A History of the Japanese People Part 21

In the field of agriculture this epoch offers nothing more remarkable than the construction of nine reservoirs for irrigation purposes and the digging of a large ca.n.a.l in Yamashiro province. It is also thought worthy of historical notice that a Korean prince unsuccessfully attempted to domesticate bees on a j.a.panese mountain.

COMMERCE

Considerable progress seems to have been made in tradal matters.

Markets were opened at several places in the interior, and coastwise commerce developed so much that, in A.D. 553, it was found expedient to appoint an official for the purpose of numbering and registering the vessels thus employed. The Chinese settler, w.a.n.g Sin-i, who has already been spoken of as the only person able to decipher a Korean memorial, was given the office of fune no osa (chief of the shipping bureau) and granted the t.i.tle of fune no fubito (registrar of vessels). Subsequently, during the reign of Jomei (629-641), an akinai-osa (chief of trade) was appointed in the person of Munemaro, whose father, Kuhi, had brought scales and weights from China during the reign of Sushun (558-592), and this system was formally adopted in the days of Jomei (629-641). There had not apparently been any officially recognized weights and measures in remote antiquity. The width of the hand (ta or tsuka) and the spread of the arms (hiro) were the only dimensions employed. By and by the Korean shaku (foot), which corresponds to 1.17 shaku of the present day, came into use. In Kenso's time (485-487) there is mention of a measure of rice being sold for a piece of silver, and the Emperor Kimmei (540-571) is recorded to have given 1000 koku of seed-barley to the King of Kudara. But it is supposed that the writer of the Chronicles, in making these entries, projected the terminology of his own time into the previous centuries. There were neither coins nor koku in those eras.

COSTUME AND COIFFURE

Up to the time (A.D. 603) of the inst.i.tution of caps as marks of rank, men were in the habit of dividing their hair in the centre and tying it above the ears in a style called mizura. But such a fashion did not accord with the wearing of caps which were gathered up on the crown in the shape of a bag. Hence men of rank took to binding the hair in a queue on the top of the head. The old style was continued, however, by men having no rank and by youths. A child's hair was looped on the temples in imitation of the flower of a gourd--hence called hisago-bana--and women wore their tresses hanging free. The inst.i.tution of caps interfered also with the use of hairpins, which were often made of gold and very elaborate. These now came to be thrust, not directly into the hair, but through the cord employed to tie the cap above. It is recorded that, in the year 611, when the Empress Suiko and her Court went on a picnic, the colour of the ministers' garments agreed with that of their official caps, and that each wore hair-ornaments which, in the case of the two highest functionaries, were made of gold; in the case of the next two, of leopards' tails; and in the case of lower ranks, of birds' tails.

On a more ceremonious occasion, namely, the reception of the Chinese envoys from the Sui Court, the Chronicles state that j.a.panese princes and ministers "all wore gold hair-ornaments,* and their garments were of brocade, purple, and embroidery, with thin silk stuffs of various colours and patterns." Costume had become thus gorgeous after the inst.i.tution of Buddhism and the establishment of intercourse direct with the Sui, and, subsequently, the Tang dynasty. Even in the manner of folding the garments over the breast--not from right to left but from left to right--the imported fashion was followed. Wadded garments are incidently mentioned in the year A.D. 643.

*These were called usu. They were, in fact, hairpins, generally shaped like a flower.

MUSIC AND AMUs.e.m.e.nTS

It has already been recorded that, in the middle of the sixth century, musicians were sent from the Kudara Court to the Yamato, and since these are said to have taken the place of others then sojourning in j.a.pan, the fact is established that such a visit was not then without precedent. Music, indeed, may be said to have benefitted largely by the advent of Buddhism, for the services of the latter required a special kind of music. The first foreign teacher of the art was a Korean, Mimashi, who went to j.a.pan in A.D. 612, after having studied both music and dancing for some years in China. A dwelling was a.s.signed to him at Sakurai (in Yamato) and he trained pupils. At the instance of Prince Shotoku and for the better performance of Buddhist services, various privileges were granted to the professors of the art. They were exempted from the discharge of official duties and their occupation became hereditary. Several ancient j.a.panese books contain reference to music and dancing, and in one work* ill.u.s.trations are given of the wooden masks worn by dancers and the instruments used by musicians of the Wu (Chinese) school.

These masks were introduced by Mimashi and are still preserved in the temple Horyu-ji.

