A History of the Japanese People Part 25

HISTORICAL COMPILATION

The reigns of these two Empresses are memorable for the compilation of the two oldest j.a.panese histories which have been handed down to the present epoch, the Kojiki and the Nihongi; but as the circ.u.mstances in which these works, as well as the Fudoki (Records of Natural Features), were written have been sufficiently described already (vide Chapter I), it remains only to refer to a custom inaugurated by Gemmyo in the year (721) after the compilation of the Nihongi, the custom of summoning to Court learned men (hakase) and requiring them to deliver lectures on that work. Subsequent generations of sovereigns followed this example, and to this day one of the features of the New Year's observances is a historical discourse in the palace. The writing of history became thenceforth an imperially patronized occupation. Six works, covering the period from 697 to 887, appeared in succession and were known through all ages as the Six National Histories. It is noticeable that in the compilation of all these a leading part was taken by one or another of the great Fujiwara ministers, and that the fifth numbered among its authors the ill.u.s.trious Sugawara Michizane.

THE FORTY-FIFTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR SHOMU (A.D. 724-748)

When the Emperor Mommu died (707), his son, the Prince Imperial, was too young to succeed. Therefore the sceptre came into the hands of Mommu's mother, who, after a reign of seven years, abdicated in favour of her daughter, the Empress Gensho, and, eight years later, the latter in turn abdicated in favour of her nephew, Shomu, who had now reached man's estate. Shomu's mother, Higami, was a daughter of Fujiwara Fuhito, and as the Fujiwara family did not belong to the Kwobetsu cla.s.s, she had not attained the rank of Empress, but had remained simply Mommu's consort (fujiri). Her son, the Emperor Shomu, married another daughter of the same Fujiwara Fuhito by a different mother; that is to say, he took for consort his own mother's half-sister, Asuka. This lady, Asuka, laboured under the same disadvantage of lineage and could not properly be recognized as Empress. It is necessary to note these details for they const.i.tute the preface to a remarkable page of j.a.panese history. Of Fujiwara Fuhito's two daughters, one, Higami, was the mother of the reigning Emperor, Shomu, and the other, Asuka, was his consort. The blood relationship of the Fujiwara family to the Court could scarcely have been more marked, but its public recognition was impeded by the defect in the family's lineage.

THE FUJIWARA CONSPIRACY

Immediately after Shomu's accession, his mother, Higami, received the t.i.tle of Kwo-taifujin (Imperial Great Lady). But the ambition of her family was to have her named Kwo-taiko (Empress Dowager). The Emperor also desired to raise his consort, Asuka, to the position of Empress.

Consulting his ministers on the subject, he encountered opposition from Prince Nagaya, minister of the Left. This prince, a great-grandson of the Emperor Temmu, enjoyed high reputation as a scholar, was looked up to as a statesman of great wisdom, and possessed much influence owing to his exalted official position. He urged that neither precedent nor law sanctioned nomination of a lady of the Shimbetsu cla.s.s to the rank of Empress. The Daiho code was indeed very explicit on the subject. In China, whither the drafters of the code went for models, no restrictions were imposed on a sovereign's choice of wife. But the j.a.panese legislators clearly enacted that an Empress must be taken from among Imperial princesses.

Prince Nagaya, in his position as minister of the Left, opposed any departure from that law and thus thwarted the designs of the Fujiwara.

The lady Asuka bore a son to the Emperor three years after his accession. His Majesty was profoundly pleased. He caused a general amnesty to be proclaimed, presented gratuities to officials, and granted gifts to all children born on the same day. When only two months old, the child was created Prince Imperial, but in his eleventh month he fell ill. Buddhist images were cast; Buddhist Sutras were copied; offerings were made to the Kami, and an amnesty was proclaimed. Nothing availed. The child died, and the Emperor was distraught with grief. In this incident the partisans of the Fujiwara saw their opportunity. They caused it to be laid to Prince Nagaya's charge that he had compa.s.sed the death of the infant prince by charms and incantations. Two of the Fujiwara n.o.bles were appointed to investigate the accusation, and they condemned the prince to die by his own hand. He committed suicide, and his wife and children died with him. The travesty of justice was carefully acted throughout. A proclamation was issued promising capital punishment to any one, of whatever rank or position, who compa.s.sed the death or injury of another by spells or incantations, and, six months later, the lady Asuka was formally proclaimed Empress.

