# Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 1/Chapter 4

Chapter IV
JAPAN IN THE EARLY ERAS OF HISTORY
The greatest event in the career of ancient Japan was the advent of Buddhism in the year 552 a. d. It is usually said that the Indian creed came officially, a copy of its scriptures and an image of Buddha having been sent to the Yamato Court by the Government of one of the Korean Kingdoms. In a sense this statement is correct, for without that ambassadorial introduction the new religion would probably have long remained a comparative stranger to the mass of the Japanese nation. But it is a fact that the doctrine had been preached in Japan by enterprising missionaries for many years before the arrival of the Korean envoy. Unsuccessfully preached, however. Buddhism owes much to its accessories,—to its massive and magnificent temples, its majestic images, its gorgeous paraphernalia, the rich vestments of its priests, and the picturesque solemnity of its services. These elements must have been absent failing the Government's sanction and support. Besides, from the first chapter ​of Japanese history to the last, there is no instance of a radical reform effected, or a novel system inaugurated, without official guidance. The people's part has always been to follow; the Government's to lead. It may therefore be said with truth that Buddhism was planted officially in Japan, though a few unfruitful seeds had been previously scattered by private enterprise.
How came it that the Government showed a liberal attitude towards an alien faith? Was there genuine conviction of the excellence of the Buddhist doctrine, or did some other cause operate?
Both questions may be answered in the affirmative with reservations. The first Japanese Emperor (Kimmei) who listened to the new gospel seems to have found it mysterious, lofty, and attractive. Its doctrine of metempsychosis, its law of causation, its theory of a future of supreme rest, charmed and startled him. But the argument most potent in winning his support was the ambassador's assurance that Buddhism had become the faith of civilised Asia. Japan of the sixth century was just as ambitious to stand on the highest level of civilisation as Japan of the nineteenth. She turned to Buddhism for the sake of the converts it had already won rather than for the sake of her own conversion. At first, the attitude of the Court was tentative. When the Sovereign summoned a Council of Ministers, as was customary in those days of pa-​triarchal administration, only the premier—Soga no Iname—espoused the cause of the imported creed. The rest declared that its adoption would insult the hundred and eighty deities, celestial and terrestrial, who already had the country under their tutelage. The Emperor compromised by entrusting the image and the sutras (Buddhist canons) to Iname and postponing the final question of adoption or rejection.
There has never been any attempt to explain why the Soga family embraced Buddhism with such zealous constancy. Iname and his son and successor, Umako, gave to it equally steadfast support in the face of fierce opposition. Twice the Soga mansion was destroyed by the people, who believed that the conversion of the Prime Minister's house into a temple for strange deities had brought pestilence upon the land. Other excesses were committed. A nun was stripped and publicly whipped, and the image of the Buddha was thrown into a river. But these episodes did not shake the faith of the Soga family.
Soon, too, a powerful coadjutor appeared in the person of an imperial prince, Shotoku, whose figure justly occupies the frontispiece in the first chapter of Japan's moral and intellectual progress. Chiefly through his ardent patronage and extraordinary fervour of piety Buddhism became the creed of the Court and of the nobility.
Military strength also contributed aid. A statement frequently made with all the assurance ​of historical conviction is that Buddhism is essentially a peaceful and adaptive creed; that it never demolishes other faiths but rather assimilates them. That is certainly true of Buddhism in the abstract, but its establishment in Japan was not unaccompanied by a sanguinary exercise of armed force. The question of invoking Buddha's succour on behalf of a sick emperor led to a fierce conflict between the three great political parties of the era, with the result that the opponents of the foreign faith suffered defeat. They had been led by one of the ancient princely families, which occupied a high place in the official hierarchy, and now the chiefs of the family were put to death, its estates confiscated to endow the first great Buddhist temple, and its members condemned to serve as slaves in the new place of worship.
Another factor that made for the spread of Buddhism was the zeal, almost fanatical, of the empress Suiko, who reigned during the epoch of Prince Shotoku's reforms. She issued edicts enjoining the adoption of the faith; ordered that all the princes of the blood and the Ministers of State should have images of Buddha in their possession, and conferred rank and rewards on sculptors of idols. Indeed, although the imperial ladies of Japan acted a noble rôle in her early history, their careers illustrate the truism that the emotional element of female character is a dangerous factor in state administration. During the ​period of one hundred and sixty-eight years from 591 to 759, fourteen sovereigns reigned, and five of them were females. A sixth lady practically ruled though she did not actually reign. The sway of these Empresses aggregated seventy-one years, and every one of them carried her religious fervour almost to the point of hysteria. They were certainly instrumental in raising Buddhism to the place of eminence and influence it occupied so soon after its arrival in Japan, and it is not surprising to find that, in the seventy-second year after the Korean ambassador's coming, the country had forty-six temples, eight hundred and sixteen priests, and sixty nuns. Neither is it surprising to find that, in obedience to Shintô precedents, Buddhism was drawn into the field of politics, and Buddhist priests were admitted to a share in the administration. For the extreme practice of these methods also a female was responsible. The Empress-dowager Kōken (749–758) organized a religious government distinct from the secular, issued orders for the spiritual regulation of men's lives, assisted a monk (Dokyo) to dethrone the Emperor, and, if she did not sanction, certainly failed to check, the crimes he perpetrated to prepare his own path to the throne.
Not in the history of any other country can there be found a parallel for the large support that sovereign after sovereign of Japan extended ​to Buddhism in the seventh and eighth centuries. Innumerable temples were built at enormous expense and endowed with great revenues. Quantities of the precious metals were devoted to the casting of idols and the decoration of edifices to hold them. Arbitrary edicts were issued thrusting the faith upon the people by force of official authority. It even became customary to surrender the highest posts and honours in the empire for the sake of taking the tonsure and leading a recluse life. Striking testimony to the religious fervour of the Court survives in the magnificent assemblage of temples in and about Nara. Almost the whole of these were built and furnished during the seventy-five years (710–785) of the Court's residence at that place, and when it is remembered that the immense outlay required for such works had to be defrayed by taxing a nation of only four and a half millions of people, it is apparent that religious zeal completely outran financial discretion. It is a constant assertion of foreign critics that the religious instinct is absent from the character of the Japanese, but their history cannot be reconciled with such a theory.