*The Horyu-ji Shizai-cho, composed in A.D. 747.

In the matter of pastimes, a favourite practice, first mentioned in the reign of the Empress Suiko, was a species of picnic called "medicine hunting" (kusuri-kari). It took place on the fifth day of the fifth month. The Empress, her ladies, and the high functionaries, all donned gala costumes and went to hunt stags, for the purpose of procuring the young antlers, and to search for "deer-fungus"

(shika-take), the horns and the vegetables being supposed to have medical properties. All the amus.e.m.e.nts mentioned in previous sections continued to be followed in this era, and football is spoken of as having inaugurated the afterwards epoch-making friendship between Prince Naka and Kamatari. It was not played in the Occidental manner, however. The game consisted in kicking a ball from player to player without letting it fall. This was apparently a Chinese innovation.

Here, also, mention may be made of thermal springs. Their sanitary properties were recognized, and visits were paid to them by invalids.

The most noted were those of Dogo, in Iyo, and Arima, in Settsu. The Emperor Jomei spent several months at each of these, and Prince Shotoku caused to be erected at Dogo a stone monument bearing an inscription to attest the curative virtues of the water.

CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE

That Buddhism obtained a firm footing among the upper cla.s.ses during the first century after its introduction must be attributed in no small measure to the fact that the throne was twice occupied by Empresses in that interval. The highly decorative aspects of the creed appealing to the emotional side of woman's nature, these Imperial ladies encouraged Buddhist propagandism with earnest munificence. But the ma.s.s of the people remained, for the most part, outside the pale. They continued to believe in the Kami and to worship them. Thus, when a terribly destructive earthquake* occured in 599, it was to the Kami of earthquakes that prayers were offered at his seven shrines in the seven home provinces (Kinai), and not to the Merciful Buddha, though the saving grace of the latter had then been preached for nearly a cycle. The first appeal to the foreign deity in connexion with natural calamity was in the opening year (642) of the Empress Kogyoku's reign when, in the presence of a devastating drought, sacrifices of horses and cattle to the Shinto Kami, changes of the market-places,** and prayers to the river G.o.ds having all failed to bring relief, an imposing Buddhist service was held in the south court of the Great Temple. "The images of Buddha, of the bosatsu, and of the Four Heavenly Kings were magnificently adorned; a mult.i.tude of priests read the Mahayana Sutra, and the o-omi, Soga no Emishi, held a censer, burned incense, and prayed."

But there was no success; and not until the Empress herself had made a progress to the source of a river and worshipped towards the four quarters, did abundant rain fall.

*Only three earthquakes are recorded up to the year A.D. 645, and the second alone (A.D. 599) is described as destructive.

**This was a Chinese custom, as was also the sacrificial rite mentioned in the same context.

Such an incident cannot have contributed to popularize the Indian creed. The people at large adhered to their traditional cult and were easily swayed by superst.i.tions. The first half of the seventh century was marked by abnormal occurrences well calculated to disturb men's minds. There were comets (twice); there was a meteor of large dimensions; there were eclipses of the sun and moon; there were occultations of Venus; there was snow in July and hail "as large as peaches" in May, and there was a famine (621) when old people ate roots of herbs and died by the wayside, when infants at the breast perished with their mothers, and when thieves and robbers defied authority. It is not, perhaps, surprising in such circ.u.mstances, and when witches and wizards abounded, that people fell into strange moods, and were persuaded to regard a caterpillar as the "insect of the everlasting world," to worship it, and to throw away their valuables in the belief that riches and perpetual youth would be thus won. A miyatsuko, by name Kawakatsu, had the courage to kill the designing preacher of this extravagance, and the moral epidemic was thus stayed.

ENGRAVING: ONE OF THE STATUES OF "s.h.i.tENNO" IN THE KAIDAN-IN, TODAIJI (Tembyo Sculpture, Eighth Century)

ENGRAVING: UTENSILS USED IN THE TEA CEREMONY (CHA-NO-YU)

CHAPTER XV

THE DAIKA REFORMS

THE THIRTY-SIXTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR KOTOKU (A.D. 645-654)

