was a sacred place for the ancient tongmyong
rite and that it was moved to P'yongyang when King Changsu built his
capital there in 427. Religious historians note, too, that the tomb's
frescoes do not contain traditional images of the four-constellation
deities but feature, instead, lotus-blossom designs and other ornamentation
used for depicting a Buddhist paradise.'5
At the ruins of the Buddhist monastery itself - probably built soon
after P'yongyang became the capital - archaeologists have found the
remains of main halls arranged around three sides of a pagoda, giving
the monastery a pagoda-centered pattern that is seen at other P'yongyang
temples and at the Asuka-dera erected in Japan a century or so
later.16
This discovery of similarities between the P'yongyang temples
and the Asuka-dera suggests that Koguryo's influence on Japanese
Buddhism was somewhat deeper than is indicated by the mere presence
in Japan - reported in a 593 item of the Nihon shoki - of a Buddhist
priest from Koguryo.'7 As we shall see, Japanese emperors and
empresses, like the Koguryo kings before them, endeavored to
strengthen their spiritual authority after 645 by playing a leading role
in the development of Japanese Buddhism while continuing at the
same time to conduct rites honoring imperial ancestors and ancestral
kami.
Koguryo was influenced by the "state Buddhism" of China's northern
kingdoms, particularly after King Changsu moved his capital to
P'yongyang in 427 and initiated the practice of paying tribute to the
Northern Wei, establishing a tributary relationship that was formalized
in 435. Henceforth Koguryo maintained close relations with that
north China court, welcoming the importation of Buddhist teachings
14 Mishina Shoe:, Kodai saisei to kokurei shinko (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1973), pp. 49,64,173, 159-
230, and Shinwa to Bunka ryoiki (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1971), pp. 530-31.
15 Hotta, "Atarashiku hakkutsu seiri."
16 Sugaya Fuminori, "Hakkakudo no konryu o tsujite mita kofun shumatsuji no ichi yoso,"
Shisen 42 (1971): pp. 32-46. A tile was also found on which was engraved the words tomb
temple.
17 Suiko 1 (593) 4/10, in Sakamoto Taro, Ienaga Saburo, Inoue Mitsusada, and Ono Susumu,
eds., Nihon koten bungaku taikei (hereafter cited as NKBT) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1967),
vol. 68, pp. 172-5. Translated by W. G. Aston, Nihongi, Chronicles ofJapan from the Earliest
Times to A.D. 697 (hereafter cited as Aston) (London: Allen & Unwin, 1956), pt. 2, p. 123.
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364 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
and rites that made the worship of Buddha an increasingly strong
support for the ruler's spiritual authority.18
Paekche
Korea's second powerful and independent kingdom, Paekche, came
into existence during the first half of the fourth century A.D. when one
of the several Mahan states located in the Han River basin absorbed a
neighboring state and subjugated the Chinese commandery of Taifang.
Within a few decades, Paekche had become embroiled in war
with Koguryo to the north and, according to the Samguk sagi, invaded
the Koguryo capital in 371 and killed its king. In the following year,
Paekche began paying tribute to the Eastern Chin court of south
China. Tradition has it that Buddhism was first introduced to Paekche
by a Chinese monk arriving from Eastern Chin in 384.'» But Buddhism
did not become a major current of Paekche's cultural history
until the much later reign of King Muryong (501-23).
Both Korean and Chinese sources suggest that Paekche's relative
slowness in accepting Buddhism was due not simply to its contact with
a southern China court, where aristocratic rather than state-oriented
Buddhism flourished, but to internal conditions that made its people
unreceptive to foreign beliefs and ideas. Whereas Paekche's royal family
came from the immigrant Puyo clan,20
a major ethnic constituent of
the state's population was the indigenous clan of Han, over which the
rulers were never able' to gain full control.21
Buddhism was accepted
by the royal family but was slow to permeate the lives of the Han
people. This was due, in part, to the community-centered attitudes of
an agricultural people who resisted the adoption of foreign religious
practices introduced by immigrant leaders.
An analysis of the rituals performed in Paekche show that they,
like those in Koguryo to the north, were influenced by both northern
shamanism and southern agricultural beliefs. But in Paekche (especially
among the Han people) the latter were older and stronger, as is
indicated by the nature of the sacred place (the sotsu) outside an
agricultural village, where a large pole was erected and bells and
drums were used when worshiping the village deity at planting and
18 Lee, A New History of Korea, pp. 38-40.
19 Hsiao Wu-ti, Tax-yuan 9, in Chin shu, fascicle 9; Suematsu Yasukazu, Shiragi shi no sho
mondai (Tokyo: Toyo bunko, 1954), p. 135.
20 Entry for southern Puyd in Samguk sagi, fascicle 2, and for Paekche patriarch Onjo, fascicle
23; and "I-man chuan" of Sung shu, fascicle 97.
21 Hatada Takashi, Chosen shi (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1959), P- 32.
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BUDDHISM AND THE KOREAN KINGDOMS 365
harvesting times of the year. Whereas a Koguryo tomb was focused
on ancestors and on blood-related status, a Paekche sotsu stood at the
religious center of a village and was the place where villagers worshiped
their deity mainly for obtaining good crops.22
Thus Paekche's
ritual system was not a type that could easily be used by a ruler
attempting to strengthen his authority through the introduction of a
world religion.
But a crisis was created in 475 when Paekche was assaulted, and its
capital city of Hansong captured, by the military forces of Koguryo's
King Changsu. A new capital was then established at Ungjin in the
heart of Han territory. Administrative reforms, extensive and effective
during the reign of King Muryong (501-23), resulted in the importation
of new bureaucratic arrangements and a more rapid spread of
Buddhism. When Muryong dispatched an envoy to the Liang court of
southern China in 521, he received a Chinese greeting that stated that
"having survived this crisis of state, Paekche is, and will continue to
be, strong."2
3
In 1971 archaeologists discovered a tile tomb that had been made for
the burial of King Muryong, who died in 523, and for the burial of his
queen who died three years later. Although the tomb was found to
contain epitaph stones and superb funerary objects, nothing indicated
that Muryong's worship of Buddha was anything like what had developed
in Koguryo. The honeysuckle arabesque and lotus-blossom designs
used in the ornamentation of gold crowns, wooden tables, and
footrests represent the essence of south China Buddhist art. The designs
adorning the walls of the burial chamber and the corridor leading
to it are similar to those found in Buddhist temples constructed after
the capital was moved to Puyo in 538.24
Pak Yongjin and Inagaki
Shinya have pointed out that the styles and motifs of the tiles used in
Paekche temples built before the capital was moved to Puyo are similar
to those unearthed from the ruins of temples erected in south China
at about that same time.2
*
22 San-kuo chih, fascicle 30; entry for Korean Han tribes in "Tung-i chuan" of Wei shu; and
Mishina, Kodai saisei to kokurei shinkd, pp. 22, 243-8.
23 Entry for Paekche in "Man-i chuan," Liang shu, fascicle 54.
24 Kim W6n-gy6ng and Arimatsu Koichi, eds., Bunei oryo (Tokyo: Rondo shuppansha, 1979);
Tamura Encho, "Kudara Bukkyo-shi josetsu," in Tamura Encho et al., eds., Kudara bunka to
Asuka bunka (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1978), p. 322; Karube Jion, Kudara bijutsu
(Tokyo: Hounsha, 1946), p. 245.
25 Pak Yongjin, "Kudara gato no taikei-teki bunmi: noki marugawara o chushin to shite," in
Tamura et al., eds., Kudara bunka to Asuka bunka; Inagaki Shinya, "Shiragi no kogawara to
Asuka Hakuho jidai kogawara no Shiragi-teki yoso," in Tamura Encho and Chin Hong-sok,
eds., Shiragi to Nihon kodai bunka (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1981).
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366 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
The golden age of Buddhism in Paekche did not begin, however,
until after King Songmyong had moved his capital to Puyo (then
called Sabi) in 538. Numerous temples were erected there soon after-
ward.26
Ceramic tiles from Paekche's Buddhist structures of this period
exhibit a uniquely subtle beauty and originality that bespeak a
deep and broad acceptance of the Buddhist faith. Through a study of
the tiles made for Buddhist temples in the sixth century, we can trace
the path by which Buddhism was transmitted from the south China
court of Liang through the south Korean state of Paekche to Japan.
Reports recorded in the history of Liang (Liang shu) indicate that four
missions were sent to Paekche during the reign of King Songmyong
(52
3-54) and that Paekche had requested commentaries on the Niehp'anching,
other Buddhist scriptures, Confucian texts, and artisans.2
'
As we shall see, it was during this golden age of Buddhism in Paekche
that the religion was introduced to Japan from that particular Korean
kingdom. A south China variety of Buddhism, it arrived in Japan by
way of Paekche from the Chinese state of Liang then ruled by Emperor
Wu-ti, who has been described as the most pious Buddhist
devotee in the whole of Chinese history.28
Silla
At about the time that Paekche was coming into existence on the
southwestern side of the Korean peninsula, the third strong and independent
kingdom, Silla, was emerging to the southeast. By the seventh
century, Silla dominated the entire peninsula. But until the reign
of King Pophung (514-40), it was little more than a loose federation of
walled-town states ruled by hereditary heads of the Kim clan.29
Silla's
development as a state was slower than that of Koguryo or Paekche,
not only because of its location farther away from the Chinese source
of advanced culture and control techniques, but also because as an
agricultural society, Silla lacked powerful and independent lineages of
the type found in Koguryo and Paekche. Moreover, until the reign of
Pophung in the first half of the sixth century, Silla was harassed by
26 Kitano Kohei, "Kudara jidai ji'in chi no bumpu to ritchi," in Tamura et al., eds., Kudara
bunka to Asuka bunka, pp. 115-18.
27 Wu-ti, "T'ien-chien," vol. 2 of Liang shu, fascicle 2; Imanishi Ryu, Kudara shi kenkyu
(Kyoto: Chikazawa shoten, 1934), pp. 131, 267; and Keitai 7/6 and 10/9, Nihon shoki, NKBT
68.28-29, 33-35-
28 Mori Mikisaburo, Ryo no Butei: Bukkyo ocho no higeki (Kyoto: Heirakuji shoten, 1956), p.
134-69.
29 Lee, A New History of Korea, pp. 40-43.
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BUDDHISM AND THE KOREAN KINGDOMS 367
strong neighbors: Koguryo to the north, Paekche to the west, and
Kaya and Japan to the south.
But a number of interacting developments contributed to a sudden
increase in King Pophung's power and control. He benefited, first,
from a sharp increase in agricultural productivity arising mainly from
the adoption of such important agricultural techniques as tilling the
land with ox-drawn plows and keeping the rice fields watered by
improved methods of irrigation. But Pophung also adopted advanced
methods of strengthening administrative control. After issuing an order
that he was henceforth to be referred to by the Chinese title for
king (wang), Pophung promulgated a code of administrative law in
520 and changed the era name to Konwon (New Beginning) in 536.
Between 527 and 535 he also adopted Buddhism as a means of increasing
his spiritual authority over the emerging Silla stated0
Just how did this happen? An examination of the priestly role that
Pophung had previously played in rites performed at the most sacred
traditional places of worship (sobol) suggests that the king's position as
chief priest had developed rather slowly and that, after the official
adoption of Buddhism, was changed in no fundamental way. He simply
took on the additional role of Buddhism's chief patron. The earlier
process by which a Silla king had assumed the role of chief priest of all
indigenous rites cannot be easily traced, but it was probably slower
than in either Koguryo or Paekche, as state formation was not supported
by a strong aristocratic lineage group like the Kyeru of
Koguryo or by a militant immigrant clan such as the Puyo clan of
Paekche. Instead, a Silla king came from a line of hereditary chief
priests, the Hyokkose of Saro, whofirstconducted rites for a cluster of
agricultural villages and then gradually gained religious and secular
authority over more and more villages. The resultant federation of
agricultural communities was clearly accompanied by the rise of federated
festivals at which the Silla king served as chief priest of rites that
stood above, and embraced, those held at each village shrine (so&o/)-31
As in Koguryo and Paekche at an earlier time, the spread of Buddhism
as an element of a Silla king's spiritual authority came in two
distinct stages: an initial stage of reform and a later golden age.
Koguryo's earlier period of reform had come under Sosurim in the last
half of the fourth century, and Paekche's under Muryong at the beginning
of the sixth, but for Silla it did not come until the reign of King
Pophung in the middle of the sixth century. As for the later golden age
30 Ibid., p. 43. 31 Mishina, Kodai saisei to kokurei shinko, pp. 554-81.
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368 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
of state power and Buddhist prosperity, Koguryo's came during the
reign of King Kwanggaet'o early in the fifth century, and Paekche's at
the time of King Songmyong in the middle of the sixth. But Silla's was
during the reign of King Chinhung in the third quarter of the sixth
century. Thus the adoption and spread of Buddhism in Silla came at
least a full century later than in Koguryo to the north, but only a few
years later than in Paekche to the west.
And as in the cases of Koguryo and Paekche, Silla was first introduced
to Buddhism, according to written sources, by monks sent to
the king from a neighboring state. The tradition recorded in the
Samguk sagi contains three significant points: (i) that Buddhism was
officially adopted in the fifteenth year of the reign of King Pophung
(527 or 528), whose name can be literally translated as "the king under
whom Buddhism flourished"; (2) that this event was preceded by an
earlier arrival of a Buddhist monk from Koguryo, accompanying an
envoy from Liang bearing incense for a Buddhist offering; and (3) that
for a time during Pophung's reign, only one minister advocated the
recognition of Buddhism, a minister who was later put to deaths A
consideration of the findings of Suematsu Yasukazu, who made a
careful comparative analysis of the sources, leads me to conclude that
Buddhism was probably first introduced to Silla some time after 522
by a monk (A-tao) who accompanied an envoy from the Chinese state
of Liang. The envoy was apparently sent to Silla in response to an
official dispatched to Liang in 521. The arrival of this incense-bearing
envoy from Liang was probably followed by the adoption of Buddhism,
as recommended by the Liang emperor.33
Archaeologists provide concrete and convincing evidence of the
spread of Buddhism into Silla during the reign of Pophung. Their
findings are mainly from excavations made at the remains of the Hungnyun
temple which, known as Silla's first government-administered
Buddhist institution, is said to have started construction in 527 when
Silla first adopted the religion and to have finished in 544. Although
excavations have not yet been completed and the finds have not been
fully studied and analyzed, an earthen dais found there may have been a
part of the foundation for a golden hall at the original Hungnyun temple.
The layout of the compound is not yet clear, but according to recent
reports, the round eave tiles (the so-called stirrup tiles) unearthed there
have the eight-petal lotus designs (heart-shaped petals, high-relief-
32 Wu-ti, P'u-t'ung 2/11, Liang shu, fascicle 3; Suematsu, Shiragi shi no sho mondai, pp. 218-
307.
33 Suematsu, Shiragi shi no sho mondai, pp. 18-26.
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BUDDHISM AND THE KOREAN KINGDOMS 369
centers, and curl-back tips) typical of tiles found at contemporary temple
sites in both Paekche and Liang.34 It is thus thought that Silla
Buddhism, during the reign of Pophung, was of a south China type
introduced from Liang by way of Paekche.
Silla's golden age of Buddhist prosperity and state growth came in
the later reign of King Chinhung (540-75), a time of vigorous territorial
expansion. In 551 Chinhung, then an ally of King Songmyong of
Paekche, wrested from Koguryo ten districts in the Han River basin.
In the following year he sent armies against Paekche, breaking an
alliance that had existed for 120 years, and seized the whole of the
lower Han region, giving Silla an outlet on the North China Sea that
afforded direct passage to China. During another period of active
expansion between 561 and 568, Chinhung set up inscribed stone
monuments at frontier points of his expanded territory. Four of these
are known as the oldest inscribed Silla monuments in existence. At the
head of a list of names on one are the words "the Buddhist monks
Popjang and Hyeryong,"35 suggesting that Buddhist priests outranked
even generals and officials who had participated in Chinhung's successful
invasion of neighboring territory and whose names were inscribed
below the names of the two monks.
In recent years archaeological investigations have also been carried
out at the site of Hwangryongsa, the leading temple of Silla's golden
age, whose construction was begun in 553 - just after King Chinhung
succeeded in seizing territory along the coast of the North
China Sea - and completed in 566.3s
Excavations made there disclose
the remains of a pagoda surrounded by three golden halls, as well as
tiles that suggest Koguryo origins and connections. The traditional
theory that Silla Buddhism was influenced first by Koguryo and then
by Paekche therefore must be reversed: The Buddhism of the earlier
Pophung period was introduced from Liang of south China through
Paekche, but the Buddhism of the later golden age of King Chinhung
came from north China by way of Koguryo. Inagaki Shinya
pointed out that the appearance of north China tiles at Hwangryongsa
logically followed Silla's 552 occupation of the lower Han
River basin.37
34 Kim ChOnggi, "Bukkyo kenchiku," in Tamura and Chin, eds., Shiragi to Nihon kodai bunka,
pp. 118-20; Inagaki, "Shiragi no kogawara," p. 161.
35 Ikeuchi, Man-Sen shi kenkyu: josei hen, 2.1-96; Suematsu, Shiragi ski no sho mondai, pp.
276-94, 439-49-
36 The temple's image was not cast until 574, and its famous nine-storied pagoda was not built
until the middle of the following century.
37 Kim Chdnggi, "Bukkyo shigaku," pp. 120-6; Inagaki, "Shiragi no kogawara," pp. 164-73.
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37O EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
North China Buddhism
(Former Ch'in and northern Wei) Koguryd
South China Buddhism
(Liang) Paekche
Figure 7.1. Diagram showing spread of Buddhism from China to
Japan.
A linkage between Silla and Koguryo (and north China) after 552 is
also corroborated by a biographical account, recorded in the Samguk
sagi, of General K6 Yombu of Silla. On his triumphal return to Silla
after victorious battles against Koguryo in 551, K6 Yombu was accompanied
by a friendly Koguryo monk named Hyeryong. The two had
apparently become close friends during previous battles in Koguryo.
After their return, King Chinhung appointed Hyeryong to Silla's highest
Buddhist office and instituted Buddhist services and lectures later
held at the Hwangyong temple.*8
Yi Chonggi also believes that
Hwangyong itself was founded in response to a request, by Hyeryong,
that Silla's victorious campaigns against Koguryo be thus commemorated.
My own (Sonoda) view is that Silla's acquisition of the lower
Han River basin in 552 opened up a channel of direct contact with
China, accounting for an increasingly deep and wide range of Chinese
cultural influence on Silla toward the end of the sixth century, just
when Buddhism was being introduced to Japan.
The routes by which both northern and southern Chinese Buddhism
reached Japan are shown in Figure 7.1.
SOGA BUDDHISM
An examination of the channels, conditions, and timing of the Korean
acceptance of Buddhism - first in Koguryo located closest to China,
and then in Paekche and Silla farther away - suggests that Yamato
would be the next state to accept Buddhism and that its first Buddhist
teachers, statues, and scriptures would come from Paekche. An article
on Yamato in an early Chinese source, describing late-sixth and early-
38 Ri Kihaku, "K6ryu-ji to sono soken," in Tamura and Chin, eds., Shiragi to Nikon kodai
bunka, p. 18.
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SOGA BUDDHISM 371
seventh-century conditions in that distant land, states that the Japanese
"revered Buddhist teachings, obtained Buddhist scriptures from
Paekche, and came to have a written language for the first time."39
Early decades
Although we have reliable historical and archaeological evidence that
large Buddhist temples were built in the Yamato capital of the Asuka
region during the closing years of the sixth century, we have only
spotty information, and little consensus, on the timing and circumstances
of the earlier introduction and spread of that imported faith.
From the extant sources, which are secondary and fragmentary, two
conflicting theories have been formulated. The first, based on entries
in the Nikon shoki, is that Buddhism was introduced to the Yamato
court in 552, the thirteenth year of the Kimmei reign. The second,
based on an early history of Yamato's first great temple (the Asukadera)
entitled the Gango-ji engi, claims that it was introduced in 538,
the fifty-fifth year of the Chinese sexagenary cycle that began in 484.
The Nihon shoki account states that King Songmyong of Paekche
sent to King Kimmei of Yamato an envoy bearing Buddhist images
and scriptures and that a message from Songmyong recommended the
adoption of Buddhism on the grounds that this religion had greatly
benefited the rulers of other lands. The Yamato court ministers were
divided on the issue of adoption, and so finally Kimmei had Soga no
Iname, who favored adoption, perform Buddhist rituals experimentally.
The experiment was followed by an epidemic that Soga opponents
attributed to the displeasure of the native kami. Accordingly,
Kimmei had the statues cast into the Naniwa Canal and a recently
constructed Buddhist pagoda burned to the ground. The chronicle
item concludes with the report that, on that day, winds blew and rain
fell under a clear sky/0
A critical study of this account reveals two serious flaws. First,
questions are raised about the envoy who was reportedly dispatched
from Paekche: His name does not appear in any other source of that
day; no other person from the "western section" appears in the Nihon
shoki until after 655; and there is no other reference to such a high
Paekche official (with the rank of takot) coming to Japan in the sixth
century.41
Second, the Buddhist texts presented to Kimmei were
39 Wo-kuo, "Tungg-i chuan," Sui shu, fascicle 81.
40 Kimmei, 13/10, NKBT 68.100-3; Aston, 2.65-67.
41 Ikeuchi, Man-Sen shi'kenkyii, 1.356-7; NKBT 68.554.
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372 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
based, according to studies by Iida Takesato and Fujii Akitaka, on the
Chin-kuang-ming-tsui-shen-wang-ching, which was not translated into
Chinese until 703.^ Noting this second flaw, Inouye Kaoru observed
that Doji, a Buddhist priest who went to China in 702 and returned in
718, brought back a copy of the recent translation that the compilers
of the Nihon shoki had seen.« Historians are therefore in general
agreement that the Nihon shoki item concerning the introduction of
Buddhism contains additions and embellishments made by later editors.
And yet it cannot be denied that King Songmyong of Paekche
actually sent Buddhist images and texts to the Yamato king around the
middle of the sixth century and that this was an important event in the
early history of Japanese Buddhism.
The Gango-ji engi, thought to have been compiled a few decades
earlier than the Nihon shoki and to have been less affected by an urge to
glorify the imperial line, provides independent support for key points:
that a presentation of Buddhist statues and scriptures was indeed made
by the king of Paekche, that the presentation was followed by a conflict
over its acceptance, and that Soga no Iname favored the official adoption
of Buddhism. Finally, this source adds support to the theory that
Buddhism was introduced to Japan in 538 rather than in 552.+*
Many scholars have examined the Gango-ji engi and other early
texts, developing theories about their composition, dating, and reliability.
In regard to when Buddhism was first introduced to the Yamato
court by King Songmyong, they can agree only that it occurred sometime
between 538 and 552. But textual analyses, together with the
study of early Buddhist history in the three kingdoms of Korea and
reflections about the significance of a ruler's patronage of a world
religion,45 are helping us gain a clearer understanding of two knotty
42 Iida Takesato, Nihon shoki tsushaku (Tokyo: Unebi shobo, 1940), vol. 4, pp. 2748-49; Fujii
Akitaka, "Kimmei-ki no Bukkyo denrai no kiji ni tsuite," Shigaku zasshi 36 (August 1925):
71-74-
43 Inoue Kaoru, Nihonkodainoseijitoshukyo(Tokyo: Yoshikawakobunkan, 1961), pp. 189-232.
44 The tendency to consider 538 as the year in which the Paekche king sent Buddhist statues and
texts to Yamato has led a number of historians to ask why the Nihon shoki gives the date 552.
One rather convincing theory is that 552 was calculated to be the 1,501st year since the death
of Sakyamuni, the first year of the third and final Buddhist age of deterioration (mappo).
Tamura Encho found that Chinese Buddhists had long believed this final age would soon
begin, or had already begun, and that Doji (who returned to Japan in 718) transmitted such
views to Japan. Still another theory is that the discrepancy between 538 and 552 (fourteen
years apart) is based on two ideas about the beginning of the Songmyong reign: 513 or 527,
also a difference of fourteen yean.
45 A thoughtful study has been made by Yuasa Yasuo, Kodaijin no seishin sekai, vol. 1 oiRekishi
to Nihonjin (Kyoto: Mineruba shobo, 1980). Tsuji Zennosuke's views on the transmission of
Buddhism to Japan have long been accepted; see his Nihon Bukkyo shi: jdsei hen (Tokyo:
Iwanami shoten, 1944), pp. 33-43, 45.
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SOGA BUDDHISM 373
historical questions: Why were the Soga and other clans divided over
the acceptance of Buddhism until the Soga military victory of 587?
And why did Buddhism not become a state religion, with imperial
patronage, until the Soga defeat in 645?
A divided society
Early texts present a consistent picture of Soga support for Buddhism
during that crucial sixth century. The rise of this clan and its connections
with the introductions and spread of Buddhism, were outlined in
Chapter 3. Here I wish to consider the problem of resistance to the
adoption of Buddhism, which is most clearly revealed in (1) two cases
of persecution before the Soga victory of 587 and (2) the actions and
ideas of Empress Suiko and Prince Shotoku in the years before the
Soga defeat of 645. When studying the resistance issue, we are faced
with a paucity of evidence that is often contradictory, but we are
beginning to see that Japan was then divided, as Paekche had been, by
two fundamentally different types of clans: those with chieftains
whose spiritual authority flowed from rites honoring the imported
worship of Buddha and those with chieftains whose spiritual authority
arose from the performance of rites addressing indigenous deities.
This division was not unlike the one that had complicated the introduction
and acceptance of Buddhism in Paekche, where kings were
heads of the immigrant Puyo clan (said to be descendants of the
semilegendary founder of Koguryo) and performed ancestral rites at
tombs, whereas indigenous Han chieftains ruled an agricultural people
and performed agricultural rites held at village sotsu. So when the royal
Puyo clan adopted Buddhism, reinforcing its spiritual sacred-lineage
authority with the sponsorship of imported rites, the native Han people
and their leaders were slow to follow suit.
The unresponsiveness of the Han was not due simply to a dislike of
what the immigrant masters did and wanted but, rather, to broad and
deep assumptions - arising from an entirely different social and religious
situation - concerning the nature of divine power and how that
power could be directed to the enrichment of agricultural life. Unlike
Koguryo, where Buddhism spread rapidly to the lowest levels of society,
Paekche's indigenous Han people, being locked into a primitive
agricultural ritual system, never fully accepted the authority of the
Puyo kings and probably never permitted Buddhism to permeate the
life of its villages. Such social and religious polarity helps us understand
why Buddhism was not adopted by the Paekche kings until more
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374 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
than a century after the arrival of the first Buddhist monk from China.
According to the Satnguk sagi, the first priest to arrive in Paekche was
sent by the Chinese court of Eastern Chin in 384, but Buddhism was
not adopted by a Paekche king until the reign of Muryong (501-23),
over 150 years later.
Roughly the same kind of sociopolitical division existed in Japan.
On its native side, kings rose above the clan federations in which the
divine authority of all leaders, from village heads to Yamato kings,
flowed from their roles as priests of agricultural rites. To be sure, clan
chieftains and Yamato kings were increasingly preoccupied with ways
of emphasizing the divinity of their particular lines of descent, but the
core of the native ritual system was agricultural in character. On the
immigrant side of the division, leaders were heads of clans who had
come to Japan with advanced techniques for constructing tombs and
buildings, making tools and weapons, and managing imperial estates
and governmental affairs. The Soga, gradually achieving a position of
dominance in this immigrant segment of society, also took the lead in
introducing and supporting Buddhism.
Whereas the immigrant Soga chieftains were undergirding their
spiritual authority by sponsoring Buddhist rites held at temples (tera),
the Yamato kings and Japanese emperors from the native segment of
society were achieving spiritual authority from their roles as chief
priests for the worship of agricultural kami at shrines (jinja). By appreciating
the broad socioreligious differences between these two segments
of society in sixth-century Japan, we can see that resistance to
Buddhism did not arise simply from personal belief in kami but was
rooted in traditional assumptions that community life, and especially
the life of its rice plants, was more likely to be enriched if kami rites
were performed properly by a community leader: village head, clan
chieftain, or Yamato king.
The first Nihon shoki reference to the suppression of Buddhism is
found in a long entry for the thirteenth year of the reign of Kimmei
(552?) about what transpired after the king of Paekche presented a
Buddha image and Buddhist sutras and recommended the adoption of
the Buddhist religion. The account reports that Soga no Iname, chieftain
of the leading immigrant clan, favored its adoption: "All neighboring
states to the west already honor Buddha. Is it right that Japan
alone should turn its back on this religion?" But two other high ministers,
who were chieftains of native clans, were opposed: "The kings of
this country have always conducted seasonal rites in honor of the many
heavenly and earthly kami of land and grain. If [our king] should now
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SOGA BUDDHISM 375
honor the kami of neighboring states, we fear that this country's kami
would be angered."*6
Although it is now agreed that this account had
been subjected to considerable editorial change, these quotations present
positions that would logically have been taken by the leaders of the
two separate segments of Japanese society: the immigrant clan chieftain
maintaining that the king should do what the kings of Korean
states had already done, and the native clan chieftains pointing out
that a king in Japan had always conducted rites for the various agricultural
kami of the land.
A report recorded later in this same account states that Kimmei
compromised, ordering Soga no Iname to worship Buddha experimentally.
Then a pestilence broke out and Kimmei, apparently fearing that
this disaster had occurred because he had not properly performed his
priestly role, ordered Buddhist statues thrown into the Naniwa Canal
and Buddhist halls burned.47
But the Gango-ji engi places the first
suppression of Buddhism in 569 and links it with the execution of
Soga no Iname in the closing months of Kimmei's reign, not with the
sudden outbreak of a pestilence. Thus the first suppression of Buddhism
seems to have been caused mainly by the death of a Soga leader.
As soon as Iname's son, Soga no Umako, began to regain the position
of influence that his father had held, Buddhist worship was revived.
In 584, according to the Nihon shoki, Umako asked Paekche for
two Buddhist images, sent Shiba Tatto around the country looking for
Buddhist practitioners, had Tatto's daughter ordained as nun, built a
Buddhist hall at the Soga residence where a Miroku statue was enshrined,
asked three Buddhist nuns to perform a Buddhist rite there,
saw a miraculous sight when handling a Buddha relic, and "practiced
Buddhism unremittingly."-*8
The same source states in an item of the
second month of the following year that the country suffered from
another pestilence after which, and on a recommendation made by
two ministers who were chieftains of traditional clans, Buddhism was
again banned. Buddhist statues as well as a pagoda and Buddha hall
were again burned, and three nuns were stripped and flogged.« But
because the pestilence continued, the emperor permitted Soga no
Umako - but no one else - to resume the practice of his faith.5° The
Gango-ji engi reports the same sequence of events but with one significant
difference: Instead of pinning the blame on the two antiBuddhist
ministers, as the Nihon shoki does, it states that the origina-
46 Kimmei 13/10, NKBT 68.102-3; Aston, 2.66-67. 47 Ibid.
48 Bidatsu 13, NKBT 68.148-9; Aston, 2.101-2.
49 Bidatsu 14/3/1 and 13/3/30, NKBT 68.150-1. 50 Bidatsu 14/6 NKBT 68.151.
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376 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
tor of the purge was Emperor Bidatsu himself. As the chief priest of
kami worship, he, not his ministers, would have been the logical
leader of, and spokesman for, priestly rulers in the native segment of
Japanese society. Opponents of Buddhism are also referred to as "the
other ministers" (yoshiri), a term apparently denoting all anti-Buddhist
ministers who were chieftains of clans in the traditional segment of
society.5'
Soga authority
A two-stage showdown between the two opposing segments of society
came in 587 and 592, as a result of which the Soga clan emerged
victorious and Buddhism began to prosper. By the military victory in
587, the chief ministerial opponent of Soga no Umako was killed, and
by the court coup in 592 the uncooperative Emperor Sushun was
assassinated. The enthronement of Empress Suiko (a Sushun sister
who had a Soga mother) in 593 is considered to be the starting point of
the Asuka enlightenment, a period when Soga no Umako was in control
of state affairs and when China-oriented cultural activity revolved
about the Asuka-dera that he had built. Why, then, did not Umako
himself occupy the throne as a Chinese victorious general might well
have done? And did Empress Suiko really become an active supporter
of the Buddhist cause?
Convincing answers to both questions must take into account the
conflicting interests and beliefs of Japan's two opposing clan societies:
(1) the less populous immigrant clan groups located mainly in and
around the capital, enjoying wealth and power arising from an extensive
use of imported techniques and learning and associated with the
worship of imported Buddhism, and (2) the far more populous native
clans scattered throughout the country, engaged largely in agricultural
production and the worship of native agricultural kami.
As the highest-ranking clan chieftain in the immigrant segment and
the chief sponsor of imported Buddhism, Umako must have concluded
that he could not become emperor, a position traditionally held
by an imperial son who performed the time-honored role of high priest
in the worship of native agricultural kami. He may have decided this
because he knew what trouble the royal clan of Paekche had had in
ruling that state's native Han people and realized that he, as head of an
51 Hino Akira compared the Nihon shoki and Gango-ji engi treatments in bis Nikon kodai no
shizoku densho no kenkyu (Kyoto: Nagata bunshddd, 1971), pp. 187-207.
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SOGA BUDDHISM 377
immigrant clan, would never be accepted as the high priest of indigenous
kami rites. Even if he had not understood the nature of the
problem faced by the royal clan of Paekche, he would have reached the
same conclusion by noting fundamental differences between the leadership
role in the two segments of Japanese society, recognizing that he
could not assume both roles even if he had achieved military supremacy
by defeating the strongest native clan and arranging the assassination
of an uncooperative emperor.
Imperial authority
The impossibility of joining the two roles cannot be understood without
realizing the strength and basic character of the kami worship
(Shintoism) that had come to pervade all aspects of life in the native
segment of Japanese society. Such worship was, first, carried out by a
particular community as a whole and was centered on a pervasive
belief that the community could enjoy the benefits of the mysterious
life-giving power of its kami only if the kami were honored by a
priestly leader - village head, clan chieftain, or state sovereign - who
stood closest to, or was possessed by a part of, that particular kami.
This three-layered priestly structure, with village heads dominating
clan chieftains and a Yamato king standing above the chieftains, had
been developing for centuries.
Harada Toshiaki points out that originally a community's priestly
head - at the bottom of the structure from which upper layers
emerged - was chosen ritually, thereby making certain that the selection
was in accord with kami will.'2
Divinely chosen heads at all three
levels were believed to administer all community affairs, not just kami
rites, as an expression of divine will. Even when clan rule became
hereditary, a chieftain was believed to be conducting clan affairs in
accord with the will of the clan kami. The development of this priestly
system had paralleled the growth of the Yamato kingdom, with each
level strengthening and being strengthened by the other. Soga no
Umako must have known that because he was not the son of a previous
Yamato king and was instead the son of an immigrant clan chieftain,
he could not, no matter how much wealth and power he had accumulated,
seize the throne and be accepted by kami-worshiping communities
as their chief priest.
52 Harada Toshiaki, Shukyo to shakai (Tokyo: Tokai daigaku shuppankai, 1972).
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378 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
Was it also impossible for Empress Suiko, even though she had a
Soga mother, to sponsor the worship of Buddha and, at the same time,
to serve as the high priestess of kami worship? Until World War II,
most Japanese historians tended not to differentiate her support of
Buddhism from that of Soga no Umako and Prince Shotoku. Five
references to her support of Buddhism, recorded in the Nihon shoki,
were then accepted at face value. These stated that she had ordered
her ministers to support the Three Treasures and to make copper and
embroidered images of Buddha, that she had a Buddhist nunnery
built, that she requested Prince Shotoku to lecture on Buddhist sutras,
and that she appointed priestly officials (sojo and sozu) and then ordered
them to supervise other Buddhist monks and nuns.53
But the Nihon shoki also includes an edict that she issued in the
fifteenth year of her reign (607) on the subject of her religious responsibilities
as a descendant of priestly rulers who honored kami:
We have heard how our imperial ancestors ruled the land in ancient times.
Descending from heaven to earth, they devoutly honored heavenly and
earthly kami. They worshiped [kami residing in] mountains and rivers everywhere
and were in mysterious communion with heavenly and earthly kami.
By performing rites to kami and by worshiping and communing with them in
this way, our imperial ancestors harmonized negative and positive forces
[on'yd] and handled affairs in accord with [those forces and the will of the
kami]. Now in our reign nothing should be done to anger the heavenly and
earthly kami by the way in which we honor and worship them. So we hereby
command that our ministers work together devotedly in the worship of heavenly
and earthly kami.*»
Although the five Nihon shoki items about her support of Buddhism
say nothing about her playing a priestly role in the worship of Buddha,
this edict points directly to her priestly functions in the worship of
kami, stating that these had been inherited from her imperial father's
ancestors and must be properly performed.
Only recently have historians come to see that it was not the empress
but Soga no Umako who was the principal beneficiary of the spiritual
authority thatflowedfrom the worship of Buddha. Scholars first began
to think of Buddhism in these pre-645 years as Soga Buddhism when
their textual analyses of Nihon shoki items - especially those dealing
with the introduction and early spread of Buddhism - revealed a strong
53 Suiko 2 (594)/2/i, NKBT 68.174-5; Suiko 13 (6o5)/4/l, NKBT 68.186-7; Suiko 14 (6o6)/5/
5, NKBT 68.186-7; Suiko 14 (6o6)/7, NKBT 68.188-9; Suiko 32 (624)/4/i3, NKBT
68.208-9.
54 Suiko 15 (607X2/9, NKBT 68.188-9.
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SOGA BUDDHISM 379
pro-imperial, anti-Soga bias. They soon realized it was natural to find
such biases in a work that was compiled several decades after 645 by
officials of an imperial government formed in the wake of the Soga
defeat, when the government was attempting to extend and deepen an
emperor's religious authority by having the Yamato king, not a Soga
chieftain, assume the role ofchief sponsor and high priest of Buddhism.
As Futaba Kenko pointed out, the compilers apparently added the item
about Emperor Kimmei's handing down an imperial edict requiring
Soga no Iname to honor Buddhism, as well as the one that Emperor
Bidatsu is said to have handed to Soga no Umako.55 Fukuyama Toshio
showed an even more obvious case of purposeful editorializing by comparing
the Nihon shoki's and the Gango-ji engi's treatments of the same
event: the arrival of Buddhist relics and Buddhist priests from Paekche
soon after Soga no Umako had won his military victory against native
clans in 587. The Nihon shoki clearly states that these relics and priests
were presented to the imperial court, whereas the Gango-ji engi reports
that they were brought to Japan in response to a request sent to
Paekche, presumably by Soga no Umako.56
Soga patronage
But the case for Soga's prominence in the rapid spread of Buddhism
after 587 does not rest simply on the minor role played by Empress
Suiko. Even the Nihon shoki reports leave little doubt that the leading
Buddhist temple of the period, the Asuka-dera, was erected by Soga
no Umako following a vow he made immediately before winning the
military victory of 587.57 And when that great temple compound was
completed in 596, the same chronicle reports that his son was asked to
serve as temple commissioner (tera no tsukasa)J*
Inoue Mitsusada observed that the Asuka-dera - whose size and
grandeur have been revealed by recent archaeological investigations is
of historical significance on several counts: It was the first large
continental-style building ever erected in Japan; it occupied a central
position in Japan's first "permanent" capital; and it had a clan-temple
(ujidera) character common to all temples founded before the Great
55 Kimmei 13 (552?)/io, NKBT 68.102-3; Bidatsu 14 (585?)/2/24, NKBT 68.149; Futaba
Kenko, Nihon kodai Bukkyo-shi no kenkyu (Kyoto: Nagata bunsho-do, 1984), p. 41.
56 Sushun 1 (588)/3, NKBT 68.168-9. This text is compared with that of the Gango-ji engi text
in Futaba, Nihon kodai Bukkyo-shi, p. 43.
57 Sushun, before enthronement (587X7, NKBT 68.164-5.
58 Suiko 4 (596)/!!, NKBT 68.174-5.
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380 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
Reforms of 645 (see Chapter 3). It was, in addition, the centerpiece of
an emerging temple system that by 624 included forty-six temples
concentrated in and around the Nara basin where the immigrant clans
were based. With its imposing statues, great bronze bells, and exotic
ceremonies, this temple system - an impressive representation of continental
cultural achievement - symbolized the Soga's wealth and
power and, at the same time, enhanced the spiritual authority of the
Soga chieftain. Futaba concluded that Empress Suiko's less-thanenthusiastic
support of Buddhism may have stemmed from her conviction
that Soga no Umako was intentionally using the Buddhist
system to increase his spiritual authority, planning eventually to overwhelm
the imperial clan and make Buddhism a state religion, not just
a clan religion in which the Soga head was the chief patron and high
priest.59
The rapid spread of Buddhism between 587 and 645 was certainly
due in large measure to the generous support provided by the immigrant
clans, especially the Soga, and to the exotic appeal of Buddhist
paraphernalia and ritual, but another contributing factor was the
increasingly popular belief that Buddhist rites had a mysterious
power to produce spectacular physical benefits. Early Buddhist temples
were built around a pagoda (a memorial to Buddha), at the base
of which a Buddha bone (shari) was commonly placed, making a
pagoda something like the inner sanctuary of a shrine where the most
sacred object (the shintai or kami body) was housed. So at both a
Buddhist temple and a Shinto shrine, a particularly potent sacred
article was believed to possess an essence of divinity that could, with
the appropriate ritual, benefit the human community in substantial
and concrete ways.
We find no evidence that Buddha was worshiped at a Soga temple
for the purpose of ensuring spiritual enlightenment or rebirth in a
Buddhist paradise after death. The Nihon shoki tells us that when Soga
no Umako himself became ill in 623, a thousand men and women were
admitted to the Buddhist priesthood "for his sake."60
Two decades
later, at the time of the terrible drought of 642 when offerings and
prayers to kami produced no rain, the Soga minister proposed another
type of prayer: the reading of excerpts from Mahayana sutras at Buddhist
temples, with the Soga minister himself participating. The report
says that because rain fell the next day, the reading of excerpts
was discontinued two days after it had been started.61
59 Futaba, Nihon kodai Bukkyo-shi, p. 44. 60 Suiko 22 (6i4)/8, NKBT 68.200-1.
61 Kogyoku 1 (642)7/25, 7/27, 7/28,7/29, NKBT 68.240-1.
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SOGA BUDDHISM 381
Prince Shotoku's Buddhism
Having traced the general outlines of Buddhist development on the
immigrant side of Japanese society, and the rise of what has been called
Soga Buddhism, we shall turn next to the nature and historical significance
of the Buddhism of Prince Shotoku (574-622), known as the
father of Japanese Buddhism. The prince was more clearly a member
of the imperial family than was Empress Suiko: He was a son of
Emperor Yomei, had been designated Suiko's successor to the throne,
and was her regent. According to the Nihon shoki, he was responsible
for opening up relations with the Chinese court of Sui, adopting reforms
and reform policies, and building a palace and Buddhist temple
at some distance from the Asuka region where the Soga's control was
centered. In sum, he is depicted as a crown prince and regent who had
become, by about the age of thirty, an independently powerful political
leader who also lectured on Buddhist scriptures at the imperial court.
Until recently, historians have been generally skeptical about the authenticity
of evidence concerning Prince Shotoku's Buddhist activities,
especially after coming to realize that Nihon shoki compilers had permitted
this chronicle to be colored by their pro-imperial, anti-Soga bias.
But recent archaeological investigations made at the prince's palace
in Ikaruga, the nearby Ikaruga-dera (now known as the Horyu-ji), and
the Arahaka-dera in Naniwa (now known as the Shitenno-ji) show that
his palace and the two temples associated with him were actually built
at places and times indicated in Nihon shoki reports (see Chapter 3, this
volume). Moreover, historians do not now doubt the veracity of two
statements made about his faith. The first, made by his son Prince
Yamashiro in 628 when he refused to press his own candidacy for the
throne, reads as follows:
And when my father was dying, he called his children in and said: "Avoid every
kind of evil and practice every kind of good." I heard these words and embraced
them as my constant rule of life. Although I have personal feelings
[about the succession issue], I will therefore be patient and not become angry.62
Because the phrase "Avoid every kind of evil and practice every kind
of good" appears in Buddhist scripture, Yamashiro's report is thought
to be a reflection of what the prince had believed.6
3
The second expression of the prince's Buddhist belief is found in an
inscription on an embroidered picture of heaven (tenjukoku shucho)
62 Jomei, Introduction (629), NKBT 68.225-7.
63 Ienaga Saburo, "Shotoku Taishi no Bukkyo," in Ienaga Saburo, ed., Kodai hen, vol. 1 of
Nihon Bukkyo-shi (Kyoto: Hozokan, 1967), pp. 70-71.
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382 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
made by the prince's wife, Tachibana no Iratsume. The picture shows
the prince facing his wife and observing, "The world is impermanent;
Buddha alone is truth." Although this inscription suggests that the
prince understood and accepted this fundamental Buddhist teaching,
it is thought that belief in a Buddhist heaven (the subject of the embroidered
picture) was held only by his wife.64
The third most important piece of evidence concerning Prince
Shotoku's Buddhist ideas and beliefs is found in Articles 2 and 10 of
the famous Seventeen Injunctions, commonly referred to by the misleading
term "Seventeen-Article Constitution" and recorded in a 604
item of the Nihon shoki.65
As early as the Edo period (1603-1868), a
historian maintained that the Seventeen Injunctions had not been written
by Prince Shotoku but by the Nihon shoki compilers. And in more
recent years the distinguished Tsuda Sokichi claimed that the injunctions
could not have been written before 645, as they included a term
for governor (kokushi) that was not used until after 645. But recent
research has shown that for some years both terms for governor (Jkuni
no miyatsuko and kokushi) had been used in earlier times. This and
related discoveries have largely discredited Tsuda's position. Now it is
generally agreed that the injunctions were in accord with the political
situation of the early seventh century and that they may well have been
composed by Prince Shotoku.
The second of the Seventeen Injunctions urges the worship of Buddha
in these words:
Sincerely revere the Three Treasures of Buddhism (Buddha, the Law, and the
Priesthood). In all four types of life and in all countries [of the world] they are
the ultimate truth. Any person of any age should revere Buddhist law. Few
persons are really bad. If they are well taught, they will be obedient. But if
they are not converted to [the truth of] the Three Treasures, how can their
wrongs be corrected?
And the Buddhist portion of the tenth injunction reads:
[The sutras] say that one should avoid indignation, decry angry looks, and
not be angry about differences with others. Every person has a heart, and
every heart has its attachments. What is right for others is wrong for us, and
what is right for us is wrong for others. We are not necessarily sages, and
others are not necessarily fools. Both we and others are ordinary human
beings. Who can sharply distinguish between what is bad and what is good?
Although other injunctions, as well as the last part of injunction 10, reflect
Chinese Confucianism and Legalism, these two quotations - parts
64 Ibid., p. 71. 65 Suiko 12 (604)/4/3, NKBT 68.180-7; Aston, 2.128-33.
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SOGA BUDDHISM 383
of which have been traced to particular sutras - reveal that Buddhism
too was an important ingredient in the injunctions' ideological mix.
One additional Buddhist source traditionally associated with Prince
Shotoku is the Commentaries on Three Buddhist Sutras (Sangyo
gisho): the Shoman Sutra, the Yuima Sutra, and the Hokke-kyo or
Lotus Sutra. Of the three, the commentary on the Lotus Sutra is said
to have been written in the prince's own hand. The first scholar to
claim that these commentaries were composed by someone else was
Tsuda Sokichi, who maintained that the prince was not a monk who
could have given specialized lectures on the sutras but a regent who
was concerned principally with the conduct of state affairs. In short,
Tsuda did not consider the commentaries to be valid historical evidence
of what the prince thought about Buddhism.
But Hanayama Shinsho's detailed study of the contents of the commentaries
on the Lotus and Shoman sutras has led him to agree with
the Nara Buddhist who attributed them to the prince. Supporting
Hanayama's case was the discovery that only pre-589 sources had been
used. Hanayama decided, too, that the commentaries could not have
been written by a foreigner, as they had a definite Japanese cast.
Although Ienaga Saburo does not think that Shotoku's authorship has
been proved, he believes that Hanayama has made an important contribution
by showing that these commentaries reflect Chinese Buddhist
thought during the period of China's Southern and Northern courts
(420 to 589).66
What does such evidence tell us about Prince Shotoku's Buddhist
ideas and beliefs? The answers given by historians range widely between
those of Tsuda, who did not consider the prince a serious Buddhist
thinker, to those of Ienaga, who believes that the prince not only
understood and accepted the most basic Buddhist teachings but was
the first Japanese to grasp the Buddhist doctrine of denial (hitei no
ronri) by which the truth of anything impermanent - that is, anything
but Buddha - is denied. Ienaga's interpretation, though not yet generally
accepted,6
? is appealing and provocative.68
66 Ienaga, "Shotoku Taishi no Bukkyo," pp. 73-75. Ten ancient Chinese scrolls have been
identified as commentaries on the Shoman Sutra written during the period of the Northern
Court. The one referred to as the E Text is remarkably similar to the Shoman commentary in
the Sangyo gisho. Fujieda Akira has compared the two and finds roughly 70 percent of the
wording identical and the general thrust of the interpretations the same; "Shoman-gyo
gisho," Ienaga Saburo, Fujieda Akira, Hayashima Kyosho, and Tsukishima Hiroshi, eds.,
Shotoku Taishi shu, vol. 2 oiNihon shiso laikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975), pp. 484-544.
67 Although Futaba has reservations about certain points, he generally accepts Ienaga's thesis
and reviews the positions taken by other Buddhist scholars; see his Nihon kodai Bukkyo-shi,
pp. 84-101.
68 Outlined in his "Shotoku Taishi no Bukkyo," pp. 64-81.
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384 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
Ienaga concluded that Prince Shotoku's acceptance of the Buddhist
doctrine of denial developed gradually after about 604, when it is
thought the Seventeen Injunctions were written. Before that the prince
seems to have devoted his energies mainly to such administrative tasks
as restoring control over Mimana (Kaya) and modernizing the bureaucracy.
But the two injunctions just quoted reveal an emerging commitment
to the Buddhist denial of truth in any worldly phenomenon, including
the state and one's own self. Unfortunately, nothing remains of
what the prince wrote in the closing years ofhis life, but the statement attributed
to him on his wife's embroidered banner (the tenjukoku shucho)
suggests that he had come to embrace the Buddhist doctrine of denial.
His son Prince Yamashiro may have had an even deeper conversion,
leading Ienaga to say that with Yamashiro we have a model of humanity
restoration (ningen-sei kaifuku) by which an individual is willing to give
his own life for the welfare of ordinary people living in this mundane
world. And here, says Ienaga, the Japanese - who had not until then
been able to rise above the narrow thoughts and beliefs of a closed agricultural
society - made their first great leap into a new spiritual world.6
'
Although the prince is seen as a solitary thinker who was not well
understood by his contemporaries and whose ideas about the truth of
Buddha were not greatly appreciated until centuries later, he was an
important figure in the history of Japanese Buddhism. He not only
founded the Ikaruga temple, which was central to the Buddhism of
Asuka times, but in 608 he sent to China four student priests who,
according to the Chinese dynastic history of Sui, were intent on studying
Buddhist law. When these young priests returned to Japan, usually
after a stay of ten or more years, they not only gave seventh-century
Japanese Buddhism its special character but zealously introduced
many non-Buddhist skills. Under their leadership, Japan gradually
turned its attention from the Buddhism introduced from Koguryo and
Paekche to the Buddhism of the reunified Chinese empire of Sui and
T'ang. Finally, one cannot help but see Prince Shotoku as a forerunner,
if not the forefather, of such thirteenth-century Buddhist reform
thinkers as Shinran (1173-1262) who affirmed a truth that transcended
everything in this polluted physical world.
