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When you receive the Imperial Commands fail not to obey
scrupulously. The lord is Heaven; the vassal, Earth. Heaven
overspreads; Earth upbears. When this is so, the four seasons follow
their due course, and the powers of Nature develop their efficiency.
If the Earth attempt to overspread, Heaven falls in ruin. Hence when
the lord speaks, the vassal hearkens; when the superior acts, the
inferior yields compliance. When, therefore, you receive an Imperial
Command, fail not to carry it out scrupulously. If there be want or
care in this respect, a catastrophe naturally ensues.

IV. Ministers and functionaries should make decorous behavior their
guiding principle, for decorous behavior is the main factor in
governing the people. If superiors do not behave with decorum,
inferiors are disorderly; if inferiors are wanting in proper
behaviour, offences are inevitable. Thus it is that when lord and
vassal behave with propriety, the distinctions of rank are not
confused; and when the people behave with propriety, the government
of the State proceeds of itself.

V. Refraining from gluttony and abandoning covetous desires, deal
impartially with the suits brought before you. Of complaints
preferred by the people there are a thousand in one day: how many,
then, will there be in a series of years? Should he that decides
suits at law make gain his ordinary motive and hear causes with a
view to receiving bribes, then will the suits of the rich man be like
a stone flung into water,* while the plaints of the poor will
resemble water cast on a stone. In such circumstances, the poor man
will not know whither to betake himself, and the duty of a minister
will not be discharged.

*That is to say, they will encounter no opposition.

VI. Chastise that which is evil and encourage that which is good.
This was the excellent rule of antiquity. Conceal not, therefore, the
good qualities of others, and fail not to correct that which is wrong
when you see it. Flatterers and deceivers are a sharp weapon for the
overthrow of the State, and a pointed sword for the destruction of
the people. Sycophants are also fond, when they meet, of dilating to
their superiors on the errors of their inferiors; to their inferiors,
they censure the faults of their superiors. Men of this kind are all
wanting in fidelity to their lord, and in benevolence towards the
people. From such an origin great civil disturbances arise.

VII. Let every man have his own charge, and let not the spheres of
duty be confused. When wise men are entrusted with office, the sound
of praise arises. If unprincipled men hold office, disasters and
tumults are multiplied. In this world, few are born with knowledge:
wisdom is the product of earnest meditation. In all things, whether
great or small, find the right man, and they will surely be well
managed: on all occasions, be they urgent or the reverse, meet with
but a wise man and they will of themselves be amenable. In this way
will the State be eternal and the Temples of the Earth and of Grain*
will be free from danger. Therefore did the wise sovereigns of
antiquity seek the man to fill the office, and not the office for the
sake of the man.

*A Chinese expression for the Imperial house.

VIII. Let the ministers and functionaries attend the Court early in
the morning, and retire late. The business of the State does not
admit of remissness, and the whole day is hardly enough for its
accomplishment. If, therefore, the attendance at Court is late,
emergencies cannot be met: if officials retire soon, the work cannot
be completed.

IX. Good faith is the foundation of right. In everything let there be
good faith, for in it there surely consists the good and the bad,
success and failure. If the lord and the vassal observe good faith
one with another, what is there which cannot be accomplished? If the
lord and the vassal do not observe good faith towards one another,
everything without exception ends in failure.

X. Let us cease from wrath, and refrain from angry looks. Nor let us
be resentful when others differ from us. For all men have hearts, and
each heart has its own leanings. Their right is our wrong, and our
right is their wrong. We are not unquestionably sages nor are they
unquestionably fools. Both of us are simply ordinary men. How can
anyone lay down a rule by which to distinguish right from wrong? For
we are all, one with another, wise and foolish like a ring which has
no end. Therefore, although others give way to anger, let us, on the
contrary, dread our own faults, and though we alone may be in the
right, let us follow the multitude and act like them.

XI. Give clear appreciation to merit and demerit, and deal out to
each its sure reward or punishment. In these days, reward does not
attend upon merit, nor punishment upon crime. Ye high functionaries
who have charge of public affairs, let it be your task to make clear
rewards and punishments.