Japanese sovereignty, as has been shown already, was based upon Shintô. The sovereigns—"sons of heaven" (Tenshi) as they were, and are still, called—traced their descent to the deities of that creed, and the essence of their adminis-​trative title was that they interceded with the gods for the people they governed. All their principal traditions and temporal interests should have dictated the rejection of a creed which preached the supremacy of a new god and took no cognisance of their divine descent. It would have been in accord with the nature of political evolution that the people should have espoused the doctrines of a faith which absolved them from allegiance to their rulers, but how can the fact be explained that the rulers themselves patronised a creed which annulled their sovereign title? During the first century and a half after the introduction of Buddhism, that question does not seem to have troubled anyone in ancient Japan. If it was sometimes urged that the tutelary deities might be offended by the worship of a strange god, all manifestations of their umbrage were associated with the people's welfare, not with the sovereign's titles, and no one seems to have thought it necessary to assert the divinity of the Mikado against the alien theocracy. When the Prime Minister, Soga no Umako, caused the Emperor Sujun to be assassinated (592 a. d.), Prince Shotoku justified the act by explaining that the sovereign's death had been in accordance with the Buddhist doctrine which condemns a man to suffer in this life for sins committed in a previous state of existence. Thus, only forty years after the introduction of Buddhism, the ​lives of the "sons of heaven" were declared subject to its decrees. A century later, one of the Imperial Princes was ordered to commit suicide because he had struck a mendicant and clamorous priest. Only from the sufferings they inflicted on the people was the displeasure of the Shintô deities inferred. Twice their hostility to Buddhism was supposed to have been displayed by visitations of pestilence, and at last, during the reign of Shomu (724–748), when the enormous expenditure incurred on account of temple building and idol casting had so impoverished the people as to produce a famine with its usual sequel, pestilence, the Shintô disciples once again insisted that these calamities were the deities' protest against the strange faith. It was then that the great Buddhist priest Giyogi saved the situation by a singularly clever theory. He taught that the Sun Goddess, the chief of the Shintô deities, had been merely an incarnation of the Buddha, and that the same was true of all the members of the Shintô pantheon. The two creeds were thus reconciled, and as evidence of their union the Emperor caused a colossal idol to be set up, the celebrated Daibutsu (great Buddha) of Nara; the copper used for the body of the image representing the Shintô faith, the gold that covered it typifying Buddhism. This amalgamation was for the sake of the people's safety; it had nothing to do with rehabilitating the divine title of the sovereign. In the face of these facts, ​is it possible to conceive that any such title ranked as a vital tenet of the nation's political creed? Must not the theory of heavenly descent be placed rather in the category of traditions which had not yet begun to assume the paramount importance subsequently assigned to them?
Thus, almost from the very outset, Buddhism received the strenuous support of the Imperial Court and of the nobles alike. Never did any alien faith find warmer welcome in a foreign country. It had virtually nothing to contend against except the corruption and excesses of its own ministers. The lavish patronage extended to them disturbed their moral balance. From luxury and self-indulgence they passed to chicanery and political intrigue, until, in the middle of the eighth century, one of them actively conspired to obtain the throne for himself. Throughout the whole course of its history in Japan, alike in ancient, in mediæval, and in modern times, Buddhism has been discredited by the conduct of its priests. But it has also numbered among its propagandists many men of transcendent ability, lofty aims, and fanatical courage. It found its way to the heart of the Japanese nation less for the sake of its doctrines than for the sake of the civilisation it introduced. Its priests became the people's teachers. They constituted a bridge across which there passed perpetually from the Asiatic continent to Japan a stream of new knowledge. To enumerate the ​improvements and innovations that came to her by that route would be to tell almost the whole story of her progress.
The seventh and eighth centuries are among the most memorable epochs of Japan's history. They witnessed her passage from a comparatively rude condition to a state of civilisation as high as that attained by any country in the world, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the rise of modern Occidental nations, and they witnessed also a political revolution the exact prototype of that which has made her remarkable in modern times.
Prince Shotoku stands at the head of the movement of progress. Not only did he secure the adoption of Buddhism, but he also organised an administrative system embodying the first germs of practical imperialism, drafted a constitution and compiled the earliest historical essays. His constitution is full of interest as affording a clear outline of the ethical ideals of the time and of the polity that this singularly gifted man desired to establish:—
1. Concord and harmony are priceless; obedience to established principles is the fundamental duty of man. But in our country each section of the people has its own views and few possess the light. Disloyalty to Sovereign and parent, disputes among neighbours, are the results. That the upper classes should be at unity among themselves and intimate with the lower, and that all matters in dispute should be submitted to arbitra-​tion—that is the way to place society on a basis of strict justice.
3. Imperial edicts must be respected. The Sovereign is to be regarded as the heaven, his subjects as the earth. The heaven hangs above, the earth sustains it beneath; the four seasons follow in ordered succession, and all the influences of nature operate satisfactorily. Should the earth be placed above the heaven, ruin would at once ensue for the universe. So the Sovereign directs, the subject conforms. The Sovereign shows the way, the subject follows it. Indifference to the Imperial edicts signifies national ruin.
4. Courtesy must be the rule of conduct for all the Ministers and officials of the Government. Wise administration of national affairs has its roots in the observance of etiquette. Without etiquette on the part of the superior, it is impossible to govern the inferior, and if inferiors ignore etiquette, they will certainly be betrayed into offences. Social order and due distinctions between the classes can only be preserved by strict conformity with etiquette.
5. To punish the evil and reward the good is humanity's best law. A good deed should never be left unrecompensed or an evil unrebuked. Sycophancy and dishonesty are the most potent factors for subverting the State and destroying the people. Flatterers are never wanting to recount the faults of inferiors to superiors and depict the latter's errors to the former. To such men we can never look for loyalty to the Sovereign or sympathy with their fellow-subjects. They are the chief elements of national disturbance.
