Lecture 9—Japanese History to 1467 AD
Japanese Origins and the Yayoi Revolution:
Pre-Historic Japan: The earliest indication of humans dates from 30,000 BC, Pottery from 10,000 (the oldest in the world), and Jomon style (cord-pattern pottery) from 8,000 BC. This was a semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer society with limited horticulture.
Yayoi Culture: 300 BC. The Yayoi culture (which had a distinct hard, pale orange pottery) receives agriculture, bronze working, and iron working all simultaneously from Korea. By the first century AD, states emerged fighting for the best land. By the third century, a hegemony over these states emerged.
Tomb Culture, the Yamato State, and Korea: 300-600 AD, a tomb culture which copied Korean models developed in Japan. Japan emerges in Chinese chronicles of the time as a set of regional aristocracies pledging fealty to a 'great king' who dwelled on the Yamato plain (where modern Osaka lies). The Great Kings awarded Korean style titles to the major aristocrats. This state was based on Western Honshu and Northern Kyuushu.
The Uji: The main unit of aristocratic society was the extended family, the Uji. Groups of specialist workers and peasants known as he were attached to each Uji. There were free peasants as well.
The Court: The court was the site of ongoing aristocratic power struggles and campaigns to control the out-lying border regions. Japan allied itself to Pakeche, one of three competing countries in the Korean peninsula. Chinese culture, weapons, and artisans all flowed into Japan from Korea. Chinese writing was adopted. Confucianism arrived in 513 AD and Buddhism in 538.
Religion: Indigenous Japanese religion was an animistic worship of the forces of nature, given the name Shinto, the Way of the Gods, after the arrival of Buddhism. Natural features were venerated as fonts of natural power and beauty. The more powerful forces of nature became personified as deities; aristocratic clans tied themselves to these deities. When Japan was unified, the Yamato clan goddess became the ruler of the gods in Shinto mythology. And the Imperial line was seen as descended of Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun.
The introductions of writing in the 5th century and Buddhism in the 6th century from the Korean Peninsula had a profound impact on the development of a unified system of Shinto beliefs. In the early Nara period the Kojiki (680 AD) and the Nihon Shoki (720 AD)were written by compiling existing myths and legends into a unified account of Japanese mythology. These accounts were written with two purposes in mind: the introduction of Taoist, Confucian, and Buddhist themes into Japanese religion; and garnering support for the legitimacy of the Imperial house, based on its lineage from the sun goddess, Amaterasu.
Nara (710 to 794 AD) and Heian Japan (795-1185 AD)
Adoption of Chinese Culture: Between the 7th to 12th centuries, the Japanese studied and assimilated Chinese culture, causing a major transformation of Japanese society. In this period, the Japanese switched from the national name 'Wa' to 'Nihon'.
Court Government: Between 607 to 680, the Japanese sent students to study in China. In 645, a coup led to the Taika Reforms, a series of changes to Japanese government consolidated by Emperor Temmu in the 680s. Temmu instituted a Chinese law code and styled himself Heavenly Emperor, Tenno. He structured his government after the model of the Tang. He also carried out a survey of agricultural lands and a census to increase revenues. The first permanent capital was laid out at Nara in 710 on a checkerboard grid like the Chinese capital of Chang'an. In 794, it was moved to Heian (later called Kyoto) to escape Buddhist intrigues. It remained there until its relocation to Tokyo in 1869.
Culture Clash: While aristocrats and Emperors lived the high life in silks and palaces, drinking wine and eating delicacies, the average peasant lived in a pit dwelling and either used slash and burn agriculture or built crude rice paddies.
Small Government: Since Japan had only 4-5 million people, the bureaucracy numbered only about 6,000 to govern them; it was controlled by competing aristocratic clans under an Emperor who had little effective power, especially after the mid-ninth century. The Fujiwara clan held power from 856 to the second half of the 11th century.
Provinces: There were 60 provinces subdivided into districts and villages, with court-appointed governors.
Land and Taxes: This followed the equal field system; the Emperor owned all land and allotted it out to his subjects. Every six years, it was redistributed among all able-bodied individuals, who paid personal taxes. Over time, the recordkeeping failed and they began using a quota system for taxes for each province. Governors set quotas for each district; district magistrates collected as much as they could, paid the quota and pocketed the difference; this created a new aristocracy. Nobles and temples used money and influence to get exempted from the system. From the ninth century, small farmers began commending their lands to the nobles to evade taxes; the nobles appointed stewards to oversee their lands.
Rise of the Samurai: In 792, the government abandoned fforts at conscript armies and began giving tax emptions to groups of mounted warriors in return for military service. They were the samurai (derived from samurau, 'to serve'). Being a samurai was expensive—armor and horses and weapons didn't come cheap. The bow was the primary weapon. Samurai originally functioned as police, but sometimes caused disorder.
Regional military coalitions: Regional coalitions of samurai began to form; in 935-40, one such led by a relative of the emperor appeared, leading a tax revolt and seizing six provinces. The Kyoto court adopted another group which crushed it, but now it became increasingly hard to keep the Samurai in check, subject to civilian authority. In 1156 AD, Taira Kiyomori led one coalition to seize the capital and the Emperor, taking over. The age of civilian control of the state was effectively over.