Toward state Buddhism
But where did Prince Shotoku stand in the old conflict between the
indigenous communities headed by kings and emperors (the chief
69 Ibid.
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SOGA BUDDHISM 385
priests of kami worship) and the immigrant communities headed by
clan chieftains (the principal patrons of Buddha worship)? Although
this question has been studied and debated for years, historians still
disagree on whether the prince was concerned primarily with the building
of a strong state, with the implications of Buddhist law, or with the
formation of state Buddhism. Inoue Mitsusada thinks that the Seventeen
Injunctions (thought to have been written by the prince) were
essentially rules and regulations for officials to follow in exercising
absolute obedience to the emperor and that Buddhism was injected, in
a somewhat minor position below Confucianism and Shintoism, as an
ideological support (see Chapter 3). Ienaga, on the other hand, sees
the injunctions mainly as expressions of the prince's commitment to
the ultimate truth of Buddha, a truth transcending the affairs of state
and the individual self. Futaba Kenko too feels that the prince was not
thinking of Buddhism as a support of state power but as a world
religion for all states, one that should be accepted by all rulers and all
peoples.7°
With respect to the two socioreligious segments of Japanese society
(Buddhist immigrant clans headed by a Soga chieftain and Shintoistic
indigenous clans by Empress Suiko), Prince Shotoku occupied a fairly
strong position in both: He was an ardent supporter of Buddhism who
resided in Ikaruga, an immigrant-clan power base located some distance
from the Asuka capital, and he was also, as crown prince, slated
to follow Empress Suiko as the country's highest-ranking conductor of
kami worship. But his religious interests, his sense of the locus and
character of spiritual authority, differed from those of either Soga no
Umako or Empress Suiko.
Soga Buddhism was closely identified with rites that were believed
to provide miraculous and mysterious physical benefits here and now.
Rites carried out at Buddhist temples were therefore not unlike those
traditionally held at Shinto shrines. But because Buddhist worship
was bound up with the use of exotic paraphernalia imported from
culturally advanced lands, it was believed to generate truly wonderworking
magic, explaining why Buddhism was spreading rapidly in
and around the Soga's power base and strengthening the spiritual
authority of the leading patron, Soga no Umako. Probably, however,
the spiritual side of Soga authority was enhanced even more by the
way that the impressive Buddhist paraphernalia (especially temples,
statues, and bells) symbolized both the physical and the spiritual authority
of the Soga leader. Before Umako's time, kingly authority
70 Futaba, Nihon kodai Bukkyo-shi, p. 6.
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386 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
seems to have been symbolized mainly by huge mounds erected for the
burial of deceased kings. But great temple compounds like the Asukadera
must have symbolized, and thereby generated, far greater authority
than a burial mound did, helping us understand why burial
mounds gradually became smaller and less significant after Umako's
day.
Japanese historians frequently ask whether Soga no Umako was
attempting to establish state Buddhism. Inoue Mitsusada thinks that
he started to move in that direction as soon as he defeated his opponents
in the civil war of 587. For Inoue, Soga Buddhism was therefore
state Buddhism, and Asuka-dera was the first state temple. But
Futaba Kenko maintains that Umako was simply using Buddhism to
strengthen his own authority, not that of the imperial court. For
Futaba, then, Umako may have been thinking ahead to the establishment
of state Buddhism but had taken only the first step in 587. The
second step was not taken by a Soga chieftain but by the emperor
who ascended the throne after the Soga defeat in 645. In the light of
the Paekche model (Buddha-worshiping immigrant leaders ruling
over the indigenous, community-centered people of Han) and of the
fact that Buddhist institutions of Asuka Japan were essentially clan
temples (ujidera), we can conclude that Soga no Umako thought of
himself as the high priest and major beneficiary of rites held at
Buddhist temples. He must have considered all temples of the Asuka
period, even those founded by Prince Shotoku, as units of a particularistic
Soga-supporting religious system. If he looked forward to the
establishment of state Buddhism, he must have seen a Soga state, not
a state ruled by a high priest or priestess of kami worship.
What did Empress Suiko and Prince Shotoku think about this issue?
Empress Suiko seems to have been preoccupied with her role as high
priestess of kami worship; as far as we know she did not found a single
Buddhist temple or conduct a single Buddhist rite. On the other hand,
her designated successor, Prince Shdtoku, is said to have founded two
Buddhist temples, lectured at the court on Buddhist sutras, and embraced
the basic Buddhist denial of permanence, or truth, in this physical
world. Moreover, he is thought of as the author of the Seventeen
Injunctions, which enjoined state officials to serve obediently one emperor
and to revere the Three Treasures of Buddhism.
Historians do not yet agree on the question of how the prince related
his Buddhist convictions to his vision of an imperial state. Whereas
Tamura Encho insists that the prince approached Buddhism as an
individual believer and had no intention of relating Buddhism to the
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SOGA BUDDHISM 387
state,71
Futaba disagrees. Largely accepting Ienaga's views on the
nature of the prince's Buddhist convictions, Futaba argues that the
second of the Seventeen Injunctions (reverence for Buddhism as the
supreme faith of all countries) made Buddhism not only the primary
ideological support for other injunctions but also the religious truth by
which an emperor (presumably a Buddhist convert) could rule effectively.
Thus he sees the second injunction on reverence for Buddhism
as a precondition for the third injunction on obedience to imperial
commands.72
Although Futaba's thesis seems to have greater merit than do those
of other known writers on the subject, the picture will still be blurred
if we disregard the ideological significance of the third injunction on
obedience to imperial commands, which reads as follows:
Scrupulously obey imperial rescripts [mikotonori]. The emperor [kimi] is
Heaven and his ministers are Earth: Heaven overspreads and Earth upholds.
By having [the affairs of state] conducted in accordance with [the demands
of] the four seasons, [benefits] will be obtained from the operation of innumerable
divine forces. But when Earth overspreads Heaven, [the world] is
ruined. Therefore [good] ministers must accept imperial commands: When
actions are taken on high, those below must comply. So edicts handed down
by the emperor must be scrupulously obeyed. If they are not obeyed, [ministers]
will bring ruin upon themselves."
Although this injunction contains Confucian phrases and ideas, its
basic thrust is clear: The emperor is the highest authority of the land.
This authority is not explicitly related to the traditional role of a
ruler who, as chief priest of kami rites, is descended from a long line of
priestly rulers. But neither is that authority rooted explicitly in Confucian
virtue or Buddhist truth. So why is it not logical for the prince to
have assumed, without articulation, that an emperor possessed the
highest authority simply because Japanese emperors had always had
such authority? If such an assumption lay behind the formulation of
the third injunction, we can properly think of that injunction as standing
at the top of a three-tiered ideological structure: Confucianism
principles of ministerial behavior at the bottom (Injunction 1), reverence
for Buddha as the supreme object of worship in all lands on a
higher and more sacred tier (Injunction 2), and traditional imperial
authority at a top spot near Heaven (Injunction 3).
71 Tamura Encho, "Shotoku Taishi no jidai to sono Bukkyo," Shotoku Taishi ronshu, cited in
Futaba, Nihon kodai Bukkyo-shi, p. 45.
72 Futaba, Nihon kodai Bukkyo-shi, pp. 48-51.
73 Suiko 12 (604) 14/3, NKBT 68.180-1, translated somewhat differently in Aston, 2.129.
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388 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
Such an interpretation of the way that Prince Shotoku related his
Buddhist convictions to Japanese imperial rule, when seen against the
backdrop of a divided society with different sources of spiritual authority,
helps us understand why both Soga no Emishi and Soga no Iruka
(Umako's son and grandson) were violently opposed to Prince Yamashiro's
occupying the throne. They must have realized that this son of
Shotoku, apparently more committed to the Buddhist cause than his
father was, would surely draw sacred Buddhist authority to the emperor
and away from the current chieftain of the Soga clan. Accordingly,
Yamashiro and his family were brutally eliminated, an event that
kindled a coup by which the Soga themselves were destroyed. The
emperor (Kotoku) who was placed on the throne then began to patronize
Buddhism, as Shotoku seems to have wanted.
The prince's apparent advocacy of imperial patronage for Buddhism
- no doubt based on the assumption that imperial patronage of
the foreign faith would further justify and sanctify imperial rule explains
why court leaders arranged the assassination of Soga no
Emishi (who was concerned mainly with the Soga's authority) in 645,
why they moved quickly to bring Buddhist priests and temples under
imperial authority, why reform measures were announced by imperial
edict, and why Prince Shotoku soon came to be honored (eventually
worshiped) as a great hero of the imperial line. The Buddhism that
was supported by the state after 645 was not, however, the prince's
type of Buddhism (centered on the doctrine of denial), but a Soga
form that stressed magic and ceremonies honoring deceased ancestors.
RITSURYO BUDDHISM
After eliminating Soga no Emishi in 645, the leaders of the new administration
adopted reforms that led to the formation of a Chinese-style
penal and administrative structure referred to as the ritsuryo state.
Legal and political measures taken to increase the emperor's autocratic
power and authority were paralleled by endeavors to make Buddhism
a state religion: Buddhist temples and Buddhist worship were used in
support of the ruler's authority, similarly to what was done earlier in
China and Korea. The actions taken in those years to sever established
Buddhist temples from Soga patronage and to place them under the
wing of emperors and empresses mark the beginning of what is known
as the period of ritsuryo Buddhism.
Ties between political and religious change after 645 were so deep
and extensive that the truth of contemporary historical movements is
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RITSURYO BUDDHISM 389
obscured by attempts to separate one from the other. Therefore, when
tracing the course of Buddhist history between the coup of 645 and the
removal of the capital to Nara in 710, it is appropriate to identify the
principal Buddhist currents with two political administrations: one set
up around the future Emperor Tenji after the coup of 645, and the other
formed around Tenji's brother Emperor Temmu (d. 686) after the civil
war of 672. Moreover, the leaders of these administrations, like the
imperial predecessors of past generations, were the chief priests ofkami
worship. Even as they became involved in controlling and promoting
the imported Buddhist faith, they seemed to realize that the primary
source of their spiritual authority lay in their hereditary roles as high
priests of native kami worship. Thus even a cursory outline of Buddhism,
particularly in this ancient period, will be distorted if we ignore
its connections with administrative affairs or kami worship.
Tenji's ritsuryo Buddhism
A keynote of the new administration was struck just a few days after
Soga no Iruka's death in 645 when, according to the Nihon shoki,
members of the imperial family and their ministers assembled and
swore an oath that under heaven there is only one imperial way. Other
pronouncements made in those early days before the reforms were
announced suggest that the worship of kami still had a very high
priority. When messengers were sent to governors of the eastern provinces
to announce the emperor's intention to regulate the affairs of
those provinces, the imperial message they carried began with these
words: "In accordance with the charge entrusted to me by the heavenly
kami . . ."74 Clearly, Emperor Kotoku intended not just to rule
the state directly in the Chinese manner but also to function more
positively than ever as Japan's chief priest of kami worship. Just three
days after sending his reform message to the governors of eastern
provinces, the emperor sent off another messenger to the "great Buddhist
temple"75
where priests and nuns were assembled to hear the
following pronouncement:
74 Kotoku 1 (645) /8/5 NKBT 68.273; Aston, 2.200.
75 This temple is thought by some to have been the Asuka-dera founded by Soga no Umako
soon after seizing control of state affairs in 587 and 593. But others think it was the Kudara
Taiji (the Great Paekche Temple) founded, according to the Nihon shoki, by Emperor Jomei
in 639 and later named the Daian-ji. An account of the history of the Daian-ji says that the
golden halls and pagoda of the Kudara Taiji were soon burned down and that the temple was
rebuilt in 642 by Empress Kogyoku and renamed the Daian-ji (the Great Peace Temple).
Kudara Taiji is considered the first Buddhist temple founded by an occupant of the throne.
See lenaga, Nihon Bukkyo shi, 1.92-93.
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390 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
In the thirteenth year of the reign of Kimmei (552?), [the imperial court]
received Buddhist law from King Songmyong of Paekche, but the ministers
rejected it. Soga no Iname alone was a believer, and by imperial order he was
made to practice Buddhism. During the reign of Emperor Bidatsu, Soga no
Umako followed his father in practicing the faith, placing high value on its
teachings. But other ministers were not believers, and the religion almost
disappeared. Then Emperor Bidatsu ordered Soga no Umako to honor Buddhist
law. Later on and in response to Empress Suiko's orders, Soga no
Umako had artisans make an embroidered figure of Buddha that was sixteen
feet high, as well as a bronze statue of Buddha that was sixteen feet high. He
also upheld the teachings of Buddha and honored Buddhist priests and nuns.
Futaba and other historians are inclined to think that these first sentences
of the edict, dealing with the role of earlier emperors and Empress
Suiko, were revised by the Nihon shoki's editors in order to make
it appear that the early sovereigns were more ardent supporters of
Buddhism than they actually were. It is now felt that before 645 no
occupant of the throne, including Empress Suiko and Empress
Kogyoku, had actively patronized or become involved in Buddhist
worship.
But the last part of the edict contains orders for implementing an
entirely new policy toward Buddhism, one that emphasized imperial
control and imperial patronage:
It is our desire to have true Buddhist teachings brilliantly honored. So we
appoint the following [ten] Buddhist masters . . . Emmyo [the last-named
master] is also appointed chief priest of the Kudara-dera. The ten Buddhist
masters [totari no nori no shi] are to give special attention to teaching and
guiding all other Buddhist priests and to making certain that Buddhist
teachings are practiced in accordance with the law. If anyone below the
emperor down through the provincial governors has problems handling the
administration of a temple, he is to receive assistance from us. Temple
commissioners [tera no tsukasa] and chief temple priests [tera shu] will be
appointed. They are to visit temples, ascertain the conditions of priests and
nuns and slaves, assess the productivity of temple fields, and make full
reports to the throne.'6
Immediately following the text of this edict, the Nihon shoki carries a
report of three secular officials' being appointed Buddhist superintendents
Qiozu). Both the hozu and the ten Buddhist masters had their
counterparts in T'ang China. But a particularly strong Chinese influence
seems to have been exerted by the ten Buddhist masters. At least
four of them had recently returned to Japan from several years of
76 Kotoku 1 (645) 8/8 NKBT 68.276-77; Aston, 2.202-3.
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RITSURYO BUDDHISM 391
study at Chinese temples (see Chapter 3). These China-trained masters,
appointed by an edict handed down by the emperor, were at the
forefront of a movement to transform Soga Buddhism into state Buddhism
of the type currently flourishing in China and Korea.77
Because the patronage and worship of Buddha were now transferred
from the head of the immigrant Soga clan to an emperor whose authority
arose mainly from his position as the chief priest of kami worship,
Japanese Buddhism after 645 was more like the Buddhism of Silla than
like that of Paekche. As we noted in the first section of this chapter,
the kings of Silla had emerged from clusters of priestly rulers of agricultural
villages, not from an immigrant clan as in Paekche. Silla was
then becoming the most powerful Korean state, one with especially
close ties to the T'ang empire. Moreover, many of Japan's Chinatrained
priests had returned home by way of Silla. So even though the
T'ang character of Japan's ritsuryo Buddhism is unmistakable, we
should not overlook the direct influence of increasingly powerful Silla
kings who were reinforcing their sacred authority with the worship of
Buddha.
But the substitution of imperial control for Soga control did not
mean that the Soga preference for Buddhist magic had been rejected.
Even though Prince Shotoku had been a prominent member of the
imperial clan, the post-645 reformers were not influenced as much by
the prince's universalistic humanism as by Buddhist forms that were
then popular in China and Korea where Buddhism prospered, mainly
in magical forms, as a support for the state. During the pre-645 reign
of Emperor Jomei, a priest trained in China had lectured on the
Muryoju Sutra,78
but after 645 the new leaders seem not to have been
particularly interested in Buddhist teachings, devoting their attention
instead to Buddhist practices that promised this-worldly benefits: holding
masses (hoe) at court, making Buddhist images, preparing Buddhist
meals, and conducting the colorful "burning-of-lamps" (nento)
rite. When Emperor Tenji became seriously ill in 660, the Nihott shoki
states that one hundred Buddhist images were dedicated at court and
that the emperor personally sent messengers to make valuable offerings
to Buddha.79
77 Ienaga, Nihon Bukkyo shi, 1.95.
78 This was one of the three Pure Land Sutras, often referred to as the Larger Sukhavatl-vyuha.
It describes the Pure Land paradise, traces the rise of Amida Buddha, and explains how
human beings attain Buddhahood in the Pure Land by invoking the name of Buddha.
Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary (Tokyo: Daito shuppansha, 1965), pp. 203-4.
79 Tenji 10 (660) 10/8 NKBT 68.378-9.
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392 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
Temmu's imperial system
After winning the civil war of 672, Emperor Temmu - faced by the
danger of further internal disruption and the continued expansion of
China and Silla - moved first to maintain and strengthen his control.
But in building his "imperial system," he seems to have given more
attention to increasing his spiritual authority than to increasing his
physical authority. His endeavors in the area of kami worship included
upgrading the Ise Shrine where the ancestral kami of the imperial
house (the Sun Goddess) was worshiped, highlighting the emperor's
role as chief priest for the worship of kami at shrines all over Japan,
and compiling chronicles that would justify and sanctify the position
of emperors as direct descendants of the Sun Goddess (see Chapter 3).
Here I (Brown) will sketch only what Temmu did in the Buddhist
area. But the reader should be reminded that as devoted as Temmu
was to the Buddhist faith, he seems always to have been aware that his
position as emperor was based primarily on his ancient role as high
priest of kami worship, and only secondarily on his role as chief patron
of Buddhism.
Temmu had occupied the throne only a short time when he initiated
the practice of having Buddhist scriptures read at the Kawara-dera,
issued an edict that animals be set free (hojo) in the provinces, paid
stipends to Buddhist priests and nuns, held Buddhist retreats (ango) at
the imperial palace, and generally demonstrated that he was sponsoring
Buddhism in a new way. Some say that he was also revealing his
deep personal belief in Buddhist teachings.
As early as the second year of his reign (673) Temmu handed down
an order that the old Takechi no O-dera, the first temple built by an
emperor,80
be called the Great Official Temple (Daikan Daiji). As we
know from archaeological remains, this Great Official Temple had a
nine-storied pagoda comparable to the seven-storied pagoda later built
at T6dai-ji, further supporting the view that Temmu meant this temple
to be the centerpiece of a new Buddhist system that would add
luster to his spiritual authority. From that central temple, Buddhist
ceremonies and institutions spread to outlying regions. By 677, lectures
were being held in the provinces on Buddhist sutras known as
80 This temple had several names (including Daian-ji) and may have been the old Kudara-dera
built by Soga no Umako, subsequently moved and renamed; see Ienaga, Nihon Bukkyo shi,
1-97Cambridge
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RITSURYO BUDDHISM 393
the "state protecting sutras": the Golden Light (Konkomyo-kyo) and
Benevolent Kings (Ninno-kyo).81
The prominence of these two sutras in the development of ritsuryo
Buddhism after the time of Temmu was due mainly to their promises
of protection for states and their leaders. As DeVisser pointed out, the
Golden Light Sutra's sixth chapter is the principal reason that the
sutra was so highly regarded. There we read that "the Four Deva
Kings, the Guardians of the World, promise with all their numberless
followers (demons and spirits) to protect the kings (together with their
families and countries), who attentively listen to this sutra and respectfully
make offerings, receiving and keeping this holy text."82
Likewise,
the contents of the Benevolent Kings Sutra and its use after
Temmu's time indicate that its importance was rooted in the teachings
of the fifth chapter, whose principal subject is again the protection of
states and in which Tathagata addresses kings as follows:
There were in former times 5000 kings of countries, who always read this
sutra, and who in their present life have got their reward. In the same way
you, sixteen Great Kings, must practice the Rite of Protecting the Country,
and you must obey, read and explain this sutra. If in future ages the kings of
countries wish to protect their kingdoms and their own bodies, they too must
act in the same way.8
*
These two sutras contained the basic doctrines of ritsuryo Buddhism
and continued to be honored throughout the Nara period.
In 685, one year before his death, Emperor Temmu issued orders
that were clearly meant to extend the emerging state temple system,
centered at the Great Official Temple at the capital, to outlying provinces.
On the twenty-seventh day of the third month of that year, he
issued this short edict: "Buddhist chapels are to be built in every
house of the several provinces; Buddhist images and Buddhist sutras
are to be placed therein; and Buddha is to be worshiped and offerings
81 The Golden Light Sutra (the Suvarna-prabhasa, T.663) was first translated into Chinese at
the beginning of the fifth century. It was used in Japan until the Shomu reign, when an early
eighth-century translation (known in Japanese as the Golden Light Most Successful King
Sutra, or the Konkomyo saisho-6-kyo) was favored. The latter was the Suvarnaprabhasattama-raja,
Nanjo 126. See M. W. DeVisser, Ancient Buddhism in Japan: Sutras and
Ceremonies in Use in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries A.D. and Their History in Later Times
(Leiden: Brill, 1935), vol. 1, pp. 14-16 and vol. 2, pp. 431-88.
The Benevolent King Sutra (the Karunika-raja-prajnaparamita, T.245), according to the
Nihon skoki, was the subject of a mass (the Ninno-hannya e) held in 660; Saimei 6 (660 5,
NKBT 68.343. But only after Temmu's reign were copies sent to the provinces. See
DeVisser, Ancient Buddhism in Japan, 2.116-89.
82 Ibid., 2.434. 83 Ibid., 1.134-5.
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394 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
made."84
The term "every house" (ie goto ni) apparently denoted the
houses of aristocrats and officials residing in the provinces, not just
those closely connected with the central government.85
Temmu's consort
and successor to the throne, Empress Jito, continued to promote
Buddhism in the Temmu fashion. In the eighth year of her reign (694),
she sent one hundred copies of the Golden Light Sutra to each of the
provinces and issued a command that the sutra be read during the first
month of every year.86
But the Buddhist system did not reach its
highest point of development until more than fifty years later.
Although Temmu seems to have been preoccupied with rites that
would benefit the state, he also relied on the mysterious power of
Buddhism to cure human ailments, particularly his own and those of
his immediate family. The most notable example of his interest in the
power of the healing Buddha Yakushi is reported in a Nihon shoki item
for the year 680: "On the 12th day [of this nth month], the Empress
became ill. First the construction of the Yakushi-ji temple was started;
then one hundred persons were ordained as Buddhist priests. As a
result [of taking these steps] the Empress got better."87
Although
Temmu died before the Yakushi-ji was completed, Empress Jito had
its construction continued. In 698, dedication services were held for
the temple's sacred object of worship, a statue of three Buddhist deities
known as the Yakushi triad.
Excavations at the Yakushi-ji site in Fujiwara show that its layout
was new: In front of a golden hall were two pagodas, one to the east of
a north-south line running from the southern gate and another to the
west of that line. But the Yakushi-ji and two other temples, the Great
Official Temple (later called the Daian-ji) and the Asuka-dera, were
moved from Fujiwara to Heijd (now Nara) after the latter became the
capital in 710. Historians feel that Yakushi-ji's original golden hall and
two pagodas may have been substantially altered during the move. If
not, the present-day eastern pagoda of the Yakushi-ji, as well as the
Yakushi triad, are truly valued treasures of the pre-Nara (Hakuho)
period.
The Buddha teachings honored at Yakushi-ji were undoubtedly
those of the Yakushi Sutra, although that sutra was not mentioned in
Japanese chronicles until 686, when Temmu became ill. A Nihon shoki
item for that year reports that when the emperor became sick, priests
were asked to expound on the Yakushi Sutra at the Kawara-dera - not
84 Temmu 14 (685)3/27, NKBT 68.468-69; Aston, 2.369. 85 lemga, NihonBukkyoshi, 1.98.
86 Jit68(694)5/n,NKBT68.525. 87 Temmu9(68o)u/i2,NKBT68.443-5;Aston,2.348.
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RITSURYO BUDDHISM 395
the Yakushi-ji - and to hold a Buddhist retreat at the imperial palace.88
The contents of the Yakushi Sutra indicate why the emperor should
have turned to it at a time of personal crisis, for it tells of a perfect
Buddha of Healing (Yakushi Nyorai), unsurpassed in wisdom, who
vowed to bless individuals on the path to Buddhahood. The seventh
vow must have been especially appealing, for there Yakushi promises to
help "all ill and helpless sentient beings to achieve recovery, to be
blessed with peace and joy of body and mind, to become wealthy, and to
obtain the state ofenlightenment by hearing his name."89
When looking
at the the Yakushi triad that has come down to us from that day, one can
easily see that this splendid symbolization of the healing Buddha
(flanked by two attendant bodhisattvas of the sun and moon)90
might
well convince a worshiper that as he heard the teachings of Yakushi Sutra
and gazed at this magnificent statue of the healing Buddha, he would
indeed achieve recovery. Unfortunately, Emperor Temmu did not recover.
But belief in the mysterious power of the healing Buddha - an
important aspect of ritsuryo Buddhism - continued to spread and prosper,
coloring Japanese religious life in subsequent periods of history.
Buddhism controlled by law
State control of Buddhist priests and temples, a central theme of early
edicts issued by Emperor Tenji, was also urged by his successors. It is
not surprising, therefore, to find that an entire section of the Taiho
administrative code, promulgated in 701, was devoted to Buddhist
monks and nuns. If earlier codes (the Omi civil code said to have been
completed in 668 during the Tenji reign, and the Asuka no Kiyomihara
civil and penal codes promulgated during the 680s in Temmu's
reign) had been preserved, we would have a clearer picture of the
process by which the section on monks and nuns (soniryo) evolved as
an instrument for bringing the clergy and temples under state control
and giving ritsuryo Buddhism its basic character. Even the Taiho code
exists only in fragments. But a study of it, together with analyses of
contemporary references and later codifications, leads us to believe
that the pattern of legal control over monks and nuns had become
firmlyfixedby the early years of the eighth century, before the capital
was moved to Nara.
Inoue Mitsusada's study of legal and administrative arrangements
88 Shucho 1 (686) 5/24, NKBT 68.476-7. 89 DeVisser, Ancient Buddhism inJapan, 2.533-4.
90 Ibid., 2.543-4.
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396 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
instituted on the continent for the control of Buddhism led him to
distinguish between the rather loose system developed in China during
the period of the Northern and Southern courts (420-589) and the
very strict one of the Chinese empire reestablished in 589. The former,
Inoue noted, was focused on the use of Buddhist priests to control the
activities of other priests, whereas the control exercised by later Sui
and T'ang emperors was centered on the appointment of civilian officials
who were expected to force Buddhist institutions and the clergy
to serve the state's interests. Until 645, Japan's control, as in Paekche,
was of the loose variety developed in pre-Sui China. But after the
beginning of the Great Reforms of 645, when Japanese leaders were
becoming increasingly disturbed by T'ang and Silla expansion, Buddhist
law had the stamp of T'ang severity. As we noted, Japan's ten
Buddhist masters (who supervised the activities of monks and nuns) as
well as the superintendents (placed in charge of temple property) extended
state control over Buddhist affairs in the T'ang fashion.'1
The severity of the T'ang is most clearly revealed in that section of
the Taiho administrative code devoted to activities of the Buddhist
clergy. In pointing to the central thrust of the soniryo section, Inoue
observed that its articles require that every monk and every nun (1) be
trained and ordained only in ways approved by the state, (2) reside
only in a Buddhist temple and not become engaged in religious activity
outside the temple, and (3) avoid all violations of civil and canon law.
According to such legal measures, rulers of the ritsuryo state followed
the T'ang example in clearly distinguishing members of the clergy
who had left their homes (shukke) from civilians who had not. In such
legal measures, one detects a consistent urge to make certain that all
Buddhist activity added spiritual authority to the position of the
priestly sovereign. Consequently, particularly severe punishments
were meted out to priests and nuns for (1) becoming a "private priest
or nun" (shido), (2) helping or encouraging others to become private
priests or nuns, (3) building a Buddhist chapel (dojo) outside the compound
of a regular temple, (4) conducting religious activity outside the
temple, (5) residing in the mountains for religious training without
official permission, (6) relating his or her interpretations of natural
phenomena to state affairs, (7) doing anything to arouse the common
people, (8) studying books on military tactics and strategy, or (9)
becoming involved in the accumulation of property and wealth.
As Inoue pointed out, the Buddhist clergy had been regulated in a
91 Inoue tAilsusada, Nthonkodai nokokka toBukkyo (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, I97i),pp. 34-39.
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NARA BUDDHISM 397
similar way by the founder of the Chinese T'ang dynasty early in the
seventh century. But the situation in China was then quite different:
Buddhist monks and nuns were already propagating their faith among
the common people; society was in considerable disarray; and Buddhism
had already been linked with movements of popular protest.92
The formulation of soniryo in Japan, on the other hand, was apparently
influenced not just by attempts to follow the Chinese models but also
by endeavors to make every priest and nun into an efficient agent of
support for what has been called Temmu's imperial system.
NARA BUDDHISM
After the capital was moved to Nara in 710, Japan nearly became a
Buddhist state. Those were years in which a statewide system of temples
was developed and primary attention was given to rites for protecting
the state (chingo kokka). These state temples, together with the
T'ang-oriented cultural activity associated with them, further strengthened
the spiritual authority of autocratic emperors and empresses.
The temples accumulated vast landholdings, and their priests gained
unprecedented political influence, particularly during the reigns of
two very devout Buddhist sovereigns: Emperor Shomu (724 to 749)
and his daughter who was enthroned first as Empress Koken (749 to
757) and then as Empress Shotoku (764 to 770). It was then that
Buddhist monks were breaking loose from controls that had been
firmly written into law at the beginning of the eighth century and were
becoming engaged in religious movements that did not directly serve
the interests of either the emperor or the state.
The statewide temple system
Although the task of instituting legal arrangements for controlling the
Buddhist clergy was largely completed before the imperial palace was
built at Nara in 710, the creation of a state system of temples had just
begun. An imperial edict issued by Emperor Shomu in 741 called for
the establishment of state temples (kokubun-ji) in every province of the
land; in 743 he took a vow to make a huge gilt-bronze statue of
Rushana Buddha (Vairocana); and in 749 he abdicated and entered the
Buddhist priesthood, even though as a descendant of Amaterasu (the
Sun Goddess), he was the country's highest priest of kami worship.
92 Ibid., pp. 44-51.
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398 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
Within less than a decade, then, this ardent Buddhist had diverted
much of the country's resources and energies to the creation of an
extensive statewide temple system centered on a fifty-three-foot-high
statue of Rushana.
The idea that the emperor should order the founding of an official
temple in every province of the land did not originate with Emperor
Shomu. Over fifty years earlier Shomu's great-grandfather, Emperor
Temmu, had ordered the building of Buddhist chapels (dojo) in each
[official] residence of the several provinces, proclaiming that these
were to be places for holding Buddhist rites and housing Buddhist
statues and sutras. This edict was followed in 694 by an order from
Empress Jito that copies of the Golden Light Sutra be distributed to
the provinces and that the sutra be read at the beginning of the first
month of every year. In China the tradition of emperors' establishing
Buddhist temples in outlying prefectures had even deeper roots, running
as far back as the fifth century. So when Emperor Shomu issued
his edict in 741, he surely knew that similar steps had been taken
by his imperial ancestors and by T'ang emperors for more than a
century.
But the provincial temple system that Shomu set out to build was
quite different from earlier ones. Unlike Temmu, Shomu was intent on
building grand temple compounds that would include seven-storied
pagodas, not just chapels where rites were performed and paraphernalia
was stored. His provincial temples were, moreover, not carbon
copies of the Chinese model, for he was calling for the founding of a
new temple in each province, not just following the Chinese practice of
giving official recognition and titles to existing institutions. In addition,
Shomu's local temple system was closely bound to the Golden
Light Sutra's promise that Buddhist power would protect a state and
its rulers, whereas China's prefectural temples were not usually identified
with one particular sutra." Indeed, Japan's new provincial temples
were actually called the Golden-Light, Four-Heavenly-Kings,
Protect-the-State temples (konkomyo shitenno gokoku no tera).
Concluding that Shomu's motivation for building an official temple
in every province did not spring from an urge to complete a project
started by his great-grandfather, or from a desire to create a Japanese
93 An exception was the Great Cloud temples (Ta-yiin ssu) built late in the seventh century by
Empress Wu. Even their names point to Buddhist worship taught in a minor sutra called the
Mahamegha or Great Cloud Sutra; Richard W. L. Guisso, "The Reigns of the Empress Wu,
Chung-tsung and Jui-tsung (684-712)," in Denis Twitchett and Howard J. Wechsler, eds.,
Cambridge History of China, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 305.
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NARA BUDDHISM 399
copy of an existing Chinese temple system, we must ask why he should
have decided to require every province to undertake such an ambitious
building project at this particular time. A cursory glance at the economic
and political situation of that day, together with a close reading
of what Shomu himself said in his edict of 741, suggest that he sincerely
believed the building of these temples, coupled with their related
religious activities, would eliminate epidemics and poor crops
and restore health and prosperity to the land.
As noted in other chapters of this volume, in 735 Japan had begun
to suffer from a smallpox epidemic that had apparently broken out
first in Kyushu and then spread north and east, finally reaching the
capital in 737 and causing death and terror among aristocrats at the
court. Four top figures of the powerful Fujiwara clan, popularly referred
to as the Fujiwara Four, all succumbed to the disease in 737,
forcing a sharp decline in Fujiwara influence and the sudden rise of a
regime headed by an imperial prince. In 737 Emperor Shomu issued
an edict requiring that three Buddha statues (one of Shaka Buddha
and two of attending bodhisattvas) be made, and ten sections of the
Lotus Sutra copied, in every provinces
For several months before Shomu handed down the provincial
temple-building edict of 741, the court was also troubled by political
unrest. An uprising headed by Fujiwara no Hirotsugu (d. 740) broke
out in the seventh month of 740, and in the twelfth month of that same
year the capital was moved to Kuni. Although the edict issued three
months later does not refer directly to the danger of uprisings, it does
indicate that conditions were bad enough to warrant special measures
for obtaining divine intervention:
Of late crops have been poor and epidemic sickness has been rife. Fear and
mortification follow one upon another. We alone are responsible, as we have
made mistakes. We have searched widely for ways to achieve good fortune for
the people. As a result of that search, some years ago we dispatched messengers
bearing instructions that the land's national shrines be enlarged and
repaired.** We also ordered the erection of a sixteen-foot-high statue of
Sakyamuni and the copying of the Daihannya Sutra, in every province of the
realm.96
Since then and from spring through autumn, the winds and rains
have been orderly and grain harvests good. These are signs that our sincere
prayers have been answered. We are now in constant awe and dread, unable
94 Shoku Nihongi Tempyo 9 (737) 3/3; Kuroita Katsumi, ed., Shintei zoho: Kokushi taikei (hereafter
cited as KT) (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1959), vol. 1, p. 143; Inoue Mitsusada,
Nihon kodai no kokka to Bukkyo, pp. 51-58; William Wayne Farris, Population, Disease, and
Land in Early Japan, 64S-900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 53—73.
95 Such action was taken, according to the Shoku Nihongi, in Tempyo 9 (737) 11/3, KT 1.148.
96 This is reported in a Shoku Nihongi item dated Tempyo 9 (737) 3/3, KT 1.143.
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40O EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
even to sleep. In the Ultimately Victorious King Sutra, it is written that when
a king shall cause this sutra to be read, expounded, and propagated devoutly
throughout his realm, the Four Heavenly Kings will surely protect that country
against all calamity, prevent sorrow and pestilence, and cause the hearts of
believers to befilledwith joy."
These sections of the 741 edict are in accord not only with what has
been recorded about the troubling conditions of that day but also with
the traditional role of an emperor as high priest. In the face of the
critical situation that existed after 737, Shomu was not relying solely
on the spiritual power of imported Buddhism but continuing, like the
emperors and empresses before him, to function as high priest in the
worship of native kami.
The great statue ofVairocana (J.: Rushana) Buddha
Before three more years had passed, Emperor Shomu issued another
edict that occupies a prominent position in the history of state Buddhism.
It announced the emperor's intent to build a great statue of
Buddha, which still stands as a momument to the cultural achievements
of Nara Japan. The edict also suggests an imperial endorsement
for a new type of Buddhism: the teachings of the Kegon Sutra. The
emperor explained the action in this way:
On this day, the fifteenth day of the tenth month of Tempyo 15 (743), we take
the bodhisattva great vow and declare our intention of erecting a gilded
bronze image of Rushana Buddha. In using the copper of the provinces,
casting this image, and leveling off a place in the hills for a hall in which to
house it, we - as a Buddhist convert - wish to obtain the assistance of people
throughout the land so that each person might achieve Buddhahood and
share in the land's resulting prosperity. We are the possessor of the land's
resources and could easily use them to make this statue. But attaining matters
of the heart is too difficult to be handled in this way. Our concern is that
persons with wealth might not feel good about this request and come to abuse
the sages or turn against the living, thereby becoming victims of pollution
[tsumi] and crime. So we request that believers [chishiki ni azukaru mono]
heartily cultivate piety and invite good fortune by worshiping Rushana Buddha
three times every day and, through the power of their feelings, contribute
to the making of this Rushana Buddha statue. If a person of devotion makes a
contribution of even one blade of grass or one clod of earth, he will be
contributing to the making of this statue. Let it be proclaimed widely that it is
97 Shoku Nihongi Tempyo 13 (741) 3/24, KT 1. 163-4. The translation is based on that by Philip
Thompson, unpublished.
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NARA BUDDHISM 401
our will that no provincial or district official shall pressure the people in the
name of this edict to make contributions.'8
Emperor Shomu's new interest in Rushana (rather than in the Four
Heavenly Kings) and in mass conversion (rather than magic rites)
suggests that a fundamental change of religious thought had arisen
from the introduction and spread of Kegon teachings, a subject of
considerable interest to historians of ancient Buddhism.
The casting of the huge statue was finally started in 747. Although
hampered by eight failures, a successful casting was made in 749.
Early that year, while the statue was being gilded and the shortage of
gold was realized, news suddenly reached the capital that gold had
been discovered in the northern province of Mutsu, the first such
discovery in Japan. After Emperor Shomu reported the good news to
the kami worshiped at shrines around the capital, he and his empress
proceeded to the front of the new Rushana statue where the emperor,
facing north like a minister approaching his sovereign, handed down
an edict that opened with these words: "We, an Emperor who is a
servant of the Three Treasures of Buddhism, approach this statue of
Rushana Buddha and submit the following message." Then Shomu
reported the wondrous discovery of gold and proclaimed it "a blessing
bestowed on us by Rushana Buddha."»In 752, three years later, came
the statue's dedication service attended by Empress Koken (who had
succeeded her father in the year that gold was discovered), her royal
father and mother, and the highest officials of state. Musicians from
the several temples were present. Dancing and singing were provided
by the members of the nobility. As the Shoku Nihongi notes, no Japanese
Buddhist service (sai'e) had ever equaled this one.
The statue of Rushana was an imposing capstone of a statewide
temple system that included an expanding network of provincial temples
administered by priests residing at the Todai-ji in the capital,
where the great Rushana statue was housed. But the universality of the
statue's symbolism is also revealed in the statue itself: Rushana sits on
a great lotus flower with buddhas emerging from each of its petals.
Finally, the symbolism is described in a Kumarajiva translation that
includes this passage:
98 Shoku Nihongi Tempyo 15 (743) 10/15, K.T 1.175. Some of the words and phrases used here
can be found in Ryusaku Tsunoda, W. Theodore deBary, and Donald Keene, eds., Sources of
Japanese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), pp. 1.104-5, and m
Philip
Thompson's unpublished manuscript.
99 Shoku Nihongi Tempyo Shoho 2 (749) 4/1, KT 1.197.
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402 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
I, Rushana Buddha, sit on a lotus platform surrounded by a thousand lotus
petals on which a thousand buddhas are manifested. Within each petal are a
billion states and in each state is a [smaller] buddha that sits below a bodhi tree
following the Buddha way. The original body [honshin] of the thousand great
buddhas and billion small buddhas is Rushana. Below each of these thousand
great and billion small buddhas is a mass of numberless [boddhisattvas] approaching
me, listening to my recitation of the Buddha precepts, and opening
the gates to enlightenment [satori]. As they do so, the thousand great and
billion small buddhas return to their original place [in me] while sitting under
their bodhi trees and listening to the chanting of their original teacher. . . .
You are [potential] boddhisattvas of a new learning. If you accept my precepts,
you will be included in the boddhisattva group. And ifthe boddhisattvas
accept my precepts, they will be transformed immediately into buddhas.
So the entire [boddhisattva] group should respect the whole [of my cosmic
order] and sincerely listen to my chanting of the Buddha precepts.100
In approaching this impressive symbolization of a structured Rushana
world order, Emperor Shomu must have thought of himself as a ruler
of one of those billion states in the Rushana cosmos and must have
realized, too, that his Great Buddha-centered temple system was drawing
the minds of his subjects (particularly the highly placed ones)
toward a state that transcended local communities.
The provincial temple-founding edict handed down by Emperor
Shomu in the second month of 741 indicates that at that time he was
thinking of Buddhism mainly in magical terms: as a faith centered on
rites that could benefit the state by eliminating disease and producing
good rice crops. And yet two years later, when ordering the building of
the great Rushana statue, his attention was focused on a different
Buddha (Rushana, not Shaka) and on a different sutra (the Kegon, not
the Golden Light or Benevolent King). Moreover, in 743 Emperor
Shomu was no longer stressing magic rites that could protect the state
but was drawing attention to two of the most fundamental thrusts of
the Buddhist message: the power of Buddha to bring enlightenment to
human individuals, and the universal truth of a Buddha that transcends
this physical world. Such a sharp change in the emperor's
Buddhist outlook, within a time span of two years, makes one wonder
how this could have happened and why.
The Kegon Sutra and Gyoki's influence
The first mention of the Kegon Sutra can be found in a 722 record of
Empress Gensho's having this and several other sutras copied as a
100 Based on Ishida Ichiro's unpublished interpretation.
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NARA BUDDHISM 403
prayer for her mother Empress Gemmei, who had died in 715. But the
Kegon Sutra, translated into Chinese at the end of the seventh century,
seems not to have had much influence on Japanese religious thought
until Roben - a Buddhist priest with an immigrant background who
had studied Kegon teachings in China - returned to Japan in 740 and
became associated with the temple later known as the Todai-ji. It was
in those years that the Kegon school, made up of priests with a special
interest in the teachings of the Kegon Sutra, came into existence.
Presumably the spread of interest in Kegon had reached the court's
inner circles by 742 and had affected Emperor Shomu's thoughts
about what was important in Buddhist teachings.
But Shomu's own conversion to Kegon seems to have been influenced
also by a popular Buddhist movement that had been gaining
strength for more than twenty years. This movement was identified
with thoughts and activities of the Buddhist priest Gyoki (668-749)
who, according to a burial inscription commemorating his death, was
a descendant of the Korean Confucian scholar (Wani) who had come to
Japan in the fifth century. Much of what we know about Gyoki's early
years is based on somewhat unreliable information gleaned from a
genealogical account compiled in 1175, long after his death. Judging
from what is recorded there, he seems to have become affiliated quite
early with the great Yakushi-ji that was completed in 698 when Gyoki
was thirty years old.
Historians are fairly certain that Gyoki had studied under Dosho
(629-700), a priest who had been a student in China between 653
and 660 and who, after returning to Japan, built a temple for the
practice of Zen contemplation at Gango-ji. After spending more than
ten years in missionary and social work in the surrounding area,
Dosho was ordered by imperial edict to return to being a resident
priest of Gango-ji. He is reputed to have been the founder, in Japan,
of the Hosso sect (Chinese: Fa-hsiang-tsung) and to have gained an
understanding of its consciousness-only (yuishikt) and Yoga (yuga)
doctrines. Because both Gyoki and Dosho were associated with the
Hosso sect and its doctrines and both were engaged in missionary
and social work outside government temples, it is felt that Gyoki
might well have been a disciple of Dosho, who died when Gyoki was
thirty-two years old.
For the years until 717 we have only general and unconfirmed
reports that Gyoki had finished one or more of his "forty-nine temples,"
carried out evangelistic work among the people, and completed
such public service activity as building bridges and digging
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404 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
ponds.101
The statement in the Shoku Nihongi, written at the time of
Gyoki's death in 749, outlined his accomplishments:
High Priest Gyoki died on the second day of the second month. He was a
priest of the Yakushi-ji and a member of the Koshi clan from the province of
Izumi. . . . After leaving home to enter the priesthood, he studied the
consciousness-only and Yoga doctrines and went around preaching them to
people in the neighborhood of the capital. The number of people who rushed
to follow him, yearning to become lay priests, numbered in the thousands.
Whenever people heard that he was coming, they would compete with one
another in running to honor him. . . . Followed by relatives and disciples, he
would build bridges and embankments at strategic places.101
Ienaga believes that the people rushing to become followers of Gyoki
were people in and around the capital who had become impoverished often
leaving their farms to become vagrants - because of such costly
projects as establishing a new bureaucratic order, building two new
Chinese-style capitals (first in Fujiwara and then in Nara), and waging
campaigns against the Ainu on the northern frontier.103
The 717 ban on Gyoki's activities provides some detail about what
he was doing and helps explain why the government moved to stamp
out his movement. The charges made in the edict were (1) that
whereas the law for priests and nuns (in the Taiho code) stipulates that
members of the clergy are not to propagate the Buddhist faith outside
government-recognized temples, Gyoki and his followers have been
leaving their temples to deliver sermons to commoners on questions of
sin and good fortune; (2) that whereas the law stipulates that only
small amounts of alms are to be solicited and at specified times, Gyoki
and his followers have been going from house to house soliciting far
more alms than they need; and (3) that whereas the law forbids activities
that involve the burning or mutilation of bodies, Gyoki and his
followers have not only been doing these things but also identifying
such activities with the Buddhist way, thereby bewitching and confusing
the people.10
*
But Gyoki ignored the ban and continued to propagate his faith, to
carry out such public service projects as building bridges and roads to
facilitate transportation, digging ponds and embankments to improve
irrigation systems, and establishing inns to house people who were
transporting goods for the payment of taxes. During the 720s, the
government gradually softened its position toward such religious activ-
101 Ienaga Saburo, Nihon Bukkyo shiso no tenkai (Kyoto: Heiraku-ji shoten, 1956), p. 13.
102 Tempyo Shoho 1 (749) 2/2, KT 1.196-7. 103 Ienaga, "Gyoki," p. 13.
104 Shoku Nihongi, Yoro 1 (717)4/23, KT 1.68-69.
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NARA BUDDHISM 405
ity: In a 731 order, Gyoki was not referred to in such a demeaning
manner as before, and his followers were designated ubasoku and ubai,
men and women who were being trained for the priesthood. And yet
the authorities still denied legitimacy to the groups (congregations)
that had gathered around Gyoki.
But in 741 the state seems to have recognized the legitimacy of
Gyoki's congregations and, moreover, used them when constructing a
large bridge over the Kizu River when moving the capital to Kuni.
The Shoku Nihongi carries this report:
It was decided that a bridge should be built over the river east of Mt. Kase.
Between the seventh month and this (tenth) month, work on this construction
was completed. Ubasoku were mobilized for the work from around the
capital and the various provinces, and after the bridge was finished, 750
ubasoku were admitted to the priesthood.10
'
Although Gyoki's name does not appear in the report, a later chronology
of his life (the Gyoki nempu, compiled more than two hundred years
later) states that Gyoki built an inn for workers on the bank of the Kizu
River and for the big bridge of Izumi. The latter is thought to have been
the bridge referred to in the 741 item of the Shoku Nihongi.106
The government's reversal of policy toward Gyoki and his activities,
thereby replacing the ban on his activities with high official appointments,
was related to Emperor Shomu's rather sudden interest in, and
commitment to, Kegon teachings. Although we have no evidence that
Gyoki shared Shomu's preoccupation with Kegon or that Shomu
shared Gyogi's Hosso leanings, both men were becoming more deeply
affected by two basic elements of Buddhist teachings: their universalism
(arising from the promise that Buddha law can benefit all peoples
in all times and places) and their humanity (stemming from the promise
that Buddha law can enable any person to achieve enlightenment at
any time or place). Thus the religious ideas and activities of the 740s
are thought to have made this a significant period in Japanese religious
history, causing historians to ask two difficult questions: How deeply
and broadly were Shomu and his fellow aristocrats affected by Buddhist
universalism and Buddhist humanism? Were these qualities
strong in the Gyoki movement, and were they subverted by Gyoki's
cooperation with Japan's imperial government?
105 Tempyo 13 (741) 10/2, KT 1.166.
106 Hayakawa Shohachi, Ritswyo kokka, vol. 4 oiNihon no rekishi (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1974), p.
295- •
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406 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
The famous thirteenth-century Buddhist historian Jien (i 155-1225)
wrote about Buddhism under Shomu as follows:
During his reign Buddhist Law flourished, great Minister Kibi and High
Priest Gembo went to T'ang China and brought back a 5,000-fascicle collection
of Buddhist scripture, the Todai-ji temple was built, and Bodhisattva
Gyoki (668-749) founded provincial temples. As indicated by such developments,
Buddhist Law prospered while Shomu reigned. . . . On the 3rd day
of the 7th month of 749, Shomu stepped down from the throne at the age of
50 and entered the Buddhist priesthood. His Buddhist name (hoki) was
Shoman.10
?
Although Jien apparently was wrong in identifying Gyoki as a founder
of provincial temples, he was correct in considering the Shomu reign a
remarkable time of temple construction and scriptural study. As the
first Japanese emperor to enter the Buddhist priesthood after abdicating
and passing the throne to his daughter, Shomu continued to give
imperial support to the Buddhist cause. These developments, seen in
the light of Shdmu's pronouncements, leave the strong impression
that he was indeed a sincere Buddhist believer.
When considering Shomu's new interest in universalism and salvation,
we should ask whether he had turned away from the magical use
of Buddhist rites for "protecting the state." Apparently not. He seems,
rather, to have thought of the great Rushana statue as symbolizing
above all the emperor's spiritual authority over all lands and peoples in
the Japanese state and to have regarded converts and congregations
mainly as instruments for strengthening state Buddhism. This is
clearly revealed in an edict written in 753 and inscribed on a bronze
plaque at the Todai-ji. It begins with Shomu referring to himself as a
former emperor who now holds the priestly name of Shoman and who
models himself on a bodhisattva and "prostrates himself before the
Three Treasures of the Ten Directions and the Three Ages." Then he
outlines his support of Buddhism, beginning with the vow he had
made in 741 to have temples built in every province for the "protection
of the state through the power inherent in the Four Heavenly King
and Golden Light sutras." Then he goes on to say that he hoped
through such acts of piety:
to make Buddhism flourish, causing it to be transmitted eternally through the
ages as long as there be Heaven and Earth; to protect the realms of both the
living and the dead through the beneficent grace of Buddha; to shelter and
107 Delmer M. Brown and Ichiro Ishida, The Future and the Past: A Translation and Study ofthe
Gukansko, an Interpretative History of Japan Written in 1219 (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1979), pp. 32, 273.
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NARA BUDDHISM 407
protect the realms of both the living and the dead, bringing all to constant
and fulsome perfection; and to establish order and mutual harmony among
the deities of Heaven and Earth so that they will forever protect the state and
cause men to enjoy felicity and good fortune.108
Although it includes thoughts of "fulsome perfection" for the living
and the dead, this pronouncement is focused on the power of Buddhism
to "protect the state" through institutions and rites established
by, and reinforcing the spiritual authority of, Japan's emperors and
empresses.
