Japanese Nationalism
Ancient and Modern
Robert Borgen
The nature and origins of nationalism are much debated topics, and the issues
involved too complex to be adequately summarized here. Most authorities agree, however,that nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon, originating in Europe perhaps during theeighteenth century and spreading throughout the world in the nineteenth century. One
common definition stresses that nationalism arises when nation or ethnicity and state share acommon boundary. Some scholars will note that this is a condition that has existed in China,
Korea, and Japan for quite some time, although they do not then conclude that nationalism
has an ancient pedigree in these Asia.1 Nationalism in Japan too has received extensive
treatment. In keeping with conventional definitions, the focus has been on the creation ofmodern nationalism after the Meiji Restoration. Scholars have noted how modern Japanesepoliticians and thinkers were able to build a vigorous, eventually even virulent, form ofnationalism using materials from Japan’s traditional culture, the imperial institution itself
being a conspicuous example. Although Japan’s long history of apparently common ethnic
and political boundaries may have facilitated this process, most research has focused on how
modern Japanese used elements out of Japan’s past rather than on apparently nationalistic
expressions from Japan’s past.2 This paper will begin with an instance of the former before
1See, for example, Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983) pp.
1, 13-14, 16; and E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth,
Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) p. 66. Gellner mentions only China,
although his argument would seem to apply to Japan and Korea as well.
2

For the creation of modern Japanese nationalism, see Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern
Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985),
along with many of the works in her bibliography. Missing from her bibliography is Delmer
Brown’s classic study, Nationalism in Japan: An Introductory Historical Analysis (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1955), a work that now seems dated but does introduce
nationalistic ideas from earlier times. A more recent and more narrowly focused treatment of
the subject is Takashi Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy (University of California Press, 1996),
which argues, as summarized in the dust jacket blurb, “that just over a century ago there wasno such thing as an imperial family.” As one largely favorable review has noted, Fujitani
does not give due attention to the traditional materials that modern nationalists worked with
(Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, review in Journal of Asian Studies, 56.3 [August, 1997] pp.
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focusing on the latter.
During World War II, many elements of Japanese culture were mobilized to perform
patriotic service. The following classical poem is one example:
もろこしも
天の下にぞ
有と聞く

Far Cathay too
Lies under the same heaven,
I hear:

照る日の本を

Please do not forget

忘れざらなむThis Land of the Rising Sun.

Although originally meant as a highly personal rather than a political statement, this poem
was addressed to a man who did indeed did express sentiments that today seem remarkably
nationalistic.
The poem itself originally appeared in two early anthologies, the more famous being
the Shinkokinshû 新古今集, the eighth imperially sponsored collection of poetry in Japanese,compiled circa 1205. There, it is preceded by the headnote, “Composed by his mother whenthe monk Jôjin 成尋 went to China.” In 1071, Jôjin, in preparation for his pilgrimage to
Buddhist holy sites in China, had entrusted his mother, her name no longer known, to thecare of his younger brother, also a monk. At the time, Jôjin was already 61 years old; hismother, in her early eighties. She began to keep a sort of poetic diary lamenting her
imminent, and—she feared—permanent, separation from her beloved elder son. As soon as
she arrived at the brother’s monastery, she sent Jôjin a sequence of seven poems expressing
her grief and begging that her son return from China promptly. That was the poem’s originalcontext: part of an elderly widow’s plea that her favorite son, intent on overseas adventure,remember her and not fail to return.3 As it happens, he did not. The poetry is unremarkable,
793-94).
3

In Shinkokinshû, this is poem 871; for a full discussion of the mother’s anthology, Jôjin