In one respect the Fujiwara conspirators showed themselves clumsy.

The rescript justified Asuka's elevation by reference to the case of Iwa, a daughter of the Takenouchi, whom the Emperor Nintoku had made his Empress. But the Takenouchi family belonged to the Kwobetsu cla.s.s, and the publication of a special edict in justification could be read as self-condemnation only. Nevertheless, the Fujiwara had compa.s.sed their purpose. Thenceforth they wielded the power of the State through the agency of their daughters. They furnished Empresses and consorts to the reigning sovereigns, and took their own wives from the Minamoto family, itself of Imperial lineage. To such an extent was the former practice followed that on two occasions three Fujiwara ladies served simultaneously in the palace. This happened when Go-Reizei (1222-1232) had a Fujiwara Empress, Kw.a.n.ko, and two Fujiwara consorts, Fumi and Hiro. At one moment it had seemed as though fate would interfere to thwart these astute plans. An epidemic of small-pox, originating (735) in Kyushu, spread over the whole country, and carried off the four sons of Fuhito--Muchimaro, Fusazaki, Umakai, and Maro--leaving the family's fortunes in the hands of juniors, who occupied only minor official positions. But the Fujiwara genius rose superior to all vicissitudes. The elevation of the lady Asuka to be Empress Komyo marks an epoch in j.a.panese history.

COMMUNICATIONS WITH CHINA

In spite of the length and perils of a voyage from j.a.pan to China in the seventh and eighth centuries--one emba.s.sy which sailed from Naniwa in the late summer of 659 did not reach China for 107 days--the journey was frequently made by j.a.panese students of religion and literature, just as the Chinese, on their side, travelled often to India in search of Buddhist enlightenment. This access to the refinement and civilization of the Tang Court contributed largely to j.a.pan's progress, both material and moral, and is frankly acknowledged by her historians as a main factor in her advance. When Shomu reigned at Nara, the Court in Changan had entered the phase of luxury and epicurism which usually preludes the ruin of a State. Famous literati thronged its portals; great poets and painters enjoyed its patronage, and annalists descanted on its magnificence. Some of the works of these famous men were carried to j.a.pan and remained with her as models and treasures. She herself showed that she had competence to win some laurels even amid such a galaxy. In the year 716, Nakamaro, a member of the great Abe family, accompanied the j.a.panese amba.s.sador to Tang and remained in China until his death in 770. He was known in China as Chao Heng, and the great poet, Li Pai, composed a poem in his memory, while the Tang sovereign conferred on him the posthumous t.i.tle of "viceroy of Luchou." Not less celebrated was Makibi,* who went to China at the same time as Nakamaro, and after twenty years' close study of Confucius, returned in 735, having earned such a reputation for profound knowledge of history, the five cla.s.sics, jurisprudence, mathematics, philosophy, calendar making, and other sciences that the Chinese parted with him reluctantly. In j.a.pan he was raised to the high rank of asomi, and ultimately became minister of the Right during the reign of Shotoku.

*Generally spoken of as "Kibi no Mabi," and credited by tradition with the invention of the katakana syllabary.