Questions about the depth and character of Gyoki's Buddhist humanism
have been the subject of considerable debate and disagreement
among religious historians. Lacking any direct evidence of what
Gyoki was saying in his sermons, their studies have been based mainly
on records of what he and his followers were doing at particular times
and places and on what was said about their activities in the Shoku
Nihongi. Two distinguished postwar historians, Ishimoda Sho and
Tamura Encho, concluded that Gyoki's Buddhism was essentially
magic. But Futaba Kenko, after carefully reexamining the evidence
used to support such views, sees Gyoki as standing in a religious
position fundamentally different from that of the ritsuryo state's architects
and high priests. The latter, he maintains, were preoccupied with
magical practices in their pursuit of worldly benefits and thus overlooked
the self-denying Buddhist message. Futaba thinks, on the
other hand, that Gyoki, though he violated laws governing the activities
of the Buddhist clergy, understood the implications of religious
practices carried out within the Mahayana spirit and was able to surmount
the ethics of a magical-religious consciousness and to envision
an ethical world in which human beings acted altruistically toward one
another.IO
9
Was the government's reversal of policy toward Gyoki linked with
an abrupt change in the nature of Gyoki's beliefs and practices?
Futaba thinks not, claiming that Gyoki's preaching and congregational
activity were not drastically altered or reduced by the government's
more lenient stance beginning in 731. Futaba also does not believe that
Gyoki was a particularly active participant in the government's task of
moving the capital to Kuni. Admitting that Gyoki held a priestly
position in government after 743 and was probably attracted to the
idea of having Buddhist converts participate in making the Rushana
108 A slightly revised version of an unpublished translation by Philip Thompson, which was
based on a text in the Koji ruien (Tokyo: Tsukiji kappan seizosho, 1915), Shuyobu, 52.1099.
109 Futaba, Nihon kodai Bukkyo-ski no kenkyu, pp. 254-65.
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408 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
statue, Futaba is not convinced that Gyoki's beliefs and practices were
much changed by his rather loose association with the government.
Futaba even doubts that Gyoki was a central figure in the Rushana
statue enterprise, pointing out that nothing was said about such a role
in the earliest-known biography of Gyoki, in statements made about
him in the Shoku Nihongi, or in any reliable account of his life. So
Futaba takes the rather convincing stance that although Gyoki was
drawn into the statue-making project, he soon came to feel that such
work, meant to achieve magical results for the state, was increasing the
people's burdens and should not be fully supported. Even Gyoki's
appointment to the high priestly rank of daisqjd in 745 was followed by
intense public service work which, according to tales found in the
Nihon ryoiki, included building a bridge, dredging an inlet, and constructing
a boat harbor in Naniwa.110
When writing his book in 1956 on the spread of Buddhist universalism,
Ienaga Saburo did not consider Gyoki's thought and activities to
be particularly significant. But in the light of Futaba's studies, he
might now assign Gyoki a more prominent position in the history of
Japanese Buddhism.1
"
Ascetic mountain Buddhism
A second Buddhist movement of the Nara period, commonly referred
to as "ascetic mountain Buddhism" (sanrin Bukkyo), shared certain
features with Gyoki's religious activity. Both movements spread among
commoners and local gentry, flourished outside the state's temple system,
and emerged from religious positions not defined by "protect the
state" doctrine. But ascetic mountain worship had qualities of its own.
Whereas Gyoki's work concentrated on public service, mountain ascetics
reputedly had mysterious powers, gained through esoteric practices,
to help individuals achieve Buddhahood here and now (sokushin
jobutsu). This emphasis on mystic power obtained from discipline undertaken
far from the worldly affairs of village and city was an important
aspect of the original Buddhism of India, as well as of the Tendai
and Shingon sects in later Heian times.
The mountain movement seems to have begun in the previous seventh
century with En no Ozunu, an immigrant magician who was said
to have been exiled to the mountains of Izu for troubles caused by his
calling down a curse. En no Ozunu's magic practices were apparently
110 Ibid., pp. 266-8. 111 Ienaga, Nihon Bukkyo shiso no tenkai, pp. 4, 6-19.
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NARA BUDDHISM 409
then joined with and strengthened by popular Shinto belief in sacred
mountains and also by esoteric forms of Buddhism. Eventually he, and
others like him, operated first from the sacred Katsuragi Mountains of
Yamato and later from sacred mountains in other parts of the country.
These miracle-working priests appeared to practice their art mainly in
attempts to heal the sick and lighten the burdens of the miserable,
gradually forming groups of believers that were not unlike the congregations
assembled by Gyoki. Buddhist tales included in the Nihon
rydiki (compiled early in the ninth century) suggest that ascetic mountain
priests had become active in provinces as far away as Shinano.
While mountain Buddhism was spreading to distant parts of the
land, it was also affecting religious and political life at court. Particularly
spectacular influence of this kind was exerted by Dokyo (d. 772),
whose sudden rise to high positions at court was due in large measure
to the miraculous healing power that he was thought to have acquired
at an early age from training and discipline obtained in the Katsuragi
Mountains of Kawachi. His training is said to have included the study
of Sanskrit learning and the mastery of esoteric Buddhist methods of
eliminating pollution and evil, methods known as nyo-i-rin shukuyd.
(The nyo-i-rin were mystical rites held before the Nyo-i-rin Kannon at
the Nyo-i-rin temple, reputedly founded by En no Ozunu, and the
shukuyd was an astrological doctrine introduced from India.) After
leaving his mountain retreat, Dokyo became a priest at the Todai-ji
where he was known as a healing-Zen (contemplation) master {kambyo
zenshi). Finally, he was attached to the Buddhist chapel at the court
and in 761 became a favorite of Empress Koken, who felt that her
miraculous recovery from illness had been brought about by rites jthat
Dokyo performed.
Immediately after gaining favor with the empress, Dokyo received
one promotion after another. In 763 he was appointed junior bishop
(shosozu). In 765 after the empress had reascended the throne as Empress
Shotoku, Dokyo was named chancellor Zen master (daijodaijin
zenshi). And in 766 he was given the highest position ever held by a
person not born in the imperial line: Buddhist king (H6-6). An even
more startling development came in 769 when Hachiman (a kami
especially respected for its oracular messages) revealed that Dokyo was
the most suitable successor to the throne. But a leader of the antiDokyo
faction advised the empress to have the oracle checked. At this
point Hachiman handed down another message that reiterated the
traditional view that the empress should be succeeded only by a prince
or princess born in the imperial line. And yet Dokyo continued to
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4IO EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
exercise influence over government affairs until the empress's death in
770, when he was transferred to a minor position in a distant province.
During Dokyo's peak years, Buddhist institutions and priests received
special treatment. As early as 764 a ban was placed on the
hunting of falcons, and arrangements were made for periodically and
ceremonially freeing "living creatures," thereby complying with Buddhist
teachings against the taking of life. Then when the empress, now
a Buddhist nun, ascended the throne as Empress Shotoku in 764, she
handed down an edict that seemed to place Buddhism above the worship
of kami (see Chapter 10, this volume). And during her reign there
was another surge of temple building in which two great temples were
constructed at the capital: the Saidai-ji (meant to equal the great
Todai-ji) and the Sairyu-ji (a nunnery paired with the H6ryu-ji monastery).
Meanwhile, state temples were being richly endowed with land
and people. In 765, when the government moved to restrict the private
possession of uncultivated land, it prohibited such holdings by nobles
and ministers and reduced those held by others from one to two cho,
but it did not reduce the large area of uncultivated land that a temple
could own. This meant that the Todai-ji could continue to own four
thousand cho, the Gango-ji two thousand cho, and several other big
temples (including provincial ones) one thousand cho each. The priests
at state temples around the country thus continued their efforts to
increase temple revenue by enclosing more and more land.112
By tracing the course of change in Buddhist action and thought during
the Nara period, drawing attention to the sharp increase in the number
and power of temples (probably numbering around two hundred at
the beginning of the period and well over a thousand at the end) and
priests (thousands at the capital and hundreds at provincial centers),
and outlining the spread of Buddhist art and learning (see Chapter 9)
one is apt to overstate the importance of Buddhism in Nara religious
life. The deepest and most widespread religious activity of this period
was kami worship, not Buddha worship. Even the new China-oriented
ritsuryo bureaucracy of the day placed kami affairs well above Buddhist
affairs. Most Buddhist rites were, moreover, not essentially different
from kami rites: Both were meant to help a community (or its leader)
obtain rich harvests, good health, and protection from natural disaster.
Ascetic mountain Buddhism, probably the most popular Buddhist
movement of the period, owed much of its popularity to an association
112 Hayakawa, Ritsutyo kokka, pp. 335-7.
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NARA BUDDHISM 411
with mountains where particular kami were believed to reside and to
ritual that (in Buddhist form) was essentially like kami worship in its
emphasis on divine blessings that could be obtained here and now.
(For a discussion of mountains in early Shintoism see Chapter 6.)
The Shinto overtones of Buddhist worship is most clearly revealed
in studies of the spread of Buddhism to local communities. These
show, first, that the advance was not essentially a product of individual
conversions but of actions taken by clan chieftains who continued
to function as chief priests in the worship of the clan kami and, at the
same time, to build Buddhist temples where Buddhist services were
held. Every member of the clan, as well as every clan chieftain,
seems to have assumed - especially in the native segment of Japanese
society - that a clan's divine beings (kami or Buddha) were more
likely to bestow their blessings on the community if approached by
the clan chieftain at the right time and in the right manner. The
prime times were at the beginning of the year and at the start and
end of the growing season. The rites that pleased a divine being, then
and now, were dramatic and interesting, and it was generally agreed
that any deity (kami or Buddha) would be pleased by exotic rites
linked with impressive pagodas, bells, and statues."3
Studies of religious life in local communities of the Nara period
show that the spread of Buddhist beliefs and practices was facilitated
also by the compatibility of shrines and temples and by the rise of
ideas about how kami and Buddha supported each other. These connections
and relationships, orchestrated by the clan chieftains, made
everyone even more receptive to the introduction of strangely appealing
Buddhist practices.
Although native kami shrines and imported Buddhist temples maintained
separate identities, the shrines - especially such important ones
as Kasuga in the capital and Usa Hachiman in Kyushu - were
strongly influenced by Buddhist architectural styles and ceremonial
forms. The Buddhist influence was especially strong at Usa Hachiman
where early kami worship reflected the influence of shamanistic practices
introduced from Korea, the maritime interests of people living
along north Kyushu shores that had to be passed by ships sailing
between Korea and Naniwa in central Japan, and the special connections
with the country's dominant clans."4
The Usa Hachiman Shrine
113 Takatori Masao, "Minkan Bukkyo no shinten," in Ienaga Saburo et al., eds., Nihon Bukkyo
shi, vol. 1, p. 163.
114 Ross Bender, "The Hachiman Cult and the Dokyo Incident," Monumenta Nipponica 24
(Summer 1979): 129.
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412 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
was one of the thirty-eight shrines that, at the beginning of the Heian
period, had their own Buddhist temple, ajinguji (kami shrine temple)
where Buddhist sutras and rites were read and performed. A number
of sources tell us of kami requests to have a particular sutra recited at
its shrine in order that the kami might obtain relief from the misery of
worldly existence. At Usa and elsewhere kami beliefs were transformed
by the humanistic teachings of Buddhism: Kami not only
acted more like humans but also were represented by statues in human
form. "5
Buddhism, on the other hand, continued to be affected by the
worship of kami. Ancient and enduring belief in the power of any
kami to benefit life here and now continued to make the Japanese
receptive to Buddhist rites that would cure illness, bring rain, stop
epidemics, or make the state prosperous. Kami belief seems also to
have increased resistance to the basic Buddhist teaching that an individual
could achieve enlightenment only by eliminating attachments
to life of this world. Particular Buddhist temples were even supported
by particular kami. A spectacular example of such support occurred in
749, the year in which work on the Rushana statue was completed and
Empress Koken ascended the throne. That was when Hachiman (the
kami worshiped at Usa in Kyushu) indicated by means of an oracle
that it wished to be enshrined near the T6dai-ji in Nara so that it,
along with other kami, might pay homage to the Great Buddha. In
reporting what transpired at the time, the Shoku Nihongi provides
details of a grand procession by which Hachiman's shintai was transported
to Nara, and of the erection of a new building near the Tddai-ji
for Hachiman's enshrinement. We are also told that when a priestess
and priest of the new Hachiman Shrine paid their respects to the Great
Buddha statue, they were accompanied by Empress Koken, Retired
Emperor Shomu, and hundreds of officials. Five thousand priests
were asked to offer prayers and read sutras, and Retired Emperor
Shomu issued an edict in which he used the following words of praise
for Hachiman's role in the Great Buddha enterprise:
In 740, when we were on the throne, we paid our respects to the Rushana
statue of the "believer temple" [chishiki-ji] in the Oagata District of Kawachi.
Then we wished to have [another big] Rushana statue made, but for some
time we were unable to achieve our objective, whereupon we appealed to the
great Kami Hachiman of Hirohata, whose shrine is in the Usa District of
Buzen. Hachiman responded as follows: "Leading the heavenly and earthly
deities, we . . . shall see that the statue is made." We were overjoyed. And
115 Ibid., pp. 166-8.
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NARA BUDDHISM 413
now with trepidation we confer the fourth rank junior grade on the shrine's
priestess Morime and the outer fifth rank junior grade on the shrine's priest
Omiwa no Ason Tamaro."5
The shrine built in Nara still guards the T6dai-ji, the central temple of
Shomu's statewide Buddhist temple system.
Twenty years later Hachiman again came to the support of Buddhism.
That was when the foreign faith had almost achieved the status
of a state religion and when Dokyo (a Buddhist priest) was being
touted as Empress Koken's successor to the throne. According to the
official chronicle of that day (the Shoku Nihongi), Hachiman handed
down the following oracle: "A great peace will come to the realm if
Dokyo should become emperor."11
? Not long afterward, Hachiman
reversed its position, and Dokyo did not become emperor. But the fact
that a kami - not a Buddha - provided divine sanction for the proposal
that a Buddhist priest become Japan's next emperor indicates
that kami belief still stood above Buddha belief, at least when deciding
whether the throne should be occupied by a direct descendant of the
Sun Goddess. Even an ambitious Buddhist priest, holding a very high
office and enjoying the favors of a reigning empress, had apparently
turned to a kami for divine support when making his bid for the
throne118
(see Chapters 4 and 10 for discussions of other aspects of this
authority crisis).
Other kami were subsequently enshrined near other important temples.
Even Saicho (767-822) and Kukai (774-835), founders of the
Heian period Tendai and Shingon sects, turned to the protection of
kami for their great temple complexes on Mt. Hie and Mt. Koya. And
with the rise of increasingly close ties between the native and foreign
faiths, doctrines were devised to explain relationships between a protective
kami and a protected Buddha. These involved such ideas as a
particular kami and Buddha existing as one body (shinbutsu dotai) and
a kami manifesting the essence of Buddha (honji suijaku). Therefore
the rapid spread of Buddhism during the Nara period was enmeshed socially,
institutionally, and theologically - with native kami worship,
making it impossible to understand the development of either without
seeing interaction between the two, an interaction commonly referred
to as kami-Buddha fusion (shinbutsu shugo).
116 Shoku Nihongi, Tempyo Shoho I (749) 12/27, KT 1.206; the translation differs somewhat
from that in Bender, "The Hachiman Cult," pp. 135-6.
117 Jingo Keiun 3 (769) 9/25, KT 2.369.
118 An excellent historical novel, focusing on relations between the two main characters in this
crisis, is that by Shelley Mydans, The Vermilion Bridge: A Novel of 8th CenturyJapan (Garden
City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980).
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414 EARLY BUDDHA WORSHIP
Kami belief thus affected Buddhism in fundamental ways. It certainly
increased Japan's receptivity to magical and popular forms of
Buddhism, and it strengthened resistance to Buddhist teachings of
universal human salvation, thereby preventing the thoughts and actions
of such Japanese Buddhists as Prince Shotoku and Gyoki from
affecting Japanese religious life deeply and permanently. And yet
when seen from a social and cultural perspective, Buddhism was a
truly significant force: It provided a channel of contact with the culturally
and technologically advanced peoples of the Asiatic continent, and
it induced a growing number of Japanese to assign greater value to the
human individual.
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CHAPTER 8
NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL
INSTITUTIONS
During the fifty years that followed the Great Reforms of 645, Japan's
central government enacted laws and established bureaucratic procedures
(strongly Chinese in character) that were meant to strengthen its
control over, and increase its revenue from, the country's land and
people. Scholars agree that these arrangements, commonly referred to
as the ritsuryo (penal and administrative law) system, were closely
intertwined with economic and social change in the Nara period (710
to 784). At the base of the ritsuryo order, periodic reallocations of rice
land (handen shuju) were linked with an enforced registration of individuals
in every household: Laws stipulated that every registered
householder be allotted rice land in accordance with his or her age,
sex, and social position.
The Taiho penal and administrative codes of 701 seem to have been
quite well enforced during the first half of the eighth century. But then
violations became more numerous and allocations more sporadic as the
state's control over land and people weakened. Ostensibly the ritsuryo
system continued to function as intended, but an increasingly large
number of conditions and practices were beginning to subvert its
effectiveness. Historians generally agree, nevertheless, that Japan's
ritsuryo state structure reached its apogee during the Nara period and
that only in the last half of the period, particularly after 740, were its
foundations undermined by changing social and economic conditions.
LAND TENURE
Laws of the period refer to three types of land:1
-2
(1) arable land
1 This section is based on Torao Toshiya, Handen shuju ho no kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan,
1961); and Kikuchi Yasuaki, Nihon kodai tochi shoyu no kenkyu (Tokyo: University of Tokyo
Press, 1969). Special problems of land control were investigated by Iyanaga Teizo, "Ritsuryosei
teki tochi shoyu," in Kodai, vol. 3 of Asao Naohiro, Ishii Susumu, Inoue Mitsusada, Oishi Kaichiro
etai.,eds.,Iwanamikoza: Nihon rekishi (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1962), pp. 33-78; Takeuchi
Rizo, "Handen ho no seiritsu to hokai," in Ishimoda Sho et al., eds., Kodai shi koza (Tokyo:
Gakuseisha, 1963), vol. 7, pp. 203-31; Miyamoto Tasuku, "Ritsuryosei teki tochi seido," in Ta-
415
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416 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
administered directly by the state; (2) garden and residential land held
privately but with differences of tenure; and (3) the surrounding mountains,
groves, rivers, and swamps that were used by all members of the
community for wood gathering, hunting, and slash-and-burn agriculture.
But the subject of most of these provisions was the land used for
growing rice, or the surrounding communal land considered suitable
for rice cultivation. Only gardens and residential plots were truly
private. Some think that private possession was an ancient tradition
never extended to cultivated land, probably because the production of
rice required drainage and irrigation systems that could not be built or
maintained by individuals operating independently. Later land laws
were certainly affected by ah ancient practice of having irrigation
systems managed by the community as a whole. Although state ownership
of water was not written into law, its existence and nature can be
deduced from extant historical sources.
Although these laws regulated the distribution and use of arable
land, they were never, as far as we know, extended to the distribution
and use of land that might be brought under cultivation, a subject of
primary importance to any agricultural society. The absence of such
regulations, which was a divergence from the T'ang model, was conducive
to the later spread of private ownership.
Allocations of rice land
According to the Yoro code of 718, Japan's rice field allocation system
(the chun-fien system of China adapted to the special conditions of
Japan) contained the following elements:
1. Rice land was allocated to every individual above the age of six*
according to sex and social position: A male commoner (rydmiri)
received two tan, or about 2,300 square meters; a female commoner,
two-thirds of that amount; a male slave (senmin) received
keuchi Rizo, ed., TaikeiNihon shisosho (Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppansha, 1971), vol. 6, pp. 48-
138; Yoshimura Takehiko, "Ritsuryo kokka to tochi shoyu," in Hara Hidesaburd, ed., Kodai,
vol. 1 of Taikei Nihon kokka shi (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1975), vol. 1, pp. 255-96.
2 Unless otherwise cited, laws on land control are those of the Yoro civil code found in the Ryo
no gige, published in Kuroita Katsumi, ed., Shintei zoho: kokushi taikei (Tokyo: Yoshikawa
kobunkan, 1935) (hereafter cited as KT), vol. 23, and the Ryo no shuge, KT, vols. 23 and 24
(1943 and 1955). The Taiho civil code exists only in fragments, but its laws on land control
probably were similar to those of the later Yoro code.
3 Ages were then usually calculated by the number of calendar years in which a person had lived.
Thus a child was considered to be one year old at birth and two at the beginning of the next
calendar year. I have determined, however, that this system of calculating ages was not used
for the allocation of land; see Torao, Handen shuju ho no kenkyu, pp. 35-47.
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LAND TENURE 417
one-third as much as a male commoner; and a female slave, onethird
that of a female commoner.
2. In regions without enough rice land to meet these requirements,
land was allocated in accordance with locally established formulas.
3. Every six years, allocations were adjusted to the current size and
composition of each household. The year for readjustment (the
hannen) usually came two years after a census had been taken.4
4. When an allotment holder died, his or her allotted land was returned
to the state at the time of the next hannen. In case all or part
of a household had fled to another province, or a person had been
killed in battle away from home, return of allotments was delayed.
5. Allocated land could not be bought or sold, used as collateral for
loans, inherited, or transferred to others. But renting (chinso) was
permitted if an annual notice thereof was submitted to the provincial
governor.
These elements of Japan's ricefieldallocation system had taken different
forms before the adoption of the Yoro code in 718.
When was the allocation system devised? According to the Nihon
shoki, it was spelled out in an edict issued in the first month of 646.5
Scholars now feel, however, that the contents of the edict show that it
was written somewhat later. And yet the reform government may well
have tried to set up some kind of land system and to make an inventory
ofthe nation's paddyfieldssoon after the 645 coup d'etat. Ishimoda Sho
takes the position that afielddistribution system (fudensei) - not including
reallocation - was established after 645. Supporting evidence for
this view is rather weak, but the logic of it is generally recognized.6
Was the Omi code compiled during the reign of Tenji (661-71), and
were its provisions implemented? Various answers have been proposed,
but none has yet been generally accepted. If such a code did
exist, we do not know what kind of land system it outlined. My own
view is that something similar to the one detailed in the Taiho and
4 Little is known of the process by which provincial officials made land allotments, but the laws
required that household registration be started in the eleventh month of year A, that registration
be completed by the fifth month of the following year B, and that an official land survey
be made in the tenth month of year B. Actual allocation was started in the eleventh month of
year B and completed by the second month of year C. In practice, surveys continued on into
the spring of year C. Thus the actual allocation of rice land was made between the winter of
year C and the spring of year D.
5 Nihon shoki, Kotoku 2 (646) 1/1, in Sakamoto Taro, Ienaga Saburo, Inoue Mitsusada, and Ono
Susumu, eds., Nihon koien bungaku taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1967) (hereafter cited as
NKBT), vol 68, pp. 280-3; translated in W. G. Aston, Nihongi, Chronicles ofJapan from the
Earliest Times to A.D. 697 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1956), pt. 2-, pp. 206-10.
6 Ishimoda Sho, Nihon no kodai kokka (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1971), pp. 318-21.
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418 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Yoro codes first appeared in the Asuka no Kiyomihara administrative
code compiled late in Temmu's reign (672-86) and promulgated in
68<).7
Nothing of this code remains. From indirect evidence we deduce
that its land allocation provisions differed from later formulations in
one important respect: All persons listed on a household register were
entitled to an allotment, and nothing apparently was said about allocations
varying with the grantee's age. We have no definite proof that
everyone received shares of land, but an examination of allotments
made to households in northern Kyushu (an area for which we have
household registers for the year 702) suggests that all individuals received
shares, irrespective of age.8
By the Taiho code of 701, allotments were made only to persons
over the age of six, a change that may have resulted from a shortage of
arable land. But a more likely explanation is that the high rate of infant
mortality was forcing the government to reallocate land too often,
thereby creating heavy administrative burdens and management difficulties.
The Taiho code also reflected some change in the disposition
of land held by persons who died before the first reallocation, stipulating
that such land did not have to be returned to the state at the time of
the next reallocation, but six years later.' This exception was removed
in the later Yoro code, possibly because not enough land was available
for allocation.
Uniqueness of Japan's allotment system
If we compare Japan's allotment system of about 718 with the Chinese
model, we find important differences. Adapted somewhat to divergent
economic and social conditions, Japan's systems contained the following
unique features:
1. In China an allotment was valid for a fixed number of years and
made the allotment holder responsible for paying taxes. But in
Japan allotments were not linked directly with the obligation to pay
7 Torao, Handen shuju ho no kenkyu, pp. 53-80. For alternative views, see Kishi Toshio, Nihon
kodai sekicho no kenkyu (Tokyo: Hanawa shobo, 1973), pp. 73-81; and Miyahara Takeo, Nikon
kodai no kokka to nomin (Tokyo: Hdsei University Press, 1973), pp. 164-211. For my rebuttal,
see Torao Toshiya, Nihon kodai tochi ho shiron (Tokyo, Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1981), pp. 50-101.
8 These household registers are published in Tokyo daigaku shiryo hensanjo, ed., Dai Nihon
komonjo: hennen no bu (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1901-40), vol. I, pp. 97-218; and in
Takeuchi RKO, ed., Nara ibun (Tokyo: Tokyodo shuppan, 1962), vol. 1, pp. 86-134.
9 Because only fragments of the Taiho code have been preserved, no single view has been
generally accepted. The Taiho fragments are in the Ryo no shuge, KT, 23.363. For a more
recent interpretation, see Torao, Nihon kodai tochi ho shiron, pp. 120-52.
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LAND TENURE 419
taxes.10
The Taiho code provided for allotments to every individual
over the age of six, but tax obligations were not governed by age.
2. In pre-T'ang China the only female commoners to receive allotments
were married women, and they were explicitly required to
pay taxes. During T'ang times, no female was entitled to an allotment.
But in Japan all women commoners over the age of six were
allotted two-thirds as much land as a male commoner was, and no
mention was made of tax obligations.
3. The law of pre-T'ang dynasties called for allotments of land to
slaves who were required to pay taxes, like commoners. But in
Japan a slave received one-third as much land as a commoner did,
and the law said nothing about his having to paying taxes.
These differences can be explained by the tendency of Chinese laws to
hold the head of the household responsible for the payment of a poll
tax, whereas Japanese law did not. In Japan, officials seemed to rely
mainly on households for the collection of taxes, and attempts were
made to supply these households, through allotments to individual
members, with enough land to sustain the life of each person. Consequently,
there was a rough correlation among the size of a household,
the amount of land allotted to its members, and the tax burden.
Two types of taxes existed for a few decades after the Great Reform
of 645: (1) a tax levied on each household, irrespective of the number,
sex, age, and social position of its members and (2) a tax on land
according to its size. After promulgation of the Asuka no Kiyomihara
code in 689, Japan's tax system tended to shift from what was essentially
a household tax to something like the Chinese poll tax, but the
core of Japan's allotment system remained, leaving no direct linkage
between allotments and taxes.
Nonallotted landholdings
Land left after allotments had been made was designated as surplus
land (joderi) and placed under the jurisdiction of provincial governors
who rented (chinso) it to farmers holding land allotments. This practice
was not unlike the tenancy (kosaku) system that prevailed in Japanese
farming villages before World War II. In both cases paddy land was
rented to farmers in return for rent paid in kind. In Nara times this
10 Strictly speaking, land allotment and tax in pre-T'ang China were not perfectly joined, as a
corvee exemption tax was not levied on female grantees of land during pre-T'ang dynasties.
Only during the T'ang period, when women received no land and paid no taxes, were the two
perfectly joined.
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420 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Type
Imperial domains"
(kanden) (londen)
Rank land (iden)
Temple land (jiden)
Shrine land
(shinderi)
Station land (ekiden)
Merit land' (koden)
Imperially bestowed
land (shiden)
Office land
(shikibunden):
Central (shikidenY
Provincial
(kugedetif
District (shikiden)
TABLE 8. I
Nonalbtment holdings
Grantee
Emperor or em-
press
Holders of the fifth
rank and above
Buddhist temples
Shinto shrines
Stations on the official
transport
system
Meritorious
individuals
Recipients named
in an edict
Major counselors
and above
Dazaifu and provincial
officials
District officials
How worked
Corvee labor
Rental (chinso)
Slavery, hired labor,
rental
Slavery, hired labor,
rental
Rental
Rental
Rental
Rental
Worked by servants
at state expense
Rental, or family
labor
Taxes
None
Land tax
None
None
None
Land tax
Land tax
None
None
Land tax
"A term used in the Taiho code.
'This type could be passed on to the next generation and even longer, for greater degrees of
merit.
took two forms: an amount of rent (chin) paid to the provincial governor
before planting or an amout of rice (so) handed over after harvest.
The latter was generally preferred. It is estimated that a fanner working
surplus land had to pay, as chin or so, about 20 percent of his crop.
The provincial governors who received the rent were required to forward
it to the Council of State in the capital, where it was used to
defray administrative expenses.
Other types of nonallotted land included grants to the emperor,
court nobles, government officials, temples and shrines, and meritorious
individuals. The character of such grants, as set forth in the Yoro
code, is outlined in Table 8.1. Note that all nonallotment holdings,
except those held directly by the emperor, were rented to persons who
paid a fixed amount of rice as rent.
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LAND TENURE 421
jo I
jo 2
jo 3
jo 4
rt 1
sCJ
W2
•"— 6 cho — •
one ri
n i
.one tsubo
T
ri4
^ N o . 1
tsubo of
4th ;o,
4th ri
Figure 8.1. Grid in the Nara period for location and measurement of
land. East-west strips, jo; north-south strips, ri. (Each ri is divided
into thirty-six tsubo.) Linear measurement: 1 cho = 60 bu (107 meters).
Area measurement: 1 cho - 10 tan = 3,600 bu (1,145 square
meters), and 1 tan = 360 bu (114.5 square meters).
Description and measurement of land
Paddy land of all types, as well as other land allotments and grants,
were divided into jo and ri, and these were subdivided into smaller
units that were in turn re-subdivided. This made it possible to describe
and measure particular plots more accurately.
Ideally the grid was segmented by east-west strips (jo) 642 meters
wide and by north-south strips (rt) of equal width. Roads and waterways
ran along both sides of all strips, giving cultivated areas of land a
checkerboard appearance that can still be seen in many parts of Japan.
A ri was 642 meters square and contained an area of 412,164 square
meters (see Figure 8.1). The ri was divided into thirty-six tsubo (one
cho containing ten tan), as shown in Figures 8.2 and 8.3. Thus a given
piece of land might be described as "the second tan from the west in
tsubo 2 of ri 4 injd 6."
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422 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
The chidori system The heiko system
1
2
3
4
5
6
12
11
10
9
8
7
13
14
15
16
17
18
24
23
22
21
20
19
25
26
27
28
29
30
36
35
34
33
32
31
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
Figure 8.2. The tsubo numbering systems. Each number (square)
represents one cho subdivided into ten tan.
The long way
-60 b
The wide
60 bu
way
6 bu 12 bu
Figure 8.3. Divisions of cho into tan.
Just when the grid system was devised is not definitely known. But
because it enabled the government to locate, measure, and record
precisely a piece of allocated land, we believe that the grids came into
general use in Nara times" and that as investigations show, they
existed - marked off by roads or waterways on both sides of every
strip - in an area extending from the plains of Akita Prefecture in the
north to those of Kagoshima Prefecture in the south. We know, too,
that grids were utilized when allocations were made. So we can view
this system as a valued means for establishing governmental control
11 Kishi Toshio expresses a different view in his Nihon kodai sekicho no kenkyu, pp. 391-414,
and his "Asuka to hokaku jiwari," Shirin 53 (July 1970): 1-42.
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LAND TENURE 423
over the country's most productive plains, and its widespread use as
testifying to the extensive power of the Nara state.
Allocation problems
The reallocation of land to all households throughout the country
every six years proved to be such a troublesome administrative task
that reallocation was apparently limited to households whose membership
had increased or decreased during the previous six years. But in
729 the government ordered a readjustment in all provinces. It is
thought that this ambitious project was implemented only in the area
around the capital. But even there, the burden of implementation was
quite onerous, as is suggested by a poem found in Japan's famous
eighth-century anthology the Man'yoshu, lamenting the lot of an official,
Tatsumaro, who had been assigned the task of adjusting land
allotments in Settsu:
But, while obedient to the Emperor's word,
Night and morning he remained in wave-bright Naniwa,
Until the year had passed
Without leisure even to dry his sleeves,
How thought he of his life?
He left this dear and precious world
As vanishes a drop of dew.
Long enough before his time.12
Scholars have determined that Tatsumaro was driven to suicide by
overwork on the adjustment of allocations and by the psychological
strain of facing resistance from those who had received special land
grants (such as office land, temple land, or shrine land) in Settsu.
The farmers seem to have faced the more serious problem of producing
enough rice to keep themselves and their households from starving.
Evidence showing the amount of land allotted to a single household
is almost nonexistent, but we have portions of a 766 report from
the governor of Echizen showing how one particular cho of land (10 fan
or 1,145 square meters) in the northwestern part of Sakai District,
Echizen Province, was allotted during the year of 761 to five households
(see Table 8.2).'3 Such pieces of land were obviously too small to
12 As translated in Nihon gakujutsu shinkokai, The Manyoshu: One Thousand Poems (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1965), p. 186.
13 Dai Nihon komonjo: Hennen no bu, 5.554-617; Tokyo daigaku shiryo hensanjo, ed., Todai-ji
monjo: Tonan'in monjo (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1944-), vol. 2, pp. 187-244; and
Nara ibun, 2.662-89.
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424 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
TABLE 8.2
Land allotment
Household tan bu
1 6 and 123
2 o and 209
3 o and 155
4 2 and 116
5 0 and 117
Total 8 and 720 (10 tan or 1 cho)
produce enough rice to feed all members of an average-sized household,
suggesting that some individuals held allotments elsewhere.
Research on the composition of farm households in Nara times
indicates that a typical household was made up of thirteen persons:
five males and six females over six, and two children (one male and
one female) under six. Because the children under six did not receive
allotments, the holdings of a hypothetical household amounted to 18
tan (1.8 cho): 2 tan for each of the five males and 1.33 ton for each of
the six females over six.14
In those days high-grade land was expected
to yield 500 sheaves per cho (about 1,800 liters of rice), and middlegrade
land would produce 400 sheaves, providing an average annual
household income of 810 sheaves. But 36 of these 810 sheaves (20 per
cho) would have been used for seeding and another 27 (15 per cho) for
taxes. This provided 747 sheaves (yielding approximately 2,689 liters
of rice) for members of the household to live on during the coming
year, not enough to sustain life for thirteen persons. Remembering
that a household had other burdens, such as supplying corvee labor,
we can be quite certain that the yield from a household allotment was
not sufficient to meet the basic needs of its members. Note, too, that
these estimates are based on the assumption that individual allotments
were as stipulated in the codes, but we know that some areas did not
have enough land to go around and that allotments had to be reduced
accordingly.1
'
Nara period households did have additional sources of income.
14 Sawada Goichi, Nara chojidai minsei keizai no suteki kenkyu (Tokyo: Fuzambd, 1927).
15 Torao, Handen shuju, pp. 245-9. The rice yield during this period is the subject of considerable
controversy. Early work on it was done by Sawada Goichi, Nara chojidai minsei keizai no
suteki kenkyu, and by Takigawa Masajiro, Ritsuryo jidai no nomin seikatsu (Tokyo: Dojinsha,
1943), pp. 77-82. Takigawa calculated that the average daily consumption by a male was 0.24
sheaves of rice, and by a female 0.20 sheaves (p. 95). Miyahara Takeo reached conclusions
different from mine in his Nikon kodai no kokka to nomin, pp. 254-77.
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CONTROL OF PERSONS 425
Land could be rented from other farmers or from government officials,
and household members might turn to slash-and-burn agriculture
or to the dry farming of millet, barley, or wheat. An increasing
body of evidence suggests that such secondary occupations as fishing
and forestry also served to supplement a family's income, as did hunting
and gathering. But such gains probably did not offset the losses
caused by drought and storm. The Shoku Nihongi (a court chronicle of
the eighth century) reports poor crops in one section or another of
Japan almost every year. So the income of a household was not only
meager but also unstable, making the lot of a Nara farmer a harsh one
indeed.16
CONTROL OF PERSONS
The people of Nara Japan were classified by law as commoners
(ryomin) or slaves (semmin). Laws prohibited a person from marrying
outside his or her class and prescribed much more severe punishments
for crimes committed by slaves. But slaves made up less than 10
percent of the population and were not the country's main producers.
Slaves
The slave class was divided by law into five subgroups according to
types of ownership and degrees of freedom. The first subgroup was
state slaves (kanko) owned by the central government. They could
have families and could use a portion of their labor for themselves.
The second subgroup was private slaves (ke'niti) owned by commoners.
They had as much freedom as did state slaves. The third was,state
chattel slaves (kunuhi) owned by the central government. They were
treated as property that could be bought and sold. The fourth subgroup
was private chattel slaves (shinuht) owned by commoners. They
were otherwise treated like state chattel slaves. And the fifth was the
imperial-mausolea slaves {ryoko) owned by officials. They were used to
protect and maintain the tombs of deceased emperors and empresses.
Private slaves (ke'nin) are not mentioned in extant household registers
or other records of the eighth century, and we find only scattered
references to them in legal provisions of that and the following centu-
16 William Wayne Farris concluded that epidemics and inadequate irrigation technology drove
the peasants from their land and created unsettled farming conditions; see his Population,
Disease, and Land in Early Japan, 645-900 (Harvard—Yenching Monograph Series no. 24)
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp.74-117.
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426 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
ries. We therefore assume that private slaves were not numerous and
that imperial-mausolea slaves were ranked about as high as commoners
were, as they were despised only because of the work they did.
Commoners, on the other hand, included artisan groups (shinabe) that
were much like slaves. The largest slave subgroup was private chattel
slaves, who were owned mainly by temples, shrines, public officials,
and wealthy farmers. One private chattel slave, according to contemporary
sources, had roughly the value of a strong horse or cow.'7
Holders of court rank
Commoners were divided between those who held court ranks and
those who did not, roughly between the rulers and the ruled. There
was some mobility between the two groups, but the legal distinctions
were clear and significant.
Holders of court ranks held public office, the highest posts being
reserved for those with the highest rank. These favored commoners did
not simply occupy positions of political control but also obtained incomes
appropriate to their rank and office. They were also exempt from
all taxes, except those levied on land grants accompanying the conferral
of rank or office. When convicted of a crime, they received lighter
sentences and were allowed less onerous ways of serving sentences.
Holders of court rank were, in turn, divided between elite courtconnected
aristocrats who held the top fourteen ranks (senior first
rank through junior fifth rank lower grade) of the thirty defined by
law, and lower-ranking nobles who held the bottom sixteen ranks
(senior sixth rank upper grade through lesser bottom rank lower
grade). All the holders of the highest fourteen ranks were men born
into a few powerful uji (clans) associated with the court, blocking all
others from positions of effective political control. This elite group
numbered no more than 250 in a population of between 5 million and
6 million. At the upper level were a few persons who monopolized the
highest six ranks of junior third rank and above, held the highest
offices, and received the most favored treatment. If one of these aristocrats
were senior second rank (third from the top) and held the post of
minister of the left, he would be entitled to 60 cho of land for his rank,
30 cho for his office, and 2,200 households (200 for his rank and 2,000
for his office). He also received extra spring and fall stipends and used
17 For additional detail, see Takigawa Masajiro, Ritsuryo semminsei no kenkyu (Tokyo: Kadokawa
shoten, 1967).
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CONTROL OF PERSONS 427
officials and messengers at state expense. His landholdings of 90 chb
equaled the total amount of land allotted to 450 male commoners.
Because he received all the produce taxes (cho) paid by 2,200 households,
and one-half of their land tax (denso), his total income was
roughly that of a small province.
Strictly speaking, ranks were granted to individuals, and an individual
was promoted to a high office only after the lapse of a fixed period
of time and after his service record had been considered. But in practice,
hereditary rights were enjoyed by sons of officials of the fourth
and fifth ranks and by sons and grandsons of officials of the third rank
and above. Thus offices of the fifth rank and above tended to go to the
descendants of aristocrats who had held posts at that same high level.
Although ostensibly granted to individuals, they were consistently
held by members of the same court-connected clans.
Below these high-born aristocrats of fifth rank and above were lowranking
nobles who, in most cases, were members of the local gentry.
Because they were granted court ranks and public offices, they too
were rulers, but definitely subordinate to the elite aristocrats at or
above the fifth rank. Most lower-ranking nobles were descendants of
local leaders who had maintained, generation after generation, control
over people in an outlying region. Elite aristocrats had to rely on these
local gentry when attempting to extend their control. Thus influential
members of the local gentry were incorporated into the state's administrative
structure through the award of court ranks below the fifth rank
and such local government offices as that of district supervisor. Elite
aristocrats always placed their own kind in regional offices, producing
linkages with local gentry that strengthened state control over outlying
regions. So while occupying the highest ranks and positions at the
capital, court aristocrats collaborated with, and sometimes became
rivals of, gentry officials holding local government posts.
Nonholders of court rank
Commoners who were not awarded court ranks or appointed to public
offices were mainly farmers to whom rice land had been allotted. They
were the producers of the goods and services that provided most of the
state's income. These commoners (the ruled) were permitted to carry
on their agricultural work in autonomous groups and to enjoy certain
freedoms. But because the state controlled their irrigation systems,
they were not truly free.
The basic commoner group, a household or ko, was not precisely a
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428 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
family. Household heads (koshu) were held responsible for making
households function as units through which the state could control
commoners. Extant household registers of the Nara period indicate,
however, that most households were made up of blood relatives. Modern
scholars are inclined to think that during the sixth and seventh
centuries, cooperative communities (kyodo-tai) included several families
but were dominated by one and that the government made these
communities into households for the purpose of facilitating its con-
trol.18
By Nara times, households stood at the base of the state's
control system.
Around 50 households were included in an administrative village
(ri). Historical sources of the period provide a fair number of cases in
which one ri had precisely 50 households. But after the government
altered its local administrative structure in 715, two types of villages
and two types of households came into existence.19
A large administrative
village made up of two or three smaller villages (ri) was called a go.
At the same time, two or three small households (boko) made up a
larger household called a goko. So two new units were added to the old
administrative structure: a smaller village and a smaller household.
According to a 721 household register for the Oshima administrative
village (go) in the Katsushika District of Shimofusa, Oshima included
three small villages (ri), 50 large households (goko), and 130 small
households (boko). The total registered population was 1,191. An average
large household therefore had fewer than 24 persons, and a small
one had 9. The average size of a family seems also to have been around
9 or more persons, a conclusion supported by recent archaeological
investigations. For example, on the border between the Nerima and
Itabashi wards of Tokyo, archaeologists have found fifteen pit dwellings
that date from the seventh or eighth centuries and that have floor
space ranging between 7.6 and 33 square meters each, an average of 16
square meters. A dwelling usually had an oven built into one of the
walls, which suggests that it was used by a single family.20
The floor
space of 16 square meters was about right for a typical family of 9.
Archaeologists think there were between thirty and forty dwellings in
18 Kadowaki Teiji, Nihon kodai kyodotai no kenkyu (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, i960).
For a critique of Kadowaki's conclusions, see Urata Akiko, "Henkosei no igi," Shigaku zasshi
81 (February 1972): 28-76.
19 The 715 ordinance is no longer extant, but the Izumo no kunifudoki refers to it; see NK.BT
2.96.
20 Nakagawa Shigeo, and Kawamura Kiichi, eds., Kunhara: The Report of the Excavation ofthe
Archeology Sites at St. Paul's Green Heights (Tokyo: Faculty of Letters of Rikkyo University
Press, 1957).
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CONTROL OF PERSONS 429
the group, about the number in a small village (n). Some scholars
conclude that the changes in the organization of villages and households
made in 715 arose from a tendency of famines to become more
independent - to break away from traditional communities and to
function as separate households.21
But in 739, before the lapse of a
quarter of a century, the 715 alterations were rescinded. I am therefore
not certain about the validity of the view that the changes of 715 reflect
greater family independence.
Two sources provide information on the life of Nara period households
and villages. First, the household registers (koseki) prepared for
each household every six years showed whether persons of a household
were commoners or slaves, and they supplied the information needed
for making reallocations of land every six years. The second source is
the yearly tax registers (keicho) that recorded payments of produce
taxes and labor levies (choyo). The tax registers were, of course, linked
with the household registers. Both were prepared by provincial officials
and sent to the capital. Large numbers were undoubtedly kept,
but only a few are extant.
By studying what remains of the household and tax registers, we
can deduce that families of eighth-century Japan had a strong patrilineal
character. But the compilers of these documents may well have
been influenced by the tendency to accept the Chinese family system
as a model. On the basis of other evidence, such as poems found in
the Mariyoshu, some think that a matrilineal family system also existed.
Some historians are therefore inclined to see an earlier Japanese
matrilineal system within the Chinese patrilineal model. For example,
in the earlier years of marriage, a woman did not live with her
husband but received nocturnal visits from him (tsumadoikori), or
he moved in. The wife did not change her name or uji (clan) affiliation
after marriage. And their children were registered under the uji
name of the father, although they were brought up in the mother's
household.22
The Man'yoshu contains several poems that refer to marriages of this
sort:
Wading the Hase River
in the twilight
I draw near
to my true love's door.
21 Kadowaki, Nihon kodai kyodotai no kenkyu.
22 Takamure Itsue, Shoseikon no kenkyu (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1953)Cambridge
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430 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Can only a spring rain so drench
your garments through?
If it rains for seven days,
Will you not come for seven nights?
Go not away, dear heart,
So late in the night.
The hoar frost is on the leaves
of the dense bamboo-grass by the land.
But another Man'ydshil poem suggests that married couples lived
together:
With my parents at my pillow
My wife and children at my feet,
All huddled in grief and tears.2
'
It seems that when living together, couples might be either at the
home of the wife's parents or at that of the husband's, but usually the
former.2
*
With respect to the inheritance of a rank holder's property, the
Taiho statutes of 701 stipulated that the eldest son would inherit his
father's property, as in Chinese law. But he was not to receive everything.
He got the house, the chattel slaves (except those brought into
the household by the deceased's wife), and one-half of all other property,
with the remainder being divided equally among his brothers.
The later Yoro code reduced the eldest son's proportion of the inheritance
to twice that of any brother and also recognized inheritance by
daughters (half that received by brothers). Nothing, however, is said
about inheritance in commoner families that had no court rank, but
each member seems to have inherited an equal portion.
CONTROL OF STATE FINANCES AND EXCHANGE
The state's financial arrangements were devised in accordance with
the principle that the state should collect enough taxes in kind to meet
its operating costs. Taxes paid by farmers who had received land
allotments were of two types: a portion of the rice produced and a
portion of the articles made. Produce such as hemp cloth paid for by a
23 The above Man'yoshu poems are nos. 1917, 2336, and 892 in Nihon gakujutsu shinkokai,
trans., The Man'yoshu, pp. 294, 297-8, 206.
24 See Hirata Kdji, "Kodai sekicho ni arawaretaru nomin no kon'in keitai ni tsuite," Shigaku
zasshi 74 (November 1965): 25-58; ltd Sumiko, "Nara jidai no kon'in ni tsuite no ichi
kosatsu," Kokka gakkai zasshi 72 (May 1958): 14-59, and 73 (January 1959): 1-54; Emori
Itsuo, Boken tofuken (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1973); Yoshida Takashi, "Ritsuryo-sei to sonraku,"
in Kodai, vol. 3 oilwanami koza: Nihon rekishi, pp. 141-200.
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CONTROL OF STATE FINANCES AND EXCHANGE 431
land grantee was transported to the capital where government officials
might authorize its disbursement as payment for an aristocrat's stipend
or a laborer's wage. Provincial officials therefore functioned
within the financial system of the central government. But they could
demand corvee labor and military service, thereby giving them a measure
of independence.2
'
The principal elements in the state's financial arrangements were as
follows:
1. Taxes of four types: (a) land taxes (denso), (b) produce taxes (cho),
(c) produce paid in lieu of a labor levy (yd), and (d) interest on state
loans (ko-suiko). All were collected by provincial officials.
2. Rice submitted in payment of taxes or as interest on state loans of
rice stored in provincial warehouses (state rice or shozei) and was
used to pay both the normal and extraordinary expenses of local
government.
3. Produce or goods paid in lieu of labor levies sent to the capital at
taxpayer's expense. Some provinces were asked to send a portion of
their "state rice" to the central government for supplying food to
courtiers (nenryo shomai). Extra payments might also be requested
to help cover the needs of the aristocrats, the court, or the central
government as a whole.
Land taxes
Land taxes were assessed according to the size of a paddy field. As
stipulated in the Taiho code, twenty-two sheaves were collected from
one cho of paddy land. But because the legal "sheaf" was defined
without regard to existing customs and was unrealistic, collections
were made in terms of the customary sheaf: fifteen sheafs per cho. But
in 706 the customary sheaf was made the legal one. Because a cho of
land would normally produce between three hundred and five hundred
sheaves, the land tax ranged between 3 and 5 percent of the
yield.26
25 Studies of financial arrangements of this period were made by Murao Jiro, Ritsuryo zaisei shi
no kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1961); Aoki Kazuo, "Ritsuryo zaisei," in Kodai of
Ivianami koza: Nihon rekishi, 3.115-46; Hayakawa Shohachi, "Ritsuryo zaisei no kozo to
sono henshitsu," in Iyanaga Teizo, ed., vol. 1 of Nihon Keizai shi taikei (Tokyo: University of
Tokyo Press, 1965), pp. 221-80; Kano Hisashi, "Ritsuryo zaisei no kiko," in Kodai of
Iwanami koza: Nihon rekishi, 3.100-39. Studies of trade were made by Yoshida Takashi,
Riiswyo kokka to kodai no shakai (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1983), pp. 289-347; Sakaehara
Towao, "Nara jidai no ryutsu keizai," Shirin 55 (July 1972): 18-60.
26 My usage of the term sheaf'is in accord with contemporary usage, not as defined in the codes.
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432 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Produce tax (cho) and produce paid in lieu of the labor levy (yo)
The cho and yd taxes, major features of the Nara-period tax system,
were collected from adult males between the ages of seventeen and
sixty-five. The amount varied with age and was largest for men between
twenty-one and sixty. Produce taxes were paid in kind on goods
produced locally and required by the central government. These were
mainly textiles, especially silk and hemp cloth, but also included dyes,
lacquer, paper, and salt. Produce submitted in lieu of labor levies was
usually hemp cloth or rice, which was used to cover the cost of labor
needed at the capital. The burden of transporting these products was
also borne by the farmers.
The Taiho code stipulated that farmers living in four (later five)
provinces around the capital (the Kinai) were not required to pay
either of these two taxes at the full rate. These fortunate people had to
pay only one-half of the produce tax and were exempt from the substitute
tax. But they were often forced to work for the central government
as hired workers (koeki). In 706, however, the labor substitute
tax was reduced by one-half throughout the country.
State loans (ko-suiko)
Interest-bearing loans were of two types: loans of rice or other consumer
products made by private individuals (shi-suiko), often at rates
as high as 100 percent per year, and state loans {ko-suiko), which took
the form of rice loans made by local officials. The latter were usually
made in the winter or spring and were repaid at harvest time with an
interest charge of 50 percent. Various theories have been advanced
regarding the origin of rice loans, but none has yet received general
acceptance. In principle, local government officials made loans of seed
rice in the spring to fanners who needed them and then demanded
repayment at harvest time. Realizing that seed rice could also be used
for food, that such loans ensured the production of a new crop, that
private loans were costly, and that local government loans were often
canceled whenever a borrower died, one can think of state loans as a
form of public welfare. But it is also clear that the receipt of interest on
them became an important source of state revenue.27
In 795 the rate of
interest was reduced to 30 percent.
