Early, Classical, and Medieval Japan and Korea 9780205168552 PDF

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M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 154 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 Chapter 9 Early, Classical, and Medieval Japan and Korea T CHAPTER OUTLINE his Chapter Introduces Japan and Korea. Literacy came rela- tively late to Japan, only by about the ninth century c.e. Early Japan Japan owed much to the prior development of civilization in Korea, and the two were closely tied. Tribal clans in Japan called uji were consoli- Ties with Korea and the Tomb Builders dated under some central control in the seventh century c.e. by Prince Shotoku, who began the long effort to import Chinese culture by send- The Link with China ing Japanese missions there. By the eighth century the first real Jap- anese state, on the Yamato plain between modern Osaka and Kyoto, built a Chinese-style capital at Nara and toward the end of the century Heian Culture moved it to a new site at Kyoto, then called Heian. Heian court culture was elegant and refined but largely limited to the capital, where Lady Pressures on the Environment Murasaki wrote The Tale of Genji. As in Korea, Buddhism spread widely, but aristocratic families such as the Fujiwara built up private estates The Kamakura Period and diluted the authority of Heian, which was finally overthrown in 1185 by a warrior clan of the Minamoto family. The Minamotos based Ashikaga Japan their control at Kamakura, now a suburb of Tokyo, under a shogun, who was technically the emperor’s military chief but from this time on Maritime Contacts Between the real ruler. This was part of the rise of the military and the domi- Medieval Japan and the Continent nance of samurai or warriors, in a Japan chronically torn by fighting. Kamakura was defeated by another warrior group, the Ashikaga, who returned the capital to Kyoto from 1338 to its collapse by about 1570. But Korea the Ashikaga saw a flourishing of culture in art and literature. Korean culture had developed even before the Han conquest. With the Han’s fall in 220 c.e. Korean rulers claimed control of the peninsula, although it was divided into three rival kingdoms until Silla defeated the other two in the seventh century. A new dynasty succeeded the Silla rulers in 995, renaming the country Koryo (origin of our name for Korea), and the Mongols, in turn, destroyed Koryo power. As Mongol control collapsed across Asia in the fourteenth century, a new dynasty, the Yi, founded the Choson kingdom on the Korean peninsula in 1392 and ruled for more than 500 years. Japan Japan today is composed of four main islands (and many smaller ones) off the southern tip of Korea at the nearest point. As its culture and political system evolved over the centuries, Japan was protected by its 154 M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 155 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 Chapter 9 / Early, Classical, and Medieval Japan and Korea 155 insularity from turmoil on the mainland and, to a degree, also isolated from the process of development. Japan has CHRONOLOGY had the advantage of a clearly separate identity and of cul- JAPAN tural and linguistic homogeneity resulting from insularity 200 B.C.E.–200 C.E. Migrations to Japan via Korea; Yayoi and from its relatively small size, about that of an average Tomb culture Chinese province. The Japanese have been able to make their own choices at most periods about what they wanted c. 400–c. 650 C.E. Uji clans develop; Yamato state to adopt from abroad; what came in was what the Japa- develops nese—the ruling class, at any rate—wanted to have. Overall, Japan is smaller than France or California and c. 552 Buddhism to Japan larger than the British Isles, but it is mainly covered by mountains. Settlement thus has remained heavily concen- c. 600–622 Prince Shotoku; Soga-dominated court trated on the narrow coastal plain, mainly between modern missions to China Tokyo and Osaka, in a series of disconnected basins over 604 Seventeen Article Constitution an area roughly equivalent to the coastal corridor between Boston and Washington in the United States. In practice, 645 Taika Reforms and Fujiwara this makes Japan an even smaller country, since so much (Nakatomi)-dominated court at of it (in the mountains) is thinly populated. Hokkaido, the Naniwa (Osaka) northernmost island, was occupied by the Japanese very late, mainly after World War I. Mountains retarded Japa- 710–784 Nara Period nese economic development and political unification, as 784–1185 Heian Court Period in Korea, and political unification came very late, in 1600, Lady Murasaki (c. 978–c. 1015) after many centuries of disunity and chronic fighting among rival, regionally based groups. Agriculture too has 784–1868 Kyoto (Heian) capital been hampered by the shortage of level land, and even now only some 17 percent of the total land area is cultivated, a 1185–1333 Kamakura shogunate situation similar to Korea’s. 1180–1600 Age of the samurai Japan’s great agricultural advantage is its mild maritime climate, the gift of the surrounding sea, which keeps it 1268 and 1274 Mongol invasions repulsed humid, mild in winter, and largely free of the droughts that plague northern China. Coastal sea routes have also helped 1333–c. 1570 Ashikaga shogunate to link settled areas and carry trade, while the sea provides 1467–1568 Onin Wars fish and other seafood that have always formed an impor- tant part of the diet, especially convenient since the bulk of KOREA the population lives close to the sea. Soils in Japan are of relatively low natural fertility but they have been improved c. 200 B.C.E. Chinese-style state near by centuries of use and fertilization. This area of the world Pyongyang is a volcanic archipelago, and most soils are the product of weathered lava and ash. Sometimes, as in Java, this is the 109 B.C.E. Han conquers northern Korea basis of high fertility, but in Japan the product of volcanism c. 250–669 C.E. Paekche, Silla, Koguryo regional is mainly acidic rather than basic, and most soils are also kingdoms rather thin. Mountains are steep and come down to or close to the sea, so that nowhere are there extensive plains where 669–935 Unified Silla alluvium can build up, as in China. Rivers are short and swift, carrying most of their silt loads into the sea rather 935–1392 Koryo than depositing them along their lower courses or deltas. Largely for this reason, Japan has become one of the 1218–1350 Mongol conquest and occupation largest users of chemical fertilizers in the world, and it has 1392–1910 Choson, ruled by Yi dynasty been able to support a quadrupling of its population since the eighteenth century despite the disadvantages of its agri- 1592–1598 Hideyoshi’s invasion of Choson cultural base and without disproportionately heavy food M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 156 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 156 A History of Asia Korea and Japan, c. 500–1000 It is easy to see why there were such close connections between the two countries. For a time Japanese society was dominated by Korean aristocrats. Later, Japan largely went its own way. imports. In the modern period the Japanese have achieved trade, perhaps indirect via Korea, between the Yayoi peo- the highest rice yields in the world through a combination ple and China, judging from Chinese coins and polished of intense fertilization and the development of improved bronze mirrors that have been found at some Yayoi sites. crop strains. All of this rested on Japan’s remarkable success in industrialization and technological development, pri- marily since 1870. The modern image of Japan as industri- Ties with Korea ally and technically advanced is accurate, but it represents a fundamental change that has come about mainly in the last and the Tomb Builders century and, hence, is not an appropriate picture of Japan The connection with Korea was clearly a close one. The later for most of its history. Yayoi built large above-ground tombs covered with earthen The origins of the Japanese people are summarized in mounds very much like those built in Korea slightly earlier. Chapter 1, so it is unnecessary to present that information They also used both bronze and iron weapons (the latter here. As pointed out in that chapter, agriculture seems to appearing in the third century c.e.) that closely resemble have come relatively late to Japan, perhaps in the course those made in Korea, as do late Yayoi jeweled ornaments. of the migration of the people we may call Japanese from By this time one may certainly call the people Japanese, somewhere in northeastern Asia, via Korea. When these but, as mentioned in Chapter 1, it may be equally accurate people came to the islands, the dominant occupants, at to think of them as provincial Koreans or Korean cousins. least of Honshu, were an unrelated people called the Ainu, The Yayoi people made pottery on a potter’s wheel rather whose physical characteristics differed markedly from the than the coil-made pottery of Jomon, the culture that pre- Japanese (including larger amounts of facial and body hair, ceded it and that seems to have spread over the whole of so much so that they were often insultingly referred to as Japan including Hokkaido, or at least Jomon sites have been the “hairy Ainu”). The Neolithic Yayoi culture that emerged found there as well as in Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands. about the third century b.c.e., cultivators of rice and users The potter’s wheel presumably entered