AFTER the fall of the Soga and the abdication of the Empress Kogyoku, her son, Prince Naka, would have been the natural successor, and such was her own expressed wish. But the prince's procedure was largely regulated by Kamatari, who, alike in the prelude and in the sequel of this crisis, proved himself one of the greatest statesmen j.a.pan ever produced. He saw that the Soga influence, though broken, was not wholly shattered, and he understood that the great administrative reform which he contemplated might be imperilled were the throne immediately occupied by a prince on whose hands the blood of the Soga chief was still warm. Therefore he advised Prince Naka to stand aside in favour of his maternal uncle, Prince Karu, who could be trusted to co-operate loyally in the work of reform and whose connexion with the Soga overthrow had been less conspicuous. But to reach Prince Karu it was necessary to pa.s.s over the head of another prince, Furubito, Naka's half-brother, who had the full sympathy of the remnant of the Soga clan, his mother having been a daughter of the great Umako. The throne was therefore offered to him. But since the offer followed, instead of preceding the Empress' approval of Prince Karu, Furubito recognized the farce, and knowing that, though he might rule in defiance of the Kamatari faction, he could not hope to rule with its consent, he threw away his sword and declared his intention of entering religion.

Very soon the Buddhist monastery at Yoshino, where he received the tonsure, became a rallying point for the Soga partisans, and a war for the succession seemed imminent. Naka, however, now Prince Imperial, was not a man to dally with such obstacles. He promptly sent to Yoshino a force of soldiers who killed Furubito with his children and permitted his consorts to strangle themselves. Prince Naka's name must go down to all generations as that of a great reformer, but it is also a.s.sociated with a terrible injustice. Too readily crediting a slanderous charge brought against his father-in-law, Kurayamada, who had stood at his right hand in the great coup d'etat of 645, he despatched a force to seize the alleged traitor. Kurayamada fled to a temple, and there, declaring that he would "leave the world, still cherishing fidelity in his bosom," he committed suicide, his wife and seven children sharing his fate.

Subsequent examination of his effects established his innocence, and his daughter, consort of Prince Naka, died of grief.

THE DAIKA, OR "GREAT CHANGE"

Not for these things, however, but for sweeping reforms in the administration of the empire is the reign of Kotoku memorable. Prince Naka and Kamatari, during the long period of their intimate intercourse prior to the deed of blood in the great hall of audience, had fully matured their estimates of the Sui and Tang civilization as revealed in doc.u.ments and information carried to j.a.pan by priests, literati, and students, who, since the establishment of Buddhism, had paid many visits to China. They appreciated that the system prevailing in their own country from time immemorial had developed abuses which were sapping the strength of the nation, and in sweeping the Soga from the path to the throne, their ambition had been to gain an eminence from which the new civilization might be authoritatively proclaimed.

Speaking broadly, their main objects were to abolish the system of hereditary office-holders; to differentiate aristocratic t.i.tles from official ranks; to bring the whole ma.s.s of the people into direct subjection to the Throne, and to establish the Imperial right of ownership in all the land throughout the empire. What these changes signified and with what tact and wisdom the reformers proceeded, will be clearly understood as the story unfolds itself. Spectacular effect was enlisted as the first ally. A coronation ceremony of unprecedented magnificence took place. High officials, girt with golden quivers, stood on either side of the dais forming the throne, and all the great functionaries--omi, muraji, and miyatsuko--together with representatives of the 180 hereditary corporations (be) filed past, making obeisance. The t.i.tle of "Empress Dowager" was conferred for the first time on Kogyoku, who had abdicated; Prince Naka was made Prince Imperial; the head of the great uji of Abe was nominated minister of the Left (sa-daijiri); Kurayamada, of the Soga-uji, who had shared the dangers of the conspiracy against Emishi and Iruka, became minister of the Right (u-daijiri), and Kamatari himself received the post of minister of the Interior (nai-daijin), being invested with the right to be consulted on all matters whether of statecraft or of official personnel.

These designations, "minister of the Left"*, "minister of the Right,"

and "minister of the Interior," were new in j.a.pan.** Hitherto, there had been o-omi and o-muraji, who stood between the Throne and the two great cla.s.ses of uji, the o-omi and the o-muraji receiving instructions direct from the sovereign, and the two cla.s.ses of uji acknowledging no control except that of the o-omi and the o-muraji.

But whereas the personal status of Kurayamada was only omi (not o-omi), and the personal status of Kamatari, only muraji (not o-muraji), neither was required, in his new capacity, to take instructions from any save the Emperor, nor did any one of the three high dignitaries nominally represent this or that congeries of uji. A simultaneous innovation was the appointment of a Buddhist priest, Bin, and a literatus, Kuromaro, to be "national doctors." These men had spent some years at the Tang Court and were well versed in Chinese systems.