9. To be just one must have faith. Every affair demands a certain measure of faith on the part of those that deal with it. Every question, whatever its nature or tendency, requires for its settlement an exercise of ​faith and authority. Mutual confidence among officials renders all things possible of accomplishment; want of confidence between Sovereign and subject makes failure inevitable.
10. Anger is to be curbed, wrath cast away. The faults of another should not rouse our resentment. Every man's tendency is to follow the bent of his own inclination. If one is right, the other is wrong. But neither is perfect. Both are victims of passion and prejudice, and no one has exclusive competence to distinguish the evil from the good. Sagacity is balanced by silliness; small qualities are combined with great, so that neither is salient in the total, even as a sphere is without angles. To chide a fault does not certainly prevent its repetition, nor can the censor himself be secure against error. The sure road to accomplishment is that trodden by the people in combination.
14. Those in authority should never harbour hatred or jealousy of one another. Hate begets hate, and jealousy is without discernment. A wise man may be found once in five hundred years; a true sage, hardly once in a thousand. Yet without sages no country can be governed peacefully.
Prince Shotoku spoke with the wisdom inspired by Buddhism and Confucianism. But the principles of constitutional monarchism that he enunciated so plainly were suggested by the conditions of his era. The patriarchal families which filled the principal offices of State by hereditary right, had grown into great clans. ​They grasped the reality of administrative power, leaving its shadow only to the sovereign, who, cut off, on the one hand, from all direct communication with the people, was condemned, on the other, to see his authority abused for purposes of oppression and extortion. The state of the lower orders was pitiable. They were little better than serfs. The products of their toil went almost entirely to defray the extravagant outlays of the patrician clans, and if sometimes they rose in abortive revolt, their more general resource was to fly to mountain districts beyond the reach of the tax-collector. Permanent escape was impossible, however. They were sought out, and forcibly compelled to return to their life of unremunerated labour. Prince Shotoku saw that the remedy for these wretched conditions, which threatened even the stability of the throne, was to crush the power of the patrician class and bring the nation under the direct sway of emperors governing on constitutional principles. He inculcated the spirit of that most enlightened reform, but did not live to see its practical consummation.
Within a quarter of a century after his death, however, the last of the great office-owning clans was annihilated, and for the first time in Japanese history the Emperor became a real ruler. This happened in the middle of the seventh century. History calls it the "Taikwa Reform." A long series of changes were crowned by an edict un-​precedented in Japan. The sovereign addressed himself direct to the people, and employed language evidently an echo of Prince Shotoku's constitution. Its gist was that since the faculty of self-government must be acquired before attempting to govern others, and since obedience could be obtained only by one worthy to command, the sovereign pledged himself to behave in strict conformity with the principles of imperialism, relying on the aid of heaven and the support of the people. Tenchi, who issued this edict, may be called the father of constitutional monarchism in Japan. His fourth successor, Mommu (697–708), inaugurated his reign by a similar rescript, promising, with the help of his ancestors and the gods, to promote the welfare of his people. The interval of forty years separating Tenchi's accession and Mommu's death (668–708) may be regarded as the only period, in all the long history of Japan prior to modern times, when the sovereign was not divided from the people by nobles who usurped his authority. Mommu endeavoured to invest the issue of his edict with great pomp and ceremony, but of an essentially democratic character. The princes of the blood, the great nobles, and the chief officials were all required to attend, and the people were invited en masse. Then a crier read the edict aloud in four parts, and at the end of each part all present, high and low alike, were invited to signify their assent.
​This remarkable chapter of Japanese history may be broadly described as a political revolution resulting from the introduction of Chinese civilisation through the medium of Buddhist priests, just as a similar revolution in recent times resulted from the introduction of Western civilisation through the medium of gunboats. The splendour and prestige of the Tang dynasty, which in the beginning of the seventh century had wrested the sceptre of China from the hands of the scarcely less magnificent Sui sovereigns, were reflected in Japan. Tenchi and Mommu modelled their administration on the lines indicated in the "Golden Mirror" of Tatsong, and the grand capital established at Nara in the beginning of the eighth century was an imitation of the Tang metropolis at Hsian.
Another feature common to the records of seventh-century and nineteenth-century progress was extraordinary speed of achievement. Just as forty years of contact with Occidental civilisation sufficed to metamorphose Japan in modern time, so a cycle of Chinese influence revolutionised her in ancient days.
In the era immediately prior to the latter change, nothing was more marked than the wide interval separating the patrician and the plebeian sections of the nation. The lower orders, as has been already stated, were reduced to a state of virtual slavery, and the upper obeyed only the law of their own interests and passions. A patri-​cian held himself defiled by mere contact with a plebeian, and marriages between them were not tolerated. Great importance attached to well-established pedigrees. During the lapse of ages and in the absence of any written records, few genealogical trees could be traced clearly through all their ramifications, and the danger of admitting some strain of vulgar blood into a family imparted special advantage to marriages between children of the same father by different mothers. Confucianism proved entirely powerless to check that abuse, or to provide any general corrective for the relations between the sexes, which were frequently subserved to degrading influences. Wives had now ceased to live apart from their husbands, but concubinage was largely practised, and marital and extra-marital relations alike were severed on the slightest pretext. A woman, however, did not recover her full freedom when abandoned by her husband or protector. She was still supposed to owe some measure of fidelity to him, and if she contracted a second alliance, her new partner often found himself exposed to extortionate demands from her former mate. Another evil practice was that powerful families trafficked in the honour of an alliance with them, first dictating a marriage, and then making it a pretext for levying large contributions on the bride's parents. Loss of affection or inclination was deemed a sufficient reason for divorcing a woman, and sometimes mere suspicion of a wife's ​infidelity induced a husband to appeal to the law for an investigation, which meant that the unfortunate woman had to undergo the ordeal of thrusting her hand into boiling water or grasping a red-hot axe. Many women conceived such a dread of the married state that they deliberately chose the life of domestic servants, thus incurring the plebeian stigma and becoming ineligible for patrician attentions in any form. Even the terrible custom of junshi, or dying to accompany a deceased chieftain, had lost something of the discredit attached to it by the ordinance of the enlightened emperor Suinin five centuries previously. Faithful vassals still took their own lives in order to be buried near their lord's tomb, and wives and concubines followed their example, voluntarily or on compulsion. Horses also were killed to serve their masters beyond the grave, and valuables of all kinds were interred in sepulchres, as had been the habit from time immemorial. When duty to the dead was not pushed to these extremes, the survivors considered it necessary at least to cut their hair or to mutilate their bodies.