Azari no Haha no Shû 成尋阿闍梨母集, see my “Jôjin Azari no Haha no Shû, A Poetic
Reading, The Distant Isle: Studies and Translations of Japanese Literature in Memory ofRobert Brower, ed Thomas Blenman Hare, Robert Borgen, and Sharalyn Orbaugh (Center
for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1997), in which this poem is treated on pp.
8-10. Of various modern editions, the most convenient is Miyazaki Sôhei 宮崎荘平, Jôjin-2-but the story is affecting.
The poem attracted little attention until 1942, when the newspapers that evolved into
the present Mainichi Shinbun published “Aikoku Hyakunin Isshu” 愛国百人一首, literally
something like, “One Hundred Patriotic Poems by One Hundred Poets.” The title refers to
the familiar Hyakunin Isshu, a medieval anthology of one hundred poems, each by a different
poet. Because the poems came to be used in a card game played in Japanese homes every
New Year, they are among the best known in the classical Japanese poetic cannon. The
poems typically treat the conventional themes of classical Japanese literature: love andnature. The original collection dated from about 1200, but later years saw many imitations.
The year 1942 called for a distinctively different anthology, reflecting the contemporary
demand for sterner stuff than the traditional romance and flowers. Hence, the patriotic
version was compiled and even translated into both Chinese and English, although it isdifficult to imagine that foreign readers of the day would have appreciated the sentiments
expressed.4 Those responsible for the compilation include some of the leading literary andscholarly figures of the day, among them the distinguished poets Sasaki Nobutsuna 佐々木信綱, Saitô Mokichi 斎藤茂吉, Kitahara Hakushû 北原白秋, and Orikuchi Shinobu 折口信夫, plus other intellectuals such as Hisamatsu Sen’ichi 久松潜一, Tokutomi Sohô 徳富蘇峰,
and Tsuji Zennosuke 辻善之助.
Kawada Jun 川田順, in a commentary published shortly after the patriotic collection
appeared, explains the inclusion of this poem. First, his introduction gives the generalcriteria for selecting the poems. “Patriotism” was to be broadly defined so as to include love
Ajari Haha no Shû Zenshakuchû 成尋阿闍梨母集全釈注 (Kôdansha, 1979). The work has
been translated into English, with meticulous annotation and an introduction detailing thecircumstances of composition, by Robert Minzter, “Jôjin Azari no haha shû: Maternal Lovein the Eleventh Century, An Enduring Testament,” (Diss. Harvard University, 1978).
4

For the English version, see Heihachiro Honda, One Hundred Patriotic Poems(Hokuseido Press, 1944), where the poem by Jôjin’s mother appears on
p. 27: “You start for Cathay,/ Which lies on the globe same,/ Howe’er far away./ Ne’er fail,
my son, to esteem/ Your land, nor of it to dream!” Although I have not actually seen the
Chinese version, it is discussed in Okamura Keiji 岡村敬二, “Pekin Kindai Kagaku
Toshokan no ‘Nihon’,” 北京近代科学図書館の〈日本〉 Nihon Kenkyû 7 (1992), pp.
115-16.
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between parent and child or husband and wife, since Japan was a nation that believed in“family-ism” (kazokushugi 家族主義). In his explanation of the poem itself, Kawada statesthat it was the parting gift from an aged mother warning her son that going to China to help
bring back foreign culture may have been very noble, but he must not to forget that he isJapanese. Kawada concludes by stressing that the reason for including this poem was to befound in the attitude of the mother, who displayed the traditional spirit of sufferance
characteristic of Japanese women. To be sure, parting was a tearful occasion, but the motherwas able to endure her sadness and admonish her son not to forget Japan.
Kawada improves upon history by asserting that Jôjin did return to Japan and devotehimself to propagating esoteric Buddhism, even though a note on the poem’s author at theback of the book does get the details right and has him dying in China.5 But thismisstatement of fact is surely the lesser of Kawada’s distortions. More notably, he turns
Jôjin’s mother into a model for wartime Japanese mothers who were also sending their sonsoff to China, not on religious pilgrimages but to fight a brutal war. They too had good reason
to worry that their sons might not return, but, Kawada implied, Jôjin’s mother offered amodel for them to follow. In fact, readers of her complete text would have discovered that
she was all too possessive a mother who had no sympathy at all for her son’s foolishreligious ambitions to make a pilgrimage to China. Instead, she desperately wanted him tostay with her. She repeatedly regrets only that, when he had sent her off to be cared for by
his brother, she had failed to make a scene, weeping and protesting so vociferously that Jôjin
would be too embarrassed to part from her. In the end, he left at night, without telling her.
Presumably he anticipated she would have taken the news badly. Some Japanese mothers
during World War II may have shared her sentiments and preferred that their sons stay home,
but one wonders how many would have dared express such views, even in private writings.
If Jôjin’s mother seems out of place in a selection of patriotic poets, Jôjin himself did
express sentiments that certainly seem nationalistic. Occasionally, he would have even madea wartime Japanese patriot proud; mostly, however, he helps us understand Japanese national
identity in the eleventh century. His nationalism—and, problematic though it may be, thatterm will be used—was not of the bellicose sort, but rather seemed to reflect an accurateawareness of cultural and political differences combined with a sense of self-confidence. If
Jôjin never returned home, he did follow his mother’s admonition never to forget Japan.
Like his mother, Jôjin kept a journal, although his is anything but poetic. Rather, it is5

