People have been living on the islands east of the Korean peninsula
for a hundred thousand years.
Pottery was used there more than
ten thousand years ago.
Agriculture and the use of bronze and
iron arrived on the island of Kyushu
with immigrants from China
and Korea in the third century BC.
This culture soon spread to
the central Kanto plain on the largest island Honshu,
and rice
supplemented fish as the main food.
By the third century CE an
aristocratic culture similar to that of Korea
was interring their
leaders in huge tombs.
These horse-riding warriors wore armor,
helmets, and used iron swords
as well as iron plow-tips.
Japanese
chronicles claim that human sacrifice ended about 3 CE,
but Chinese
records of 247 CE mention the Japanese custom;
animal sacrifices,
usually oxen, lasted until the 7th century.
Social differences
were indicated by tattooing and body markings.
The Chinese history
of the Wei dynasty recorded in 297 CE that
about a hundred Japanese
tribes were ruled by hereditary kings and queens.
Wars over royal
succession were common.
Shinto religion worshipped spirits (kami) in diverse
forms;
after the country was unified, the emperor or empress was
considered a descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu.
The Japanese
were particularly concerned about pollution and dirtiness,
emphasizing
cleanliness and ritual purity.
Their word tsumi for sin
or offense derives from covering up or concealing,
and shame was
more prominent in their consciousness than guilt.
According to
the Kojiki the divine Izanagi and his wife Izanami
produced
the first offspring, but the first ones were badly made.
The heavenly
deities decided that was because the woman spoke first.
The ritual
was repeated with the man speaking first,
and the offspring were
all well made.
Many deities were created with Amaterasu ruling
heaven,
Tsukiyomi night, and Susano-o the ocean.
The second book
of the Kojiki describes how Emperor Jimmu
extended his
sovereignty over Japan from Yamato to Kyushu.
In this source of
patriotism an oracle indicates that it is Amaterasu's will
that
Japan
subjugate the land to the west (Korea), and Empress Jingu
leads a swift conquest.
Korean scholars were sent to Japan in the fourth century by
the king of Paekche,
but
Japanese military assistance requested against the kingdom of Silla in 391
arrived too
late to save Paekche.
Japanese
Wa people formed the colony of Mimana in the kingdom of Kaya
in
the southeast corner of the Korean peninsula;
but their campaign
to defend it was held up by Kyushu chief Iwai in 527,
because
he was in league with the Korean Silla
kingdom.
Iwai was defeated, as the Japanese allied themselves
with Paekche against Silla.
In 538 the king of Paekche sent to the Japanese
court at Yamato
a bronze statue of the Buddha with scriptures
and a letter praising the new religion.
The Nakatomi, steeped
in native Shinto ritual,
and the Mononobe clan of warriors opposed
Buddhism;
but it was supported by their rival Soga clan, who advocated
opposing Silla.
The Soga
were allowed to practice the new religion,
but the image was thrown
into a canal during an epidemic.
The Silla
drove the Japanese off the mainland in 562.
Soga Umako built a
chapel for his Buddhist experiments
with Korean monks and nuns
in 570.
A succession battle in 585 resulted in Buddhist proponent
Yomei becoming emperor,
but he died two years later.
Umako gathered
enough forces to annihilate the Mononobe family
at the battle
of Shigisen, and Buddhism began to flourish
under Emperor Sujun
(r. 588-92) and the Soga empress Suiko (r. 593-628).
Umako nominated Prince Shotoku (574-622) as heir to the throne.
As regent Shotoku attempted to apply Buddhist and Confucian ethics
to government.
He did not indict the known murderer of the previous
emperor
but tried to persuade him of his wrong.
In 603 this prince
devised a system of twelve court ranks distinguished
by caps of
different colors based on Korean models;
the ranks in order were
named after six Confucian values, greater and lesser:
virtue,
humanity, propriety, integrity, justice, and knowledge.
The next
year it was said Shotoku wrote the "Seventeen Article Constitution,"
although scholars believe the document was written later.
Its
ethical policies may be summarized as follows:
1. "Harmony is to be valued and an avoidance
of wanton opposition to be honored."
2. "Sincerely reverence the three treasures-Buddha,
the Law, and the Priesthood."
3. Scrupulously obey imperial commands.
4. Ministers and functionaries should make propriety
their leading principle.
5. Abandoning gluttony and covetous desires
deal impartially with suits.
6. Chastise the evil, and encourage the good.
Do not conceal the good qualities of others,
nor fail to correct wrongs.
7. Find the right man for each job.
Unprincipled men in office multiply disasters.
8. "Let the ministers and functionaries attend
the court early in the morning and retire late."
9. "Good faith is the foundation of right."
10. "Let us cease from wrath and refrain from angry looks,
nor let us be resentful when others differ from us."
11. "Give clear appreciation to merit and demerit,
and deal out to each its sure reward or punishment."
12. Do not let provincial authorities tax the people,
for the sovereign is the master of all the people in the country.
13. "Let all persons entrusted with office attend
equally to their functions." 14. "Be not envious."
15. Do not let private motives and feelings interfere
with the public interest.
16. "Let the people be employed at seasonable times,"
not when they are busy with agriculture for food
or mulberry trees for clothing.
17. Important decisions should not be made
by one person but in consultation with others.1
The Chinese calendar was adopted in 604.
Shotoku sent three
missions to the Sui court, but the Chinese emperor
disdained to
recognize the "emperor of the east" as equivalent.
In
624 Japan had 46 Buddhist temples with 816 monks and 569 nuns.
After Prince Shotoku died, the Soga clan's power grew more tyrannical
as
Umako's son Yemishi and his son Iruka treacherously
wiped out
Yamashiro Oye and his family.
Prince Naka Oye got revenge when
assassins murdered Iruka at court in front
of the empress he had
enthroned; Yemishi and his adherents fled, and many were killed.
The next day Empress Kogyoku abdicated;
as Kotoku (r. 645-55)
became emperor, Naka Oye was named crown prince.
The Soga Kurayamada,
who had joined the plot, was named great minister,
and Naka Oye
married Kurayamada's daughter;
thus the Soga clan that had dominated
ceremonial emperors and empresses
for the previous half century
was greatly weakened.
Nakatomi Kamatari (614-69), who founded the Fujiwara clan,
assisted the takeover and devised the great reforms in the reigns
of Kotoku,
Kogyoku again as Empress Saimei (r. 655-61), and Naka
Oye as Tenchi (r. 661-71).
The four articles of the Great Reform
of 646 increased imperial control
by abolishing private ownership
of land, appointing provincial and district governors,
registering
people in order to distribute land to cultivators equally,
and
replacing old taxes and forced labor with an imperial tax system.
Though modified by Japanese customs,
these reforms were based
on successful Tang dynasty practices of the Chinese.
Large landowners
were made provincial governors,
while landed gentry became district
supervisors appointing secretaries, accountants,
and tax collectors;
but weapons were collected and put in government storehouses.
In 660 Paekche asked
for Japan's help against Chinese forces and Silla;
but after their army was defeated three years later,
Japan withdrew
from Korea and exchanged ambassadors with the Tang
court.
A civil war after Tenchi died was probably stimulated by
nobles resenting the reforms;
Tenchi's son was killed, but his
younger brother became Emperor Temmu (r. 673-86).
Temmu promoted
Buddhism influenced by ideals
from the Golden Light Sutra
such as the following:
Know ye, Deva Kings,
that the 84,000 rulers of the 84,000 cities,
towns and villages of the world shall each enjoy
happiness of every sort in his own land;
that they shall all possess freedom of action,
and obtain all manner of precious things in abundance;
that they shall never again invade each other's territories;
that they shall receive recompense
in accordance with their deeds of previous existences;
that they shall no longer yield
to the evil desire of taking the lands of others;
that they shall learn
that the smaller their desires the greater the blessing;
and they shall emancipate themselves
from the suffering of warfare and bondage.
The people of their lands shall be joyous,
and upper and lower classes will blend
as smoothly as milk and water.
They shall appreciate each other's feelings,
join happily in diversions together,
and with all compassion and modesty
increase the sources of goodness.2
Adjustments to laws that followed the Tang
went on for forty years
and were promulgated in the Taiho code
of 702.
The few officials of the third rank or above were not
to be punished
even if they committed a serious crime.
Japan maintained
an imperial theocracy by keeping the emperor's department
of worship
over the council of state; they considered the hereditary emperor
more important than the mandate of heaven,
and birth still counted
more than ability in Japan.
The policy that clan status must be
considered
as well as the service record in promotion was made
law in 682.
Empress Jito (r. 686-97) selected Fujiwara for the
new capital.
Japan now had 66 provinces with 592 districts,
which
were made up of townships of fifty households each.
By the year
692 the number of Buddhist monasteries and shrines had increased
to 545.
The rice land was divided equally to individuals except that
females received only two-thirds as much;
slaves, who were less
than ten percent of the population,
also got two-thirds, female
slaves thus getting less than half.
Produce was taxed at about
five percent,
and males were obligated to provide labor or military
service.
How well this land reform was implemented is questionable.
In a 711 law those who could afford the expense were allowed to bring new land
into cultivation, and twelve years later they could
pass it on to the third generation;
in 743 title to such lands
was granted in perpetuity, and it could be sold.
Land allotments
gradually faded away by the end of the 9th century.
Buddhist institutions
also increased their land,
as pious believers, including emperors,
made donations.
Powerful individuals and institutions managed
to get tax exemptions.
Government authorities, attempting to raise
money, were subject to bribery.
Military service was a burden
on peasants that could ruin a family,
because the men also had
to supply their own equipment and sustenance,
while the upper
classes often were able to evade being drafted.
Rural settlers
for protection often turned to rich nobles,
many of whom lived
in the capital.
The capital was moved to Heijo (Nara) in 710, and in the 8th
century
nine official embassies were sent from there to the Tang court.
The ancient records of
the Kojiki appeared in 712.
In the preface O Yasumaro suggested
that by contemplating antiquity manners that
had fallen into ruin
could be corrected,
and laws approaching dissolution could be
illumined.
The Nihongi chronicles were published in 720.
The Taiho law code was revised in 718 to account for native customs.
Japan used conscripted armies to subjugate the Edo in the north
and the Hayato in southern Kyushu.
Emperor Shomu (r. 724-49) presided over an impressive building
campaign
of Buddhist temples, abdicating to become a priest.
A
smallpox epidemic (735-37) carried away about a third of the population
and all four prominent Fujiwara brothers.
In 736 the Kegon sect
based on Huayen Buddhism from China was introduced,
and five years
later the imperial government endowed a Kegon temple in every
province.
In 740 the government used 17,000 troops to quell a
rebellion led by Fujiwara Hirotsugu,
who had resented being posted
to Dazaifu in Kyushu and was executed.
The 53-foot high Rushana
(Vairocana) Buddha took five years to build,
used three million
pounds of copper, tin, and lead,
was gilded with 500 pounds of
gold, and "opened its eyes" in 752.
Copper had been
discovered in 708 and gold in 749.
Many of the nobility became
Buddhist priests.
Fujiwara Nakamaro (known as Minister Oshikatsu) headed off
a coup attempt
by executing former crown prince Funado
and exiling
his own older brother Toyonari to Dazaifu.
To win popular support
Oshikatsu reduced taxes and the farmers' work
for the government
from sixty to thirty days.
He also planned a line of forts in
the north and an immense campaign of 500 ships
and 40,000 men
against Korea; but the latter caused resentment
and was abandoned
with his death.
A civil conflict in 764 resulted in the capture
and execution of Oshikatsu
when Empress Koken (r. 749-58) regained
the throne as Empress Shotoku.
She made her lover, the Buddhist
priest Dokyo,
great minister and the real power until she died
in 770.
Then court officials banished Dokyo after he tried to
take the throne himself.
After the reign (770-81) of Tenchi's
grandson Konin,
the council refused to allow a woman on the throne,
establishing a precedent.
Raids in the north were troublesome
until under general Tamuramaro
Sakanouye conscripted armies were
replaced with local militia in 792.
Emperor Kammu (r. 781-806) moved the capital twice,
strengthened
central administration, and reduced Buddhist building
and the
size of
monasteries while distancing the government from the Buddhist
temples at Nara.
The second move in 794 to the Kyoto plain began
the era called Heian, meaning peace,
and Japan was fairly peaceful
during much of the Heian era's four centuries.
General Tamuramaro
led campaigns (800-03) that pushed northern borders
to Izawa and
Shiba; the title of shogun he was given
as supreme general would
be greatly prized for centuries.
Northern lands exempt from taxes
were opened to settlers
and attracted pioneers who would produce
fierce warriors.
In 804 the emperor sent an embassy to China that
included
Saicho (767-822) and Kukai (774-835).
The next year Saicho (Dengyo Daishi) founded Tendai Buddhism
at his monastic
center of Enryakuji on Mount Hiei, where it was
considered a protector of the capital.
