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All the amusements mentioned in previous sections
continued to be followed in this era, and football is spoken of as
having inaugurated the afterwards epoch-making friendship between
Prince Naka and Kamatari. It was not played in the Occidental manner,
however. The game consisted in kicking a ball from player to player
without letting it fall. This was apparently a Chinese innovation.
Here, also, mention may be made of thermal springs. Their sanitary
properties were recognized, and visits were paid to them by invalids.
The most noted were those of Dogo, in Iyo, and Arima, in Settsu. The
Emperor Jomei spent several months at each of these, and Prince
Shotoku caused to be erected at Dogo a stone monument bearing an
inscription to attest the curative virtues of the water.
CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE
That Buddhism obtained a firm footing among the upper classes during
the first century after its introduction must be attributed in no
small measure to the fact that the throne was twice occupied by
Empresses in that interval. The highly decorative aspects of the
creed appealing to the emotional side of woman's nature, these
Imperial ladies encouraged Buddhist propagandism with earnest
munificence. But the mass of the people remained, for the most part,
outside the pale. They continued to believe in the Kami and to
worship them. Thus, when a terribly destructive earthquake* occured
in 599, it was to the Kami of earthquakes that prayers were offered
at his seven shrines in the seven home provinces (Kinai), and not to
the Merciful Buddha, though the saving grace of the latter had then
been preached for nearly a cycle. The first appeal to the foreign
deity in connexion with natural calamity was in the opening year
(642) of the Empress Kogyoku's reign when, in the presence of a
devastating drought, sacrifices of horses and cattle to the Shinto
Kami, changes of the market-places,** and prayers to the river gods
having all failed to bring relief, an imposing Buddhist service was
held in the south court of the Great Temple. "The images of Buddha,
of the bosatsu, and of the Four Heavenly Kings were magnificently
adorned; a multitude of priests read the Mahayana Sutra, and the
o-omi, Soga no Emishi, held a censer, burned incense, and prayed."
But there was no success; and not until the Empress herself had made
a progress to the source of a river and worshipped towards the four
quarters, did abundant rain fall.
*Only three earthquakes are recorded up to the year A.D. 645, and the
second alone (A.D. 599) is described as destructive.
**This was a Chinese custom, as was also the sacrificial rite
mentioned in the same context.
Such an incident cannot have contributed to popularize the Indian
creed. The people at large adhered to their traditional cult and were
easily swayed by superstitions. The first half of the seventh century
was marked by abnormal occurrences well calculated to disturb men's
minds. There were comets (twice); there was a meteor of large
dimensions; there were eclipses of the sun and moon; there were
occultations of Venus; there was snow in July and hail "as large as
peaches" in May, and there was a famine (621) when old people ate
roots of herbs and died by the wayside, when infants at the breast
perished with their mothers, and when thieves and robbers defied
authority. It is not, perhaps, surprising in such circumstances, and
when witches and wizards abounded, that people fell into strange
moods, and were persuaded to regard a caterpillar as the "insect of
the everlasting world," to worship it, and to throw away their
valuables in the belief that riches and perpetual youth would be thus
won. A miyatsuko, by name Kawakatsu, had the courage to kill the
designing preacher of this extravagance, and the moral epidemic was
thus stayed.
ENGRAVING: ONE OF THE STATUES OF "SHITENNO" IN THE KAIDAN-IN, TODAIJI
(Tembyo Sculpture, Eighth Century)
ENGRAVING: UTENSILS USED IN THE TEA CEREMONY (CHA-NO-YU)
CHAPTER XV
THE DAIKA REFORMS
THE THIRTY-SIXTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR KOTOKU (A.D. 645-654)
AFTER the fall of the Soga and the abdication of the Empress Kogyoku,
her son, Prince Naka, would have been the natural successor, and such
was her own expressed wish. But the prince's procedure was largely
regulated by Kamatari, who, alike in the prelude and in the sequel of
this crisis, proved himself one of the greatest statesmen Japan ever
produced. He saw that the Soga influence, though broken, was not
wholly shattered, and he understood that the great administrative
reform which he contemplated might be imperilled were the throne
immediately occupied by a prince on whose hands the blood of the Soga
chief was still warm. Therefore he advised Prince Naka to stand aside
in favour of his maternal uncle, Prince Karu, who could be trusted to
co-operate loyally in the work of reform and whose connexion with the
Soga overthrow had been less conspicuous. But to reach Prince Karu it
was necessary to pass over the head of another prince, Furubito,
Naka's half-brother, who had the full sympathy of the remnant of the
Soga clan, his mother having been a daughter of the great Umako. The
throne was therefore offered to him. But since the offer followed,
instead of preceding the Empress' approval of Prince Karu, Furubito
recognized the farce, and knowing that, though he might rule in
defiance of the Kamatari faction, he could not hope to rule with its
consent, he threw away his sword and declared his intention of
entering religion.