Kawata Jun 川田順, Aikoku Hyakunin Isshu Hyôshaku 愛国百人一首評釈 (Ôsaka:

Asahi Shinbunsha, 1943) pp. 17-20, 84-86, 250.
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a daily record, written in terse, often cryptic, Chinese, recounting his experiences. In thethird month of 1072, Jôjin, accompanied by seven disciples, boarded a Chinese merchantship in Kyushu. After six days at sea, they arrived off the coast of China near the moderncity of Ningbo. From there, Jôjin and his entourage travelled to the nearby Tiantai 天台
Mountains where his sect of Buddhism had been founded. Jôjin’s second goal was toworship at another holy site, the Wutai 五台 Mountains far too the north. Local officials,
obviously ill at ease in their dealings with a foreign monk, insisted he get permission fromthe central government before proceeding there, and so he dutifully sent off a petition
requesting permission to visit Wutai. When eventually he received a reply, it made no
mention of Wutai but instead ordered him to the capital for an imperial audience. From thispoint on, he became a guest of the Chinese government, his travels generously subsidized.
Jôjin then went to the Song 宋 capital of Kaifeng 開封, where he met with Buddhist monks
from throughout Asia. After his imperial audience, he was granted permission to visited
Wutai, a two-month journey through the northern mountains that he completed in the dead of
winter. Upon his return, he began to make arrangement to send five of his disciples home to
Japan and to return to Tiantai himself in the company of his remaining two followers. With
this in mind, he gathered many unfamiliar Chinese texts that he wanted to send home.
Before he could depart, however, he was again summoned to the palace, this time to say
prayers to end a drought. When rain fell, he was given credit and rewarded with adistinguished rank in the Chinese Buddhist hierarchy. Subsequently, he returned to the coastand entrusted his diary to his returning disciples, who then brought it safely back to Japan.
Entitled The Record of a Pilgrimage to the Tiantai and Wutai Mountains 参天台五台山記, it
offers a detailed description of sixteen months of travel throughout China. Jôjin thendisappears from the pages of history until eight years later when we are told he died in
China.6
Scattered throughout Jôjin’s diary may be found evidence of his strong sense of
6