Aristocratic Culture and Buddhism:
Massive Cultural Gap: Aristocratic culture was totally alienated from the masses; Aristocrats made up less than one tenth of 1% of the population, the rest of which had a culture of blended folkways, Shinto, and agriculture. The aristocrats lived a life of art and music which few peasants even knew existed. Heian high culture was sustained by taxes and aristocratic wealth, a sort of green-house culture.
Chinese Tradition in Japan: Education in the Nara and Heian periods largely consisted of reading Chinese books and learning to write poetry and prose in Chinese. From the Nara period to the 19th century, most serious literature was written in Chinese. Chinese history provided stock figures for Japanese fiction and a mirror for Japan to look at and understand itself.
Birth of Japanese Literature: The Japanese soon began producing poetry in Japanese, but this posed problems of converting Japanese sounds into the Chinese script. In the ninth century, the system known as Kana emerged, a phonetic script. Women now came for a time to dominate Japanese literature. Sei Shonagon (daughter of a provincial official) wrote The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, a collection of sharp satirical essays and literary commentary that illustrated the aristocratic taste and mores in the early 11th century Heian court. The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu, around 1010 AD, is the world's first novel. It tells the life story of Prince Genji, son of a royal concubine and his son Kaoru as they idle their way through life. If you ever wanted to know the correct kind of paper to use to write a love poem to a woman from Kyuushu, this is the book for you. It presents aristocratic life in sometimes excruciating detail.
Nara and Heian Buddhism: The Six Scects of the Nara period were part of the tradition of Mahayana Buddhism. As in China, temples were tied to the state and supported by tax revenues. What appealed to the early Japanese in Buddhism was the colorful and fantastic aspects: gods, devils, heavens and hells, and the beauty of Buddhist art. Buddhism was soon assimilated into Japanese life and retained its vitality longer than in China.
The Tendai Sect: Championed by a monk named Saichō (767-822 AD), who studied in China in 804 AD, then returned in 805 to spread the sect. Philosophically, the Tendai school did not deviate substantially from the beliefs that had been created by the Tiantai school in China. However, what Saichō transmitted from China was not exclusively Tiantai, but also included Zen, esoteric Mikkyō, and Vinaya School elements. He taught salvation could be attained by all willing to lead a life of contemplation and moral purity.
Tendai is rooted in the idea, fundamental to Mahayana Buddhism, that Buddha-hood, the capability to attain enlightenment, is intrinsic in all things. Also central to Mahayana is the notion that the phenomenal world, the world of our experiences, fundamentally is an expression of the Buddhist law (Dharma). This notion poses the problem of how we come to have many differentiated experiences. Tendai Buddhism claims that each and every sense phenomenon just as it is is the expression of Dharma.
Tendai doctrine allowed Japanese Buddhists to reconcile Buddhist teachings with the native religion of Japan, Shinto, and with traditional Japanese aesthetics. In the case of Shinto, the difficulty is the reconciliation of the heavenly pantheon of Japanese gods, as well as with the myriad spirits associated with places, shrines or objects, with the Buddhist doctrine that one should not concern oneself with any religious practice save the pursuit of enlightenment. However, priests of the Tendai sect argued that Kami are simply representations of the truth of universal buddha-hood that descend into the world to help and teach mankind. Thus, they are actually equivalent with Buddhas.
By claiming that the phenomenal world is not distinct from Dharma, Tendai doctrine allows for the reconciliation of beauty and aesthetics with Buddhist teachings. Poetry, which once was a sin to be cast away, now in fact can lead to enlightenment. Contemplation of poetry, provided that it is done in the context of Tendai doctrine, is simply contemplation of Dharma. This same thing can be said of every other form of art.
It became a very popular faith, spawning many others. Eventually, Tendai became a military force with armies of warrior monks, until eventually suppressed by Oda Nobunaga as part of his campaign to unify Japan, though that only destroyed its military power.
The Shingon Sect was begun by Kūkai (774-835 AD), who went to China with Saicho. He returned 2 years later with the Shingon doctrines and founded a monastery on Mount Koya. He was a bridge builder, a poet, an artist, and a master calligrapher, one of the greatest of his age. Some Japanese tradition credits the kana to him. Shingon doctrine centers around a higher cosmic buddha of whom all historical buddhas are just manifestations. According to Shingon, enlightenment is not a distant, foreign reality that can take aeons to approach but a real possibility within this very life, based on the spiritual potential of every living being, known generally as Buddha-nature. If cultivated, this luminous nature manifests as innate wisdom. With the help of a genuine teacher and through properly training the body, speech, and mind, we can reclaim and liberate this enlightened capacity for the benefit of ourselves and others. Shingon means 'True word' or 'mantra', a verbal formula with mystical powers. Kūkai held, along with the Huayan (Jp. Kegon) school that all phenomena could be expressed as 'letters' in a 'world-text'. Mantra, mudra, and mandala are special because they constitute the 'language' through which the Dharmakaya (i.e. Reality itself) communicates. (Mandalas were forms of ritual art designed for use in meditation practices, which represent symbolic truths.) It was an esoteric sect, which is to say its doctrines were secret, passed from master to disciple, not public.