Saicho taught that everyone
by practicing moral purity and contemplation
can gain enlightenment
and become a Buddha.
He required Tendai monks to remain in seclusion
at his monastery for twelve years.
Saicho believed that the wise
are obliged when any false doctrines are pointed out
even in one's
own sect, and he valued truth found in other sects.
To maintain
a partisan spirit by concealing one's own errors
and finding faults
in others he considered wrong.
Nothing could be more stupid than
persisting in one's own false views
or trying to destroy the right
views of others.
However, after some interchange with Kukai,
he
had to refuse to become one of Kukai's "regular students."
Like the Chinese Tiantai, Saicho's Tendai sect
emphasized the
efficacy of the Lotus Sutra.
Kukai's family had opposed the move to the new capital.
He
studied in a Confucian college, and at 24 he wrote Indications,
a dialog between a Confucian, a Daoist, and a Buddhist.
The Confucian
emphasizes the pleasures of marriage, family, and friendship;
the Daoist's goal is to use magic in order to prolong life;
and
the Buddhist refutes their arguments by showing the impermanence
of life,
claiming that Mahayana Buddhism is the highest truth.
Kukai studied Sanskrit at Chang'an and called his sect the true
doctrine
after the Sanskrit term Mantrayana, which became
Shingon in Japanese.
He is credited with using Sanskrit
to help invent the Japanese syllabary.
In 816 Kukai (Kobo Daishi)
founded the Shingon sect
of esoteric Buddhism on Mount Koya.
He
ranked religions in ten stages as
1) uneducated, 2) Confucian,
3) Hindu and Daoist, 4) direct disciples of Buddha,
5) Hinayana
Buddhism, 6) Hosso Buddhism, 7) Sanron Buddhism,
8) Tendai, 9)
Kegon, and 10) Shingon.
He taught that art is indispensable and
reveals perfection.
Kukai's emphasis on various arts and esoteric
magical methods became quite popular.
However, Tendai's third
abbot, Ennin, returned from China in 847
and by adding Shingon's
magical and esoteric rituals
made Tendai the most popular sect
in Japan.
The Buddhist ethic against killing affected Japanese
life
by reducing the number of executions and meat eating.
The capital required a police force in 810, and six years later
the Kebiishi became official police commissioners.
As the Tang
dynasty declined, the mission to China in 838 was the last
imperial
embassy for centuries, though contact continued through trade.
The government stopped limiting ordinations in the 9th century,
allowing Buddhism unfettered growth.
The power of the Fujiwara
clan increased by marrying their daughters
to emperors and by
means of their great wealth and estates in the provinces.
Yoshifusa
(804-72) was named great minister in 857.
The next year when his
infant grandson became Emperor Seiwa (r. 858-76),
he acted as sessho (regent for a minor)
and then became kampaku
(regent for an adult or dictator).
Fujiwara Mototsune (836-91)
served as sessho for Yozei (r. 877-84)
and kampaku
for Koko (r. 884-87).
In this way the Fujiwara clan would dominate
the imperial throne for most
of the next three centuries, though
Emperor Uda (r. 887-97) attempted to break
the Fujiwara hold by
not appointing a regent when Mototsune died in 891
and by getting
Sugawara Michizane appointed minister of the right in 899;
but
two years later the Fujiwara head Tokihira had Michizane
sent
into exile as governor of Dazaifu.
However, Tokihira made enemies
trying to enforce a simpler life at court
and to curb the power
of the great landowners in the country.
In 914 Confucian scholar and state counselor Miyoshi Kiyotsura
criticized the declining public finances, extravagance, and the
decaying morals
of the ruling class which he blamed on Buddhist
and Shinto corruption.
He complained that the university had lost
the revenues of its rice lands,
resulting in starving students
and poor education.
Tokihira's brother Tadahira revived the regency
in 930.
That year Taira clan chieftain Masakado began attacking
his uncles,
and in 935 he defeated Minamoto Mamoru in Hitachi
and took control of eight eastern provinces;
but after five more
years of struggle he claimed to be emperor in a letter
to prime
minister Tokihira and was defeated at the Shimosa border
when
his allies failed to support him.
At the same time Sumitomo, the
former governor of Iyo,
raided those shores and others with a
thousand small ships.
He was defeated in 941 while the Emishi
were ravaging the northern province of Dewa.
In 954 Sugawara Fumitoki
warned the emperor that people were wasting their resources
building
palaces and monasteries and in acquiring costly clothes and luxuries.
He believed that those of high rank should set an example of simplicity,
and he criticized the sale of offices and other dishonest conduct.
Diaries from this era reveal both indulgence and a very refined
and austere social code.
Fujiwara Morosuke, who was minister of
the right when he died in 960,
wrote the Testamentary Admonitions
of Kujo-den,
recommending a self-disciplined life to his heirs.
He urged them to respect others, not allow self-assertion by restraining
speech,
and not do anything that has no precedent.
He enjoined
filial piety and believed that
paying homage to the Buddha prevented
misfortune.
He detailed specific ways of taking care of one's
person with pride and dignity.
At court he advised solemnity,
in private humanity and love.
If someone committed a wrong, he
suggested strictness and forbearance
without giving way to anger.
Neither should joy be excessive.
He recommended giving one-tenth
of the income to charity.
The 13th-century history Gukansho considered 898 the
end of an era
followed by a transition of shaky imperial power
until the Fujiwaras took full control in 967 with the appointment
of Saneyori
as kampaku for Emperor Reizei.
The scholar
and poet Oye Masahira (952-1012) complained of many disappointments,
although he attained the high fourth rank before he died.
In 985
his finger was cut off by the sword of the palace guard Fujiwara
Nariaki,
who was executed because Fujiwara leaders
were opposed
to violent solutions to problems.
Fujiwara Michinaga had immune
estates throughout the country
and dominated the court from 995
until his death in 1027.
Their Kofukuji monastery was so powerful
in the Yamato province
that the abbot ruled instead of a governor.
Michinaga strengthened his position by allying himself with powerful
warriors
like those of the Minamoto clan.
Under the Fujiwaras
family connection was of primary importance,
and candidates for
office had to find a patron by intrigue, flattery,
or other compromising
behaviors.
Tendai Buddhists had split in 933 when followers of Enchin
at odds with the Ennin faction left Mt. Hiei and went to Miidera.
Genshin (942-1017) in Essentials of Salvation taught turning
away from hell
and seeking the pure land of the western paradise
by meditating on the name of Amida.
Monasteries began recruiting
mercenaries, and the first militant demonstration
to the court
was by Enryakuji monks in 981.
By the end of the 11th century
all the great Tendai monasteries
and several Shinto shrines had
standing armies.
The Tendai conflict caused Hiei monks to set
fire to the Onjoji monastery
at Miidera several times starting
in 1081.
During the last two centuries of the Heian era militant
armed monks from Kofukuji
in Nara as well as those of Mt. Hiei
frequently stormed the capital
with their demands, which were
usually about land titles or politics.
A peaceful government was
thus threatened by powerful religious institutions.
In 1113 the
Kofukuji monastery sent 20,000 armed men against Enryakuji,
and
in 1165 those Hiei monks burned down
the Hosso stronghold at Kiyomizu-dera
in Kyoto.
Michinaga was succeeded by Yorimichi, who was kampaku
for fifty years.
Tadatsune led a Taira revolt in 1028 which attacked
Kazusa, provincial capital of Awa;
but Minamoto Yorinobu suppressed
it three years later when Tadatsune surrendered.
Efforts by three
emperors in 1032, 1040, and 1056 to restore land laws
or to resist
Fujiwara claims were generally ignored by local authorities.
Abe
Yoritoki's unauthorized collection of taxes and confiscation of
property
in Mutsu province brought about the Nine Years War in
1050 with occasional truces
until forces led by Minamoto Yoriyoshi
and his son Yoshiiye
defeated Yoritoki's son Sadato in 1062.
The
assisting Kiyowara family took over the Abe estates.
A Fujiwara
named Kiyohira was adopted into the Kiyowara family,
became commander
of Mutsu and Dewa,
and by his death in 1128 had built up an extensive
domain.
In the capital Go-Sanjo pursued agrarian reform;
but he
only reigned four years (1068-72).
He revived the Insei system
of retired emperors
exercising power but died the next year.
Yoshiiye was appointed governor of Mutsu in 1083 and put down
the
Kiyowara family revolt in northern provinces known as the
Later Three Years War.
After Emperor Shirakawa (r. 1072-86) abdicated,
he ruled by Insei (cloister government) as a priest for 43 years
until he died in 1129;
but he gave up much public land trying
to raise money to build monasteries
and carve large Buddhist images
and for venial extravagance,
and the increasing immune estates
further weakened the state.
Minamoto Yoshiiye's military prestige
enabled him to gather so many warriors
and so much land that the
pious Shirakawa, who opposed violence,
issued an edict in 1091
forbidding farmers to give their land to Yoshiiye,
and his retainers
were not allowed to enter the capital with him.
Yoshiiye did return
to Kyoto, and with his palace guards he was not afraid of sacrilege
when putting down militant monks by force,
killing several of
their leaders on the streets in 1095.
Taira military prestige
grew after their general Masamori quelled a revolt in 1108
led
by banished Minamoto Yoshichika in Izumo.
Masamori governed nine
provinces in succession, as did his son Tadamori,
who was commissioned
to suppress pirates by Emperor Sutoku in 1135.
Shirakawa's cloister rule was continued by his grandson Toba
from 1129 until he died in 1156.
Then a conflict between retired
emperor Sutoku and reigning emperor Go-Shirakawa
divided two Fujiwara
brothers and members of the powerful Minamoto and Taira clans.
Those supporting Go-Shirakawa led by Taira Tadamori's son Kiyomori
were victorious over warriors led by Minamoto Tameyoshi.
When
Minamoto Yoshitomo was ordered to kill his father Tameyoshi, he
refused.
A Minamoto officer did the deed and then killed himself.
About fifty of Sutoku's supporters were executed.
Go-Shirakawa
abdicated in 1158 in order to rule from a Buddhist cloister.
While
Kiyomori was on a pilgrimage, Yoshitomo and Nobuyori tried to
seize power;
but they were defeated by Kiyomori, and Yoshitomo
was killed in 1160.
Kiyomori married his daughter to Fujiwara
Motozane, who served as regent 1158-66.
His successor as regent,
Motofusa, clashed with Kiyomori's son Shigemori in 1170,
while
Kiyomori ruled for the cloistered Go-Shirakawa.
Kiyomori appointed
sixteen of his relatives to high rank at court
and thirty to mid-level
positions, sending 42 court officials into exile;
he also ordered
the Inland Sea route repaired and encouraged trade with Song China.
In 1177 Kiyomori persuaded Go-Shirakawa not to attack the Tendai
monastery
after their monks rescued Miyoun, whom he had arrested.
That year a great fire in Kyoto destroyed most of the
public buildings
and colleges with many books.
The next year Kiyomori's daughter,
the empress, gave birth to a son
who became Emperor Antoku; but
Kiyomori's dictatorial ways aroused
the Shishigatani conspiracy
of Fujiwaras that was revealed by a spy and suppressed.
Many believed
that executing the monk Saiko
brought ghostly vengeance on the
Taira house.
Kiyomori had moved to Fukuwara;
but when Go-Shirakawa
confiscated property of Kiyomori's son Shigemori
and his daughter
Mori-ko when they died in 1179,
he marched on the capital with
several thousand men.
Emperor Takakura abdicated and was succeeded
by the infant Antoku.
Minamoto Yorimasa appealed for support from
the east and north,
and for five years the Minamoto and Taira
clans
fought the Gempei civil war won by the Minamotos.
Kiyomori
died of disease in 1181 after having attacked
and burned the Todaiji
and Kofukuji monasteries.
After an initial defeat at Ishibashiyama, Yoritomo rallied
Minamoto forces,
and Taira Hirotsune supported him with 20,000
men.
With these forces from the east Yoritomo won the battle at
Fujikawa
and pursued the Taira army to the west.
The forces of
Yoritomo's nephew Yoshinaka entered the capital in 1183,
while
Yoritomo established his military headquarters (bakufu)
at Kamakura in the Kanto plain.
Confiscation of estates and plundering
soldiers caused
cloistered emperor Go-Shirakawa to appeal to Yoritomo,
who sent his brothers Yoshitsune and Noriyori
to attack Yoshinaka,
defeating and killing him.
The tactics of Yoshitsune and Noriyori
defeated the Taisha at Inchinotani and Yashima;
then they completed
their triumph in the naval battle at Dannoura in 1185
during which
Emperor Antoku was drowned.
Yoritomo was irritated by awards that
Go-Shirakawa gave to Yoshitsune;
hearing rumors of Yoshitsune
revolting with Yukiiye,
Yoritomo sent a band of assassins, who
were defeated at the capital by Yoshitsune.