Very soon the Buddhist monastery at Yoshino, where he received the
tonsure, became a rallying point for the Soga partisans, and a war
for the succession seemed imminent. Naka, however, now Prince
Imperial, was not a man to dally with such obstacles. He promptly
sent to Yoshino a force of soldiers who killed Furubito with his
children and permitted his consorts to strangle themselves. Prince
Naka's name must go down to all generations as that of a great
reformer, but it is also associated with a terrible injustice. Too
readily crediting a slanderous charge brought against his
father-in-law, Kurayamada, who had stood at his right hand in the
great coup d'etat of 645, he despatched a force to seize the alleged
traitor. Kurayamada fled to a temple, and there, declaring that he
would "leave the world, still cherishing fidelity in his bosom," he
committed suicide, his wife and seven children sharing his fate.
Subsequent examination of his effects established his innocence, and
his daughter, consort of Prince Naka, died of grief.
THE DAIKA, OR "GREAT CHANGE"
Not for these things, however, but for sweeping reforms in the
administration of the empire is the reign of Kotoku memorable. Prince
Naka and Kamatari, during the long period of their intimate
intercourse prior to the deed of blood in the great hall of audience,
had fully matured their estimates of the Sui and Tang civilization as
revealed in documents and information carried to Japan by priests,
literati, and students, who, since the establishment of Buddhism, had
paid many visits to China. They appreciated that the system
prevailing in their own country from time immemorial had developed
abuses which were sapping the strength of the nation, and in sweeping
the Soga from the path to the throne, their ambition had been to gain
an eminence from which the new civilization might be authoritatively
proclaimed.
Speaking broadly, their main objects were to abolish the system of
hereditary office-holders; to differentiate aristocratic titles from
official ranks; to bring the whole mass of the people into direct
subjection to the Throne, and to establish the Imperial right of
ownership in all the land throughout the empire. What these changes
signified and with what tact and wisdom the reformers proceeded, will
be clearly understood as the story unfolds itself. Spectacular effect
was enlisted as the first ally. A coronation ceremony of
unprecedented magnificence took place. High officials, girt with
golden quivers, stood on either side of the dais forming the throne,
and all the great functionaries--omi, muraji, and miyatsuko--together
with representatives of the 180 hereditary corporations (be) filed
past, making obeisance. The title of "Empress Dowager" was conferred
for the first time on Kogyoku, who had abdicated; Prince Naka was
made Prince Imperial; the head of the great uji of Abe was nominated
minister of the Left (sa-daijiri); Kurayamada, of the Soga-uji, who
had shared the dangers of the conspiracy against Emishi and Iruka,
became minister of the Right (u-daijiri), and Kamatari himself
received the post of minister of the Interior (nai-daijin), being
invested with the right to be consulted on all matters whether of
statecraft or of official personnel.
These designations, "minister of the Left"*, "minister of the Right,"
and "minister of the Interior," were new in Japan.** Hitherto, there
had been o-omi and o-muraji, who stood between the Throne and the two
great classes of uji, the o-omi and the o-muraji receiving
instructions direct from the sovereign, and the two classes of uji
acknowledging no control except that of the o-omi and the o-muraji.
But whereas the personal status of Kurayamada was only omi (not
o-omi), and the personal status of Kamatari, only muraji (not
o-muraji), neither was required, in his new capacity, to take
instructions from any save the Emperor, nor did any one of the three
high dignitaries nominally represent this or that congeries of uji. A
simultaneous innovation was the appointment of a Buddhist priest,
Bin, and a literatus, Kuromaro, to be "national doctors." These men
had spent some years at the Tang Court and were well versed in
Chinese systems.
*The left takes precedence of the right in Japan.
**The offices were borrowed from the Tang system of China a remark
which applies to nearly all the innovations of the epoch.
The next step taken was to assemble the ministers under a patriarchal
tree, and, in the presence of the Emperor, the Empress Dowager, and
the Prince Imperial, to pronounce, in the names of the Kami of heaven
and the Kami of earth--the Tenshin and the Chigi--a solemn
imprecation on rulers who attempted double-hearted methods of
government, and on vassals guilty of treachery in the service of
their sovereign.
continued to be followed in this era, and football is spoken of as
having inaugurated the afterwards epoch-making friendship between
Prince Naka and Kamatari. It was not played in the Occidental manner,
however. The game consisted in kicking a ball from player to player
without letting it fall. This was apparently a Chinese innovation.
