Political
Developments
 The Heian
period began with a vigorous assertion of imperial power under Emperor
Kammu,
but that was not to last. The long-term trend favored an
aristocracy that ruled at times with the emperor but more frequently in
his stead, presiding over a refined culture that left a permanent mark
on Japanese life and perceptions of the world. [BHJC, 49]
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Fujiwara
Dominance
 The Fujiwara house, as already noted, was
founded by Nakatomi no Kamatari (614-669), who was rewarded for his
leading role in the coup of 645 by receiving the name Fujiwara,
literally “wisteria plain.”...Intermarriage with the imperial family
was the key to Fujiwara power. In 858 Fujiwara no Yoshifusa (804-872),
head of the Council of State since 857, placed his eight-year old
grandson on the throne and assumed the title of regent for a minor (sessho).
This was the first time anyone outside the imperial family had filled
this position. Yoshifusa was succeeded by his nephew Mototsune
(836-891), who was the first to continue as regent even after the
emperor was no longer a minor, assuming for that purpose the new title
of kanpaku, designating a
regent for an adult emperor....
Historical Tales
Rekishi Monogatari
The monogatari
(the word means “to talk about or narrate things”) provided a flexible
format by means of which the Japanese, employing a mixture of Chinese
characters and kana [Japanese
syllabic script] as an orthography for their language, could write
prose with a freedom impossible when using Chinese....As prose fiction,
the monogatari attained its highest development in the early-eleventh-century novel The Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari). But the Japanese did not restrict their use of the monogatari
to fiction: they adapted it also to history, and in the process, they
blurred the line usually thought to distinguish history from
literature....
The thinking that brought history and literature together
in the format of the monogatari is well expressed by Lady Murasaki herself in a passage in Genji.
The hero of the novel’s first half, Genji the Shining One, visits
Tamakazura,...[who] we are told, is the most avid reader of tales
among all the ladies living at Genji’s residence in Kyoto. Genji teases
her by saying that women like her seem to enjoy being deceived by
stories they know perfectly well are not true. But then becoming
serious, he says:
“Amid all the fabrication [in monogatari] I must admit that I do find real emotions and plausible chains of events....[The monogatari] have set down and preserved happenings from the age of the gods to our own. The Chronicles of Japan and the rest are a mere fragment of the whole truth. It is your [monogatari] that fill in the details.” [SJT, 241-2]
- What does this suggest about early Japanese conceptions of history?
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Glorification of the Fujiwara, and Michinaga in particular, is the main theme...of The Great Mirror (Okagami)...[in which] we encounter for the first time use of the word “mirror”
in the title of a work dealing with Japanese history. In China, history
was regarded metaphorically as a mirror or reflector of past events.
Implicit was the belief that looking into a mirror (i.e. reading
history) would enable one to learn the lessons of the past, especially
those concerning proper, ethical rule. No such didactic meaning, however, was intended for the word as it was used in the title The Great Mirror....The Great Mirror
was not composed with the thought of recording or “reflecting” in any
comprehensive way—as we might expect of a mirror—the course of times
gone by....Rather, The Great Mirror’s
author carefully selected and arranged his materials to record and
celebrate the history of the Fujiwara family’s rise and its enjoyment
of greatest prosperity under Michinaga. [SJT, 244-5]
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Michinaga’s Greatness
[Michinaga]
is the grandfather of the Emperor and the Crown Prince, and the father
of three Empresses, of the Regent Minister of the Left, of the Palace
Minister, and of many Counselors; and he has governed the realm for
approximately thirty-one years....The Chinese and Japanese poems
Michinaga has composed on various occasions are so ingenious that I am
sure not even Bo Zhuyi, Hitomaro, Mitsune, or Tsurayuki could have
thought of them....Above all, what can I say about the bearing and
appearance of Michinaga, the Emperor’s grandfather, as he rode in the
Imperial train?...The crowds of country folk along the way must have
been spellbound. Even sophisticated city dwellers, dazzled by a
resplendence like that of the Wheel-Turning Sacred Monarchs, found
themselves, in perfectly natural confusion, raising their hands to
their foreheads as though gazing on a buddha....[Michinaga] is in a
class by [himself]. He is a man who enjoys special protection from the
gods of heaven and earth. Winds may rage and rains may fall day after
day, but the skies will clear and the ground will dry out two or three
days before he plans anything. Some people call him a reincarnation of
Shotoku Taishi [i.e. Prince Shotoku]; others say he is Kobo Daishi
[i.e. Kukai, founder of Shingon Buddhism], reborn to make Buddhism
flourish. Even to the censorious eye of old age, he seems not an
ordinary mortal but an awesome manifestation of a god or buddha. [SJT,
248-9]
- According to The Great Mirror,
what makes Michinaga “great”? Was his greatness based on
his virtue and/or accomplishments in office...or was it attributed to
something else?