Go-Shirakawa authorized
Yoshitsune and Yukiiye to fight against Yoritomo;
but the latter
with a large force got him to reverse himself completely
with
an edict for Yoritomo to punish the two who had fled.
Then at court Yoritomo was given the important authority to
collect taxes
on private and public estates and to appoint
stewards (jito) and protectors (shugo), which became hereditary.
The child emperor Antoku had been replaced by four-year-old Go-Toba
(r. 1184-98),
who served as cloistered emperor until banished
in 1221.
Yoshitsune retreated to the north, where the old lord
of Mutsu, Hidehira,
had built the lavish Chusonji monastery at
Hiraizumi.
In 1189 Yoritomo ordered Hidehira's successor Yasuhira
to arrest Yoshitsune,
who when attacked committed suicide instead
of surrendering.
Then Yoritomo's army of more than 100,000 men
overwhelmed
Yasuhira's forces in Dewa, completing his conquest
of Japan.
Only after Go-Shirakawa died in 1192 was Yoritomo appointed
shogun.
Undisputed ruler, he made Kamakura his capital.
The Heian
era that had begun so peacefully ended in civil war
and with the
establishment of a militaristic feudal system.
Japanese literature began with the importation of Chinese writing
and developed also
emphasizing short poems with natural metaphors,
historical chronicles and creating folk origins of place names
called fudoki.
Poems expressing feelings about nature and
love were collected beginning in the 8th century.
From 905 to
1439 the imperial government published 21 anthologies of poetry.
Early in the 10th century the "Tale of the Bamboo Cutter"
emerged from folklore,
and Murasaki Shikibu called it the ancestor
of all romances.
A bamboo cutter finds a tiny baby he raises as
his daughter.
The beautiful Kaguya-hime disdains marriage and
requires
five nearly impossible tasks of her five suitors.
The
first two are caught cheating, and the other three fail to achieve
the mythic challenges.
Finally Kaguya-hime even refuses the emperor,
and having completed
her punishment on earth she ascends back
to her heavenly moon world.
Sei Shonagon wrote her Pillow Book while serving as
a lady-in-waiting for
Empress Sadako during the last decade of
the 10th century;
Murasaki Shikibu soon was serving in the court
of a second empress Shoshi.
Murasaki was likely influenced by
the Pillow Book, and in her diary
she called Sei Shonagon
self-satisfied and gifted but prone to give free rein
to her emotions
in inappropriate situations.
The Pillow Book is an extraordinarily
frank diary
of Sei's experiences at court and her feelings about
them.
She described the manners and attitudes that annoyed her
sensitivity
and recounted numerous incidents that amused her.
For example, she was quite concerned about the manner in which
a lover
would dress and leave her apartment in the middle of the
night.
She thought it shameful for a man to seduce a helpless
court lady
and then abandon her after making her pregnant.
As
people who seem to suffer she mentioned the nurse looking after
a crying baby
at night, a man with two mistresses witnessing their
jealousy, an exorcist trying to deal
with an obstinate spirit,
powerful men who never seem to be at ease, and nervous people.
She considered sympathy the most splendid quality, especially
when it was found in men.
She thought it unattractive and absurd
of people
to get angry when someone gossips about them.
She wrote
her book in secret for her own amusement and never expected it
to become public, which she regretted even though it won praise.
Lady Murasaki Shikibu was born about 973.
Her father Tametoki
was in the Fujiwara clan and became governor of Echizen
about
996 and later of Echigo; in 1016 he retired from government
and
became a Buddhist priest, outliving his daughter Murasaki.
She
learned Chinese quickly while helping her brother with his lessons;
but finding that scholarship made her unpopular, she hid her writing.
In 998 Shikibu married a Fujiwara kinsman of the imperial guard named
Nobutaka,
and she had two daughters, one of whom wrote the novel Tale of Sagoromo.
Her husband Nobutaka died in 1001.
About
four years later she entered the service
of Michinaga's daughter,
Empress Akiko (Shoshi).
Murasaki described her majesty as innocent
and impeccable,
as she gathered worthy young ladies around her.
She asked Murasaki to teach her Chinese secretly
because this
was considered too strenuous for women.
At court Murasaki felt
painfully inferior and kept things to herself.
She was afraid
that by gradually parting with scruples she would eventually
come
to believe that shamelessness was perfectly natural.
Although
she was thought to be an ill-natured prig by others,
Murasaki
herself believed that when someone got to know her,
hey would
realize she is kind and gentle.
Murasaki Shikibu also wrote a diary that describes the birth
of Empress Shoshi's
first child, Prince Atsuhira, discusses life
at court in a letter to a friend,
and collects anecdotes of court
life.
In it she wrote that those who do evil deserve to be talked
about
and laughed at even though sometimes they do it unintentionally.
She went on:
We ought to love even those who hate us,
but it is very difficult to do.
Even the Buddha of profound mercy
does not say that the sins against Buddha,
the laws of religion, and priests, are slight.
Moreover, in this muddy world
it is best to let alone the persons who hate us.3
Murasaki began writing The Tale of Genji shortly after
her husband died
and finished it sometime between 1004 and 1022.
The novel is set in the early 10th century and comes up to her
own lifetime.
Genji is the Minamoto clan name of a commoner who is given
to the emperor's son
by a concubine because a Korean physiognomist
predicted
that if he ruled, there would be disaster.
As with the
author, his mother dies when he is young.
Genji falls in love
with his step-mother Fujitsubo because she resembles his mother.
Of all the women with whom Genji is intimate,
he gets along least
well with his older wife Aoi; but she bears him the son Yugiri.
Being handsome, accomplished, and of the royal family,
Genji is
able to have just about any woman he cares to love.
Among his
illicit affairs Genji's long relationship with the jealous Rokujo
leads to her spirit causing Yugao to die strangely in a deserted
place;
only Genji's friends and retainers helped him avoid a scandal.
Recovering from an illness he meets the ten-year-old Murasaki,
who somehow moves him deeply.
He is able to persuade her relatives
that his intentions are honorable,
and he takes her to live with
him in the palace.
Fujitsubo also gives birth to his son, but
the Emperor accepts the future emperor Reizei
as his because of
the family resemblance.
Rokujo's jealous spirit possesses his
wife Aoi, causing her to die in childbirth.
In despair Genji turns
to the innocent Murasaki for affection, and they are married.
Even after she dies, Rokujo's ghost still torments Murasaki.
When Emperor Suzaku retires to a monastery, Genji marries his
third daughter.
Even though he loves Murasaki best, she resents
Genji's alliance with the
Lady of Akashi during his exile and
the status of the third princess.
Kashiwagi, the son of Genji's
friend To Chujo, falls in love with the third princess,
and she
bears him Kaoru.
Murasaki wants to become a nun, but she becomes
ill and dies.
Kashiwagi is tormented that Genji knows his secret.
In the last part of the novel the idealized Genji has died,
and
the world of Kashiwagi's son Kaoru
and Genji's grandson Niou seems
to have degenerated.
Niou is handsome but not as sensitive, while
Kaoru has the sensitivity
but cannot win the two women he loves.
They compete for the love of Ukifune,
who cannot choose between
them and attempts suicide.
Murasaki Shikibu's writing is subtle, sensitive, and very descriptive
of the courtly life, manners, and customs of this era.
The following
passage gives an idea of the self-discipline and her style:
But even if a man's fancy should chance indeed
to have gone somewhere astray,
yet his earlier affection may still be strong
and in the end will return to its old haunts.
Now by her tantrums she has made a rift
that cannot be joined.
Whereas she who
when some small wrong calls for silent rebuke,
shows by a glance that she is not unaware;
but when some large offense demands admonishment
knows how to hint without severity,
will end by standing in her master's affections
better than ever she stood before.
For often the sight of our own forbearance
will give our neighbor strength
to rule his mutinous affections.4
Ill advised by Kagetoki, Shogun Yoritomo had his half-brother
Noriyori killed in 1193
for suspected conspiracy, and the next
year he ordered the execution of the entire family
of Yasuda Yoshisada,
even though they had supported the Minamoto in the war.
Yoritomo
had established a Board of Retainers (Samurai-dokoro) as
early as 1180
o assign military duties and decide on rewards
and punishments.
The Administrative Board (Mandokoro) of
the military government (bakufu)
at Kamakura was named
in 1191 for central policy,
and the Board of Inquiry (Monchujo)
was made the final court of appeal.
Yoritomo contributed to the
rebuilding of the Todaiji monastery
and other Buddhist projects.
While Yoritomo was at Kamakura, Minamoto Michichika at Kyoto replaced
the Fujiwara Kanezane and in 1198 appointed Tsuchimikado emperor;
before he could react, Yoritomo died the next year.
Yoritomo's son Yoriiye was made shogun in 1202, and the next
year
the director (shikken) of the Mandokoro was succeeded
by Hojo Tokimasa
of the Taira clan; thereafter until 1333 that
chief political office remained in the Hojo family.
Yoriiye became
ill and ordered Tokimasa killed; when that failed,
Yoriiye abdicated
and was murdered the next year, probably by a Hojo assassin.
His
eleven-year-old brother Sanemoto was made shogun,
and Tokimasa
became his regent.
The next year deputy shogun Hiraga put down
an uprising of the Taira clan's Ise family.
In 1205 a conspiracy
of Tokimasa's wife Makiko was squelched
by Yoritomo's widow Masako
and her brother Hojo Yoshitoki;
Hiraga was killed, and Tokimasa
was forced to retire.
Yoshitoki became regent for the shogun.
More factional strife in 1213 resulted in Wada Yoshimori being
killed
and replaced as head of the Samurai-dokoro by Yoshitoki.
In 1219 after attending a ceremony at the shrine of the Shinto
war-god Hachiman,
Shogun Sanemoto suddenly had his head cut off
by the sword of an assassin.
The famous Tale of the Heike is a long prose epic
that
concentrates on the political events from 1177 to 1185.
According
to Yoshida Kenko, it was written by the priest Yukinaga,
who probably
adapted it from the Gempei Seisuiki.
It begins with philosophical
reflections on how ambitions and violence do not last.
The bell of the Gion Temple tolls into every man's heart
to warn him that all is vanity and evanescence.
The faded flowers of the sala trees
by the Buddha's death-bed
bear witness to the truth
that all who flourish are destined to decay.
Yes, pride must have a fall,
for it is as unsubstantial as a dream on a spring night.
The brave and violent man-he too must die away in the end,
like a whirl of dust in the wind.5
Kamo Chomei wrote The Ten-Foot Square Hut (Hojoki) in
1212.
After his petition to succeed his father as the warden of
the
Kamo shrine in Kyoto was rejected, Chomei retired in the mountains.
His little book begins by suggesting that human life is always
changing like a flowing river.
He described the great fire that
burned down a third of Kyoto in 1177.
When the capital was moved,
he noted that
the prevalence of the military portended civil disturbance.
He reported how the famine of 1181 was followed by pestilence,
and the great earthquake of 1185 had after-shocks for three months.
He observed that people with influence were greedy for power
while
those without it were despised.
After inheriting an estate, Chomei
constructed a small building
that was like a cart-shed and lived
there alone for thirty years.
Separated from society, he found
it easier to follow the Buddhist commandments.
He found that the
best servant is one's own body,
and not using the labor of others
he did not have to worry about
causing trouble or bad karma.
Having
less food gave him a better appetite.
He became attached to his
thatched hut and wondered
if his solitary life might be a hindrance
to enlightenment.
In 1221 cloistered Emperor Go-Toba tried to take power with the
help
of disappointed warriors, aggrieved landowners, and bitter
Taira survivors
in eastern Japan by declaring Hojo Yoshitoki an
outlaw;
but two large armies and cavalry led by Yoshitoki's son
Yasutoki
smothered the resistance and occupied the imperial city
with about 100,000 men.
The Bakufu ordered Yasutoki to banish
Go-Toba
and execute the four generals and other leaders of the
revolt.
The extensive properties confiscated were assigned to
vassals as stewards.
Minor uprisings were put down after Yoshitoki
died in 1224
and was succeeded by Yasutoki.
Bakufu courts settled
claims, as land was surveyed and distributed.
Complaints of autocratic
rule by stewards led to measures that moderated their excesses.
In 1226 Yasutoki established a state council (Hyojoshu)
to advise him
and make decisions for the new shogun, eight-year-old
Mitora.
For the next century Hojo regents would rule the Bakufu
by repeatedly appointing very young shoguns.
When a Korean envoy
protested piratical raids in 1227,
Yasutoki maintained a good
relationship with Korea
by ordering the pirates arrested and put
to death.
Meanwhile drought, famine, disease, earthquakes, floods,
and
frosts devastated the country.
In 1230 a moratorium on debts and
obligations was proclaimed,
and the next year tax rice was distributed
to the poor.
Feudal law was established in 1232 with the Joei
Formulary
that defined land rights and other laws.
To prevent
vendettas, abusive language and assault were to be severely punished.
