This is a special episode talking about the newest UNESCO World Heritage cultural site: The Asuka and Fujiwara Ancient Capitals. This is particularly relevant as it is directly related to the history we are currently examining in this podcast.

For more information, check out the blogpost at: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-unesco

Rough Transcript:

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is a special episode on Japan's newest UNESCO world heritage site: the Ancient Capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara.

Rarely do I focus too much on current events in this podcast. After all, we are still dealing with the events of the 7th century, and that is hardly "current" in any sense. However, just last month, at the end of July 2026, the UNESCO World Heritage Convention met and made a ruling on inducting the Ancient Capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara as one of the newest World Heritage sites. Given the obvious relevance of this to this podcast, I thought it was worth talking about.

As such we'll go into a little history of the UNESCO world heritage convention, what it means, and how sites get added—or even removed—from the list. And then we'll talk about the addition of the Ancient Capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara, what is included in that description, and what part those various locations play in the story of Japan's history, which we've been laying out for the past several years. Warning up front: This is probably going to be a longer episode than usual, as there is a lot to cover, but it still didn't seem to make sense to break it up into two parts.

Before we get into the background of UNESCO more generally, let's talk briefly about the news. The Ancient Capitals of Asuka and Fuijwara had been on UNESCO's tentative list since 2007, and following an on-site evaluation in September of 2025, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, or ICOMOS, made a recommendation in June 2026 that the property be inscribed on the World Heritage list. On 26 July, 2026, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee met in Busan, South Korea and accepted the recommendation. This becomes Japan's 22nd cultural World Heritage site, and the 27th World Heritage property in Japan, since the World Heritage program is also inclusive of natural heritage sites, such as Yakushima, Amami-Ohoshima, the Ogasawara islands, and the mountainous regions of Shirakami-Sanchi, and Shiretoko, in Hokkaido.

The recommendation for Asuka and Fujiwara was not just for a single site, but includes 19 individual sites and over 1,100 hectares of "buffer zone". The individual sites are listed on the UNSECO World Heritage website as follows:

• Asuka Palace Site

• Asuka Pond Garden Site

• Asuka Water Clock Site

• Sakafuneishi Ritual Site

• Asuka-dera Temple Site

• Tachibana-dera Temple Site

• Yamada-dera Temple Site

• Kawara-dera Temple Site

• Hinokuma-dera Temple Site

• Ishibutai Mounded Tomb

• Shobuike Mounded Tomb

• Kengoshizuka Mounded Tomb

• Fujiwara Palace Site

• Daikandaiji Temple Site

• Motoyakushiji Temple Site

• Mounded Tomb of Emperor Temmu and Empress Jito

• Nakaoyama Mounded Tomb

• Kitora Mounded Tomb

• Takamatsuzuka Mounded Tomb

So these are the specific locations, that were included in the single designation. And these are how they are officially listed on the UNESCO World Heritage site in English, so for anyone who is going to comment that saying Asuka-dera Temple is redundant, because "Tera" already means "Temple", let's just not, shall we?

They are all in the Asuka and Kashihara area, and easily accessible, one from the other, so you can go and visit them if you would like. I suspect that there is going to be a bit of push for that area in the coming tourist season as they now put up official UNESCO world heritage site markers. And you may have noticed that a lot of these site names may sound very familiar, because the majority of them are places we've already mentioned on the podcast – but more on that later.

But first, what does it mean to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site?

UNESCO is the "United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization". It was founded in 1945, with the stand-up of the UN itself, as a successor to the League of Nations' International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation. That said, the idea of a "World Heritage Site" didn't come about until 1975, with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, with the first sites being designated in 1978.

Prior to this, UNESCO had been involved in various attempts to help preserve various monuments of historical significance. They begin working with various museums and other organizations, and in 1965 UNESCO created ICOMOS, an international professional association to work towards the conservation and protection of cultural heritage. A site designated as a World Heritage Site must be considered to be of "outstanding universal value" and can fall under one of two categories. The first, and perhaps the one that most often comes to mind, are the cultural sites. The second are natural sites considered of outstanding value. With the 1975 convention, UNESCO had leaned heavily on ICOMOS as an advisory body regarding sites of particular cultural significance. A similar body, the World Conservation Union, provides input on sites of natural significance.

To be determined a World Heritage site, there is a set of ten criteria, and a site must meet at least one of the ten. This means that a site must:

i. Represent a masterpiece of human creative genius

ii. Exhibit an important interchange of human values

iii. Bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization

iv. Illustrate a significant stage in human history

v. Be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use

vi. Be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance; or it must

vii. Contain superlative natural phenomena

viii. Be an outstanding example representing major stages of earth's history

ix. Be an outstanding example representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of ecosystems and communities of plants and animals; or it must

x. Contain the most important and significant natural habitats for conservation of biological diversity.

I abbreviated that list, but it gives you an idea of what the committee is looking for.