All these abuses were strictly interdicted in the reformation foreshadowed by Prince Shotoku's adoption of Buddhism and Confucianism, and embodied in a series of legislative measures during the period 645 to 708. The nation suddenly sprang to a greatly higher level of civilisation. ​Notably the style of dwellings was altered. Architects, turners, tile-makers, decorative artists, and sculptors coming from China and Korea, magnificent temples were built, enshrining images of high artistic beauty, and adorned with paintings and carvings which would be worthy objects of admiration in any age of æsthetic development. Rich nobles, at the same time, began to construct for themselves mansions which already showed several features destined to permanently distinguish Japanese residences. The processes of manufacturing paper and ink, of weaving carpets with wool or the hair of animals, of concocting dyes, of preparing whetstones, of therapeutics, of compiling a calendar, and of ship-building on greatly improved lines,—all these, learned from China, were skilfully applied.
It may be noted incidentally that the growth of wealth resulting from this influx of material civilisation gave additional emphasis to the superiority of the Chinese, for they had to be placed at the head of the various bureaux of the Treasury, there being no Japanese competent to discharge such duties. Commerce also felt the expansive impulse. Men travelled from province to province selling goods; foreign vessels frequented the ports; a collector of customs and a superintendent of trade were appointed, and an officially recognised system of weights and measures was introduced.
​Not less marked were the changes of costume. Instead of dressing the hair so as to form a loop hanging over each ear, men tied it in a queue on the top of the head. This novel fashion was due to the use of hats as insignia of official ranks. There were twelve varieties of hat corresponding to as many grades, and each was tied on with cord of a distinct colour, just as the colour of a cap-button now indicates official quality in China. Wigs had hitherto been largely used, but they were now abandoned except on occasions of special ceremonial, when they were fastened to the hat. The introduction of the queue seems to have been responsible for the first display of foppery on the part of men. It was ornamented with gold in the case of the highest officials, with tiger's hair by men of lesser rank, and with cock's feathers in a still lower grade.
The abolition of hereditary offices necessitated a thorough re-organisation of the administrative system, and it is a remarkable fact that the remodelled form remained permanent through all ages and still exists to a recognisable degree. For managing affairs in the provinces—where the great families had gradually become autocratic, not only levying imposts at will, but also appropriating to their own uses the taxes that should have gone to the Court—local governors and district headmen were appointed, and at the head of the central government was placed a department of shrines, immediately under it being ​a cabinet with a bureau of councillors, two secretariats, and finally eight departments of State. A system of civil-service examination was also inaugurated. Youths desiring administrative posts had to enter one of the educational institutions then founded, and subsequently to undergo examination, though this routine might be departed from in the case of men whose fathers had deserved conspicuously well of the country. The name of a man's office now ceasing to do duty as a patronymic, the hats mentioned above became the only means of recognising rank, so that their importance grew greater, and their number gradually increased, first to thirteen and afterwards to forty-eight. But at that point the system ceased to be practicable, and certificates of grade were substituted, a method still pursued.
Great pains were taken to effect a distinct classification of the people, the general divisions adopted being "divine" (Shin-betsu, i. e. descended direct from the deities); "imperial" (Kwo-betsu), and "alien" (Ham-betsu), distinctions which will be more fully explained in a future chapter. A still broader division was that of ryō-min (noble) and sem-min (ignoble), the former including the Kwo-betsu and the Shin-betsu; the latter the Ham-betsu only. The constant tendency was to accentuate these distinctions, though it sometimes happened that men reduced to a state of indigence sold their family name and descended to the position of servants. Clandes-​tine intercourse between patrician and plebeian lovers was also not infrequent, but the law took care that the offspring of such unions should seldom obtain admission to the higher rank. It is a curious fact that the legislators of the time never conceived the possibility of a patrician lady's forming a liaison with a plebeian: they provided for the contingency of a man's succumbing to the charms of a plebeian beauty, but they made no allowance for any such weakness on the part of a nobly born woman.
Concerning the terms "noble" and "ignoble," it is not to be supposed that the former originally included only such persons as would be called "gentlemen" and "ladies" in Europe or America. In addition to the whole of the official and military elements, the ryō-min comprised many bread-winners who, under the more exclusive system of subsequent eras, were relegated to a lower social status. The most comprehensive definition is that only those pledged to some form of servitude stood in the ranks of the sem-min, all others being ryō-min. There were five classes of sem-min, the lowest being private servants, and the highest, public employés. The distinction of "military man" (samurai or shizoku) and "commoner" or "civilian" (hei-min) did not exist at the time now under consideration. Indeed, at this point another resemblance is found between the "Restoration" in the seventh century and that in the nineteenth cen-​tury; for just as the modern government signalised the fall of feudalism and the transfer of administrative power to the sovereign by abolishing the samurai's privilege of wearing two swords, and thus, in effect, abolishing the samurai himself, so when the Taikwa Government put an end to the system of hereditary offices in 645, it collected all the implements of war from their owners and stored this great assemblage of swords, bows, and arrows in magazines. The bearer of arms thus lost whatever prestige had previously attached to that distinction. But such a state of affairs could not be permanent in a country where the control of the indigenous inhabitants still continued to demand constant exhibitions of force. Before forty years had elapsed, another emperor (Temmu) organised a definite military establishment and inaugurated a course of training in warlike exercises; and shortly afterwards, an empress (Jito) introduced conscription. At first only twenty-five per cent of the youths throughout the realm were required to serve, but at the beginning of the eighth century the number was increased to one in every three. All the ryō-min appear to have been held liable for this service. Thus a man engaged one day in hawking merchandise or dyeing cloth might find himself, the next, bearing arms and receiving military training. A regiment was organised for every five rural divisions, and from among these regiments certain sections were ​selected to guard the imperial palace, while others were told off for coast duty, three years being the term of service in either case. Had this system remained in operation, there would have been no such thing as a feudal Japan, nor would the profession of arms have become the special right of a limited class. But the course of events may be anticipated so far as to say that, before the lapse of a century after the introduction of conscription, military duties became hereditary, and Japanese society assumed a structure which continued without radical change until the revolution of recent times.