from China via of first bronze and then iron, may well have been stimu- Korea, along with bronze, iron, and rice. With the com- lated if not created by these immigrants from the main- ing of rice agriculture, population increased substantially land, bringing with them these aspects of new technology and there was probably some surplus, as evidenced by through contact with Chinese civilization in the course of the large tombs built from the third century c.e. and the their movement through Korea. We know that there was many bronze bells, some of them quite large and similar M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 157 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 Chapter 9 / Early, Classical, and Medieval Japan and Korea 157 to Korean forms but already distinctively Japanese. Yayoi to the myth, Amaterasu’s grandson, Ninigi, descended culture from the third to the sixth centuries c.e. is labeled to the earth and brought with him three imperial regalia, the tomb period; some of the tombs, or the mounds erected still the symbols of imperial authority in Japan: a bronze over them, were built in an interesting keyhole shape. Pot- mirror (symbol of the sun), an iron sword, and a necklace tery figures found arranged around these tombs, perhaps as made of curved jewels somewhat in the shape of bear claws. guardians, include those of people, warriors, animals, and All three closely resemble regalia found in Korean tombs houses, and are known as haniwa. of early Silla date, again suggesting the close tie between The tombs, presumably built for aristocrats, show strong Korea and early Japan. The myths recount how Ninigi’s similarities to Korean forms, as do Yayoi weapons, helmets, grandson moved up from Kyushu, conquered the lowland and armor. Remains of this tomb culture have been found area around Nara known as the Kinai region, and founded the in the Tokyo area and in the southwestern island of Kyushu, Japanese state there on the Yamato Plain—but in 660 b.c.e., although the original and chief center was the area between when it seems reasonably clear that the people whom we Kyoto and Osaka, soon to be known as Yamato. People now call Japanese had not yet entered the country and were not lived in wood and thatch houses supported off the ground to begin doing so for another three centuries or more! on pilings or stilts rather than the pit dwellings of Jomon Ninigi’s grandson, the conqueror of Kinai, is called the times, and there were similar structures for storing grain. first “emperor,” and is given a Chinese-style title as Jimmu, The first detailed Chinese written account of Japan, the the “Divine Warrior.” We do know that by the fifth cen- Account of the Three Kingdoms, compiled about 290 c.e., tury c.e. the emerging state in the Kinai region, which also described the routes from Korea to Japan, and said that called itself Yamato, had extended its control into Kyushu the Japanese were a law-abiding people (likely to attract and northward in Honshu, the main island, to the vicinity Chinese approval) who depended on agriculture and fishing of modern Tokyo. In the same period, the Japanese main- and observed strict social differences that were marked by tained a presence in southeastern Korea. The Kojiki claims tattooing. But at this period neither Korea nor Japan were that the priestess-queen Himiko, whose name means “Sun in any sense unified as nations, nor was there any “con- Princess,” established a base in Korea. Some historians have quest” of Japan by Koreans but rather a movement of cul- argued that the Kaya confederacy, at the southern tip of the ture from one to the other and probably much migration. Korean peninsula, was dominated by the Yamato state, but Japan was said to be divided into a hundred “countries” of archeologists have called this into question. a few hundred households each—“clans” is probably a bet- As Japanese occupation and conquest moved north- ter word—some ruled by kings and some by queens. The ward and eastward from Kyushu, their first center since it haniwa figures include some that seem to represent female was closest to Korea, they did so at the expense of the Ainu, shamans (spirit mediums), who probably played an impor- and perhaps of other groups as well about whom we know tant role. The Chinese Account of the Three Kingdoms tells little. Japan had been settled by people, presumably from us that the Japanese were much involved with divination somewhere in Asia, since at least 100,000 b.c.e., and these and ritual, and it speaks of an unmarried queen who, as a people had first to be conquered, enslaved, absorbed, or kind of high priestess, ruled over several “kingdoms,” or driven eastward and northward. For a long time the bound- clans and was considered important enough to have one of ary with the Ainu was along Lake Biwa, just north of Kyoto. the largest tombs and mounds erected for her on her death. Gradually the Japanese prevailed, although there was a good deal of intermarriage or interbreeding, evidenced Mythical Histories in the modern population by people with more facial and The first Japanese written records are much later, and are body hair than those in other parts of East Asia. Indeed, the not reliable or even consistent regarding this early period. Chinese in their superior attitude toward all other people These are the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters) of 712 c.e. called the Japanese “hairy sea dwarfs,” since they were also and the Nihon shoki, or Nihongi, of 720 c.e. (Nihon is still shorter than the Chinese norm (possibly the result of a low- the Japanese word for their country). Their purpose seems protein diet) and were more aggressive and effective sea- to have been to give the contemporary ruling family a long goers as well as pirates. The earliest Chinese name for the history comparable to China’s (whose literate civilization Japanese was wa, which simply means “dwarf.” The Ainu the Japanese were then eagerly adopting), put together remained dominant in northern Honshu well into histori- from various contradictory myths. These begin with cre- cal times, and now exists as a tiny and dwindling group on ation myths about a divine brother and sister, Izanagi and reservations in the northernmost island of Hokkaido. Izanami, who between them created the Japanese islands— By about 200 c.e., iron tools and weapons were being in one version as the drops from the goddess’s spear—and made in Japan rather than being imported and, thus, also gave birth to the sun goddess, Amaterasu. According became far more widespread. This doubtless helped to M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 158 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 158 A History of Asia increase agricultural productivity still more, and with it or merged with the worship of the mythical Amaterasu population totals, giving the Japanese a further advantage as the sun goddess, rather than being displaced, as every- in their contest with the Ainu, who were in any case tech- where else, by a textually based religion of greater sophis- nologically less developed. Japanese pottery improved in tication. The Japanese landscape is exceptionally beautiful, the tomb period beyond the Yayoi stage, and in particular which may help to explain why the Japanese identified was more thoroughly fired and hence more practical for with it so personally, but Japan also has its dramatic and everyday use. Close interaction continued with Korea, and awesome reminders of the power of nature: active volca- in a genealogical list of 815 c.e. over a third of the Japanese noes, occasional tidal waves, frequent earthquakes, and nobility claimed Korean descent, clearly considering this the yearly visitation of typhoons in late summer and fall, a mark of superiority. Many Korean artisans, metallur- which can do enormous damage. Mountains, waterfalls, gists, other technologists, and scribes (the Japanese were large trees, and even rocks were thought to contain or to still preliterate) lived in Japan, as well as Korean nobles and embody a divine spirit, or kami. Emperors were of course perhaps even rulers. There were also invasions and raids kami too, as were some notable uji rulers. At many natu- in both directions, until by about 400 such violent inter- ral beauty spots, plentiful in Japan, shrines were built to actions faded. By this time, Chinese accounts and various the local kami. Nature in Japan was seen as productive, as Japanese traditions begin to coincide factually and on at in China, although such a perception long antedated the least rough dates, although true Japanese historical records influx of Chinese influence. To celebrate or worship this in any detail do not begin for another 400 years, after the beneficent force, there were phallic cults, a common focus time of the mythical and mixed accounts given in the Kojiki of the belief in the central importance of fertility, and also and Nihongi in the early eighth century. shrines to the god of rice. As discussed in Chapter 2, these practices, centered around The Uji the worship of nature, were later called Shinto, “the way of The Japan we can begin to see somewhat more clearly by the gods,” primarily to distinguish them from Buddhism the fifth century, long after the fall of the Han, was still a when Buddhism reached Japan. Shinto has remained a tribal society, divided into a number of clans called uji, each particularly Japanese religion even into contemporary times, of which was ruled by hereditary chiefs and worshipped the although the arrival of Buddhism in Japan helped