Such incidents speak eloquently of the respect paid in j.a.pan to mental attainments and of the enlightened hospitality of China. In the realm of Buddhism perhaps even more than in that of secular science, this close intercourse made its influence felt. Priests went from j.a.pan to study in China, and priests came from China to preach in j.a.pan. During the Nara era, three of these men attained to special eminence. They were Doji, Gembo, and Kanshin. Doji was the great propagandist of the Sanron sect, whose tenets he had studied in China for sixteen years (701-717). From plans prepared by him and taken from the monastery of Hsi-ming in China, the temple Daian-ji was built under the auspices of the Emperor Shomu, and having been richly endowed, was placed in Doji's charge as lord-abbot. Gembo, during a sojourn of two years at the Tang Court, studied the tenets of the Hosso sect, which, like the Sanron, const.i.tuted one of the five sects originally introduced into j.a.pan. Returning in 736, he presented to the Emperor Shomu five thousand volumes of the Sutras, together with a number of Buddhist images, and he was appointed abbot of the celebrated temple, Kof.u.ku-ji. The third of the above three religious celebrities was a Chinese missionary named Kanshin. He went to j.a.pan accompanied by fourteen priests, three nuns, and twenty-four laymen, and the mission carried with it many Buddhist relics, images, and Sutras. Summoned to Nara in 754, he was treated with profound reverence, and on a platform specially erected before the temple Todai-ji, where stood the colossal image of Buddha--to be presently spoken of--the sovereign and many ill.u.s.trious personages performed the most solemn rite of Buddhism under the ministration of Kanshin.

He established a further claim on the grat.i.tude of the Empress by curing her of an obstinate malady, and her Majesty would fain have raised him to the highest rank (dai-sojo) of the Buddhist priesthood.

But he declined the honour. Subsequently, the former palace of Prince Nittabe was given to him as a residence and he built there the temple of Shodai-ji, which still exists.

RELIGION AND POLITICS

The great Confucianist, Makibi, and the Buddhist prelate, Gembo, met with misfortune and became the victims of an unjust accusation because they attempted to a.s.sert the Imperial authority as superior to the growing influence of the Fujiwara. Makibi held the post of chamberlain of the Empress' household, and Gembo officiated at the "Interior monastery" (Nai-dojo) where the members of the Imperial family worshipped Buddha. The Emperor's mother, Higami, who on her son's accession had received the t.i.tle of "Imperial Great Lady" (vide sup.), fell into a state of melancholia and invited Gembo to prescribe for her, which he did successfully. Thus, his influence in the palace became very great, and was augmented by the piety of the Empress, who frequently listened to discourses by the learned prelate. Makibi naturally worked in union with Gembo in consideration of their similar antecedents. Fujiwara Hirotsugu was then governor of Yamato. Witnessing this state of affairs with uneasiness, he impeached Gembo. But the Emperor credited the priest's a.s.sertions, and removed Hirotsugu to the remote post of Dazai-fu in Chikuzen.

There he raised the standard of revolt and was with some difficulty captured and executed. The Fujiwara did not tamely endure this check.

They exerted their influence to procure the removal of Makibi and Gembo from the capital, both being sent to Tsukushi (Kyushu), Makibi in the capacity of governor, and Gembo to build the temple Kwannon-ji. Gembo died a year later, and it was commonly reported that the spirit of Hirotsugu had compa.s.sed his destruction, while more than one book, professing to be historical, alleged that his prime offence was immoral relations with the "Imperial Great Lady,"

who was then some sixty years of age! There can be little doubt that the two ill.u.s.trious scholars suffered for their fame rather than for their faults, and that their chief offences were overshadowing renown and independence of Fujiwara patronage.

BUDDHISM IN THE NARA EPOCH

From what has been related above of the priests Kanshin and Gembo, it will have been observed that the Emperor Shomu was an earnest disciple of Buddhism. The heritage of administrative reforms bequeathed to him by Tenchi and Temmu should have engrossed his attention, but he subserved everything to religion, and thus the great national work, begun in the Daika era and carried nearly to completion in the Daiho, suffered its first check. Some annalists have pleaded in Shomu's behalf that he trusted religious influence to consolidate the system introduced by his predecessors. However that may be, history records as the most memorable event of his reign his abdication of the throne in order to enter religion, thus inaugurating a practice which was followed by several subsequent sovereigns and which materially helped the Fujiwara family to usurp the reality of administrative power. Shomu, on receiving the tonsure, changed his name to Shoman, and thenceforth took no part in secular affairs.