Here, also, mention may be made of thermal springs. Their sanitary
properties were recognized, and visits were paid to them by invalids.
The most noted were those of Dogo, in Iyo, and Arima, in Settsu. The
Emperor Jomei spent several months at each of these, and Prince
Shotoku caused to be erected at Dogo a stone monument bearing an
inscription to attest the curative virtues of the water.
CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE
That Buddhism obtained a firm footing among the upper classes during
the first century after its introduction must be attributed in no
small measure to the fact that the throne was twice occupied by
Empresses in that interval. The highly decorative aspects of the
creed appealing to the emotional side of woman's nature, these
Imperial ladies encouraged Buddhist propagandism with earnest
munificence. But the mass of the people remained, for the most part,
outside the pale. They continued to believe in the Kami and to
worship them. Thus, when a terribly destructive earthquake* occured
in 599, it was to the Kami of earthquakes that prayers were offered
at his seven shrines in the seven home provinces (Kinai), and not to
the Merciful Buddha, though the saving grace of the latter had then
been preached for nearly a cycle. The first appeal to the foreign
deity in connexion with natural calamity was in the opening year
(642) of the Empress Kogyoku's reign when, in the presence of a
devastating drought, sacrifices of horses and cattle to the Shinto
Kami, changes of the market-places,** and prayers to the river gods
having all failed to bring relief, an imposing Buddhist service was
held in the south court of the Great Temple. "The images of Buddha,
of the bosatsu, and of the Four Heavenly Kings were magnificently
adorned; a multitude of priests read the Mahayana Sutra, and the
o-omi, Soga no Emishi, held a censer, burned incense, and prayed."
But there was no success; and not until the Empress herself had made
a progress to the source of a river and worshipped towards the four
quarters, did abundant rain fall.
*Only three earthquakes are recorded up to the year A.D. 645, and the
second alone (A.D. 599) is described as destructive.
**This was a Chinese custom, as was also the sacrificial rite
mentioned in the same context.
Such an incident cannot have contributed to popularize the Indian
creed. The people at large adhered to their traditional cult and were
easily swayed by superstitions. The first half of the seventh century
was marked by abnormal occurrences well calculated to disturb men's
minds. There were comets (twice); there was a meteor of large
dimensions; there were eclipses of the sun and moon; there were
occultations of Venus; there was snow in July and hail "as large as
peaches" in May, and there was a famine (621) when old people ate
roots of herbs and died by the wayside, when infants at the breast
perished with their mothers, and when thieves and robbers defied
authority. It is not, perhaps, surprising in such circumstances, and
when witches and wizards abounded, that people fell into strange
moods, and were persuaded to regard a caterpillar as the "insect of
the everlasting world," to worship it, and to throw away their
valuables in the belief that riches and perpetual youth would be thus
won. A miyatsuko, by name Kawakatsu, had the courage to kill the
designing preacher of this extravagance, and the moral epidemic was
thus stayed.
ENGRAVING: ONE OF THE STATUES OF "SHITENNO" IN THE KAIDAN-IN, TODAIJI
(Tembyo Sculpture, Eighth Century)
ENGRAVING: UTENSILS USED IN THE TEA CEREMONY (CHA-NO-YU)
CHAPTER XV
THE DAIKA REFORMS
THE THIRTY-SIXTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR KOTOKU (A.D. 645-654)
AFTER the fall of the Soga and the abdication of the Empress Kogyoku,
her son, Prince Naka, would have been the natural successor, and such
was her own expressed wish. But the prince's procedure was largely
regulated by Kamatari, who, alike in the prelude and in the sequel of
this crisis, proved himself one of the greatest statesmen Japan ever
produced. He saw that the Soga influence, though broken, was not
wholly shattered, and he understood that the great administrative
reform which he contemplated might be imperilled were the throne
immediately occupied by a prince on whose hands the blood of the Soga
chief was still warm. Therefore he advised Prince Naka to stand aside
in favour of his maternal uncle, Prince Karu, who could be trusted to
co-operate loyally in the work of reform and whose connexion with the
Soga overthrow had been less conspicuous. But to reach Prince Karu it
was necessary to pass over the head of another prince, Furubito,
Naka's half-brother, who had the full sympathy of the remnant of the
Soga clan, his mother having been a daughter of the great Umako. The
throne was therefore offered to him. But since the offer followed,
instead of preceding the Empress' approval of Prince Karu, Furubito
recognized the farce, and knowing that, though he might rule in
defiance of the Kamatari faction, he could not hope to rule with its
consent, he threw away his sword and declared his intention of
entering religion.