27 See Sonoda Koyu, "Suiko," in Osaka Rekishi gakkai, ed., Ritsuryo kokka no kiso kozo
(Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, i960), pp. 397-466; and Farris, Population, Disease, and
Land, pp. 65-69.
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CONTROL OF STATE FINANCES AND EXCHANGE 433
Labor services
In addition to bearing the obligation of handing over a portion of what
they produced or made to the state, adult male farmers had to supply
labor of various types. First, the provincial office had the right to
conscript adult males as a miscellaneous labor levy (zoyo). Restricted
to no more than sixty days per year, these levies were normally used
for local construction projects. But Nara records indicate that by the
middle of the eighth century, many provincial officials openly abused
farmers by forcing them to work on private projects. In 757 the miscellaneous
labor levy was reduced to thirty days per year.
The second type of service was military conscription. The Taiho
code states that each household had to provide one soldier (heishi) for
every four of its able-bodied males between the ages of twenty-one and
sixty. But the Yoro code raised this to one for every three. Conscripts
were placed in units that had either a military or a police function. A
unit was divided into ten companies (ban) that provided, in turn, ten
days' service each. Although draftees were freed from other forms of
labor service, they had to provide their own food and weapons, making
such service quite onerous. A household could obtain exemption
from the zoyo or yd tax by providing heishi, but the latter was even
more onerous. An early-ninth-century order from the Council of State
lamented that "a household is doomed if one of its men is drafted."28
The third kind of labor service was a member of the palace guards
(eji), who were assembled for duty at the court. The limitation of such
service to one year was not necessarily respected. Consequently, we read
of such complaints as "I went to the capital as a guard in the prime of lifebut
returned home with white hair."2
' A related duty was for the defense
of a border area of northern Kyushu (sakimori), for which men
were sent from distant points of eastern Japan. The tour was limited to
three years, but again, the limitation was not necessarily respected, causing
misery for households that provided guards. The number of persons
in a unit was not firmly fixed: Documents of 738 suggest a figure around
2,300.3° Nor do we know why guards were assigned to duty so far from
home. A Man'yoshu poem reflects the feelings of such a person:
But in dread obedience to the imperial command
I started out on the road,
Looking back many times from the corner of each hill.
28 Council of State order of Tencho 3 (826) 11/3, Ruiju sandai kyaku, KT 25. 553-5.
29 Shoku Nihongi, chap. 9, Yoro 6 (722) 2/23, KT 2.91.
30 Dai Nihon homonjo, 2.106-46; Nara ibun, 1.231-2, 221-32, 252-62, 267-8.
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434 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Having left my dear ones far behind,
My mind knew no rest
While the pain of longing wrung my heart.
Mortal creature as I am,
How could I be sure of my life?'1
Labor service for projects at the capital was of two types. The first
was for daily work in government offices, for which unskilled laborers
(shicho) were conscripted at the rate of two persons per fifty households.
In return for three years of work, a laborer gained exemption
from most taxes and assessments. The major supply of labor for the
capital was obtained, however, by hired laborers (koekt). We know that
hired laborers were used for construction projects at the Heijo,
Shigaraki, and Kuni capitals and at various temples and shrines.
These men were compensated with money and food. Several contracts
for work of this kind exist in the Shoso-in document collection, but
they do not show how much freedom the hired laborers had to refuse
conscription.32
Commercial exchange
Most exchange in Nara times was associated with the government's
collection of goods and services from outlying areas. The basic movement
of goods was therefore from those areas to the capital. Peasants
and their provincial guides transported cloth, iron, salt, silk, and other
products to the capital where they were used by officials or exchanged
for goods, services, or cash with which to pay stipends. Such exchange
took place at two state-run markets (the Eastern and the Western) in
the capital, which were centers of a vast commercial network that
included markets, ports, and stations in neighboring provinces. The
government issued laws for fixing prices and establishing standards of
weights and measures, and it even decided when stores were to open
and close. Each province had its own market, located near the provincial
headquarters, that was linked with a number of local trading
posts.
As Japanese aristocrats became more deeply interested in T'ang
31 Man'yoshu, no. 4408, trans, in Nihon gakujutsu shinkokai, The Man'yoshu, p. 177. This
poem was composed in 755 by Otomo no Yakamochi while he was reviewing troops.
32 For example, see Dai Nihon komonjo, 15.357-64. Construction projects of that day are
discussed in Fukuyama Toshio, Nihon kenchiku shi no kenkyu (Tokyo: Bokusui shobo, 1943).
The freedom of contract was studied by Asaka Toshiki, Nihon kodai shukogyo shi no kenkyu
(Tokyo: Hosei University Press, 1971); Naoki Kojiro, Narajidai shi no sho mondai (Tokyo:
Hanawa shobo, 1968), pp. 108-19.
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CONTROL OF STATE FINANCES AND EXCHANGE 435
culture, they were drawn to the utility of metallic money. Coins were
probably minted in the closing years of the seventh century. In 708,
silver and copper coins, inscribed with Wado kaichin, were minted.
Although the minting of silver coins was discontinued the following
year, copper coins remained in circulation throughout the Nara period.
But we cannot say that a highly developed money economy had
emerged, for most exchanges were in terms of rice.
The government gave special attention to the development of copper
mining, establishing several offices of the mint (jusenshi) in western
Japan where the copper mines were located. Because the government
was making a serious attempt to stimulate the acceptance and
use of officially minted coins, it listed punishments for private coining
that were much more severe than those inflicted for the same offense
in China. Various measures also were taken to stimulate the circulation
of coins. For example, local produce taxes of the Kinai area had to be
paid in copper coins, as were the salaries of laborers hired for construction
work at the capital. But despite such efforts to stimulate the
circulation of copper coins, their use was limited largely to areas
around the capital. Even there, not all accounts were settled in terms
of copper coins, as rice continued to be the dominant medium of
exchange.
In attempting to increase circulation of the Wado kaichin the government
established rates at which coins were to be exchanged for rice.
We do not know what those rates were until 711, three years after the
Wado kaichin were first issued, when one copper coin (mon) was valued
at six sho of rice.33 Because this revision was made when the government
was endeavoring to stimulate circulation, the earlier value may
have been as low asfivesho per coin.
Historical evidence of exchange activity by merchants during the
Nara period is scanty, but they were definitely operating within the
trade networks just outlined. It is assumed that the merchants' activity
increased as more accounts were settled with copper money serving as
the medium of exchange. The Nihon ryoiki, a collection of Nara period
Buddhist tales, contains a story about a resident of Nara who borrowed
thirty strings of copper coins (one thousand to a string) from the
Daian-ji and then went to the port ofTsuruga in Echizen to buy goods to
sell at the capital. On his way back he got sick while transporting his
purchases across Lake Biwa. Then, as the story goes, he met three
demons who had been sent to entice him into hell. But by presenting the
33 One sho at that time was the equivalent of 0.4 of a modern sho, or 0.72 liter.
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436 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
demons with food, he was able to avoid certain death.** Although this
tale is largely fictitious, the portion preceding the appearance of the
demons reveals certain aspects of the current commercial situation.
From it we can deduce that a great official temple (the Daian-ji) was
engaged in the business oflending copper coins for gain, that Tsuruga a
harbor facing the Japan Sea - was a place where goods were bought
for sale at the capital, that copper coins were used for consummating
transactions, that ships were hauling goods across Lake Biwa, and that
shipowners accepted copper coins for services rendered.
The Nihon ryoiki contains other stories that touch on merchants'
activities. One refers to large ships loaded with goods plying the
Kusatsu River in Owari Province. Another mentions a market along
the upper reaches of the same river, this time in Mino Province where
ships were anchored. From these references it becomes clear that
goods were being tranported by water and that such trade must have
become more active as the finances of the central government became
more dependent on exchange. And yet the commercial class was still in
its infancy, for we know that bureaucrats also acted as merchants. One
Ato no Otari, a low-ranking official of the Bureau for the Construction
of Tddai-ji, bought goods directly from commoners with his own
money and sold them to the bureau.**
POLICY CHANGES
Japanese economic and social institutions functioned in rather close
accord with the original ritsuryo codes during the first three decades of
the eighth century, although minor code revisions were made. But
after 730, legal enactments reflect a fundamental change of policy.
Particularly significant were the state's recognition of private possession
of rice land in perpetuity, the granting of legal status to vagrants,
and changes in the state-loan system.
Land tenure
An agricultural society supported by paddy field rice production is
constantly faced with two basic problems: how to restore the cultivation
of rice on land that has been turned into wasteland by such
34 Nihon ryoiki, NKBT 70.246-50; translated by Nakamura Kyoko Motomichi, Miraculous
Stones from theJapanese Buddhist Tradition: The Nihon ryoiki of the Monk Kyokai (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972).
35 For more detail, see Yoshida, "Ritsuryo jidai no koeki," pp. 376-83.
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POLICY CHANGES 437
natural disasters as flood or drought and how to increase the amount
of land under cultivation. But the Taiho and Yoro codes contain only
one article that touches on these problems.*6
In regard to the reclamation
of wasteland, a distinction was made between private land
(shiden) and state land (koden). The former was personal-share land
possessed and used by farmers, whereas the latter, classified as surplus
land (joden), was unallocated land that was a source of income for
the state. When a piece of private land was abandoned, another
farmer was allowed to recultivate it and to enjoy its yield for three
years, after which it was returned to the state. A farmer who brought
state wasteland back into cultivation could keep what was produced
for six years, and then he was required to turn over the land to
provincial authorities.
The problem of developing virgin land was more complicated. The
code merely stipulated that a provincial governor might open and
benefit from fields opened up during his incumbency. At the end of his
term of office, such land was to be returned to the state. Surprisingly,
the statute does not stipulate the conditions under which court nobles
or farmers might develop virgin land. Silence on this point should not
be mistaken, however, for prohibition. It was only natural that farmers
should have been interested in expanding their fields, and the government
in increasing its income. We assume, therefore, that peasants
were customarily permitted to convert nearby land into paddy fields,
probably gaining possession of such land for life, as in the case of
personal-share land. In general, land development was undertaken by
the state and was represented in local areas by provincial and district
officials. The involvement of court aristocrats in land development was
prohibited, but local peasants faced no such law, receiving usufructuary
rights to the paddy fields that they developed."
Because it was difficult to gain private possession of cultivated land,
powerful aristocrats and local gentry were, not surprisingly, drawn to
illegal methods of obtaining and developing virgin land. An edict
issued in the twelfth month of 711 strictly prohibited activity that
would decrease the income that farmers obtained from uncultivated
common land.*8
But the edict nevertheless allowed a court aristocrat,
or member of the local gentry, to request through a provincial governor
permission to cultivate a piece of virgin land at his own personal
expense. The very existence of the stipulation indicates that the state,
36 Ryo no shuge, KT 23.370-2. 37 Ibid., p. 372.
38 ShokuNihongi, Wado 4 (711), 12/6 KT 2.47.
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438 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
finding it impossible to prohibit all invasions of common land, was
yielding to the aristocrats' land hunger and, at the same time, trying to
increase the amount of arable land. Twelve years later, in 723, a new
law ruled that some newly developed land could be privately possessed
by the developer and passed on to his descendants for three generations,
but only during the lifetime of the developer if an irrigation
system was already in existence.39
One year before this law was issued, a plan had been devised for
opening up a million cho ofland for rice production. Because ninth- and
tenth-century documents suggest that the total amount of land under
cultivation was then about a million cho, the implementation of this
ambitious plan would have doubled Japan's arable land. But it was
merely a paper plan. The 723 law may have been issued because the plan
of the previous year could not be implemented, although we have no
definite proof ofa link between the two. A shortageofrice land undoubtedly
lay behind the 723 law, which served to benefit farmers who had
opened up virgin land near their allotments. But the law may also have
been prompted by the demands of aristocrats who had the capital and
labor needed for buildingirrigation systems. Finally, there was a persistent
demand for land, which the government may have been unable to
satisfy. Prince Nagaya, as head of the anti-Fujiwara faction, had risen to
the highest seat of authority after the death of Fujiwara no Fuhito in
720. In order to maintain his position in the face of opposition from
Fuhito's descendants, he must have been impelled to buy ruling-class
support by favoring legislation that would permit the private possession
of land. We should note, however, that the law of 723 was only a
compromise with the principles of state control: Eventually all fields
had to be returned to the state. The old one-generation restriction still
applied to personal-share land, and the new three-generation rule was
modeled on earlier rights extended to holders of "upper-merit land"
(jokoden). Thus the ritsuryo land system was by no means dead.
Nara records tell us little about land development after 723. It is
unlikely, however, that many new fields were brought under cultivation
as a result of the new provision. Restrictions incorporated into the
law probably reduced its effectiveness. But twenty years later another
edict drastically reduced these restrictions and enabled private individuals
to hold rice land in perpetuity.*> The 743 edict, like the one
39 Shoku Nihongi, Yoro 7 (723), 4/17 KT 2.96.
40 Several texts of this law are extant, but the best one is in the Shoku Nihongi, Tempyo 15 (743),
5/27 KT 2.174. The text also can be found in the Ruiju sandai kyaku, KT 25.441, and in the
Ryo no shuge, KT 23.372.
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POLICY CHANGES 439
issued in 723, arose out of a new situation in court politics. Now
Tachibana no Moroe (684-757) was the dominant political figure, and
he, like Prince Nagaya before him, was forced to make it easier for
aristocrats and religious institutions to become private owners of rice
land. Until 743, only one person had ever had private possession of
land in perpetuity: Fujiwara no Kamatari (614-69), founder of the
Fujiwara clan and a prominent post-645 reformer who had received a
grant of "great-merit land" (daikoden). But the edict of 743 made it
possible for aristocrats generally to acquire private ownership of land
and to pass it on to their descendants, thereby altering the course of
economic history in fundamental ways.
State recognition of the private and permanent tenure of rice land
meant that two opposing principles prevailed: the old principle that
the state allocated and reallocated rice land already under cultivation
and the new principle of private ownership by persons who had developed
land. That is, in a given village some land was designated as
personal-share land, or surplus land, in accordance with the ritsuryo
principle of state control, and all other land was newly cultivated land
that was privately owned. It became increasingly difficult to disentangle
the two, making it hard for governmental authorities to preserve
the land allotment system.
The 743 edict also altered the meaning of the terms "private land"
(shideri) and "state land" (koden). According to earlier law, private land
was that with a specific usufructuary, most of which was personalshare
allotments but included plots of land distributed to persons
holding public offices and ranks. State land, on the other hand, was
rice land without a specific usufructuary and consisting mainly of
surplus fields (jdderi). But the 743 law gave "private land" a new
meaning: fields privately owned in perpetuity and recognized by the
state. State land, on the other hand, was now personal-share fields
temporarily allotted to individuals in accordance with the old ritsuryo
system. Whereas previous laws distinguished between private and
state land in terms of the presence or absence of usufructuary rights,
the 743 law did so in terms of private possession and state control.
Another change ushered in by the 743 law arose from persons being
permitted to cultivate an amount of land determined by political status:
An official of the first rank could develop five hundred cho of
land, but a person without rank could develop only ten. It is possible
to think of this change as adding another restriction to those incorporated
in the 723 law. Some scholars believe this explains why the 743
law was issued. Earlier codes had not dealt with the question of land
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440 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
development, but if they had, limits on the amount of land that a
single individual could bring under cultivation would probably have
been deemed necessary. Therefore Yoshida Takashi concluded that
although the 743 law destroyed basic features of the ritsuryo land law, it
emerged from problems with the law's administration.41
By making it
clear that the 743 regulation was an attempt to resolve such problems,
Yoshida made an important contribution. But the 743 restrictions were
loose and were probably not enforced. Restrictions on the amount of
land that temples could develop were not even spelled out, and after
743, large amounts of new rice land appeared.42
Some two decades later, in 765 when the court was dominated by
the Buddhist priest Dokyo (d. 772) and pro-Buddhist policies were
being adopted, land development by non-Buddhist institutions or aristocratic
individuals was prohibited.4
^ Development by Buddhist temples
was, on the other hand, implicitly approved. But when Dokyo fell
from power in 770, the provisions of the 743 law were apparently
restored.44
Records show that during the remaining century and a
quarter of ritsuryo history, the amount of land brought under cultivation
increased continuously and markedly.
In looking back over changes in land policy, we see two distinct
periods of land system disintegration. First is the period after 743
when individuals or religious institutions were permitted to possess
newly developed rice land personally and in perpetuity. This period
ended in 801 when the interval between allotments was lengthened
from six to twelve years.4
? The second period lasted from about 800 to
the early tenth century when the ritsuryo land system virtually disappeared.
A study of household registers and land allotment records
down to 800 provides results shown in Table 8.3. Two points should
be made about these figures. First, with only two exceptions, a census
was taken every six years. Second, the length of time between a census
and the following allotment was at first two years but by 800 was
lengthened to six.
Before 743, when reallotments were carried out regularly, they were
made two years after each census. But after the 743 edict, when the
41 Yoshida Takashi, Ritsuryo kokka to kodai no shakai, pp. 289-347.
42 Farris considers the great smallpox epidemic of 735-7 to have been the major factor in the
government's decision to eliminate restrictions on tenure; see Population, Disease and Land,
pp. 64-81.
43 Shoku Nihongi, Tempyo Jingo I (765) 3/5, 2.319.
44 Ruiju sandai kyaku, Council of State order, Hoki 3 (772) 10/14, KT, 25.441.
45 Ruiju sandai kyaku, Council of State, Enryaku 20 (801) 6/5, which is cited in an order issued
by the Council of State order, Jowa 1 (834) 2/3, KT 25.427.
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POLICY CHANGES 441
TABLE 8.3
Population registration and land allocation in the seventh and eighth
centuries
Registration year
Jito 4
Jito io°
Taih6 2
Wado 1
Wado 7
Yoro 5'
Jinki 4
Tempyo 5
Tempyo 12*
Tempyo 18
Tempyo Shoho 4
Tempyo Hoji 2
Tempyo Hoji 8'
Hokir
Hokir
Enryaku 1
Enryaku 7
Enryaku 13'
Enryaku 19
(A)
(690)
(696)
(702)
(708)
(714)
(72O
(727)
(733)
(74°)
(746)
(752)
(758)
(764)
(770)
(776)
(782)
(788)
(794)
(800)
Allocation year
Jito
Mommu 2'
Keiun le
Wado y
Reiki2'
Yoro 7
Tempyo 1
Tempy^
Tempyo 14
Tempyo 21
Tempyo Shoho
Tempyo Hoji 5
Jingo Keiun 1
H6ki4
Hold io*
Enryaku 5
Enryaku 11
Enryaku 19
—
(B)
(692)
(698)
(704)
(710)
(716)
(723)
(729)
(735)
(742)
(749)
(755)
(761)
(767)
(773)
(779)
(786)
(792)
(800)
Years between
AandB
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
4
4
6
"Some
believe that this registration was made in the previous year.
'Exceptions to the rule that a registration should be held every six years. Thefirstis explained by
the implementation of the ordinance of 715, and the second, by the rescission of that law in 739.
'Years for which there is no evidence that a household registration, or land allotment, was carried
out; but years when a registration or allocation was due.
d
A recently discovered wooden tablet (mokkan) in the city of Takatsuki suggests that there was a
land allotment there in 735.
provision for private possession was enacted, the ritsuryd system became
increasingly difficult to implement. As the amounts of privately
held and newly cultivated land increased - backed by powerful temples
and aristocrats anxious to develop new fields - proprietary relationships
became tangled. New low-yield fields were mixed with old
high-yield ones, and scattered privately held fields were mixed with
those that were state controlled. Because of such proprietary complications,
investigations of rice fields were obstructed, and as Table 8.3
shows, more years passed before new allocations could be made. The
allotment of rice land to those recorded in the 794 census did not begin
until 800, by which time the next census was due.
An attempt was made in 801 to solve the problem by extending the
interval between allotments from six to twelve years. This was an
extraordinary measure that in effect omitted one allotment in order to
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442 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
normalize the interval bewteen a census and the following allotment.
In principle, allocations were made all over the country in a single
year, but 800 was the last year that this could be done. Thereafter the
year of an allocation varied from province to province. Between 800
and 883 only three allocations were recorded for the Kinai area, where
proprietary rights had become especially complex. Between 800 and
the beginning of the tenth century, apparently no more than five or six
allocations were made in areas outside of the Kinai.
Vagrants
According to the codes, every commoner had to be recorded in some
household register. Further, his place of registration and residence was
fixed. If a farmer became separated from his land, he would be identified
as a vagrant (furonin), an individual who had decided to move
from his registered place of residence. He had thus placed himself
outside, and in conflict with, the ritsuryd system.-"
Law required the immediate return of all vagrants to their original
places of registration. When an individual left his land, other members
of his household were responsible for finding him. If after six years he
still had not been located, his name was removed from the tax and
household registers. Whenever an entire household became vagrant,
members of the other four households in afive-householdunit (goho)
and the vagrants' relatives (as distant as first cousins) who lived in the
same village were obligated to search for the missing persons. If not
found within six years, their names would be removed from the census
record.
Vagrancy emerged early in the ritsuryd period, as can be deduced
from early government requests that various provincial governors have
vagrants returned to their places of registry as soon as they were
located. The famines and epidemics of the first decade of the eighth
century, as well as the cost of building the Nara capital in the 710s,
must have greatly increased the number of vagrants, thereby decreasing
the number of registered farmers who paid taxes to the state. The
demand for laborers to work on reclamation projects was a further
inducement for farmers to leave their land and to seek employment
elsewhere, increasing the number of vagrants and accelerating the
deterioration of the ritsuryd system.
46 This view is expressed in Naoki Kojiro, Narajidai shi no sho mondai (Tokyo: Hanawa shobo,
1968), pp. 11-35. See Farris, Population, Disease, and Land, pp. 112-31.
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POLICY CHANGES 443
As early as 715 the state moved to resolve the problem by issuing
what is known as the "dodan law."47
Because the meaning of the word
dodan is not clear, scholars have reached no consensus on its nature
and results. According to the most recent interpretation, any person
who abandoned his land for a period of more than three months was
responsible for taxes at both his former and present places of resi-
dence.48
By collecting taxes at both places, officials were attempting to
encourage vagrants to return home, an interpretation that seems to
have more merit than previous ones have.
A new policy toward vagrancy lay behind the 721 law that stated
that when a runaway was found, provincial and district officials were
to escort him home in relays if the original residence was known and if
the vagrant was willing to return.49
If the original place of residence
was not known, the vagrant's name was entered in the household
register of the area to which he had fled. The intent of earlier laws was
thus undermined, as a vagrant was not permitted to register at his new
location. Yet the revision did not completely eliminate state control
over persons. Like the 723 statute for the development of rice land, it
was intended only to defuse a problem that was becoming increasingly
serious.
Examination of an edict issued in 736 reveals a more fundamental
change in the government's vagrancy policy.5° The first section required
that a runaway who wished to return to his original place of
registration be given a certificate that contained a statement of his
intention to return. An enforced return in the company of local officials
was not specified. Section 2 stated that a vagrant who desired to
stay at his new address must be allowed to do so if he placed his name
on a special roster (meibo) that subjected him to corvee and tax levies.
The latter section reveals the desire of the authorities to deal with
vagrants who did not wish to return to their original places of registration
and residence and for whom registration was not clear.
Section 1 did not guarantee government control over vagrancy. Because
enforced returns according to the 721 law were no longer re-
47 Shoku Nihongi, Reiki I (715) 5/1, KT 1.58-59. A variant text is found in Ruiju sandai kyaku,
Council of State order, Konin 2(811)8/11, KT 25.519-20.
48 Hayakawa Shohachi, Ritsuryo kokka, vol. 4 of Nihon no rekishi (Tokyo: shogakkan, 1974), pp.
286-7; Yoshida Takashi, "Ritsuryo-sei to sonraku," in Iwanami koza: Nihon rekishi, 3.185.
49 Ruiju sandai kyaku edict, Tempyo 8 (736) 2/25, cites the regulation issued on Yoro 5 (721) 4/
27, KT 25.385.
50 Ruiju sandai kyaku edict, Tempyo 8 (736) 2/25, KT 25.385. A variant interpretation of this
document can be found in Kamada Motokazu, "Ritsuryo kokka no futo taisaku," in Kyoto
daigaku bungakubu, ed., Akamatsu Toshihide kyoju taikan kinen kokuski ronshu (Kyoto: Faculty
of Letters of Kyoto University, 1972), pp. 173-88.
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444 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
quired, it became possible for a certificate-bearing vagrant to use the
excuse that he had changed his mind and would not be returning
home. He might then flee to still another place and once again become
a vagrant. Surely this section of the new edict contributed little to the
resolution of the vagrancy problem.
Section 2, on the other hand, was a more basic change. It made it
possible for a vagrant to stay on where he was and to gain state recognition
of his vagrant status if he paid taxes. The official title of the
"roster" in the 736 law is unclear, but it was probably similar to
"vagrant roster" (furocho), a word appearing in ninth-century documents.
Of course, a vagrant who was not listed on a household register
received no personal-share land. However, being listed on a "special
roster" made him responsible for paying taxes. In one sense, then, the
new law maintained government control, but in another sense, it diminished
that control. The 736 law was thus a compromise not unlike
the 743 compromise on land control. The state's hold over people and
land was not completely eliminated, but a significant turn in that
direction was made.'1
Efforts to place vagrants back under governmental control were not
abandoned after 736, and historical sources reveal cases of vagrants
returning home in accordance with the requirements of the 721 law. It
is clear, however, that these efforts did not diminish the seriousness of
the 736 compromise, for vagrants and household farmers were henceforth
treated differently. Toward the end of the eighth century, the
policy of offering status to vagrants and forcing them to pay taxes was
further strengthened. After 797, when the establishment of the "vagrant
roster" was ordered, the policy change became firmly rooted, an
important development in the disintegration of state control over agricultural
producers.
Loans
During the Nara period a class of rich farmers emerged in agricultural
villages throughout Japan. Their great wealth came in part from loans
made at high rates of interest. An order of 751 states that because rich
farmers were lending rice and money to poor farmers at high interest
and were taking their fields and houses as security, many personal-
51 A wooden tablet (mokkan) dated 753 and excavated from the ruins of a fort at Akita shows
that produce taxes were being collected from vagrants. Farris believes that the 735-7 smallpox
epidemic had an important bearing on the government's decision to abandon the forced
escort of returning vagrants; see Population, Disease, and Land, pp. 121-35.
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POLICY CHANGES 445
share farmers were being forced to abandon their fields and flee to
neighboring provinces.'2
Although the wording of the order prohibiting
such practices probably exaggerated the situation somewhat, it
does suggest that the problem was becoming quite serious.
Poor farmers included not only those who had failed to pay back
their loans and had lost their land but also vagrants who poured across
provincial borders to become privately employed laborers. At first,
these vagrants were not reported to governmental authorities by their
employers. The 736 policy of registering vagrants made it legal for
wealthy fanners to employ them. The resultant increase in the number
of vagrants widened the gap between rich and poor farmers, a problem
intertwined with the rapid increase in the number and size of loans.
Although some wealthy fanners were undoubtedly new to the game,
a majority were probably descendants of local gentry. A typical magnate
may have been Oya no Miyade, the district supervisor {tairyo) of
Miki District in Sanuki Province, who owned livestock, slaves, rice,
cash, rice paddies, and dry fields.^ Most of his slaves were probably of
the traditional type, but some were certainly vagrants. Oya's rice holdings
and money were clearly not obtained from agricultural activity
alone but were accumulated, in part at least, from loans of rice and
money at exorbitant rates of interest. Even his landholdings had undoubtedly
been increased by loan foreclosures.
Loans made by wealthy farmers in local villages were only a part ofa
larger financial picture. State loans made by provincial officials were
also a major source of revenue. As thefinancialsituation of the ritsuryo
state deteriorated, such income became increasingly important. Unlike
the land tax that might be reduced or even waived at times of poor
crops caused by drought or flood, a state loan was canceled only when
a peasant borrower died, making interest on loans a relatively stable
source of revenue. Thus as the government's financial needs increased,
the state loans became larger and more numerous.
The greater importance of state loans was paralleled by the government's
pressure on farmers to borrow. Although the original purpose
of state loans (to help poor farmers in times of need) had not been
forgotten, state loans took on the character of taxes to the extent that
peasants borrowed more than they needed. The number of rice loans
gradually increased after about 724, and the income from them was
probably enough to cover the operating costs of some provincial gov-
52 Shoku Nihongi, Enryaku 2 (783) 12/6, cites a council order of Tempyo Shoho 3 (751) 9/4, KT,
1.257-9. A ful] text of the order is in Ruiju sandai kyaku, KT 25.403-4.
53 Nihon ryoiki, NKBT 70.393-5, trans, in Nakamura, Miraculous Tales, pp. 257-9.
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446 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
ernments. As a result of increasing their income from loans, various
provinces were able to store up a considerable amount of rice paid as
land tax (denso). Provincial governors were required to make yearly
reports on these receipts and on their use. Twenty-five such reports
(shozeicho) for the decade between 729 and 739 have been preserved in
the Shoso-in in Nara.s* Of course this is only a small percentage of the
total submitted by various provinces during the eighth century, and
only fragments of the twenty-five extant ones remain. Nevertheless,
these fragments help explain the nature and volume of rice receipts
and expenditures at a time when state loans were becoming an important
source of revenue. According to rice storage reports from Owari
Province dating between 730 and 734, this province's assets in unhulled
rice rose from 162,808 koku in 722, to 213,324 koku in 730, and
to 258,440 koku in 733.ss During the eight years between 722 and 730
the rice revenue of Owari rose by 31 percent (an average increase of
3.43 percent per year) and between 730 and 733 by 21 percent, or 6.5
percent per year.
A report in 739 from the Bitchu Province reveals that both the
principal and interest on 127 loans were canceled that year because
forty-four borrowers had died.56
The cancellations totaled 6,479.7
sheaves (soku). Although the average was 51 sheaves per loan, the size
of the forty-four loans varied greatly. Most of the twenty-five smallest
ones were less than 20 sheaves each. At the higher range, however, the
loans were 142, 150, 172,174, 184, and 191 sheaves. Such large loans
could not possibly have been paid off in a single year, suggesting that
cancellations were made for persons who had defaulted on their loans
for several years. This leaves the impression that people were being
forced to borrow and that interest on loans had acquired the character
of tax revenue.
In 737 the government prohibited private lending.5? We do not
know to what extent this prohibition was enforced, but it is assumed
that it forced some farmers to turn from private to state loans in years
when these loans were becoming a vital source of state revenue. In the
tenth month of 745 the government also set limits on two kinds of state
loans: the rontei-to and the kuge-to. The former were limited to an
amount fixed by the central government and were made by provincial
54 For a list of shozeicho fragments, see Hayakawa Shohachi, "Kuge-to seido no seiritsu,"
Shigaku zasshi 69 (March i960): 43-45; and Hayashi Rokuro and Suzuki Yasutami, eds.,
Fukugen Tempyo shokoku shozeicho (Tokyo: Gendai shichosha, 1985).
55 DaiNihonkomonjo, 1.413-17,607-20. TheMjraiiun contains a sAdzeicAd dated 734,1.215-21.
56 DaiNihonkomonjo, 2.247-52; Nara ibun, 1.316-19.
57 Shoku Nihongi Tempyo 9 (737) 9/22, KT 1.146.
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POLICY CHANGES 447
authorities to farmers. These apparently provided an income proportionate
to that particular province's operating costs. But the actual
figures for the various provinces are not known. The kuge-to loans, on
the other hand, seem to have been those that a province was permitted
to make in order to meet extraordinary costs. It is thought that income
from these could be used to make up for defaults on rontei-to loans, as
well as for covering other unforeseen losses of public revenue. The
remaining income from such loans was shared by provincial officials as
personal income. The loans ranged from 100,000 sheaves for small
provinces to 400,000 for larger ones. Ninth-century evidence suggests
that the amount of kuge-to loans made by a particular province was
about equal to that of its rontei-to loans.
Income from all state loans continued to increase until the early
730s, but then it declined because the provinces (1) were suffering a
loss of revenue owing to an increasingly large number of loan cancellations
after the smallpox epidemic in 735-7 and (2) had the heavy
expense of building provincial temples (kokubun-ji). It had not been
the sole responsibility of the provincial governors to cover these losses
and expenses. The central government nevertheless established an
arrangement by which provincial governors could obtain income from
interest on two kinds of loans (the rontei-to and the kuge-to), thereby
enabling them to cover deficits and increase their income. This system
can be thought of as establishing and strengthening a new tax based on
contractual arrangements that took advantage of both rice stored in
provincial storehouses and a provincial governor's needs.
Because state loans were now taking the form of taxes, it was logical
that the state should establish standards for deciding how much could
be lent to a particular borrower. We do not have enough evidence to
know precisely what this standard was, but the decision was probably
made in terms of the borrower's holdings of arable land.
When considering the conditions that contributed to the process by
which state loans took on the character of taxes, we should note that
the old system of collecting taxes in kind was gradually becoming
unacceptable as a way for the ritsuryo state to finance itself. Officials
tended now to buy needed items in the market and to rely on income
from loans for covering the cost of these purchases. Collecting taxes in
kind gradually became an outdated way of generating revenue. The
following conditions contributed to the shift:
1. A gradual improvement of exchange mechanisms (especially money
and markets) that contributed to a greater volume of trade.
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448 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
2. More labor specialization that made it easier for the government to
buy what was needed at a nearby market than to wait for tax
payments in kind.
3. Greater peasant resistance to the burden of transporting goods to
the capital.
4. An increase in the number of vagrants, complicating the collection
of traditional forms of revenue.
Because of these factors, Japan's tax-in-kind system eventually became
inoperative; state rice (shozei) in provincial storehouses became an
important element in the government's revenue structure; and state
loans took on the form of a land tax.
Later on, the character of the kuge-to changed. Instead of the income
from these loans being used to supplement rice revenue, it was
used mainly to pay the stipends of provincial officers. That is, the
making of kuge-to loans became a gubernatorial prerogative that contributed
indirectly, a century or so later, to the weakening of the
provincial administrative system.
THE EARLY SHOEN
The land law of 711 allowed aristocrats and local gentry to request
permission, through a provincial governor, to cultivate a piece of virgin
land at their own personal expense (shiko). In 723 when the government
ruled that newly developed land could be passed on to the developer's
descendants to the third generation, and again in 743 when it
was ruled that such land could be passed on to his descendants in
perpetuity, the basic condition was that the cost of development
should be borne by the developer. When opening land for cultivation
of rice, it was necessary for the developer to obtain in advance an area
of virgin land that could be irrigated. The establishment of the private
possession of rice land, before 743, therefore came in three distinct
stages: (1) gaining possession of virgin land that could be irrigated, (2)
developing the land at one's own expense, and (3) obtaining the right
to pass on the "private holding" to his descendants. After 743, privately
possessed land could also be obtained by donation or purchase
and could be sold. Moreover, when land was earmarked by the government
as land that could be developed, it, too, could be obtained by
donation or purchase and could be sold. Thus private possession was
of three forms: newly cultivated rice land, virgin land earmarked for
development, and land obtained by donation or purchase. These develCambridge
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THE EARLY SHOEN 449
opments, together with the emergence of a new type of agricultural
management, produced what is referred to here as the "early shoen
(manor)."58
The Kuwabara-sho
We have a fair number of historical documents that provide reliable
information about the formation and early development of the
Kuwabara-sho, a shoen (manor), located in the province of Echizen
and belonging to the great Todai-ji of Nara. From these documents we
have learned that Kuwabara-sho had come into existence by 754,
when the central government's Todai-ji Construction Office spent 180
strings of copper coins (1,000 to a string) to buy the following items
from Otomo no Maro of Sakai District in Echizen Province: more than
eighty-seven cho of virgin land, nine cho of cultivated land, three
buildings, six tools, and thirteen wooden sluices. Because roughly 10
percent of the land purchased had already been converted to rice land,
it is deduced that Otomo no Maro was a wealthy Echizen farmer who
had been engaged in converting virgin land to rice fields and that the
Kuwabara-sho contained, from the start, some land that had already
been cultivated.
Extant documents also reveal that a certain Ikue no Azumabito
played a key role in arranging andfinancingthe sale. He was a wealthy
member of the local gentry who had been an official in the Todai-ji
Construction Office in the capital. And as the highest-ranking official
in the neighboring district of Asuwa, he was - according to reports
sent by him and others to the Todai-ji Construction Office between
754 and 75759 _ engaged in managing the new estate or proprietorship
(shoen). So it is not surprising to find that after exercising his influence
both in Echizen and at the capital, Azumabito was selected to administer
the Kuwabara-sho.
Reports sent to Nara also indicate that Azumabito was himself an
investor in the project. In 754 and 755 (the first two years of reclamation
work) his total investment was 7,838 sheaves, and his reported
income during the first two years was less than his initial investment.
58 See Farris, Population, Disease, and Land, pp. 84-91. Although the word shoen is used here,
when a particular shoen was named, only the first character sho was placed after the name, as
in Kuwabara-iAo. Originally sho referred to a house or storehouse, and it only gradually came
to designate a piece of land. Eventually the term was used for the lands, offices, and granaries
that made up an agricultural enterprise known as a shorn.
59 These reports can be found in Dai Nihon komonjo, 4.52-58,111-15, 219-21,246-50, and in
Nara ibun, 2.696-7.
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450 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
But during the fourth year, receipts exceeded expenditures. So within
four years, the new shoen seems to have become a profitable enterprise
for the T6dai-ji.
At a time when all people and land of the country had been placed,
in theory at least, under governmental control by arrangements referred
to as the ritsuryo system, one wonders how the developers
managed to obtain the labor needed for such increasingly numerous
and large reclamation projects. The available evidence suggests that
the laborers were not slaves but farmers who worked for wages paid
in cash - farmers who were either personal-share landholders whose
rice fields were located nearby (and were taking on additional work
to increase their income) or were vagrants who had abandoned their
share holdings elsewhere and had fled to this part of Echizen. It was
undoubtedly through the efforts of such influential individuals as
Asumabito that enough farmers were found and paid to do work of
turning the virgin land of a shoen into productive rice fields.
A study of the Kuwabara-sho indicates that the owners of shoen had
to lean heavily on members of the local gentry for development and
administration. But members of the local gentry also needed the support
of aristocrats at the court and/or large temples, as they had to
obtain permission to take over a piece of virgin land. Development
without approval could lead to confiscation. And if provincial governors
saw that newly opened fields had a high yield, they would be
greatly tempted to seize them on some pretext and distribute them as
personal-share land. So the local gentry had to have the backing of
court aristocrats to enclose communal land, to secure land already
developed, and to prevent its confiscation. Thus shoen were established
and developed through the joint endeavors of court aristocrats
(or temples) and members of the local gentry.
As already noted, slaves were not relied on for either developing or
running a shoen; such work was done instead by employed labor.
These agricultural laborers were apparently not independent personalshare
holders. Rather than thinking of the laborers employed for developing
a shoen as persons who received wages over and beyond what
they paid out for taxes and land rent, it is probably more accurate to
think of lump sums being paid to the local gentry for getting such
work done. Personal-share holders were usually in debt to wealthy
gentry and so could not refuse to join a labor force that was being
mobilized for land development. We know that in 757, a Kuwabarasho
official named Sone no Otomaro paid the land rent (jishito) of a
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THE EARLY SHOEN 451
farmer who had abandoned his land.60
In such a case the government
was unable to collect its share of the yield on that piece of land. So it is
assumed that the farmer had already been in debt to Otomaro.
Characteristics of the early shoen
Although the Nara period rise of shoen reveals significant features of
the later development, we have come to see that the early shoen were
fundamentally different. When comparing these privately owned early
shoen (such as the one at Kuwabara) with their Heian and medieval
counterparts, we find that the latter had three characteristics that were
not prominent in Nara times.
One well-known feature of post-iooo shoen was the right of their
possessors and managers not to be taxed (fuyu-keri) or policed (fu'nyuken)
by the state. They were therefore freed of two burdens inflicted
on them by a state attempting to maintain and extend its control:
assessing and collecting taxes for defraying the cost of government,
and enforcing penal and administrative law. Not just the land of shoen
but also the persons who made a living from them were removed from
both types of control. Thus the sharp increase in the number and size
of Heian shoen, especially those belonging to huge institutions, became
identified with and contributed to the social, economic, and political
instability prevalent in Japan during the last years of the Heian period.
But such rights had not yet emerged during the previous Nara period
and were therefore not characteristic features of the early shoen.
A second feature of Heian shoen was the linkage of their spread with
a progressive deterioration of the ritsuryo order. But the early shoen
were not yet strong and theritsuryosystem still flourished. In those
days a shoen was usually established with the assistance and cooperation
of state officials. Some scholars have concluded that Nara period
officials at all levels actually received revenue from, and exercised
control over, both the land and the people of these proprietorships,
suggesting that the early shoen were even supporting theritsuryoorder.
A third feature of Heian shoen was a tendency to expand and become
increasingly independent of outside control. The early shoen, on the
other hand, were not marked by spectacular growth; indeed, many
reverted to wasteland and disappeared within a short time. For example,
all early T6dai-ji shoen in Echizen Province, including the one at
60 See Dai Nihon komonjo, 4.246-50; Nara ibun, 2.696—7; Tonan'in monjo 2.149—53.
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452 NARA ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Kuwabara, had disappeared by the end of the tenth century, probably
having only nominal existence at the beginning of that century. The
main reason for their disappearance may have been the difficulty of
obtaining an adequate and continuing supply of agricultural workers,
who could be obtained only with the cooperation of the local gentry.
Thus the early shorn, like the ritsuryo order within which they had
developed, were in a state of decline during the ninth century.
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CHAPTER 9
ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE:
LITERACY, LITERATURE, AND MUSIC
This chapter deals with the literature and music of Japan during the
two centuries between the acceptance of Buddhism in 587 and the
abandonment of the Nara capital in 784. These were years of vast and
fundamental change in the island kingdom, of cultural forced feeding
and vigorous new growth. In particular, they were the years when
Japan became fully and for all time a participant in the high civilization
of East Asia. Participation meant religious and philosophical orientations,
an ideal of imperial rule, legal and administrative structures,
techniques and styles of architecture, city planning, sculpture, painting,
and music - all derived directly or indirectly from China and
shared in one degree or another by the peoples on its periphery. Above
all, it meant literacy: the mastery of the Chinese language and the
eventual adaptation of its script to the writing of Japanese. From
literacy came ventures in historiography - at once a definition and a
redefinition of the Japanese state - and in poetry. Emulation of China
led the newly literate Japanese to compose verses in Chinese modeled
on the ones they found in Chinese anthologies, and it also led them to
write down their own songs and to turn the native prosody into high
poetic art. The myths, legends, folk and hero tales of the oral tradition
were also written down in the first histories and local gazetteers, to
form the beginnings of a prose literature.
LITERACY AND LITERATURE
No one knows when Chinese writing first reached the Japanese islands,
but the arrival of the scholar Wani from the Korean kingdom of
Paekche in the late fourth or early fifth century is a convenient event
from which to date the beginning of literacy.1
Wani, who arrived in the
The translations of the poems in this chapter are from the author's fonhcoming book entitled The
Gem-Glistening Cup, volume I of A Waka Anthology, to be published by Stanford University
Press. They appear here by permission.
1 Nihon shoki, SakamotoTaro, Ienaga Saburo, Inoue Mitsusada, and Ono Susumu, eds., Nihon koten
bungaku taikei (hereafter cited as NKBT) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1967), vol 67, pp. 371 -2.
453
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454 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
sixteenth year of Ojin, was appointed tutor of the crown prince, supplementing
or supplanting another man from Paekche, Achiki or Achikishi,
who had accompanied a gift of a stallion and a mare from the
king of Paekche in the preceding years. Achiki recommended Wani as
a superior scholar, and the Japanese court promptly asked Paekche to
send him. Wani is said to have arrived with eleven volumes of Chinese
writings, including the Analects and the Thousand-Character Classic.2
He stayed on and became the ancestor of a specialized occupational
group (be) of scribes, thefumi no obitoJ Dependence on the services of
such a group suggests that literacy did not initially spread far at the
Japanese court; that is, the employment of Chinese or Korean secretaries
would have been an obvious answer to whatever needs for communication
in writing with the continent were felt by early Japanese monarchs.
Rather, it seems likely that literacy remained at an extremely
marginal level during the fifth and sixth centuries, and mostly in the
hands of immigrants and their descendants. The earliest writings
thought to have been produced in Japan are inscriptions on artifacts
such as swords and mirrors. The longest such inscription, a Chinese
text of 115 characters inlaid in gold, was discovered in 1978 under the
rust of an iron sword excavated ten years earlier from the Inari-yama
tumulus in Saitama Prefecture. Its alleged "Koreanisms" again point
to the use of writing being in the hands of continentals, especially those
from the Korean peninsula. Majority opinion assigns this sword text to
a cyclical date corresponding to 471.4
Probably the Japanese people's real impulse for acquiring literacy
came in the sixth century, with the introduction of Buddhism and the
almost contemporaneous reunification of China under the Sui dynasty.
These events - the establishment of a unified politically and culturally
magnetic center on the mainland, and the extension to Japanese shores
of the missionary religion then prevailing there - brought Japan into a
radically different orientation toward the continent. The groundwork
had been laid since the fourth century by extensive immigration from
Korea, the immigrants including resident Chinese or sinified scholars
2 The anachronism has been pointed out in its references to the sixth-century Thousand Character
Classic. Kojima Noriyuki speculates that the account on which the Nihon shoki narrative
was based was altered to include mention of this text, considered basic to elementary training
in reading Chinese. See Kojima Noriyuki, Jodai Nihon bungaku to Chugoku bungaku (Tokyo:
Hanawa shobo, 1971), vol. 1, p. 82.
3 Obito, basically meaning "chief," was one of the clan titles (kabane) of ancient Japan. This
group of scribes was centered in Kawachi on the coast and was referred to as the "western
scribes," as distinguished from the "eastern scribes" in inland Yamato.
4 See Murayama Shichiro and Roy Andrew Miller, "The Inariyama Tumulus Sword Inscription,"
Journal of Japanese Studies 5 (1979): 412.
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LITERACY AND LITERATURE 455
such as Wani, as well as a broad spectrum of artisans and other specialists.
These people contributed materially to the evolution of insular
culture; indeed, they may have altered it substantially. But the impact
of continental immigration during the fourth and fifth centuries had
more to do with horses and armor than with books and writing. This
influx was ultimately a result of migrations in northeast Asia following
the fall of the Han dynasty in the third century, and it brought about
in the Japanese islands new instrumentalities of rule, perhaps by the
incursion of a new ruling group, the much-discussed horse riders from
beyond the Yalu River.5 However that may have been, by the late sixth
century the rulers of the Yamato state faced a greatly altered situation
on the continent. The centuries-old division of China was wiped away
in 589 by the Sui, a dynasty replaced by the more enduring T'ang in
618. In the seventh century the Korean peninsula was unified for the
first time by Silla, the rival kingdoms of Paekche and Koguryo falling
in 663 and 668, respectively. Politically resurgent East Asia made the
Japanese rulers keenly conscious of the vulnerability of their island
kingdom. One reaction was to establish a defense headquarters at
Dazai-fu in northern Kyushu to guard against incursions from the
newly expansive Korean and Chinese states.6
But a far more significant
and far-reaching move was the opening of formal relations with
the Sui in 607 and the T'ang in 630, and the accompanying importation
of elements of high Chinese civilization. For the first time in
history, but not for the last, Japan faced a foreign threat by consciously
opening itself to change from abroad, to the very techniques and
ideologies viewed as advantages of the foreign power.
Two of the foreign advantages that the Japanese perceived were
literacy and the Buddhist religion. The latter was introduced from
Paekche in 552 (or perhaps 538) and, after overcoming brief but violent
opposition from native conservative forces, was accepted by the
Japanese court in 587.7 The Yamato state and each of the clans (uji)
5 Gari Ledyard summarizes the horse rider theory of Egami Namio and reargues the case for a
fourth-century invasion of Japan, in his "Galloping Along with the Horseriders: Looking for
the Founders of Japan," Journal ofJapanese Studies 1 (1974): 217-54.
6 The area was regarded as crucial from the fourth century on, and various earlier defense
establishments predated the foundation of Dazai fu at its present location in 663. The dispatch
of conscript "guardians of the capes" (sakinwri) is memorialized in a large number of
Man'yoshu poems.
7 The Nihon shoki mentions the gift of a gilt-bronze statue of Sakyamuni, banners, and sutras
from the king of Paekche to the Yamato court in the tenth month of the year corresponding to
552; see NKBT, 68.100-1. Current scholarship seems to favor 538 as the year in which
Buddhism reached Japan. The issue is discussed in Ienaga Saburo, ed., Nihon Bukkyosht
(Kyoto: Hozokan, 1967), vol. 1, pp. 47-8. In accordance with the hypothesis explicated by
Ienaga, King Kimmei's reign should be adjusted to date from 531, and the gift of the Buddhist
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456 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
over which it reigned were cult-centered entities that traced their
descent from ancestral nature deities, whose protection was believed
to be essential to their survival and well-being. Guarantor and protector
of the state was thus a ready-made role for the new faith, and the
Japanese energetically set about erecting temples with such purposes
in mind, an activity that culminated in the dedication of the mighty
T6dai-ji with its gigantic gilt-bronze Vairocana in 752. With the advent
of Buddhism, Japan was no longer a barbaric outland, but a part
of the spiritual world of East Asia, a sharer of belief, liturgy, iconography,
and language. An unbreakable link had been forged to the continent
and at a level that was bound to exert a strong influence on the
subsequent course of Japanese civilization. Language is particularly
relevant to this discussion, for Chinese had become, and remained, the
scriptural language of East Asian Buddhism. The need to read and
understand the sutras and other scriptural writings was a constant
urge toward the reformation of the Japanese elite into a literate class.
Japan's ties with China were strengthened by devout pilgrims and
students who went to learn at the holy places of the Middle Kingdom.
India, the birthplace of the faith, was too remote, and so China became
for Japanese Buddhists the object of their ardent and arduous
quest for enlightenment.
Confucianism was probably an influence in Japan before Buddhism,
however. Its introduction was gradual, not a conversion experience, as
Buddhism was to a degree. Confucianism formed the framework by
means of which one state in East Asia could understand and address
another, providing the vocabulary of social and international hierarchy.
As we noted earlier, the scholar Wani from Paekche brought the
Analects, the basic Confucian text, in the sixteenth year of Ojin, that
is, around the beginning of the fifth century. Throughout the sixth
century Japan received from Paekche, its closest source of continental
civilization, the dispatch under a rotation system of a series of "doctors
of the Five Classics," as well as other learned specialists in medicine,
divination, and calendrical science.8
Paekche, also the source of Japan's
first contact with Buddhism, was a hard-pressed ally in the wars
of the Korean peninsula, and so it was anxious to commend itself to
the rulers of Yamato in its struggle with the expansive state of Silla.
icon and sutra from Paekche, to the year earth-senior/horse, corresponding to 538. If the year
at issue was the seventh of Kimmei's reign, as specified by Gangoji garan engi narabi ni ruki
shizaicho, however, the revised accession date would have to be 532.
8 Kojima points out that the Doctors of the Five Classics came to Japan from Paekche during the
same period when Paekche was receiving similar visiting scholars from the kingdom of Liang
in South China. See Kojima, JodaiNihon bungaku to Chugoku bungaku, vol. I, p. 85.
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LITERACY AND LITERATURE 457
Ultimately, in the seventh century, Silla overcame its rivals, both
Paekche in the west and Koguryo in the north, having driven the
Japanese from their own Korean toehold in Mimana (Kaya) a century
earlier in 562. But by the middle of the seventh century, Japan had
already established direct relations with China and was fully embarked
on its adventure in recasting itself as the newest of the sinified states of
east Asia.