In all this, however, his procedure marked a climax rather than a departure. In fact, never did any foreign creed receive a warmer welcome than that accorded to Buddhism by the j.a.panese after its first struggle for tolerance. Emperor after Emperor worshipped the Buddha. Even Tenchi, who profoundly admired the Confucian philosophy and whose experience of the Soga n.o.bles' treason might well have prejudiced him against the faith they championed; and even Temmu, whose ideals took the forms of frugality and militarism, were lavish in their offerings at Buddhist ceremonials. The Emperor Mommu enacted a law for the better control of priests and nuns, yet he erected the temple Kwannon-ji. The great Fujiwara statesmen, as Kamatari, Fuhito, and the rest, though they belonged to a family (the Nakatomi) closely a.s.sociated with Shinto worship, were reverent followers of the Indian faith. Kamatari approved of his eldest son, Joye, entering the priesthood, and sent him to China to study the Sutras. He also gave up his residence at Yamashina for conversion into a monastery.

Fujiwara Fuhito built the Kof.u.ku-ji, and his son, Muchimaro, when governor of Omi, repaired temples in the provinces, protected their domains, and erected the Jingu-ji.

That among the occupants of the throne during 165 years, from 593 to 758, no less than seven were females could not but contribute to the spread of a religion which owed so much to spectacular effect. Every one of these sovereigns lent earnest aid to the propagation of Buddhism, and the tendency of the age culminated in the fanaticism of Shomu, re-enforced as it was by the devotion of his consort, Komyo.

Tradition has woven into a beautiful legend the nation's impression of this lady's piety. In an access of humility she vowed to wash the bodies of a thousand beggars. Nine hundred and ninety-nine had been completed when the last presented himself in the form of a loathsome leper. Without a sign of repugnance the Empress continued her task, and no sooner was the ablution concluded than the mendicant ascended heavenwards, a glory of light radiating from his body. It is also told of her that, having received in a dream a miniature golden image of the G.o.ddess of Mercy (Kwannon) holding a baby in her arms, she conceived a daughter who ultimately reigned as the Empress Koken.*

*The resemblance between the legend and the Buddhist account of the Incarnation is plain. It has to be remembered that Nestorians had carried Christianity to the Tang Court long before the days of Komyo.

In spite, however, of all this zeal for Buddhism, the nation did not entirely abandon its traditional faith. The original cult had been ancestor worship. Each great family had its uji no Kami, to whom it made offerings and presented supplications. These deities were now supplemented, not supplanted. They were grafted upon a Buddhist stem, and shrines of the uji no Kami became uji-tera, or "uji temples."*

Thenceforth the temple (tera) took precedence of the shrine (yashiro). When spoken of together they became ji-sha. This was the beginning of Ryobu Shinto, or mixed Shinto, which found full expression when Buddhist teachers, obedient to a spirit of toleration born of their belief in the doctrines of metempsychosis and universal perfectibility, a.s.serted the creed that the Shinto Kami were avatars (incarnations) of the numerous Buddhas.

*Thus, Kof.u.kuji, built by Kamatari and Fuhito was called O-Nakatomi no uji-tera; Onjo-ji, erected by Otomo Suguri, was known as Otomo no uji-tera, and so forth.

The Nara epoch has not bequeathed to posterity many relics of the great religious edifices that came into existence under Imperial patronage during its seventy-five years. Built almost wholly of wood, these temples were gradually destroyed by fire. One object, however, defied the agent of destruction. It is a bronze Buddha of huge proportions, known now to all the world as the "Nara Daibutsu." On the fifteenth day of the tenth month of the fifteenth year of Tembyo--7th of November, 743--the Emperor Shomu proclaimed his intention of undertaking this work. The rescript making the announcement is extant. It sets out by declaring that "through the influence and authority of Buddha the country enjoys tranquillity,"

and while warning the provincial and district governors against in any way constraining the people to take part in the project, it promises that every contributor shall be welcome, even though he bring no more than a twig to feed the furnace or a handful of clay for the mould. The actual work of casting began in 747 and was completed in three years, after seven failures. The image was not cast in its entirety; it was built up with bronze plates soldered together. A sitting presentment of the Buddha, it had a height of fifty-three and a half feet and the face was sixteen feet long, while on either side was an attendant bosatsu standing thirty feet high.