It will readily be conjectured that, turning to China for models, Japan did not fail to make the family system a fundamental feature of her reforms. A family might consist of a single household, or it might comprise several households; but every family, whatever its dimensions, had to have one recognised head, to whom the subordinate households were related by blood. Thus, since the subordinate households generally included wives, concubines, children, and servants, the head of the whole family sometimes represented a clan of a hundred or a hundred and fifty persons. This position of headship could not be occupied by any save a legitimate scion, but a female was eligible, provided she had attained the age of twenty, and was not actually a widow, a wife, or a concubine. Remembering the marked laxity of the marital relation prior to ​the era of this new system, one is astonished at the courage with which such sweeping changes were effected, and at the complacence with which they were received. For whereas previously men had been free to adopt any rule of succession they pleased, and the legitimacy of an heir had scarcely been considered, it now became necessary that the successor to the headship of a family should be legitimate before everything: adoption being declared preferable to the choice of a bastard. But the higher the social grade of the family, the greater the latitude in this respect. It does not appear that the eligibility of an imperial concubine's son was ever questioned, and in the case of a noble belonging to one of the three first grades, a child born out of wedlock might succeed, failing legitimate sons or grandsons. Adoption, too, must be exercised within the limits of blood relatives, any departure from that rule being criminal.
Five families living in the same district were combined into an administrative group, which elected its chief and delegated to him a general duty of supervision. The group (hō) was responsible for the payment of its members' taxes. In those days it was not an uncommon incident for a family to abscond en masse, in the hope of avoiding extortionate imposts. The group had to trace the absconders, and discharge their fiscal liabilities during their absence.
The marriageable age for youths was fifteen, and ​for maidens thirteen, but the consent of parents or grandparents had to be obtained. Already the preliminaries of wedlock were entrusted to a go-between, and the degree of order introduced into these previously disorderly connections is shown by the fact that, so soon as the concurrence of the two families had been secured by the go-between, a "marriage director" was duly appointed, his function being to secure conformity with every legal requirement. A girl of the upper classes had to consult the views of an extensive circle of relatives—parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, brothers, and parents-in-law—but this rule was relaxed in proportion as the social grade descended. Etiquette forbade that a wedding should be celebrated during the illness or imprisonment of a parent or a grandparent, and an engagement became invalid when the nuptial ceremony had been capriciously deferred for three months by the man; or when he had absconded and remained absent for a month; or when, having fallen into pecuniary distress in another part of the realm, be failed to return within a year; or when he had committed a serious crime.
Concerning divorce, a theme much discussed by critics of Japan's ethical systems, the family of a wife were entitled to demand her freedom in two cases: first, in the event of deliberate desertion, extending to three years when there had been offspring of the marriage, and two years where the union had been childless; secondly, in ​the event of a husband's incurring pecuniary ruin in a distant place, and failing to come home for five years if he had left a child, and for three if there was no child. But against this exceedingly brief list of a wife's rights, there is a long catalogue of the husband's. He was entitled to divorce his wife if she did not bear him a male child, if her habits were licentious, if she failed in her duty to her parents-in-law, if she indulged a love of gossip, if she committed a theft, if she betrayed a jealous disposition, or if she suffered from an obnoxious disease. The more important a man's social position, the greater his obligation to secure the assent of his own parents and his wife's before putting her away, but in the lowest classes scarcely any impediment offered to separation. Sentiment, however, interposed a curious veto. If a wife had contributed money for the funeral of a parent-in-law, or if a husband occupying a low social grade at the time of his marriage had subsequently risen to a higher, or if a wife had no home to which she could retire after separation, then divorce was held to be inadmissible. The one redeeming feature of the wife's position was that all the property, whether in money, chattels, or serfs, brought with her at the time of her marriage, had to be returned on divorce. Her enforced subservience to her parents-in-law, and her obligation to patiently endure the presence of one or more concubines, if her husband so willed it, were often cruel bur-​dens in her daily life. A concubine acquired by this new legislation the status of a second-grade relative, but the system was purely morganatic, the law peremptorily refusing to recognise two wives.
The edicts of the era embodied an excellent code of ethics. Such virtues were inculcated as industry, integrity, frugality, simplicity of funeral rites, diligent transaction of business even during periods of mourning, and the exclusion of mercenary motives from marriage contracts. Further, the new democratic principle extracted from the Confucian cult—the principle that the throne must be based on the good will of the nation at large, and that full consideration should be given to the views of the lower orders—found practical expression in the erection of numerous petition-boxes wherein men were invited to deposit a statement of grievances demanding redress, and in the hanging of bells which were to be rung when it was desired to bring any trouble of a pressing nature to official notice. Codes of laws were also framed.