For a general introduction to the diary in English, see my “San Tendai Godai san ki as a
Source for the Study of Sung History," Bulletin of Sung Yuan Studies XIX (1987), pp. 1-16.
In Japanese, see Ii Haruki 伊井春樹, Jôjin no Nissô to Sono Shôgai 成尋の入宋とその生涯(Yoshikawa Kôbunkan, 1996). The most convenient edition of the diary is that edited by
Takakusu Junjirô 高楠順次郎 and included in vol. 115 of Dai Nihon Bukkyô zensho 大日本
仏教全書 originally published in 1917 and subsequently reprinted many times by various
publishers. Citations of the diary will be in the form of kan 巻 no. (in romannumerals)/month/day.
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national identity. As a convenience, the examples that follow will be divided into three
categories, language, government, and religion even though in practice the distinctions areblurred.
One conspicuous example of linguistic nationalism is Jôjin’s use of the term “Great
Japanese Nation” 大日本国 to refer to his native land, an example of which will appear
shortly in a translated excerpt from the diary. Japanese scholars have called attention to thischoice of terminology.7 It is a usage that must surely provoke strong, if highly divergent,
reactions among modern Japanese, for it sounds vaguely reminiscent of prewar Japan’s
official name, “Great Japanese Imperial Nation” 大日本帝国. Reading too much into thisterm, however, is dangerous. First, Jôjin was merely imitating Chinese usage. If Japan is“The Great Japanese Nation,” China is “The Great Song Nation,” a term Jôjin also adopts.
Jôjin is simply attempting to put Japan on an equal footing with China, not asserting Japanesesuperiority. In other historical periods, the Chinese might have found such assertions ofequality offensive, but the Song was a weak dynasty that faced military threats and wasanxious to make friendly alliances. Rather than object, the Song chose to treat Jôjin as an
official representative of Japan and use his visit as an excuse to seek a revival of diplomaticties, an attempt that ultimately failed as the Japanese were not much interested.8 Unofficial
Chinese tolerance of this usage was demonstrated when the monks at Wutai presented Jôjin adocument using both the terms “Great Song Nation” and “Great Japanese Nation.” In short,
Jôjin’s terminology is more a reflection of traditional Chinese usage than a precursor ofmodern Japanese imperialism.
Three final points remain concerning Jôjin’s choice of terminology. First, idea ofturning Japan into a “Great Nation” appears to have been a recent development in his day.
The oldest example of “Great Japanese Nation” cited in the authoritative dictionary Nihon
7

See, for example, Tsuji Zennosuke 辻善之助, Kaigai Kôtsû Shiwa 海外交通史話(Naigai Shoseki, 1930) pp. 182-83; and Mori Katsumi 森克己, Kaigai Kôshôshi no Shiten 海
外交渉史の視点 (Nihon Shoseki, 1975) vol. 1, p. 167.
8

For diplomacy in Song times, see the essays found in Morris Rossabi, ed. China among
Equals: The Middle Kingdom and its Neighbors, 10th-14th Centuries (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1983). Diplomatic consequences of Jôjin’s visit to China are treated in
my “Monkish Diplomacy: A Case Study in Eleventh-Century Sino-Japanese Relations,”
Contacts between Cultures: Selected Papers from the Thirty-third the International Congressof Asian and North African Studies, vol. 4: East Asian History and Social Sciences (E.
Mellen Press, 1992).
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Kokugo Daijiten 日本国語大辞典 is a document dated 1046, a mere 26 years before Jôjin
used the term.9 Thus, although Jôjin had not coined the phrase, surely it had not appeared
previously in an international setting. Second, the Japanese and Chinese usages are notaltogether parallel, for Jôjin’s term presumably referred to the Japanese state, whereas its
Chinese counterpart referred to a specific dynasty. Since Japan has not had a series ofdynasties, the Japanese had little choice but to adopt a term suggestive of modern nationalism
in place of China’s dynastic labels. Finally, Jôjin was not consistent. If he choseoccasionally to use terminology inflating Japan’s status, other times he conceded to Chinese
hegemonic inclinations by adopting the Chinese era name. Thus, whereas the diary begins inJapan with a date using the Japanese era name, the fourth year of Enkyû 延久, by the thirdbook, the date has become the fifth year of Xining 熈寧 and the forth book begins “TheGreat Song Nation, the fifth year of Xining.” Here, Jôjin was conceding to Chinese notionsof propriety that insisted on the use of the Chinese by vassal states.
Jôjin’s interactions with the Chinese government began as soon as he arrived in
Hangzhou, the first major Chinese city he visited. His travels in China were closely
monitored. Before he could go to Tiantai, he needed official travel documents. In seeking
permission to travel, he was aided by his interpreter, a Chinese merchant who had been to
Japan five times and learned the language—in Hangzhou he also met a Korean sailor who
spoke Japanese—and by other local merchants and Buddhist monks. As he proceeded to
Tiantai, officials periodically checked his documents and, by the time he was requesting
permission to travel from the central government, he had come to fully appreciate their value
and copied them into his diary. At this point, we discover they had been issued not to him
but to his interpreter. As an unknown foreign monk, apparently he had status only as a wardof his new-found Chinese companion. This all changed when the central government
ordered him to the capital for an imperial audience and he became a guest of state. Local
officials were now quite pleased to deal with him directly. His contacts with the Chinese
government are thus a persistent theme throughout the diary.
Two incidents, both of which occurred in the capital, are particularly revealing of his
attitude toward his Chinese hosts. Upon his arrival in the Chinese capital, he was given a listof questions by the Chinese court, which he recorded in his diary along with his answers:

