Heian Palace

Heian Palace
The was the original imperial palace of (present-day Kyoto), then the capital of Japan. Both the palace and the city were constructed in the late 700s and were patterned on Chinese models and designs. The palace served as the imperial residence and the administrative centre for most of the Heian period (794–1185).
Located in the north-central section of the city, the palace consisted of a large, walled, rectangular Greater Palace (the ), which contained several ceremonial and administrative buildings including the government ministries. Inside this enclosure was the separately walled residential compound of the emperor, or the Inner Palace. In addition to the emperor's living quarters, the Inner Palace contained the residences of the imperial consorts and buildings more closely linked to the person of the emperor.
The original role of the palace was to manifest the centralised government model adopted by Japan from China in the 7th century – known as the system, where the bureaucracy under the emperor was headed by the great council of state and its subsidiary Eight Ministries. The palace was designed to provide an appropriate setting for the emperor's residence, the conduct of great affairs of state, and the accompanying ceremonies. While the residential function of the palace continued until the 12th century, the facilities built for grand state ceremonies began to fall into disuse by the 9th century. This was due to both the abandonment of several statutory ceremonies and procedures and the transfer of several remaining ceremonies into the smaller-scale setting of the Inner Palace.
From the mid-Heian period, the palace suffered several fires and other disasters. During reconstructions, emperors and some of the office functions resided outside the palace. This, along with the general loss of political power of the court, acted to further diminish the importance of the palace as the administrative centre. In 1227 the palace burned down and was never rebuilt. The site was built over so that almost no trace of it remains. Knowledge of the palace is thus based on contemporary literary sources, surviving diagrams and paintings, and limited excavations.
Location
The palace was located at the northern centre of the rectangular city , following the Chinese model of the Tang dynasty capital of . The model had been adopted already for the Heijō Palace in the earlier capital (in present-day ) and the short-lived interim capital of .
The main entrance to the palace was the gate , which formed the northern terminus of the great Suzaku Avenue, which ran through the centre of the city from the gate . The palace thus faced south and presided over the symmetrical urban plan of . In addition to the , the palace had 13 other gates located symmetrically along the side walls. A major avenue led to each of the gates, except for the three along the northern side of the palace, which was coterminous with the northern boundary of the city.
The south-eastern corner of the Greater Palace was located in the middle of the present-day Nijō Castle.
History
Early history
Less than ten years after a presumably politically motivated move of the capital from (on the site of present-day Nara) to
(approx. 10 kilometers to the south-west of Kyoto), Emperor Kanmu decided to move the capital again, likely due to frequent flooding of the Nagaoka-kyō site. In 794 the court moved into this new capital of , where it was to stay for more than 1000 years. The palace was the first and most important structure to be erected at the new capital, but it was not completely ready by the time of the move; the was completed in 795, and the government office in charge of its construction was disbanded in 805, though work on the place was still incomplete. Construction of the palace and imperial family residences was a major expenditure for Kanmu's administration, accounting for the majority of revenues gathered during his reign, according to a 10th-century source. The powerful immigrant Hata family may have influenced and financially supported the decision to move the capital to Heian-kyō, closer to its power base. Later sources claim that the new imperial residence occupied the site of a former Hata leader's residence.
Two of the most important official sections of the palace complex, the grand Chinese-style and , started to fall into disuse quite early on. This paralleled the decline of the elaborate Chinese-inspired government processes and bureaucracy, many of which were gradually either abandoned or reduced to empty forms while de facto decision making moved into the hands of most powerful families (in particular the Fujiwara) and new extralegal offices (such as , see below).
Pertly as the consequence of these developments the real administrative centre of the complex moved gradually to the emperors residential Inner Palace, or .
As activity was concentrated in the , other sections of the Greater Palace began to be regarded as increasingly unsafe, especially by night. One reason may be the prevalent superstition of the period: uninhabited buildings were avoided for fear of spirits and ghosts, and even the great compound was thought to be haunted. In addition, the level of security maintained at the palace went into decline, and by the early 11th century only one palace gate, the in the east, appears to have been guarded. Hence burglary and even violent crime became a problem within the palace by the first half of 11th century.
Decreasing use
Fires were a constant problem as the palace compound was constructed almost entirely of wood. The was destroyed by a fire in 1063 and was never rebuilt. The was reconstructed after fires in 876, 1068 and in 1156 despite its limited use. After the major fire of 1177 destroyed much of the Greater Palace, the was never rebuilt.
Starting in 960, the was also repeatedly destroyed by fires, but it was always rebuilt, and it continued to be used as the official imperial residence until the late 12th century. According to historian William H. McCullough, the Dairi fires were frequent enough that arson is "generally assumed". During the periods of rebuilding, the emperors frequently had to stay at their within the city. Often these secondary palaces were provided by the powerful family, which especially in the latter part of the Heian period exercised de facto control of politics by providing consorts to successive emperors. Thus the residences of the emperors' maternal grandparents started to usurp the residential role of the palace even before the end of the Heian period. The institution of rule by retired emperors, or the insei system, from 1086 further added to the declining importance of the palace, as retired emperors exercised power from their own residential palaces inside and outside the city.