Women could own land and retain after a divorce what they had
before marriage.
This law code aimed at "impartial verdicts
without discrimination between high and low."5
Armed strife
broke out in 1235 between the priests of the Iwashimuzu Hachiman
shrine
and the Kofukuji monks and between these monks and the
mountain Hiyeizan monks,
but the Bakufu managed to settle things
by the end of 1237.
For several decades Japan had a unified state
and the rule of law.
By the 13th century the old slavery no longer
existed except for a few female servants.
Yasutoki died in 1242 and was succeeded by his grandson Tsunetoki,
who died four years later and was replaced by his brother Tokiyori.
His grandfather Adachi Kagemori, an old warrior turned monk,
urged
the Hojo forces with Adachi warriors to attack the conspiring
Miura clan,
resulting in the suicide of 500 Miura warriors in
1247.
The ceremonial role of the shogun was reinforced in 1252
when the ten-year-old prince Munetaka was appointed,
while his
younger brother was serving as emperor.
Along with copper coins
to improve the money economy,
Japan was importing from China luxury
goods such as silk, brocades,
perfumes, incense, sandalwood, porcelain,
and books,
while exporting gold, mercury, fans, lacquer ware,
screens, swords, and timber.
"Family Instructions" were written by Hojo Shigetoki
for his son Nagatoki,
who at 18 in 1247 was made deputy shogun.
Shigetoki believed in the warrior code of ethics; but he noted
that to rule,
warriors need not only courage but also understanding
of their duties and of principles,
such as revering gods and buddhas,
obeying one's lord and parents,
understanding the law of cause
and effect (karma, or in Japanese inga),
considering the
results for future generations, being careful in relationships,
generous, firm and not cowardly, practicing military arts,
while
being just to all and sympathetic to the poor and weak.
Shigetoki
reminded his son that the key to discipline is
fair treatment
in rewards and punishments.
One should never act in anger but
let someone else administer the punishment;
hasty decisions can
lead to remorse.
Any excess is disadvantageous, if not in this
life, then in a future one.
A good heart and the moral duty of
the warrior are like two wheels of a carriage.
Hold to the good
even at the cost of one's family, not yielding to the strong.
He recommended meeting enmity with kindness and returning good
for evil.
This may help the bad to reform; even if it does not,
one will be rewarded in one's next existence.
Shigetoki believed
that women could become enlightened and would enter paradise.
Buddhist Honen (1133-1212) suggested chanting the nembutsu
exclusively
as the way to salvation in 1175, founding the Jodo
sect (Pure Land) of Buddhism
that grew quickly after the Gempei
War ended in 1185.
Criticized by established sects, Honen tried
to control his followers by issuing in 1204
the Seven-Article
Injunction in which he warned that those saying the nembutsu
should not encourage sexual indulgence, drinking, or eating meat.
Three years later he refused to give up his faith in Amida to
avoid exile.
The year Honen died Kamo Chomei (1153-1216) wrote
"An Account of My Hut"
in which he contrasted the miseries
caused by the fire of 1177, the typhoon of 1181,
the famine the
next year, and the earthquake of 1185
with joys of the simple
life he chose in a ten-foot square hut.
Eisai (1141-1215) founded Rinzai Zen Buddhism after receiving
transmission
from the eighth Linji Chan patriarch of China.
Eisai
returned to Japan in 1191, but his teaching of Zen
was prohibited
by the court three years later.
He wrote The Propagation of
Zen as a Defense of the Nation
and Drink Tea and Prolong
Life.
Zen schools concentrated on intuitive experience through
meditation, koan study,
and the arts of everyday living
rather than books, beliefs, and repetitive prayers.
The Rinzai
placed more emphasis on the transrational understanding
of paradoxes
in koan stories and problems.
In China Mumon Ekai (1183-1260)
compiled 48 koans in 1229
to guide monks toward awakening (satori).
This Gateless Gate (Mumonkan) was brought back
to Japan
by Muhon Kakushin (1207-98).
Dogen (1200-53) studied with Eisai
and imported the Soto sect from China in 1227.
Dogen taught that
enlightenment can be attained by sitting in meditation (zazen).
He irritated Mt. Hiei's clerics as he tried to separate Zen from
their political intrigues.
He wrote The Significance of the
Right Dharma for the Protection of the Nation
to argue that
Zen meditation was the true Buddhism for Japan.
Dogen criticized
traditional Buddhists for discriminating against women,
and he
believed that women should be equal to men
in regard to practice
and attaining enlightenment.
Shinran (1173-1262) was married and had seven children.
He
disdained removing his outer robe when eating fish or fowl.
Speaking
for the bodhisattva Kannon he wrote the following poem:
When karmic retribution leads the practitioner
to violate the precepts of chastity,
I will assume the body of a maiden
and be the object of that violation.
Having adorned his present life,
at the time of his death
I will guide him to rebirth
in the Pure Land of Utmost Bliss.6
Shinran joined Honen's band in 1201 and went even farther than
his master
by noting that the wicked might be more acceptable
to Amida than the good
because they throw themselves entirely
on the mercy of the Buddha.
He felt that one sincere invocation
is enough
and that additional repetitions were giving thanks to
Amida.
Since his father killed life in his work as a fisherman,
Nichiren
(1222-82) was considered an outcast.
While people suffered earthquakes,
drought, typhoons, famine, and epidemics,
he attacked Pure Land
and Zen teachings, expounding the Lotus Sutra as the only
truth.
His Treatise on the Establishment of the True Dharma
and the Peace of the Nation
was published in 1260.
Nembutsu
followers in Kamakura attacked Nichiren's hermitage
and got the
shogun to banish him to Izu the next year.
He noted that the Lotus
Sutra predicted persecution during a period of dharma
decay.
Nichiren emphasized one's own efforts in chanting "Namu
myoho renge kyo,"
the name of the Lotus Sutra.
He challenged orthodox ideas by stating that good works were not
needed
for a fortunate rebirth nor did evil deeds obstruct it.
He believed evil could be removed by chanting.
Nichiren taught
human equality and doing away with all class differences.
Prophesying
the invasion of the Mongols and demanding the suppression
of all
other Buddhists sects, especially Amida worshipers,
Nichiren was
sentenced to death for censuring the Hojo regency in Nakamura;
but it was said that he was saved when lightning struck the executioner's
blade.
His preaching and the validation of his prophecy
with the
Mongol invasion persuaded many followers.
Mongol ruler Khubilai Khan
in 1266 began sending envoys from Beijing
asking Japan to submit
or face invasion, but they were ignored.
In 1274 about 15,000
Mongol and Chinese troops with 8,000 Korean troops
and 7,000 Korean
sailors slaughtered defenders
on the islands of Tsushima and Iki
and then invaded Kyushu.
After a battle with Japanese warriors,
the Koreans urged the Mongols
to retreat because of a storm, which
caused many losses.
Further diplomatic demands resulted in regent
Tokimune twice executing Mongol envoys.
Kyushu retainers (samurai)
spent five years building a wall around Hakata Bay.
In 1281 about
100,000 or more Mongols, Chinese, and Koreans invaded again;
but
a seasonal typhoon helped the samurai defeat them by destroying
much of their fleet.
Many Japanese believed that the prayers of
the nation
had been answered by the "divine winds" (kamikaze).
The nation under the Bakufu government suffered great economic
hardship
because of the continuing war preparations.
Soldiers
expecting compensation for their efforts were usually disappointed.
Tokimune died in 1284, and his son Sadatoki who succeeded him
as regent was only 14.
The next year many in the Adachi family
were destroyed by Taira Yoritsune
for plotting to make their head
Yasumori shogun,
but eight years later Yoritsune and his main
followers were killed too.
When Khubilai
Khan died in 1294, the Bakufu decreed that
no more rewards
for war service would be given.
Between 1272 and 1318 the Kamakura
Bakufu attempted to mediate
competing imperial lines by appointing
alternating emperors in Kyoto.
In 1297 another Act of Grace tried
to prevent the financial ruin of many
by canceling debts; but
the economic panic caused them to revoke it the next year.
Between 1272 and 1318 the Kamakura Bakufu attempted to mediate
competing imperial lines by appointing alternating emperors in
Kyoto.
Sadatoki retired in 1301 but continued to rule until he
died in 1311.
His son Takatoki was only eight, and intrigues dominated
the regency for five years
until he was formally installed; but
even then many vassals
no longer respected the Hojo regency.
In
1318 Go-Daigo was appointed emperor at the mature age of thirty,
and three years later he ended the tradition of powerful retired
emperors
when his father Go-Uda resigned.
In 1324 a conspiracy
to overthrow the eastern Bakufu regime was discovered;
but Go-Daigo
stated he had no knowledge of it.
The next year the Emperor sent
the first official embassy to China
in nearly five centuries led
by Zen teacher Muso Soseki (1275-1351).
In 1331 Go-Daigo's plans to take over the government
were treacherously
revealed by his advisor Fujiwara Sadafusa.
Go-Daigo's son Morinaga,
serving as abbot at the Hiyeizan monastery,
learned of a Bakufu
expedition to the west;
but Go-Daigo's flight to two monasteries
did not prevent his capture.
The warrior Kusunoki escaped and
organized raids against Hojo forces,
while Morinaga from the Yoshino
mountains sent out appeals to warriors.
At Kyoto conspirators
were punished, and Go-Daigo was banished to the island of Oki.
In 1333 Go-Daigo returned from exile;
but when Ashikaga Takauji
was sent against him with a large army,
he defected to the imperial
cause and attacked the Hojo's Rokuhara garrison in Kyoto.
Disaffected
warriors in the east led by Nitta Yoshisada quickly raised an
army
and attacked Kamakura; Takatoki ordered Bakufu buildings
burned and withdrew
with several hundred men to the Toshoji monastery,
where they all committed suicide.
The Kyushu ruler Hojo Hidetoki
was taken and killed,
completing the end of Bakufu rule.
Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350) wrote his
Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa)
in the early 1330s.
He had served the Retired Emperor Go-Uda
and after his death entered a Buddhist order in 1324.
Kenko participated
in the quarterly poetry meetings
that began in Go-Daigo's palace
in 1346.
Kenko wrote down his thoughts in short essays.
He considered
the uncertainty of life most precious,
and he advised guarding
against the delusions of the senses that stimulate desires.
His
greatest pleasure was to read and make friends with people from
the past.
He found expert knowledge in any art noble and a guide
in even trivial matters useful.
He rejected the common superstition
of unlucky days,
believing that good or bad fortune is determined
by humans.
He agreed with the saying of a priest that when one
is in doubt
about doing something, it is better not to act.
He
believed that the most desirable friends are those
who give you
things, doctors, and the wise.
Wisdom is knowing your own capacity
and when to stop.
Kenko suggested that crime could be reduced
by making sure
that no one was hungry or cold.
People could be
helped if those with luxuries
protected people and encouraged
agriculture.
The real crimes are committed by those who have a
normal share of food and clothing.
He noted that as much as the
young are better looking, the old are wiser.
Kenko recommended
giving up desires and ambitions
in order to follow the Way to
lasting peace.
Emperor Go-Daigo declared a new era in 1333; but in distributing
Hojo estates
favoritism and bribery caused many deserving applicants
to go unrelieved,
while the Emperor imposed a five-percent income
tax
in order to build himself a new palace.
Disgruntled warriors
took matters into their own hands.
Afraid that Morinaga and Yoshisada
were organizing against him,
Takauji fortified his Kyoto mansion
and then arrested Morinaga
and sent him to Kamakura, where he
was executed by Takauji's brother Tadayoshi
when Kamakura was
attacked by Hojo Tokiyuki.
When the Emperor refused to authorize
him as shogun,
Takauji nonetheless joined Tadayoshi in defeating
and killing Tokiyuki.
As Takauji was rewarding warriors without
imperial consent,
Go-Daigo appointed his son Takanaga shogun and
sent him and Nitta Yoshisada
to suppress the eastern rebels led
by Takauji and Tadayoshi.
These brothers marched on Kyoto and
drove the imperial troops
from the capital in February, 1336.
That year Takauji issued seventeen articles
on good government
in the Kemmu Shikimoku.
This document held that educated
warriors are most able to rule
and that they should learn from
the early Hojo and emperors
of the early 10th century how to rule
for the benefit of all.
The Bakufu government should redress social
evils
caused by famine, economic depression, and war devastation.
The Kemmu Shikimoku condemned drinking, gambling, and bribery,
while enjoining economy, keeping order, basing rewards and punishments
on merit,
rebuilding with fireproof materials, choosing protectors (shugo) of integrity and discipline,
selecting attendants
by merit, observing distinctions of rank, rewarding good service,
listening to the complaints of the poor, carefully scrutinizing
the claims of monasteries,
and administering justice firmly and
promptly.
The Ashikaga Bakufu in Kyoto took over the offices and
councils
of the Kamakura government, though most decisions
were
made by the shogun and his officers.