transform clan’s ancestor. The lower orders were farmers, fishermen, Shinto, inspiring the establishment of its own priesthood and potters, and some who seem to have been diviners, although temples. we do not know how many by this time were women. Some uji expanded at the expense of others, but in any case they were the hundred “countries” referred to in the Chinese The Link with China accounts. The Yamato state seems to have emerged as a con- By the middle of the sixth century (officially in 552) solidation of various uji groups in the area, headed by the Buddhism had reached Japan from Korea, although the Yamato uji, although it may be a bit inaccurate to refer to it Japanese were aware of it through their continued close as a “state,” despite its continued conquest or absorption of contact with Korea. Buddhism was at first opposed by other uji clans. Headmen were appointed for each, eventu- many Japanese as an alien religion, but was championed by ally called government ministers. Already there had begun the Soga uji, which vanquished many of its rival uji in a war the depiction of the ruler, later the emperor, as descend- over the succession in 587 and then established Buddhism ing from the sun goddess Amaterasu and, hence, himself at the Yamato court, where it seems to have appealed to divine. many as a powerful new magic. As in the Korean kingdoms, Both uji and Yamato rulers combined religious and Buddhism served as a vehicle for Chinese influence, and political functions, as did the Chinese emperor. The Chi- Japanese began to adopt many aspects of Chinese civili- nese emperors, however, never claimed divinity but acted zation, in a move that was over the next two centuries to merely as the performers of state rituals while serving over- transform the country. The rise of the Sui dynasty in China whelmingly a political function, a sort of temporal head of and the subsequent reunification under the Tang offered a Confucianism that was itself a very this-worldly affair. The powerful model, just when the old uji system and its clan- early Japanese rulers also served in effect as priests and based values and limited organizational force or control were very active in building or recognizing and ranking a over even local areas was proving inadequate to the needs great number of local shrines to Amaterasu. This had by of an emerging state. now merged with early Japanese animism, the worship of With the Soga dominant at the Yamato court, this nature and natural forces. Such worship is characteristic of process was accelerated. It is noteworthy that the Soga all early societies everywhere, but in Japan it was retained, chief installed his niece on the throne, and appointed her M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 159 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 Chapter 9 / Early, Classical, and Medieval Japan and Korea 159 nephew, Prince Shotoku, as regent. It was more common in East Asian history for a woman to take power as regent for a younger male relative. Unlike in China, Japanese historians tend to treat most of these women well. In 604 Shotoku issued a document later dubbed the “Seventeen Article Constitution,” which promoted the supremacy of the ruler, the establishment of an officialdom on the Chi- nese pattern, based on ability, the central power of gov- ernment, and a set of court ranks for officials. Shotoku’s “constitution” also decreed reverence for Buddhism by all Japanese, but at the same time praised Confucian virtues, a combination that was to endure in Japan into modern times. The hereditary ranks of the uji were slowly replaced by the new official ranks as the chief marks of status. These new designations were divided into senior, junior, upper, and lower groups (in keeping with the Jap- anese passion for graded hierarchy), altogether making some 26 divisions. Shotoku was the first Japanese ruler to send large-scale official embassies to China—in 607, 608, and again in 614— although some had been sent in earlier centuries. Later these became still larger and, by the next century, included five or six hundred men in four ships, which by that time, as a result of friction with Korea and civil war there, had to go by sea, some 500 miles of open ocean on which there were many founderings and shipwrecks. Despite the risks, Japanese Prince Shotoku standing with two women, from an the Japanese were determined to tap the riches of Chi- ancient Japanese painting. (Bettmann/Corbis) nese civilization at their source and to bring back to Japan everything they could learn or transplant. Students, schol- ars, and Buddhist monks rather than traders were the dominant members of these embassies, and their numbers Kamatari, began a major movement of reform designed included even painters and musicians. Japanese rulers also to sweep away what remained of earlier forms of govern- recognized that the Confucian system had the potential to ment and to replace them on a wholesale basis with Chi- strengthen the throne. The missions generally lasted for one nese forms, assisted by returnees from earlier embassies to year, but many men stayed on for another year or more and China. To aid this restructuring, which is called the Taika returned to Japan with later returning embassies. Over time Reforms, five more embassies were sent to China between this constituted one of the greatest transfers of culture in 653 and 669. world history, with the added distinction that it was all by Taika, meaning “great change” in Japanese, was official plan and management. adopted as the name of the new period of Chinese style and was decreed as having begun with the success of the Taika, Nara, and Heian rebels against Soga in 645. One of the first great changes After Prince Shotoku died (in or about 622), the surviving was the laying out of a new capital on the Chinese model uji head provoked a revolt in 645 against the high-handed at Naniwa (now within the modern city of Osaka), com- administration of the Soga and their aggressive promo- plete with government ministries and on a checkerboard tion of Buddhism, which was resented by many who saw pattern but without walls such as surrounded Chinese it as an alien rival to Shinto. The victorious rebels installed cities. A census was carried out in 670 (although the a new “emperor,” Tenchi (then a youth), supported and population totals it reported are not clear), and on that advised by a rising aristocrat who took the new family basis a Chinese form of taxation was established. A name of Fujiwara (formerly Nakatomi). Their leader, Chinese-style law code was issued, and efforts were made Fujiwara Kamatari, was to found a long line of nobility to impose a uniform centralized rule. Not long thereafter, that would play a major role at the Japanese court for many following the death of Tenchi, the capital was moved in subsequent centuries. The two allies, Tenchi and Fujiwara 710 to Nara, farther from the sea (see the map on page 156), M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 160 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 160 A History of Asia known at the time as Heijo, farther north on the Yamato been important in the past but which now clashed with Plain. The law code had been reissued with some changes Confucian notions and Chinese precedents. There was one in 702, and for the next 75 years, while Nara remained reigning empress, who favored Buddhism, like the Tang the capital, there were even greater efforts to replicate the empress Wu a century or less earlier, and during her reign Chinese pattern. a Buddhist monk who had influence with her tried to take Nara was built as a direct copy of Chang’an, the Tang over the throne. This may have prejudiced people against capital, and was the first real city in Japan. It was laid out her, but, in any case, on the death of the empress in 770 the on the same checkerboard pattern as Chang’an but was monk was exiled and no female rulers appeared again in about a quarter of its size, though it included an impe- subsequent Japanese history. rial palace facing south and many large Buddhist temples. In other respects the Japanese altered the Chinese model Here, too, there were no walls, as at Naniwa, and even at of government wherever they saw it as necessary to fit this reduced size Nara’s plan was never filled in; about Japan’s quite different society and its far smaller size. Once half of it was never built. Japan was still a small country, again the entire area occupied by the Japanese was divided even tinier at that period before the spread of Japanese into provinces and districts, although the provinces were settlement and the apparatus of the state much beyond the far smaller than in China. As in the Tang, there was a Grand Yamato area. Nara seems to have been dominated, both Council of State, and below it eight (rather than six) min- physically and politically, by its many Buddhist monaster- istries or boards, including one to supervise the imperial ies and temples, some of which still remain. In 784 a new household and another in charge of the Shinto cult and its emperor, Kammu (r. 781–806), decided to move the capi- many shrines. At the court in Heian there was an effort to tal from Nara, first just a few miles northward, perhaps to replicate the behavior and rituals of the Tang court, includ- escape the Buddhist domination of Nara, but in any case ing its court music and dance forms, long since gone in he promoted rival Buddhist sects. This location was not a China but still preserved in unchanged form at the Japa- success, and in 794 Kammu began