An interesting fact shown by this legislation is that the economical principle of a common title to the use of land received recognition, practically at all events, in ancient Japan. Looking as far back as history throws its light, it is seen that the Crown's right of eminent domain was an established doctrine, but that, during the era of patriarchal government, large tracts of land ​came into the possession of the great governing families, and remained their property until the fall and virtual extermination of the last of these families in the early part of the seventh century. The Emperor then becoming, for a time, the repository of complete authority, resumed possession of all private estates, and exact rules for the distribution and control of land were embodied in the new codes. The basis of the system then adopted was the general principle that every unit of the nation had a natural title to the usufruct of the soil. It was therefore enacted that to all persons, from the age of five upwards, "sustenance land" should be granted in the proportion of two-thirds of an acre to each male and one-third to each female. These grants were for life, and the grantee was entitled to let the land for one year at a time, provided that, at his death, it reverted to the Crown. Redistribution every sixth year was among the provisions of the code, but the difficulties of carrying out the rule soon proved deterrent. Lands were also conferred in consideration of rank. Imperial princes of the first class received two hundred acres; those of the second class, one hundred and fifty acres; those of the third, one hundred and twenty-five acres, and those of the fourth, one hundred acres. In the case of the ten grades into which officialdom had now been divided, the grants ranged from twenty to two hundred acres, and females belonging to any of ​these grades received two-thirds of a male's share, the consideration shown to them being thus twice as great as that extended to women of inferior position. Finally, land was given in lieu of official emoluments; the Prime Minister's salary being the produce of one hundred acres; that of the second and third Ministers, seventy five acres each; and that of other officials ranging from two to fifty acres. Land, indeed, may be said to have constituted the money of the epoch. It was given in lieu not only of salaries but also of allowances,—even post-stations along the high-roads being endowed with estates whose produce they were expected to employ in providing horses, couriers, and baggage-carriers for Government use. It need scarcely be added that meritorious public services were rewarded with estates, granted sometimes in perpetuity, sometimes for two generations only.
A special arrangement existed for encouraging sericulture and the lacquer industry. Tracts of land were assigned to families for planting mulberry or lacquer trees in fixed quantity, and such land might be leased for any term of years or sold with official permission; neither did it revert to the Crown unless the family became extinct. But any land left uncultivated for three years was regarded as forfeited, and had to be resumed or re-allotted.
The exact amount of taxes levied at various eras in Japan has always been difficult to ascer​tain, for not only did the method of assessment vary in different provinces, but also the legal limits were seldom the real limits. In the period now under consideration, the records show that, for purposes of local administration, a tax in kind, representing five per cent of the gross produce of the land, was levied, and that the expenses of the central government were defrayed by means of miscellaneous imposts on all the principal staples of production, as silk, fish, cloth, etc., and by a corvée of thirty days' work annually from every male between the ages of twenty-one and sixty-six years, and fifteen days from every minor. An adult's labour might be commuted by paying three pieces of hempen cloth. These labourers were not hardly treated in the comparatively rare cases where they chose to work rather than to commute. During the dog days, they were entitled to rest from noon to four p. m., and night work was not required. Rations were provided, and in wet weather they were not expected to work out of doors. If a man fell ill while on corvée, due provision was made for his maintenance, and in case of death he was coffined at official expense, and the body was either given up to any relative or friend on application, or cremated and the ashes buried by the wayside. There were, of course, various exemptions from forced labour. Females or persons suffering from illness or deformity were invariably excused, and holders of official rank ​obtained exemption, not only for themselves, but also for their fathers and sons, and even for their grandfathers, brothers, and grandsons, in the highest grade.
These imposts were evidently onerous. The corvée alone, representing one-twelfth of a man's yearly labour, would have been a heavy burden without the addition of five per cent of the gross produce of the land and a contribution of general staples equal, probably, to at least two or three per cent more. Mercy was shown, however, in the event of defective crops. The remissions on that account were regulated by a schedule: the land tax being remitted if the shortage amounted to fifty per cent of the average yield, the miscellaneous taxes if the shortage reached seventy per cent, and the corvée when there was a loss of eighty per cent. The five-families group spoken of above was responsible for the cultivation of all maintenance estates. Thus, if a man fled from the pursuit of justice or the burden of his taxes, the group to which he belonged took care of the land for three years and discharged his fiscal liabilities, at the end of which time the land reverted to the State in the event of his continued absence.
The Codes contained provisions with regard to inheritance also. The system was regulated by strict rules of descent, and not only land, but also serfs, houses, and personal property were included in the estate. The eldest son, his mother, ​and his step-mother received two parts each; the younger sons, one part each; the daughters and the concubines, half of a part each. Here, too, the general principle applicable to woman's rights was observed, namely, that the female ranked as a minor, or as one half of an adult male. A mother's rights, however, did not descend to her daughter. Thus, whereas a son's children of either sex represented their father in the division of the family estate, a daughter's children did not represent their mother. On the other hand, property belonging to a woman at the time of her marriage was not necessarily absorbed into the family estate of her husband. Neither did these rules apply to land granted for public services. Such land had to be divided equally among all the children, male and female alike. Other rules existed, but enough has been said to show the general character of the law of inheritance.
Wills were not considered in the code; they became almost superfluous instruments in the face of such precise legal provisions. It does not follow, however, that estates were invariably divided in the manner here indicated, or that the law interdicted all liberty of action in such matters. If the members of a family agreed to live together and have everything in common, they were exempted from the obligation of observing the rules of inheritance; and, further, a parent was entitled, during his lifetime, to distribute the property among his children in accordance ​
The "serfs," to whom several allusions have already been made, had certain exceptional rights. A public serf was entitled to receive from the State as much maintenance land as a free-man, and a private serf received one-third of that amount. But a difference existed in the nature of the tenure; for whereas a free-man might let or even sell his land with official consent, a serf was obliged to cultivate it himself. On the other hand, the serf paid no taxes and enjoyed exemption from forced labour.
The Government exercised no scrutiny into any transactions of sale unless lands or serfs were concerned. But it endeavoured to control transactions of borrowing. Priests and nuns were forbidden to lend money or goods on interest; officials to borrow from any one in their own department; and imperial relatives, of or above the fifth grade, to make loans in the districts of their residence. Interest was to be collected every 60 days, the rate not exceeding one-eighth of the principal; but after 480 days had elapsed, the interest might become cent per cent, though no accumulation exceeding twice the principal was recognised. Loans of rice and millet must not run for more than a year. If, at the expiration of that time, the debtor could not discharge ​his liability, his property might be sold, and its proceeds supplemented by his own serfdom, if necessary. Official attempts were often made to prevent the mortgaging of land, but permanent success never attended them.