To be placed on the list, a site must first be nominated. Nominations are made by UN member countries and placed on a Tentative List. From there, they can be selected into a Nomination File, which is then evaluated by the advisory organizations as appropriate. The World Heritage committee meets once a year, at which time they may determine whether a nominated site will be added to the World Heritage list or if more information is needed.

Having a site listed as an UNESCO world heritage site carries prestige and can drive tourism and revenue to help protect the site. Members can request financial assistance with some conservation projects, and signatory nations are expected to contribute to the conservation of world heritage sites. At the same time, the host country is expected to provide regular reports on the conditions of the site and efforts being undertaken to conserve it. Should the situation change so that key aspects of the site's intrinsic value are lost, the World Heritage Committee may choose to revoke a designation. This has only been done a few times, but it is always a possibility.

All of this means that the Asuka and Fujiwara capital sites are now eligible for certain types of financial assistance and international aid to help further preserve and even restore certain aspects, such as the tomb murals in the Takamatsuzuka and Kitora kofun. But let's talk about the sites that have actually been included, and to do that, we'll go through in roughly chronological order, based on the timeline that was given by Japan in the nomination documents, and what makes the most sense for narrative cohesion. That said, it is important to note that the dates on the timeline in the UNESCO nominating document are where we first see mentions of the monuments, not necessarily when the temples were first constructed or anything like that. If you want to learn more, check out the documentation submitted on the UNESCO world heritage website.

And speaking of learning more, many of the sites we are about to discuss we have covered in previous episodes—though some more than others. We'll call out relevant episodes as we can, but you can also find out more by searching on our website, sengokudaimyo.com, for more information about any of these topics.

Let's start with Asukadera, or Asuka Temple. The nominating document notes that it was completed in 596, though it had been started quite a bit earlier. We discussed Askua-dera and many of the other temples back in episode 142, though Asuka-dera itself has been a part of the story since at least Episode 92, with the rise of Soga no Umako. Asuka-dera, as you may recall, started off as a private temple for the Soga family, though they were so intertwined with the royal family that it almost didn't make a difference. For the longest time it was the primary temple site at least in the Asuka region, and defined what Buddhism looked like early on. Later it would be included as one of the Four Great Temples, and it would eventually move to Nara, though a temple would continue to operate on the site until the modern day. That said, through fires and reduced patronage, the current temple is much reduced from its former glory. Still, archeologies have found indications at the site demonstrating the true extent of the temple at the height of its power and influence, and how it truly played a key role in numerous events surrounding the building of a continental style state government.

Speaking of the Soga family, the next site on the list, dated to 626, is Ishibutai kofun. Ishibutai kofun was originally a square kofun, or Houfun, thought to be the resting place of Soga no Umako, the Grand Minister and head of the Soga family who led it to prominence in the age of Kashikiya Hime, aka Suiko Tenno. We talked about his passing in episode 103. Excavations have suggested that the tomb took up an area about 85 meters to a side. This included an outer moat and an inner, platform, about 50 meters square. The burial chamber is a horizontal stone chamber created with impressive megaliths—a fancy word that just means "big stones". In this case we are talking about stones that rival or even dwarf those at monuments like the famous Stonehenge, in England. The stones are part of what give it its name, Ishibutai, or Stone Stage, because unlike in other kofun, these ones are exposed. There is a theory that after the fall of the Soga family, and the deaths of Soga no Iruka and Soga no Emishi, the tomb was deliberately uncovered as a form of posthumous punishment.

Because it is not a tomb under the care of the Imperial Household Agency, Ishibutai kofun has seen extensive excavation from 1933 to 1975. That said, most of the funerary goods were likely stolen a long time ago. There were some various bits and pieces found here and there—gilt and bronze implements and earthenware shards, but otherwise nothing truly significant. They did find evidence of other tombs, nearby. Perhaps ironically it seems that these other tombs were leveled to make room for Ishibutai kofun, making its own uncovering feel somewhat karmic, in a way.

The next site, if we were to follow the timeline, is the Asuka Palace site. This actually encompasses the site of at least four different palaces, which we discussed back in episode 134, with a blogpost showing the various palace remains, if you want to compare them. In 630 we have the construction of the Okamoto Palace of Kashikiya Hime. Then, in 643, we have the Itabuki Palace built for Takara Hime during her first reign as Kogyoku Tenno. This was the location of the famous Isshi Incident, when Takara Hime's son, Naka no Oe, instituted the coup against Soga no Iruka and his father, killing Iruka in court in front of his mother. For more on that, check out episode 106. It was later used when she and Naka no Oe left the Toyosaki Naniwa Palace and returned to Asuka.