A rough division may be made in this period between the seventh
and eighth centuries, a distinction implied in the title of this chapter.
The foundation of a capital at Nara in 710 brought an experience of
urban life hitherto unknown on such a scale in Japan. The eighth
century marked the height of the early flourishing of Buddhist institutions
and sinitic culture in general. Trends that had been gaining
momentum for some centuries reached their first period of full fruition.
Politically, the seventh century was more tentative, though not
less creative culturally. During most of this century the court moved
from one site to another within the Asuka area, a region of fields and
hills several miles south of Nara. In the sense intended in this chapter,
"Asuka-Nara" is roughly equivalent to "seventh-eighth century."
The earliest writing in Japan was undoubtedly in the Chinese language,
with the fifth-century sword inscriptions as examples, ones that
already show the use of Chinese script to spell out Japanese names.
Increasing mastery oikambun (Chinese prose) and the recurrent necessity
of representing Japanese words are the dual factors that led to the
peculiar evolution of literary culture in Japan. The training in Chinese
classics that began with Wani in the early fifth century must have been
cumulative, though greatly accelerated owing to the political and cultural
ramifications of seventh-century contacts with the Asian continent.
When Prince Shotoku (574-622) produced his so-called Seventeen
Injunctions (preserved in the Nihon shoki) in 604, he composed
the text in kambun as a matter of course and displayed familiarity with
fifteen different Chinese literary, historical, and philosophical works.9
As Japan's earliest scholar-statesman and the most important patron of
Buddhism of his day, Shotoku represents the new directions in which
he wished to lead his country. Japan was to be a land of Buddhist faith
and Chinese learning, one whose polity was to embody the centralized
imperial authority then newly renascent on the continent. This
9 Shih ching, Shu ching, Hsiao ching, Lunyu, Tso chuan, Li chi, Kuan tzu, Meng tzu, Mo tzu, Lao
tzu, Chuang tzu, Han fei tzu, Shih chi, Han shu, and Wen hsuan, according to Hayashi Mikiya,
"Chugoku shiso," in Asuka jidai, vol. 2 oiZusetsu Nihon bunkashi taikei (Tokyo: Shogakkan,
1965). P- 165.
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458 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
learned reformer seems to face forward into a new era enlightened by
temples, books, and virtuous rule. And yet Prince Shotoku was also
interested in the past. Indeed, it was inevitable that he would be, for
among the Chinese writings he studied were histories such as the Shih
chi (Records of the historian) and the Han shu (Dynastic history of the
Han). In 620, according to the Nihon shoki, Shotoku together with
Shima no Oomi (Soga no Umako) compiled the first Japanese history
of which we have record.10
This set of writings treated both the imperial
line and the subsidiary governing and occupational groups. It is
thought that this history was lost, partly in the fire that destroyed the
Soga mansions in the coup d'etat of 645 and partly as a result of the
disturbances of the Jinshin war of 672. In the 680s Emperor Temmu
(d. 686) ordered the work to begin again, instigating dual historiographical
projects that finally bore fruit in the earliest extant Japanese
histories, the Kojiki (712) and the Nihon shoki (720).
It seems strange that the oldest Japanese books are thus two histories
that were completed almost simultaneously, both under official
sponsorship. Both are intended to tell the entire history of the race,
indeed of the cosmos as well as of the nation as such, beginning like
the Old Testament at the beginning of things, the rising of form out of
chaos. Both are accounts of mythology in their earlier ranges and
gradually work forward toward veritable history. But only the Nihon
shoki truly takes on the character of a sober Chinese chronicle before
breaking off with the abdication of the Empress Jito in 697. One can
see that it is a compromise between the compilers' urge to provide
Japan with a counterpart of a Chinese dynastic history, or of certain
aspects of the Shih chi, and the felt need to tell their own story of the
world, which was a story of their gods as well as of themselves. The
Kojiki is something else again, also a compromise but of a different
sort. Here the proportion of myth, legend, folktale, poetry, and anecdote
to the whole is overwhelmingly great. Chinese influence is by no
means lacking, but it is slight compared with that in the Nihon shoki.
The Kojiki is also much shorter - only three volumes as compared
with thirty - and ends with the death of Empress Suiko in 628. That
is, the bare chronology ends at that point; the anecdotal account goes
no further than the reign of King Kenzo, who died in 487.
From the historiographical point of view, the Kojiki is a fairly primitive
account of ancient history and myth, whereas the Nihon shoki is
intended to be a history of modern as well as ancient times, the prod-
10 Suiko 28 (620) 8, NKBT, 68.203.
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LITERACY AND LITERATURE 459
uct of thorough and up-to-date research. Except for the poems with
which its text is enlivened, the Nihon shoki is written in literary Chinese,
by far the longest document to be composed in Japan in that (or
any other) language up until the time of its appearance. The Kojiki is
different here again, being even in its prose text an unstable amalgam
of Chinese and Japanese syntax, all represented in Chinese characters,
to be sure, but with a unique hybrid quality. Clauses in literary Chinese
and others in phonetically represented Japanese appear in the
same sentence. This is the essence of its compromise: a linguistic one.
The Kojiki was an experiment, an odd and fascinating one never
repeated in quite the same way, though its tension between the Chinese
and Japanese languages remained a formative dynamic in the
evolution of writing styles in Japan. It has been suggested that the
motivation for its compilation was essentially an internal matter - an
attempt to straighten out for the Japanese themselves the tangled and
conflicting claims to divine or other prestigious ancestry of the various
noble clans - whereas the Nihon shoki was intended to be an "official"
history to show to foreigners (hence written in respectable Chinese)
and to point to with pride.11
Writing and learning in the form of the Chinese classics had thus
been introduced to Japan by the beginning of the fifth century. Sword
inscriptions in Chinese showing alleged Korean usages have been unearthed
from the same century. In the sixth century the Japanese court
set up a system of visiting professors in various aspects of Chinese
learning, supplied by the Korean state of Paekche. At the same time,
Paekche introduced its insular neighbor to Buddhism, and Buddhism
in turn brought in more writings to be studied in the form of its sacred
scriptures. Official interest in historiography, the compilation of
codes, and the like shows up in the seventh century, especially on the
parts of Prince Shotoku and Emperor Temmu. It was probably also at
this time that the transition from oral to written poetry began, but this
was a process that was never completed, in the sense that the oral
composition of poetry never ceased, even at the highest cultural level.
But it was no doubt in the seventh century that poems, both new and
old, began to be written down as a normal thing. This matter of
writing down poetry had important implications for the evolution of
literary culture in Japan and must concern us here. But first let us note
that the composition of Chinese poetry (kanshi) in Japan, a sure signal
ii Donald L. Philippi, trans., "Introduction," Kojiki (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press; Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1968), pp. 16-17.
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460 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
of advancing sophistication, also started in the late seventh century.
The compilation of poetic anthologies, another activity that the Japanese
learned from the Chinese, followed in the eighth century, resulting
in two works that have come down to us, the Kaifuso (751), the
first anthology of kanshi by Japanese authors, and the Man'yoshu (after
759), the earliest extant anthology of Japanese verse. The historiographical
activities commencing in the seventh century had meanwhile
resulted in the Kojiki (712) and the Nihon shoki (720).
The Japanese were not among the handful of peoples that invented a
writing system, so to speak, from scratch. Like most civilizations, they
adapted a neighboring one. It was an accident of geography and history
that the only one they encountered during the early centuries of
their relations with the outside world should have been that of the
Chinese. The results of this accident were as far-reaching and formative
of their nascent culture as would have been the case if they had
encountered Egyptian hieroglyphics and nothing else. They were inevitably
drawn into the orbit of a self-contained and powerful civilization
with a unique script that has always acted as an effective barrier between
those who know and use it and those who do not. Like writing
generally, the Chinese writing system had pictographic origins, but
resisting the general trend, it neither became the relic of a dead civilization
nor evolved completely into a phonetic system. It is in fact the
only nonphonetic writing system remaining in use in the world today.
From pictographic origins the so-called Chinese characters came to
include a large repertory of "ideographs," signs denoting the abstract
concepts of an advanced civilization. They also developed classes of
structurally complex graphs, in which homophones are distinguished
by a "radical system" of signifies combined into one sign with a common
phonetic element. The signific-phonetic structure of many characters
shows that the system contains the seed of a purely phonetic
way of writing, as the pronunciation of such characters is predictable
to the experienced reader. As it turned out, it was the Japanese who
realized this potential.
The most important peculiarity of the way in which writing evolved
in China that made adaptation of the resulting system take the form it
did in Japan was that each graph represented a word in the Chinese
language. Chinese was made up of monosyllabic words, with a number
of "tones" or voice contours helping distinguish the resultant large
number of homophones. One graph thus represented one syllable, the
pronunciation of which was more or less fixed within a given dialect. It
was therefore possible to use the graphs in a way not intended by their
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LITERACY AND LITERATURE 461
inventors, that is, phonetically, using the pronunciation and disregarding
the meaning (and the tone) in order to write words in another
language. This process involved making a series of rough sound equivalences,
as the phonetic quality of no two languages is identical. But it
was a process that could and did work. It was, in fact, a process that the
Chinese themselves had invented so as to transcribe the foreign words
coming in with Buddhist scriptures from India by way of Central Asia
from the third century onward. Some Sanskrit words the Chinese chose
to translate, in the process expanding, refining, or otherwise altering
the denotations of lexical items in their own language. In other cases
they adopted the Sanskrit word or name as part of their Buddhist
vocabulary and spelled it out, syllable by syllable, with characters used
for their phonetic value. It was this system, already in use in the Buddhist
writings they obtained from China, that the Japanese employed to
transcribe words in their own language, which like Sanskrit was highly
polysyllabic. And so a text like the Nihon shoki could be written in
Chinese, with the names of Japanese people and places represented
with characters used phonetically. To the Japanese this system would
have posed little problem (once they had acquired the necessary skill in
Chinese), as they could readily distinguish words in their own language
when reading the resulting text, easily making their way back and forth
between the basically semantic expository continuum and the individual
phonetic items, though the whole would have been an undifferentiated
series of Chinese characters to the untrained eye.
If the Japanese had been content to go on in this way, they could
have remained literate in Chinese and never bothered to write their
own language at all. The most obvious alternative was to write out not
only individual Japanese words but also whole Japanese texts, in the
character-by-character phonetic method. As the compiler of the Kojiki
observed in his preface, the result would have reached inordinate
lengths. He thus devised the compromise just described, in which the
text oscillates between the two languages.12
But this solution was inherently
unsatisfactory, as the work produced was really neither Japanese
nor Chinese. The phonetic method was, however, a reasonable answer
to the other problem that was immediately presented to would-be
Japanese historians, anthologists, and poets: how to record Japanese
poetry. The numerous poems preserved in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki
12 The compiler, O no Yasumaro (d. 723), remarks in his Preface to the Kojiki, "To narrate
everything in kun [i.e., semantically] would miss the sense, whereas to write it all down in on
[i.e., phonetically] would drag out the content to even greater length. And so I have mixed on
and kun in the same sentence." See Kojiki, NKBT, 1.48-9.
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462 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
are spelled out character by character, each graph used for its phonetic
value, without an admixture of semantic usages. These ancient songs
are thus preserved in exact phonetic notation, and it is plain that the
compilers of the chronicles understood that a poem exists in its sound
value and so must be represented unambiguously in its own language,
whereas prose is a matter of conveying ideas and thus can be written
with a greater degree of phonetic and syntactic ambiguity or even in a
completely different language. Or so one would think. But the matter
turns out to be much more complex than this, and the neat distinction
proposed between the proper ways of writing prose and poetry was by
no means uniformly observed in the largest collection of early Japanese
verse, the Man'yoshu of the eighth century. Many of the over 4,500
poems in this anthology are in fact recorded in the way just described,
and it is no doubt for this reason that the phonetic use of Chinese
characters is referred to as man'yogana (Man'yo borrowed names), with
kana (borrowed names) being the Japanese term for the characterderived
phonetic writing systems that were eventually developed. But
many other poems in the Man'yoshu are not written in man'yogana, at
least not in their entirety. The text of the Man'yoshu in fact presents
fascinating evidence of scribal preference for variety and complexity
and even for deliberate obscurity over a simple and easily learned
regularity. Complexity entered the system in a number of different
ways. One of these was that the obvious solution of deciding on one
character for each syllable of the Japanese phonetic system was deliberately
avoided. Several characters with the same pronunciation were
used for the same syllable. The syllable shi, for instance, was written
with at least twenty-nine different graphs used for their Sino-Japanese
(on) value. Another feature of the Man'yo writing system was the
employment of whole phrases or clauses of Chinese syntax, in which
the succession of characters would be perfectly readable as Chinese but
in which a Japanese equivalent or "translation" was implied. To take a
simple instance, the three graphs ta wang chih (in their modern Mandarin
pronunciation) give the meaning "of the great king." The phrase is
"read" by a quickly established convention as okimi no, meaning
roughly the same thing in Japanese. These Japanese "readings" of
characters are known as kun. A combination of on and kun readings of
characters eventually came to typify Japanese prose orthography. It
characterizes Man'yoshu orthography as well, but with an important
difference. In the Man'yoshu (and the poetry in the early chronicles) all
the on readings are "phonograms," that is, characters used for their
phonetic value in the way just described, whereas in modern Japanese
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LITERACY AND LITERATURE 463
prose they are mostly Chinese loanwords, ofwhich the language eventually
adopted an enormous lexicon. Japanese poetry, however, remained
free of loanwords from its beginning, except for a few Buddhist items
in certain restricted types of poetry, and a range of extremely early
importations not recognized as loans.**
A further refinement or complication of Man'yo orthography is the
"borrowed kun." Not only were the Sino-Japanese pronunciations of
the characters used for phonetic spelling, but once a kun reading had
been established for a character, it too could be borrowed and used for
phonetic purposes. For instance, the character chen, "shake," was
"read" in Japanese as furu, a verb with the same meaning. The character
could then be borrowed to write the place name Furu. Similarly,
the two numeral characters for "five" and "ten" written in combination
made not only wu-shih, the Chinese word for "fifty," but the Old
Japanese word for the same number, namely, i. According to the principle
of "borrowed kun," "fifty" could and did also represent the word i,
"sleep," as well as the first syllable in the place name Irago. There are
innumerable examples of this sort of thing in the Man'yoshu. Kun- and
on-based man'yogana were sometimes used in the spelling of the same
word, and a single line of poetry might have semantic and phonetic
components as well as "zero" elements, in which the grammar calls for
a possessive particle (for instance), which is not represented orthographically
but is simply supplied by the reader. There also are examples
of Chinese word order, which are meant to be reversed and read as
Japanese syntax. As if all this were not enough, there is the phenomenon
of associative transference, in which, for example, the characters
"flying bird" represent the place name Asuka, because Asuka had tobu
tori no ("of the flying bird") as a fixed epithet. The ultimate in orthographic
word games is provided by such a rebus as "on top of the
mountain there is another mountain," represented by five characters
that form the verb ide, "come out." The point of this visual pun is that
the character for "come out" resembles two superimposed "mountain"
characters. Graphomania of this order was not only a Japanese malady.
In fact, the "two mountains" rebus derives directly from a much more
complicated series of conundrums in a Chinese poem included in Yiifai
hsin-yung, a sixth-century anthology well known in Japan.1
-*
13 Among these latter are probably the words for "horse" (uma, from Chinese ma) and "plum"
(time, from Chinese met).
14 For the Japanese use of the rebus, see MYS 9:1787. The Chinese source is the first of "Four
Old Chiieh-chu Poems" from chap. 10 of Yu-tai hsin-yung, a sixth-century Chinese anthology
of love poetry. For a translation, see Anne Birrell, New Songs from a Jade Terrace (London:
Allen & Unwin, 1982), p. 264.
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These special qualities of Man'yoshu orthography represent one of
the cultural features of the age, an intoxication with the wonders of the
new learning and an exploration of its various possibilities. A more
sober approach to the mechanics of writing eventually led to an almost
exclusive preference for the phonetic element of the methodological
tangle that teased the brains of eight-century scribes. Regularization of
phonogram spelling had culminated in kana syllabaries by the beginning
of the tenth century. There resulted two of these syllabaries,
hiragana (smooth kana) and katakana (square kana). The former developed
from cursive abbreviations of whole characters, and the latter,
from isolated graphic elements. Hiragana became the major vehicle for
the new courtly literature of the tenth century and after, whereas
katakana was more or less limited to providing glosses on Chinese
texts. All of this later development is outside the scope of this chapter,
but it is of interest to note that the tolerance for superfluous scriptal
complexity so notable in the Man'yoshu never entirely disappeared.
The hiragana system remained highly redundant until its simplification
in modern times, using a variety of symbols for the same syllable.
And even now, the Japanese writing system is probably the world's
most complex, its mix of Chinese characters in various readings and
the two kana systems making possible a playing back and forth between
semantic and phonetic that is unusual if not unique. In discovering
literacy, the Japanese created an enduring strand of their cultural
fabric.
The oldest Japanese book to come down to us is the Kojiki (Record of
ancient matters), compiled as a result of the historiographical initiatives
already mentioned and presented to Empress Gemmei in 712. Its
compiler was O no Yasumaro (d. 723), a scholar-official at Gemmei's
court. In 711 Yasumaro was ordered to "record and present" a set of
documents previously "learned" by Hieda no Are. Little is known of
Hieda no Are, who was an attendant (tonert) of Emperor Temmu renowned
for his apparently photographic memory. The documents
were of two sorts, genealogical and anecdotal. The genealogical group,
Sumera mikoto no hitsugi (Sun lineage of the sovereigns), traced the
ancestry of the ruling house from its mythical origins to the reign of
Empress Suiko, a sovereign who died in 628. The anecdotal documents,
the Saki no yo no furugoto (Ancient accounts of former ages),
leave off around 498, with the reign of King Kenzo. How to understand
the respective functions of Are and Yasumaro in the compilation
of the Kojiki is by no means clear, but it has been suggested that Are
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had preserved in his memory the relevant documents with their correct
"readings" and that Yasumaro recorded these readings in the somewhat
abbreviated amalgam of Chinese and Japanese that he defended
as a compromise between the demands of clarity and concision.'*
The Kojiki is made up of three books, or scrolls. The first book
presents an officially approved version of the basic myths of the Japanese
as they had been transmitted down to the seventh century. After
an account of origins in which generations of deities come into existence
spontaneously, there appear the creator gods Izanagi and Izanami.
These are a male and female pair, and the myth describes how
they marry and create the islands of Japan by means of sexual generation.
A possibly significant detail is that the woman speaks first in the
marriage ceremony, leading to the production of defective offspring
and the necessity of repeating the rites in an order that gives the
initiative to the male. A shift from matriarchal to patriarchal institutions
may have found expression in this story. When Izanami gives
birth to the fire deity, she is burned and dies. Izanagi mourns for her,
"crawling around her head and around her feet" in a paroxysm of
grief that seems to look forward to the laments of Hitomaro in the
Man'yoshu. Izanagi searches for Izanami in the land of the dead, the
dark realm of Yomi no Kuni; searching for the dead is also part of the
ritual of grief described by Hitomaro. Izanami has already "eaten of
the hearth of Yomi" and so cannot return to the land of the living.
Against her wishes, Izanagi strikes fire to look at her, only to discover
maggots swarming in a mass of putrefaction. This horrific scene is
followed by a nightmarelike sequence in which the dead Izanami and
the "hags of Yomi" chase Izanagi, who escapes and blocks with a
boulder the entrance to Yomi. The primordial pair stand on opposite
sides of the boulder and curse each other, thereby breaking their
troth.
This climax to the second and most dramatic phase of the creation
myth leads into a bridge passage in which Izanagi, cleansing himself in
a river from the foulness of Yomi, gives birth to various deities from
different parts of his body. The most important of these deities are
Amaterasu (the Sun Goddess), born from his left eye, and from his
nose a kami variously associated with the sea, the wind, the earth, and
the underworld. This kami, Susa no O, becomes the enemy of his
sister Amaterasu in the next sequence of Kojiki myth. Quarrelsome, he
confronts Amaterasu in her realm of heaven, where he defeats her in a
15 Philippi, Kojiki, pp. 7-8.
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contest of progenitive power and "rages in victory." The several offenses
committed by Susa no O in heaven include mischief directed
against the settled patterns of an agricultural society (breaking down
the ridges between the rice paddies) and other deeds of a possible
magical significance (flaying the heavenly piebald colt with a backward
flaying). They so alarm and offend Amaterasu that she hides in a
cave, thus depriving the world of light. Once she has been lured out
again by a mirror and a sexually arousing dance, Susa no O is punished
by expulsion from heaven. That the mythology is dealing with two
distinct cults is made evident by what happens next. Once Susa no O
returns to earth, he changes from a disruptive force to a culture hero.
By killing the food goddess he makes possible the sprouting of food
grains from her corpse. Next he rescues a maiden by slaying a dragon
and builds a palace for himself and his bride. His descendant Okuni
Nushi (great country master) becomes in due course the deity of the
major cultic center of Izumo on the Japan Sea, as Amaterasu was at
Ise, facing out toward the Pacific. The collision of two cults and two
peoples thus seems to lie under the surface of the mythic narrative. It
is apparent that a compromise was worked out, for when Amaterasu
sends down her own grandson to take possession of earth, the land has
to be ceded by Okuni Nushi and his progeny. In return for giving up
earthly domain, Okuni Nushi is guaranteed eternal worship at the
Grand Shrine of Izumo, second in prestige only to that of the Sun
Goddess herself at Ise. The way is then cleared for the sun lineage to
extend its rule over Japan, and accounts of the reigns of the successive
sovereigns occupy the second and third books of the Kojiki.
The Kojiki is thus a book of grand theme and majestic sweep. But it
is also very close to the primitive earthiness of the animistic mythology
on which its earlier strata are based. Anecdote and description are of a
specific physicality that contributes strongly to the quality of the book
as literature. The value of the Kojiki is in fact literary more than
historiographical. Not only are the major myths recounted in a highly
dramatic and vivid fashion, but the narrative also is laced through with
folktales and poems. The 112 ancient songs of the Kojiki are a precious
corpus of early oral verse, often giving evidence of an existence independent
of the narrative in which they are embedded. Formally, they
divide into prototypes of the tanka (short poem) and choka (long
poem), the two principal varieties of early Japanese verse. Many are
without the precise five-seven syllabic structure realized probably
during the seventh century, thus bespeaking a putative antiquity. The
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very first poem in the book, however, is in form a perfect thirty-onesyllable
tonka, a fact that suggests a breadth of time in the poetic
component, or perhaps the later revision of early materials. The matter
of the songs is often amorous, sometimes expressed in imagery of
latent sexual content, occasionally martial, and characteristically traditional
or "folk" in type. The traditional reciters of the long songs,
which may have been danced or enacted in some manner, are occasionally
named in the text, though the usual convention is that the person
in the story makes up the poem on the spur of the moment. Structurally,
many of the songs show the typical expository order of early
Japanese verse, in which preposited phrases of a metaphorical or analogical
nature lead, often by means of word play, into the main statement
of the poem.
Song and story thus constitute much of the appeal of this earliest
Japanese book. Even the accounts of the sovereigns concentrate as
much or more on their backstage lives - their amorous entanglements
or minor incidents of their reigns - as on matters of state. The many
amours of the emperors Nintoku and Yuryaku are cases in point. The
high incidence of poetry in these passages makes them into poem-tales
foreshadowing a major genre of semifiction that developed in the tenth
century. And yet the Kojiki is not purely anecdotal; it is a heady brew
of history, myth, folktale, and poetry, in which the historical narrative
asserts itself as the main organizational thrust, dragging along a great
accumulation of traditions, all of which are treated with equal credence.
It is as if George Washington's chopping down his father's
cherry tree received equal billing with the signing of the Declaration of
Independence, or King Arthur and the Round Table were treated as
historical in the same sense as King John and Magna Carta. A story
such as that of Yamato Takeru no Mikoto, "the brave of Yamato,"
contains the elements of heroic saga and points to the value of the
Kojiki for an understanding of the formative ideals of the race. Yamato
Takeru is wily, bloody, and bold but also loyal and naive. His wiliness
is toward his enemies, his naivete toward received authority. In the
process of conquering his father's enemies, he incurs a curse for going
too far - overstepping the boundary of human limitations and offending
a kami. Sickening to death as a result of this act of hubris, Yamato
Takeru becomes melancholy and sings of his longing for home. He
dies, and his spirit turns into a great white bird and flies away. A
particularly Japanese sense of tragedy emerges from this hero-tale, a
tragedy of a failed hero and a major theme in later legend, literature,
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and historical event. The feeling conveyed is one of pathos, an awareness
of the fragility of glory.16
The Nihon shoki (Chronicles of Japan) is written in Chinese, its
compilers having apparently disdained the linguistic compromise
worked out for the Kojiki. It too is an outgrowth of the historiographical
work ordered by Emperor Temmu in 681. In thirty books, it covers
Japanese history from its beginning to the abdication of Empress Jito
in 697. It was completed and presented to Empress Gensho in 720 by
Prince Toneri (677-735), a son of Emperor Temmu. Others involved
in the project at its inception in the 680s included imperial princes
Kawashima (657-691) and Osakabe (d. 705), heading up a staff of ten.
The result of their labors was adopted as the official history, the first of
a series that ultimately extended to six (the Rikkokushi or Six national
histories), inspired by and partially modeled on the Chinese dynastic
histories. It seems probable that the Kojiki was relegated to a subsidiary
status and was soon the victim of neglect.
In a sense, the Nihon shoki is everything the Kojiki is and more. The
same mythology is recounted in the early books, and other versions of
many of the same songs and stories can be found. The mythological
portion of the narrative is in fact longer and more elaborate than that
of the Kojiki, because the compilers quote a number of often conflicting
accounts for each of the major myths, indicating that the sources
available were much more numerous than might be supposed from a
reading of the earlier work. In one version, for instance, Izanagi and
Izanami create the Sun Goddess by means of sexual reproduction,
rather than her being born from the ablutions of the estranged male
parent. It is interesting to note that the heroic and amorous exploits of
the deity Okuni Nushi are missing from the Nihon shoki, evidence
perhaps of a further downgrading of the Izumo cult. In addition to its
plethora of material on most of the other myths, the Nihon shoki
presents a chronicle of historical events that simply dwarfs what is to
be found in the Kojiki. As it approaches the time of the chroniclers,
the narrative becomes increasingly prosaic, detailed, focused on public
rather than private matters, and, presumably, reliable. In other words,
the Nihon shoki is somewhat more valuable as history than as literature,
whereas the reverse is true of the Kojiki. Nevertheless, the Nihon
shoki is by no means to be accepted uncritically as a historical source,
16 Takagi Ichinosuke treated the Yamato Takeru story in "Yamato Takeru no Mikoto to roman
seishin," one of the essays in his book Yoshino no ayu (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1943). The
theme was also explored by Ivan Morris in The Nobility ofFailure (New York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston, 1975), pp. 1-13.
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even in its nonmythological sections. The parts dealing with relations
between Japan and Korea in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries are a
good case in point. Especially in the earlier ranges of this period, the
account is almost impossible to follow, much less to credit, in its
description of Japanese campaigns on the peninsula and the relations
among Yamato, Paekche, and Silla. The tendentious nature of Japanese
claims on their Korean neighbors, accepted totally by the authors,
is obvious, but how to untangle the resulting web of distortion
and self-glorification is by no means clear.17
These limitations on the
value of the Nihon shoki as history by no means differentiate it from
the Kojiki. The latter is simply less copious and more naive in its
tendentiousness. In this very naivete in fact resides much of the appeal
of the earlier and shorter book: The Kojiki has not been as thoroughly
sinicized as has the Nihon shoki. This fact is obvious from the linguistic
medium employed by each, but the difference strongly colors even
the characterization of certain semihistorical figures. For instance, the
story of Yamato Takeru in the Kojiki concentrates on the guile, violence,
loyalty, and hubris of the hero - he emerges strongly as a simple
and tragic figure, sketched in with a few strokes in a spare and telling
narrative. In the Nihon shoki, however, the same character spouts
reams of high Confucian sentiment, and his death with songs on his
lips is replaced by a long speech in which he takes his parting in
phrases conned from Chinese sources. The effect is noble but remote
from the unpretentious lyricism of the Japanese.
Another set of writings from the eighth century are the fudoki, or
local gazetteers. In 713 Empress Gemmei ordered each province to
compile a record of its topography, products, and local lore. Only
the Izumo fudoki survives intact; the gazetteers of Harima, Bungo,
Hitachi, and Hizen are partially preserved, and fragments of a number
of others have come down thanks to being quoted in various works.
The language of the fudoki is basically Chinese, with the exception of
certain passages that give verbatim accounts of local tradition, in
which phonetic representations of Japanese grammatical elements intrude
on the Chinese syntax. The poems are represented phonetically
as in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, and the same is of course true of
Japanese names. The initiative for compiling thefudoki was part of the
same general effort to conform to Chinese practices that led to the
histories and poetic anthologies. Descriptions of the topographical,
17 For a discussion and analysis of historical accounts of insular-peninsular relations at this
period, see Ledyard, "Galloping Away with the Horseriders," pp. 238-42.
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470 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
botanical, zoological, and legendary features of local areas date back at
least to the Shan-hai ching (Classic of mountains and seas) in China,
and local gazetteers flourished particularly in the Six Dynasties, the
period in China so influential on the early Japanese.18
Local information
of a similar nature was also incorporated in dynastic histories. It
seems that the Japanese fudoki were the victims of official neglect,
however, in view of the fragmentary state of their preservation. The
portions that remain are of semiliterary interest, for along with the
statistics of distances and numbers of shrines and villages are included
a scattering of local legends and myths. The myths of Izumo, for
instance, show yet other versions of the material edited in the Kojiki
and Nihon shoki. It is apparent that the compilers of the national
histories picked and chose from abundant local material. In this respect,
study of the remaining fudoki is important to understanding
early Japan, and it is unfortunate that the entire set of these documents
no longer exists.
Another feature of the fudoki is the prominence given to explanations
of the origins of place names. This seems to have been among the
principal preoccupations of the compilers. Some explanations are
straightforward and plausible, for example, a place is called Kuroda
(black field) because its soil is black. Others contain references to
mythology, as in the case of a community named Tatenuhi (shield
sewing), alleged to refer to the place where "[the god] Futsunushi
stitched up a rip in his sturdy shield of heaven."19
This interest in
etymology was no accident: The edict ordering the compilation of the
fudoki directed the compilers to record the "origins of the names of
mountains, rivers, plains and fields," as well as to give "good characters"
to the names of the administrative units.20
An interest in origins
as well as in the auspicious and "correct" is everywhere present in
ancient Japanese writings, evidence of parallel antiquarian and "civilizing"
tendencies. The fudoki also contain anecdotes that belong to
setsuwa literature, the genre of tales, often of a supernatural character,
that began with the chronicles but flourished most notably in the great
collections of the twelfth century and later. Such a story is that of the
shark that kills a young girl and then is escorted to her bereaved father
18 The Shan-hai-ching is attributed to Po I, assistant of the legendary ruler Yu who tamed the
floodwaters in Chinese antiquity. The core of the work is probably late Chou with later
additions. Like the Japanese fudoki, it combines geographical information with fantastic
stories.
19 Michiko Yamaguchi Aoki, trans., Izumofudoki (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1971), p. 84.
20 Kuroita Katsumi, ed., Shoku Nihongi, Shintei zoho kokushi taikei (Tokyo: Yoshikawa
kobunkan, 1935), vol. 2, p. 52.
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LITERACY AND LITERATURE 471
for punishment by a hundred other sharks in answer to the father's
prayers to the gods.
The compilation of history, local tradition, and topographical data
was a literate activity that the Japanese learned from Chinese example.
So also were the composition and compilation of poems. We have
already noted the poetic content of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, where
men and women, emperors and gods often speak in verse. The verse is
native, linguistically the most stubbornly native matrix with which the
compilers had to work. But by the late seventh century, Chinese-style
education among Japanese aristrocrats and Buddhist clergy had led to
participation in another Chinese cultural activity, the composition of
kanshi, or Chinese poetry. Poetry to the Chinese was both a high art
and something of a social necessity. In both respects it had much to
teach the Japanese, and it is hardly fortuitous that Japanese poetry, too,
came to be characterized by a similar dual nature. The loftier reaches
of Chinese poetic accomplishment were from the beginning something
toward which the Japanese might strive but which in the nature of
things they were unlikely to attain. And why indeed as newly literate
foreigners should they have attempted to master a highly complex
thousand-year-old art when they had, as the early chronicles testify, a
living poetic tradition of their own? The answer must be twofold: The
evidence is overwhelming that the Japanese found certain aspects of
Chinese civilization extremely attractive and that among these were
those that impressed by visual splendor or dazzling verbal intricacy.
Buddhist sculpture, painting, and architecture, and the artifice of Six
Dynasties poetry attracted Japanese attention and emulation and began,
in the Asuka-Nara period, traditions of mastery that lasted almost
into our own time. Technical difficulties have always been a
challenge, not a deterrent, to the Japanese. The other part of the
answer is that once they had entered the Chinese cultural sphere, the
Japanese came to participate in the social necessity referred to earlier.
The Japanese began sending embassies to China in 600. Diplomatic
and cultural exchange among East Asian countries involved certain
niceties, among which was the composition of suitably felicitous or
regretful poems at state banquets and farewell dinners. In order to hold
up their heads before their hosts, the Japanese at some point had to
learn how to create Chinese verses. They themselves served as hosts to
Korean embassies, where the same niceties had to be observed. Chinese
was the language of diplomacy as well as of learning and religion.
Furthermore, as the Japanese increasingly reformed their state along
the Chinese model in the seventh and eighth centuries, they wished to
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appear civilized even among themselves, with no foreigners looking
on. "No foreigners" is a delicate point, however, inasmuch as Japanese
society at this time contained a large element of recent continental
immigrants, largely from the Korean states. These so-called kikajin
were influential, indeed indispensable, to fostering arts, crafts, and
learning in Asuka-Nara Japan. Kikajin families became fully Japanese
in due course, and their skills spread throughout Japanese society.
Needless to say, it is not known when the first Chinese poem was
written in Japan. But it seems certain that the activity had taken hold
by the reign of Emperor Tenji (661-71), as there are references to both
the emperor and his courtiers taking part in literary banquets. "No
mere hundred were their compositions" according to the preface of the
Kaifuso. An elegant Chinese-style literary atmosphere at the Omi
court is also evidenced in the Man'yoshu in a famous choka debating
the relative merits of spring and fall.21
It seems that by the 670s,
thanks to the Chinese influence, literature was a recognized avocation
existing apart from myth, ritual, and history. But almost none of the
Chinese poetic works of the Omi court have survived; presumably
they were destroyed in the Jinshin war of 672 in which the capital at
Omi was burned and power violently transferred from Tenji's son
Prince Otomo to his brother Prince Oama (Emperor Temmu). There
are, to be sure, two surviving poems written by the unfortunate Prince
Otomo (648-72) himself. These two chueh-chu, or four-line stanzas,
are thus the oldest Chinese verses written by a Japanese to come down
to us. One is a felicitous banquet poem on the brilliance of his father's
reign, and the other is a meditation on his own unfitness to rule. This
latter has a pathetic irony, as Otomo died in the fall of the Omi capital
in 672 after no more than a few months on the throne. Another early
poet in the Chinese mode is Prince Otsu (663-86), who likewise came
to a bad end, becoming involved in an abortive coup d'etat and being
condemned to obligatory suicide in 686. He left touching farewell
poems in both Chinese and Japanese.22
The principal corpus of Chinese verse (kanshi) composed in Japan
during the Asuka-Nara period is to be found in the Kaifuso (Fond
recollections of poetry), a collection of 120 poems compiled in 751 by
an unknown anthologist. Sixty-four named poets are represented.
21 The poem is MYS I: i6, by Princess Nukata, who lived from the 630s to the 690s. Her poem
apparently was composed on a formal literary occasion at court in the 660s.
22 See MYS 3:416, Kaifuso 7. Kojima suggests that Prince Otsu's Chinese farewell poem is
likely to have been modeled closely on a Six Dynasties antecedent. See Kojima, Jodai Nihon
bungaku to Chugoku bungaku, vol. 3 (1971), p. 1262.
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There are nobles, monks, and a number of princes, including Otomo
and Otsu, and Emperor Mommu (683-707) as well. All the poems are
in the Chinese poetic shih form, with rhymes at the ends of the evennumbered
lines. One rhyme runs through an entire poem. The line
length is determined for each poem as either five or seven syllables
(unlike waka, in which the fives and sevens alternate). Four and eight
lines are the most common poem lengths. The poems in the Kaifuso
are of the "old shih" type; that is, they do not observe the strict rules of
tonal parallelism and antithesis that were mandatory in the "regulated
shih" that flourished in China starting with the T'ang period. The
verses in the Kaifuso, and all the Japanese kanshi of its time, are
oriented not toward the contemporary masterworks of T'ang but toward
the earlier Six Dynasties, specifically the decadent late Six Dynasties
poetry of the sixth century. In this poetry, artifice often became
artificiality, and a determined divorcement had been effected from any
sort of straightforward statement and from anything but the most
refined attitudes and aristocratic content. This kind of poetry, learned
from anthologies such as the Wen-hsiian and Yu-tai hsin-yung, remained
highly admired in Japan long after it passed out of favor in
China, with results that were far-reaching in the formation of Japanese
taste and that ultimately found their way into waka and a new prose
literature. Banquet poems, predictably of little depth, make up a large
proportion of the content of the Kaifuso. The verse is in any case
preponderantly imitative and perhaps does not deserve a high place in
the history of Japanese literature, of which it nevertheless - despite its
linguistic distinctiveness - forms a part. Culturally, however, it represents
an important pole of Japanese orientation, not only in the
Asuka-Nara period but later as well. Partially through efforts like
those seen in the Kaifuso, the Japanese ultimately became not imitators
of China but participants in China-centered East Asian civilization.
The content of the Kaifuso represents some of their proudest
early school exercises. And in any case it would be unfair to dismiss all
these verses as devoid of literary merit. In some at least, the voice of
the poet comes through the alien conventions to good effect.
A certain number of kanshi (Chinese poems), as well as kambun
(Chinese prose) passages, are also preserved in the Man'yoshu. The
Man'yoshu is unquestionably the great literary monument of the
Asuka-Nara period, the culmination and repository of all that Japanese
poetic culture had become up until that time. It is the earliest
extant waka anthology, and its enormous bulk includes over 4,500
poems, dating from the year 759 backward for an indeterminate span,
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474 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
but surely well over a century. The earliest attributions are a set of four
tonka ascribed to Iwanohime, a consort of the fourth- or fifth-century
monarch Nintoku. A healthy skepticism is recommended in regard to
all such extremely early attributions. Even the infinitely more "primitive"
songs associated with Iwanohime in the Kojiki are thought to
have been placed in her mouth by the compilers. The four Man'yoshu
tanka are perfectly realized and quite lovely examples of a waka style
that one might guess was not achieved earlier than the seventh century.
Most of the content of the Man'yoshu dates from after the Jinshin
war of 672, an event that seems echoed in the strains of some of the
more majestic choka or long poems that are an outstanding feature of
the collection.
There are various ways of periodizing the Man'yoshu. One meaningful
division of the content would be into a scattering of poems, some
perhaps very old, before Jinshin; the poetry of the period from 672 to
the foundation of the Nara in 710, dominated politically by the victors
in the Jinshin war and their heirs and poetically by Kakinomoto no
Hitomaro; and the Nara period up to the terminal date in the
Man'yoshu of 759, a period when urban sophistication began to produce
a new and in some ways radically different attitude toward literary
creativity. It is in this last period in which the Chinese content of
the Man'yoshu comes to the fore and when the compilation of the
anthology probably began. Both the Chinese content and the compilation
are associated with the Otomo clan and its literary adherents.
Book 5 of the Man'yoshu, made up of compositions of the circle of
Otomo no Tabito (665-731) and his crony Yamanoue no Okura (660ca.
733), bulks large in this regard. Both Tabito and Okura (himself an
anthologist) were practitioners of the new skills in Chinese literary
prose and poetry, as well as of waka, and Tabito is represented by a
shih in the Kaifuso. Tabito's son Yakamochi (718-85) was the probable
main compiler of the Man'yoshu, and along with being the most extensively
preserved (over four hundred poems) waka poet in the collection,
he recorded several interesting exchanges in Chinese with his
cousin Otomo no Ikenushi. These, from a period in the 740s when
Yakamochi was governor of Etchu Province, show him and Ikenushi
in the roles of Chinese-style literary gentlemen, complimenting each
other on their verses and celebrating the joys of male companionship.
Both the verse and the prose are highly flowery, representing in this
regard standards of taste appropriate to their Six Dynasties inspiration.
But the theme of friendship is one more broadly based 111 the
ethos of Chinese poetry, and it is apparent that it provided these early
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LITERACY AND LITERATURE 475
Japanese poets with an option not available in the tradition of their
own poetry. Waka remained oriented toward romantic love between
the sexes; friendship between men for some reason continued to be
embedded in the poetic conventions of the Chinese verse that had
developed it as a primary concern. In this respect a Nara poet like
Yakamochi was operating in dual personae, able to switch at will from
his Japanese to his Chinese self. It was during the Nara period that this
characteristic of Japanese high culture reached its early maturity.
The Man'yoshu is thus an anthology of poetry in the two languages,
a fact usually overlooked because the Japanese content looms much
larger. In the traditional way of editing the Man'yoshu, the Chinese
poems were not even given numbers, as if they were mere appendages
to the waka, and the several long Chinese prose passages were not
numbered either. This approach unfortunately obscures what the
Man'yoshu really is - a collection of waka, kanshi, and kambun, of
literary efforts in both languages in use at the time of its compilation.
It is a true product of the developing hybrid culture out of which it
came.
Nevertheless, the Man'yoshu's primary significance is as the great
compendium of early Japanese poetry. Because the time period that its
content covers is so long and the content itself is so large, it would be
difficult to characterize the anthology in simple terms. The inspiration
for its compilation was ultimately Chinese - perhaps it was to be
the Japanese answer to the Wen-hsiian, which also contains both prose
and poetry. Unfortunately, however, the Man'yoshu has no preface to
state the compilers' aims, and so we can only deduce from the book
itself and our knowledge of its time. Several poems and all of the
prose - headnotes, footnotes, correspondence, and experiments in essay
and story form - are in Chinese. And the modal categories that
form part of the complex (never a fully rationalized organizational
scheme) are also Chinese. The book, as a book, is a product of a
sinicized culture. But within this "foreign" framework is found the
heart of a linguistically unadulterated native ethos, the largest concentration
of what is most purely "Japanese" on the level of artistic
expression to come down from these early centuries. It is this aspect
of the Man'yoshu - its role as the repository of the living voices of all
levels of society and as the embodiment of a semimystical nativist
"Japanese spirit" - that has been stressed at least since the work of
the national scholars in the Tokugawa period.
The Japanese content of the Man'yoshu consists of round numbers
of approximately 260 choka, 60 sedoka, and 4,200 tanka, the three
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476 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
main poetic forms existing at the time of its compilation. All three
forms are based on syllable count, alternating lines of five and seven
syllables constituting the basic rhythm. A tanka (short poem) is defined
as five such lines in the pattern 5-7-5-7-7. Tanka are numerically
by far the dominant form and remained as the staple of waka
poetry after the disappearance of the choka and sedoka. The sedoka
(head-repeated poem) consists of two tercets: 5-7-7-5-7-7. The
choka (long poem) has no set length and, as it came to be defined in the
seventh century, usually took the form of a regular alternation of fiveand
seven-syllable lines, with an extra seven-syllable line at the end,
and was often followed by one or more envoys in tanka form. Although
numerically inferior to tanka, the choka provided the major Man'yo
poets with some of their choicest opportunities, ones that were not to
be found again in Japanese poetry for a long while.
About 530 named poets are represented in the Man'yoshu, ranging
socially from monarchs to peasants and geographically from the
eastland frontier to the islands of Tsushima between Japan and Korea.
There is also an exceptionally large body of anonymous poetry. Most
of the named poets are men and women of the court, but the broad
interest and sympathy of the compilers are evident in the inclusion of
verses by outlanders and the common people. The Man'yoshu is often
praised by the Japanese for the straightforwardness and wholeheartedness
of its poetry, and indeed those qualities form an essential part of
its appeal. Expressions of loyalty, admiration for nature, and amorous
intent are effective partially because of their open intensity. Both nature
and emotions are represented in the large in much of the most
characteristic poetry. A morning-of-the-world freshness does hover
about the anthology. But there is an artfulness, that is, an art, a use of
conventions implying that verse after all carries expectations different
from those of prose, about even simple and naive poetry, about even
the generally more "primitive" poems in the chronicles. The use of
preposited modifying structures - the jo (preface) and the makurakotoba
(pillow word) - is a prominent example of such artfulness. Not
all poems embody such structures, but many of the apparently earliest
ones do. Deliberate refraining from rhetorical adornment may itself be
a sign of artistry in such a tradition: The classic repose of an apparently
"simple" poem can imply conscious sophistication. Much of the
best Man'yo poetry is not simple by any definition, however. The
choka of Hitomaro are magnificent patterns of interlocking parallelism,
with a prosody heightened by skillfully used rhetorical devices,
and an inner life made complex with ironies. And then there is the
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LITERACY AND LITERATURE 477
sinified or actually Chinese content referred to earlier, the works of the
Okura-Tabito-Yakamochi circle in the urbanized atmosphere of the
Nara period. Complexity and plentitude describe the Man'yoshu more
accurately than does simplicity or artlessness.
Among the major Man'yo poets, two define the boundaries of their
tradition. Kakinomoto no Hitomaro is a bardic figure in his treatment
of traditional themes of celebration and desolation,2
* the first and
ultimate public poet of the Asuka period. Hitomaro is close to the
past, and in him the archaic ethos of land and sovereignty finds its
fullest and most powerful statement. His known poetic career spans
the eleven years from 689 through 700, though no doubt he was active
somewhat longer. The world of which he sings is that of the aftermath
of the Jinshin war of 672. The generation between Jinshin and the
move to Nara in 710 experienced one of the high points of imperial
prestige in Japan under Temmu and his successors, and the image of
the kami sovereign is central to Hitomaro's vision. Hitomaro's choka
on public themes are often laments, however, for dead princes and
princesses and for the fallen capital at Omi. Hence the image of triumphant
glory is made somber by the realization that time and death are
more powerful than even the living kami in the palaces built to last
myriad ages. A tension between life and death informs Hitomaro's
work, ultimately resolved in compassionate irony. Hitomaro is not a
nature poet. Though he employs natural imagery with great skill and
beauty, he treats nature as a metaphor and as the home of humanity.
Hitomaro's view is global. His universality is nowhere better exemplified
than in a choka (Man'yoshu [MYS] 2.220-2) he composed on
finding the body of a man on Samine Island in the Inland Sea. The
anonymous drowned man becomes Everyman in Hitomaro's poem.
Hitomaro speaks elsewhere of his own experience of love and sorrow
in elegies and private poems of parting. But although these poems are
undoubtedly based on his life, he blends into them as a typical rather
than an individual voice. There is no denying their intense emotional
conviction, but they are universal rather than anecdotal. In the end
Hitomaro is almost a mythic figure, an enunciator of the deepest
feelings of his culture - not a man whom we can know, but a teacher
of what it means to be a man, to be human.
In these regards Hitomaro stands in useful contrast with the great
figure at the other end of the Man'yo tradition. Hitomaro was the
23 These terms are used as basic polarities in Japanese court poetry by Earl Miner in Introduction
toJapanese Court Poetry (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968), pp. 11 ff.
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478 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
creator of the grand choka manner, and later poets learned from and
emulated his style. Among the many who did so was Otomo no Yakamochi,
the putative compiler of the Man'yoshu itself, or at least of large
parts of it. Yakamochi was born after the days of Hitomaro, after the
foundation of the capital at Nara. He was a man of Nara and the scion
of a proud and ancient family, one with a strong literary tradition from
his father's day. Yakamochi was a man of literature, a man of the
written word. He looked out on what seems a modern instead of a
mythic world. Preserved through his own efforts, his many waka,
kanshi, and kambun letters allow us to see a person passionate about
poetry, his family honor, and his favorite hawk and ardent in his
pursuit of a number of women. We also see him as host at official
banquets and as friend of his cousin Ikenushi. Yakamochi is moody,
many faceted: an individual, a modern man. He suffered from a specific
and situational anxiety over his political career. It is possible to
know him, or to feel that one does, in a way that is totally out of the
question with Hitomaro. Thus in the simplest terms Hitomaro and
Yakamochi stand for the old and the new in an age of rapid transition.
Yakamochi was aware of the past in a modern way. He looked back
on it as a time of lost virtue and glory. The virtue that he particularly
cherished and that he wished to revive in his own day was masuraoburi,
the manliness of the warrior. He belonged to an ancient warrior family
that was losing its way in a complex and no-longer heroic modern
world. Yakamochi's idealization of the past as a time of sturdy and
simple loyalty is the counterpart of his anxiety over the present and
future. These attitudes give his work a restlessness and a melancholy
that are alien to Hitomaro. Hitomaro seems to be discovering the
world and expressing it fully for the first time; Yakamochi seems to be
looking back with envy and regret. Yakamochi was a self-conscious
artist. That he was aware of the debt of his tradition to Hitomaro is
indicated by a remark in one of his letters that he had never passed
through the gates of Yama and Kaki. "Kaki" is supposed to refer to
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, and the self-deprecatory comment is a
polite salute to the long-dead singer who had set the standards of his
art.2
*
"Yama" in Yakamochi's remark may refer to either Yamabe no
Akahito or Yamanoue no Okura, poets of a generation intermediate
between Hitomaro's and Yakamochi's own. Akahito is best known as a
24 The remark comes in a letter (written in Chinese) prefatory to MYS 17: 3969-72 and is part
of an extended series of exchanges between Yakamochi and his cousin Ikenushi on the
occasion of Yakamochi's illness in the second and third months of 747.
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LITERACY AND LITERATURE 479
nature poet, an observer who celebrated natural beauty for its own
sake. His poetry is part of a trend toward pictorializing the numinous
quality of the land. Okura was a crony of Yakamochi's father Tabito
and is notable as the most distinctly individual voice in the Man'yoshu.
He created a poetry of Confucian indignation and of sympathy with
the poor and the helpless. His prosody is angular and defiantly indifferent
to Hitomaro's supple yet tensile periods. Okura was the most
deeply sinified of the Man'yoshu poets, having gone to China for study
in 702 with one of the recurrent official embassies. He internalized the
social attitudes of Confucian propriety and of Confucian invective and
incorporated them into some of the most memorable verse in the
Man'yoshu. It is thought that Okura was of kikajin descent.2
*
Yakamochi seems to have thought of himself as heir to the poetic
tradition and to have deliberately worked in all the styles and modes
that were available to him. He is certainly the most versatile writer in
the Man'yoshu. As a choka poet he owes much to Hitomaro. He celebrated
mountain scenery and local legend in the tradition of Akahito
and Takahashi no Mushimaro. His amorous exchanges show him a
master of the conventions of love poetry. He wrote kanshi and kambun
in the style of a Chinese literatus and assumed on occasion the cloak of
Confucian morality in the manner of Okura. He celebrated the companionship
of friend and friend. He wrote of matters of state and of his
private life. At banquets he was the genial and poetic host, as his
father had been in the days of Yakamochi's boyhood at Dazai-fu in
Kyushu. Yakamochi was interested in poetry in all its forms and especially
in collecting the poems of the provincial commoners who served
as conscript soldiers in the military system of his day. He himself
experimented with the topic of the sorrows of the frontier guard. And
in addition to all this, Yakamochi brought into poetry a new note of
self-conscious melancholy reflection that was a sign that the tradition
was expending its forces but that also was a foretaste of the aesthetic of
aware (wistful awareness of perishable beauty) that imbued much of
the courtly literature of the succeeding age. As an anthologist Yakamochi
was the first of a series of literary men - Ki no Tsurayuki and
Fujiwara no Teika played similar roles later - into whose hands the
poetic tradition came and who passed it on with their own stamp on it.