The people's chief occupation in those days was agriculture. It cannot be said, however, that the choice of farming pursuits was specially suggested by the nation's aptitudes. The genius of the Japanese seems to find most congenial exercise in all manufacturing efforts that demand skill of hand and delicacy of artistic taste. But as yet no considerable demand for the products of such skill had arisen, whereas the cultivation or reclamation of lands gradually freed from the occupation of the stubborn autochthons, being always an urgent necessity, was correspondingly encouraged by the Government. Rice was the chief staple of production, and the methods of the rice-farmer differed little from those now in vogue, though not until the middle of the ninth century did the practice commence of hanging the sheaves on wooden frames to dry. Hitherto they had been strewn on the ground during the process, the fate of the grain thus depending wholly on the weather's caprices. Rice is not a robust cereal. Deficiency of rain in June, a low range of thermometer in July and August, storms in September,—any one of these common incidents largely affects the yield. After the introduction of Buddhism, when fish and flesh could ​not be eaten without violating the sanctity of life, inclement seasons must often have compelled men to choose between the laws of the creed and the dictates of nature. It was appropriate that the female rulers who patronised Buddhism so passionately, should make special efforts to save their subjects from the temptation of the alternative; and accordingly the Empresses Jito (690–696) and Gensho (715–725) took steps to encourage the cultivation of barley, Indian corn, wheat, sesamum, turnips, peaches, oranges, and chestnuts. Tea, buckwheat and beans were added to this list during the first half of the ninth century, and it is thus seen that Japan possessed at an early date all her staple bread-stuffs, except the sweet potato and the pear. The Empresses mentioned above and the Emperors of their era devised several measures to encourage agriculture,—such as granting free tenure of waste land or bestowing rewards on its cultivators, making loans of money for works of irrigation, and munificently recognising the services of officials in provinces where farming flourished, or punishing them when it fell into neglect,—and adopted precautions against famine by requiring every farmer to store a certain quantity of millet annually. In all ages the Japanese Court showed itself keenly solicitous for the welfare of the people, and its solicitude was fully shared by its protégés, the Buddhist priests. If at one time an Emperor Tenchi (668–671) remitted all taxes for three years, until signs of returning ​prosperity were detected, or an imperial prince (Yoshimune, 803) invented the water-wheel, at another Buddhist prelates of the highest rank travelled about the country, and showed the people how to make roads, build bridges, construct reservoirs, and dredge rivers. Stud farms and cattle pastures were among the institutions of the era, so that, on the whole, agriculture must be said to have reached a tolerably high standard.
But beyond doubt the most noteworthy development of all took place in the domain of art. The student is here confronted by one of the strangest facts in Japan's story. There are ample reasons for concluding that when Buddhism was introduced in the middle of the sixth century, both pictorial art and applied art were at an altogether rudimentary stage in Japan. There was considerable skill in the casting, chiselling, and general manipulation of metals for the purpose of decorating weapons of war and horse-trappings, or manufacturing articles of personal adornment, but artistic sculpture and painting were virtually unknown. Yet, before the lapse of a hundred years, both had been carried to a high standard of excellence, sculpture specially reaching a point never subsequently surpassed,—a point which, under ordinary circumstances, should have marked the zenith of a long orbit of evolution. It is customary to dismiss this enigma by attributing the best achievements of the time entirely to Korean and Chinese immigrants, and certainly ​many artists from the neighbouring empires crossed to Japan at that era. But there are almost insuperable obstacles to complete acceptance of such a theory. The subject will be referred to in another place. Here it must be dismissed by noting the extraordinary impulse of progress that gave to Japan, in a brief space of time, sculptors of noble images, architects of imposing edifices, and painters of grand religious pictures. Lacquerers might be added to the category; but the processes of lacquer manufacture are said to have been known in Japan as far back as the third century before Christ, and it is possible that before the Emperor Kotoku (645–654) ordered his coffin and his crown to be lacquered, fine examples of that kind of work may have been produced. There is no guide here. But it is known that, in the second half of the seventh century, lacquer was so highly prized that lacquered articles were received in payment of taxes, and also that, at about the same epoch, red lacquer, five-coloured lacquer, aventurine lacquer, and lacquer inlaid with mother-of-pearl were produced.
In the absence of any form of literature the Japanese people remained entirely without intellectual education during the first thousand years of their existence as a nation. That is their own account of themselves, and there are no sufficient grounds for a different version, difficult as ​it is to believe that they should have derived so little advantage from the neighbourhood of a people like the Chinese, whose literary talents were already well developed when the earliest Japanese colonists crossed from the continent. The coming of two Korean literati to the Court of the Emperor Ojin at the close of the third century of the Christian era is regarded as the event that inaugurated the study of books in Japan. These two men were naturalised, and having received official recognition as instructors, settled, one in the province of Yamato, the other in that of Kawachi, and there founded, respectively, the families of Bunshi and Shishi, whose scions, during several generations, enjoyed a monopoly of literary teaching. Little is known as to the nature of the instruction imparted by them, but it was doubtless confined to the ideographs and to the exposition of some elementary Chinese works. Generally, however, the philosophy of the Middle Kingdom then began to unfold its pages, and before the close of the fifth century a tolerably intimate acquaintance with the Chinese sages' writings had been acquired by the Court and by the heads of the Government, though the great mass of the people still remained in profound ignorance. Thenceforth a constant ingress of literati took place from the neighbouring continent, especially after the introduction of Buddhism, and, in the sixth century, the medical science of the Chinese, their ​processes of divination and their methods of almanac-compiling, constituted new inducements to literary studies. But such a thing as a school did not exist until the time of the Emperor Tenchi (668–671), when the first institution of the kind was opened in the capital, to be followed, ten years later, by a university and by a few provincial seminaries. The curriculum of this university represents the ideal of literary attainment in its era. There were "four paths" of essential learning—the Chinese classics, biographies, law and mathematics. Caligraphy and music were taught independently. The "classics" were divided into three sections: the first, or "major classic," consisting of the Book of Etiquette and the Biographies; the second, or "middle classic," comprising the Book of Poetry and two Books of Etiquette; and the third, or "minor classic," including the Book of Changes and the Maxims. These were the bases of the regular course of lectures, but students of literature were required to study also the Classic of Filial Piety and the Analects of Confucius. It will be perceived that Buddhism had no place in this sphere of study. Yet, at the close of the seventh century, when the university had four hundred and thirty students, and when it represented the only high educational institution in the Empire, Buddhism as a religion had already absorbed the attention of all the nation's leaders. It is, indeed, a remarkable fact of ​Japanese history that religion was thus excluded from the range of education. Services were performed at the university and at the schools in honour of ancient men of erudition, and Confucius was deified under the title of Bunsen-o; but while sovereign, princes, and nobles were possessed by passionate zeal for the propagandism of Buddha's creed, and were impoverishing themselves and the nation to build magnificent temples and furnish them with thousands of costly images and quantities of gorgeous paraphernalia, they were equally persistent in telling the people that filial piety, as exemplified in the Chinese records, should be the basis of all action, and that the whole code of every-day ethics was comprised in the teachings of Confucius and Mencius. Perhaps if Buddhism had possessed a literature of its own, the field might not have been exclusively occupied by the Chinese classics. But Buddhism has no literature, or to speak more accurately, no literature intelligible to laymen. Its scriptures are couched in language which specialists only can understand, and by sermons and oral teaching alone are its precepts communicable to the public. Shintô, on the other hand, has no code of morals at all. Thus Confucianism presented itself as the sole working system of ethics available for educational purposes in ancient Japan.