It may be during the time of the Itabuki Palace that another one of the monuments was built. This is the Shobuike Kofun. The nomination document doesn't give a precise date for this one, and we really only know for certain that it was built in the 7th century, but they place it on the timeline shortly after the events of 643. Like Ishibutai kofun, it is a hofun, or square kofun, surrounded by a moat with a horizontal burial chamber. At only 30 meters long, it is not as large or as prominent as Ishibutai Kofun, possibly indicating that the occupants were not as prominent or that kofun building as a whole was falling out of fashion. Inside, there were two stone coffins, in the "house shape", meaning the lid had a peaked roof appearance. In addition, the interior of the coffins was lacquered, making these unique in the archipelago. Finally, perhaps as is the case with Ishibutai kofun, the mound appears to have been deliberately dismantled at some point in the early 8th century, when Fujiwara-kyo was still the capital.

We do not know who was buried at Shobuike Kofun, but there are two theories. One theory proposes that, given the unique features, it may have been a member of the royal family. Another theory suggests that it may be a tomb for members of the Soga family. This theory is connected to the idea that Ishibutai is the tomb of Soga no Umako. Given its shape and similarities, perhaps this tomb is for a relative? In addition, though not part of the World Heritage Site nomination, there is a nearby square kofun known as Koyamada Kofun. There is a theory that this other tomb might also have been a royal tomb—perhaps even a first burial for Tamura no Ohokimi, aka Jomei Tenno. However, there is another theory that these two tombs, together, make up the tombs of Soga no Emishi and Soga no Iruka. That would explain them both being of similar shapes, and similar to the kofun thought to be that of Soga no Umako. It could also explain why Shobuike kofun was later destroyed, like with Ishibutai Kofun.

Shortly after Shobuike Kofun was thought to have been built, the court moved to Naniwa for a time, before eventually returning to the Itabuki Palace. Then, in 656, we have the Nochi-no-Okamoto Palace, aka the Later Okamoto Palace, built after the Itabuki palace burned down. It was repurposed by Ohoama when he brought the court back from Ohotsu, and then expanded with the Ebinoko Enclosure, among other changes, turning it into the Kiyomihara palace, where Ohoama and then Uno no Sarara ruled until the completion of the Fujiwara Palace around 694.

Around the same time as the Later Okamoto Palace was the construction of the Sakafuneishi Ritual Site. This site is located on a hill on the east side of the Asuka valley, overlooking the Asuka palace site. There they have found stone walls, a strange carved stone with channels for what appears to be water or liquid for some kind of ritual purpose, and, towards the bottom of the hill, a stone turtle basin and water spout that appears to have once been connected to a spring.

Of all of the included sites, this is perhaps the most enigmatic in terms of how it was used and what was going on there. It is likely that this is what is referred to in the Chronicle as the Tou no Mine site, where it is said that they built an enclosure encircling two tsuki trees, calling the site the Futatsuki Palace. That said, today the name "tou-no-mine" is applied to a peak some distance further up the valley and into the mountains, and I do not believe that any concrete evidence of a "palace" has been found at either location. Still, it demonstrates that there was something going on that was important enough to build walls and create intricate stone carvings—not something we necessarily find everywhere, though they are particularly prolific in the Asuka region once you consider all the various stone carvings that have been located there. Current thinking seems to suggest that it was a site where sovereigns from Kashikiya Hime through Uno no Sarara conducted rites associated with ascension to the throne.

The walls show evidence of being built earlier in the 7th century, which we discussed in Episode 118, and then damaged during the incredibly powerful Nankai earthquake during the Hakuho era. We talked about this earthquake back in episode 139, along with other natural disasters. This was an earthquake of immense power, known as a Nankai Megathrust Earthquake, that caused destruction across the archipelago, from Shikoku up through the Kanto region. Walls show evidence of being repaired in Temmu's time and the site appears to have been in use up through the 9th century. This means it was still being used in some capacity even after the court had moved up to Heian-kyo, in modern Kyoto, but who knows by whom.

By the way, I feel like I should address something here. Often times there is a bit of an archaeological joke that if you don't know what something is it gets termed a "ritual site" or a "ritual implement". And, granted, "ritual" does not necessarily mean "religious". Brushing your teeth each day could be considered a ritual. So is the inauguration of a new president or prime minister. It just refers to something that we do regularly, usually as part of a societal tradition. Often it is symbolic, though sometimes it can have a greater function. So in all likelihood whatever was happening at the Sakafuneishi site probably was a kind of "ritual", whether it was religious or not, but we just don't have enough info to know what that might have looked like. The physical evidence does not conform to any other well known practice, so we are left guessing.

Compare this to another "ritual" site, the next on our list: The Mizuochi site. When it was first discovered in 1972, it was clear that it was important. There was a large building foundation, in the shape of a square podium, faced with paving stones. It was also near to Asukadera and the location where various stone figures had been found at the turn of the century. It would take several more years to discern enough features to come to the realization of what it was for. This was due to the discovery of highly unusual features and artifacts.