The last poem in the Man'yoshu was written on New Year's Day of
the year corresponding to 759; it is a felicitous banquet poem in which
25 The case for Okura as a Korean born in Paekche and brought to Japan soon after birth is
argued by Nakanishi Susumu in Yamanoue no Okura (Tokyo: Kawade shobo shinsha, 1973),
pp. 23-45.
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480 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
Yakamochi, then serving as governor of Inaba Province, wishes his
subordinates endless good fortune. Ironically, the poetic tradition itself
was about to undergo the most drastic curtailment in its entire
history. The eighth century, despite the imposing achievements and
implied stability of the imperial institution in its first "permanent"
capital, was a time of recurrent political crisis. By mid-century the
long-standing rivalry between the Fujiwara and the Tachibana was
creating an atmosphere of continual tension. In 756 the ex-emperor
Shomu died, removing the last restraint on the ambitions of Fujiwara
no Nakamaro (706-64), the adviser to Empress Koken, Shomu's
daughter, and on the resentment of Tachibana no Naramaro (d. 757),
the son of the chief minister, Tachibana no Moroe (684-757). Naramaro
attemped a coup d'etat against Koken and Nakamaro the following
year but failed. He and other members of the Tachibana party
were put to death. The Otomo were allies of the Tachibana and suffered
devastating losses as a result of the abortive coup. Yakamochi
had refused to join the plotters, remaining loyal to his ideal of masurao
fidelity, but as head of the Otomo clan he was suspect and out of favor
at court. In 758 he was sent off to be governor of Inaba. This was a
comedown for Yakamochi, who had already served as governor of
Etchu, a superior province, ten years earlier. The rest of his career was
beset by vicissitudes, and even after he died in 785 he was posthumously
linked to the assassination of Fujiwara no Tanetsugu, the official
in charge of building a new capital to replace Nara at Nagaoka.
The murder was carried out by two members of the Otomo clan, and
Yakamochi suffered in the general disgrace by being posthumously
stripped of rank and having his ashes sent into exile with his son to the
Oki Islands. His titles and rank were restored in an amnesty granted in
806.
All of these events affected Japanese poetry in various and sometimes
unexpected ways. The political turmoil surrounding Yakamochi
after his return to the capital from his governorship of Etchu in 751
seems to have distracted him from poetry and to have led to deepening
melancholy. It is possible that he felt poetry to be no longer relevant to
his own life or to the events of the times. In any case, his productivity
seems to have fallen off, and from 759 until his death in 785 nothing
remains. It is possible that much has been lost, or he may simply have
fallen silent. In any case, the history of Man'yo poetry ends long
before the death of its last great exponent. The increasing popularity
of composition in Chinese may also have led to the decline of interest
and skill in writing choka, a form that never revived significantly after
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LITERACY AND LITERATURE 481
the eighth century. The first three imperial anthologies of poetry,
commissioned early in the ninth century, were of kanshi, not waka.
Ironically, Yakamochi's posthumous disgrace may have preserved
the Man'yoshu and with it the whole pre-Heian tradition of Japanese
poetry. As part of the decree against the Otomo, Yakamochi's property
was sequestered in 785, and his papers taken into government custody.
It seems likely that the Man'yoshu was among these and thus was
under official seal until after the transfer of the capital to Heian in 794.
It may then have become available for scholars after the punitive edicts
were rescinded in 806, surviving as the sole relic of what may have
been a much larger corpus of Asuka-Nara poetry.
The major written works that have come down from the Nara period
are those just described: the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, the fudoki,
the Kaifuso, and the Man'yoshu. They will certainly serve more than
adequately to represent Asuka-Nara poetry and historiography, the
two principal kinds of writing. They are not the only works that were
written in the period, however. There is evidence of some that did not
survive, the historiographical projects of Prince Shotoku, for instance,
or the poetic collections referred to in the Man'yoshu and only partially
incorporated into that work. Yamanoue no Okura we know was the
compiler of the Ruiju karin (Classified forest of poetry), which has not
come down to us intact.
A work that did survive and that is of some interest for a study of
the poetry of the period is the Kakyo hydshiki, by Fujiwara no Hamanari
(724-90). Kakyo hydshiki (Standard rules for the classic of
songs) was written in 772 and presented to Emperor Konin (709-81),
apparently as an authoritative statement on Japanese poetry. Hamanari,
an official at the Nara court, shows more acquaintance with
Chinese poetic theory than understanding of Japanese poetic practice
as found in the Man'yoshu. He elaborates a complex theory of rhyme
for waka and discriminates seven "poetic ills" (kabyo) derived from
Six Dynasties criticism, setting up as well several stylistic categories.26
Because several poems quoted in the Kakyo hydshiki appear in the
Man'yoshu with different attributions, it is quite plausible that the
great anthology was unknown to Hamanari and was in fact still a
26 Hamanari's "seven ills" are certain types of phonetic repetition; his list is inspired by the
"eight poetic ills" of Six Dynasties criticism first enunciated by Shen Yuen (441-513) in Shih
p'in. His Chinese orientation leads him to prescribe rhyme for waka. He allows only vowel
correspondence, however, and proscribes full consonant-vowel duplication. The best study
of this subject is Judith N. Rabinovitch, "Wasp Waists and Monkey Tails: A Translation and
Study of uta no shiki (Kakyo hydshiki) [772] by Fujiwara no Hamanari," HarvardJournal of
Asiatic Studies 31 (1991).
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482 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
private possession of his contemporary Otomo no Yakamochi. Hamanari,
working during a period from which nothing by Yakamochi
remains, shows the increasing focus on Chinese literary culture already
dominating the court. The Kakyo hydshiki, the earliest Japanese
document in poetic criticism, is a curious product of those times.
Although seriously misconceived, it has value in the history of thought
as an attempt to understand one's own culture through foreign eyes.
And the theory of the "poetic ills" was by no means laid to rest with
Hamanari; it was still being discussed four hundred years later.2
?
The prose text of the Kakyo hydshiki is in Chinese, and the poems are
spelled out in phonogram (man'ydgana) orthography. Another kambun
document with phonetic usages for poems, proper nouns, and the like
that has come down from Asuka-Nara times is theJdgu Shotoku Hod
teisetsu (Anecdotes of the sovereign dharma King Shotoku of the Upper
Palace), a collection of records concerning Prince Shotoku probably
dating from the early eight century. It is the source of several anecdotes,
often of a miraculous character, about the revered scholarstatesman-sage.
In this respect it is not unlike the accounts incorported
into the Nihon shoki itself; both provide early evidence of what became
a Prince Shotoku cult that endured until modern times. One pious
anecdote recounts how the prince, studying Buddhist texts with a
Korean master, was stumped by a difficult passage in the Lotus Sutra.
A golden man came to the prince in a dream and revealed the meaning
of the passage. The Korean master returned to Korea with the interpretation
and, on later hearing of the prince's death, prayed to die on its
anniversary and meet him in the Pure Land. According to the account,
this wish was granted. This Buddhist setsuwa is precisely the sort of
narrative found in large numbers in Heian and later collections. Thus
theJdgu Shotoku Hod teisetsu, together with the Kojiki and Nihonshoki,
stands at the beginning of a major strand of Japanese literature that is
known to modern scholarship as setsuwa bungaku. It also incorporates
three poems by one Kose no Mitsue on the prince's death, in this
respect, too, being similar to the chronicles in exemplifying at its
outset the literature's fondness for juxtaposing prose and verse. The
Jdgu Shotoku Hod teisetsu consists of five textual layers, the earliest of
which, genealogical in nature, probably stem from the traditions of the
Horyu-ji, Gango-ji, and other ancient temples and date from the first
27 Fujiwara no Toshiyori (?K>57-i 129) discusses the concept in Shunrai zuino (ca. 1115). Fujiwara
no Shunzei (1114-1204) also mentions it in Korai futeisho (1197). Both writers are
critical of using these negative categories as guides in composition. Hashimoto Fumio, ed.,
Karonshu, Nihon koten bungaku zenshu (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1975), vol. 20, pp. 57, 357-8.
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LITERACY AND LITERATURE 483
decade of the eighth century. The anecdotal strata are probably slightly
later, perhaps recorded in their present form after the compilation of
the Nihon shoki in 720. The identity of the compiler of these materials
is not known.
Another minor eighth-century text of considerable interest has been
preserved in a stone inscription. It consists of twenty-one devotional
verses carved on a stele at the Yakushi-ji in Nara, verses that are
known as the bussokuseki no uta after the incised representation of the
Buddha's footprint (bussokuseki) that they accompany. They are in the
syllabic form 5-7-5-7-7-7, of which they constitute the chief remaining
corpus and which hence is called the "Buddha's footprint stone
poem form." It consists of a tanka plus an extra seven-syllable line
serving as a refrain. These poems are a liturgy of the circumambulation
of the footprint icon and therefore of the worship of Sakyamuni,
the historical Buddha, but also of Bhaisajya-guru or Yakushi, the healing
Buddha. They are arranged in intricate patterns of association and
progression stemming partially from their sources in the "twelve great
vows of Bhaisajya-guru" as set forth in three Buddhist canonical texts.
The twenty-one poems are engraved in phonogram orthography, a fact
that makes them important to the study of Japanese phonology. Their
date and author or authors are unknown, but the accompanying footprint
stone has a kambun inscription dated in correspondence with
753. It has been argued that the poems are by various unknown hands,
later arranged into a sequence (also by an unknown person) for artistic
and doctrinal effect. The traditional attribution was to Fun'ya no
Chinu (693-770), the donor of the icon stone.28
The Nihon shoki covers the history of Japan to 697. It is the first of a
group of official annals known as the Rikkokushi (Six national histories).
All are in kambun, and together they chronicle events from
earliest times to the year 887. It is the second of these histories, the
Shoku Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan continued), that deals with the
Nara period, covering the years 697-791. It was completed and presented
to Emperor Kammu (737-806) in 797, just after the move to
the new Heian capital. The compilation took place in several stages
during the eighth century and involved at least eight scholars.2
' The
Shoku Nihongi is principally of value as history, being (like the later
28 The most commanding study of this subject is by Roy Andrew Miller, "The Footprints of the
Buddha": An Eighth-Century OldJapanese Poetic Sequence (New Haven, CT: American Oriental
Society, 1975).
29 Imperial commissions for this work were issued in the reigns of Junnin (758-64), Konin
(770-81), and Kammu (781-806). The final stages of the project were under the direction of
Fujiwara no Tsugutada (727-96) and Sugano no Mamichi (ca. 738-ca. 811).
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484 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
chapters of the Nihon shoki) a chronicle of political events seen from
the viewpoint of the court. Its annals are distant from the rich matrix
of myth and song out of which the compilers of the Kojiki and Nihon
shoki wove the fabrics of their early narratives. But it has its own
linguistic and semiliterary interest as the chief repository of the
semmyo, a form of imperial proclamation in native Yamato speech,
recorded in a unique style known as semmyotai. This consists of an
attempt to write Japanese with a combination of semantic and phonetic
uses of characters and with the occasional intrusion of Chinese
grammar meant to be reinterpreted as Japanese constructions. In these
respects semmyo resemble some of the orthography of the Man'yoshu.
The unique feature of semmyotai, however, is that particles and inflections
are written small, in phonogram orthography, so that they stand
out from the rest of the text and facilitate its reading. Semmyo were
read aloud - proclaimed - in public by officials, and the quality of
oral delivery apparently was considered of some importance. There
are sixty-two of these proclamations preserved in the Shoku Nihongi.
Their subjects include the elevation of a consort to the rank of empress,
the dedication of the Great Buddha at the Todai-ji, and the
announcement of the discovery of gold in Michinoku. The texts sometimes
have a formal and rhetorical splendor that qualifies them for
consideration as literature. Otomo no Yakamochi seems to have
adapted Emperor Shomu's proclamation on the discovery of gold,
issued in 749, into his choka on the same subject (MYS 18.4094). The
text of this poem bears a close resemblance to the proclamation with
its recounting of the emperor's ambition to serve his people by erecting
a great Vairocana, his worry about insufficient gold for the gilding,
his relief at the report of new mines, his appeal for unity among his
subjects, and his hortatory account of the loyalty of the Otomo. Both
poem and proclamation incorporate an ancient Otomo song:
If we go on the sea,
Our dead are sodden in water;
If we go on the mountains,
Our dead are grown over with grass.
We shall die
By the side of our lord,
We shall not die in peace.'0
30 Mikanagi Kiyotake, ed., Semmyo shoshaku (Tokyo: Yubun shoin, 1936), p. 138. Yakamochi
alters the last line of the song to Kaerimi wa I seji to kotodate, "They vowed they would never
look back."
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LITERACY AND LITERATURE 485
The periodic, oratorical quality of the semmyo of the Shoku Nihongi is
attenuated in examples found scattered in later Rikkokushi, in which
the linguistic purity of the semmyo is compromised by Chinese loanwords
and the influence of kambun syntax. Earlier proclamations, in
the Nikon shoki, are translated into kambun by the compilers, and no
proclamations of this nature are to be found in the Kojiki. Thus the
Shoku Nihongi remains the main repository of a significant form of
literary Japanese and of Japanese literature.
Still another group of official texts should be mentioned at this
point. These are the Shinto ritual prayers known as norito, twentyseven
of which are preserved in Book 8 of the Engishiki. The Engishiki
is a collection of procedures (shiki) compiled in the Engi era (901-23)
and completed in 927. The older among the norito probably date to the
seventh and eighth centuries. Their texts are linguistically and orthographically
similar to the semmyo, employing a hybrid Sino-Japanese
style, with particles written small. The result is intended to be read in
pure Japanese, though as with all texts discussed in this chapter, the
orthographic vehicle is made up exclusively of Chinese characters,
whether used semantically or phonetically. The norito also resemble
the semmyo in their rhetoric, which is that of the incantation, based on
the repetition of formulaic phraseology. The norito are prayers addressed
to various kami and recited on special occasions of cultic
significance. There are prayers for rich harvest, prayers to the kami of
important shrines, invocations of protective kami such as those of
gates, and liturgies of exorcism. A norito typically specifies the blessings
desired and details the offerings to be made to obtain them. Norito
also sometimes contain passages of myth. The officiant often begins by
addressing the assembled priests and worshipers before taking up the
burden of his petition to the kami. The language of the norito, solemn
and designed to create a feeling of numinous awe, resembles certain
passages of Man'yoshu poetry, particularly the chdka of Hitomaro. It is
apparent that the author of the Minazuki tsugomori no dharae (Great
exorcism of the last day of the sixth month) either drew on the same
source of ritual phraseology as Hitomaro did in his lament on the
death of Prince Hinamishi (MYS 2.167) or that one author was familiar
with the other's work. The style of the norito of the Toshigoi no
matsuri (Grain-petitioning festival) is particularly evocative of the
grand chdka manner. It is not known who composed these norito, but
they might have been created by members of the sacerdotal Imibe and
Nakatomi families or by officials of the Council of Kami Affairs
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486 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
(Jingikan). In their older strata they probably took form during that
fertile period when the language perfected its potential as a vehicle for
ritual and, out of that, made poetry, the period of which Hitomaro was
the ultimate expression.
MUSIC AND DANCE
The pervasive role of song in ancient Japanese society has already been
touched on in the discussion of literature. The chronicles provide
evidence of several named kinds of singing, such as "kami words"
(kamigatari), "country measures" (hinaburi), "songs of yearning for
the homeland" (kunishinohiuta), "drinking songs" (sakagura no uta),
and "quiet songs" (shizuuta). A "winecup song" (ukiuta) accompanies
the offering of a flagon to the emperor. There were also ageuta and
shirageuta, in which the voice was apparently to be raised either
throughout or at the end of the song, and "responses to quiet songs"
(shizuuta no utaigaishi), thought to have been sung at a fast tempo.
"Country measures" had their counterpart in "courtly measures"
(miyahitoburi); both were named after particular songs and apparently
could refer to other songs sung to those tunes. The notation "lowered
part" (kataoroshi) presumably referred to the lowering of the voice or
relaxing of the tempo in a two-part song. A more detailed notation in
the Nihon shoki gives further insight into manner of performance:
"Even now when this song is sung in the music bureau, the tempo of
the hand clapping and the rise and fall of the vocal part are pre-
served."31
The song in question is described as a Kumeuta, that is, a
song traditional to the Kume clan of ancient warriors serving Yamato
kings. It accompanied the Kumemai or "Kume dance." A primitive
victory song of the Kumebe tells how enemy warriors were killed by a
ruse (Nihon shoki 10):
When our troops heard the song, they all drew their mallet-headed swords
and killed the enemy at once. There were no enemy left. The Royal forces were
overjoyed and turned their faces to the heavens and laughed. Thus they sang:
Now at last!
Now at last!
Those fools, oh,
Would they even now,
My boys,
Would they even now,
My boys?
31 Tsuchihashi Yutaka and Konishi Jin'ichi, eds., Kodai kayoshu, NKBT, 3.128.
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MUSIC AND DANCE 487
It is because of this that the Kumebe nowadays give a great laugh after
singing.
The Kuzu were another group known for their songs as well as for
customs regarded as quaint by the Yamato court. Living in a remote
mountain area of the Kii peninsula, they came annually to court to
present offerings of their native products. The presentation was accompanied
by a performance similar to that of the Kumebe (Nihon shoki 39):
In the winter of the nineteenth year, in the tenth month, on the first
day . . . the king [Ojin] went to the palace at Yoshino. At this time the Kuzu
came to court. They presented thick sake, singing:
In the white-oak grove
We fashion a long mortar;
In the long mortar
We have brewed the fine great liquor:
See how good it is Come,
partake, down it with joy,
Our father.
After they had finished singing, they beat on their mouths, threw back their
heads, and laughed. Thus when nowadays on the day the Kuzu present their
local products, they finish singing, beat on their mouths, throw back their
heads, and laugh, it would seem they are following an ancient custom.
Several of the early songs from the chronicles are attributed to still
another group, the ama or "seafolk," people who made their living
from the sea, by fishing, diving, gathering seaweed, and making salt.
Their songs, among the longest and most impressive, are narrative in
nature and include variations of the customary formula:
The bottom swimmers,
The seafolk couriers,
Have told the story:
The words of the story
Are these words.
Some of the long narrative songs contain, in their very wording,
evidence of how they were acted out. Thus when the kami Eight
Thousand Spears grows tired of his wife and is about to leave her, he
boastfully enacts a series of scenes in which he dresses himself in
various finery (Kojiki 4):
Dressed and about to leave, he stood, with one hand on his horse's saddle
and one foot in the stirrup, and sang:
Jet-berry black
Is the raiment that I take
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ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
To adorn myself
In my full array;
Bird of the offing
Peering down at its breast,
Flapping its wings:
These clothes do not become me I
cast them away,
Waves that draw down the shore.
This pattern is repeated with "kingfisher-green raiment," until finally
the kami is satisfied with garments "indigo . . . pounded dye
plant juice-stained." The song is rich in possibilities for mime. So too
is a banquet song (Kojiki 42) attributed to King Ojin in which a crab
has a dialogue with a man. The crab's actions - "scuttling sideways
. . . diving and gasping" - are vividly described. Highly suggestive
of dance movements are these words of a song: "The Kuzu of
Yoshino, seeing the sword Osazaki no Mikoto was wearing, sang
(Kojiki 47):
Child of the sun
From Homuta,
Osazaki,
Osazaki,
The sword you wear
Strung from the hilt,
Swinging at the tip:
Swaying underbrush
In the bare-stemmed winter wood Saya!
Saya!"
Specific references to dance as a command performance are found in
passages such as the following (Kojiki 96):
Once when King Yuryaku went to Yoshino Palace there was a maiden
beside the Yoshino River, and her figure was lovely. And so he wed this
maiden and returned to the palace. Later when he visited Yoshino again he
stopped at the place where he had met the maiden, set up a great royal campchair,
seated himself . . . and had the young lady dance while he played on
the zither. And because the lady danced well, he composed a song:
To the hand of a kami
Seated on a camp-chair
Playing the zither
She dances, this woman - oh that
This were the eternal land!
Elsewhere we see guests at a party rising one by one to dance around
a fire at night:
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MUSIC AND DANCE 489
When Yamabe no Muraji Odate was appointed governor of Harima Province,
he arrived at the new residence of a commoner of that province, Shijimu by
name, and gave a feast. When the feast was in full swing and the liquor was
flowing freely, each guest danced in order of precedence. Now, there were
two boys to tend the fire, seated by the hearth. When these boys were urged
to dance, one of them said, "You, younger brother, dance first." They thus
deferred to each other, and the people there assembled laughed.3*
The songfest, utagaki or kagai, provided an occasion for singing
and dancing that was part ritual, part revel, and part performance.
Unmarried young men and women met and exchanged challenges in
song, with sexual pairing the object. Several passages in the chronicles
and the Man'ydshu refer to this custom either directly or
obliquely. A poem by Takahashi no Mushimaro in the Man'ydshu
(9-1759) suggests that the sexual license he observed in the annual
rites at Mt. Tsukuha in Hitachi Province be extended to married
couples as well:
To where eagles dwell
On the mountain of Tsukuha,
Up to the haven,
The haven of Mohaki,
Urging each other
With shouts, the youths and the maidens
Thronging together,
Go to match songs in the song match.
Because with others' wives
I shall be keeping company,
So with my own wife
Let others banter as they will.
The kami that keep
This mountain from of old
Have never interposed
Their ban against these usages.
This one day alone,
Sweetling, do not look at me,
Do not question what I do.
The utagaki as a theater of conflict between rivals in love is presented
in a passage from the Kojiki:
The progenitor of the Omi of Heguri, Shibi by name, stood up at a songfest
and took the hand of the fair maid whom Wake no Mikoto was going to wed.
This maiden was the daughter of the Obito of Uda, and her name was Ouo
[great fish]. And so Wake no Mikoto also stood up at the songfest.'J *
32 Ibid., p 104. 33 Ibid., p. 105.
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49O ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
The rivals insult each other in song, building to a climax complete
with taunting plays on the interloper's name (Kojiki I I O - I I ) :
And so Shibi no Omi, more and more enraged, sang:
My great lord
My prince's brushwood fence,
With eight-knot fastening
You may fasten it round about It
will cut, that brushwood fence,
It will burn, that brushwood fence.
Oh the great fish,
Tuna-spearing fisherman If
she gets away
How you'll hanker after her,
Tuna-spearing tunaman.
Thus singing, they contended until dawn and then withdrew and went
their separate ways.
Utagaki songs undoubtedly were adapted to other uses by the compilers
of the chronicles, given the contextual readings in the love
dramas in which those works abound. Plausibly among these are the
songs placed in the mouth of Prince Kinashi no Karu, the son of King
Ingyo who lusted for his sister Karu no Oiratsume {Kojiki 79, 80, 84):
Hail comes pelting down
On the leaves of bamboo grass
With might and main
Once I've taken her to bed
Let her go where she wants.
That beauty so fine,
If I can bed her, just bed her,
Like sickled rushes
Let the tangle tangle then,
If I can bed her, just bed her.
Sky-flying
Karu maiden,
Softly, softly so
Come to me and sleep and go,
You Karu maidens.
The existence of musical instruments to accompany songs and
dances is attested to in the chronicles in such a passage as that already
cited in which King Yuryaku plays on the zither. This "horizontal
plucked chordophone,"^ known as a koto in Japanese and called a
34 William P. Malm,Japanese Music and Musical Instruments (Rutland, VT: Tuttle, 1959), p. 165.
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MUSIC AND DANCE 491
ch'in in China, existed in various forms throughout east Asia. A
stringed instrument of the koto type dating from Yayoi times has been
discovered at the Toro archaeological site in Shizuoka. This early example
of the yamatogoto or native Japanese zither apparently had six
strings. An eight-stringed zither is referred to in a Kojiki song (no.
105). Five-stringed varieties are represented in early haniwa excavated
at Maebashi in Gumma Prefecture. One of these shows the player
holding the instrument across his lap, plucking the strings. The Chinese
variety had seven strings. A much larger zither, called a cheng (so
in Japanese), had thirteen strings. Both Chinese zithers were introduced
into Japan with the influx of continental music in the seventh
century or earlier.
It is thought that the koto in ancient Japan had a significance beyond
entertainment or aesthetic pleasure. The account in the Kojiki of the
death of King Chuai suggests that the instrument was used to induce a
state of divine possession. Chuai, the husband of Queen Jingu, who is
famous in the tendentious accounts in the Japanese chronicles for her
conquest of the Korean kingdom of Silla in the fourth century, was
playing the koto when a divine voice commanded Chuai to cross the sea
on a mission of conquest. He scoffed at the command and was cursed
to death on the spot for his impiety. The narrative makes clear that the
queen is possessed by a kami, which speaks through her mouth, and
that the koto is played to achieve this effect. The king accuses the voice
of belonging to a "lying kami," pushes away the zither, and stops
playing. The curse immediately follows: "Go down one road." A minister
of court desperately urges the king to resume playing, and he does
so, though only reluctantly. But it is too late. The playing stops.
Torches are brought, and it is seen that the king is dead.35 It is clear
from this account that the rite of inducing possession was conducted in
the dark. Other evidence of the use of the koto in shamanistic spirit
possession is found in the pillow word kotogami ni in Song 92 from the
Nihon shoki:
To the koto-head
Comes, abides Kagehime . . .
The word kage in Princess Kage's name is thought to refer to the
"shadow" of a kami or spirit that is drawn to the plucking of the
strings. The following anonymous poem from the Man'yoshu seems to
refer to something similar (MYS 7.1129, "On a Japanese zither"):
35 Kojiki, vol. 2, NKBT, 1.229.
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492 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
Taking the zither,
Before all else a sigh escapes Can
it really be
That deep down in the zither's pipe
My wife has hidden herself?
The poem suggests that not only the kami but also the spirits of dead
or absent loved ones could be called forth by this instrument.
The koto appears elsewhere in early Japanese myth and fiction in a
different formulation. In the Kojiki, in the second passage on descent
to the underworld, the hero Onamuchi no Kami steals the ama no
norigoto (heavenly speaking zither) from Susa no O, now the ruler of
Ne no Katasukuni (another name for Yomi no Kuni), the Japanese
Hades. As the hero flees, the zither strikes against a timber, and the
resulting sound causes the earth to shake.^6
The Utsuho monogatari, a
major work of Heian literature, later used the same motif of the zither
of divine efficacy as the central unifying theme of its narrative. There,
too, the playing of such an instrument causes earthquakes, wind, hail,
snow, movements of stars and moon, and the appearance of supernatural
beings." The references in the Kojiki and Man'ydshii are to the
yamatogoto or wagon, the native Japanese version of the instrument,
whereas those in the Utsuho monogatari are to the Chinese ch'in. That
there was a special mystique attached to this instrument in China as
well as in Japan is suggested by the Ch'in fu (Rhyme-prose on the
zither) by Chi Shu-yeh (223-62), one of the "Seven Sages of the Bamboo
Grove." This long evocation of the excellence of the instrument, in
typicallyfloridfu style, contains a version of a giant tree legend that is
echoed in both the Man'ydshii and the Kojiki. The Chinese poem tells
of a paulownia tree that grows on a remote mountaintop, stretching up
to the North Star, drawing sustenance from the light of the sun and
moon, lush, shedding blossoms in the sky, plunging its shadow into the
gulf in the evening, bathing its trunk in the rising sun in the morning,
standing for a thousand years. An offshoot of this tree is cut down and
made into a zither, whose excellent qualities are then explained in
detail.38
This work underlies the prose texts and accompanying waka
exchanged between Otomo no Tabito and Fujiwara no Fusasaki (682-
738) in Man'ydshii 5.810-12. The first composition is sent by Tabito to
Fusasaki with the gift of ayamatogoto and takes the form of a fantasy in
36 Kojiki, vol. I, NKBT, 1.105.
37 Kono Tama, ed., Utsuho monogatari, vol. 1, NKBT, 85.379-80.
38 Kokumin bunko kankokai, ed.,Monzen, vol. 1, inKokuyaku kambun taisei: bungakubu, vol. 2
(Tokyo: Kokumin kankokai, 1921), pp. 620-35.
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MUSIC AND DANCE 493
which the koto becomes a maiden and speaks to the author in a dream,
recounting how she was once a paulownia tree in the mountains of
Tsushima, shone upon by the sun and clothed in the smoky haze. She
was chopped down and fashioned into a zither and now begs only that
she may have a cultivated master to play on her strings. The prose
piece is accompanied by a waka in which the maiden asks to be allowed
to pillow on the knees of a man who knows music. Tabito replies to her
in a waka and concludes his experiment in poem-tale fiction with
another kambun passage. The whole composition is sent off to
Fusasaki, who replies in like manner. The fascination with the zither as
a "speaking" instrument is clearly implied in this fantasy. A curious
passage in the Kojiki also parallels the Ch'infu description. In the reign
of Nintoku an extraordinarily tall tree, whose shadow "cast by the
morning sun reached Awaji Island and in the evening sun crossed
Takayasu Mountain," was cut down and its lumber made into the ship
Karano. Eventually the ship grew old in service, and its hulk was
burned for salt. From the leftover timbers was fashioned a koto whose
notes "resounded over seven leagues."»
Also among the instruments of archaic Japan were flutes and drums,
rattles, bells, and so forth. The percussion group is supposed to be the
most ancient. Bronze ceremonial bells (dotaku) are familiar from late
Yayoi excavations, and bell rattles (stizu, nuride) are referred to in the
Kojiki and Nihon shoki as early as the fifth century. A haniwa from the
same site in Gumma Prefecture as that in which the koto player was
discovered is modeled into the shape of a drummer striking a jarshaped
hip drum with a stick. This jar-shaped drum is different in
configuration from the tsuzumi of the later musical tradition, in which
the drum head projects beyond and is laced over a narrower, sometimes
hourglass-shaped, core. (The Shosoin preserves such a core in
T'ang three-color glazed ceramic ware.) The haniwa drum may represent
the sort of drum referred to in a Kojiki drinking song (no. 40):
He who brewed
This fine liquor - was it because
He took his drum
And standing it up like a mortar,
Singing while he brewed,
Did the brewing of the beer,
Dancing while he brewed,
Did the brewing of the beer,
That this fine liquor,
39 NKBT, 1.283.
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494 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
Fine liquor
Makes me feel so extra good?
5a/ Sa!
This passage from the account of the reign of the fourth-century
queen Jingu is the earliest textual reference to a tsuzumi. Drums were
used in the rituals of war as well as in the celebrations of peace. The
longest poems in the Man'yoshu (2.199), a lament by Hitomaro on the
death of the imperial prince Takechi in 696, mentions a tsuzumi in one
of the series of extended similies in which the poem describes the
climactic battle of the Jinshin war of 672:
The crash of drums
Signaling the soldiers to draw up
Resounded till it seemed
The sound of thunder fell upon men's ears.
The same poem also speaks of a horn called a kuda:
The bray of horns
Blown in blasts upon the air
was like the snarling
Of a tiger when it spots its foe,
And the enemy
In all his multitude was seized with fear.
The word kuda is written with characters meaning "small horn," and
the instrument was originally in fact made of animal horn, though
later of bamboo. There were also "large horns" or hara no fue. Fue is
the general term for a wind instrument, and an alternative reading of
this above passage has fue instead of kuda. The six-holed kagurabue or
kagura flute used in Shinto religious ceremonies is thought to date
from the Burial Mound period.
To the ancient songs and dances, both sacred and secular, performed
to the accompaniment of strings, flutes, and percussion instruments,
was added an influx of music from the continent during the
Asuka-Nara period. The arrival of musicians from the continent in
Japan began much earlier, with the Nihon shoki recording the attendance
of eighty musicians from Silla at the funeral ceremonies of King
Ingyo in 453. These eighty musicians are said to have brought stringed
instruments and to have taken part in the mourning ceremonies, singing,
wailing, and dancing.*0
A century later the same chronicle mentions
the inclusion of musicians among the learned men of Paekche
40 Ingyo 42/1, NKBT, 67.448-9. The passage states that the musicians "strung their various
instruments." The character for "strung" has also been given the interpretation of "prepared."
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MUSIC AND DANCE 495
sent in 554 as part of the "visiting professor" system.*' Although we
cannot know precisely the nature of the music they taught, any more
than that of the "singing, wailing, and dancing" at Ingyo's funeral, it
seems reasonable to suppose that some of the continental music was
connected with Confucian ritual, as Chinese learning was the principal
subject of instruction.
The year 612 provides a point of reference for the early history of
music and dance in Japan, as it was then that gigaku was introduced by
Mimashi from Paekche. Mimashi may have been of Chinese origin. In
any case, it was understood that he had studied the music that he
brought with him in the south Chinese kingdom of Wu. It is recorded
that Mimashi set up a school at Sakurai and taught youths to dance.*2
Gigaku continued to be performed until the seventeenth century, but it
eventually died out and apparently remained confined to the environs
of Nara. It never became as widespread as its rival dance form,
bugaku.
Gigaku was performed by dancers wearing large wooden or dry
lacquer masks, of which 171 have been preserved in the Shoso-in.
Many of the remaining masks were worn at the grand dedication
ceremony for the Great Buddha statue of the Todai-ji in 752. A long
procession of costumed performers paraded about the temple precincts
as part of the celebration. One aspect of gigaku lives on in the
lion dances (shishimai) that are still performed in Japan. The Shoso-in
has eight gigaku lion masks, of which one is particularly well preserved.
It has large eyes and snout and movable jaws and tongue. It
measures thirty-eight by thirty-seven by thirty-three centimeters and,
like other gigaku masks, is large enough to fit over the performer's
head. Made of paulownia wood, it was originally brightly colored in
various shades of red.
A more naturalistically rendered horse's head is also among the
remaining gigaku masks. Carved from one piece of paulownia wood, it
was gilded with gold leaf and decorated with patterns drawn in black
ink. The piece measures 31.5 by 11.5 centimeters and has great presence
with its bold eyes and flaring nostrils. Originally it had a mane
and was provided with reins. Little is known about the use to which
this object was put in the now-extinct art form that utilized it, but it
remains a striking piece of Nara sculpture.
That other of the masks were made in Japan is evident from the
names and dates inscribed on them. Six or seven are ascribed to an Ota
41 Kimmei 15/2, NKBT, 68.109. 42 Suiko 20 (612), KNBT, 68.198-9.
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496 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
Wamaro. One of these is a mask of Goko, the duke of Wu, a principal
role in the ancient dance-drama. The most prominent feature of this
mask is a long, pointed nose, which combines with close-set eyes and
red, smiling lips to create a lively but grotesque effect. This mask
measures 27.3 by 23 centimeters, is made of paulownia wood, and was
painted with verdigris (rokusho) over white lead igofun). The association
with the state of Wu in southern China is traditional, and gigaku is
sometimes referred to as "the music of Wu" (Kuregaku or Gogaku),
but Persian or Central Asian elements are suggested by the physiognomy
of a mask such as this.
The mask known as the "woman of Wu" (Kureotome or Gojo), however,
is of a distinctly oriental cast. Measuring 34.5 by 23.5 centimeters,
it is one of the five masks attributed to Master Kiei, who is
known to have been active at the time of the dedication of the Great
Buddha statue of the T6dai-ji in 752. It is probable that this mask was
produced for that occasion. The face is handsomely carved in the style
of the T'ang beauty, with dark eyebrows reminiscent of the Kichijoten
at the Yakushi-ji; narrow, well-defined eyes under a delicately rendered
epicanthic fold; a finely chiseled nose and rosebud mouth, on
the latter of which the red coloring remains; and a rounded chin
harmonizing the overall full but not plump proportions. Small ears are
partially hidden under the black lacquer hairdo that defines the outline
of the face and is crowned by twin topknots with trailing tufts. The
olive-greenish cast of the complexion is similar to that of the male
mask, but the absence of grotesque elements results in a very different
effect. Here too the material is paulownia, and the mask can justly be
ranked with the fine products of Nara woodcarving. The scene in
which the character wearing this mask was wooed by the barbarian
Konron apparently provided one of the high points in a gigaku performance,
and it has been suggested that its risque nature led to disfavor
for gigaku as a court or temple entertainment.
Another of the standard roles was that of the "drunken barbarian
king," and a mask representing this personage has been preserved.
Apparently this character and his followers came out at the finale of a
performance. The king wears a Phrygian cap with floral designs in
verdigris, red, purple, white, and gold leaf. Deep-set eyes peer out
from under knitted brows, and a pendulous nose protrudes from between
prominent cheekbones. The thick lips are drawn up in a smile
half-fierce and half-libidinous. A beard along the jawbone and a thin
mustache, glued on with lacquer but now largely fallen out, completed
this caricature of a "Western" barbarian. The paulownia wood has
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MUSIC AND DANCE 497
been painted red, no doubt to indicate the flush of wine. There is a
rhythmical force to the carving that goes beyond mere grotesquerie.
The mask measures 37.7 by 22.5 centimeters.
One of the most striking gigaku masks is made not of wood but of
dry lacquer. A creation of Shod no Uonari, it depicts one of the eight
equally drunken followers of the drunken king. Measuring 26.1 by
22.3 centimeters, the physiognomy of this mask with its almost equilateral
dimensions captures with demonic force the spirit of intoxication
in a smooth-cheeked youth. The surface of the dry lacquer has been
painted with a bright, yellowish red, against which the eyebrows, eyes,
and mouth stand out in black. Hair was originally pasted on the crown
of the head and was extended downward in a still-remaining indication
of sparse, uneven bangs rendered in black ink along the forehead. The
eyebrows are bold, composed of numerous fine ink lines along the
fully modeled brow. They swirl upward with lively rhythmic force,
and beneath them the almond-shaped eyes are also slanted sharply
upward. The mouth is rendered in a matching bow-shaped grimace,
and the planes of the broad face - its width is emphasized by the large,
thick ears - rise to high, prominent cheekbones. The black at the
nostril openings of the squat nose with its slightly pendulous tip provides
the final counterpoint to the red surface of this powerfully modeled
expression of dionysian mischief. One of the thirty-six dry lacquer
masks in the collection, this item is considered one of Uonari's outstanding
creations. It obviously takes full advantage of the plasticity of
its medium. Comparison with similar dated masks suggests that it was
made for the Eye-opening Ceremony of 752.
Little can now be said about gigaku music or the manner in which its
dances were performed, but they must have provided a colorful spectacle
in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Nara culture. Gigaku was taught
at Buddhist temples, being brought under the sponsorship of the
Tachibana-dera, Uzumasa-dera, and Shitenno-ji soon after its introduction.
The association of the foreign musical and dance form with the
foreign religion is no doubt relevant to the role that Buddhism played
as a cultural force in the Asuka-Nara period. Music and dance as
entertainment and spectacle remained associated with temples and
gave rise to the noh drama in medieval times. Music was also an
essential part of the services themselves: as rituals of comfort for the
souls of the deceased, as a way to create an atmosphere of reverence
and mystery, and as an earthly enactment) of the divine music depicted
in Buddhist an. Shomyo, a liturgical Buddhist chant, was introduced in
736 and was influential in the development of Japanese musical styles.
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498 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
That the importation of musical forms was part of the general influx
of continental culture during the seventh and eighth centuries is indicated
by other early references, such as to the introduction of Toragaku
(Tora may refer to a state in present Burma; another theory holds that
it refers to Cheju Island off the south coast of Korea), a form of
unknown origin, in 661. Toragaku was being included in court concerts
as late as 763 but had died out by the ninth century. Of more
lasting importance was gagaku, being performed at court by 702.
Gagaku (elegant music) became the designation of the standard varieties
of court music as they were developed and survived through the
centuries to modern times. Like gigaku it accompanied performances
of masked dancers (Jbugaku), but it developed as a purely instrumental
ensemble art (kangeri) as well. Although gagaku means "elegant music"
and has remained associated with the court aristocracy, its origins
are in the popular music of China during the T'ang dynasty. T'ang
music itself was strongly influenced by central Asian traditions and
instruments, so that the "classical" court music of Japan is, in its
origins, a composite of many musical cultures. The visual impact of
central Asian music is still vividly present at Buddhist sites in Sinkiang
and western China. Cave temples such as those at Kizil north of
Kucha in the T'ien Shan and at Tunhuang in Kansu preserve wall
paintings of paradise scenes in which heavenly musicians perform on
four and five-stringed p'i-p'a, zithers, yiian-hsien, hand-held harps,
panpipes, transverse and vertical flutes, and various percussion instruments.
Dancers sway, swirl, spin, and cavort, and apsarasflythrough
the air, trailing scarves and strumming on p'i-p'a. These scenes are
glorifications of the actual musical culture of the Western Regions, a
culture that revolutionized T'ang music, whose own tradition had
been soberly Confucian. The oasis culture of central Asia was in fact
the fountainhead of much of the subsequent music of east Asia. Its
distant descendants are the vigorous dance music of present-day
Sinkiang and the sedate sonorities of Japanese gagaku and related
forms preserved in Korea. Certain characteristics ofgagaku style, however,
such as the importance of time units marked off by the scheduled
entrance of stereotyped passages in the strings, suggest a connection
even with southeast Asian music.
One significant difference between present-day gagaku and the music
heard at the Nara court lies in the richer variety of instrumentation
then available. In addition to the double-reed flute known as the
hichiriki, the mouth organ (sho), transverse flutes, the thirteenstringed
koto, the four stringed biwa, the small barrel drum (kakko),
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MUSIC AND DANCE 499
the bronze gong (shoko or daishoko), the hanging drum (tsuridaiko),
and the large frame drum (dadaiko) in the present gagaku ensemble,
there were a number of no-longer used wind, string, and percussion
instruments, some capable of playing in a lower register than is now
characteristic of this high-pitched musical art.
Both the hichiriki, a short double-reed flute producing an astonishing
volume of high-pitched sound, and the mouth organ existed in
larger versions in the Nara gagaku orchestra as well as in the forms
known today, and these larger instruments played an octave or more
lower than the types now in use. An ancient harp known as the kugo
also produced pleasingly dulcet notes. The ancient biwa (Ch: p'i-p'a),
a member of the lute family of Persian origins, spread through central
Asia and China, reaching Japan as part of the gagaku orchestra, and
has undergone various subsequent modifications during its long history
in Japanese music. One highly ornate example preserved in the
Shdsd-in is the five-stringed variety orginating in India. This instrument,
of which the Shoso-in has the sole surviving example, has a
straight rather than a bent neck, and a somewhat narrower sound box
than that of the four-stringed type.
Also among the Nara instruments was the four-stringed genkan (Ch:
yiian-hsien, named after one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove)
with its long neck and circular sound box.« The genkan, like the biwa,
belongs to the lute family and is widely distributed in East Asia. Of the
kugo, a vertical harp of Sassanian origins, only a fragment remains in
the Shosd-in collection, though it, like the other ancient instruments
described here, has recently been reconstructed and played in ensemble.^
Its twenty-three strings were attached diagonally between a vertical
upright and a projecting horizontal arm. The instrument was
placed between the legs of a seated player, supported on one shoulder,
and played with both hands on opposite sides in the manner of the
widely distributed varieties of harp to which it is related in Europe,
Africa, and elsewhere. The stringed instruments also included the
seven-stringed Chinese ch'in and the shiragigoto from the Korean state
of Silla, both being types of zither. All stringed instruments were
played by plucking.
43 The so-called Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove were a troupe of aesthetes who withdrew
from the troubles afflicting China in the third century into the consolations of music, drink,
and philosophical speculation. Yuan Hsien was famous as a musician and maker of musical
instruments. He is reported to have invented the instrument named after him.
44 Such a recital took place at the National Bunraku Theater in Osaka on February 15, 1986.
Much valuable information on the music and instruments is available in the concert program,
"Reigaku: Kodai gakki no fukugen to enso."
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5O0 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
Among the wind instruments, the mouth organ or sho (Ch: sheng)
has remained important to the gagaku orchestra. This visually striking
instrument consists of a bowl-shaped mouthpiece attached to seventeen
bamboo pipes of varied lengths. The pipes have finger holes, and
the instrument is played by selectively covering them while drawing
air in and out of the mouth, producing chords of a reedy quality. The
larger variety of sho, called the u, could be up to 92 centimeters in
length and produced truly organlike tones an octave lower than those
of the sho. The mouth organs had their origins in Indochina and, like
other continental instruments, reached Japan by way of China.
One of the most interesting and melodious of the ancient wind
instruments is the haishd, a set of eighteen bamboo panpipes reconstructed
from a fragment in the Shoso-in. This is closely analogous to
the instrument known in ancient Greece and widely distributed
throughout the world. The player blows into the pipes while moving
the instrument back and forth to produce high or lower notes.
The modern gagaku transverse flute, the ryuteki, like its ancient
analogue preserved in the Shoso-in, is a reedless bamboo cylinder of
Indian origin, widely distributed in various forms throughout east
Asia.
The Nara orchestra also included the vertical dosho, a larger version
of which, the shakuhachi, is still extensively played outside the gagaku
tradition. This reedless end-blown bamboo flute exists in many parts
of the world. The ancient Japanese variety used in gagaku may be of
Indian origin. Unlike the modern shakuhachi, it has one of its six
finger holes on the underside.
In addition to the percussion instruments of the modern gagaku
orchestra, the Shoso-in preserves, as we noted earlier, the hourglassshaped
ceramic core of a drum. This drum was known as the jiko
(ceramic drum) and was placed horizontally on a drum stand and
played with sticks on its hide-covered ends. The extremely ancient
Chinese bell rack was also part of Nara gagaku. Sixteen metal bells of
graduated sizes were suspended in two tiers and struck with a hard
instrument to produce pure and resonant chimes tones. This musical
device is known as the hensho (Ch: pien-chung). A similar arrangement,
known variously as the hokyo (Ch: fang-hsiang) or hokei (Ch: fangch'ing),
used suspended rectangular metal pieces instead of bells. The
notes produced when struck are sharp and short.
The continental music played at the Nara court was part of an
international idiom, maintained by frequent contacts with China.
Many aspects dropped out as the art became isolated from its countries
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MUSIC AND DANCE 501
of origin in the Heian period and then fossilized with the later decline
of imperial sponsorship. In its eighth-century heyday, gagaku must
have provided an auditory experience as rich and exotic as the paintings
and statuary in Buddhist temples were overpowering in visual
terms. In 701 a Gagakuryo (Bureau of court music) was set up on the
T'ang model. In the new Chinese-style administration, music was to
serve the state in addition to cult and community. In a determined
gesture toward self-conscious cultural improvement, the Taiho code of
702 recommended the private study of koto music as an act of personal
cultivation. In this, too, the beginning of the eighth century marks a
major hinge of time, for such a thought would have been far from the
archaic cultural matrix in which music served its traditional unexamined
social function.
In a broad sense, the term gagaku is used to refer to the whole
cluster of musical arts sponsored by the court, including those of
native origin such as kagura and azwna-asobi. But in the strict sense,
gagaku refers to the group of continental musical forms that reached
Japan during the Asuka-Nara period. Those of Chinese and southeast
Asian origin are referred to as Togaku (T'ang music), and those stemming
from Korea and northeast Asia are referred to as Komagaku
(Korean music). These categories are also known respectively as "music
of the left" and "music of the right." These musics were based on a
modal structure in which there were two types, called ryo and ritsu.
Each of these divisions subsumes three of the six twelve-tone Chinese
scales that came into Japan with gagaku itself. The ordering of tones
within the scale determined the mode based on it and underwent
considerable modification in Japan during the Heian period.
In present-day gagaku the modal complexity of the different categories
of music varies. Kagura is the simplest, with one modal structure,
whereas Komagaku uses three modes, and Togaku,five.The situation
in the Nara period is difficult to assess because of the lack of surviving
musical notation. Presumably the structural symmetry that is such a
prominent feature of gagaku as it exists today also characterized it
then. The symmetry takes the form of a fourfold repetition of dance
movement in bugaku. The bugaku performance is oriented to the four
directions, not to a stage "front." It is very likely that the present pace
of performance, as in noh drama, is considerably slower than was the
case when the art was a living part of the cultural scene of its day.
Nevertheless, gagaku has no doubt always been characterized by a
sense of deliberate majesty, with large and colorful dance costumes,
along with hand-held properties and masks, exploited to the full for a
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502 ASUKA AND NARA CULTURE
complementary visual effect in the dance. As in gigaku, the stories
enacted in the dance are of exotic continental origin. They are classified
as "civil dances" (bun no mat), "military dances" (bu no mat),
"running dances" (hashirimai), and "child dances" (dobu), as well as
dances of the left or right. The performance of gagaku music and
dance was taken up by the aristocracy as private entertainment, and
Heian works such as The Tale of Genii are replete with colorful descriptions.
It is not known to what extent this practice of private performance
existed in pre-Heian times.
An official entertainment participated in by the men and women of
the Nara court was a form of group dance known as toka. Introduced
from China in 693, its Japanese version incorporated elements of the
native utagaki, the rustic song-matches that now, like much else in the
urban atmosphere of the Nara period, became the object of cultural
curiosity and pastoral condescension. The customs of the countryside
were suddenly perceived as different from those of the city and ripe for
aristocratic patronage or experiment. Performances of toka were held
during the first month as part of the New Year ceremonials and continued
to be popular from Tempyo to early Heian times. Also during this
period the court was entertained by performances of sangaku, theatricals
of Chinese origin that included acrobatics and juggling. Sangaku
was excluded from court patronage in 782, perhaps because of the
earthy nature of some of its skits, and its performers led a wandering
existence until they attached themselves to Buddhist temples. Sangaku
is the remote ancestor of sarugaku and, through it, of the noh drama.
By the time of the Eye-opening Ceremony at the Todai-ji in 752,
musical life at the Nara court was a complex of native and imported
forms. Among the former were kagura, saibara, azuma-asobi, Kuzuuta,
Kumeuta, buta, and tatebushi. Alongside these were the music and
dance from abroad - gigaku, sangaku, Togaku, Komagaku, shomyo,
and such presumably exotic but now obscure musical forms as
Rin'yugaku, Toragaku, and Bokkaigaku. The Gagakuryo was in charge
of them all. The imported forms were eventually either consolidated
under the aegis of gagaku, or left the court for a wandering existence
(sangaku), or died out (gigaku). The native forms entered a dual existence,
as village shrine music (sato-kagura) became distinguished from
the official mikagura of court or as folksongs like saibara and azumaasobi
were formalized and solemnized as part of gagaku in the broad
sense. This subsuming of popular culture into high culture is one of
the most persistent motifs of Japanese history. It was already well
under way in the Nara period, partially owing to the massive infusions
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MUSIC AND DANCE 503
from advanced civilizations that helped create an instant elite in the
capital, and a concomitant penchant for cultural primitivism that has
persisted in one guise or another to our own day. The Kuzu might
come to court and sing their quaint songs, but by the eighth century,
scholars and professional musicians had begun to understand that
such local products were of essentially anthropological interest.