9This first reference is in a prayer to Hachiman Daibosatsu 八幡大菩薩 (Heian Ibun:

Komonjo Hen 平安遺文古文書編, Takeuchi Rizô 竹内理三 ed. [Tôkyôdô, 1974] vol. 3, p.
775.
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Question: What are Japan's customs?
Answer: The Tang 唐 Dynasty forms the basis in our study of the civil and martial arts.
Question: How many li is the area of the capital?
Answer: There are nine wards 条 totaling thirty-eight li. One ward is four li making thirtysix li and to the north of the first ward are an additional two li.
Question: How many residences are in the capital?
Answer: There are 200,000 houses. I do not know the exact number in the western andsouthern capitals [Daizaifu and Nara], but there are many.
Question: What is the population of the nation?
Answer: I do not know how many countless billions 億万.
Question: What is the area of your nation?
Answer: It is 7,700 li from east to west and 5,000 li from south to north.
Question: How many states 国, districts 郡 and villages 邑 are there?
Answer: There are sixty-eight provinces 州 and 981 districts.
Question: What is the king of your nation 国王 called?
Answer: He is either called "emperor"皇帝 or called "sage ruler" 聖主.
Question: Do your families have surnames?
Answer: Our families have surnames. Fujiwara 藤原, Minamoto 源, Taira 平, andTachibana 橘 are the most noble; time does not allow me to provide a detailed list of all theothers.
Question: Since your nation is very close to Mingzhou 明州, why do not maintain contact
with China?
Answer: I do not know how many li of ocean lie between my nation and Mingzhou. Somesay it is more than 7,000 li, others 5,000 li. The waves are high and there are no harbors.
Contact with China is difficult to maintain.
Question: What are the titles of your nation’s high officials?