For instance, there is the central building, designated SB200. It had pillars set on base stones, forming a grid pattern in a square—four spans long on each side. This is unusual compared to other buildings on the site, which had more conventional pillars embedded in the ground. Each span of the pillars at SB200 was a uniform distance. The podium on which the building was placed was just under 11 meters on each side, and a little more than a meter in height. The pillar bases were further strengthened under the floor level, meaning that the resulting structure would have been remarkably sturdy. In the center of the building was a stone platform, set about a meter below the surface, where they found the remains of a large and small lacquered wooden boxes. Around the platform were buried wooden culverts and copper pipes, which would have been able to carry water to and from the site.

There was nothing else like this discovered anywhere else, but given the nature of everything, it seemed to make sense that this was the site of the clepsydra, the water clock, which Naka no Oe is said to have built. Pottery shards from around the 650s and 660s seem to back up this identification, and simulations have demonstrated how the water clock may have actually worked. As such, the site seems to have been fairly well identified, which is really remarkable, and provides an incredible link to that era. Not only that, but the technology demonstrated was incredibly advanced for its time. As such, it truly is a remarkable site.

For more, check out Episode 127, where we talked more in depth about the importance of time and direction in Ancient Yamato.

The next site on the list is the Kengoshizuka Kofun. This mounded tomb is said to have been built around 667 CE—around the time that Yamato was supporting Baekje in a failed attempt to stave off that country's destruction at the hands of the Silla-Tang alliance. This is an octagonal shaped kofun—a shape which is thought to have only been used by members of the royal family. The academic position is that this is the tomb of Takara Hime—aka Saimei Tennou—who had died just as Yamato was starting to send troops to the Korean peninsula. This theory is at odds with the Imperial Household Agency, which has designated a different tomb—Kurumaki-Kenno Kofun—as Saimei Tennou's mausoleum

The story as it is recounted in the Nihon Shoki goes something like this. As Yamato was gathering forces to defend Baekje—see episodes 123 and 124 for what happened—Takara Hime passed away at the temporary court set up in Asakura, in modern Kyushu. With Yamato just about to launch a military campaign, they couldn't also hold a royal funeral, so they had her body taken back to the Nara basin.. Takara Hime's remains were temporarily interred at the plain of the Asuka River—Asuka-gawara. It wouldn't be until after the conflict was over—a little more than 5 years later—that she would be buried.

At that time, we are told that she was buried together with Royal Princess Hashibito, her sister-in-law, at Wochi Hill—little market hill—and that the royal granddaughter, Princess Ohota, was buried in front. And indeed, the layout of Kengoshizuka Kofun has space for two coffins, and the archeologists found evidence of another burial in "front" of the kofun. So in all ways this seems to accord with the Chronicles, though the Imperial Household Agency has not chosen to change its designation. I suspect that if they did it might cause some issues due to the limits of what archaeologists are allowed to do with tombs designated as royal mausoleums.

Kengoshizuka Kofun has been remarkably reconstructed, so that you can go and see what it probably looked like when it was first built. Since it was not designated as an imperial mausoleum by the Imperial Household Agency, archaeologists were able to excavate Kengoshizuka, and they found some remarkable finds, including a particularly spectacular coffin fitting made of cloisonne hexagonal plates with images of flowers that were connected to each other. There also appears to have been a coffin made with lacquered linen, rather than the stone or tuff coffins found elsewhere.

So that's Kengoshizuka Kofun. That's #7 on our list. Moving on to #8, on the timeline at 673, it is Kawara-dera, and I'm going to lump this in with Tachibana-dera, which is noted on the timeline at 680. In fact, the nominating document proposes a much earlier timeline for the start of Tachibana-dera, starting in the 640s, with Kawara-dera in the 660s, about two decades later.

These two temples sit across from one another, and at one time they appear to have been coupled together as a monastery and a nunnery. In fact, the nominating documents call out Tachibana-dera as Japan's oldest nunnery.

The actual founding of these two temples is somewhat in dispute. Let me start with Tachibana-dera. Tachibana-dera claims to have been founded by none other than the legendary Shotoku Taishi. It is said that the land of Tachibana-dera was the area of the palace where Prince Umayado, aka Shotoku Taishi, was born, and that in 606 he had the property turned into a temple. As such, it claims to be one of seven major temples built by the Prince. However, we don't have any actual documentation for the temple until it shows up in 680, due to the report of a fire. We do see it in numerous poems in the Man'yoshu, which is one of the ways we can also tell that it was a nunnery.

More information can be gleaned from the archaeological excavations at the site. The original temple was clearly built on the same Baekje designs as others of that period. In an interesting twist, it appears as though the temple was not oriented north to south, as others were, but rather it was oriented west to east. This would have had it facing the royal palace, initially, in a configuration very similar to that of Shitennoji, in Osaka, or Yamadadera, which is also one of the sites included in UNESCO World Heritage designation.

The original temple had a middle gate, a pagoda, a main hall—or kondo—and a lecture hall (Koudou). It was surrounded by a walled corridor. Some of the roof tiles that have been found appear to be from the first quarter of the 7th century, but there are many more from the mid-7th century, suggesting that full-scale construction wasn't carried out until that period. None of the original buildings appear to have survived, though there is an Asuka era stone statue, as well as various important cultural properties that have been preserved, and excavations have given us an idea of what it looked like, originally.