the building of a new nese court even now. One of the fascinations of Japan lies in city called Heian (modern Kyoto) at the northern end of its transplantation and preservation of a great deal of Tang the plain just south of Lake Biwa. It was larger than Nara culture, including its architecture and even the famous but on the same Chinese plan and also lacked walls. The “Japanese” tea ceremony, taken lock, stock, and barrel from original checkerboard layout is still apparent in modern Tang China at this period, complete with the rather bitter Kyoto, which remained the capital of Japan and the seat of and sludgy green tea, the beautiful bowls, and the elabo- the emperor until 1868. rate ritual around which it is built. It was further developed The emperor’s role was modeled on that in China, a and formalized in the fifteenth century under the Ashikaga figure who combined all power over a centralized state. shogunate. In these and many other respects, anyone who He had been given a Chinese-style title from the time of wants to get a glimpse of what Tang China was like must go Prince Shotoku: Tenno (“heavenly ruler,” like the “son of to Japan. Heaven” in China). In fact the Japanese emperor, at least Officials at the local level in Heian times, and for a long after Kammu’s time (he seems to have been a forceful time thereafter, were not, as in China, imperially appointed person), played mainly a ceremonial and symbolic role, magistrates but local leaders, comparable to headmen. as he still does. This was partly because, as a divinity, he Nevertheless land was thought to belong to the central state, could not be expected to involve himself in the rough and and peasants paid taxes based on the land they controlled, tumble of everyday politics, but primarily because real primarily in the form of rice but also in textiles (where power came increasingly to be wielded by great aristocratic they could be produced), and in corvée labor. The heredi- families at court. The Fujiwara family probably could have tary aristocracy dominated the local areas and provided overthrown the emperor, but chose to exercise influence troops as needed: themselves with their weapons and, later, in other ways, preserving the powers that emanated from horses, and their retainers or followers. Otherwise, it was a the allegedly unbroken imperial line of descent. There was Chinese-style system, although it seems likely that much of no notion of a mandate of Heaven in Japan, no matter how it was on paper rather than followed in practice. It would much Confucian influence seeped in. The emperors were not be reasonable to expect that such sweeping changes also busy with their ritual function as the head figure of could be carried out overnight, or that the Chinese model the Shinto cult, and perhaps in keeping with their exalted could be made to fit Japan in every respect. Although the position far above the noise and dust of realpolitik, most power of the central state clearly did increase, at the local of them came to retire early. One of the consequences of level it seems likely that much of the earlier uji values, the Sinicization of Japan, especially in its political forms, forms, and social organization persisted and were only was the end of female power and rulers, which had clearly slowly absorbed into the new state. M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 161 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 Chapter 9 / Early, Classical, and Medieval Japan and Korea 161 The tea ceremony is the ceremonial form of serving tea according to strict rules that regulate the manner in which tea is prepared and drunk. Although this is a modern photograph, the tea ceremony dates originally from the late eighth century. (Hemis.fr/SuperStock) The regular flow of tax revenues strengthened the central was not necessarily accompanied by any major improve- government, and between the late eighth and early ninth ment in their economic well-being. And it would again century its control expanded to encompass all of Kyushu be logical to assume that the old uji aristocracy did not and pushed Japanese control eastward and northward abdicate all their former power and wealth. Their aristo- against the Ainu, whose power was finally broken in north- cratic status continued to be recognized, as “outer” ranks, ern Honshu, although the area north of modern Tokyo was and they probably retained much of their wealth as well as effectively settled by Japanese only slowly. They had begun their superior position over the peasantry. Since they no their occupation in northern Kyushu, almost semitropical, longer were the chief powers, however, they did not begin and northern Honshu was cold and snowy. Japanese culture to match in their local areas the splendors of Heian and its had adjusted to a mild winter climate and hot summers: sophisticated culture. houses that could be easily opened to breezes, minimal heating, and loose-fitting clothing; it is possible that some Chinese and Buddhist Art elements in the population had come originally from tropi- Buddhism continued to act as a vehicle for Chinese cul- cal or subtropical southern China, and southern Kyushu ture, including Buddhist art. This gave a new opportunity was truly subtropical. for the expression of the Japanese artistic genius. Crafts- In Nara and Heian times, despite the growth of the men worked mainly in wood, where in China many had central state, Japan was still not only small but also poor, worked in stone, but because of the Japanese faithfulness especially by comparison with China, and with a basic agrar- in preservation (and because most images were housed ian and fishing economy. The elegant court life of Heian, in roofed temples) a great deal of the Buddhist art of this which is what we know most about because it was literate, period still survives. Bronze and lacquer were other media is far from representative of the way most people lived. As used by the Japanese to perfection, as fine as anything in in Korea, barter was still the principal basis of trade, such China or Korea and closely resembling these earlier forms, as it was, and government issue of copper coins in 708, in but already by Heian times distinctively Japanese. This is imitation of the Chinese model, made little impact. One of equally true of architecture, both in palaces and in temples. the chief achievements of the Tang and subsequent dynas- Here too one can see still preserved many buildings in the ties, the bureaucracy based on merit as measured by the Tang style built in the seventh and eighth centuries, includ- imperial examinations, was briefly toyed with, but all offi- ing the temple and monastery complex begun by Prince cial posts and all political power, even at the lower levels, Shotoku at Horyuji not far from Nara and then rebuilt a remained with the hereditary aristocracy. As in Korea and few decades later, probably the oldest wooden buildings in China, a government university was established, but rather the world and as close as one can get to Tang period archi- than offering education as a means of social mobility it tecture. Inside the buildings are Buddhist images and wall educated only the sons of the court nobility. Peasants do paintings from this period that are an aesthetic treat. Only seem to have escaped from the serfdom of the uji system a little later in age is the great Todaiji temple at Nara itself, and became taxpayers to the central government, but this built to ensure good fortune for the new imperial state and M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 162 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 162 A History of Asia imperial and aristocratic families. Subsequent emperors in Japan as it had in China. Kobo founded a monas- were patrons of Buddhism and endowed many temples and tery on Mt. Koya, near Nara, most of which still exists monasteries and ordered the mass printing of Buddhist and is a reminder of the grand scale of Buddhist build- charms. Inside the Todaiji is an enormous bronze figure ing in that period. Many stories and myths were gener- of the Buddha dedicated in 752, still one of the largest in ated about Kobo and his wanderings and achievements, the world. A nearby storehouse (Shosoin) contains imperial and he became a popular religious hero. In 805 the Tendai treasures from the eighth century: rugs, paintings, screens, (Tiantai in Chinese) sect was brought to Japan by another weapons, and musical instruments, many of them imported returning monk, Dengyo Daishi, who established the from Tang China. sect’s headquarters in the mountains northeast of Kyoto at Enryakuji, near the top of Mt. Hiei, where one can Buddhism and Literacy still visit the extensive area and buildings, although none By the ninth century Buddhism, promoted by the court, date from this period in their present form. Tendai was had spread throughout Japan and tombs were no longer a highly eclectic faith, taking elements from many sects built. Following Buddhist and Indian practice, Japanese as well as echoes of Daoism and even Hinduism, which began to burn their dead (a custom that would horrify were reconciled by the simple and easy assertion that Confucians), although the ashes often were given a burial each belonged to different levels of truth, or as the Hindus or an enshrinement in an urn. Diet gradually became veg- later put it, “There are many ways to moksha (nirvana).” etarian, in keeping with Buddhist ideas against the taking A later Enryakuji abbot was the monk Ennin, who went of life, although fish continued to be eaten and provided