Go-Daigo managed to escape to the mountains of Yoshino
where
he established the "Southern Court."
He died in 1339
but was succeeded as emperor by his son Norinaga (Go-Murakami)
while Kitabatake Chikafusa (1293-1354) tried to organize
loyalist
support for their imperial cause.
Worshipping the divine Emperor,
Chikafusa sent princes to rule various regions,
though he believed
that the sovereign had no right to use force
against persons who
had not committed an offense.
Chikafusa wrote the chronicle Jinno
Shotoki, giving Japanese history
a Shinto perspective from
the gods to the continuous line of emperors.
In the first sentence
he claimed that only Japan is a divine land.
He looked back to
the Heian period as an ideal state
in which an oligarchy governs
for a ceremonial emperor.
Chikafusa insisted on traditional class
distinctions
and expected warriors to be subordinate to courtiers.
Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350) wrote "Essays in Idleness"
after renouncing
a court position to become a Buddhist monk.
He
found the beauty of life in its uncertainty.
He applauded the
frugal who do not covet the world's goods,
and he noted there
has rarely been a wealthy sage.
He advised those who follow the
world to judge moods,
because an untimely speech hurts feelings
and so fails.
Yet both priest and layman should not consider moods
in accomplishing what is needed.
Yoshida found great pleasure
in conversing
with unseen generations while quietly reading alone.
Japan was changing.
Governors were soon replaced with protectors (shugo) or local warlords.
For the next six decades the
civil war raged between warrior clans throughout Japan,
even though
Takauji and Tadayoshi planned a stupa at Buddhist chapels
in all
66 provinces dedicated to a "country at peace."
Zen
monk Muso persuaded the Ashikaga government to send a trading
expedition
to China in 1342 and use the profits to build the Tenryuji
monastery,
which continued to engage in such trade.
Forces led
by Ko Moronao and his brother Moroyasu for the Ashikaga Bakufu
at Kyoto won a great victory over the loyalists
under Masatsura
and Chikafusa at Shijo-Nawate in 1348.
Yet Moronao's plundering
and devastation to force loyalists to submit
caused troubles and
ill will toward the Bakufu.
Chancellor Toin Kinkata described
the turbulent warriors in his diary.
Many warriors changed sides
from selfish interests.
Tadayoshi declared allegiance to the Southern
Court and proclaimed that
Moronao and Moroyasu must be destroyed;
the Ko brothers were wounded and were eventually put to death
by the son of a man they had murdered.
At Kyoto Tadayoshi was reconciled with his brother Takauji,
and he tried to make peace between the courts again in 1351;
but
renewed sibling conflict resulted in Takauji submitting to the
Southern Court,
and his brother Tadayoshi eventually surrendered
and was poisoned,
recompense for his having poisoned young Prince
Tsunenaga.
The Kyoto capital changed hands several times.
Takauji
died in 1358 and was replaced by his son Yoshiakira as shogun,
that office remaining in the Ashikaga family for the next two
centuries.
Ten years later the Northern Court's emperor Go-Murakami
died,
and that year Yoshiakira was replaced by his nine-year-old
son Yoshimitsu.
Hosokawa Yoriyuki as deputy shogun
was guided
by the puritanical Kemmu Shikimoku.
Prince Kanenaga spent
a decade trying to control Kyushu for the loyalists;
but in 1370
the Bakufu sent the talented general Imagawa,
who took a dozen
more years to conquer the island by the time Kanenaga died in
1383.
A special tax on arable land imposed in 1371 for the accession
ceremony
of Go-Enyu was continued and became burdensome to farmers.
Many farmers evaded dreaded tax and debt collectors by joining
an army.
Shogun Yoshimitsu was occupied putting down warlords;
in 1379
he took on a revolt by the Shiba, Toki, and Kyogoku families.
In 1390 he destroyed the rebellious shugo of Mino and Owar,
and the next year he defeated the Yamana family
that controlled
eleven provinces in central Japan.
In 1392 Yoshimitsu was able
to make an agreement with the southern emperor
Go-Kameyama, who
transferred authority to the northern emperor
Go-Komatsu with
the understanding the two lines would then alternate.
Yoshimitsu
retired and built the golden pavilion in Kyoto,
where he entertained
in splendor.
Warlord Ouchi Yoshihiro, who controlled six provinces
in the west,
was also defeated in 1399.
The civil war finally
ended, though the agreement to alternate
was not kept in 1412
when Go-Komatsu abdicated to his son.
While the conflict over
emperors was the ostensible reason for the war,
hostility between
military factions seeking to gain material advantages
were probably
stronger motives.
With warriors off fighting so much of the time,
peasant farmers not drafted into an army actually became more
independent;
as Takauji had decreed that half the income was to
go to the military class,
this took wealth and power from estate
owners and the central government's tax base.
In 1405 Japan promised the Ming
government it would suppress piracy
in exchange for the Ashikaga
Bakufu's monopoly on licensing trade with China.
Trade between
these countries increased until 1453 when it began to decline.
Ashikaga Mochiuji came into conflict with his advisor Uyesugi
Ujinori
and in 1417 received military aid from the Kyoto Bakufu
in putting down the rebellion;
but gradually the warriors of the
Kanto plain confiscated Ashikaga estates and,
as a reward for
helping Mochiuji, stopped paying him taxes.
Yoshimitsu and his
successor Yoshimochi promised Korea
they would control Japanese
piracy in exchange for a printed copy
of the extensive Buddhist
scriptures of the Tripitaka, which finally arrived in 1423.
A Korean declaration of war four years earlier had stirred alarm;
but the situation was resolved, and trade flourished.
In 1443
Korea made a trade treaty with the Kyushu deputy
to permit fifty
Japanese ships each year.
Yoshinori was chosen shogun by lot from the sons of Yoshimitsu
in 1428.
He had been chief abbot of the Tendai Buddhists but took
a hard line
in suppressing insubordinate warlords and also brutally
disciplined
courtiers for venial sins, executing sixty persons.
In 1439 Yoshinori sided with the Uyesugi against Ashikaga Mochiuji
and helped to exterminate the Kanto branch of that house.
Yoshinori
was murdered in 1441 at a banquet held by
General Akamatsu Mitsusuki, who feared loss of land.
The Yamana family was charged with punishing
him;
after killing Mitsusuki and his kin, they took over Akamatsu
domains,
giving them control of seven provinces.
The Japanese economy was growing, as sole inheritance was abandoned
in favor of dividing land among sons.
Manufacturing was organized
and controlled by guilds (za),
providing opportunities
for peasants to become traders and artisans.
Samurai and farmers
formed leagues for mutual defense against oppressive warlords.
Several local uprisings occurred in the second half of the 14th
century.
In 1428 a revolt of teamsters in Omi province soon spread
to
Kyoto, Nara, and several provinces as mobs attacked moneylenders,
pawnshops, and monasteries to destroy records of debt.
As wholesale
trade expanded, in 1431 dealers withheld rice from the Kyoto market
to raise prices, causing distress; they were arrested and convicted
but not punished because the deputy governor of the samurai board
was in with them.
In 1441 farmers in the Kyoto area once again
revolted against landlords.
The Bakufu capitulated by canceling
all debts, not just those of warriors;
but markets were disrupted,
and trade almost ceased.
In 1447 rioters killed four people in
the Toji monastery.
The seven-year-old Shogun Yoshimasa was appointed
in 1443
and allowed the Bakufu government to relax its vigilance.
The royal court had become so poor that it could not even maintain
the upkeep of its holiest shrine at Ise.
The death of Ashikaga Mochiuji in 1439 ended the governorship
of Kanto,
and the powerful Uyesugi family controlled Kamakura
until Ashikaga Shigeuji
was appointed Kanrei in 1449; but when
he had his Uyesugi deputy murdered,
that family drove Shigeuji
out of Kamakura.
After a decade of fighting Shogun Yoshimasa sent
his younger brother Masatomo
to be Kanrei; but the Shigeuji had
their own choice
so that there were now two deputies of the Shogun
in the east.
The Uyesugi family split into three factions and
fought each other
for the next quarter century until the Onin
War ended in 1477.
Japanese No theater grew out of Shinto priestesses dancing
and "monkey music" (sangaku) skits introduced
from China.
The farcical kyogen (wild words) interludes
derived from the following passage
from the Chinese poet Bo Juyi
that was made into a popular song:
May the vulgar trade of letters that I have plied in this life,
all the folly of wild words and fine phrases,
be transformed into a hymn of praise
that shall celebrate the Buddha in age on age to come,
and cause the great wheel of the law to turn.7
In the 11th century the peasant songs and dances called dengaku
became so disruptive that they were blamed for the riots in 1096.
About a century after Chinese theater began flourishing during
the Mongol rule
in the 13th century, the Japanese No dramas
began
to be played at court and in the large cities.
All roles were
usually performed by males.
In 1374 Kannami and his Kanza troupe
were invited to perform
before the young Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu
in Kyoto.
Apparently Yoshimitsu fell in love with Kannami's eleven-year-old
son Zeami
and brought him up at court while sponsoring the No
company of his father.
A sequence of five No plays was performed
in a day beginning with a religious play
followed by a warrior
play, a woman play, a "madwoman" piece,
and concluding
with an auspicious play.
The main character (shite) wore
a mask and did most of the singing and also danced,
while the
witness (waki) did much of the explaining.
His or her companions (tsure) and children (kokata) also appeared and
spoke,
but the chorus, remaining anonymous on the sideline,
would
also sing for the shite or the waki.
An early No play by Komparu Gonnokami in the mid-14th century
called The Diver
is an example of an auspicious play.
The
story told is of a dragon spirit who answers the chanting of the Lotus Sutra
and dives to find a jewel from the Tang court.
The jewel in which the Buddha's image appears is given to her
son Fujiwara Fusazaki,
who is named after the place.
The play
celebrates the founding of the powerful Fujiwara line
and the
bringing of Buddhism from China to Japan.
Kannami Kiyotsugu (1333-84) founded the Kanza troupe in Nara
and is considered the first No master.
His plays, often revised
later by his son Zeami, are more realistic and less literary.
In Jinen the Priest a girl has sold herself into slavery
in order to buy a robe
to give to the temple for her dead parents.
The priest offers the slave traders the robe in exchange for the
girl;
but they refuse until he sings and dances for them.
Kannami's Komachi and the Hundred Nights shows the ghosts
of Komachi and Shosho telling how she required him to sleep one
hundred nights
on a bench; but after 99 times he is detained by
a death in his family.
Then the two lovers refuse the wedding
cup of wine, and both enter the Buddhist path.
In the more famous
play by Kannami, Sotoba Komachi,
the old poet Komachi
appears herself without Shosho,
seeking his spirit for a hundred
years.
When the monks chide her for sitting on a tree stump sacred
to Buddha,
she responds with her iconoclastic views.
She has little
and asks the priests to give her something.
Then her voice asks
for Komachi, as his spirit takes over her body.
Finally she realizes
that her unsatisfied love had possessed her,
and she prays to
enter the Buddhist way, offering her poems as flowers.
In Kannami's Pining Wind, revised by Zeami, a wandering
monk comes to learn
of two salt-makers, Pining Wind and Autumn
Rain, and of Lord Yukihira's poetry,
which promised Pining Wind
he would return to her if she "pined" for him.
Autumn
Rain tells Pining Wind that the sin of clinging
is keeping her
in the world of mad passion.
At the end Rain has gone, but Pining
Wind lingers on alone.
In The Sought-for Grave Kannami
portrayed a wintry scene in which
Buddhist monks and village girls
look for green plants
while learning the story of Unai, whose
ghost is seeking rest
after she rejected two courting men,
because
they were so equal they both shot the wings of the same bird.
The Flower-Basket by Kannami and revised by Zeami shows
the Lady Teruhi
having received the basket with a letter from
her lover,
who has become Emperor Keitai (r. 507-31).
Going mad,
she travels to see him and has her maid present the basket.
After
she dances the sad story of China's Wu Di,
who missed his concubine,
the Emperor invites her back to the palace.
More plays by Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443) are in the current
No repertory than by any other playwright.
For many years he enjoyed
the patronage of Shogun Yoshimitsu at the capital.
After Yoshimitsu
died in 1408, Zeami's talent was not as appreciated at court,
and in 1429 he was barred from performances by Shogun Ashikaga
Yoshinori.
Five years later after one son had became a monk and
the other had died,
he was banished to the island of Sado, though
he returned to the capital
a few years before his death.
Zeami
also wrote about No theater.
He found that the underlying spiritual
strength of the actor best held the audience
and that moments
of no action were often the most enjoyable.
The inner strength
of the actor must not become noticeable to the audience
or it
is no longer "no action."
Actors by clearing their minds
may even conceal their own intent from themselves.
In linking
all artistic powers with the one mind,
Zeami sought the elusive
quality he called yugen,
which means what lies beneath
the surface.