Compare that to Kawara-dera, which sits to the north of Tachibana-dera. We've talked about Kawara-dera before, as it was eventually designated one of the four national temples. It was clearly built at a later date than Tachibana-dera, though when, exactly, is still unclear. There is mention of a Kawara-dera in an entry for 653, but even then, the Chronicles note that may have actually been at Yamada-dera, on the other side of Asuka, indicating that even the Chroniclers weren't entirely sure. That leaves the first clean mention of the temple at 673, in the reign of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tenno.

There is a note, prior to this, in about 656, which talks about "Kawara no Miya", or the Kawara Palace. This is where Takara Hime briefly moved after the fires damaged the Itabuki Palace, which was rebuilt into the Later Okamoto Palace. It is thought that Kawara-dera is on the site of that temporary palace, and it is possible that the building of that palace lent something to the eventual creation of Kawara-dera.

Kawara-dera has a unique layout, known specifically as the Kawara-dera style temple layout. Although the overall temple is built on a north-south axis, the west main hall faces east, towards the pagoda, in the southern courtyard. There was then a central main hall, and then the northern courtyard, with the koudou, or lecture hall, facing south. There is also evidence that the east gate was sizeable—possibly larger than the south gate. If so, it may be that this temple, like Tachibana-dera, was also facing east—facing the palace—but it was, at the same time, also on the same north-south access as other buildings and facilities. This almost seems like they were perhaps compromising between facing the palace and utilizing the continental idea of a north-south alignment. I almost wonder if the pagoda and western kondou weren't first built and then someone decided to change the orientation mid-way through the building process. Either way, it is definitely unique.

Although Kawara-dera was designated as one of the four national temples, it is the only temple that was not eventually moved up to Heijo-kyo, or Nara, when the capital eventually moved up there. There are numerous theories as to why, but regardless of that, it stayed in Asuka and was no longer considered a national temple. Over time it declined, and repairs could not be maintained across the entire complex. Today, a successor temple, Gufuku-ji, sits on the site, but it is much reduced. Fortunately, you can still see many of the exposed footings and get an idea for just what this temple was like back in its heyday.

Now since we've mentioned it, it is probably worth talking about Yamada-dera, which is also on the list. Like the others, there is a small successor temple to the north, but most of the ancient Yamada-dera grounds are visible, and if you go out there you can clearly see where all the buildings were. There are signs and raised platforms depicting where the various buildings were at, so you can easily see what was there. Furthermore, if you check out the Asuka Historical Museum, they have a remarkably well-preserved section of one of the walls of the gallery from the temple, including some roof elements. It appears to have fallen down during a fire, and other material must have fallen on top of it so that the fire could not consume that section, leaving it in incredible shape.

Yamada-dera is part of the Hosso sect—that is the sect following the teachings of the monk Xuanzang. We talked about Xuanzang, and the monks who studied with him, back in episodes 120 to 122. It is said to have been founded by Soga no Kurayamada no Ishikawa no Maro. He was a relative of Soga no Emishi who supported Prince Naka no Oe in his coup in 645. Soga no Kurayamada eventually became Udaijin, or Minister of the Right, and he was essential in implementing the Taika reforms. Long story short, he was slandered, and fled to Yamada-dera, which was still under construction. Rather than being taken by government forces, he took his own life, as well as that of his wife and eight children. You can listen to the whole story back in Episode 112. All of that is said to have happened here at that temple, in the year 649. Perhaps because of the stain of that incident, the temple construction appears to have been halted for a time. It wouldn't be completed until 685, when Ohoama and his wife, Uno no Sarara, a direct descendant of Soga no Kurayamada, were on the throne.

Finally, there is one more temple from this early period that is mentioned, and that is Hinokuma-dera. Of all of the temples so far, this one we probably have mentioned the least in the main podcast. Hinokuma-dera is located to the southwest of the main Asuka valley, south of the famous Takamatsuzuka kofun. It is first mentioned in a record dated to 686. That indicates it must have been built some time prior, and archaeological excavations seem to place it at the second half of the 7th century, with the pagoda and main hall being completed in the late 7th century. The temple continued to be maintained through the 8th century, but declined after the Heian period when the pagoda and lecture hall collapsed. In the early 20th century a local Shinto shrine was relocated here, and remains, today.

Hinokuma-dera was built as a private temple by the Yamato no Aya. The Yamato no Aya are an intriguing group of people. The name "Aya" implies a group that was originally employed as weavers, a technology brought over from the continent. Indeed, they are said to have been largely immigrants who came and brought the technology with them. The Aya were broken into different groups, with the Yamato no Aya being one of the more powerful. The name appears again and again in the Chronicles, though in the time of Ohoama they were put on notice as a clan. We aren't told what they did, exactly. They seem to have made their way back into the court's good graces over time, however.