*The left takes precedence of the right in j.a.pan.

**The offices were borrowed from the Tang system of China a remark which applies to nearly all the innovations of the epoch.

The next step taken was to a.s.semble the ministers under a patriarchal tree, and, in the presence of the Emperor, the Empress Dowager, and the Prince Imperial, to p.r.o.nounce, in the names of the Kami of heaven and the Kami of earth--the Tenshin and the Chigi--a solemn imprecation on rulers who attempted double-hearted methods of government, and on va.s.sals guilty of treachery in the service of their sovereign. This amounted to a formal denunciation of the Soga as well as a pledge on the part of the new Emperor. The Chinese method of reckoning time by year-periods was then adopted, and the year A.D. 645 became the first of the Daika era. But before proceeding to really radical innovations, two further precautions were taken. In order to display reverence for the foundations of the State, the sovereign publicly declared that "the empire should be ruled by following the footsteps of the Emperors of antiquity," and in order to win the sympathy of the lower orders, his Majesty directed that inquiry should be made as to the best method of alleviating the hardships of forced labour. Further, a solemn ceremony of Shinto worship was held by way of preface.

Then the reformers commenced their work in earnest. Governors (kokushi) were appointed to all the eastern provinces. These officials were not a wholly novel inst.i.tution. It has been shown that they existed previously to the Daika era, but in a fitful and uncertain way, whereas, under the system now adopted, they became an integral part of the administrative machinery. That meant that the government of the provinces, instead of being administered by hereditary officials, altogether irrespective of their competence, was entrusted for a fixed term to men chosen on account of special apt.i.tude. The eastern provinces were selected for inaugurating this experiment, because their distance from the capital rendered the change less conspicuous. Moreover, the appointments were given, as far as possible, to the former miyatsuko or mikotomochi. An ordinance was now issued for placing a pet.i.tion-box in the Court and hanging a bell near it. The box was intended to serve as a receptacle for complaints and representations. Anyone had a right to present such doc.u.ments. They were to be collected and conveyed to the Emperor every morning, and if a reply was tardy, the bell was to be struck.

Side by side with these measures for bettering the people's lot, precautions against any danger of disturbance were adopted by taking all weapons of war out of the hands of private individuals and storing them in a.r.s.enals specially constructed on waste lands. Then followed a measure which seems to have been greatly needed. It has been already explained that a not inconsiderable element of the population was composed of slaves, and that these consisted of two main cla.s.ses, namely, aborigines or Koreans taken prisoners in war, and members of an uji whose Kami had been implicated in crime. As time pa.s.sed, there resulted from intercourse between these slaves and their owners a number of persons whose status was confused, parents a.s.serting the manumission of their children and masters insisting on the permanence of the bond. To correct these complications the whole nation was now divided into freemen (ryomin) and bondmen (senmin), and a law was enacted that, since among slaves no marriage tie was officially recognized, a child of mixed parentage must always be regarded as a bondman. On that basis a census was ordered to be taken, and in it were included not only the people of all cla.s.ses, but also the area of cultivated and throughout the empire.

At the same time stringent regulations were enacted for the control and guidance of the provincial governors. They were to take counsel with the people in dividing the profits of agriculture. They were not to act as judges in criminal cases or to accept bribes from suitors in civil ones; their staff, when visiting the capital, was strictly limited, and the use of public-service horses* as well as the consumption of State provisions was vetoed unless they were travelling on public business. Finally, they were enjoined to investigate carefully all claims to t.i.tles and all alleged rights of land tenure. The next step was the most drastic and far-reaching of all. Hereditary corporations were entirely abolished, alike those established to commemorate the name of a sovereign or a prince and those employed by the n.o.bles to cultivate their estates. The estates themselves were escheated. Thus, at one stroke, the lands and t.i.tles of the hereditary aristocracy were annulled, just as was destined to be the case in the Meiji era, twelve centuries later.

*Everyone having a right to use public-service horses was required to carry a token of his right in the shape of a small bronze bell, or group of bells, indicating by their shape and number how many horses the bearer was ent.i.tled to.