 If
a minister like Michinaga was not regarded as great because of his
morality or virtue, then where was his greatness? As the...readings
show, The Great Mirror’s
author suggests a variety of reasons for Michinaga’s having become a
great ruler, the first of which is good fortune....Second to good
fortune as an explanation for Michinaga’s success and greatness is
resourcefulness, that is, doing what is necessary in any situation to
come out ahead....Still other reasons given for Michinaga’s success and
greatness are his physiognomy, his mastery of poetry and other polite
arts, and his ability to appear resplendent in great public
celebrations and rituals. Last but not least, Michinaga of all the
Fujiwara regents was able to ensure his success as a ruler by producing
many able sons and daughters and skillfully placing them in high
positions at court (in the case of sons) and marrying them to emperors
and other prominent persons (in the case of daughters). [SJT, 244-6]
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Byodo-in (former residence of Fujiwara Michinaga)
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Meritocracy vs. Aristocracy
Although
the Japanese had borrowed a great deal from China, they borrowed
selectively....Thus, for example, although the ostensible aim of the
Japanese court in the seventh and eighth centuries had been to shape
its government into a Chinese-style bureaucratic state with ministerial
preferment based on merit, this kind of state did not take firm root in
Japan. With few exceptions, merit was never accepted as the primary
criterion for appointments and promotions at court: the courtier
aristocracy remained a privileged elite whose statuses (in the form of
ranks and offices) were defined almost entirely by birth. With the rise
of the Fujiwara, many of the bureaucratic offices at court lost their
power, and the actual functions of government were transferred to the
private family councils of the Fujiwara. [SJT, 241]
The estates or shoen were
private landholdings essentially outside of government control. Even
after Japan officially adopted the Chinese “equal field” system,
certain
lands were exempt: (1) those held by the
imperial family and certain aristocratic families, (2) those granted to
great temples and shrines, and (3) newly developed
fields, which after 743 could be retained in
perpetuity. Furthermore, there was a natural tendency for all land
assignments to
become hereditary. This was true of lands assigned to accompany
certain ranks and offices and of lands assigned to cultivators.
[BHJC, 51]
- Gradual increase of tax-exemptions
for aristocrats and temples.
- Small landholders frequently placed
their fields under the protection of those with tax-exempt shoen, paying low rents in exchange
for the right to cultivate the land.
- Shoen
came to
be administered by a complex system, including the actual cultivators,
“resident managers,” members of influential families who lived on the
land, estate officials, “central proprietors,” and at the very top the
“patrons” who lived in the capital off of the income generated by the shoen.
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- Who
benefited from this system?
- What were
the negative consequences?
The steady growth of
large holdings outside government jurisdiction continued despite
sporadic government efforts to halt the process by decree, for those
profiting from the estates actually controlled the government. As a
result, by the twelfth century more than half of Japan’s rice land was
incorporated into estates, and the government was faced with a decrease
in revenue and a decline in power....
...As less and less land was administered under the
“equal field” system, raising conscript armies became less
and less
practical. In 792, two years before the move to Kyoto, the conscription
system was abolished. The central government no longer had the means to
raise armies—and military power and responsibilities passed to
provincial government officials and great families....Some warrior
leaders were originally provincial officials to whom the government had
delegated military responsibilities. Others, rising within the estate
system, were entrusted with defense responsibilities on the
estates....It was fighting men of this type who kept order in the
provinces, performing police and military functions and fighting for
various patrons as they jockeyed for power. [BHJC, 52-4] |
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