a to China and whose travel diary is such a rich source on vital source of protein. Since practically all of the Japanese Tang China. Tendai became the dominant sect in Japan in population lived near the sea on the narrow coastal plain, part because Ennin combined its teachings with those of fish were widely available, either fresh or dried and salted, the more esoteric Shingon sect. as was dried seaweed, which continues to be an important The coming of Buddhism accelerated the spread and element in Japanese food. The few who lived in the moun- use of Chinese characters, not only for Buddhist texts tains often could not obtain, or afford, fish, and probably but for other purposes as well. Along with the characters, continued to eat some local game; birds were referred to as though most were given a Japanese sound, came many “mountain fish,” but for the most part the mountain peo- thousands of Chinese words, which remain in the lan- ple, too, observed the Buddhist ban on meat. Japan was, guage still. Some of them, such as the word for “three”— in any case, very mountainous and lacking pasture land or san in both languages—are quite straightforward; others surplus grain or fodder for animals. Buddhism offered, as are less directly equivalent but easily recognizable. To Shinto did not, doctrines on the afterlife, text-based ritu- begin with, as in Korea, Japanese used Chinese characters als and theology, the promise of salvation, and an empha- for all their writing, and produced an extensive literature sis (in this Mahayana version imported from China and in Chinese, foreign and difficult language though it was. Korea) on good works as the means of acquiring merit and This of course put a premium on education, which was thus increasing one’s chances of higher status in the next virtually equated with knowledge of Chinese, and further life. Shinto cults were tolerated and came to be regarded as strengthened the position of the upper classes, the only minor and local versions of Buddhist deities. The sun god- people who had the time and education to master it. The dess, Amaterasu, was eventually identified as Vairocana, adoption of characters, along with so much of the rest of the universal Buddha, and she is the one represented in Chinese culture, also stimulated the first Japanese writ- the large bronze figure in the Todaiji. Since Shinto had ing of history, beginning with the Kojiki in 712. It was a no theology and little in the way of doctrine, it offered no mark of respectability and civilization to keep records, as real contest for Buddhism, and most Japanese continued to the Chinese did, and to compile accounts of the past. The follow both, a little like the persistence of Daoism in China Nihongi in 720 was followed in the ninth century by five in the face of both Confucianism and Buddhism. Indeed, further histories on the Chinese model. The Japanese also Daoism and Shinto had much in common, especially in began in the eighth century to produce equivalents of the their admiration of nature and their feeling about it as the Chinese local gazetteers called fudoki, accounts of local best guide for human existence. geography, history, economy, legends, politics, and nota- Japanese monks returning from visits to China brought ble features. As in China, calligraphy was regarded as the with them many of the Buddhist sects that had arisen highest form of art and as the mark of an educated per- there. The Shingon (Zhenyan in Chinese) sect, brought to son. Poetry and prose were written both in characters and Japan in 806 by the monk Kobo Daishi, used magic for- in Japanese phonetic syllables (kana), derived from sim- mulas and incantations, which had a broad mass appeal plified versions of Chinese characters. Another echo of M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 163 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 Chapter 9 / Early, Classical, and Medieval Japan and Korea 163 China was the development of short poems, mainly about themselves. Estate owners began to assert their virtual nature and its reflection in human affairs, or lack thereof, independence from the central government, declaring much like many of the Chinese originals. This short form themselves immune to government inspection or jurisdic- in the Heian period was called tanka, and in a later ver- tion. The shoen were not large single blocks of land like the sion is perhaps the form of Japanese literature best known European manor but often discrete pieces of farmland that in the West, the haiku. might be scattered around a wider area while being run as The Heian period is usually dated as running from a unit, and almost always under the ownership of an aris- 794 to 1185, and, even more than the briefer Nara period tocratic family, with court patronage and protection. They before it, saw a new flood of Chinese influence that remade in turn hired local managers but left the job of farming to most of at least the upper levels of society and many of the small peasant farmers and workers attached to them. One forms of government. But with the last century of the Tang, interesting aspect of this system is its provision for income China was falling into chaos, and the glories of Chang’an from the estate and inheritance of it to go to women as well were no longer so attractive a model. At the same time, as to men. Women could also inherit land, and they were the very different Japanese circumstances and traditional important in marriage politics. A daughter who was intel- forms began to reassert themselves. Embassies to China ligent, refined, and lovely could greatly enhance a family’s were discontinued; although individual monks and trad- position. Perhaps this reflected the decline of the Chinese- ers continued to go in smaller numbers, China was no lon- style state, its imposition of Chinese social forms, and thus ger a magnet. Within Japan, the political system founded the reversion in this period to something closer to the so squarely on Chinese lines began to encounter the same original Japanese patterns. problems as the Chinese original had done as each dynasty Over time the shoen came to occupy the great bulk of grew old in office. the agricultural land; although most were not very large, The Heian aristocracy included the descendants of uji there were thousands of them and they dominated not rulers with their large landholdings, and the new or higher only the landscape but also the entire society and polity, aristocracy often were given land grants in recognition of as their owners became the chief local and even regional their rank or special services. Much land was also granted powers. Even in the remaining state-owned lands, perhaps to Buddhist monasteries and the major Shinto shrines. about half of the total, aristocrats who served there as offi- These paid no taxes, and many of the aristocracy managed cials became in many ways similar to the shoen owners, to avoid or at least to minimize them. With the slow rise in and in time their positions also became hereditary. By the population (we have no accurate numbers for this period), twelfth century, Japan was falling apart in terms of effec- much new land, which had to be cleared and then drained tive central rule. All of this reflected the declining power or irrigated, was opened for rice cultivation. Some of the of the central state, although its power had never been very land was reclaimed from the sea or from lakes, but it all effective outside the immediate capital area. As time went cost money. The court encouraged this, reasonably enough, on, more and more power was exercised primarily by the and allowed those who brought new land into cultivation great aristocratic families and by the large Buddhist mon- to keep it under their ownership, at first for one genera- asteries, both in the capital area and in the provinces. The tion but soon thereafter on a permanent basis. The only emperor increasingly became a figurehead, as he was to be groups who could afford the heavy expense of the original for nearly all the rest of Japanese history. In this longish development were of course the small upper classes, and period the Fujiwara family dominated court politics and, so there developed a situation very like that in the declin- in 901, even exiled to Kyushu an emperor who had dared ing years of most Chinese dynasties: more and more land to appoint an official of whom they disapproved. In 1069 slipping off the tax rolls and becoming concentrated in the another emperor attempted to establish a land records hands of the rich. office with the aim of confiscating estates that had come into being in the preceding 20 years, but the Fujiwara The Shoen System blocked this obviously overdue effort at reform. Another The growing concentration of land in the hands of the emperor, Shirakawa, was somewhat more successful in rich fit the long-established patterns of Japanese society, challenging the Fujiwara after he formally retired in 1086 dominated by a small hereditary aristocracy that held all by working through lesser and non-Fujiwara aristocrats. power as well as most wealth. Private estates (shoen) began But by his time the central government had been fatally to emerge, which more and more acquired some of the weakened, in large part because it had lost most of its aspects of small local states. Powerful families at court, earlier revenues. The Fujiwara were split into factions like the Fujiwara, patronized and protected the shoen and there was widespread general violence, even in the ruling families, and in some cases became estate