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CHAPTER 10
THE EARLY EVOLUTION OF
HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Japan's earliest extant historical accounts were not written until the
first decades of the eighth century A.D., but people living on the
Japanese islands were surely conscious, long before that, of change in
the world around them, especially of the regular rising and setting of
the sun and of the inevitable approach of death in the lives of plants,
animals, and human beings. Archaeological investigations suggest that
even before the introduction of wet-rice agriculture around 200 B.C.,
hunters and nut gatherers were making a wide range of adjustments to
cold and hot seasons of the year, as well as to light and dark segments
of the day. Then with the emergence of agricultural life in the later
Yayoi period, the realization that rice grows only in one part of the year
certainly deepened their awareness of the seasonal cycle, as we know
from the early appearance of festivals held at the start and end of the
growing season.1
But by the following Burial Mound period, roughly from A.D. 250 to
600, leaders of emerging states seem gradually to have become preoccupied
with a fundamentally different kind of temporal progression: the
replacement of one hereditary ruler by the next. They were henceforth
concerned not only with the cyclical activity of natural phenomona but
also with a succession of reigns moving in a linear fashion from distant
points in the past to an indeterminate future.2
Tracing the pre-800
stages in the rise of this new type of historical consciousness is compli-
1 The structure and development of historical consciousness in ancient Japan has been studied
by Tanaka Gen, Kodai Nihonjin no jikan ishiki: sono kozo to tenkai (Tokyo: Yoshikawa
kobunkan, 1975); Maruyama Masao, "Rekishi ishiki no koso," Rekishi shiso shit, vol. 6 of
Nihon no shiso (Tokyo: Chikuma shobo, 1972), pp. 3-46; Ishida Takeshi, "Gukansho to Jinno
shoto-ki no rekishi shiso," Rekishi shiso shu, pp. 47-152; Ishida Ichiro, "Shinwa to rekishi:
shisei ritsuryo kokka to kasei rikken kokka no rinen," Nihon bunka kenkyu vol. 8 (Tokyo:
Shinchosha, i960); Ishida Ichiro, "Kokka keisei jidai no rekishi shiso," in Nihon shisoshi
kenkyukai, ed., Nihon ni okeru rekishi shiso no tenkai (Sendai: Nihon shisohi kenkyukai, 1965),
pp. 2-30; Shibata Minoru, "Heian jidai zenki no rekishi shiso," in Nihon ni okeru rekishi shiso,
PP- 55—73; Nishio Yotaro, "Heian jidai koki no rekishi shiso," Nihon ni okeru rekishi shiso, pp.
75-99; and Yuasa Yasuo, Kodaijin no seishin sekai (Kyoto: Minerubua shobo, 1980).
2 Tanaka Gen sees the emergence of a linear type of historical consciousness during the Burial
Mound period after the emergence of interest in genealogy; see Kodai Nihonjin, pp. 134-47.
504
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LINEALISM 505
cated by a paucity of Japanese chronicles and documents written during
that early period, but we now have enough historical, archaeological,
and ethnological evidence to be quite certain that the three characteristics
of historical expression found in early accounts of Japan's
past, and discussed in this chapter, were grounded in beliefs of"prehistorical"
times.
These three characteristics are: linealism (arising from an early and
lasting belief in the importance of sacred-ruler descent), vitalism (stemming
from a constant preoccupation with the origins and enrichment
of physical life), and optimism (flowing from convictions that the immediate
future will be better than the present or the past). While affecting
and being affected by one another, these characteristics were in
constant tension with polar opposites: That is, a belief in Japan's
sacred imperial line was in conflict with imported Chinese ideas of a
cyclical rise and fall of dynasties; Shinto preoccupation with the lifecreating
power of the kami (native deities) always stood against the
Confucian principle that events in human history are affected by virtuous
or nonvirtuous behavior; and historical assumptions of future
improvement were seriously challenged by Buddhist doctrines ofinevitable
deterioration over time and by the Confucian belief in the
"golden age of antiquity." But a study of Japanese historical expression
in these pre-800 years indicates that beliefs, ideas, and assumptions on
the Japanese side of the polarity account for uniqueness in the Japanese
historical outlook and help us identify and understand early
stages in the evolution of historical consciousness.
LINEALISM
The first extant chronicles (the Kojiki and the Nihon skoki) were compiled
at the beginning of the Nara period, at a time when Japan's
leaders had a special interest in the political techniques and cultural
achievements of imperial China. The compilers of these early chronicles
were familiar with Chinese historical works, realizing full well that
they had been shaped by the belief that every dynasty would eventually
fall, just as every form of life is destined to die. And yet Japan's
first chronicles were motivated instead by the desire to affirm the
sanctity and continuity of Japan's sacred line of imperial descent.
Every occupant of the throne was honored as a direct descendant of
the first emperor, whose father was in turn honored as the direct
descendant of the Sun Goddess.
Japanese historians of pre-World War II years tended to assume
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506 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
that the official compilers of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki had faithfully
recorded the origins and ancestry of Japanese emperors, thereby leaving
a delineation of rulership that was too sacred for criticism or
objective study. But the postwar removal of restraints against the free
expression of thought has enabled scholars to subject ancient sources
to critical analysis. At first they tended to think of the Kojiki and
Nihon shoki mainly as collections of myths,3
but the discovery of new
historical and archaeological evidence and further research in other
disciplines have added support to the thesis that the early chroniclers
were attempting, above all, to strengthen the position of the current
emperor by compiling a convincing account of his or her descent on a
long line of sacred rulers going back to, and beyond, the imperial
house's first ancestral kami. The compilers' motivation was therefore
akin to that of the Yamato kings who had built burial mounds (kofuri)
for their deceased predecessors (see Chapter 2). In addition to (or
instead of) having these myths recited at funeral services for deceased
rulers, chronicle compilers devised a genealogical account of
myths and historical events, making the myths more historical and
the events more mythical.* But the preoccupation with affirmations
of sacred descent (linealism) certainly preceded the compilation of
chronicles.
Pre-Nara linealism
The origins and early development of linealism seem to have been
rooted in the Yayoi period rise of beliefs about relationships between
kami and hereditary rulers, which paralleled the appearance of small
states ruled by priestly kings and queens. The first concrete evidence
of linkage between kami worship and the rule of hereditary kings and
queens is found in a section on Japan appearing in the dynastic history
of Wei (221 to 265). There we are told that a hereditary ruler of the
state of Ito owed allegiance to the larger state of Yamatai governed by
Queen Himiko.s The report does not say that Himiko was herself a
3 Even before the outbreak of World War II, Tsuda Sokichi made textual studies that led him to
conclude that earlier sections of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki had been fabricated in order to
justify imperial rule and to do so by tracing its roots deep into the past. In 1940 he was charged
with violating the dignity of the imperial household, and the sale of his books was banned. But
after the war a number of scholars took up the work he had started. See Ueda Masasaki, Kodai
saihakken (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 197s), pp. 21-35.
4 A thesis developed by Ishida Ichiro in "Kokka keisei jidai no rekishishi shiso," in Nihon m
okeru rekishi shiso to tenkai, pp. 19-30.
5 Hou Han shu 115: l6b-l9a, translated in Ryusaku Tsunoda and L. Carrington Goodrich,Japan
in the Chinese Dynastic Histories (South Pasadena, Calif.: P. D. and lone Perkins, 1951), p. 9.
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LINEALISM 507
hereditary ruler, but this is implied in the report that she was succeeded
by a male ruler who could not maintain control and who was
therefore replaced by a thirteen-year-old female relative. The same
account makes the following comment about what transpired at the
time of Himiko's death: "When [Himiko] passed away, a great mound
was raised, more than a hundred paces in diameter. Over a hundred
male and female attendants followed her in the grave."6
Although we
do not have written Japanese sources for this period, and the Chinese
accounts do not provide information about the rites performed by or
for Himiko, it seems logical to deduce that the queen and those who
followed her were performing rites by which their positions on one
particular line of descent were sanctified by divine beings, possibly
already designated as kami.
This linkage between hereditary rulers and religious rites is more
sharply defined by archaeological evidence for the following Yamato
period (ca. 250 to 589). Throughout those centuries, a huge mound
was built for each successive king or queen. The first written evidence
(recorded in chronicles compiled at the beginning of the eighth century),
together with archaeological data assembled from investigations
of thousands of Yamato period burial mounds, indicates that most
rulers used much of their resources for building impressive mounds
for the burial of their immediate predecessors. The early chronicles
provide considerable detail about the location of particular mounds of
the Yamato period and even make comments about the burial ceremonies
held at or near mounds. But they do not explain why a ruler was
willing to devote such a large share of his or her resources to mound
building. Archaeological investigations at numerous mound sites now
permit us to see patterns in the distribution, size, style, and content of
these mounds; and this information, coupled with reports found in
later chronicles, make us quite certain where particular kings were
buried. But the question of motivation for mound building is still a
subject of debate and disagreement. Under the influence of the old
assumption that "ancestor worship" was already strong in the Burial
Mound period, early writers theorized that a mound was a place for
the worship of a deceased ruler and that the treasures placed inside
(the fukusohin) were offerings to his deified soul. But archaeologists
have found no evidence that offerings were ever made at a mound after
a burial ceremony was completed. Moreover, no ancient shrine for the
6 Amakasu Ken, "Kofun no keisei no gijutsu no hattatsu," in Genshioyobikodai, vol. i oiNihon
rekishi (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975), pp. 274-321.
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508 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
worship of clan kami has been found over a burial mound. Consequently,
the theory that a mound was a place for worshiping a deceased
ruler seems weak.
A more plausible view is that living rulers consciously or unconsciously
built mounds for their deceased predecessors in order to pacify
their souls (chinkon). The Japanese commonly believed, and many
still do, that souls live on after death and might cause trouble for the
living if not treated properly. And because a deceased ruler was believed
to have had a special relationship to mysterious forces and
divine beings, it was undoubtedly thought that his or her soul required
special treatment after death. Realizing, too, that anything associated
with death - especially the death of a priestly ruler - was a pollution
(tsumi) that must be avoided, objects belonging to the deceased ruler
may have been deposited in the mound in order to remove those deathpolluted
objects from the presence of the living. Moats and clay figurines
Qianiwa) thus may have been placed around a burial mound in
order to keep the soul from straying outside it.
Although a mound was probably built to honor a deceased ruler,
pacify his or her soul, and prevent his or her death from contaminating
the world of the living, it must also have been valued for the legitimacy
and strength it added to the position of the current ruler. No mound
builder has left a record of his or her reasons for undertaking such an
enterprise, but a new ruler surely welcomed a visible and impressive
symbolization of descent from his or her priestly predecessor, making
it eminently clear to his or her subjects - and to the subjects of neighboring
clans and states - that the present ruler, as the last link in a
sacred chain of ruler descent, had inherited all the power and authority
possessed by his deceased predecessor.
The Nihon shoki's references to eulogies (shinobigoto) held at the
time of a ruler's burial suggest that a mound symbolized, above all, the
transmission of sacred authority from a deceased ruler to the living
successor. We find, for example, the following reference to eulogies
offered during funeral services held at Emperor Temmu's mound in
688: "The Crown Prince . . . proceeded to the palace of temporary
interment [mogari no miya] and lamented the emperor's death. After
respects had been paid, the shield dance was performed. Then each
clan head came forward and submitted a record of service rendered by
his ancestors, pronouncing a eulogy."7
Another Nihon shoki item,
7 Nihon shoki, Jito 2 (688) 11/4, in Sakamoto Taro, lenaga Saburo, Inoue Mitsusada, and Ono
Susumu, eds., Nihon koten bungaku taihei (hereafter cited as NKBT) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,
I967)> vol. 68, pp. 492-3. This and the following translations from the Nihon shoki were made
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LINEALISM 509
added a few days later, states that "Chitoko . . . eulogized the line of
imperial succession from the Sun Goddess."8
Such references suggest
that eulogies were expressions of lineage beliefs that affirmed the existence
of extraordinary ties between living and deceased rulers, thereby
justifying the use of much time, energy, and wealth for constructing
and equipping the mounds.
The ruler-legitimation theory has been strengthened by two pieces
of fifth-century evidence: a 478 memorial that was sent by a Japanese
king to the Chinese court, and an inscription-bearing sword excavated
from a fifth-century mound in eastern Japan. The memorial, quoted in
Chinese accounts of the kingdom of Liu Sung (420 to 479), states that
the author (a Japanese king) of the memorial had expanded his control
over states in various parts of the Japanese islands and had paid homage
to the Chinese court generation after generation.* The study of
other contemporary sources has led scholars to conclude that this
memorial was written by King Yuryaku, whose blood-related predecessors
had extended their control throughout Japan10
and whose son
Seinei, according to Japanese chronicles, was buried in a mound located
in the southern part of the present city of Osaka.11
The 115-character inscription on the sword removed from the Inariyama
mound adds support to the theory that mound building was
meant, above all, to honor the ancestral line of the Yamato kings. Even
though several questions about the sword and its inscription have not
yet been resolved, it is clear that the inscription (1) begins with a date
in the sexagenary cycle equivalent to A.D. 471 (it might be sixty years
later); (2) has seven names, beginning with that of a legendary figure
mentioned in both the Kojiki and Nihon shoki and ending with that of
the person presumed to have been the sword's owner; (3) indicates
that each of the last six persons on the list is the son of the previously
named man; and (4) states that these seven generations of swordbearing
group heads had served such kings as Wakatake generation
after generation. Scholars are inclined to agree that Wakatake is another
name for the very same Yuryaku who sent the 478 memorial to
China, that the sword belonged to a fifth-century head of military
group serving the king in eastern Japan, and that when the owner died
by the author, who has used words and phrases in W. G. Aston, Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan
from the Earliest Times to A.D.697 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1956).
8 Nihon shoki, Jito 2 (688) 11/11, NKBT 68.493.
9 Sung shu 97: 230-253, Tsunoda and Goodrich, Japan in Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 23.
10 Inoue Mitsusada, Shinwa kara rekishi e, vol. 1 of Nihon no rekishi (Tokyo: Chuokdronsha,
1965). PP- 433-8.
11 Nihon shoki, Seinei 5/11/9, NKBT 67.508.
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510 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
the sword was buried with his body.12
It can be guessed that a eulogy
was offered at the funeral service for him, praising services rendered to
Yamato kings - generation after generation - by his particular line of
group heads. Thus the Inariyama sword provides strong support for
the view that the building of burial mounds in the Yamato period was
closely associated with, if not motivated mainly by, the urge of living
rulers to honor their ancestral line, thereby reinforcing their authority.
The third stage of pre-Nara linealism (589 to 710) was not associated
with mound building but with the construction of Buddhist temples
following the introduction and spread of Buddhism in the sixth century.
As in the case of Yamato mounds, scholars disagree as to why
these rulers began devoting so much of their material and human
resources to building exotic and impressive Buddhist temples. Japanese
leaders were certainly attracted by the splendor of Buddhist halls,
statues, and paraphernalia associated with China's remarkable cultural
achievements during the Sui and T'ang dynasties. But the Nihon
shoki's references to temple construction, as well as inscriptions carved
on Buddhist statues, leave the impression that temples and statues,
like burial mounds in earlier days, were meant to enhance the power
and prestige of living clan chieftains.
That Buddhist temples were erected for purposes akin to those that
resulted in the burial of predecessors in mammoth mounds is corroborated
by historical and archaeological evidence concerning the construction
of the Hoko temple (also known as the Asuka-dera) toward
the close of the sixth century. A Nihon shoki item for the year 586
reports that Soga no Umako (d. 626) vowed to erect a Buddhist temple
and a Buddhist pagoda if he were successful in battle.^ Although this
suggests that Umako took the vow mainly to ensure his victory, a
Nihon shoki entry for 594 on the current fad for temple construction
states that officials were beginning to vie with one another in building
temples in order to express their "appreciation for blessings [on] received
from [deceased] rulers [kind] and parents [ova]."1
* Apparently,
the leaders of all clans, not just the Soga, were attempting to reinforce
their prestige and power by building and using Buddhist temples to
honor their particular descent line.
A remarkably close connection between the building of mounds and
12 See Tai Kawabata's articles inJapan Times after January 1,1979; and Murayama Shichiroand
Roy Miller, "The Inariyama Tumulus Sword Inscription," Journal of Japanese Studies 5
(1979): 405-38.
13 Nihon shoki, Sushun 2 (586) 7, NKBT 68.164-5.
14 Nihon shoki, Suiko 2 (594) 2/1, NKBT 68.174-5.
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LINEALISM 511
the construction of temples is also suggested by archaeological investigations
made at the Asuka-dera site, where a sixth-century compound
was found to contain Buddhist halls, corridors, and a central pagoda.
Knowing that a pagoda was considered a monument to Buddha and
that a Buddha bone (shari) was customarily placed at its base, archaeologists
dug below the remains of the pagoda and found not only what
was left of a box for the Buddha relic but also replicas of bronze
mirrors, bronze swords, and magatama, the very articles most commonly
placed in a mound with the corpse of a deceased ruler.15
The
discovery of fukusohin-likc treasures in the most sacred place of the
Asuka-dera suggests that clan heads had come to honor their ancestral
line and to affirm in a new way their position in that line. Historical
references to hundreds of Buddhist temples built in Japan during the
following century leave little doubt that making Buddhist statues,
reading Buddhist sutras, and holding Buddhist memorial services
were largely to console and honor the souls of deceased clan heads.
Thus Buddhism already stood at the core of what has been loosely
called Japanese ancestor worship. The sharp rise in the number of new
Buddhist temples - paralleled by a gradual decline in the number of
new burial mounds - suggests that the construction of a grand temple,
where exotic rites were held before statues of great splendor, was
beginning to be thought of as a more impressive way in which to honor
a deceased predecessor (and to sanctify and legitimize the control of
the current ruler) than was the building of a massive mound.
Nara period linealism
Some time in the seventh century, if not earlier, the central government
adopted the Chinese practice of compiling official chronicles.
This too was largely motivated by the desire to glorify and sanctify the
imperial line of descent and to. add legitimacy and authority to the
position of the current ruler. The preface to the Kojiki, thought to be
Japan's earliest extant chronicle, contains an edict, issued in 681, that
provides a clear and explicit statement of why Emperor Temmu
thought such a chronicle was needed:
I hear diat imperial records [teiki] and accounts of origin [honji] handed down
by various houses have come to differ from die truth and that many falsehoods
have been added. If these errors are not corrected now, the meaning of
the records and accounts - the warp and woof of the Japanese state and the
15 See Inoue, Shintva kara rekishi e, pp. 201-2.
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512 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
foundations of imperial rule - will be lost before many years have passed.
Therefore a study of the imperial records for the purpose of selecting out and
recording what is true, and an examination of ancient accounts [kyuji] for the
purpose of rejecting errors and determining truth are ordered so that we may
have true records and accounts passed on to later generations.16
Historians are inclined to agree that these "imperial records" were
essentially genealogies. Ishida Ichiro claims, however, that we have
been wrong in assuming that "accounts of origin" {honji) were identical
with "ancient accounts" (kyitji). He points out that the first character
of honji - read moto when used alone - must have meant "origins,"
as in a 612 Nihon shoki entry that reports that a certain Soga had
the origins (moto) of his clan eulogized. •? Ishida's interpretation suggests
that Emperor Temmu was thinking, when he referred to "the
warp and woof of the Japanese state and the foundations of imperial
rule," not simply of the value of an accurate genealogy of the imperial
line but also of that line's sacred origins. Ishida's interpretation of
honji and Emperor Temmu's stated reasons for ordering the compilation
of a chronicle are consistent with the decision of the Kojiki's and
the Nihon shoki's compilers to devote the first chapters of their chronicles
to myths tracing the origins of the imperial line back to the earliest
kami, thereby making the imperial line an extension of a kami line in
which the ancestral kami of the imperial house (the Sun Goddess) was
the original kami. Emperor Temmu and his court officials who compiled
these chronicles were undoubtedly familiar with the Chinese
assumption that a dynasty would thrive and then decay before being
replaced by a new one and that this assumption gave dynastic histories
their basic character. But the Japanese compilers of official chronicles
were not much affected by this Chinese assumption. Instead, they
responded to an old Japanese urge to honor just one imperial line by
making that line clear (in this new Chinese way) and by writing down
ancient myths about its divine origins, thus largely ignoring Chinese
ideas about the rise and fall of dynasties.
The Chineseness of the Nihon shoki and the five later chronicles of
Japan's Six National Histories (Rikkokushi) is, however, readily apparent.
The Nihon shoki, presented to the court in 720, as well as the
remaining five of the Six National Histories, were written in Chinese
and include numerous quotations from the Chinese Classics.'8
But
16 Kojiki I, NKBT 1.44-47. Translation slightly different from that in Donald L. Philippi,
trans., Kojiki (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1968), p. 41.
17 Ishida, "Kokka keisei jidai no rekishi shiso," pp. 4-7.
18 Shibata Minoru, "Heian jidai zenki no rekishi shiso" in Nihon ni okeru rekishi shiso shi no
tenkai, pp. 58-63.
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LINEALISM 513
they do not have the character of a Chinese dynastic history. Professor
G. W. Robinson believes that this was because the Japanese did not
then have "enough material out of which to fashion a convincing
replica of the Chinese dynastic history" and that, later on, it may have
been "inertia or, possibly conscious conservatism" that kept them
from following China's example.19
But it seems more likely that the
Japanese - or Chinese or Korean immigrants - were constrained by
their belief in the sacred origins and continuity of the imperial line.
Even though some ruptures appeared in the line, notably with Emperor
Keitai in the sixth century, the myth that the line had been
created by the Sun Goddess to last forever seems to have had a strong
hold on the minds of court aristocrats, making them unreceptive to the
Chinese idea that a Mandate of Heaven would ever call for the founding
of a new Japanese dynasty.
The strength and utility of the native belief in a sacred line of imperial
descent are made especially clear in the Kojiki, thought to have
been presented to the imperial court in 712. Although the Kojiki and
the Nihon shoki may have been compiled at about the same time and by
men who had access to the same sources, the Chinese flavor is weaker
in the Kojiki, and the effect of the native preoccupation with a sacred
imperial line is stronger. Because this chronicle was said to have been
finished eight years earlier, students of early Japanese history have
tended to accept Motoori Norinaga's (1730-1801) thesis that it provides
a clear and more accurate picture of Japanese life before the
wholesale importation of Chinese ideas and practices because it was
compiled first. But Umezawa Isezo concludes that at least one Chinesestyle
chronicle preceded the Nihon shoki and that the compilation of
the Kojiki resulted, in part at least, from a desire to counteract Chinese
concepts of dynastic change that had seeped into earlier Japanese
chronicles.20
Even if we cannot accept Umezawa's thesis, we cannot
deny that the Kojiki reveals less interest in Chinese dynastic ideas and
greater preoccupation with imperial lineage.
The court aristocrats who produced these two early chronicles were
nevertheless influenced to some extent by the Chinese idea that a line
of succession, like everything else, was subject to a cyclical process of
birth, growth, deterioration, and death. This is detected in the Nihon
shoki's treatment of the reigns of rulers whose blood ties with predeces-
19 G. W. Robinson, "Early Japanese Chronicles: The Six National Histories," in W. G. Beasley
and E. G. Pulleyblank, eds., Historians of China andJapan (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1961), p. 220.
20 Umezawa Isezo, Kojiki, Nihon shoki (Tokyo: San'ichi shobo, 1971).
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514 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
sors were remote: Ojin, who occupied the throne around A.D. 400, and
Keitai, who ruled Japan more than a century later. Apparently assuming,
as the Chinese did, that a new branch of the imperial line becomes
necessary when an old one deteriorates, the Nihon shoki praises those
two kings but criticizes their predecessors.21
These are only minor
notes, however, in an otherwise consistent emphasis on Japan's sacred
and single line of imperial descent.
Linealism was nevertheless severely challenged in the middle of
the eighth century by rulers who were influenced by Buddhist conceptions
of sovereignty. Evidence of this challenge is most clearly
seen in the contemporary chronicle (the Shoku Nihongt) that covers
events at court from 697 to 791. It shows that after the final decade
or so of the seventh century, when state-supported temples began to
flourish, Japanese sovereigns, like the heads of continental states,
valued three particular Buddhist sutras for what they had to say
about the power of Buddha to protect the state. One of them, the
Benevolent Kings Sutra (Ninno-kyo), directs this message to secular
rulers:
Great kings, I see that all human kings have obtained this rank because in
former ages they served the 500 Buddhas and respectfully made offerings to
them and that all holy men and those who obtained the fruit of the Law are
reborn in their countries and cause great blessings. But if the felicity of those
kings is exhausted and they do not walk in the Law, the holy men go away
and violent calamities arise. Great kings, if in future ages the kings of the
countries establish the Saddharma and protect the Triratna, I order the
crowds of Boddhisattvas and Mahasattvas of the five quarters to go and
protect their countries."
As early as 741 Emperor Shomu decided, at a time when the country
was suffering from the effects of a succession of natural disasters, to
implement an earlier plan to build Buddhist temples in every province
of the land. He justified his decision in this way:
In the Sutra it is written that when a king shall cause this Sutra to be read,
expounded devoutly, and propagated throughout the realm, the Four Deva
Kings shall surely come to protect that country against all calamity, to avert
sorrow and pestilence, and to cause the hearts of believers to befilledwith joy
forever. In view of this . . . it is my wish that the sacred Law of Buddha be
21 Nihon shoki, Chuai, Ojin, Buretsu, and Keitai chapters, NKBT 67.320-9,67.362-81,68.8-
17,68.18-47.
22 Ninno-kyo (Sanskrit: Prajaparamita Sutra), Taisho no. 246, vol. 8, translated by M. W.
DeVisser, Ancient Buddhism inJapan: Sutras and Ceremonies in Use in the Seventh and Eighth
Centuries A.D.and Their History in Later Times (Leiden: Brill, 1935), vol. 1, pp. 138-9.
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LINEALISM 515
made to flourish for so long as Heaven and Earth shall last and that its
protective blessings be bestowed upon the living and the dead forever."
And yet Shomu's daughter (who succeeded her father as empress in
749 and who was also devoted to Buddhism) seems to have assumed
that her legitimacy and authority arose, first and foremost, from her
birth in Japan's sacred line of descent from the Sun Goddess. Even
though her father Shomu had proclaimed (when dedicating the great
statue of Rushana Buddha at the Todai-ji) that he was a servant of the
Three Buddhist Treasures, the empress soon issued another edict in
which she referred to herself as "a manifest kami" and declared that
her imperial position had been inherited from the Sun Goddess.24
When this daughter of Shomu ascended the throne in 764 as Empress
Shotoku, the native belief in the unbroken imperial line was far
more severely challenged by Buddhist conceptions of sovereignty. She
had not only taken orders as a Buddhist nun but had also become
personally associated (possibly as a lover) with a Buddhist priest
(Dokyo), on whom she bestowed high honors and positions. The edict
she issued immediately after her second enthronement in 764 does not
begin with a traditional repetition of the ancient formula that Japan's
sovereign was a manifest kami descended from the Sun Goddess.
Instead, it takes up these two difficult questions: Is it right for an
empress to place a Buddhist priest (Dokyo) at the very pinnacle of
Japan's bureaucratic structure? And is it right for a Buddhist nun to
become the empress of Japan? Her answers reveal a clear awareness of
conflict between native and Buddhist conceptions of sovereignty:
It has been represented to us, in view of the master (Dokyo's) constant
attendance on us, that he has the ambition of rising to high office as his
ancestors did, and we have been petitioned to dismiss him. But we have
observed his conflict and found it immaculate. Out of a desire to transmit and
promote Buddha law, he has extended to us his guidance and protection. How
can we lightly dismiss such a teacher? Although our head has been shaven
and we wear Buddhist robes, we feel obliged to conduct the government of
23 Shoku Nihongi, Tempyo 13 (741) 3/24, KT 2.163-4. Portions of the Shoku Nihongi have been
translated by J. B. Snellen, "Shoku Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan)," Transactions of the Asiatic
Society of Japan (hereafter cited as TASJ), 2nd series, no 11 (1934): 151-239 and no. 14
(1937): 209-78. Imperial edicts of the Shoku Nihongi were studied and partially translated in
George B. Sansom, "The Imperial Edicts in the Shoku Nihongi (700-790 A.D.)," TASJ, 2nd
series, no.i (1924): 5-39. Helpful explanatory notes can be found in Saeki Ariyoshi, ed.,
Zoho rikkoku shi (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 1940), vols. 3-4, and the entire Shoku Nihongi
has been translated into modern Japanese by Naoki Kojiro, Shoku Nihongi, 3 vols. (no. 457 of
ToyoBonko) (Tokyo: Haibonsha, 1986-90).
24 Shoku Nihongi, Tempyo Shoho I (749) 4, Kuroita Katsumi, ed., Shintei zoho: Kokushi taikei
(hereafter cited as KT) (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1959), vol. 2, p. 198; Saeki, Zoho
rikkokushi 3.357-9.
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5l6 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
the nation. As Buddha declared in the [Bommo] Sutra, "Kings, ye who take
up a throne, receive the ordination of the bodhisattvas." These words prove
that there can be no objection to [the Japanese] government's being administered
by one who has taken holy [Buddhist] orders.2
'
But as deeply engrossed as Empress Shotoku was with Buddhism and
Dokyo, she never - to my knowledge - explicitly denied the Japanese
belief that she was a manifest kami descended from the Sun Goddess.
Moreover, in another edict issued shortly after ascending the throne a
second time, she spoke of selecting her successor in these terms: "Hear
ye a mandate that proclaims that . . . we alone monopolize the Sun
Goddess-inherited throne and that although we have not yet selected
our successor, we are giving the matter careful consideration and feel
that a person with the favor of Heaven will eventually appear."26
Empress Shotoku's basic assumptions concerning the imperial line
are disclosed in actions that she took, and did not take, when it was
reported in 769 that an oracular message had been received from a
famous kami (Hachiman of Usa) stating that Japan would have peace if
Dokyo were placed on the throne. Although Shotoku was fond of
Dokyo and had appointed him to high posts, she apparently was not
pleased to hear that he was being proposed as her successor. Indeed,
the Shoku Nihongi states that soon afterward, she herself received a
message from Hachiman advising her to have the authenticity of the
report checked. She dispatched Wake no Kiyomaro (733-99) to Usa
with instructions to find out just what Hachiman's wishes were. When
Kiyomaro returned to the capital, he brought back quite a different
version of the Hachiman oracle:
Ever since the founding of the Yamato state, emperors and empresses have
been selected by their predecessors. But no minister has ever become emperor.
An emperor or empress must necessarily be selected from those who
are in the Sun Goddess's line of descent. A person not selected in accordance
with this principle should be summarily rejected.2
'
The Shoku Nihongi then adds that after Wake no Kiyomaro made his
report, Dokyo became angry and had Kiyomaro sent into exile. Because
Dokyo continued to hold high offices, some scholars conclude
that the Japanese ideal of enthroning only sovereigns born in the Sun
Goddess's line was not yet firmly established.28
But Dokyo did not
25 Shoku Nihongi, Tempyo Hoji 8 (764) 9/20, KT 2.306; Saeki, Zoho rikkoku shi, 4.92-4.
26 Shoku Nihongi, Tempyo Hoji 8 (764) 10/14, KT 2.310; Saeki, Zoho rikkoku shi 4.100-1.
27 Shoku Nihongi, Jingo Keiun 3 (769) 9/25, KT 2.368; Saeki, Zoho rikkoku shi 4:195-7.
28 As concluded by Hayakawa Shohachi in Riisuryo kokka, vol. 4 of Nihon no rekishi (Tokyo:
Shogakkan, 1974). P- 341Cambridge
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LINEALISM 517
become emperor, and after Shotoku's death, only members of the
imperial line were considered as possible successors. When Prince
Shirakabe (a direct descendant of Emperor Tenji) occupied the throne
in 770 as Emperor Konin, he issued an edict justifying enthronement
in terms of (1) his selection by Shotoku as her successor (apparently a
falsified claim, but one that he and his advisers felt had to be made)
and (2) his descent from the Sun Goddess.2
' Although the edict has
Confucian overtones, no reference is made to Buddhist ideas of sovereignty.
In 781 Konin was succeeded by his son who occupied the
throne as Emperor Kammu. Thus, as the Nara period came to a close,
the old Japanese conception of divine imperial descent had emerged
unscathed from the authority crisis. And history writing continued to
be shaped and colored by the belief that Japan should always be ruled
by an unending succession of sovereigns descended from the Sun
Goddess.
Belief in Japan's sacred line of imperial descent, lying at the base if
linealism, was also expressed in poems written during and before the
Nara period. Among the more than 4,500 included in the Man'yoshu
(the oldest extant anthology which was compiled in the eighth century),
many refer directly to the divine origins and the continuous
blessings of emperors and empresses, as in the following long poem
composed by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro at the time of Crown Prince
Kusakabe's death in 689:
At the beginning of heaven and earth
The eight hundred, the thousand myriads of gods [kami],
Assembled in high council
On the shining beach of the Heavenly River,
Consigned the government of the Heavens
Unto the Goddess Hirume, the Heaven-illuminating One,
And the government for all time,
As long as heaven and earth endured,
Of the Rice-abounding Land of Reed Plains
Unto her divine offspring,
Who, parting the eightfold clouds of the sky,
Made his godly descent upon the earth.
Our noble Prince, child of the Bright One above,
Regarding this - the land over which
The gracious Sovereign reigns as a god.3°
29 Shoku Nihongi, Hoki l(77o)/io, KT 2.383; Saeki, Zoho rikkoku shi 4.222-4.
30 The Nihon gakujutsu shinkokai translation of The Manyoshu: One Thousand Poems (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1969), p. 34.
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518 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Post-Nara linealism
Approximately twenty years after the capital was moved from Nara first
to Nagaoka in 787 and then to Heian (now Kyoto) in 794 - a book
(the Kogoshui) on past traditions was compiled by the head of the Inbe
clan, Inbe no Hironari. His purpose was to support the clan's demands
for a position at court equal to that of the great Nakatomi (later
Fujiwara) clan. But the book did not make its case in terms of Inbe's
landholdings, its military power, its achievements in bureaucratic expertise,
or its Chinese learning. Instead, it attempted to show that (1)
the ancestral kami of the Inbe clan (Futotama no Mikoto) had joined
the ancestral kami of the Nakatomi clan (Koyane no Mikoto) in persuading
the Sun Goddess to come from behind the Heavenly Rock
Cave in the age of kami; (2) descendants of the Inbe ancestral kami
had loyally supported emperors and empresses ever since the Sun
Goddess dispatched her grandson to earth to place Japan under the
rule of its descendants in the age of man; and (3) the Inbe clan began
to lose its standing at court when, during the reign of Emperor
Shomu, the increasingly powerful Nakatomi arbitrarily and selfishly
altered the official lists of shrines and kami. After detailing the errors
and mistakes, Inbe no Hironari urged Emperor Kammu to restore
ancient ceremonies and (by implication) to appoint members of the
Inbe clan to positions at court as high as those held by the Nakatomi.
The Kogoshui, like the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, is therefore a politically
motivated record of myth and history focused on the sacred and everlengthening
imperial line, but with a difference: Whereas the earlier
chronicles were written by court officials to strengthen the position of
the current emperor, the Kogoshui was written by a clan head attempting
to strengthen his clan's influence at court. The basic point of
reference in both cases was the position of the current emperor on a
sacred line of descent. Thus linealism was as central to the Kogoshui as
it was to the Nara period chronicles.31
Historical tales (rekishi monogatari) written in the middle of the
Heian period, especially in the Eiga monogatari (Tales of splendor) and
the Okagami (Great mirror), were referred to as succession tales
(yotsugi no monogatari), for they were consistently focused on lines of
succession.32
But the emphasis of the historical tales was not simply on
31 Genichi Kato and Hikoshiro Hoshino, trans., Kogoshui: Gleaningsfrom Ancient Stories (London;
Curzon Press, 1972), pp. 15-54.
32 These historical tales have been translated in William H. and Helen Craig McCullough, A
Tale of Flowering Fortunes: Annals of Japanese Aristrocratic Life in the Heian Period, 2 vols.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
LINEALISM 519
the sacred imperial line but also on the subsidiary descent line of the
Fujiwara heads. They showed (1) where an individual stood in the
Fujiwara line of descent and (2) how he or she had been linked, generation
after generation, with the imperial line. Thus the position of every
prominent Fujiwara official of that period was explained and justified
by his maternal relationship to an emperor born in Japan's sacred and
unending descent line. Although the Eiga monogatari and Okagami
have literary qualities reflecting the influence of such classics as the
Genji monogatari (Tale of Genji), the linealism of both is unmistakable.
Still another form of historical writing appeared during the last two
centuries of the Heian period: the military tales (gunki monogatari).**
These tales dealt mainly with the activities of the two most powerful
military houses: the Minamoto and the Taira. But the first two tales
(the Hogen monogatari and the Heiji monogatari) place the stories of the
emperors first, the Fujiwara aristocrats second, and the great Minamoto
and Taira warriors last. In general, the stories, especially those
about military leaders, reveal the effects of an underlying assumption
that a person could acquire and maintain military or political power
only if he had close familial ties with occupants of the throne. The
most famous military tale, the Heike monogatari, carries a well-known
passage in which the great military hero (Taira no Shigemori) criticizes
his father for opposing Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa, stating that
the most important blessings are those received from an emperor.34
Story after story shows that the authors were affected in deep and
diverse ways by the ancient belief in the divine descent of emperors
from the Sun Goddess.
The Gukansho, written just before the outbreak of the 1221 war
between the imperial court in Kyoto and the new military government
{bakufu) in Kamakura, was fundamentally different from the earlier
historical and military tales. The Buddhist author, Jien (1155-1225),
sought not to entertain his readers with good stories about wellconnected
personnages of the past but to explain how the current crisis
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1980); and Helen Craig McCullough, Okagami,
the Great Mirror: Fujiwara Michinaga (966-1027) and His Times (Tokyo: University of Tokyo
Press, and Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980).
33 The three military tales have been translated in William R. Wilson, Hogen Monogatari: Tale of
Disorder of Hogen (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1971); Edwin O. Reischauer, "The Heiji
Monogatari," Translations from Early Japanese History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1951); and Hiroshi Kitagawa and Bruce T. Tsuchida, The Tale of Heike: Heike
Monogatari (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1975).
34 Chap. 2, NKBT 32.171-3, translated in Delmer M. Brown, "Pre-Gukansho Historical Writing,"
in Delmer M. Brown and Ishida Ichiro, eds., The Future and the Past: A Translation and
Study of the Gukansho, an Interpretative History Written in 1219 (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1979), pp. 394-5.
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520 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
had come to pass and to explain what could and should be done to
resolve it. And yet the Gukansho interpretation was lineal in character:
A statement made early in the first narrative chapter indicates that the
author thought of his historical study as another succession tale.** Like
the authors of the Eiga monogatari and the Okagami, Jien was intent on
depicting the splendor of the Fujiwara heads (especially those of his
own Kujo house) by showing how the Fujiwara line was joined, generation
after generation, with the sacred imperial line. Before writing the
narrative chapters of his study, he compiled a chronology that is a reignby-reign
delineation of imperial succession into which he fits Fujiwara
ministers and Tendai abbots who were blood relatives ofimperial moth-
ers.36
The narrative chapters themselves have a genealogical core not
unlike that of earlier succession tales.
The centrality of linealism to the Gukansho treatment of the past is
revealed in Jien's use of the term imperial law (oho). In ancient Buddhist
writings this word denoted the secular authority of rulers as
distinct from the divine authority of Buddhist law (buppo). But for
Japanese writers, imperial law was gradually narrowed to emperors
who were honored as divine descendants of the Sun Goddess and who
had priestly functions. Imperial law and Buddhist law were assigned
divine qualities. So we read that leaders of ability should protect both
and also become "receptacles for the divine blessings of Buddhas and
kami."37
Jien does not probe for the religious roots of imperial law, or
even say that it was divine, but by accenting Japan's unbroken line of
emperors descended from the Sun Goddess, he leaves the impression
that he considered imperial law to be a divine truth revealed by ancestral
kami, just as Buddhist law was a divine truth revealed by Buddha.
Noting the importance of constructive principles (don) created by the
ancestral kami of the imperial house, appreciating the work's emphasis
on the supremacy of the Sun Goddess over other kami of Japan
(and apparently over the other unseen powers), and sensing the author's
assumption of a divine quality in imperial law, we see that belief
in Japan's sacred imperial line was a powerful determinant in the
Gukansho's view of history.
Linealism was a prominent characteristic of all historical works
written in Japan's aristocratic age, and it continued to affect Japanese
historical writing in later times. Because medieval and modern studies
lie outside the scope of this volume, we shall end this section with the
35 Chap. 3, NKBT 86.129; Brown and Ishida, The Future and the Past, p. 20.
36 Chaps. 1 and 2, NKBT 86.41-128; Brown and Ishida, The Future and the Past, pp. 245-349.
37 Chap. 6, NKBT 86.317; Brown and Ishida, The Future and the Past, p. 198.
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VITALISM 521
comment that until the end of World War II, linealism was manifested
over and over, not only in written expressions of historical consciousness
and popular forms of drama and literature, but also in such
unique Japanese "isms" as imperial restorationism (fukko shugi),
revere-the-emperor-ism (sonno shugi), and "state-policy-ism" (kokutai
shugi).
VITALISM
The second characteristic of early historical consciousness (vitalism)
appears as a polar opposite to the Chinese emphasis on virtue (toku in
Japanese). Because Japan's earliest extant chronicles were compiled at
a time of lively interest in all aspects of Chinese culture, and Confucianism
lay at the very core of Chinese cultural values, it is not surprising
to find that all Six National Histories contain numerous quotations
from the Confucian Classics and have a strong Confucian flavor. Indeed,
between the Great Reforms of 645 and the end of the Nara
period in 784, Japan's developing educational program was focused on
the study of the Confucian Classics. Toward the end of that period a
few ambitious aristocrats were able even to rise to inordinately high
governmental posts because of their spectacular achievements in the
study of Confucian literature and Chinese history. Thus the whole of
Nara culture, including history writing, was affected by principles
enunciated in the Confucian Classics, and from early Nara until today,
Japanese historical works have usually born a Confucian stamp.
And yet the effect of Confucianism on Japan's early consciousness of
the passage of time is often overstated. Although Confucian quotations
are numerous and the effect of Confucian ideas can be readily detected,
no item in any of the Six National Histories carries the implication
that an emperor's lack of virtue (undoubtedly the most basic
Confucian moral principle of all) justified his removal from the throne,
a common and basic view expressed in Chinese dynastic histories when
dealing with emperors whose unfortunate reigns preceded the establishment
of a new dynasty. Moreover, the Japanese interest in Chinese
learning and Confucianism was not associated, as in China, with the
formation of a distinct and powerful literati class. Finally, no national
history was ever written for the purpose of showing that improvements
had been made in the conduct of governmental affairs by the
power of Confucian virtue. That being so, what special belief, assumption,
or value - other than the linealism just discussed - did lie at the
core of Japanese historical thought in these early times?
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522 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Scholars of intellectual and cultural history are beginning to see
that although the Japanese were strongly attracted to Confucianism
and other manifestations of Chinese learning after about A.D. 590,
Japanese attitudes toward the process of change in human life were
firmly anchored in their ancient kami belief. Taking advantage of the
work of scholars who have used new archaeological and anthropological
evidence to clarify the connections between kami worship
(Shintoism) and community life in ancient Japan (see the Introduction),
a few intellectual historians now see that Japanese assumptions
and ideas concerning the passage of time have been influenced since
early times by a deep and pervasive belief that the kami were worshiped,
above all, for their mysterious power to create, enrich, or
prolong any form of physical life.*8
Although genealogical concerns
motivated officials to compile historical works, the widespread belief
in the life-giving power of the kami deeply colored what they wrote,
accounting for the characteristic of historical consciousness referred
to here as vitalism.
Pre-Nara roots
The most common outward forms of kami worship emerged early in
the Yayoi period and were intimately associated with the introduction
and spread of wet-rice agriculture, but the belief in mysterious lifegiving
powers seem to have had even earlier roots. In the Jomon sites
scattered throughout the Japanese islands, archaeologists have found
two types of religious artifacts symbolizing mysterious procreative
power: clay figurines (dogu) and phallic stone rods (sekibo) (see Chapter
1). The figurines, often representing pregnant women, are sometimes
found in enclosures that were probably places set aside for religious
ritual. We do not know what rites were performed there, but it is
assumed that the figurines were used for capturing a mysterious force
(possibly the force of a kamilike deity) that could create, protect, or
improve some form of life. That assumption is reinforced by archaeological
reports on the nature and distribution of phallic stone rods
found in numerous Jomon sites. Like the figurines, some have been
found at places suitable for religious rites. Their association with creation
or procreation is equally clear. Most historians doubt that either
clay figurines or phallic rods were themselves objects of worship, but
they generally agree that both were used ritually for the improvement
38 For a thoughtful study of early kami worship, see Yuasa, Kodaijin no seishin sekai, pp. 14-102.
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VITALISM 523
of human, plant, or animal life. It is now felt that agricultural production
had appeared in the closing years of the Jomon period. The
figurines and phallic rods may well have been used in prayers for good
harvests.
Archaeological evidence for the later Yayoi period (roughly 250 B.C.
to A.D. 250) indicates that agricultural rites were then becoming institutionalized
and routinized in rice-growing communities in several regions.
Considering Yayoi finds in the light of religious practices in
present-day villages where life seems not to have greatly changed since
Yayoi times, Harada Toshiaki reasons that most agricultural communities
of the Yayoi period were growing rice on contiguous pieces of land
with common supplies of water and that each village worshiped a kami
for its power to make rice grow in thefieldsof that particular village.39
Harada and others are inclined to think that by the last two centuries of
the Yayoi period, a rice-growing village was worshiping its life-creating
kami through one particular person who, chosen by some form of
divine lottery, conducted rites in behalf of his or her village from the
beginning of one rice growing season to the next. Rites were apparently
grounded then in the belief that kami resided in a nearby mountain
(the source of water) during the winter and moved - or could be
moved - to some place near the village's ricefieldsat the beginning of
the growing season. Thus the rice-agriculture character of worship,
clearly detected in most Shinto rituals of today, appears to have
emerged with, and taken on its basic forms during, the Yayoi period
spread of paddy field rice production. Every kami was then, and still
is, worshiped for its mysterious power to create and enrich life, especially
the life of rice plants.
The Chinese history of the Later Han period (A.D. 25 to 220) reports
that a Japanese state was ruled by a queen "who occupied herself with
magic and sorcery."40
Although we are supplied with no information
about the nature of her "magic and sorcery," the reference suggests
that the priestly rulers of emerging states were successors of those who
had been originally chosen by an agricultural community (or by its
kami) to conduct worship services during the four seasons of a year
but who now held their positions for life as a hereditary right. Hereditary
rulers were henceforth concerned with the control and manage-
39 Harada Toshiaki, Kodai Nihon no skinko to shakai (Tokyo: Shoko shoin, 1948); and Harada
Toshiaki, "Kodai shukyo ron," Kodai, vol. 2 of Iwanami koza Nihon rekishi (Tokyo: Iwanami
shoten, 1962), pp. 279-313.
40 Hou Han shu 115: i6b-i9a; Tsunoda and Goodrich, Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories,
p. 2.
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524 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
ment of regions containing many agricultural villages, and they were
even involved in exchanging missions with the Chinese imperial court,
but they were still essentially conductors of rites honoring the lifecreating
and life-enriching kami of their particular regions.
The centrality of belief in the vitalistic power of the kami is clearly
reflected in Japan's earliest recorded myths as well as in its early
prayers (norito) and festivals (matsuri). But probably the most significant
Yayoi period evidence was provided by archaeologists who have
discovered that the most sacred object (the shintai or kami body) of the
earliest shrines was usually a nearby mountain peak from which
flowed the streams that supplied water for rice fields in the valley or
plain below. The most famous old shrine of that type is the Miwa
Shrine, where Mt. Miwa is the shrine's shintai. But the ancient
Futarasan Shrine at Nikko is especially significant, as its shintai is a
phallic-shaped mountain called Mt. Nantai (man body). Not only do
streams flow from this mountain to the fields below, but its shape is
that of the phallic stone rods found in preagricultural Jomon sites.
In the later Burial Mound period, when the old interest in producing
a good rice crop was joined with - if not overshadowed by - a new
interest in social and political control, the forms of kami worship were
greatly altered. Priestly rulers were no longer limited to clan heads
who served as priests for the worship of a clan kami but included
Yamato kings who conducted ceremonies for the worship of their
house's ancestral kami and the worship of the ancestral kami of subject
clans. Rites, myths, and symbols were constantly revised in order that
they might more accurately reflect, and more impressively sanctify,
current socioreligious relationships. Understanding such changes is
complicated by the fact that they were gradual and uneven and by the
absence of contemporary records. But it is clear that every kami was
worshiped then, as in earlier and later periods of history, for its power
to create and enrich physical life of any type. At the base of the belief
structure was the old faith in a kami's mysterious power to make rice
grow, but at a higher level of this structure was a new faith that the
hereditary ruler was strong because he or she was a sacred descendant
of a life-giving kami with a special power to enrich the clan.
The life-oriented agricultural character of kami worship during the
Burial Mound period has been clouded somewhat by the prominence
that archaeological and mythological evidence gives to the relationship
of the priestly rulers to the burial mounds. Because the mounds are so
numerous and large, historical studies of rulership tend to be centered
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VITALISM 525
on evidence obtained from mounds rather than from shrines, which
were less imposing and had origins and development that are not so
easily traced. Moreover, early reflections on the mounds have led
many scholars to deduce that they were places for worshiping the
souls of deceased rulers, thus confusing the function of mounds with
that of shrines. Support for the ancestor-worship theory has been
obtained from early myths, particularly those recorded in the Kojiki
and Nihon shoki. Nevertheless, more recent archaeological investigations
at shrines as well as mounds, and further study of the character
and evolution of myths, suggest that during the Burial Mound period,
as well as before and after, beliefs about a life-giving kami at a shrine
were fundamentally different from those about the soul of a leader
buried in a mound.*' The two were consistently kept apart: A shrine
was not considered suitable for burials, and a burial mound not suitable
for worshiping a kami. Old shrines established in that period are
still places for active religious institutions, but not a single one has
ever been associated, as far as is known, with a burial mound. Archaeological
findings on the island shintai of the Munakata Shrine in
Kyushu include, for example, thousands of bronze mirrors, bronze
swords, magatama, iron tools, and other treasures deposited there
during the Burial Mound period. But the island has no burial sites.*2
A study of mounds in various parts of Japan discloses, on the other
hand, no known case of an early shrine's having been built over a
mound. And investigations of the contents and surroundings of the
mounds produce no evidence that offerings continued to be made
after burial services were completed. Clear distinctions were made,
then as later, between worshiping life-giving kami and honoring deceased
rulers: Every kami was and still is relied on mainly for its
mysterious power to create or enrich any form of life.
Even after the sixth century when clan leaders built Buddhist temples
to honor their ancestors and to enhance their own authority,
Buddhism was clearly distinguished from Shintoism, even though a
clan's principal ancestors (the souls of which were honored at temples)
had served as high priests for the worship of clan kami and considered
themselves descendants of ancestral kami (honored at shrines). To be
sure, the native deities were worshiped in various ways by the follow-
41 Ishida Ichiro, "Shinwa to rekishi: uji-sei ritsuryo kokka to ie-sei rikken kokka no rinen,"
Nihon bunka kenkyu (Tokyo: Shinchosha, i960), vol. 8, pp. 6-10.
42 Munakata jinja shi, 3 vols. (Tokyo: Munakata jinja fukko kiseikai, 1961, 1966, 1971); and
Munakata Okinoshima, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Munakata jinja fukko kiseikai, 1958 and 1961).