Late history
In the aftermath of the 1156 Hōgen rebellion, Emperor Go-Shirakawa ordered the rebuilding of portions of the palace as part of an effort to reclaim more power to the emperor and restart some ceremonial practices. Go-Shirakawa soon abdicated in favor of his son, Emperor Nijo, and both were attacked and held captive in the palace during the Heiji rebellion. They escaped a few weeks later, and forces loyal to them retook the palace and ended the rebellion.
After a fire in 1177, the original palace complex was abandoned and emperors resided in smaller palaces (the former ) within the city and villas outside it. In 1227 a fire destroyed what remained of the , and the old Greater Palace went into essentially complete disuse. In 1334 Emperor Go-Daigo issued an edict to rebuild the Greater Palace, but no resources were available to support this and the project was not completed.
Though the Heian palace fell into total disuse, Heian-kyō remained the capital until 1868, with the name Kyoto (meaning capital city) applied to it starting in the eleventh century. The present Kyoto Imperial Palace is located immediately to the west of the site of the , the residence in the north-eastern corner of the city that increasingly functioned as a temporary imperial residence and eventually developed into new permanent palace. The ruined site of (the government department responsible for worship of the native kami) is the longest-surviving known part of the Heian palace and apparently remained in some use until 1585.
Primary sources
While the palace itself has been completely destroyed, a significant amount of information regarding it has been obtained from contemporary and almost contemporary sources. The Heian Palace figures as a setting in many Heian period literary texts, both fiction and non-fiction. These provide important information on the palace itself, court ceremonies and functions held there and everyday routines of the courtiers living or working there. Notable examples include the Tale of Genji by , the so-called Pillow Book by and the chronicles and . In addition, paintings in certain picture scrolls depict (sometimes fictional) scenes that took place at the palace and similar aristocratic dwellings; the Genji Monogatari Emaki, dating from about 1130, is perhaps the best-known example. There are also partially damaged maps of the palace from the 10th and 12th centuries showing the layout and function of the buildings within the . Modern archaeological study of the palace site has been hampered by the development of urban Kyoto over the palace ground ruins, but a few parts have been excavated, including the Burakuden.
Greater Palace
The was a walled rectangular area extending approximately from north to south between the first and second major east–west avenues and and from west to east between the and north-south avenues.
The three main structures within the Greater Palace were the , the and the .
The was a rectangular walled enclosure situated directly to the north of the gate in the centre of the southern wall of the Greater Palace. It was based on Chinese models and followed Chinese architectural styles. Archaeological evidence from earlier capital palaces shows a generally stable design from the 7th century onwards. It was also called the as the corresponding compounds of the earlier Naniwa-kyō and Nagaoka-kyō palaces, which had eight halls in the central courtyard; however, as the Heian Palace compound had 12 halls, the traditional name was somewhat misleading, and the more accurate was also used.
Originally the was intended as the setting where the emperor was to preside over regular early morning deliberations on major state affairs by the bureaucracy, receive monthly reports from officials, hold New Year congratulations and receive foreign ambassadors. However, the practice of the morning deliberations ceased by 810 as did the monthly reports. Foreign ambassadors were no longer received for most of the Heian period, and the New Year celebrations were abbreviated and moved into the by the end of the 10th century, leaving the Accession Audiences (where the accession of a new emperor was proclaimed to the wider officialdom) and certain Buddhist ceremonials as the only ones held in the .
The main building within the was the , which faced south from the northern end of the compound. This was a large (approximately 52 m (170 ft) east to west and 20 m (65 ft) north to south) Chinese-style building with white walls, vermilion pillars and green tiled roofs, intended for most important state ceremonies and functions. The smaller southern section of the consisted of waiting rooms for senior officials, while the largest middle section
of the compound was occupied by a courtyard surrounded symmetrically by the Twelve Halls, where the bureaucracy assembled for court ceremonies and was seated according to strict order of precedence. The shrine in Kyoto includes an apparently faithful reconstruction of the in somewhat reduced scale.
The was another large rectangular Chinese-style compound, situated to the west of the . It was built for official celebrations and banquets and used also for other types of entertainment such as archery contests. Like the , the had a hall at the central northern end of the enclosure overseeing the court. This hall, the , was used by the emperor and courtiers presiding over activities in the . The also fell gradually into disuse as many functions were moved to the . It was destroyed in at 1063 and not rebuilt. Unlike most of the palace, the Buraku-in site was subjected to some archaeological excavations in the twentieth century.