For the image, 986,030,000 lbs. of copper were needed, and on the gilding of its surface 870 lbs. of refined gold were used.

These figures represented a vast fortune in the eighth century.

Indeed it seemed likely that a sufficiency of gold would not be procurable, but fortunately in the year 749 the yellow metal was found in the province of Mutsu, and people regarded the timely discovery as a special dispensation of Buddha. The great hall in which the image stood had a height of 120 feet and a width of 290 feet from east to west, and beside it two paG.o.das rose to a height of 230 feet each. Throughout the ten years occupied in the task of collecting materials and casting this Daibutsu, the Emperor solemnly worshipped Rushana Buddha three times daily, and on its completion he took the tonsure. It was not until the year 752, however, that the final ceremony of unveiling took place technically called "opening the eyes" (kaigan). On that occasion the Empress Koken, attended by all the great civil and military dignitaries, held a magnificent fete, and in the following year the temple--Todai-ji--was endowed with the taxes of five thousand households and the revenue from twenty-five thousand acres of rice-fields.

PROVINCIAL TEMPLES

While all this religious fervour was finding costly expression among the aristocrats in Nara, the propagandists and patrons of Buddhism did not neglect the ma.s.ses. In the year 741, provincial temples were officially declared essential to the State's well-being. These edifices had their origin at an earlier date. During the reign of Temmu (673-686) an Imperial rescript ordered that throughout the whole country every household should provide itself with a Buddhist shrine and place therein a sacred image. When the pious Empress Jito occupied the throne (690-696), the first proselytizing mission was despatched to the Ezo, among whom many converts were won; and, later in the same reign, another rescript directed that a certain Sutra--the Konkwo myo-kyo, or Sutra of Golden Effulgence--should be read during the first month of every year in each province, the fees of the officiating priests and other expenses being defrayed out of the local official exchequers.

ENGRAVING: PAG.o.dA OF YAKUSHI-JI, NARA

During Mommu's time (697-707), Buddhist hierarchs (kokushi) were appointed to the provinces. Their chief functions were to expound the Sutra and to offer prayers. The devout Shomu not only distributed numerous copies of the Sutras, but also carried his zeal to the length of commanding that every province should erect a sixteen-foot image of Shaka with attendant bosatsu (Bodhisattva), and, a few years later, he issued another command that each province must provide itself with a paG.o.da seven storeys high. By this last rescript the provincial temples (kokubun-ji) were called into official existence, and presently their number was increased to two in each province, one for priests and one for nuns. The kokushi attached to these temples laboured in the cause of propagandism and religious education side by side with the provincial pundits (kunihakase), whose duty was to instruct the people in law and literature; but it is on record that the results of the former's labours were much more conspicuous than those of the latter.

GYOGI

It is said to have been mainly at the instance of the Empress Komyo that the great image of Todai-ji was constructed and the provincial temples were established. But undoubtedly the original impulse came from a priest, Gyogi. He was one of those men who seem to have been specially designed by fate for the work they undertake. Gyogi, said to have been of Korean extraction, had no learning like that which won respect for Kanshin and Gembo. But he was amply gifted with the personal magnetism which has always distinguished notably successful propagandists of religion. Wherever he preached and prayed, thousands of priests and laymen flocked to hear him, and so supreme was his influence that under his direction the people gladly undertook extensive works of bridge building and road making. Like Shotoku Taishi, his name is a.s.sociated by tradition with achievements not properly a.s.signable to him, as the invention of the potter's wheel--though it had been in use for centuries before his time--and the production of various works of art which can scarcely have occupied the attention of a religious zealot. By order of the Empress Gensho, Gyogi was thrown into prison for a time, such a disturbing effect did his propagandism produce on men's pursuit of ordinary bread winning; but he soon emerged from durance and was taken into reverent favour by the Emperor Shomu, who attached four hundred priests as his disciples and conferred on him the t.i.tles of Dai-Sojo (Great Hierarch) and Dai-Bosatsu (Great Bodhisattva).