Assimilation of Buddhism: Over time, Buddhist ideas spread down to the masses and elements of Shinto and Buddhism were combined. This lasted until the mid-nineteenth centuries.
Japan's Early Feudal Age
Fall of Civilian Rule: From 1185 AD (1160 AD if Taira rule is included) until the nineteenth century, military rule by warlords replaced civilian rule by bureaucratic aristocrats. It was the time of the bakufu ('tent government') headed by the Shogun (the supreme military leader).
The Kamakura Era (1185-1331 AD): Taira rule failed to deal with the roving military bands outside the capital. In 1180 AD, Minamoto Yoritomo (1147-1199) responded to a call to arms by a disaffected prince and seized control of eastern Japan (the Kanto plain), then by 1185 AD, took Kyoto and suppressed the Taira. He set up his HQ at Kamakura in the Kanto Plain and forced all other military forces into vassalage. He appointed a small central government and military governors and stewards over the rest of the country. Internal troubles soon created a system in which warriors were most loyal to the bakufu which guaranteed their revenue, not to the Shoguns themselves, who became the puppets of the Hojo family.
The Mongols: In 1266, Kublai Khan demanded Japan's surrender. In 1274, a Mongol invasion failed; in 1281, the Mongols launched an invasion of 140,000 men. After initial success, heavy storms, the so called 'Kamikaze', divine winds, destroyed part of the Mongol fleet, forcing a withdrawal.
The Question of Feudalism: Historians still argue over whether the Shogunates were feudal in the European sense. If Feudalism = lord-vassal relationships, land given for military service, and a warrior ethic, then it can be seen as such. But in Kamakura times, civilian power continued to exist at the imperial court, and the bakufu was very small compared to the population (2-3,000 people. Imagine 100 Samurai trying to rule Massachusetts). The civil government still raised taxes and granted honors. Civilian local government continued to function.
Ashikaga Era (1336- 1467 AD): By 1331 AD, the Kamakura shogunate was torn by tensions between ambitious Samurai and the Hojo leadership and by the poverty of many samurai. In 1331, Emperor Go-Daigo attempted the Kemmu restoration, an attempt to restore Imperial authority. A short period of civil war ensued, ending with the creation of the Ashikaga shogunate by Ashikaga Takauji. He set up his bakufu in the central Kyoto region, with semi-independent vassals set up to govern the rest of the country—the daimyos. The relative power of bakufu and daimyo fluctuated locally and over time as a whole.
The Onin War:The Ōnin War (1467–1477 AD), a conflict rooted in economic distress and brought on by a dispute over shogunal succession, brought about the collapse of the Ashikaga Shogunate and initiated the Sengoku, or Warring States period, a time of anarchy and conflict.
Women in Warrior Society: At times, strong women were able to seize substantial power in Shogunate society; Japanese mythology itself gave the rule of the universe to a woman. Over time, though, opportunities for warrior women declined as it became customary to pass all of one's inheritance to the eldest male son, so as to keep it intact.
Agriculture, Commerce, and Guilds: In 1200 AD, Japan had 6 million people. In 1600 AD, it had 12 million. Advances in farming made this possible—clearing of wilderness, improved strains of rice and vegetables, winter farming of vegetables, better tools, etc. In the Heian and Nara period, the economy was largely agricultural with taxes paid in crops. Under the Shogunates, more goods were commercialized and traded over long distances. Merchants emerged and marketplaces arose in towns; some BECAME towns.
Buddhism and Medieval Culture
Classical vs Medieval: The Nara and Heian Period is the 'classical' age of Japan; the Shogunates are referred to as its 'medieval' period. As always, applying European history derived ideas to other areas is never a perfect fit. Unlike Europe, for example, there was no massive disruption between the 'classical' and 'medieval' eras. Rather, Japanese culture has a great deal of continuity. The new era of warriors did produce new forms of literature: tales of military aadventure and heroism. Sung China brought new influences and Buddhism peaked.
Japanese Pietism: Pure Land Buddhism: Pure Land Buddhism developed out of the Tendai sect, teaching that evil times were upon the world and that only faith would suffice to save. It began to spread in the 10th-11th century AD. Honen (1133-1212 AD) was the first to say that faith alone, through calling on the name of the Amida Buddha, could save a person's soul. This claim marked the emergence of Pure Land as a seperate sect. Shinran (1173-1262) taught that a single invocation of the Buddha, offered with perfect faith, was enough to save. But pure faith was a gift from the Amida Buddha. Pride was an obstacle to salvation; thus a wicked man aware of his sins might be more easily saved than a 'good' man who could not admit his own need for salvation. Shinran's emphasis on faith alone led him to abandon many monastic Buddhist rules: he ate meat and got married. All occupations were equally heavenly if performed with a pure heart. He organized a formal system of congregations to guide and protect believers. In the 15th century, some groups raised their own armies, only to be crushed in the 16th century. It is the dominant form of Japanese Buddhism today.