Hinokuma-dera is interesting in that it is much smaller than the other temples we have discussed, and the form is quite different. It isn't organized along cardinal directions, but rather with the koudou, or lecture hall, in the northwest and the kondou, or main hall, in the southeast. The pagoda was between the two, slightly off-center to the northeast, directly across from the main gate, which faced southwest. This means that you would enter from the southwest into a large, rectangular courtyard. You could be facing a pagoda near the rear wall, with a lecture hall to your left and the main image hall to your right. This is compared to Baekje temples that were on the periphery of the Baekje capital, and this may have been in a similar situation. Based on the surrounding geography, it appears that some of the choices may have been made to conform with local geologic features, such as the ridge that it is on.

It is interesting, however, for its uniqueness, especially as a private temple that did not have the resources of the court. There were probably quite a few of these kinds of temples that we just don't see or hear about in the record. When the court moved, first up to Heijo-kyo, but later on to Heian-kyo, in modern Kyoto, the head of the Yamato no Aya no doubt moved as well, and that probably led to the temple's decline, over time.

Speaking of the court, there is one more part of the Asuka court that we should touch on before we leave the era of the Asuka palace. At some point, probably related to the Later Okamoto Palace, the court created a pond and garden. This Asuka Pond Garden site is first mentioned in 685, though it likely existed for some time. Evidence suggests that it was built around the same time as the later Okamoto Palace, so sometime around 656, and based on excavations, we know that there was a south and north pond, divided by a middle bank. Water flowed from the south pond to the north pond through a wooden pipe in that middle bank. The south pond had a pentagonal shape, about 65 meters long, east to west, and 55 meters wide, north to south. It was only 30 cm at its deepest point, with two islands in the pond itself. The north pond was 36 meters east to west and 52 meters north to south, and it was up to 4 meters deep. There was a stone overflow channel that was built for water to flow back into the Asuka river. There was also a stone fountain, like that found at the Sakafuneishi site, and evidence of buildings and a wall around the site. There has also been analysis of seed pollen, indicating what kinds of vegetation might have been grown in the garden.

This was a lavish area that was purpose-built for entertainments of various kinds. This is the area that the royal family and various nobles likely adjourned to at the end of the day for relaxation and for various banquets and other such gatherings.

Of course, not all the court proceedings were so joyful. In 686, Ohoama died, and for the next couple of years the court business was taken up with eulogies and memorials. This is also when they built the next site included in the list: The mounded tomb of Temmu Tennou and, eventually, Jitou Tennou. The tomb is an octagonal kofun, similar to the Kengoshizuka kofun for Takara Hime. It is built to the southwest of the Asuka basin, a fair distance from the palace. However, this positioning also puts it directly south of the site of the new Fujiwara Palace. As the Fujiwara capital and palace site had already been selected, they would have been able to build this tomb in relation to the future palace, creating a direct north-south link between the two. It is also along the same ridgeline as the tomb of Kengoshizuka and the tomb attributed to Kinmei Tennou and Princess Kibi no Himemiko.

The octagonal tomb was built in five tiers. It is about 42 meters on a side, built with rammed earth and then covered, originally, with dressed stones, while the surrounding area was paved. Ohoama was buried in a sealed stone burial chamber in a dry-lacquered linen-made coffin, similar to what was found, again, at Kengoshizuka. Later, when Uno no Sarara passed away, her urn was added to the tomb.

Speaking of that, I cannot believe I didn't mention this in the last episode on Queen Uno no Sarara, but yes, she was cremated. In fact, she is the first Yamato sovereign to have been cremated in the Buddhist style, rather than to have her body buried intact. Today, almost cremation is the default in Japan—to the point that it actually has caused some issues with people who, for religious reasons, request a different type of burial. However, at this point, it was still somewhat new. Prior to Buddhism, all indications are that bodies were simply buried. Buddhism brought in the concept of at least four different types of funerary rites. There is dosou, or earth burial, but there was also suisou, water burial; fuusou, wind—or "air"—burial; and then kasou, fire burial. Suisou would be committing a body to water, and fuusou generally means leaving the body on a stand, out in the open, to allow the body to decompose while birds, ideally vultures, come and do their work. Of these, "kasou", fire burial or cremation, is linked to the historical Buddha, whose physical body is said to have been cremated, with the bones and teeth left behind considered holy relics. That Uno no Sarara requested cremation would seem to indicate her own support of Buddhism and Buddhist institutions.

The tomb of Temmu and Jitou has remained largely intact—at least compared to some that we have discussed this episode-- but not inviolate. Over time, the site was allowed to become overgrown with trees and other vegetation. In 1235 the tomb was robbed and in 1881 it was officially designated as an Imperial Mausoleum by the Imperial Household Agency, which now manages the site. You can approach up to a point, but the tomb itself is largely off-limits to the public.