The enigma of the people's patience under the stupendous burdens imposed on them by the fanatic piety of Shomu and his consort, Komyo, finds a solution in the co-operation of Gyogi, whose speech and presence exercised more influence than a hundred Imperial edicts. It is recorded that, by way of corollary to the task of reconciling the nation to the Nara Court's pious extravagance, Gyogi compa.s.sed the erection of no less than forty-nine temples. But perhaps the most memorable event in his career was the part he took in reconciling the indigenous faith and the imported. However fervent Shomu's belief in Buddhism, the country he ruled was the country of the Kami, and on descent from the Kami his own t.i.tle to the throne rested. Thus, qualms of conscience may well have visited him when he remembered the comparatively neglected shrine of the Sun G.o.ddess at Ise. Gyogi undertook to consult the will of the G.o.ddess, and carried back a revelation which he interpreted in the sense that Amaterasu should be regarded as an incarnation of the Buddha. The Emperor then despatched to Ise a minister of State who obtained an oracle capable of similar interpretation, and, on the night after receipt of this utterance, the G.o.ddess, appearing to his Majesty in a vision, told him that the sun was Birushana (Vairotchana Tathagata); or Dainishi (Great Sun) Nyorai.

Thus was originated a theory which enabled Buddhism and Shinto to walk hand in hand for a thousand years, the theory that the Shinto Kami are avatars of the Buddha. Some historians contend that this idea must have been evolved and accepted before the maturity of the project for casting the colossal image at Nara, and that the credit probably belongs to Gembo; others attribute it to the immortal priest Kukai (Kobo Daishi), who is said to have elaborated the doctrine in the early years of the ninth century. Both seem wrong.

SUPERSt.i.tIONS

Side by side with the vigorous Buddhism of the Nara epoch, strange superst.i.tions obtained currency and credence. Two may be mentioned as ill.u.s.trating the mood of the age. One related to an ascetic, En no Ubasoku, who was worshipped by the people of Kinai under the name of En no Gyoja (En the anchorite). He lived in a cave on Katsuragi Mount for forty years, wore garments made of wistaria bark, and ate only pine leaves steeped in spring water. During the night he compelled demons to draw water and gather firewood, and during the day he rode upon clouds of five colours. The Kami Hitokotonushi, having been threatened by him for neglecting his orders, inspired a man to accuse him of treasonable designs, and the Emperor Mommu sent soldiers to arrest him. But as he was able to evade them by recourse to his art of flying, they apprehended his mother in his stead, whereupon he at once gave himself up. In consideration of his filial piety his punishment was commuted to exile on an island off the Izu coast, and in deference to the Imperial orders he remained there quietly throughout the day, but devoted the night to flying to the summit of Mount Fuji or gliding over the sea. This En no Gyoja was the founder of a sect of priests calling themselves Yamabushi.

The second superst.i.tion relates to one of the genii named k.u.me. By the practice of asceticism he obtained supernatural power, and while riding one day upon a cloud, he pa.s.sed above a beautiful girl washing clothes in a river, and became so enamoured of her that he lost his superhuman capacities and fell at her feet. She became his wife.

Years afterwards it chanced that he was called out for forced labour, and, being taunted by the officials as a pseudo-genius, he fasted and prayed for seven days and seven nights. On the eighth morning a thunder-storm visited the scene, and after it, a quant.i.ty of heavy timber was found to have been moved, without any human effort, from the forest to the site of the projected building. The Emperor, hearing of this, granted him forty-five acres, on which he built the temple of k.u.me-dera.

Such tales found credence in the Nara epoch, and indeed all through the annals of early j.a.pan there runs a well-marked thread of superst.i.tion which owed something of its obtrusiveness to intercourse with Korea and China, whence came professors of the arts of invisibility and magic. A thunder deity making his occasional abode in lofty trees is gravely spoken of in the context of a campaign, and if at one moment a river is inhabited by a semi-human monster, at another a fish formed like a child is caught in the sea. There is, of course, an herb of longevity--"a plant resembling coral in shape, with cl.u.s.tering leaves and branches; some red, others purple, others black, others golden coloured, and some changing their colours in the four seasons." In the reign of the Empress Kogyoku, witches and wizards betray the people into all sorts of extravagances; and a Korean acolyte has for friend a tiger which teaches him all manner of wonderful arts, among others that of healing any disease with a magic needle. Later on, these and cognate creations of credulity take their appropriate places in the realm of folk-lore, but they rank with sober history in the ancient annals. In this respect j.a.pan did not differ from other early peoples.