-8-Answer: There is one prime minister 大政大臣, one minister of the left 左大臣, one minister of the right 右大臣, one minister of the center 内大臣, four major
counsellors 大納言, six middle counsellors 中納言, and eight consultants 参議. Together,
these officials are known as "senior nobles" 上卿.
Question: What is the genealogy of your nation? [Jôjin's note: the monk Sanzang 三蔵 said
that this meant the names in the genealogy of the age of the gods and the age of men.]
Answer: In my land, the genealogy in the age of the gods consists of seven generations: thefirst is Kunitokotachi no Mikoto 国常立尊, the second is Izanagi-Izanami no Mikoto 伊弉諾伊弉册尊, the third is Ôhirumemuchi no kami 大日霊貴, who is also known as AmaterasuÔmikami 天照大神. When this sun goddess was first born, she became emperor 帝王.
Later she climbed to the heavens and shone on the realm below which was therefore named
the Great Japanese Nation (literally, “The Great Nation which is the Source of the Sun”).
The fourth is Masakatsu no Mikoto 正勝尊, and the fifth, Hiko no Mikoto 彦尊, who ruledfor 318,542 years and was the eldest son of the previous king. The sixth was Hikohohodemi
no Mikoto 彦火々出見尊, who ruled for 637,892 years and was the second son of theprevious king. The seventh was Hikonagisa no Mikoto 彦瀲尊 who ruled for 836,042 years.
Next was the first generation of human rulers, Jinmu Tennô 神武天皇, who ruled for eightyseven years and was the fourth son of the previous king. The seventy-first generation is thepresent national ruler. All are descendents of the divine family.
Question: In your nation, are the temperatures in the four seasons the same as in China?
Answer: In my nation, the temperatures in the four seasons are the same as in China.
Question: When one goes to the nation of Japan from Mingzhou, at what province and inwhat district does one first arrive and how far is it from there to the city of the nation's king?
Answer: From Mingzhou, one arrives at the harbor of Hakata 博多 in Chikuzen 筑前
Province, Dazaifu 太宰府, in the nation of Japan; from the harbor to the city of the nation's
king is 2,700 li.
Question: What goods from the land of Han does your nation need?
Answer: Our nation needs from the land of Han fragrances, medicines, tea, bowls [orteabowls?], brocade, and sapan-wood [used as a dye].

-9-Question: What beasts are there in your nation?
Answer: My nation has no lions, elephants, tigers, sheep, peacocks, or parrots, but it has all
the other varieties.
Question: What is the surname of the king 王 of your nation?
Answer: My nation’s king 国王 has no surname.
Question: How far is your nation from the land of the hairy people 毛国?
Answer: I do not know how far it is from the nation of the hairy people.10
Both the Chinese questions and Jôjin’s answers are fascinating. Although all meritcomment, only a few relating to Jôjin’s sense of national identity will be discussed here. For
example, even the most rabid modern Japanese emperor worshippers would surely be pleased
that Jôjin emphasizes the divine ancestry of Japan’s royal family, but at the same time theywould be rather puzzled by his version of the genealogy of the age of the gods, whichappears to be a unique variation on the familiar creation myths from Japan’s ancienthistories, Kojiki 古事記 and Nihon Shoki 日本書紀. Perhaps, as a devout Buddhist, Jôjin
was uncertain of the details and so improvised to produce a version that would seem moreplausible, yet at the same time more impressive, to his foreign audience. This involved a
mixture of both contracting and expanding on the details. Names of deities that may haveseemed improbably cumbersome were contracted. Thus, for example, the diet whose various
alternate names includes Masakaakatsukachihayabi Amanooshihomimi no Mikoto 正哉吾勝
勝速日天忍穂耳尊 became simply Masakatsu no Mikoto. At the same time, reign lengths
were wildly inflated. Nowhere else does one find even deities credited with reigns in thehundreds of thousands of years, and even Jinmu is normally only given seventy-six years.
Similarly, other numbers such as Japan’s putative population are clearly exaggerated.
For example, according to modern calculations, a li is just under 4 kilometers. A roughestimate puts Jôjin’s route from Japan to China at approximately 800 kilometers. Jôjin
claims the distance to be between 20,000 and 28,000 kilometers. Earlier in his diary,
however, he had estimated the distance as 3,000 li,11 or about 12,000 kilometers, still almost
four times the actual figure, but apparently not sufficient to justify the infrequency of Japan’s
diplomatic missions to China. Other measurements are comparably exaggerated, although10

IV/10/15.