Speaking of Uno no Sarara's support of Buddhism, we've already talked about her connections to Yakushi-ji, the next site on our list. This temple was commissioned by Ohoama when his wife, Uno no Sarara, grew unexpectedly ill in 680. She did recover, and the temple would eventually be considered one of the four National temples of the Yamato state. It appears to have been built—possibly shifted slightly—specifically in line with the new avenues being laid out for Fujiwara-kyo, the new capital, and it fits neatly into place, taking up an entire city block. When the capital moved, the temple was also moved. The new temple sits up near modern Nara, in the area known as Nishi-no-kyou—the West (side of the) capital. For the new site, the court may have used some of the materials from the original temple, though there does seem to have been a continued presence at the Fujiwara capital site until the 11th century. To avoid confusion, the temple in the old Fujiwara capital site is referred to as "Moto-Yakushiji", meaning the Real or Original Yakushi Temple.

Yakushiji was commissioned in 680, but work on the temple wasn't completed until 698, four years after the move to the new Fujiwara Palace. Key features at this time were its size and its double pagodas, rather than just the single pagoda common in earlier temples. This mimicked temple innovations happening on the continent, and was later adopted by several temples in the new capital of Heijo-kyo.

Another national temple from around this time, also included in the nomination letter, is Daikandaiji. Like Yakushiji, this temple was a grand statement of the Yamato state's ambitions. Both were large temples that would have stood out, and as national temples they were symbols of state power and authority in matters both secular and spiritual.

We discussed all of this in a previous episode, Episode 142, where we covered the four national temples, so I don't want to belabor it too much other than to give a brief overview. In summary, what we know as Daikandaiji today is very likely the old Kudara Ohodera, Kudara, in this instance, being spelled with the same kanji as for "Baekje". Kudara Ohodera was the largest of the Asuka and Fujiwara era temples. Its pagoda was over 80 meters tall, one of the tallest in Yamato at that time, and the main hall rivaled that of the Daigokuden, the main hall of the Fujiwara palace.

It also appears to have been moved twice. First it was moved from its original location closer to the Asuka palace. And then it appears to have been shifted to align with the avenues of the new Fujiwara capital. The name was also changed. "Kudara Ohodera" likely referred to the location where the temple was first founded by Tamura, aka Jomei Tennou. It was then moved to Asuka and took on the name "Takechi Ohodera", given its new location, but then was renamed to Ohotsukasa no Ohodera, the Great Temple of the High Officials, or something like that. This same name, read with the on'yomi reading, becomes "Daikandaiji". The temple was later moved to Heijo-kyo, where it was renamed to "Daianji", which means something like the Temple of Great Safety or Protection.

There is another story that says that the temple actually originated in the Kumagori dojo created by the legendary Shotoku Taishi, but, like so many such stories, that may have been added later to increase the temple's prestige.

As with so many of these temples, when the move was made to Heijo-kyo, the temple lost its national status, but remained active. Without the upkeep by the court, it eventually declined, finally disappearing almost entirely. Remains were rediscovered in the Edo and Meiji period, with major excavations in the 1970s and 80s. From this, there is evidence of fire, even before construction was completed. Indeed, there is a record of fire in 711. The temple was likely under construction for much of the period of the Fujiwara capital's existence.

This is probably as good a point as any to talk about the Fujiwara Palace itself. I would note that the World Heritage site designation only includes the palace site, and not the entire capital city of Fujiwara-kyo. That is probably for the best, as findings have suggested that the ancient capital was built on a plan far grander that previously thought.

Initially, it was believed that the Fujiwara capital was built similar to Heijo-kyo and Heian-kyo, which is to say that it was modeled after the Tang capital of Chang'an. This model creates a rectangular city with the main palace complex at the far north of the city. Lower classes are typically housed in the southern regions while upper classes and nobility are provided land in the northern areas of the city. Part of the reason to believe that the city was laid out like this has to do with the three mountains: Mt. Unebi, Mt. Miminashi, and Mt. Kagu. If the palace were located at the northern end of the city, then the city would fit rather nicely in the plains between these three mountains.

However, it appears that the plans for Fujiwara-kyo were much grander, and it appears that the Fujiwara palace sat not at the northern top of the capital, but instead it was in the middle. This more closely approximates the ideal Confucian model, which created a square city divided into nine districts with the palace in the center. However, it also means that the city grid is interrupted by the mountains, particularly by Mt. Miminashi, in the north. To cover all of that land would be untenable, and much of it has been built up or under cultivation for centuries.

Furthermore, it is unclear how built up Fujiwara-kyo ever was. Imagine trying to just create a city from scratch. Not only was it about building the temples and the palace, but about all of the other houses, which would have been organized by the individual owners. One also has to wonder just how many workers there were, and materials, to do all of this. If much of this was done as traditional wooden buildings, then many of the blocks may not have left any significant remains, though new construction in the area does perform exploratory archaeology just in case. There are a lot of interesting features that have been found.