It is easy to appreciate what a perplexing problem presented itself to Japanese publicists ​and educationalists in the eighth century. The foundations of the national polity rested on the Shintô tenets that the sovereign was the son of heaven, that his intervention with the gods was essential to the well-being of the people, and that every unit of the nation must look up to him with the profoundest veneration. Confucian ethics, as expounded by Mencius, taught that the sovereign's title to rule rested entirely on his qualities as a ruler; that the people's welfare took precedence of the monarch's prerogatives, and that filial piety was the highest of all virtues. Buddhism placed at the head of its scripture the instability of everything human; compared each series of worldly events, however great the actors, however large the issues, to a track left by a ship upon the wide ocean, and educated a pessimistic mood of indifference to sovereign and parent alike. Can anything less consistent be conceived than the conduct of a government which employed all its influence to popularise the religion of Buddha, which appealed to Shintô shrines for heavenly guidance in every administrative perplexity, and which adopted Confucianism as an ethical code in the education of youth? The difficulty, in the case of Buddhism and Shintô, was to some extent overcome, as already shown, by a clever adjustment which recognised incarnations of Buddha in the principal Shintô deities. But it was not overcome in the case of the Confucian philosophy, nor is there any room ​to doubt that the troubles which beat against the Throne, and nearly overthrew it, from the eighth century to the nineteenth, were in some degree the outcome of ideas derived from the Chinese Classics.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 11.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 12.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 13.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 14.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 15.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 16.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 17.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 18.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 19.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 20.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 21.
* ↑ ​Note 11.— A legend of the Empress Komyo says that, in obedience to a voice audible to herself alone, she vowed to wash with her own hands the bodies of a thousand beggars. The task had been completed as far as 999, when there presented himself a loathsome leper, covered with revolting sores. The courageous woman did not hesitate. She proceeded to wash the leper, and when he told her that if there were found in the world any woman sufficiently merciful to draw the venom from his sores with her mouth he should be healed, she did him that service. Thereupon the place was filled with dazzling effulgence; an exquisite aroma diffused itself around, and the leper, declaring himself the Buddha, disappeared.
* ↑ ​Note 12.—The Emperor Temmu (673-686) ordered that every house in the land should have an altar for the worship of Buddha, and his successors called temples and idols into existence by edicts.
* ↑ ​Note 13.—The Emperor Shōmu (724-748) was the inaugurator of this custom. After a reign of twenty-four years, he shaved his head and retired to a cloister.
* ↑ ​Note 14.—Dōkyō, the favourite Minister of the Empress Dowager Kōken.
* ↑ ​Note 15.—Only certain portions of the document are quoted here.
* ↑ ​Note 16.—The Soga family. This was the clan that distinguished itself by its unique fidelity to the cause of Buddhism, and assisted Prince Shotoku to destroy its own great rival, the Mononobe clan, which inveterately opposed the foreign faith. The Soga survived the Mononobe for thirty years only. Their disloyal arbitrariness towards the Throne provoked a revolt which ended fatally for themselves.
* ↑ ​Note 17.—Taikwa a signifies "great change." It was the first year-name in Japan, the period 645–649 a.d. being called Taikwa.
* ↑ ​Note 18.—The student will hear this memorable reformation described sometimes as the Taikwa (great change) ​and sometimes as the Taihō (or Daihō) reform, the former term being derived from the name of the year-period (645—649) when the new legislation commenced; the latter from that of the period (701—703) when it terminated.
* ↑ ​Note 19.—A residence built for himself by the Soga chief Iruka is said to have been surrounded with a palisade and provided with storehouses for weapons and armour, and each gate had buckets hung near it as a precaution against fire. The residence of the same Minister's father was encircled with moats and had arrow-magazines.
* ↑ ​Note 20.—In the reign of the Empress Jito (690-696), for example, no less than seven waves of immigrants are said to have flowed to the shores of Japan, and all these strangers were hospitably welcomed and their services utilised.
* ↑ ​Note 21.—The Empress Kōken (749-758) issued an edict that every house throughout the realm should be provided with a copy of the Classic of Filial Piety, and should regard it as the primer of morality; and from her time onwards successive sovereigns employed their influence to popularise Confucianism, bestowing liberal rewards upon women who distinguished themselves by fidelity to their husbands, upon children conspicuous for piety to their parents, or upon servants noted for loyalty to their masters.
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