Other Greater Palace buildings
Apart from the Inner Palace, the remaining area of the Greater Palace was occupied by ministries, lesser offices, workshops, storage buildings and the large open space of the to the west of the . The buildings of the were situated in a walled enclosure immediately to the east of the , laid out in the typical symmetrical plan of buildings opening to a courtyard in the south. The was built right next to the Inner Palace and used for ceremonies held on the emperor's behalf. Apart from and , it was the only Buddhist establishment permitted within the capital. Permission to build it inside the palace, granted in 834, shows the influence of the Shingon sect during the early Heian Period.
Inner Palace
The , or Inner Palace, was located to the north-east of the somewhat to the east of the central north-south axis of the Greater Palace. Its central feature was the Throne Hall. The encompassed the emperor's living quarters and the pavilions of the imperial consorts and ladies-in-waiting (collectively, the ). It was enclosed within two sets of walls. In addition to the itself, the outer walls enclosed some household offices, storage areas, and the —a walled area of Shinto buildings associated with the emperor's religious functions, situated to the west of the itself, at the geographic centre of the Greater Palace. The formal entrance to the larger enclosure was the gate , located directly south of the Dairi.
The proper, the residential compound of the emperor, was enclosed within another set of walls to the east of the . It measured approximately 215 m (710 ft) north to south and 170 m (560 ft) east to west. The main gate was the at the centre of the southern wall of the enclosure, immediately to the north of the gate. In contrast to the solemn, official, Chinese-style architecture of the and the , the was built in a more intimate Japanese architectural style—though still on a grand scale. The Inner Palace represented a variant of the shinden-style architecture used in the aristocratic villas and houses of the period. The buildings, with unpainted surfaces and gabled and shingled cypress bark roofs, were raised on elevated wooden platforms and connected to each other with covered and uncovered slightly elevated passages. Between the buildings and passages were gravel yards and small gardens.
The largest building of the was the , a building reserved for official functions. It was a rectangular hall measuring approximately 30 m (98 ft) east to west and 25 m (82 ft) north to south. Along with its accompanying rectangular courtyard, the Shishinden was situated along the median north-south axis of the , facing the gate. A orange tree and a cherry tree stood symmetrically on both sides of the front staircase of the building. The courtyard was flanked on both sides by smaller halls connected to the , creating the same configuration of buildings (influenced by Chinese examples) that was found in the aristocratic -style villas of the period.
The was used for official functions and ceremonies that were not held at the of the complex. It took over much of the intended use of the larger and more formal building from an early date, as the daily business of government ceased to be conducted in the presence of the emperor in the already at the beginning of the ninth century. Connected to this diminishing reliance on the official government procedures described in the code was the establishment of a personal secretariat to the emperor, the . This office, which increasingly took over the role of coordinating the work of government organs, was set up in the , the hall to the south-west of the .
Residences
To the north of the stood the , a similarly constructed hall of somewhat smaller size that was originally intended to function as the emperor's living quarters. Beginning in the ninth century, the emperors often chose to reside in other buildings of the . A third smaller hall, the was located next to the north along the main axis of the . It faced a garden in the north and was used for flower-viewing and other banquets before becoming residential space for imperial consorts in the 10th century. It also housed the editorial team of the first imperial waka poetry collection Kokinshū.
After the was rebuilt following a fire in 960, the regular residence of the emperors moved to the smaller , an east-facing building located immediately to the north-west from . Gradually the began to be used increasingly for meetings as well, with emperors spending much of their time in this part of the palace. The busiest part of the building was the , where high-ranking nobles came to meet in the presence of the emperor.
Other Inner Palace buildings
The empress and other official and unofficial imperial consorts were also housed in the , occupying buildings in the northern part of the enclosure. The most prestigious buildings, housing the empress and the official consorts, were the ones that had appropriate locations for such use according to the Chinese design principles – the , the and the – as well as the ones closest to the imperial residence in the (the and the ).
Lesser consorts and ladies-in-waiting as well as occasionally some of the crown prince's consorts occupied other buildings of the further away from the emperor's quarters, i.e., towards north-east. A famous fictional depiction of the spatial status hierarchy concerns the eponymous character's low-ranking mother in The Tale of Genji. However, such distinctions were apparently not always strict.
One of the Imperial Regalia of Japan, the emperor's replica of the sacred mirror, was housed in the of the . The present-day Kyoto Imperial Palace, located in what was the north-eastern corner of , reproduces much of the Heian-period .
See also
Architecture of Japan
Heian period
Kyoto Imperial Palace
Notes
References
Mainly Japanese with English summary
. Originally published in 1964.
. A reissue of the 1931 ed. published in Hong Kong, with some new illus. and minor changes, under title: Kyoto: its history and vicissitudes since its foundation in 792 to 1868. First published in article form 1925–28.
Further reading
. The main Japanese reference work on the Palace according to . First volume of a ten-volume general history of Kyoto.
External links
Japanese page with interactive map of the Palace
Page with detailed description of shinden style buildings
8th-century establishments in Japan
Buildings and structures in Kyoto
Imperial residences in Japan
Historic Sites of Japan
Buildings and structures completed in 794
Former palaces in Japan