owners capital itself. M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 164 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 164 A History of Asia Left: Portrait of Murasaki Shikibu, c. 978–1014. Right: Painting of a Japanese Samurai in the armor of the Heian period. Both illustrate the clothing of the Heian period. (Left: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; Right: The Granger Collection, New York) Heian Culture their estates, pursued an exaggerated form of the Chinese elite lifestyle, composing classical-style poems at wine Despite political disintegration, economic and cultural parties and taking enormous pains with their refined development in Japan continued, as it did in China under manners (li) and their clothing, which was suited to each similar circumstances. The political scene in both coun- formal or ritual occasion. tries was only one aspect of society, and in both a relatively Clothing offered an opportunity for the characteristi- superficial one. Even in the chaotic centuries after the fall cally Japanese aesthetic sensitivity, with its combinations of the Han, Chinese culture and economic and technologi- of colors and textures. By all odds the most famous of the cal growth continued. In Japan, the shoen system was per- literary works of this period is The Tale of Genji, written by haps in fact more conducive to regional development than a court lady, Murasaki Shikibu. In it there are many scenes the earlier effort at central control had been, and clearly it in which clothing is described in loving detail, and in one was based in and tended to further the interests of local such scene a high-born lady is sighted in her carriage. She areas, including those far from the capital. It was in this casually but artfully shows a bit of her forearm on the sill of period, between the ninth and twelfth centuries, that the the carriage window; the successive layers of her clothing plains area around what was to become modern Tokyo thus revealed are noted instantly by the gentlemen who are was effectively occupied and put to use for an increasingly watching, who comment on the superb taste displayed by intensive agricultural system. Honshu farther north, the the combinations of texture and color in this tiny sample area later known as Tohoku, was first filled in by Japanese and conclude that this is indeed a lady worth knowing and settlement and made productive where it could be, produc- worth conquering. Much of the Genji, and other literature ing a great deal of local wealth in the hands of aristocratic of the time, deals with amorous affairs among the court families, including branches of the Fujiwara. At the same aristocrats, in a setting where such dalliance was clearly time, the Chinese cultural model spread from the capi- acceptable socially. Adultery was, however, not acceptable tal at Heian, where it had been cultivated like a hothouse for women, as it was for men. plant, to the rest of Japan. Heian court culture became even Most of the surviving literary output from this period more refined, centering on intellectual and aesthetic self- is in fact the work of female authors. In addition to Lady cultivation in the Chinese mode. Court nobles, who by Murasaki, there were a number of other court ladies who now had no real political role but did have income from wrote both poetry and prose. Probably the best known M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 165 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 Chapter 9 / Early, Classical, and Medieval Japan and Korea 165 of them is Lady Sei Shonagon, whose Pillow Book, writ- ten about 1000 c.e., is a collection of comments on court she will come to no good,’ and since then I have life, by turns witty and caustic. Several other court women avoided writing the simplest character.1 wrote novels, and most of them kept diaries, in which they But she acquired a wide knowledge of both Chinese included poems that reflect on the changing moods of the and Japanese works and also became a talented calligra- seasons and on the foibles of humanity. Court ladies were pher, painter, and musician, achievements suitable to an apparently less conventional than the men and freer to aristocratic girl. At about age 21 she was married to a express themselves. The absence of harems and of exten- much older man, a distant Fujiwara cousin, and bore a sive concubinage in Japan also left them a wider scope than daughter. The next year her husband died, and in her in China. It is indeed remarkable that women writers dom- grief she considered becoming a Buddhist nun but inated the literary output of Heian Japan, but this provides turned instead to reflection on the problem of human little clue to the more general status of women outside the happiness, especially for women. Around that time, exalted circles of court life. The aristocratic women who approximately the year 1001, she began work on her lived there generally were idle otherwise but were highly masterpiece, The Tale of Genji, which was probably nearly educated, unlike women in the rest of Japanese society, finished when, some six years later, she became a lady-in- a kind of rarified and small inner group. Nevertheless, waiting at the imperial court. their output is impressive and their literary prominence is Like the Genji, her journal describes the refined and unmatched by any premodern society anywhere. colorful life at court, as well as its less glamorous aspects of rivalries and intrigues. Both are the subject of her great novel, which combines a romantic as well as psychologi- A CLOSER LOOK cal approach with realistic detail and subtle insight into human behavior. It is still praised as the chief master- Murasaki Shikibu (Lady Murasaki) piece of all Japanese literature. Her people are real despite the highly mannered world in which they lived, Lady Murasaki’s birth date is not known precisely, and through her journal we also have a picture of her as though it was probably about 978 C.E., and we are also an extraordinarily alive, imaginative, and even compel- unsure of the date of her death, probably about 1015 C.E. ling person. A collection of her poems has also survived We do not know her real name, since in Heian Japan it and further mark her as an accomplished stylist. was considered improper to record the personal names Genji deals with the life of a prince and his seemingly of aristocratic women outside the imperial family. It is endless affairs with various court ladies, including careful known that she came from a junior branch of the great attention to the details of manners, dress, and court Fujiwara clan, and that her father was a provincial gov- politics—not perhaps the most rewarding of subjects, but ernor. The name Murasaki may derive from that of a in the author’s hands they become so. Although the hero major figure in her novel, The Tale of Genji, or from its is idealized, this is far more than a conventional romantic meaning of “purple,” a pun on the Fuji of Fujiwara, tale, including the subtle portrayal of Genji as he grows which means “wisteria.” “Shikibu” refers only to an older and the depiction of the pain his promiscuity causes office held by her father. many of his lovers. Toward the end of her own journal, Lady Murasaki’s journal is our only source of informa- Lady Murasaki gives us a candid glimpse of herself: People tion about her life. It is casual about dates, but records think, she wrote, that “[I am] pretentious, awkward, diffi- that she was a highly precocious child and became liter- cult to approach, prickly, too fond of [my] tales, haughty, ate early: prone to versifying, disdainful, cantankerous and scornful; When my brother, Secretary at the Ministry of but when you get to meet [me], [I am] strangely meek, a Ceremonial, was a young boy learning the Chinese completely different person altogether!.”2 Perhaps she was classics, I was in the habit of listening with him and all these things. But whatever her personal character, she I became unusually proficient at understanding was a gifted and inspired writer. those passages that he found too difficult to grasp and memorize. Father, a most learned man, was al- ways regretting the fact: ‘Just my luck!’ he would Art and Gardens say. ‘What a pity she was not born a man!’ But then During the Heian, or Fujiwara, period, from 794 to 1185, the I gradually realized that people were saying ‘It’s bad graphic arts continued to follow a more clearly Chinese path, enough when a man flaunts his Chinese learning; including the prominence of calligraphy and the painting of scrolls and many-paneled screens (shoji). But Japanese M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 166 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 166 A History of Asia art had already begun to distinguish itself from its original as plants and trees are replaced over time, but garden styles Chinese model with its greater attention to simple line draw- change too, and what we can see of Chinese gardens now ing of flat surfaces, often telling a story. Palace architecture makes them look quite different from contemporary became less massive than the earlier copies of Tang palaces Japanese gardens, although one can certainly see the had been, lighter and with more open pavilions, now usually connection, including the often purposeful retention of set in artfully re-created “natural” surroundings of carefully a dead tree, partly to complete the picture of nature and designed ponds, gardens, and trees that greatly enhance the partly to serve as a contrast to the living forms. The gardens buildings’ appeal and express the particular Japanese appre- originally laid out in the Song dynasty in the city of Suzhou ciation of nature. We know little of domestic architecture at west of Shanghai have probably been preserved closer to this period, but the emphasis on openness apparent in Heian their original form than other Chinese gardens, although temple and palace architecture already suggests the later evo- doubtless there have been changes there, too. In the Suzhou lution of the traditional Japanese house, with its sliding pan- gardens, grouped around a pond and with many open els that could be opened to the summer breezes and to reveal pavilions and galleries for viewing at different seasons, one a garden and/or pond, sometimes very small but designed is much closer to the modern Japanese garden style, and as a microcosm of the greater natural world. That is perhaps indeed it is possible that much of the latter was originally a good example of the Japanese adaptation of an originally based on the Song rather than the Tang model, about which Chinese style, as is the Japanese garden. The Japanese are we unfortunately know very little and of which there are no justly famous as gardeners, but nearly all the plants used surviving examples except for a few plantings or preserved were originally developed in China, including what became growth around temples. But it is in China that one must the imperial flower, chrysanthemum, the showy tree peonies look for the sources of this, like so many aspects of Japanese that the Japanese, like the Chinese, loved to paint, camellias, culture, which we tend to think of now as particularly flowering fruit trees, and many others. Even the Japanese art Japanese. The Japanese have indeed made it their own, like of bonsai, the artificial dwarfing of trees and shrubs grown their graphic arts, ceramics, literary and political forms, the in pots or tubs through careful and repeated pruning, was institution of the emperor, the writing of history, even the tea originally Chinese; the intent of course was to keep these ceremony, all taken directly from China and woven into microcosms of nature down to manageable size so that they Japanese culture, although in each case (some more than could decorate living space or a tiny garden and still serve as others) these imports were refashioned to suit Japanese reminders, miniaturized samples of a larger world, like the tastes and circumstances. Japanese garden as a whole. The garden style of Japan, where carefully placed trees Kana and Monastic Armies and shrubs rather than tended flower beds dominate and One of the early assertions or expressions of separate are usually grouped around a pond, was originally derived Japanese identity was the development of a system of pho- from Tang China. Gardens of course are always changing netic symbols to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese Traditional Japanese stone garden, Ryoanji Temple, Kyoto. (SuperStock/Alamy) M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 167 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 Chapter 9 / Early, Classical, and Medieval Japan and Korea 167 spoken language, unrelated to Chinese. Although Chi- they had originally guarded for court-based families or had nese characters continued to be used, and are still used by acquired through patronage. Some of these armies, together educated Japanese, more and more texts came to be writ- with the new group of warriors called samurai, a hereditary ten in this syllabary, known as kana. At first the Japanese aristocratic group who were both educated and trained in sounds were in effect spelled out by using the characters’ the arts of war—“gentlemen warriors,” as they have been phonetic sound, but during the ninth century, with the called—had developed out of the frontier wars as Japanese borrowing from Chinese civilization still at its height, the settlement spread north beyond the Yamato area. Monastic phonetic elements of Chinese characters were simplified armies also sometimes intervened in factional conflicts and, into a new set of symbols. This was relatively easy for Japa- thus, became power brokers. By the end of the Heian period, nese, even though it is not monosyllabic like Chinese, since contending armies dominated politics. The new rising class each sound syllable is distinct and each is fully pronounced. of warriors were called bushi, from which is derived bushido, Most poems came to be written in kana, since sound is “the way of the warrior,” which became a dominant code such an important element of poetry, although in many stressing bravery, indifference to pain and exhaustion, and other texts, and sometimes in poetry, kana was mixed with determination to win against all odds. characters, as it still is, especially to write words borrowed from Chinese. Cumbersome as this sounds (and of course it meant learning both systems), it made writing much easier Pressures on and more authentically Japanese. Lady Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book and Lady Murasaki’s Tale of Genji were both the Environment written primarily in kana because educated Japanese men As in China, decay at the center did not necessarily mean wrote in Chinese. that the country as a whole suffered economically, although As Buddhism spread more widely beyond court circles the rise in violence and disorder was certainly harmful or and merged with Shinto, Pure Land Buddhism, imported fatal to many. We have no real population figures for this in the ninth century, became the most popular sect. Like period, but by 1000 c.e. the total population is estimated to the original message of the Buddha himself, it focused on have been about 5 million. This represents a considerable the doctrine of rebirth and, hence, escape from what it increase from the even rougher estimate of about 2 million asserted was a “degenerate age” into the Pure Land Paradise or perhaps a bit more as of about 550 c.e. and indicates that presided over by the Buddha Amida. It was, thus, a form of cultivation was spreading over larger areas. As mentioned belief that had a wide appeal to the uneducated. At court, earlier, the soils of Japan are mainly thin and poor and are the more elaborate rituals of Tendai and Shingon remained easily eroded. Efforts at fertilization seem to have been favored. In Japan at large, great Buddhist monasteries grew limited largely to the use of green manure—leaves, grass, up to rival those in the capital area, and the various sects weeds, and branches cut in the surrounding woodlands. became armed rivals. The monasteries drew revenues from The use of human manure, or night soil, seems not to have the lands they owned and became powers that also rivaled begun until later (although this is unclear), but the inten- the declining central state and the rising shoen. Many mon- siveness of farming, especially the spreading use of con- asteries developed armed bands, and then genuine armies, trolled irrigation, certainly contributed to steady increases originally to protect their lands but later to engage in large- in the total food supply, enough to feed the increase in pop- scale warfare with rival sects and their armies. By the end ulation and perhaps a bit more. of the eleventh century these nominally Buddhist armies Nevertheless, as population grew, pressures on the envi- became the major military powers in Japan and even threat- ronment increased. These were most evident, and poten- ened the capital, a sad sequel to the teachings of the original tially most serious, in the progressive cutting of the forests, Buddha and his doctrine of nonviolence. primarily for building material but also to clear land for Heian court culture was no doubt delightful, but its ele- agriculture. Given the thin soils and steep slopes of Japan, gance and refinement were far removed from the real world good forest cover is essential to prevent or limit erosion and of most of Japan. The Fujiwara had tried to hold the coun- to prevent the siltation of irrigation systems on the limited try together through links with other aristocratic families area of lowlands. The influx of Chinese influences on a large and through extensive patronage, but it is hardly surprising scale, beginning in the eighth century, led to the building that in time this indirect means of control proved inade- first of Naniwa, then of Nara, and finally of Heian (Kyoto), quate. The shoen and the Buddhist monasteries increasingly which created an enormous new demand for wood, became the real powers, and some of the shoen were owned increased still further as the population rose and needed by families who also built up their own armies to rule lands housing. At the same time, and even more in succeeding M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 168 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 168 A History of Asia centuries, the many very large Buddhist temples and mon- (except for shipbuilding purposes). As another indication of astery complexes consumed cumulatively even larger the growing scarcity of wood, the kind most favored for the amounts of wood. The use of iron tools after about 200 thousands of large statues that adorned Buddhist temples c.e. sped the assault on the forests and also brought new had apparently become so scarce in the course of the eighth demands for wood and charcoal for smelting. The begin- century that sculptors began to work instead in other less nings of shipbuilding brought further uses for wood, but suitable woods. By the eleventh century, with the unavail- the