For Zeami yugen is true beauty and gentleness,
tranquility
and elegance in personal appearance, grace of language,
and music that is smooth and sensitive.
By using intelligence
the actor makes the presentation beautiful in form and manner.
In the first-category god play Takasago Zeami portrayed
the happily married spirits
of two pine trees and in doing so
implied praise
for the reign of the current Shogun Yoshimitsu.
The husband's spirit, Sumiyoshi, who is also the god of poetry,
dances to celebrate the long lives of pine trees
even though many
Buddhists do not consider plants sentient.
Zeami's Kureha
is another god play about the sacred craft of weaving
as personified
by two weaving maidens.
In Saigyo's Cherry Tree by Zeami
the spirit of the cherry tree
asks the Buddhist poet Saigyo why
he blames the tree blossoms
for the visitors who come to disturb
him,
for the eyes that see any part of the world as vexatious
depend wholly on the seer's heart.
In another play about the gods, Haku Rakuten, the Chinese poet Bo Juyi
tries to visit Japan,
where his influence is so great;
but he is forced to return to
China by Japan's own god of poetry, Sumiyoshi.
Atsumori by Zeami is a warrior play in which a priest
now called Rensei
prays for the soul of Atsumori, whom he had
killed in the battle of Ichinotani in 1183.
He begins the play
by saying,
"Life is a lying dream; he only wakes who casts
the world aside."8
Rensei finds the spirit of Atsumori among
some reapers,
and they become friends in Buddha's law according
to the proverb,
"Put away from you a wicked friend; summon
to your side a virtuous enemy."9
At the end Atsumori approaches
his old enemy with uplifted sword;
but he recognizes that Rensei
has obtained salvation,
and he asks him to pray for him again.
Atsumori's brother Tsunemasa was slain in the same battle,
and
in Zeami's Tsunemasa a priest's prayers once again invoke
the spirit of the dead warrior, this time by playing a lute.
However,
the anguished spirit is still suffering anger,
and in trying to wound another he consumes himself in red waves like flames;
he
is ashamed of these woes and vanishes.
Tadanori by Zeami tells of another warrior killed in
the Inchinotani battle.
Tadanori's spirit still haunts a cherry
tree, because he wants his name
immortalized by having his poetry
placed in an imperial anthology.
Because the Taira lost the war,
his poem was listed as anonymous by editor Toshinari.
Tadanori
appeals for someone to help, and in fact one of his poems was
later
put in the 1235 anthology with his name by Toshinari's son
Fujiwara Teika.
Zeami's Yashima is about a battle after
Inchinotani in 1185 when Yoshitsune
boldly risked his life to
retrieve his bow,
although Kanefusa reprimanded him for his foolishness.
Yoshitsune's ghost replies that it was a question of honor.
In Kagekiyo by Zeami the daughter of the warrior Kagekiyo
the passionate
travels to find her banished father,
who at first
though blind says he has not seen Kagekiyo.
Later she asks her
father to tell of his high deeds in the battle.
He does so but
concludes still in torment and asks her to pray for him as she
goes.
Thus Zeami's plays endeavored to heal the warrior spirit
so prominent in feudal Japan.
In the woman play Eguchi by Zeami a villager tells a
monk
the story of the harlot of Eguchi,
who was a poet and in
reality the bodhisattva Fugen.
Once she refused to entertain
the great monk Saigyo for the night
and chided him with her poetry
for his clinging.
Then the lady of Eguchi appears and sings how
all things are a moment's refuge.
In Zeami's Komachi at Seki-dera
a monk discovers that
the old woman is the famous poet Komachi.
In Zeami's The Feather Mantle the fisherman Hakuryo steals
an angel's robe
of feathers and refuses to give it back; she will
dance for him if he will give it back;
but he must trust her enough
to give it to her first.
In Izutsu by Zeami the husband,
who grew up with his wife,
visits a woman in another province;
but when he finds out how true his wife is to him, he stops going
there.
Lady Han by Zeami is a mad-woman play in which this
post-station courtesan
is driven to despair by her love for an
officer that is symbolized by a fan he gave her.
In another example
of this genre, Semimaru, the blind prince by that name
has been abandoned in the wilderness; he does not blame his father
for cruelty
but believes that because of his karmic impediments
he did so in order to help him work through them to achieve his
salvation.
There Semimaru meets his mad sister Sakagami,
who has
topsy-turvy hair; but sadly she has to leave him.
In Zeami's The
Fulling Block a wife missing her husband pounds silk
on the
fulling block to express her frustration.
When he does not return
at the time he promised, she dies.
Hearing of her death, he comes
back;
then her ghost scolds him for not knowing her pain.
In Zeami's The Damask Drum an old gardener is attracted
to a princess,
who tells him to beat the drum hanging from a tree
if he wants to see her,
but the drum made of cloth makes no sound.
In despair the gardener drowns himself in the pond.
Then the princess
hears the drum and becomes possessed by his spirit.
The gardener's
ghost is covered in the darkness of the denied anger of lust
and
sinks again into the whirlpool of desire.
In Uto by Zeami
a dead hunter asks a monk to take a message to his living wife
and child.
Then the guilt-ridden ghost of the hunter appears to
them and tells how
after killing baby Uto birds he was poisoned
by the falling tears of their parents.
The play strongly supports
the Buddhist prohibition of hunting.
The Pool-Sacrifice
shows how a traveler's daughter is chosen by lot
to be sacrificed
by a local cult.
Hachi No Ki by Zeami shows Lord Tokiyori
in disguise as a priest asking for lodging
from a couple that
even burns miniature plum, cherry, and pine trees to keep him
warm.
Six months later he mobilizes forces so that he can grant
the tattered couple three fiefs.
Zeami's plays about crones include Higaki, which shows
the plight of an old woman,
who had been a dancer, and Obasute
(The Deserted Crone),
whose ghost tells how she was abandoned
on a mountain by her nephew
at the bidding of his wife, who kept
her husband from returning in time to save her life.
The Mountain
Crone by Zeami shows the influence of Zen
and discusses the
value of different paths up the mountain.
Zeami's oldest son Motomasa, who died in 1432, wrote The
Sumida River.
A ferryman tells a woman of a trader abandoning
a small boy
who had become ill on a journey.
The woman turns out
to be his mother,
and the boy's ghost returns from the grave briefly
in response to her prayers.
Zeami's son-in-law Komparu Zenchiku (1405-68) wrote Tatsuta
for Zeami's troupe probably in 1432.
A shrine maiden guides a
monk to the Tatsuta shrine
so that he can contribute a copy of
the Lotus Sutra.
Then a lady of the shrine dances in celebration
of their famous red leaves of autumn.
Zenchiku may also have written The Kasuga Dragon God,
which shows how the Buddhist monk
Myoe Shonin (1173-1232)
is persuaded not to travel to India by
the old priest,
who argues that if the Buddha were living, it
would be noble to go see and hear him;
but past events he suggests
can be commemorated at various sacred places in Japan.
In Aoi
No Uye Zenchiku revised an earlier play based on Murasaki's
Tale of Genji.
A witch determines that the man Princess
Rokujo is pining for is no longer alive.
The jealous Rokujo is
ready to strike her rival with a mallet,
but a saint comes in
and calms her spirit.
Zenchiku's Kumasaka shows the ghost of a robber disguised
as a priest
telling how he was killed by the young Yoshitsune.
In The Hoka Priests by Zenchiku two brothers discuss Zen
and then kill the man who had murdered their father.
In Zenchiku's The Valley-Hurling the violent side of religion is shown
as a teacher follows the ancient law that anyone who falls sick
on this particular pilgrimage has to be thrown into the valley.
A boy is so hurled, and after prayers he is carried back by a
spirit.
These highly stylized No plays are difficult to appreciate
without the operatic singing, dancing, and acting.
Yet the spiritual
messages come through as so many ghosts or spirits are presented,
and the audience is able to see the spiritual laws of
karmic responsibility
and grace through prayer in action.
Probably in the 15th century Hiyoshi Sa-ami Yasukiyo wrote
the play
Benkei on the Bridge about the warrior monk Benkei,
who fights the famous Ushiwaka (Minamoto Yoshitsune) on the Gojo
bridge in Kyoto.
Benkei becomes his loyal retainer, and in The
Subscription List he fights for this lord.
In the next century
Miyamasu wrote The Hat-maker in which the young Ushiwaka
gets a hat made by a hat-maker familiar with his Minamoto clan,
and he fights against the dominating Heike clan.
Succession struggles reflected the rivalries in most families
in every province of Japan.
By the middle of the 15th century
the powerful Yamana family distrusted
the Hosokawa clan, which
was favored by the Shogun and held the Kanrei position.
At age
thirty Shogun Yoshimasa wanted to retire after serving 14 years,
and Hosokawa favored Yoshimasa's younger brother Yoshimi;
but
in 1465 the Shogun's wife Tomi-ko gave birth to a son, Yoshihisa,
who was supported by Yamana.
That year Tendai monks of Enryakuji
on Mount Hiei resented the growing influence
of Rennyo (1415-99)
and his promotion of the True sect (Shinshu)
so much that
they burned his temple and drove him from Kyoto.
In 1467 Yamana
asked permission of Shogun Yashimasa to punish Hosokawa
for interfering
in a dispute between two Hatakeyama candidates for Kanrei.
When
Yamana took Yoshimi to the Bakufu headquarters and prepared to
defend it,
both sides mobilized their forces.
Shogun Yashimasa
tried to prevent a war by saying the first to attack
would be
proclaimed a rebel.
The Ouchi daimyo (lord) led 20,000
men to support Yamana
which would tip the balance of forces.
A
shipment of tax grain to the capital by Yamana troops
was seized
by Hosokawa soldiers in the Tamba province.
Fires broke out around the capital of Kyoto, and in May 1467
Hosokawa troops
attacked the mansion of a Yamana general; many
were killed on both sides.
However, Hosokawa persuaded the Shogun
to declare Yamana the rebel.
Yoshimasa ordered his brother Yoshimi
to punish them,
and he appointed Hosokawa his commanding general.
This proclamation gave Hosokawa an edge,
and Yamana and Ouchi
had to send troops back to protect their provinces;
but by September,
Yamana and Ouchi had reinforcements
that included 500 boats escorted
by pirates.
Yamana with 50,000 soldiers attacked the Sambo-In
monastery
next to the imperial palace and took both buildings.
Fighting, burning, and looting devastated the capital for several
months.
Yoshimi went over to Yamana's side, and in 1469 Shogun
Yoshimasa
declared four-year-old Yoshihisa his heir;
Emperor Go-Tsuchimikado
pronounced Yoshimi a rebel.
By 1472 generals on both sides were
leaving the capital to suppress insurrections
in their territories,
and the next year both Hosokawa and Yamana died;
but Ouchi refused
to surrender and in 1475 fought Hatakeyama Masanaga.
The decade-long
Onin War finally ended two years later
when Ouchi submitted to
Yoshimasa and went home.
A league of local warriors (kokujin) had been formed
in Izume province in 1473
and was able to tax the private estates (shoen), often owned by those in the capital.
When the
Hosokawa shugo (military governor) demanded back the shoen
taken by the kokujin during the Onin War in Settsu province,
these warriors resisted in 1479 and appealed to the rebel Hatakeyama
Yoshinari;
but Hosokawa raised a large army and crushed the uprising
in 1482
by destroying their home bases of Suita and Ibaragi.
The
1485 revolt in southern Yamashiro province against shugo
Hatakeyama
was tolerated by Hosokawa Masamoto; but four years
later he decided to suppress
an uprising in his own province of
Tamba because it was more anti-shugo.
Revolts spread in
Hosokawa's Kinai provinces.
Troops from Kyoto were used but were
not able
to quell the rebellion until 1493, ending this series
of uprisings.
The Onin War began a century of local conflicts between warlords.
The shogun's wife Tomi-ko and her elder brother Hino Katsuakira
acquired a fortune by peculation.
She extorted taxes at the capital
gates, saying they were to repair the imperial palace;
but threats
by the Yamashiro-Ikki ended this in 1482.
Periodic riots induced
the shogunate to cancel debts.
Soon the Kyoto court not only had
little power but little income as well.
In 1485 a council of Yamashiro
peasants demanded that Hatakeyama armies
leave their province
and restore estates to their owners, and they were obeyed.
The
next year 36 Yoshimiro-Ikki leaders set up a provincial government
with officers rotating monthly.
Rennyo built his True sect into
the single-minded (Ikko) sect at Echizen
with military organization
that defeated the warlord of neighboring Kaga in 1488.
Yoshimasa
had formally resigned as shogun in 1473,
but he patronized and
appreciated the arts until he died in 1490.
The priest Murata
Juko (1422-1502) helped him raise the tea ceremony to a fine art.
Greater self-government by local communities had begun to develop
in the 14th century.
A decree canceling debts was issued on the
Okushima and Kitatsuda private estates
in 1441, and this soon
led to the historic nationwide Kakitsu debt abrogation decree.