11

I/3/25.
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we have no way of knowing whether or not Jôjin was consciously inflating his figures as heclearly was doing with the distance to China or was merely ignorant of the actual numbers.
Whatever the reason, Jôjin was stressing that his was a grand and civilized nation.
Later, when Jôjin was asked to say prayers for rain, once again he expressed an acuteawareness of his status as a representative of his nation, although this time his concerns wereexpressed only in his diary. He vowed to bring substantial rain within three days because,
first, he wanted to demonstrate the miraculous power of the Lotus Sutra, which was basis ofboth his sect of Buddhism and the rites he was about to perform. Successful prayers would
encourage faith in the sutra. Second, he wanted to repay the Chinese emperor for his great
generosity. And third, although many Japanese monks had previously visited China, none
yet had received an imperial command asking that they pray for rain. If his prayers were to
fail, it would be a great embarrassment for the Japanese nation. Jôjin was not merely a monkon a pilgrimage. He had become a representative of the whole Japanese nation and wasdetermined to make a good impression. In this case, he succeeded so splendidly thateventually he was asked to say prayers for the rain to cease, and they too proved effective.
When asked if there were others in Japan as effective in their prayers as he, he replied thatmany were better.12 Whether he is boasting of the skill of Japanese rainmakers or being
modest about his own abilities is difficult to judge.
Finally, in the realm of faith Jôjin revealed that, although at times he may have been anationalist, he could also be an internationalist. If Jôjin had frequent dealings with thegovernment, he contacts with China’s Buddhist community were even greater. While in
China, whenever he was not actually travelling, he was staying in monasteries where ininteracted constantly with other monks. Most, of course, were Chinese, but Jôjin also metmonks from other Asian nations. Although his sense of geography seems imprecise, mostare identified as Indians. A few are described a having black skin, suggesting that indeed
they probably came from either southern India or perhaps Sri Lanka. Other foreign monks
were from Tibet.13 Jôjin mixed easily with all of them. Dark skin must have been quite anovelty for an eleventh-century Japanese, yet Jôjin seems to note it only as an incidental
detail to which he attaches little importance. If Jôjin displayed nationalistic inclinations in
his dealings with the China’s government, he fit into its Buddhist community with little hintof dissonance.
Nonetheless, he attitude toward the local church differed from that of earlier Japanese
12

VII/3/1-7, 22.

13

IV/10/13, V/12/27, VII/3/30.
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and reflected a new sense of national confidence. Previous Japanese pilgrims had gone to
China seeking knowledge, clarification of doctrinal matters they did not understand, andbringing back to Japan with them new sects or teachings. By Jôjin’s day, the situation hadchanged. Japanese Buddhism had matured to the point that Japanese monks were sending
their texts to China, where they expected to find an audience for them.14 This is not to saythat the Japanese had become arrogant. Rather, they were dealing with Chinese as their
spiritual equals. Jôjin offers a case in point. The goal of his pilgrimage was primarily just
that: visiting holy places to perform sacred rites. At the same time, he showed considerable
curiosity about new developments in Chinese Buddhism. When he came upon the works ofHanshan 寒山, a Buddhist poet previously unknown in Japan, he obtained a copy of his
works to send back home.15 In the capital he observed a massive government-supported sutratranslation and printing enterprise. Again, he obtained copies of the new sutras and sent
them back to Japan. The difference between Jôjin and earlier pilgrims is that he had alsobrought with him to China Japanese Buddhist writings, including some of his own, that heshared with his Chinese hosts, who actively sought them out. When a Chinese expressed aninterest in a rite he was performing, he taught it to the Chinese. He devoted little effort toactively seeking out new teachings and practices. By the eleventh century, however, aJapanese monk had something to teach as well as something to learn, and Jôjin participatedin this intellectual exchange. If he was critical of an occasional ignorant monk, he wasrespectful of those who were pious and learned. When he observed a Daoist deity being
worshipped at a Tiantai monastery, he easily equated it with the Shinto deity worshipped at
Mt. Hiei.16 For Jôjin, faith did transcend national boundaries, if not absolutely, at least to aconsiderable degree.
Based on such evidence, can we conclude that Jôjin, unlike his mother, was a true
nationalist? This is a question that ultimately cannot be answered. If one follows theconventional view of nationalism as a modern phenomenon, looking for nationalism in thelikes of both Jôjin and his mother is folly: just as the compilers of the Patriotic Poems
misinterpreted Jôjin’s mother to turn her into a patriot, we are misunderstanding Jôjin if we
consider him a nationalist. As The Encyclopedia Brittanica confidently explains, prior to therise of nationalism, loyalties were to “the feudal fief and its lord, the dynastic state, thereligious group, or the sect.”17 Certainly in later times, Japanese loyalties focused on feudal
14