THE FORTY-SIXTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPRESS KOKEN (A.D. 749-758)

In July, 749, the Emperor Shomu abdicated in favour of his daughter, Princess Abe, known in history as Koken. Her mother was the celebrated Princess Asuka, who, in spite of the Shimbetsu lineage of her Fujiwara family, had been made Shomu's Empress, and whose name had been changed to Komyo (Refulgence) in token of her ill.u.s.trious piety. The daughter inherited all the mother's romance, but in her case it often degenerated into a pa.s.sion more elementary than religious ecstasy. Shomu, having no son, made his daughter heir to the throne. j.a.panese history furnished no precedent for such a step.

The custom had always been that a reign ceased on the death of a sovereign unless the Crown Prince had not yet reached maturity, in which event his mother, or some other nearly related princess, occupied the throne until he came of age and then surrendered the reigns of government to his hands. Such had been the practice in the case of the Empresses Jito, Gemmyo, and Gensho. Shomu, however, not only bequeathed the throne to a princess, but while himself still in the prime of life, abdicated in her favour.

Thereafter, at the recognized instance of the all-powerful Fujiwara family, Emperors often surrendered the sceptre to their heirs, themselves retiring into religious life with the secular t.i.tle of Da-joko (Great ex-Emperor) and the ecclesiastical designation of Ho-o (pontiff). Shomu was the originator of this practice, but the annals are silent as to the motive that inspired him. It will be presently seen that under the skilful manipulation of the Fujiwara n.o.bles, this device of abdication became a potent aid to their usurpation of administrative power, and from that point of view the obvious inference is that Shomu's unprecedented step was taken at their suggestion. But the Buddhist propagandists, also, were profoundly interested. That the sovereign himself should take the tonsure could not fail to confer marked prestige on the Church. It is probable, therefore, that Shomu was swayed by both influences--that of the Buddhists, who worked frankly in the cause of their creed, and that of the Fujiwara, who desired to see a lady of their own lineage upon the throne.

KOKEN AND NAKAMARO

The fanaticism of the Emperor Shomu and his consort, Komyo, bore fruit during the reign of Koken. In the third year after Shomu's abdication, a decree was issued prohibiting the taking of life in any form. This imposed upon the State the responsibility of making donations of rice to support the fishermen, whose source of livelihood was cut off by the decree. Further, at the ceremony of opening the public worship of the great image of Buddha, the Empress in person led the vast procession of military, civil, and religious dignitaries to the temple Todai-ji. It was a fete of unparalleled dimensions. All officials of the fifth grade and upwards wore full uniform, and all of lesser grades wore robes of the colour appropriate to their rank. Ten thousand Buddhist priests officiated, and the Imperial musicians were re-enforced by those from all the temples throughout the home provinces. Buddhism in j.a.pan had never previously received such splendid homage.

In the evening, the Empress visited the residence of the grand councillor, Fujiwara no Nakamaro. Fourteen hundred years had elapsed, according to j.a.panese history, since the first of the Yamato sovereigns set up his Court, and never had the Imperial house incurred such disgrace as now befell it. Fujiwara no Nakamaro was a grandson of the great Kamatari. He held the rank of dainagon and was at once a learned man and an able administrator. From the time of that visit to the Tamura-no-tei (Tamura mansion), as his residence was called, the Empress repaired thither frequently, and finally made it a detached palace under the name of Tamura-no-miya. Those that tried to put an end to the liaison were themselves driven from office, and Nakamaro's influence became daily stronger.

THE FORTY-SEVENTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR JUNNIN (758-764 A.D.)