In 1494 in Ise province 46 farmers representing self-governing
organizations (so)
signed a pledge to meet and settle their
disputes.
Another pledge signed by 350 farmers promised
they would
neither falsify boundaries nor steal crops.
Families with the
same name organized self-governing clans
and then formed leagues
with other clans.
They communally managed waterways for regional
irrigation
and provided security to preserve peace.
A decree from
a Yamato province so to its shugo requested
a debt
moratorium after a drought caused damage.
By the 16th century
these so had united into some
powerful leagues in the central
provinces.
Ota Dokan, a vassal of the Ogigayatsu branch of the Uyesugi
family, built a castle
at Edo but was mistakenly taken for a rival
and killed by Sadamasa in 1485.
After many years of fighting the
Ogigayatsu branch was defeated by the
Yamanouchi forces in 1505
with help from Constable Fusayoshi of Echigo.
His upstart warrior
Nagao Tamekage turned against Fusayoshi,
killing him two years
later.
Tamekage became the deputy of the new Echigo constable
Uyesugi Akisada;
but the warrior Hojo Soun helped Tamekage subdue
the Uyesugi in Kanto.
Soun had chosen his name with the ambition
to become shogun,
and on a deer hunt his men captured the castle
that made him master of Izu;
by 1516 Soun also controlled Sagami.
War taxes had been taking half of farmers' crops; but Soun reduced
them to 40%.
He died in 1519; but his son Ujitsuma led an attack
on the castle at Edo in 1524,
defeating the divided armies of
the Uyesugi clan.
Ujitsuma defeated and killed Koga Kubo Yoshiaki
in 1539 but died two years later.
His son Ujiyasu defeated the
Uyesugi in a night attack at Kawagoye in 1542,
and by 1560 he
had destroyed most of the Uyesugi.
By the middle of the 16th century
so many peasants had left owing taxes
that they were allowed to
return if they started paying after that.
Ujiyasu sent letters
offering to help the Ikko Buddhists,
who ruled Kaga until they
were expelled by a society of warriors in 1576.
The young Shogun Yoshihisa tried to contain the ambitions of
local protectors (shugo)
but was killed on the battlefield
in 1489.
After that, the shoguns became puppets just as the emperors
had before.
Yoshimi's son Yoshitane was made shogun in 1490 but
had to flee three years later.
Kanrei Hosokawa Katsumoto appointed
Yoshizumi
and in 1494 was replaced by his son Hosokawa Masamoto.
Yoshitane tried to return to the capital in 1499 but was driven
out again
by Hosokawa troops, fleeing to Ouchi's capital at Yamaguchi.
Ouchi Yoshioki marched on Kyoto, assassinating Masamoto in 1507
and restoring Yoshitane after Yoshizumi fled the following year.
Next a war was fought between Masamoto's adopted sons over who
was to be Kanrei.
Ouchi stayed in the capital protecting Shogun
Yoshitane until 1518.
The Hosokawa family used the shoguns as
puppets until their last Kanrei,
Hosokawa Harumoto, was defeated
in 1558 by their former vassals,
Miyoshi and Matsunaga; but Miyoshi
was eventually ousted by his retainer Matsunaga.
The Ouchi family
was also destroyed by its vassals.
In 1551 Suye Harukata defeated
Yoshioki's son Yoshitaka;
but three years later pirates helped
the Mori family, which had
replaced
the Yamana family, overcome
Harukata in a battle during a rainstorm.
This period of civil wars has been called gekokuo, meaning
the low oppressing the high;
but in addition to vassals seizing
power, other trends were also occurring.
Many agricultural workers
became independent farmers as improved tools,
use of draft animals,
better irrigation, and new crops
such as soy beans and tea increased
prosperity.
Growing commerce in food, silk, hemp, linen, paper,
dyes, and lacquer
created a class of merchants and money-lenders,
though the only coins used were Chinese.
Japan exported many thousands
of steel swords to China
for strings of coins, silk, porcelain,
paintings, medicine, and books.
Skilled artisans formed guilds (za) and were protected by a temple or a noble family.
Samurai warriors organized associations to resist constables and
rural magnates.
Otherwise armored warriors no longer had power
unless they were leading
large numbers of soldiers with pikes
for a warlord (sengoku-daimyo),
who built castles to control
territories.
Buddhists of the Ikko sect and the Nichiren followers
fought each other several times between 1532 and 1536.
Yet villages organized as mura began to govern themselves
locally.
After the Onin War about twenty warlords had most of
the power,
and they proclaimed their strict house laws, collected
taxes,
and regulated markets and religious institutions, which
they protected.
To prevent feuds the Takeda family house laws
decreed that both parties
in a violent quarrel would be punished
regardless of who was right.
House laws imposed collective responsibility
so that an entire village
might be punished if anyone did not
pay tax or did not apprehend a criminal.
After silver was discovered
in Iwami, enterprising Hakata merchants
sent for skilled workers
from China and Korea to improve the smelting process.
In 1542
a rich deposit was found in Tajima,
and in 1556 the Mori family
took over an Iwami silver mine during a military campaign.
Japanese piracy and trade with the Chinese had begun in 1306
and was rampant
during most of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), which
usually prohibited foreign trade.
After Chinese officials were
attacked and lost property to the Ouchi at Ningpo in 1523,
they
voided the agreement they had with the Japanese.
A few missions
occurred until 1548.
Then piracy became a major problem as many
Chinese on the coasts
who had lost their livelihood because of
government restrictions
became pirates on their own or on Japanese
ships.
Pirate raids took grain, silk textiles, copper cash, and
captives to sell as slaves.
In 1555 Koreans reported that a fleet
of seventy pirate ships attacked their peninsula.
After a campaign
against the pirates, the Ming court about 1560
finally lifted
the embargo against foreign trade.
The Portuguese first landed on the island of Tanegashima in
1543,
and the firearms the Japanese got from there at first were
called Tanegashima.
The Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier arrived
at Kagoshima in 1549
and was welcomed by the Satsuma daimyo.
Xavier
made the difficult journey to Kyoto, hoping to find Japan's king;
but finding no powerful ruler there, he returned to Yamaguchi.
There he presented himself in a splendid costume as an envoy of
the Portuguese,
and Ouchi Yoshitaka allowed him to preach.
Yoshitaka
studied Confucianism with the scholar Kiyohara Yorikata
and obtained
from Korea a complete edition of the five classics annotated by
Zhu Xi.
Yoshitaka committed suicide in 1551 because of a rebellion
by his vassal Sue Takafusa (known later as Sue Harukata).
Xavier
converted Otomo Sorin, who protected Christians until his death
in 1587.
Xavier left Japan in 1551 and died of disease the next
year
on an island waiting to get into China.
Gaspar Vilela gained
the protection of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshitero in Kyoto
and baptized
1300 people, mostly peasants, on the islands of
Ikitsukijima and
Takushima and around Hirado.
In 1558 Takanobu, objecting to Vilela's
burning of books and destruction
of Buddhist images, expelled
him from the Matsuura territory.
By 1559 only six Jesuits were
in Japan.
The Shogun and his wife and mother were murdered by the Miyoshi
faction in 1565;
the Zen priests were so intimidated that they
did not attend the funeral.
Buddhists then persuaded the Emperor
to issue an edict
expelling all Christian missionaries.
The Jesuit
Frois stayed in Sakai and got two armies to stop fighting
for
one day on Christmas in 1567.
Two years later Frois was taken
to see Nobunaga.
In 1571 Portuguese ships made Nagasaki a base
for a Jesuit community.
Dom Bartolomeu required all to become
Christians or leave Omura,
and in 1574 he began burning its Buddhist
temples and Shinto shrines,
thus claiming 60,000 Christian converts.
Conversion in the late 1570s of the prominent Amakusa Shigehisa
and Arima Harunobu influenced thousands to be baptized.
Omura
Sumitada and his son Yoshiaki signed over Nagasaki
to the Society
of Jesus in 1580.
Oda Nobunaga (1534-82) overcame opposition
and became the master
of Owari in 1559 as the constable fled,
and that year he was received
in Kyoto by Ashikaga Shogun Yoshiteru.
Nobunaga established a
fortress at Kiyosu, and in 1560 he defeated an attack
by an Imagawa
army of 25,000 with a much smaller force by using clever strategy.
He consolidated his power with military force and diplomatic marriages.
In 1561 Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616) joined Nobunaga and went to
Mikawa.
The commander Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-98) helped Nobunaga
defeat the Mino.
After Shogun Yoshiteru was killed by rebellious
vassals of Hosokawa in 1565,
his younger brother Yoshiaki took
refuge with Nobunaga.
This ambitious warlord then overcame opposition
in the province of Ise,
and in November 1568 he entered Kyoto
and proclaimed Yoshiaki the Ashikaga shogun.
Citizens of the capital
were pleased to see that
Nobunaga kept his troops under discipline.
The new Shogun gave Frois permission to preach Christianity.
Nobunaga
encouraged free markets and open guilds in towns such as Kano
and ordered all toll gates in the provinces abolished.
He fixed
the ratio between gold, silver, and copper, stopping barter transactions
with rice, and he forced Sakai to pay 20,000 kan.
Sakai
was his main supplier of muskets, ammunition, and other military
equipment.
Ieyasu controlled eastern Japan for Nobunaga by making peace
with Takeda Shingen
and by occupying territory formerly held by
Imagawa.
When Asakura Yoshikage of Echizen did not obey Nobunaga's
summons
to the capital with the other warlords in 1570,
Nobunaga
attacked him with an army of 30,000.
Ieyasu's army made the difference
in defeating Asakura and his ally Asai.
The military monks at
Enryakuji opposed Nobunaga
because his generals confiscated their
land.
So Nobunaga mercilessly attacked them in 1571,
allowing
his soldiers to behead women and children as well as
monks and
laymen while destroying 3,000 buildings.
That year Ujiyasu died,
and the new Hojo leader
joined with the Takeda family in a march
on the capital.
Their army of 30,000 met Nobunaga's forces in
January 1573;
Ieyasu fled, and Nobunaga had to sue for peace.
When Shogun Yoshiaki sided with Takeda, Nobunaga deposed the Shogun
and drove him out of Kyoto.
Takeda Shingen died after being wounded
in an attack on Ieyasu.
Finally in August 1573 after Nobunaga
defeated their armies
and destroyed their castles, Asakura and
Asai committed suicide;
Nobunaga gave their lands to Hideyoshi.
Nobunaga had roads and bridges improved
and ordered pine and willow
trees planted along the roads.
Nobunaga was especially cruel to fighting monks,
and in 1574
he burned the two strongholds of the Ikko league
even after they
asked to surrender, killing about 20,000 people.
The next year
he used 3,000 soldiers armed with muskets to help
Ieyasu defeat
a much larger force of Takeda warriors,
making the advantage of
the new technology obvious.
In 1576 Nobunaga began disarming peasants
and building the strong Azuchi castle
that was completed three
years later.
In 1577 Nobunaga's forces accepted the surrender of the Ikko league in the Kii province.
Nobunaga preferred the
less militant Pure Land (Jodo) sect of Buddhists
and built them
the Jogon-In monastery in his new city of Azuchi.
Nobunaga also
disliked the militant Hokke sect of Nichiren followers
and made
sure the Jodo won a debate he sponsored in 1579.
The next year
Nobunaga forced the Ikko to abandon their Honganji fortress in
Osaka,
greatly reducing the military power of monks in Japan.
Meanwhile the Takeda of Kai were conscripting men of all classes
between the ages of 15 and 60 into military service;
but in 1581
Nobunaga with Ieyasu and Hojo attacked
Takeda Katsuyori's army
of 20,000 with an army nearly nine times its size.
Katsuyori fled
and was captured and killed the next year,
ending the power of
the Takeda family.
When the Koyasan monastery gave refuge to his
enemies and ejected his envoys,
Nobunaga ordered all their wandering
friars executed.
Despite the efforts of Hideyoshi, Nobunaga was never able
to subjugate the Mori in western Japan.
As Nobunaga was going there
in 1582, the treachery of Akechi enabled him
to ambush and kill
Nobunaga before taking the Azuchi castle.
Hideyoshi kept the news
of his death secret while he made a treaty with Mori.
Then Hideyoshi's
army attacked and killed Akechi.
Four generals took over after
Nobunaga's death; but Hideyoshi was the strongest,
and with quick
movements by the end of 1582 he controlled thirty provinces,
ten
more than Nobunaga had gained in twenty years.
In the east Ieyasu
challenged Hideyoshi briefly but made peace with him in 1585.
That year Hideyoshi's armies forced the Chosokabe to submit
and
eliminated the military power of the great monasteries in the
central region.
Hideyoshi built his castle at Osaka and destroyed most of the
castles in other provinces.
He had a land survey begun in 1583,
but it was not completed until 1598, the year he died.
The actual
cultivators were made responsible for paying the taxes on their
produce.