major forest depredations were caused by the building ability of large logs, sculptors began to build their images of the two successive capitals at Nara and Heian and the out of separate pieces of wood joined together. Buddhist temples and monasteries. Since all building was Successive emperors tried to control cutting and to keep done in wood, fires were frequent and often uncontrolled peasants out of imperial woodland, as the shoen owners and, hence, necessitated frequent rebuilding. and the great monasteries tried to keep any but their own By the time of the building of Nara, accessible timber in loggers or collectors out of their lands. It seems to have been the southwestern part of the Yamato area was largely gone realized that good forest cover was essential for the stability and trees had to be hauled from relatively far away. In the of rivers and streams. An imperial order of 821 declared as eighth century, the rulers, now called emperors, thought follows: it appropriate to build two capitals, one for the reigning emperor and another for the heir. The building of Heian, The fundamental principle for securing water is found on a much larger scale than Nara, could draw on still largely in the combination of rivers and trees. The vegetation untapped forests nearby to the northwest and around Lake on mountains should always be lush.3 Biwa. Hundreds of thousands of workers were employed in the construction and in the felling and hauling of tim- As the chief center of political control moved north- bers. But for all the scale of building at Heian, Buddhist and eastward, to Kamakura near Tokyo, some of the originally Shinto construction was probably larger still, including the forested areas in and around the Yamato Plain did recover buildings at Horyuji, the Shinto shrine at Ise, and hundreds somewhat through natural regrowth, and Japan was saved of others. The monumental scale of much of this construc- the disastrous consequences of the deforestation that con- tion ate deeply into remaining accessible forest stands, tinued in China without a break. Japan’s mild, moist cli- beginning with the building of the great Buddhist temple mate, where trees grow rapidly, was an important asset, at Nara, the Todaiji. Like the palaces, most temples required ensuring that forests would recover when human pressures frequent rebuilding as well as repair. By the tenth century, lessened. But the seemingly unbroken mantle of forest all of the accessible forests of and around the Yamato area that covers Japan’s mountains today is the result primarily had been cut, and inroads begun into mountainous areas of determined conservation and reforestation programs despite the high costs of getting the trees to where they were undertaken since the late 1940s. needed. One consequence of this difficulty was the development The Kamakura Period of a less extravagant form of building, including domes- tic architecture, which emphasized open walls that could Fujiwara rule ended in 1185, after a series of fierce battles be closed by sliding screens covered with translucent rice between two rival warrior lineages, the Taira and the paper. Some roofs began to be covered with tile instead of Minamoto. That conflict, known as the Genpei War, pro- wood, far more durable and also fire-resistant, although duced many romantic stories of sacrifice and heroic death. many roofs began to be made of bark. Floors were cov- The victorious Minamoto clan set up a rival capital in its ered by rush or grass mats, tatami, which could be laid then frontier base at Kamakura (now a southern suburb of over rough boards and which produced an attractive sur- Tokyo). The refined court culture of Heian was now supple- face as well as welcome insulation and a degree of springi- mented by a less cultivated but far more politically effective ness, important since Japanese have always slept on the system based on military power and the security offered by floor. This is of course the nature of the traditional Japanese the emerging group of samurai. The samurai were not sim- house as one can still see it and as it is represented in art ply warriors but were educated hereditary aristocrats who from the past. Houses also became smaller, and the build- eventually served as administrators as much as fighting ing of large palaces largely came to an end in the course of men. Heian culture continued through them and through the ninth century. other educated aristocrats and in time influenced even By the ninth century, timber for shipbuilding had become Kamakura. But the rise of new noble families and their so scarce that an imperial order of 882 tried to prevent tree samurai armies led to the emergence of Japanese feudal- felling in the area where the most suitable ship timbers grew ism, a close parallel to that of medieval Europe but very M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 169 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 Chapter 9 / Early, Classical, and Medieval Japan and Korea 169 different from the imperial civil bureaucracy and meritoc- racy of China. The emperor, still residing in Kyoto, became increasingly a figurehead, and real power rested with whoever could grasp and hold the office of shogun, the emperor’s chief military commander and agent—first the Fujiwara and then the Minamoto and other military clans. The shogun in turn presided over a feudal hierarchy of lords bound to him in loyalty assured by oaths, periodic homage, certain payments, and promises of military support. In return, the shogun confirmed the nobles’ hereditary rights to their lands. As in medieval Europe, this was a symptom of lim- ited central state power, an arrangement of mutual conve- nience; but it was also inherently unstable as ambitious or upstart vassals sought to improve their positions or rebel against the shogun’s authority. Military power was now what counted, but it was seldom unified under any single control for long. Each noble vassal maintained his own group of samurai and his own army; the martial virtues of bravery, endurance, and loyalty were stressed, but loyalty could not always be ensured, either to local lords or to sho- guns. The patterns that emerged in the Kamakura shogu- nate (1185–1333) were in many respects to dominate Japan until the nineteenth century. Samurai armor. Made by Myochin Muneharu in Japan in In 1268 Kubilai Khan demanded the submission of 1859, this is a copy of armor from the Kamakura Period, the Japanese, and when his order was refused the Mon- 1185–1333. (V&A Images, London/Art Resource, NY) gols forced the recently conquered Koreans to build and man a fleet for the invasion of Japan, where they arrived in 1274. Soon after the first landings, a great storm wrecked many of their ships and forced their withdrawal. The In Heian times women were prominent at court, but that Japanese executed subsequent Mongol envoys, and in was only the tiniest fraction of the population. As the cen- 1281 a far larger expedition of both subject Koreans and turies of fighting wore on, women were more and more Chinese arrived, only to be swept away by an even greater reduced to a subservient role of caring for and supporting storm, one of the late summer typhoons common along their husbands, whom they might only rarely see while the coasts of East Asia. The Japanese attributed this dou- they returned for brief visits from the wars. The situation ble deliverance to a “divine wind,” the kamikaze. How- in poorer, rural families could be quite different, however, ever, the costs of meeting the terrible Mongol threat since women often worked in the fields alongside their and of the preparation that went on against a feared and husbands. expected third expedition drained Kamakura resources Despite Amaterasu, or the myth of Izanagi and Izanami, and diverted large numbers of people from productive or the remarkable prominence of women writers during the occupations. With the weakening of Kamakura power, Heian period, the rise of the warrior culture that followed political divisions and open revolts multiplied. In 1333 an the fall of Heian brought in a strongly male-dominant cul- unusually active emperor, Go-Daigo, whom the dominant ture, with women reduced to an essentially subservient faction at Kamakura had tried to depose, gathered sup- role, as wives and mothers. This brought with it also a heavy port and attracted dissidents from the crumbling Kamak- preference for sons, to carry on the family line, as in China, ura structure. One of his commanders burned Kamakura and the unfortunate spread of female infanticide with it. and ended its power. But another of his supporters, from Literature and art came to be monopolized by men, and the rival Ashikaga clan, turned against him, put a differ- even women tended to extol the virtues of bushido, the way ent member of the imperial line on the throne, and in 1338 of the warrior. Confucian values also encouraged the sub- had himself declared shogun. ordination of women. Trends in Korea were closely similar, The constant fighting in the age of the warrior after and for similar reasons. In both countries women became the collapse of Heian left less and less place for women. largely an oppressed group. M10_MURP8552_07_SE_C09.indd Page 170 05/09/13 7:54 PM f-399 /205/PH01441/9780205168552_MURPHEY/MURPHEY_A_HISTORY_OF_ASIA7_SE_97802051685 170 A History of Asia The Golden Pavilion in Kyoto: Japanese adaptation of a Chinese style, with careful attention to the blending of architecture with landscaping, a Japanese specialty. This beautiful building dates from 1397, in the As