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526 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
ers of the imported Buddhist faith. Buddhist deities took on kamilike
qualities, and much Buddhist worship was directed to the enrichment
of life in kamilike fashion. But even after Buddhism came to be supported
by powerful clans, the enshrinement of clan kami at shrines
was kept separate from the worship of Buddha at temples: Kami
continued to be thought of as sources of life-restoring benefits for the
living, whereas a Buddha was identified with a mysterious power that
could console and please souls of the dead. Both kami shrines and
Buddhist temples supported the position of priestly rulers, but everyone
assumed that a kami would be repelled as much by a temple as by
a burial. Even the mention of Buddhist words in a kami rite was
taboo.43
Although careful attention was given to a ruler's descent, the
highest-ranking ancestral kami of all (the Sun Goddess) was still
thought of as a deity that would never die, making it inappropriate
that she should be linked with any temple or burial. Not until after the
ninth century was the soul of a deceased emperor ever worshiped as a
kami, and that was at a shrine, not at a mound or temple.44
Although no written historical accounts come down to us from preNara
times and we have no evidence of what persons (rulers or commoners)
were then thinking about the progression of time, we are sure
that everyone worshiped kami and that the heads of all groups (villages,
clans, or the Yamato state) were conductors of kami worship.
We assume, therefore, that a person's deepest concerns - including
his or her thoughts about the passing of time - were influenced by the
core characteristic of kami worship: belief in the power of a kami to
create or enrich any form of life, here and now.
Nara period vitalism
As we noted earlier, Emperor Temmu's edict of 687 pointed to two
types of sources to be used for compiling the Kojiki: imperial genealogies
(teikt) and accounts of origin (honji). The Kojiki's linealism is
mirrored in its genealogies, and vitalism can be found in its myth of
kami creation. But there was interaction between the historicity of the
43 Legal procedures (the compilation of which was completed in 927) list seven taboo Buddhist
words: Buddha, sutra, pagoda, temple, monk, nun, and Buddhist meal; see Engi shiki, bk. 5
of Shiniei zoho kokushi laikei (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobun kan, 1966) vols. 8-10, translated by
Felicia Gressitt Bock, Engi-Shiki: Procedures of the Engi Era [Books l-s] (Tokyo: Sophia
University Press, 1970), pp. 152-3.
44 King Ojin 's soul was enshrined at the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine which, like the Ise
Shrine, was highly honored by the imperial clan.
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VITALISM 527
former and the mythology of the latter, making the genealogies somewhat
mythical and the myths somewhat genealogical. Teiki were surely
the major sources for the imperial-reign chapters of the two chronicles,
and honji were the sources for the introductory chapters on the
sacred origins of the imperial line. Vitalism in Nara period history is
most sharply revealed, however, in the creation myths that make up
the first chapters of both the Kokiki and the Nikon shoki.
Recent mythological studies enable us to see that the Kojiki and
Nihon shoki myths have a definite historical cast. They can be seen to
deal with three successive stages of creation: (1) the emergence of
heaven and earth, the first kami, and the islands of Japan; (2) the birth
of the Sun Goddess (the ancestral kami of the imperial clan) and her
unruly brother (the ancestral kami of a powerful clan rival); and (3)
the dispatch of the Sun Goddess's grandson to earth with instructions
to place Japan under the rule of the Sun Goddess's descendants. After
describing the creation of heaven and earth, the myths take up the
origins of the provinces and ancestral kami, linking these kami with
Japan's first emperor. The life-creating quality at all three stages is
revealed in the way that the myths are structured and used to affirm
divine origins for the imperial line and also in their content and detail,
especially at turning points in the creation process.
Although the Kojiki and Nihon shoki versions of the first stage of the
creation of heaven and earth contain words and concepts found in the
Chinese Classics, scholars show that similar myths have been handed
down among primitive peoples in the Ryukyu Islands and in various
regions of southeast Asia. It is therefore concluded that they were
derived from old agricultural myths of islands to the south and subsequently
given a Chinese flavor in order to further sanctify Japan's
imperial line. The names of kami prominent in the first-stage myths
(with or without Chinese overtones) usually include the word musubu
(procreate, create, or produce), a word that points directly to the
mysterious power of a kami to create and enrich the life of rice plants,
as symbolized by the phallic shape of Mt. Nantai.
The second-stage creation myths, reflecting the historical emergence
of clan federations and states in western Japan around the beginning
of the Christian century, gradually became less agricultural and
more human in character. Preoccupation was shifting from the production
of rice crops to the origin and continuity of particular descent
lines. Whereas the first-stage myths about the creation of heaven and
earth use the metaphor of the earth's coming into existence (nani) like
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528 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
"reed shoots,"« those of the second stage tell how a male and a female
kami (Izanagi and Izanami) had sexual intercourse and produced
(umu) particular Japanese islands and, according to the Nihon shoki,
gave birth to the Sun Goddess and her unruly brother.46
But the Kojiki version of how the Sun Goddess came into existence
seems to undermine the case for vitalism. We are told there that she
appeared (naru) after the death of Izanami when Izanagi removed the
pollution that he had picked up while visiting Izanami in the land of
the dead.47 Although the main Nihon shoki version does not associate
the appearance of the Sun Goddess with death pollution,48
we are left
with the puzzling question of why - in a land where kami have always
been life-creating deities that abhored anything associated with death any
version should have related the appearance of the country's most
important kami (the Sun Goddess) to the land of the dead.
Tsuda Sokichi tried to answer this question by claiming that the
Kojiki version of the Sun Goddess's appearance, as well as the myth of
Izanami's death, were foreign accretions. For him the Nihon shoki
version was a truer reflection of Japanese belief in life-giving kami.49
But more recent investigations by ethnologists indicate that the deathoriented
version found in the Kojiki is similar to myths handed down
among peoples of southeast Asia and the south Pacific, the very areas
whose myths share themes with those recorded in the Kojiki and Nihon
shoki. Matsumura Takeo accepts the Japaneseness of the Izanami death
myth but claims that the picture presented in the Kojiki version is not
so morbid as that drawn in similar myths of other Asian peoples, thus
making it more life affirming. Apparently accepting this view, Inoue
Mitsusada reminds us that even such distinguished Japanese Buddhists
as Dogen (1200-53) and Shinran (1173-1262) seem to have been more
interested in life than in death, although doctrines of nonattachment to
life were basic Buddhist teachings. It should also be remembered that
the Sun Goddess - no matter how she came into existence - is still
believed to be alive and is still worshiped as a life-creating kami. One
can indeed detect notes of life affirmation even in the parting exchange
between Izanagi and Izanami in which Izanagi says that he will have
more people born than Izanami threatens to kill.'0
45 Nihon shoki, bk. I, sec. I, NKBT 67.76-77.
46 Nihon shoki, bk. 1, sec. 3 and 4, NKBT 67.80-84.
47 Kojiki, bk. 1, NKBT 1.70-71. 48 Nihon shoki, bk. 1, sec. 4, NKBT 67.86-87.
49 Tsuda Sokichi, Nihon jodai shi no kenkyu, rev. ed. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1972), pp. 391-
502. Inoue Mitsusada summarized the views of several scholars and added his own in Shinwa
kara rekishi e, pp. 33-40.
50 Nihon shoki, bk. 1, NKBT 67.94-95.
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VITALISM 529
Even so, the question has still not been satisfactorily answered, for
Izanami's death is found at such a critical point in the Kojiki's myth
structure: just before the appearance of the most important kami of
all, the Sun Goddess. I would venture to suggest that a more plausible
interpretation is that the death myth was inserted just before the
appearance of the Sun Goddess and her unruly brother in order to set
the stage for later myths concerning the struggle between two kami
groups: the ancestral kami of the victorious imperial house and the
ancestral kami of the defeated Izumo clan. Historians generally agree
that a great conflict really did break out, three or four centuries
before written records were kept, between an imperial housecontrolled
clan federation located in Yamato and an Izumo federation
based in regions to the north and east. The myths themselves contain
hints of such a struggle. For example, in the opening paragraph on
relations between the Sun Goddess and her brother Susa no O no
Mikoto, we are told that the former was afraid her brother had come
up to Heaven to "seize her lands."s1
Later, our attention is drawn to
Susa no O's tearing down the banks of the Sun Goddess's irrigation
ditches and filling them in with dirt.*2
Such references, together with
archaeological findings, suggest that the rivalry between the two ancestral
kami was one aspect of a very earthly struggle between two
great clan federations.
Myths about the struggle consistently link death pollution (tsumi)
with the loser, Susa no O. When telling of Susa no O's violence in the
Sun Goddess's rice fields, they say, for example, that he "defecated
and strewed the feces" around the Sun Goddess's most sacred ritual
hall.53 The Sun Goddess was inclined at first to disregard such pollution,
thinking it was no more than the vomit of her drunken brother.
But the misdeeds continued and even got worse. We read that Susa no
O opened a hole in the roof of the Sun Goddess's ritual hall and threw
in a sacred pony that had been skinned alive. The act was so heinous
and shocking that one of the female ritual attendants died on the spot,
and the Sun Goddess went into hiding. After she was coaxed from her
hiding place, the myriad kami of heaven banished Susa no O to the
land of Izumo.» He is depicted not only as the perpetrator of destructive
and polluting acts related to death but also as a kami with a special
attachment to his deceased mother (Izanami) and the land of the dead.
Particularly significant is the tale in which Izanagi asked Susa no 0
51 Kojiki, bk. 1, NKBT 67.74-75- 5* Kojiki, bk. 1, NKBT 1.78-79- 53 Ibid.
54 Kojiki, bk. 1, NKBT 1.83-84.
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530 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
why he was weeping and howling, and he replied that he wanted to
join his mother in the land of the dead. So he was expelled from
heaven, the abode of kami who are free of death pollution and who do
not die.55
But Susa no O no Mikoto's contamination is found only in myths
that tell of the victories and superiority of the Sun Goddess. In those
that detail what happened in Izumo, Susa no O appears as another
creative and life-affirming kami who does not die. In one case, he even
is presented as a hero who saves a girl slated for sacrifice to a huge
snake with eight heads and eight tails and a big tree growing on its
back.56
Students of mythology detect similarities between this myth
and those handed down in other parts of the world, especially in South
China and Indonesia. Inoue Mitsusada notes that even in some riceplanting
festivals of present-day Japan, a woman is thrown into a rice
field as a symbolic sacrifice to the local kami.5
? It is therefore thought
that Susa no O was worshiped in Izumo as an immortal kami with the
power to make plants grow. Because we are told that he created a kami
line that includes Izumo's ancestral kami, we believe that myths about
the death of Izanami and the death associations of Susa no 6 were
added to the Kojiki in order to enhance and sanctify the superiority of
the ancestral kami of the Yamato imperial house and, at the same time,
to degrade the ancestral deities of the defeated Izumo clan federation.
At the beginning of the third stage of mythological evolution comes
a climactic event: the dispatch to earth of the Sun Goddess's grandson
(Ninigi no Mikoto) with instructions to place Japan under the rule of
her descendants. This tenson kdrin (descent of the grandson from
heaven) myth, unlike the one about the birth of the Sun Goddess, has
no associations with death.58
Although it is followed by tales about
kami on earth who act like human beings (subjected in some cases to
death and burial), the emphasis is instead on the mysterious power of
deities to create and enrich life. At this third and final stage, the
creativity seen so clearly in Stage I (especially with the creation of the
Japanese islands by Izanagi and Izanami) is now colored by a derivative
power to create a sacred line of emperors. In other words, the
55 Kojiki, bk. i, NKBT 1.72-73.
56 Kojiki, bk. i, NKBT 1.84-87. The Izumo fudoki, the Izumo gazetteer submitted in 713 and
still extant, contains fragments of local myths. They distinguish between heavenly and early
kami, suggesting an acceptance of the Yamato court's differentiation. But the Izumo myths
did not associate their kami with death. See Michiko Yamaguchi Aoki, trans., Izumo Fudoki
(Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1971).
57 Inoue, Shinwa kara rekishi e, p. 69.
58 Kojiki, bk. 1, NKBT 1.124-7; Nihon shoki, NKBT 67.134-5.
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VITALISM 531
mysterious vitalism of the kami that do not die is now extended to the
creation and maintenance of an imperial line that will last forever.
The Kojiki's and Nihon shoki's chapters on the reigns of human
emperors are also marked by the vitalism of the third-stage myths,
especially in the early chapters in which history still has a mythological
overlay. These tell of emperors who lived long and were in close
and continuous communication with kami. But as the chronicles
become historically more accurate, we still read that Yamato Takeru
no Mikoto (the son of a human emperor) performed superhuman
feats and had a soul that lived on after death.& The life-affirming
tone created by an emphasis on kami origins and kamilike emperors
remains strong in the second of the Six National Histories, a chronicle
(the Shoku Nihongi) that contains edicts issued at the beginning of
each new reign that declare, with remarkable consistency, that the
reigning sovereign is a manifest kami who has inherited the throne
from the Sun Goddess.
But the tone is stronger in items that tell how occupants of the
throne concern themselves with kami worship. Such items are quite
prominent after the reign of Emperor Temmu (673 to 690) who took
steps to undergird his authority with a centralized and institutionalized
system of kami worship - for which the emperor was the land's
highest priest - that was gradually extended to the entire country.
Temmu gave more attention than his predecessors to the Council of
Kami Affairs (Jingi kan), instructed a princess to "purify herself" and
worship the Sun Goddess at Ise Shrine in his behalf,60
and had offerings
made to every kami of the land.61
He also initiated the practice of
sending royal messengers at rice-planting time to two shrines that were
famous for the worship of agricultural kami: the Hirose Shrine located
at the confluence of three rivers where a kami was worshiped for its
power to supply rice fields with water, and the Tatsuta Shrine located
on a shore frequently hit by typhoons, a shrine in which a wind deity
was worshiped for its power to prevent such wind-connected disasters
as droughts and typhoons.62
Eventually the court sent messengers to
these two shrines twice a year, at the start and end of the growing
season. But whenever there was a serious drought, messengers were
dispatched to all shrines to offer up prayers in behalf of the emperor.
Thus Temmu seems not to have thought of himself only as the high
59 Kojiki, bk. 2, NKBT1.208-25;Nihonshoki, Keiko27/10to Keiko 52/5/4,NKBT67.298-313.
60 Nihon shoki, Temmu 2 (673) 4/14, NKBT 68.412-13.
61 Nihon shoki, Temmu 3 (674) 3/7, NKBT 68.415.
62 Nihon.shoki, Temmu 4 (675) 4/10, NKBT 68.418-19.
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532 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
priest of Sun Goddess worship but also as the high priest of kami
enshrinements throughout Japan.
The vitalistic tone in Nara life and thought is probably clearest in
Japan's most important kami ritual: the Great Thanksgiving Festival
(Daijo-sai) held at the beginning of every reign.63
Scholars now agree
that this festival had its origins in an early harvest festival known as the
festival of new fruits (Niiname-sai). The reference to "first fruits" in
the ritual prayer (norito) offered by the emperor during the Great
Thanksgiving Festival points directly to early belief in the mysterious
power of kami, worshiped through the emperor, to make rice grow.6
*
But two derivative beliefs are added: that the kami had created and
could enrich the line of Sun Goddess rulers and that they had created
and could enrich the whole of Japan.
After 725, Emperor Shomu and his daughter (who was enthroned
twice) seem to have become more devoted to Buddhism than to
the worship of native deities. One might therefore assume that
kami vitalism was henceforth overshadowed by Buddhist otherworldliness.
As we noted, both Shomu and his daughter continued to
affirm belief in the sacred origins of the imperial line. But did Empress
Shotoku - apparently a more ardent Buddhist than Emperor
Shomu was - continue to believe in the mysterious power of the
kami to create and enrich any form of life here and now? A study of
the Shoku Nihongi items for her two reigns suggests that she did in
fact pay less attention to Shinto rites than did her predecessors. After
she ascended the throne a second time in 765, she apparently did not
send messengers to key shrines at either the planting or harvesting
times of the year. Nevertheless when famine conditions developed in
various parts of the country during the following spring and summer,
she made generous donations to several provincial shrines and requested
that priests pray for relief.6
* Moreover, when the time came
for the most important rite of all, the Great Thanksgiving Festival,
Empress Shotoku issued an edict in which she took up the question
of whether an empress could or should, as a Buddhist nun, conduct
this great kami-honoring festival:
63 See D. C. Holtom, The Japanese Enthronement Ceremonies with an Account of the Imperial
Regalia (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1972); and Felicia G. Bock, "The Enthronement
Rites: The Text of Engishiki, 927," Monumenla Nipponica 45 (Autumn 1990): 307-37.
64 The oldest extant norito (included in the Engishiki) has been translated by Donald L. Philippi,
Norito: A New Translation of theJapanese Ritual Prayers (Tokyo: Institute for Japanese Culture
and Classics, Kokugakuin University, 1959).
65 Shoku Nihongi, Jingo 2 (766) 4/12, KT 2.326; Saeki, Zoho rikkokushi, 4.126.
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VITALISM 533
We feel sympathy and affection for princes, ministers, officials, and commoners
who will first honor the kami of heavenly and earthly shrines and only
then pay respects to the Three Treasures [of Buddhism]. But because we have
returned to the throne a second time and now govern the empire, you are
ordered to obtain the traditional offerings for the Great Thanksgiving Festival.
. . . People feel that kami should be kept separate from, and untouched
by, that which pertains to the Three Treasures, but one reads in the Buddhist
sutras that kami protect and revere Buddhist law. Although we have become a
Buddhist nun and put on Buddhist robes, we conclude that our being involved
in the worship of Buddha is not an obstacle [to our participation in the
Great Thanksgiving Festival]. Because what was originally thought to have
been taboo is not taboo, we hereby issue orders that the Great Thanksgiving
Festival be held.66
Although the edict leaves doubts about the empress's depth of faith in
the native deities, it shows that she saw no reason to reject kami
worship because she had become a Buddhist nun. Like so many other
Japanese individuals from that day to this, she seems to have been
relying on the kami for the enrichment and renewal of physical life but
on Buddhism for assurances in matters of salvation and life after
death.
Maruyama Masao has deepened our appreciation of the vitalistic
tone of historical consciousness during the Nara period by analyzing
"styles of expression" found in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki.^ He finds a
life-affirming "base tone" that is disclosed in the use of creation myths
to deepen and sanctify the genealogical thrust of the chronicles and in
the identification of the Chinese character toku (a key Confucianism
term usually translated as "virtue") with an ancient Japanese word
ikioi (freely translated as "life strength"). Although creation myths
also appear in early Chinese writings, they are not used, as in Japan,
for introductory chapters of the country's official chronicles of the
past. Maruyama decided that the Japanese compilers were expressing,
through structured creation myths that made up the opening chapters
of both early chronicles, a historical consciousness focused on the
origin and linear development of life.68
An old commentary on the Nihon shoki, entitled the Nihongi shiki,
shows that early scholars of Japanese historical works actually read the
Chinese character toku (virtue) as ikioi (life strength).69
Realizing that
these early Japanese scholars had studied Chinese classics and knew
66 Shoku Nihongi, Jingo I (765) 11/23, KT 2.236; Saeki, Zohorikkokushi,4.126.
67 Maruyama Masao, "Rekishi ishiki no koso," in Rekishi shisd shu, pp. 3-46. 68 Ibid., p. 4.
69 Ibid., p. 20. Denis Twitchett pointed out that in pre-Han times the Chinese word te (toku in
Japanese) had a meaning rather close to ikoi (strength or power).
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534 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
that toku stood for one of the most basic of all Confucian principles,
Maruyama rightly assigns importance to the Japanese practice of reading
(or understanding) this important Chinese character as ikioi, an old
word denoting a concept of vitality central to Japanese thought and
belief at all times and places. Just how toku (read ikioi) was used and
just what this usage tells us about historical consciousness at the time
is revealed in myths that praise a kami or an emperor. In the Nihon
shoki version of the Izanagi myth, to cite one example, we read that
after Izanagi had demonstrated ikioi, he ascended to heaven. The tale
contains nothing that suggests that Izanagi had acted "virtuously"
(toku) before returning to heaven, but he had done much - such as
producing the Japanese islands and the Sun Goddess - to demonstrate
his "life strength" (ikioi)J°
An even more telling example of how the character toku (read ikioi)
is used is found in the Nihon shoki chapter on the reign of Yuryaku,
who definitely was not virtuous. Yuryaku is described as a ruler who
did not hesitate to kill anyone who crossed him. Once when a woman
did not respond to his advances and became pregnant by another man,
Yuryaku had both of them killed.71
After relating other stories of
Yuryaku's cruelty and inhumanity, the Nihon shoki reports that he had
"willfully and wrongly killed so many people that he was condemned
as a bad emperor."72
The chronicles also describe a hunting expedition
during which a man suddenly appeared before Emperor Yuryaku and
identified himself as a manifest kami. Yuryaku and the kami then
hunted together. The tale ends with the comment that "in those days
everyone said that the emperor had ikioi [written with the Chinese
character tofew]."73
Because Yuryaku definitely was not virtuous, we
assume that he was praised for a kami-connected vitality symbolized
by the old word ikioi. Maruyama's study of other uses of ikioi and
words with related meanings led him to state that early Japanese writings
had a life-affirming "base tone."
Vitalistic assumptions arose from ancient Shinto worship and therefore
affected all aspects of Japanese culture, not just the expression of
historical consciousness, as is readily detected in the Man'yoshu anthology
of the eighth century that contains more than 4,500 poems composed
over a period of more than a century by poets with wide-ranging
interests and associations. Although these poems were composed by
different individuals in various situations, the scholars who translated
70 Nihon shoki, bk. I, NKBT 67.103. 71 Nihon shoki, Yuryaku 2/7, NKBT 67.462-63.
72 Nihon shoki, Yuryaku 2/7, NKBT67.465. 73 Nihon shoki, Yuryaku 4/2, NKBT 67.466-7.
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VITALISM 535
them into English agree that they retain a "primitive vitality."74
To be
sure, we find expressions of unhappiness and even despair (especially
in poems on the death of a loved one), but even those that bear signs of
a Buddhist influence do not show an acceptance of the Buddhist teaching
that all attachments to life should be rejected. The last part of a
poem by Otomo no Tabito, composed a few years before his death in
730, even expresses disinterest in the Buddhist idea of the transmigration
of the soul and preferences for the pleasures of this life:
If I could but be happy in this life,
What should I care if in the next
I became a bird or a worm.
All living things die in the end:
So long as I live here
I want the cup of pleasure."
Post-Nara vitalism
Maruyama concludes on the basis of his linguistic analysis that this
vitalistic base tone persisted in later Heian period writings about the
past.76
Such persistence is reflected in historical tales (rekishi monogatari)
and military tales (gunki monogatari). Both lack any consistent
attempt to show that the course of events was affected by the presence
or absence of virtue, and they stress, more and more strongly with the
passage of time, traditional life-affirming values and tastes. After the
waning of ninth-century enthusiasm for all forms of Chinese culture,
men and women who figure prominently in tales are not praised so
much for their accomplishments in the Chinese arts or for their practice
of Confucian virtue as for such traditional qualities as vigor, liveliness,
and effectiveness in the handling of state affairs, qualities central
to the emerging military ethic.
As Helen McCullough noted in the introduction to her translation
of the Okagami, the authors of Heian period tales distinguished between
personal qualities that had a life-affirming Japanese character identified
with such words as tamashii (spirit), yamatodamashii (Japanese
spirit), and yamatogokoro (Japanese heart) - and those that did
not.77
The Tale of Genji, written early in the tenth century when
Japanese aristocrats were still attracted to Chinese tastes and interests,
presents a suggestive contrast between Kaoru, who conforms to the
ideal of a civilized person who had assimilated Chinese culture, and
74 Man'yoshu, p. lxix. 75 Ibid., p. 118.
76 Maruyama, "Rekishi ishiki no koso," pp. 13-14. 77 Okagami, pp. 43-51.
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536 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Niou, a clever, decisive, and unscrupulous person who had not mastered
polite accomplishments and tastes introduced from abroad.
Kaoru, not Niou, is favored by the female author.
By the time the Okagami was written in the closing years of the
following century, the Japanese qualities associated with Niou were
more highly regarded. In this second of the two famous historical
tales, as McCullough pointed out, the great Fujiwara no Michinaga
(966-1027) was depicted as a man unhampered by Chinese notions
who had the vital quality of tamashii and knew how to get things
done.78
In the biographical chapter on Michinaga, we read that when
Michinaga's father told his three sons (Michinaga and two older
brothers) that they "couldn't even get close enough [to a certain
accomplished aristocrat] to tread on his shadow," Michinaga retorted,
"I may not tread on his shadow, but I'll walk all over his
face."79
The same self-confidence and vigor are revealed in the famous
story of Michinaga's rivalry with Fujiwara no Korechika (993-
1010), a nephew who outranked Michinaga for about ten months in
994-95. At an archery contest held during that period, Michinaga
shot two arrows that hit closer to the mark than Korechika's. Then
when it was proposed that two more shots be fired, Michinaga agreed
but added, "If emperors are to issue from my house, let this arrow
hit the mark." On the second shot Michinaga's arrow struck the
bull's eye "with such force that the target almost broke," thereby
ending the match.80
The military tales, written in the early years of Japan's military age,
set an even greater store by tamashii-like qualities. The first work of
this type, the Hogen monogatari, has a prominent Fujiwara leader
ridiculing Sino-aristocratic tastes in these words: "Poetry is an amusement
for a time of leisure and is not needed for court ceremony.
Calligraphy, also one of the entertainments, is not necessarily an important
accomplishment for a wise minister."81
Then, when turning to
stories about the principal military hero, Minamoto no Tametomo
(1139-70), we are told that Tametomo was seven feet tall, had a bow
that took five men to string, and was so wild that he was sent off to
Kyushu (at the age of thirteen) to keep him out of trouble. He then
subjugated the nine provinces of Kyushu within three years.82
The last
and most famous of the military tales, the Heike monogatari, has Taira
no Kiyomori taking pride in his knowledge of proper aristocratic be-
78 Ibid., p. 52. 79 Ibid., p. 193. 80 Ibid., pp. 196-7.
81 Hogen monogatari, chap. 1, NKBT 31.64-65.
82 Hogen monogatari, chap. 1, NKBT 31.84.
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OPTIMISM 537
havior but depicts him as a cruel, arrogant, and unprincipled man who
made this deathbed pronouncement:
Since the Hogen and Heiji eras [1156-60], I have frequently subdued enemies
of the imperial court and obtained generous rewards. Although of humble
origin, I have become the grandfather of an emperor and been appointed
prime minister, achieving glory and fame for my descendants. Not one thing
more do I desire in this life. My only regret is that I have not yet seen the head
of Minamoto no Yoritomo, the former major of the left guards who has been
exiled to the province of Izu. After I am dead, I want no temples or pagodas
built and no Buddhist rites performed. Instead, I want to have Yoritomo
attacked immediately and his head placed before my grave. That is the only
rite I request.8
'
Although military tales are thought to have been recited and recorded
by aristocrats steeped in Chinese learning (often making their military
heroes act in an aristocratic manner), they reveal an increasingly deep
appreciation of such vitalistic qualities as physical strength, courage,
ingenuity, self-confidence, and the ability to achieve results: an enthusiastic
return to the traditional life-affirming and life-centered values
referred to here as vitalism.
OPTIMISM
The third characteristic of early historical consciousness (optimism
about the immediate future) emerged as a by-product of interaction
between the first two characteristics: linealism (which had drawn attention
to the movement of events from the past through the present into
the future) and vitalism (which added a life-affirming tone to descriptions
of those events). Although linealism is revealed when examining
ancient historical writings against the backdrop of Chinese belief in
dynastic cycles, and vitalism, against the backdrop of Confucian concepts
of moral power, optimism is reflected in resistance to Buddhist
doctrines of historical decline. Like the first two characteristics, the
third has roots that run deep into "prehistoric" times.
Pre-Nara roots
The earliest known description of life in Japan, found in the history of
the Chinese kingdom of Wei (A.D. 221-65), says nothing about optimism
but provides comments that, when considered in the light of
archaeological and mythological evidence, enable us to deduce that the
83 Heike monogatari, chap. 6, NKBT 32.409.
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538 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Japanese were already more deeply immersed in the possibilities of the
present than in nostalgia for an ideal past or in longings for a glorious
life after death:
The land of Wa is warm and mild [in climate]. In winter as in summer the
people live on vegetables and go about barefooted. Their houses have rooms;
father and mother, elder and younger sleep separately. They smear their
bodies with pink and scarlet, just as the Chinese use powder. They serve meat
on bamboo and wooden trays, helping themselves with their fingers. When a
person dies, they prepare a single coffin, without an outer one. They cover
the graves with sand to make a mound. When death occurs, mourning is
observed for more than ten days, during which time they do not eat meat.
The head mourners wail and lament while friends sing, dance, and drink
liquor. When the funeral is over, all members of the whole family go into the
water to cleanse themselves in a bath of purification.8
*
The report that the Japanese covered graves with sand to make a
mound would indicate a special reverence for the deceased, but a
study of burial sites of this and the preceding Jomon period offers no
supporting evidence for the view that prayers or offerings were made
at graves after burial.8
s Nor does this Chinese report suggest that the
Japanese of these early times concerned themselves with life after
death or with a Utopian future. It is thought that people were not then
absorbed in questions about either the distant past or the distant
future but in the forward movement of life through seasons and life
cycles. They must have felt that just as growing seasons of the year
alternate with cold seasons of little growth, birth and death precede
and follow the departure of a soul.
The case for a lack of interest in either a dead past or an after-death
future seems, at first glance, harder to make for the years of the Burial
Mound age when so much time and energy were spent in making huge
mounds in which to bury deceased rulers. Especially troublesome is
the old but unconvincing theory that mounds were places for the
worship of ancestors. But it is now felt that they were built for deceased
rulers, not for everyone, and that they were not places where
souls were worshiped as kami that exercised their special power to
produce good harvests or benefit life in other concrete ways. As we
pointed out, mounds were erected by clan heads for several interrelated
purposes: to legitimize and sanctify their authority, to remove
death pollution, and/or to console the souls of deceased predecessors.
84 Wei chih 30: 25b-3ia, Tsunoda and Goodrich, Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 11.
85 Okamoto Isamu, "Genshi shakai no seisan to jujutsu," Genshi oyobi kodai, vol. 1 of Iwanani
kdza: Nihon rekishi (Tokyo, Iwanami shoten, 1975), pp. 103-12.
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OPTIMISM 539
Archaeological findings at burial mound sites provide no evidence that
they were ever places for idolizing past models or future Utopias.86
When doing the backbreaking work of hauling dirt for a huge mound,
laborers must have had little or no interest in the demands of the past
or the promises of the future, concerning themselves only with present
and future possibilities.
Soon after the introduction and spread of Buddhism in the sixth
century, some aristocrats, such as Prince Shotoku, were drawn to the
historic Buddha's message that enlightenment could be achieved only
by freeing oneself from attachments to anything impermanent, including
life itself (see Chapter 7). But in these early times most Japanese
were attracted to visible aspects of the imported faith: to the exotic
sutras and paraphernalia used in intricate ceremonies performed at
impressive temples built in a continental style. At first, the Buddhist
temples - like the burial mounds they gradually replaced - were apparently
valued above all for their sanctification of the clan leader's
descent. But as the priests gained greater understanding of Buddhist
writings, they paid more attention to prayers and rites that might
benefit the clan leaders in other ways: curing an ailing aristocrat,
ending a famine, or quieting the angry soul of a deceased leader who
had been badly treated (see Chapter 3). But nothing found in seventhcentury
inscriptions, poems, or documents gives the impression that
the worship of Buddha, even by aristocratic patrons, was arousing
Japanese interest in doctrines of either continuous deterioration over
time or life in paradise after death. As yet, most Buddhist worship was
meant mainly to improve life of the present in concrete ways.
Nara period optimism
During the century and a half following the Great Reforms of 645,
Japanese aristocratic culture was fundamentally transformed. Under
the spell of widespread fascination with Chinese techniques and learning,
Japan's ruling elite - especially Emperor Shomu and his daughter
who occupied the throne twice - made Buddhism virtually a state religion.
An increasingly large number of aristocrats were attracted to the
Buddhist teachings of "rebirth" in the Pure Land paradise after death,
and were also gaining familiarity with Buddhist sutras that detailed an
inevitable and progressive historical decline for thousands of years to
come. But a study of those two areas of Buddhist thought - both
86 Amakasu Ken, "Kofun no keisei to gijutsu no battatsu," in Genshi oyobi kodai, pp. 274-321.
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54O EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
rooted in pessimism about humanity's present condition - suggests
that historians and poets were still interested mainly in the possibilities
of the present.
As a result of historical research by Inoue Mitsusada, we know that
Nara period aristocrats bowed before statues of Amida Buddha as well
as before representations of the Pure Land paradise and that many
temple compounds of that period contained Amida halls.87
But in
looking at Pure Land Buddhist worship as a whole, Inoue sees two
distinct types: one for helping others (deceased ancestors) achieve
rebirth in the Pure Land, and another for helping oneself obtain rebirth
after death. He concluded that only the first type existed in the
Nara period and that the second did not appear until the ninth or tenth
century. Because the earlier type was meant to benefit the souls of
deceased ancestors, it further enhanced the Buddhist temple function
of honoring souls of the dead, making a temple an even more acceptable
substitute for a burial mound. Pure Land worship was not yet
causing individuals to reject (or be depressed about) life or to become
absorbed in the glories of paradise after death.
One leading Buddhist school (the Kusha) of the Nara period embraced
the Abhidharma kosa which proclaims a doctrine of kalpic
decline, declaring that (i) time moves through one large kalpa after
another, (2) each large kalpa rotates through four middle kalpa (one
each for development, existence, destruction, and emptiness), (3) each
middle kalpa includes twenty small kalpa, and (4) each small kalpa is
divided into improving and deteriorating halves. The vast length of
kalpas is disclosed by the statement that at the beginning of the deteriorating
half of a small kalpa, a person's life expectancy is 80,000 years
but decreases one year every century until, at the end of a deteriorating
half, a person can expect to live no more than 10 years. Because the
sutra claims that world history is now in the deteriorating half of the
twentieth small kalpa of a middle kalpa of existence and that deterioration
affects the whole universe and everything in it (not just life expectancy),
Buddhist students of the sutra came to believe that history will
be subjected to general and progressive decay for a very long time to
come. The Abhidharma kosa delineates three stages of deterioration in
the history of Buddhism itself: (1) the age of true law (shobo), lasting
for one thousand years after the death of Buddha, during which time
sentient beings were able to understand the teachings of Buddha (the
kyo), to practice Buddhist discipline (gyo), and to achieve Buddhist
87 Inoue Mitsusada, Watakushi no kodai shtgaku (Tokyo: Bungei shunju, 1982), pp. 123-42.
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OPTIMISM 541
enlightenment (sho); (2) the age of imitation law (jsoho), the next one
thousand years when people are no longer capable of achieving Buddhist
enlightenment; and (3) the age offinallaw (mappo), a long period
often thousand years or so during which sentient beings will be able to
understand only (simplified) Buddhist teachings.88
Some Japanese aristocrats of the Nara period had become familiar
with the Abhidharma k6sa doctrine concerning the passage of time
and also with the Chinese view that each of the three Buddhist teachings
(sankai kyo) was appropriate to one of the three ages of Buddhist
decline: one-vehicle Buddhism for the age of true law, three-vehicle
Buddhism for the age of imitation law, and "universally correct and
true Buddhism" for the age of final law. In 820 a Buddhist priest by
the name of Keikai wrote a book (the Nihon ryoiki) in which he referred
to the three ages of Buddhist decline and deduced that people
had already entered the age offinallaw.89
A study of chronicles and documents written in the Nara period
indicates, however, that such a pessimistic view of history was held by
only a few Nara aristocrats. Not until Saicho (767-822), the priest who
introduced Tendai Buddhism to Japan, did a known Buddhist writer
claim that humanity was about to enter (or had entered) the age of final
law and that a form of Buddhism appropriate to those desperate times
should be practiced.90
Chronicles written during and covering the
Nara period, especially the Nihon shoki and the Shoku Nihongi, contain
numerous references to Buddhist temples, statues, sutras, and rites;
but they reflect little interest in Pure Land doctrines of salvation after
death or in Buddhist doctrines of inevitable historical decline. Furthermore,
no known chronicle, poem, or document of the period reflects
an assumption that the present is worse than some ideal time in the
past or that the present is another low point in a long and inevitable
process of decay. Instead, the underlying tone is one of optimism
about the possibilities and promise of the present.
This tone has been identified by Maruyama Masao with the old
word nariyuku, appearing frequently in Nara period texts and meaning
something like "the process of becoming."91
The first part of the word
88 As outlined in Ishida Ichiro, "Structure of Gukansho Thought," in Brown and Ishida, The
Future and the Past, pp. 422-6.
89 Nihon ryoi-ki chap. 3, NKBT 70.303; Kyoko Motomichi Nakamura, Miraculous Storiesfrom
the Japanese Buddhist Tradition: The Nihon ryoiki of the Monk Kyokai (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 221.
90 Saicho memorial, Konin 10 (814), Dengyo daishi zenshu (Kyoto: Hieizan toshokan, 1927), vol.
1
> P- 59°; and Delmer Brown, "Pre-Gukansho Historical Writing," in The Future and the Past,
pp. 370-4.
91 Maruyama, "Rekishi ishiki no kosd," pp. 6-15.
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542 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
(naru) was used over and over in ancient myths when referring to the
activities of kami, whether they were creating, procreating, transforming,
or becoming. The second part (yuku) denoted movement through
time. The process is described rather explicitly in an imperial edict
issued in 743: "As long as heaven and earth shall last, blessings will
continue to be received, one after the other [tsugitsugi HI]."*2
Optimism
is expressed somewhat differently in a longer passage found in at least
three Nara period edicts:
Hear ye, an edict proclaimed by an occupant of the Sun Goddess-inherited
throne that was first occupied by an emperor sent down to earth from the
high heavenly plain and then occupied by a succession of Sun Goddessdescended
emperors down to the middle present. This edict is proclaimed in
accordance with kami will and an imperial function that continuously blesses
the state with good governance's
In addition to containing an emphasis on the continuing blessings of
imperial rule, the passage includes the phrase "down to the middle
present" (nakaima ni itaru). Because the character for "present" or
"now" is modified by the one for "middle," we have surmised that the
drafters were referring to a present that stands in a middle position
between the past and the future, to a process of change made by
emperors acting in accord with the will of the kami. Such optimism
about the immediate future helps us understand the lack of interest in,
and rejection of, pessimistic doctrines found in Buddhist sutras on
rebirth in the Pure Land after death or on the inevitability of historical
decay.
Although the power of optimism is detected in the tone and wording
of edicts issued by emperors and empresses, as well as in a general lack
of enthusiasm for Buddhism doctrines of Pure Land paradise and
inevitable decline, it is also expressed in Nara period poems. A notable
example is the one composed by the poet Rasa no Kanamura and
included in the Man'yoshu concerning Emperor Shomu's visit to
Yoshino in the fifth month of 725. Its opening lines are as follows:
Lo! the unsullied stream of the Yoshino,
Thundering through the mountains,
Rushes down the cascades.
In the upper reach the plovers cry incessantly,
In the lower reach the song-frogs call to their mates,
While here and there the palace lords and ladies
92 Shoku Nihongi, Shomu edict, Tempyo i5(743)/5/5, KT 1.172.
93 Shoku Nihcmgi, Mommu edict, Mommu i(697)/2, KT 2.1; Genunei edict, Wado I(78O)/I/II,
KT 2.33; Shomu edict, Jinki 1(724)72/4, KT 2.98-99.
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OPTIMISM 543
Gaily throng the banks;
Enchanted am I beyond words
Whenever I watch the scene.
May it ever be thus - continuous
As the fair creeping vine - for ten thousand ages.
So in awe I pray to the gods of heaven and earth.»*
Post-Nara optimism
For a century or more after the Nara period, Japanese aristocrats were
more deeply affected than ever by Chinese culture and thought. They
became increasingly familiar with Chinese writings in allfields,including
Buddhism, and were therefore influenced by ideas and beliefs that
stood poles apart from traditional optimism about the passage of time.
As already noted, Pure Land Buddhism had by then become a movement
centered on the rebirth of believers in the Pure Land paradise,
not simply on the rebirth of deceased ancestors;95
and Buddhist doctrines
concerning inevitable historical decline figured more prominently
in the religious and literary works of the period, especially after
eleventh-century social disturbances suggested that the final age had
indeed arrived. And yet a close look at what was written during those
troubled times fails to disclose a single historical or military tale that
explains the course of human affairs in terms of a process of deterioration
that cannot be prevented or checked. Noting this and sensing a
strong optimistic tone in the writings of that day, we see that Japanese
intellectuals were not deeply affected by Buddhist doctrines ofprogressive
decay and that their historical outlook was still influenced more
by life-affirming assumptions of growth than by life-denying doctrines
of imported Buddhism.*
The character of the Pure Land movement in the Heian period is
particularly instructive. Inoue's study led him to conclude that participants
in the increasingly active Pure Land form of Buddhism were no
more interested in their own rebirth in Pure Land than in the rebirth
of deceased ancestors. But aristocrats who joined the movement and
who were influenced by Genshin's (1042-17) Ojo yoshu (Teachings
essential to rebirth), apparently thought of Pure Land practices as
contemplative religious activity in tune with the ascetic spirit of the
times, not simply the best way to ensure rebirth in Pure Land after
death.97 The splendor of worship at Fujiwara no Michinaga's great
94 Man'yoshu, pp. IOO-I. 95 Inoue, Watakushi no kodai shigaku, p. 125.
96 See Brown, "Pre-Gukansko Historical Writing," pp. 374-419.
97 Inoue, Watakushi no kodai shigaku, p. 131.
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544 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Pure Land temple (the Hojo-ji, founded in 1020) was described at
length in the Eiga monogatari and in such terms as these:
The repentance rites were about to begin as [the nuns] arrived at the Amida
Buddha hall. They mounted the steps in high spirits and gazed at the sacred
images, shining with innumerable rays of light, which seemed to fill all
worlds in the ten directions. Then they recalled these words from Ojoyoshu:
"They kneel on the steps adorned with the seven treasures, gaze at the holy
form of a myriad virtues, listen to the doctrine of the one truth, and enter the
sea of Fugen's vows. Tears of joyflowfrom their eyes; adoration penetrates to
their very marrow."**
The opening sentence of that same chapter implies that worshipers of
Amida Buddha at the Hojo-ji felt they were seeing and experiencing
the glories of Pure Land then and there. Thus the new preoccupation
with rebirth does not seem to have been so much a product of pessimism
about the present as a new way of enriching life, now and in the
immediate future.
In later years of Pure Land history, especially at the time of Shinran,
worshipers were urged to recognize the impermanence of life as well as
its essential filth and misery: If they actually saw life in this polluted
world as it really was, they would be more apt to develop faith in the
saving power of Amida Buddha. The typical Pure Land art form of the
period was that of a "two-river white line" (nika byakudo) painting
divided into three sections: realistic representations of life in this miserable
world (edo) at the bottom, two treacherous streams (one of
water and one of fire) crossed by a narrow white road in the middle,
and a glorious picture of the Pure Land (jodo) at the top.99 Paintings of
this type were meant to help a Pure Land believer realize how repulsive
this world is and to see that only by crossing the white line of
simple faith could he or she hope to enter Amida Buddha's paradise
after death. Shinran's world-denying teachings, so vividly represented
in the "two-river white line" paintings, were deemed especially appropriate
to the age of final law when the whole cosmos and everything in
it, including human beings, were reaching an advanced stage of deterioration,
one in which no individual had any power to achieve salvation
except by absolute faith in the vow of Amida to lead the faithful
into paradise at the time of death.
At no other period in Japanese history did some individuals so
firmly and clearly reject life, seeing nothing good in the present and
98 McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, vol. 2, pp. 573-4.
99 See the painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art, reproduced in Bukkyo kaiga, vol. 1 of
Zaigai Nihon no Mho (Tokyo: Mainichi shimbunsha, 1980), no. 34.
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OPTIMISM 545
nothing hopeful about the future except rebirth in a Buddhist paradise
in the next life. But such individuals were apparently few in number.
And by the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when Pure Land Buddhism
had become a popular religious movement, believers were not
drawn so much to the glories of the Pure Land after death as to the
excitement of Pure Land congregational life in the present. Ienaga
Saburo wrote a classic study, the title of which may be translated "The
development of the doctrine of denial in Japanese thought," in which
he concludes that the Buddhist doctrine of denial was overwhelmed in
the history of Japanese thought by traditional Japanese optimism.100
As Pure Land temples spread to all regions of Japan, becoming a
popular religious movement, their religious activities gravitated toward
memorial services for deceased ancestors of Pure Land believers.
Pure Land temples are still numerous and strong in present-day Japan,
but the most popular Buddhist movement is the Soka Gakkai, a
sect that promises health, wealth, and happiness now.
The post-Nara reaction of Japanese writers to Buddhist doctrines of
inevitable historical decline is also instructive. In the great debate that
Saicho (767-822), the founder of Tendai Buddhism, had with priests at
the old Nara capital, Saicho argued that Tendai (or the Great Vehicle
Buddhism of the Lotus Sutra) was superior to all other Buddhist teachings
because it was suitable for the approaching age of final law.101
Although court aristocrats became more familiar with the doctrine of
kalpic decline during the remaining centuries of the Heian period,
especially after 1052 when the age of final law was said to have begun,
their writings indicate that they were not particularly depressed about
the present and that they were still optimistic about the possibilities of
future improvement. The second great historical tale, the Okagami written
after history was thought to have entered its last and most
deteriorated age, while Japanese social and political life was disintegrating
and while the aristocratic age was giving way to a military one made
references to the doctrine of kalpic decline.102
But its stories
about the past were not written to show that Japanese history was
moving toward social decay and human hopelessness.
Telling evidence of the persistence of optimism is found in the
Gukansho. Written by a Buddhist priest who was familiar with the
Buddhist doctrine of kalpic decline, this classical historical treatise
attempted to show how the current political troubles could and should
100 Ienaga Saburo, Nihon shiso shi ni okeru hitei no ronri no hattatsu, vol. 10 of Sosho macho no
fukko (Tokyo: Shinsensha, 1969).
101 Brown, "Pre-Gukanshd Historical Writing," pp. 371-2. 102 Okagami, pp. 235-6.
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546 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
be resolved. The author, Jien (i 155-1225), had been a four-time
holder of the highest Buddhist position of all: abbot of the powerful
Tendai sect. His interpretation is rooted in the assumption that there
had been successive periods of deterioration in Japanese history. But
even this Buddhist historian, steeped in Buddhist thought and writing
at a very difficult time for himself and his house, was obviously far
more interested in periods of temporary improvement - high points in
the history of Buddhism, his Fujiwara clan, and finally his Kujo
house - than in periods of sharp decline. He was especially optimistic
about the immediate future, for which time he claimed the native kami
had created a special form of rule in which Jien's own nephew would
hold the two most powerful positions in the land: regent for the emperor,
and shogun of the military government. He expressed his optimism
about the immediate future as follows:
The Sun Goddess enshrined at Ise and the Great Illuminating kami enshrined
at Kasuga certainly consulted together and decided (gijo) [how imperial rule
was to be supported] in the distant past. And the Great Hachiman Bodhisattva
and the Great Illuminating Kami of Kasuga consulted together and
decided [how imperial rule is to be supported] in the present. Thus the state
was, and is to be, maintained. It is clear that the kami decision for these final
reigns of the present, made after the state had been buffeted this way and
that, requires that the sovereign have a guardian who has the power of both
learning and military might.I0
J
In the closing section of the Gukansho's summary chapter, Jien states
that as bad as the situation had become, "substantial improvement"
can be achieved if persons who have enough ability (kiryo) to understand
the principle created by kami for the immediate future are
placed in control of state affairs.1O
* Because Jien made a remarkably
consistent attempt to show that history - driven this way and that by a
complex interplay of Principles - was moving along a "single road"
toward future improvement, it was decided that the translation and
study of the Gukansho should be entitled The Future and the Past. So
even in this historical interpretation, written by a Buddhist priest who
was familiar with and influenced by the Buddhist doctrine of kalpic
decline, and written at a time of crisis in the affairs of state, the spirit
of optimism prevailed.
The author of the next interpretative history, Kitabatake Chikafusa
(1293-1354) who wrote the Jinno shotoki in 1339, was even more
optimistic than Jien. He was unable to accept Jien's statement that
103 Brown and Ishida, The Future and the Past, p. 228 (translation revised). 104 Ibid., p. 239.
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OPTIMISM 547
Japan's imperial line would end after the one hundredth reign, arguing
that one hundred meant an indefinitely large number.I0
5 Japanese
historical works were never again shaped by the pessimism of belief of
kalpic decline and continued to reflect optimism about the future of
the human condition.
The significance of the three characteristics of historical thought discussed
in this chapter cannot be fully understood without considering
the effect each had on the other two. A general overview of the interaction
suggests that vitalism (rooted in beliefs about kami power) is the
most basic of the three. But that quality was not taken up first because
it was genealogical concerns (linealism) that had motivated officials to
compile chronicles and that gave these chronicles their essential form
and content. Nevertheless, belief in the divinity and continuity of the
imperial line (and of the descent lines of other important clans) was
firmly grounded in an ancient and lasting belief in the mysterious,
creative power of kami. This is made clear in the first mythological
sections of Japan's earliest extant chronicles in which myths were
obviously selected and subjected to revision in order to sanctify further
the origin and continuity of the imperial line. Optimism, the third
characteristic, was also rooted in beliefs about the life-giving and lifeenriching
native kami. Jien, a high-ranking and influential Buddhist
priest, even stated that a promising political plan for the immediate
future had been created by the most powerful and prestigious lifegiving
ancestral kami of Japan. Thus the three characteristics had a
deeper influence on the historical consciousness because they reinforced
one another.
Admittedly, the three characteristics (and others not considered
here) can be found in other cultural traditions. But I submit that all
three, separately and in combination, were especially strong and persistent
in the early evolution of Japanese historical consciousness: Official
chronicles were motivated and molded by lineal concerns; belief in
kami origins, kami creativity, and kami worship provided a vitalistic
tone to writings about the past; and preoccupation with the growth
dimension of life even made Jien - a thirteenth-century Buddhist writing
a history at a time of crisis - quite sure that the immediate future
would be better than the present. The persistence and power of these
characteristics in a period when Japanese intellectuals were deeply
105 Jinno shotoki NKBT 87.66, translated by Paul H. Varley, A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns:
Jinno Shotoki of Kilabaiake Chikafusa (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), p. 84.
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548 EVOLUTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
immersed in Chinese learning indicate that they had come from the
very taproots of Japanese culture. Instead of being influenced by a
Chinese-style absorption in the rise and fall of dynasties, Japanese
aristocrats were preoccupied with a single line of sovereigns created by
the Sun Goddess. Instead of assuming that the course of human affairs
was shaped by the moral and immoral actions of humans as propounded
in the Confucian Classics, ancient chronicles made vitalistic
strength (ikioi) a major historical determinant. And instead of accepting
Buddhist doctrines of inevitable decline, poets and chroniclers
were buoyed by a widespread assumption that the future would be
better than the present.
Evidence for this study has been taken almost exclusively from
materials written by members of Japan's ruling elite, men and women
who did not concern themselves with the thoughts and beliefs of
commoners. We therefore have no direct way of knowing whether
linealism, vitalism, and optimism had any relevance to what a villager
thought or felt about the passage of time. Probably he or she was not
even aware of what was being written and read at the imperial court
and undoubtedly could have cared less about aristocratic affirmations
of genealogical descent, worship of ancestral kami, or talk about rebirth
in some Buddhist heaven. Linealism (arising from the preoccupations
of rulers) probably had not yet worked its way down into the
consciousness of people at the base of society. But clearly, vitalism and
optimism (arising from deep and popular belief in the power of the
kami) had worked their way up into the consciousness of those aristocrats
who wrote poems and stories and who compiled anthologies,
legal codes, gazetteers, and chronicles.
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