Very soon the Buddhist monastery at Yoshino, where he received the
tonsure, became a rallying point for the Soga partisans, and a war
for the succession seemed imminent. Naka, however, now Prince
Imperial, was not a man to dally with such obstacles. He promptly
sent to Yoshino a force of soldiers who killed Furubito with his
children and permitted his consorts to strangle themselves. Prince
Naka's name must go down to all generations as that of a great
reformer, but it is also associated with a terrible injustice. Too
readily crediting a slanderous charge brought against his
father-in-law, Kurayamada, who had stood at his right hand in the
great coup d'etat of 645, he despatched a force to seize the alleged
traitor. Kurayamada fled to a temple, and there, declaring that he
would "leave the world, still cherishing fidelity in his bosom," he
committed suicide, his wife and seven children sharing his fate.
Subsequent examination of his effects established his innocence, and
his daughter, consort of Prince Naka, died of grief.
THE DAIKA, OR "GREAT CHANGE"
Not for these things, however, but for sweeping reforms in the
administration of the empire is the reign of Kotoku memorable. Prince
Naka and Kamatari, during the long period of their intimate
intercourse prior to the deed of blood in the great hall of audience,
had fully matured their estimates of the Sui and Tang civilization as
revealed in documents and information carried to Japan by priests,
literati, and students, who, since the establishment of Buddhism, had
paid many visits to China. They appreciated that the system
prevailing in their own country from time immemorial had developed
abuses which were sapping the strength of the nation, and in sweeping
the Soga from the path to the throne, their ambition had been to gain
an eminence from which the new civilization might be authoritatively
proclaimed.
Speaking broadly, their main objects were to abolish the system of
hereditary office-holders; to differentiate aristocratic titles from
official ranks; to bring the whole mass of the people into direct
subjection to the Throne, and to establish the Imperial right of
ownership in all the land throughout the empire. What these changes
signified and with what tact and wisdom the reformers proceeded, will
be clearly understood as the story unfolds itself. Spectacular effect
was enlisted as the first ally. A coronation ceremony of
unprecedented magnificence took place. High officials, girt with
golden quivers, stood on either side of the dais forming the throne,
and all the great functionaries--omi, muraji, and miyatsuko--together
with representatives of the 180 hereditary corporations (be) filed
past, making obeisance. The title of "Empress Dowager" was conferred
for the first time on Kogyoku, who had abdicated; Prince Naka was
made Prince Imperial; the head of the great uji of Abe was nominated
minister of the Left (sa-daijiri); Kurayamada, of the Soga-uji, who
had shared the dangers of the conspiracy against Emishi and Iruka,
became minister of the Right (u-daijiri), and Kamatari himself
received the post of minister of the Interior (nai-daijin), being
invested with the right to be consulted on all matters whether of
statecraft or of official personnel.
These designations, "minister of the Left"*, "minister of the Right,"
and "minister of the Interior," were new in Japan.** Hitherto, there
had been o-omi and o-muraji, who stood between the Throne and the two
great classes of uji, the o-omi and the o-muraji receiving
instructions direct from the sovereign, and the two classes of uji
acknowledging no control except that of the o-omi and the o-muraji.
But whereas the personal status of Kurayamada was only omi (not
o-omi), and the personal status of Kamatari, only muraji (not
o-muraji), neither was required, in his new capacity, to take
instructions from any save the Emperor, nor did any one of the three
high dignitaries nominally represent this or that congeries of uji. A
simultaneous innovation was the appointment of a Buddhist priest,
Bin, and a literatus, Kuromaro, to be "national doctors." These men
had spent some years at the Tang Court and were well versed in
Chinese systems.
*The left takes precedence of the right in Japan.
**The offices were borrowed from the Tang system of China a remark
which applies to nearly all the innovations of the epoch.
The next step taken was to assemble the ministers under a patriarchal
tree, and, in the presence of the Emperor, the Empress Dowager, and
the Prince Imperial, to pronounce, in the names of the Kami of heaven
and the Kami of earth--the Tenshin and the Chigi--a solemn
imprecation on rulers who attempted double-hearted methods of
government, and on vassals guilty of treachery in the service of
their sovereign.
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