Mori, Kaigai Kôshôshi, p. 206; for Jôjin’s comments, see IV/10/25

15

See my “The Legend of Hanshan: A Neglected Source,” Journal of the American

Oriental Society, vol. 111, no. 3 (Fall, 1991).
16

VII/3/28, VII/3/18-19, VII/3/12-13, I/5/14, etc.
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lords, and the Chinese emphasized their dynasties. For Jôjin, the situation was more
complicated. He did express loyalty to a dynastic line, but unlike other such royal lineages, it
was regarded as conterminous with the Japanese nation. No other dynasties were recognized
and so, at least in principle, dynasty and state were the same. Although Jôjin was also loyal
to his transnational Buddhist faith, this did not conflict with his strong sense of identity as aJapanese. The encyclopedia explanation does not quite fit Jôjin’s case.
One key element, however, is indeed missing from Jôjin’s nationalism. In bothmodern Europe and Japan, nationalism was, or at least was meant to be, a sentiment sharedby all the people of a nation-state. Jôjin was hardly a typical, representative Japanese of hisday. If he was a Buddhist monk, he was also an noble with close ties to the court. His father
was a Fujiwara and his mother a Minamoto, both from particularly powerful lineages withinthese sprawling families at the pinnacle of the aristocratic hierarchy. Furthermore, he heldhigh rank in the Buddhist hierarchy. Once he had been called upon to say prayers for therecovery of both the ailing emperor and his ailing regent. We have no way of knowing
whether the views he expressed were widely shared by the common people in Japan of hisday, for we know virtually nothing about popular views on any topic until much later times.
Nationalists of a later day—those who put his mother’s poem in a collection of patriotic
poetry—surely would have interpreted this lack of evidence to mean that Jôjin’s views were
the norm; all were nationalists even in his day. More plausibly, some scholars haveacknowledged the presence of seemingly nationalistic sentiments, even in early periods when
they would deny the existence of true nationalism. One view stresses that what seems to benationalism is actually a sense of ethnic identity.18 Others have distinguished a sense ofnational identity once found only among elites from the more widely shared nationalism ofmodern times.19 Jôjin’s nationalism surely was of the elite, not the popular, variety. Still, if
Jôjin’s example does not prove the existence of modern nationalism in ancient Japan, it does
demonstrate that when nineteenth-century Japanese set about to propagate modern nationalist
ideas, the materials with which they were working were not purely their own inventions.
One can find nationalistic ideas in at least certain strata of early Japanese society.

17(1993) vol. 27, p. 420.

18

Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1986), pp.

6-18.
19

Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, pp. 14-18; Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since
1780, p. 9.
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This paper was originally published in the Annual Report of the Insitute for International
Studies [Meiji Gakuin University], no. 1 (December 1998), pp. 49-59. Posted on the pmjs sitewith the permission of the Director of the Institute.
Journal title in Japanese:「研究所年報」（明治学院大学国際学部付属研究所）
Copyright (c) 2000 by Robert Borgen, all rights reserved. This work may be copied for
non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the author and the pmjs site. For otherpermission, please contact rborgen@ucdavis.edu
http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs
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