This made more farmers independent and lessened the influence
of the rural gentry,
giving Hideyoshi direct control over the
80% of Japan's population who farmed.
In 1590 he ordered anyone
resisting the inspections to be executed.
The state usually took
40% or 50% in the tax,
and peasants had to pay their landlords
from the rest.
In 1587 Hideyoshi mobilized an army of perhaps 200,000
to subdue
the Satsuma armies of Kyushu.
Shimazu submitted and was allowed
to keep Satsuma, Osumi, and half of Hyuga.
The remainder of Kyushu
was governed by
Hideyoshi's commanders Kato, Konishi, and Kuroda.
Next Hideyoshi punished Ujimasa for not coming to his palace.
Hojo had been conscripting all the men they could;
but they had
fewer than 50,000 against Hideyoshi's professional army of 200,000.
Ujimasa surrendered in August 1590 and was ordered to commit suicide.
Hideyoshi gave Ieyasu the eight Kanto provinces in the east in
exchange for
Ieyasu's more central territories that Hideyoshi
distributed to his trusted vassals.
Thus Hideyoshi established
his feudal control over all sixty provinces of Japan
as all the
major daimyos swore fealty to him.
He monopolized gold and silver
mines and some other state enterprises.
Copper, silver, and gold
coins were issued.
In 1588 he began the "sword hunt"
that confiscated weapons from those not in his army.
Peasants
were told that they would be melted down
to be used as nails and
bolts in a gigantic image of Buddha.
At the end of 1590 Hideyoshi
announced a census that would expel from villages
vagrants who
did not work on farms or for the military.
The Emperor had made Hideyoshi kampaku (regent) in 1585
and chancellor the next year.
By 1582 only twenty Jesuits estimated
that they had baptized 150,000 people in Japan.
In 1587 Hideyoshi
ordered the Jesuits to leave Japan within twenty days,
accusing
them of forcing people to give up their religion,
selling slaves
to China and Korea, killing
animals for food,
and destroying Buddhist and Shinto buildings.
The edict was not strictly enforced;
merchants from Christian
countries were allowed to trade;
and ten priests were licensed
in Nagasaki.
By 1596 some 140 Jesuits were still in Japan,
and
the number of converts had risen to 300,000.
After hearing a threatening
boast from a shipwrecked Spanish pilot,
irritated Hideyoshi had
six Spanish Franciscans
and nineteen Japanese Christians crucified.
Hideyoshi appointed the five elders Ieyasu, Ukita, Mori, Maeda,
and Uyesugi
for counsel and five commissioners to carry out his
policies
and help his nephew Hidetsuga, who was officially made
regent in 1592.
Hidetsuga occupied himself with falconry and women
and was so vicious
that he was called the murdering regent;
in
1595 he was replaced by Hideyoshi's infant son Hideyori.
Hideyoshi
then ordered Hidetsuga to commit suicide
and had his three children
and thirty women in his service massacred.
In 1595 priests from the ten Buddhist sects were required to
attend
the dedication of the large statue of the Buddha at Hoko-ji.
The Nichiren sect explained the principle of fuju fuse,
that they could not receive from nor give to
those who do not
believe in the Lotus Sutra.
Nichio refused to attend and
accurately predicted that others who did attend
would in the future
be required to keep accepting tainted donations.
The more traditional
Ju faction won the debate,
and in 1600 Nichio was exiled to Tsushima
until he was pardoned in 1612.
The ambitious Hideyoshi wanted to take over China and perhaps
even India.
In April 1592 he ordered the invasion of Korea.
The striking force had 158,800 men with a naval force of 9,000
and 75,000 reserves at Nagoya sent by Ieyasu and others.
Konishi
Yukinaga led the first wave of 18,000 men on 700 vessels
that
took Pusan in May and the capital at Seoul in June.
Supported
by other contingents, Konishi's vanguard captured P'yongyang in
July 1592.
Korea's king appealed to China, and their forces drove
the Japanese out of P'yongyang and back south;
but these first
Chinese forces were trapped and defeated by the Japanese army.
Disastrous defeats from a superior Korean navy forced the Japanese
occupying army
to live off the land, and they faced ferocious
guerrilla attacks by Koreans.
By early 1593 they had lost a third
of their men.
Konishi was able to withstand another Chinese army
of at least 50,000.
They negotiated with the Chinese and agreed
to leave the Korean capital.
Most of the Chinese went back to
China;
their diplomats promised that the Ming emperor would recognize
Hideyoshi as the king of Japan, and trade would resume.
Japan
also wanted to keep the southern provinces of Korea, which was
not consulted.
The Christian Konishi favored the negotiated peace;
but the
Buddhist Kato persuaded Hideyoshi to renew the war in 1597,
and
another 100,000 men were sent to join the 50,000 still in Korea.
China responded by sending
another army that arrived in 1598
as Hideyoshi was withdrawing
half his forces;
but Konishi at Pusan with 60,000 men was able
to defeat the Chinese,
killing a reported 38,000.
News in September
1598 that Hideyoshi had died caused a standstill.
Then both the
Chinese and the Japanese forces withdrew from a devastated Korea.
The Japanese gained technical knowledge of
Korean printing and
pottery by taking skilled workers as captives.
After Hideyoshi died, Ieyasu was the most wealthy and powerful
on the council of five.
His Kanto holdings in 1590 had yielded
a million koku,
but now he was worth 2,557,000 koku.
The commissioners led by Ishida Mitsunari (1560-1600) accused
him of
betraying Hideyoshi by arranging political marriages, but
this was resolved.
However, General Kato learned that Mitsunari
was behind two assassination attempts
on Ieyasu and went to kill
him.
Ieyasu dismissed the commissioners and moved into the late
Hideyoshi's castle at Osaka.
Mitsunari was joined in a military
revolt by Uyesugi Kagekatsu,
who had not responded to Ieyasu's
summons.
Mitsunari captured Fushimi castle and gained Shimazu,
Ukita, and Konisha as allies;
but in 1600 at Sekigahara about
80,000 fought on each side.
Kobayakawa went over to Ieyasu's side,
and they defeated Konisha and Utika,
causing Mitsunari and Shimazu
to flee.
Mitsunari and Konishi were both captured and executed.
Ieyasu rewarded the daimyos on his side with the 7,572,000 koku
confiscated.
He distributed fiefs so that his trusted allies (Fudai
daimyos) could watch over
the more dangerous ones (Tozama), whom
he kept busy
by ordering their men to help build his castles.
Hideyoshi's son Hideyori was allowed to keep 650,000 koku.
The wealth of the Tokugawa family increased to 6,400,000 koku
(one-fourth of the nation's total revenue)
and now included the
cities of Edo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nagasaki, Yamada, and Nara.
Ieyasu
took over gold and silver mines and established a mint at Fishimi
in 1601.
He restored the Bakufu power when the Emperor appointed
him shogun in 1603.
He made his capital at Edo in his eastern
domains of Kanto.
An edict of 1603 allowed a peasant to leave
his land
if he had paid his taxes and the landlord's conduct was
abusive.
Landlords were also prohibited from using violence against
the peasants,
and they were instructed to take their disputes
to the magistrate's court.
Ieyasu's adviser Honda Masanobu wrote
that the peasants should be governed
with care but that they should
be taxed so that they have
only enough rice to eat and for seeds
to plant the next year.
A 1604 edict gave the Bakufu a monopoly
over imported raw silk.
In 1605 Ieyasu let his son Hidetada replace
him as shogun
so that he could work on governing.
When Matsudaira
Tadayoshi died in 1607,
four of his pages committed junshi
suicide to follow him.
Then four retainers did the same for Matsudaira
Hideyasu.
These examples revived the junshi custom for
a time.
Japanese soldiers went out to secure trade with Melaka, Macao,
and the Philippines.
The English refugee William Adams from a
Dutch ship
stayed with Ieyasu and oversaw the building of ships.
Two Dutch ships were allowed to establish a trading post at Hirado
in 1609.
Also that year Japan made a trade agreement with Korea,
but the Japanese were no longer allowed to travel beyond the port
of Pusan.
The Portuguese trading monopoly was clearly over the
next year
when most of the crew on the ship Madre de Deus
were put to death
for having treated Japanese sailors cruelly
at Macao.
In 1611 the Tokugawa government prohibited the preaching
of Christianity.
In 1613 after the Spanish missionary Sotelho
built a chapel in Edo,
27 Japanese Christians were executed.
The
next year following the advice of the monk Suden,
Ieyasu issued
a formal edict expelling foreign missionaries.
Churches in Kyoto
were destroyed,
and Japanese Christians of high rank were arrested
and deported.
In 1613 an agent of the British East India Company
arrived in Japan,
but the English ended their efforts to establish
trade ten years later.
Ieyasu received oaths of allegiance from central and western
daimyos
in 1611 and from those in northern Japan the next year.
This edict required them to take action against criminals and
rebels.
Young Hideyori was gaining strength from masterless samurai;
but in 1614 Ieyasu's son Hidetada surrounded his Osaka castle
with 70,000 men.
Ieyasu levied more forces from his vassals so
that
they far outnumbered Hideyori's garrison of 90,000.
Ieyasu
made an agreement, but it was broken when Hidetada's men
filled
in the moat and pulled down the ramparts.
Outnumbered two to one,
after a pitched battle Hideyori committed suicide,
and his wife
Yodogimi (Hidetada's daughter) was killed
by a retainer to prevent
her capture.
His sons were executed, and his older sister became
a nun.
The Tokugawa allies had lost 35,000 people, but the civil
war was over.
After his victory at Osaka, Ieyasu decreed that
each daimyo could have only one castle.
Ieyasu believed in virtuous government in the ancient Chinese
tradition,
and the document Honsa Roku warned against ambitious
vanity and greedy corruption.
Its author believed peasants should
have neither too much nor too little,
and luxuries such as elaborate
tea ceremonies were condemned as not good government.
Ieyasu also
studied the lessons of Japanese history from 1180 to 1266
in The
Mirror of the East (Azuma Kagami).
At an assembly of
vassals in Fushimi castle in August 1615 Ieyasu promulgated
a
code of rules for military houses called Buke Shohatto
that was drawn up with the advice of the Zen monk Suden.
Its first
article said that both literature and the military arts were to
be studied.
Drunkenness, gambling, and lewd behavior must be avoided.
Criminals and rebels were not to be harbored.
Building work on
castles must be reported and approved.
Private marriages were
forbidden.
Clothing and behavior should reflect one's rank and
social class.
All samurai were to live frugally, and daimyos were
to select capable people in governing.
Ieyasu was now undisputed
master of Japan;
he would die the next year, but his Tokugawa
family would rule Japan
for the next two and a half centuries.
Fujiwara Seika (1561-1619) was a Buddhist monk until he was
37;
but after meeting the Korean war captive Kang Hang (1567-1618),
he became devoted to the Neo-Confucian philosophy.
Seika declined
a position in Ieyasu's government but advised him occasionally.
He and Kang Hang edited the Confucian classics.
He urged samurai
to study Neo-Confucian philosophy and argued that
Buddhism was
impractical and destructive to human relations.
As a Kyoto aristocrat
he looked down on the warrior class
and retired to the mountains
in 1615.
Influenced by the Neo-Confucians Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming,
and Korean thinkers,
Seika held that the innate spiritual principle
(li in Chinese, ri in Japanese)
is innate in everyone's
being;
but the physical energy (qi in Chinese, ki
in Japanese) is what makes moral differences.
Most people have
impure energy and need moral cultivation;
only sages have purified
their energy.
Seika came to venerate Confucius and Mencius,
but
he rejected Daoism as well as Buddhism.
Yet he still believed
that desires cause virtue to decline.
He tried to give Shinto
a theology with Neo-Confucian concepts.
He believed that both
intended to rectify the heart
and increase human benevolence and
compassion.
He warned against the hypocrisy of claiming to be
virtuous
while seeking personal gain.
Seika believed that the
emperor could govern by spiritual principle
as an intermediary
between heaven and earth.
He argued that if people did not obey
the spiritual teachings,
the government had a right to make them
comply with force and punishment.
1. Nihongi tr. W. G. Aston, 22: 12th year (604 CE),
Vol. 2, p. 129-133.
2. Tsuji, Nihon Bukkyo Shi, Josei-hen, 194-95 in Sources
of Japanese Tradition, p. 99.
3. Diary in Anthology of Japanese Literature by
Murasaki Shikibu, tr. Donald Keene,
p. 154.
4. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki, tr. Arthur Waley, p.
26.
5. A History of Japan to 1334 Sansom, George, p. 397.
6. "Shinran" by Takehiko Furuta in Shapers of Japanese
Buddhism tr. Gaynor Sekimori,
p. 88.
7. Quoted in The No Plays of Japan by Arthur Waley, p.
18.
8. The No Plays of Japan by Arthur Waley, p. 64.
9. Ibid., p. 70.
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