This reform involved a radical change in the system and method of taxation, but the consideration of that phase of the question is deferred for a moment in order to explain the nature and the amount of the new fiscal burdens. Two kinds of taxes were thenceforth imposed, namely, ordinary taxes and commuted taxes. The ordinary consisted of twenty sheaves of rice per cho* (equivalent to about eight sheaves per acre), and the commuted tax--in lieu of forced labour--was fixed at a piece of silk fabric forty feet in length by two and a half feet in breadth per cho, being approximately a length of sixteen feet per acre. The dimensions of the fabric were doubled in the case of coa.r.s.e silk, and quadrupled in the case of cloth woven from hemp or from the fibre of the inner bark of the paper-mulberry.

A commuted tax was levied on houses also, namely, a twelve-foot length of the above cloth per house. No currency existed in that age.

All payments were made in kind. There is, therefore, no method of calculating accurately the monetary equivalent of a sheaf of rice.

But in the case of fabrics we have some guide. Thus, in addition to the above imposts, every two townships--a township was a group of fifty houses--had to contribute one horse of medium quality (or one of superior quality per two hundred houses) for public service; and since a horse was regarded as the equivalent of a total of twelve feet of cloth per house, it would follow, estimating a horse of medium quality at 5, ($25.), that the commuted tax in the case of land was above 5s.4d., ($1.30) per acre. Finally, each homestead was required to provide one labourer as well as rations for his support; and every two homesteads had to furnish one palace waiting-woman (uneme), who must be good-looking, the daughter or sister of a district official of high rank, and must have one male and two female servants to attend on her--these also being supported by the two homesteads. In every homestead there was an alderman who kept the register, directed agricultural operations, enforced taxes, and took measures to prevent crime as well as to judge it.

*The cho was two and a half acres approximately.

Thus it is seen that a regular system of national taxation was introduced and that the land throughout the whole empire was considered to be the property of the Crown. As for the n.o.bles who were deprived of their estates, sustenance gifts were given to them, but there is no record of the bases upon which these gifts were a.s.sessed. With regard to the people's share in the land, the plan pursued was that for every male or female over five years of age two tan (about half an acre) should be given to the former and one-third less to the latter, these grants being made for a period of six years, at the end of which time a general restoration was to be effected. A very striking evidence of the people's condition is that every adult male had to contribute a sword, armour, a bow and arrows, and a drum. This impost may well have outweighed all the others.

SEPULCHRES

Another important reform regulated the dimensions of burial mounds.

The construction of these on the grand scale adopted for many sovereigns, princes, and n.o.bles had long harra.s.sed the people, who were compelled to give their toil gratis for such a purpose. What such exactions had entailed may be gathered from Kotoku's edict, which said, "Of late the poverty of our people is absolutely due to the construction of tombs." Nevertheless, he did not undertake to limit the size of Imperial tombs. The rescript dealt only with those from princes downwards. Of these, the greatest tumulus permitted was a square mound with a side of forty-five feet at the base and a height of twenty-five feet, measured along the slope, a further restriction being that the work must not occupy more than one thousand men for seven days. The maximum dimensions were similarly prescribed in every case, down to a minor official, whose grave must not give employment to more than fifty men for one day. When ordinary people died, it was directed that they should be buried in the ground without a day's delay, and, except in the case of an Emperor or an Empress, the custom of temporary interment was strictly vetoed.

Cemeteries were ordered to be constructed for the first time, and peremptory injunctions were issued against self-destruction to accompany the dead; against strangling men or women by way of sacrifice; against killing the deceased's horse, and against cutting the hair or stabbing the thighs by way of showing grief. It must be a.s.sumed that all these customs existed.

ABUSES

Other evil practices are incidentally referred to in the context of the Daika reforms. Thus it appears that slaves occasionally left their lawful owners owing to the latter's poverty and entered the service of rich men, who thereafter refused to give them up; that when a divorced wife or concubine married into another family, her former husband, after the lapse of years, often preferred claims against her new husband's property; that men, relying on their power, demanded people's daughters in marriage, and in the event of the girl entering another house, levied heavy toll on both families; that when a widow, of ten or twenty years' standing, married again, or when a girl entered into wedlock, the people of the vicinity insisted on the newly wedded couple performing the Shinto rite of harai (purgation), which was perverted into a device for compelling offerings of goods and wine; that the compulsory performance of this ceremony had become so onerous as to make poor men shrink from giving burial to even their own brothers who had died at a distance from home, or hesitate to extend aid to them in mortal peril, and that when a forced labourer cooked his food by the roadside or borrowed a pot to boil his rice, he was often obliged to perform expensive purgation.

OFFICIAL ORGANIZATION