XII. Let not the provincial authorities or the kuni no miyatsuko levy
exactions on the people. In a country there are not two lords; the
people have not two masters. The sovereign is the master of the
people of the whole country. The officials to whom he gives charge
are all his vassals. How can they, as well as the Government, presume
to levy taxes on the people?

XIII. Let all persons entrusted with office attend equally to their
functions. Owing to illness or despatch on missions their work may
sometimes be neglected. But whenever they are able to attend to
business, let them be as accommodating as though they had cognizance
of it from before, and let them not hinder public affairs on the
score of not having had to do with them.

XIV. Ministers and functionaries, be not envious. If we envy others,
they, in turn, will envy us. The evils of envy know no limit. If
others excel us in intelligence, it gives us no pleasure; if they
surpass us in ability, we are envious. Therefore it is not until
after the lapse of five hundred years that we at last meet with a
wise man, and even in a thousand years we hardly obtain one sage. But
if wise men and sages be not found, how shall the country be
governed?

XV. To turn away from that which is private and to set one's face
towards that which is public this is the path of a minister. If a man
is influenced by private motives, he will assuredly feel resentment;
if he is influenced by resentment, he will assuredly fail to act
harmoniously with others; if he fails to act harmoniously with
others, he will assuredly sacrifice the public interest to his
private feelings. When resentment arises, it interferes with order
and is subversive of law. Therefore, in the first clause it was said
that superiors and inferiors should agree together. The purport is
the same as this.

XVI. Let the employment of the people in forced labour be at
seasonable times. This is an ancient and excellent rule. Let them be
employed, therefore, in the winter months when they have leisure. But
from spring to autumn, when they are engaged in agriculture or with
the mulberry trees, the people should not be employed. For if they do
not attend to agriculture, what will they have to eat? If they do not
attend to the mulberry trees, what will they do for clothing?

XVII. Decisions on important matters should not be rendered by one
person alone: they should be discussed by many. But small matters
being of less consequence, need not be consulted about by a number of
people. It is only in the discussion of weighty affairs, when there
is an apprehension of miscarriage, that matters should be arranged in
concert with others so as to arrive at the right conclusion.*

*The above is taken almost verbatim from Aston's translation of the
Nihongi.

For a document compiled at the beginning of the seventh century these
seventeen ethical precepts merit much approbation. With the exception
of the doctrine of expediency, enunciated at the close of the tenth
article, the code of Shotoku might be taken for guide by any
community in any age. But the prince as a moral reformer* cannot be
credited with originality; his merit consists in having studied
Confucianism and Buddhism intelligently. The political purport of his
code is more remarkable. In the whole seventeen articles there is
nothing to inculcate worship of the Kami or observance of Shinto
rites. Again, whereas, according to the Japanese creed, the sovereign
power is derived from the Imperial ancestor, the latter is nowhere
alluded to. The seventh article makes the eternity of the State and
the security of the Imperial house depend upon wise administration by
well-selected officials, but says nothing of hereditary rights. How
is such a vital omission to be interpreted, except on the supposition
that Shotoku, who had witnessed the worst abuses incidental to the
hereditary system of the uji, intended by this code to enter a solemn
protest against that system?

*It is a curious fact that tradition represents this prince as having
been born at the door of a stable. Hence his original name, Umayado
(Stable-door).

Further, the importance attached to the people* is a very prominent
feature of the code. Thus, in Article IV, it is stated that "when the
people behave with propriety the government of the State proceeds of
itself;" Article V speaks of "complaints preferred by the people;"
Article VI refers to "the overthrow of the State" and "the
destruction of the people;" Article VII emphasises "the eternity of
the State;" that "the sovereign is the master of the people of the
whole country;" that "the officials to whom he gives charge are all
his vassals," and that these officials, whether miyatsuko or
provincial authorities, must not "presume, as well as the Government,
to levy taxes on the people." All those expressions amount to a
distinct condemnation of the uji system, under which the only people
directly subject to the sovereign were those of the minashiro, and
those who had been naturalized or otherwise specially assigned, all
the rest being practically the property of the uji, and the only
lands paying direct taxes to the Throne were the domains of the
miyake.

*The word used is hyakusho, which ultimately came to be applied to
farmers only.

Forty-two years later (A.D.