However, let's focus just on the Fujiwara Palace. As I've previously pointed out—just back in Episode 152, for example, the Fujiwara Palace was, in many ways, getting back to the type of palace that the Toyosaki Naniwa Palace had tried to be. This was a massive State complex. The overall property appears to have been a square, with nine gates—once again, mimicking the geometric perfection suggested in ancient sources. That wall, which was defined by post-holes in the ground, was also surrounded by a moat. The south central gate was known as the Suzaku-mon, or Suzaku gate, named for Suzaku, the crimson bird of the south. This was at the north end of Suzaku Oji, or Suzaku Avenue, the central road of the Fujiwara capital. This road was 24 meters wide, with 4 meter ditches on either side. The ditches would have carried water throughout the city, while also allowing the city to drain water during large rains.

From the Suzaku gate to the north the palace opened up to the first courtyard, with two building where officials could prepare for the day. Originally this would have been the place for officials to change into their formal robes, though later they were commanded to show up to work already dressed. From there, once it opened, they would pass through another gate into the Choudouin, or State Hall. Here, the 8 bureaus, or ministries, each had a Choudou, or court hall, where they would perform their work. There were also four other halls for other governmental work.

Besides the southern gate, there were gates on the east and west, which led to further government offices to the west and east of the court. A fourth gate, at the north end of the Choudouin enclosure, would lead to the Daigokuden, the Great Audience Hall. This was part of a reduced enclosure. Two buildings have been discovered to the east and west of the enclosure, and north of the enclosure would have led to the private quarters of the sovereign and their family.

The government buildings are more obvious than some others—many of the buildings were built in the continental style, meaning with stone footings, leaving a lot of evidence of their existence. Meanwhile, the buildings of the sovereign's private residence were likely still in the indigenous style—plain wood with posts sunk directly into the ground, and thatched roof. That would all leave a lot fewer traces, not to say that they haven't ever found anything.

Today, the Fujiwara Palace site is a large open area where many of the features that have been found are indicated with modern crimson colored pillars, demonstrating where the various pillars were found. At the same time, any above-ground reconstructions would have be conjectural, as we don't have enough remaining to know exactly what the palace looked like beyond the pillar locations.

This palace and the city was ambitious. It was huge and clearly meant as a permanent capital. The fact that it was only occupied until about 710, when the capital moved north, to Heijou-kyou, is something we'll talk about in a later episode. But still, it was absolutely an incredible move. Think of how much labor this took and what kind of costs were involved? This was truly a flex of the state's ability to mobilize labor to be able to do all of this, and generally marks the moment where the Yamato government really came into its own. It also marks the period where the name "Yamato" is thought to have been officially changed to refer to "Nihon", the "Origin of the Sun", the name by which Japan would be known ever since. It really is a symbol of Japan's changing state.

There are only three more monuments included in the World Heritage Site designation, and they are all tombs.

The first is Nakaoyama Kofun. This is another octagonal kofun, approximately 19.5 meters from one side to the other. It is only three tiers, as opposed to the five tiers of the tomb of Temmu and Jitou, and similarly covered in stone and surrounded by stone pavement. The sealed burial chamber is narrow—designed for an urn rather than for a full-body coffin. This is the first such mound clearly built to accommodate Buddhist style cremation, rather than a coffin. While the keyhole shaped kofun had stopped being utilized for some time, this appears to put the final seal on the coffin, as it were, of the kofun building period, which had started back in the mid-3rd century. Certainly, royal tombs continued to be built in the form of mountains, but they would stop having the same kind of artificial mound.

It is unclear who was buried in the mound. It was plundered around the 13th century, and there was considerable damage noted in the Edo period. However, given Kengoshizuka Kofun and the kofun of Temmu and Jitou Tennou, it seems hard to deny the general consensus that this is the tomb of none other than Karu—that is to say Monmu Tennou. However, as with Kengoshizuka Kofun, the Imperial Household Agency has named a different kofun, that of Kurihara-tsuka'ana Kofun, slightly to the south of Nakaoyama. I would note that while this is an octagonal kofun, similar to the others we have seen, the Kurihara kofun, aka the Hinokuma Anko Misasagi, is a round kofun, which, in the consideration of modern scholarship, is not generally thought to have been a shape used for a royal tomb.

There are two other tombs on the world heritage list that are round tombs, however—though they are not thought to have been royal tombs. These are the Takamatsuzuka and Kitora kofun, and both of them have incredible features that are considered of particular importance to the indication of the development of the state. This is because in both tombs elaborate tomb mural paintings were discovered.

The murals of the Kitora kofun are perhaps the simpler between the two. The Kitora murals have the four directional guardians on the walls of the tomb. Again, we talked about this back in episode 127. It was the idea that there was a directional guardian for each of the four cardinal directions. This includes Genbu, the black tortoise of the north; Byakkou, the White Tiger of the West; Seiryuu, the Blue (or green) Dragon of the East; and Suzaku, the Red Bird of the South. These descriptions were heavily tied in with various continental ideas of what would be known as "feng shui", including different ideas of color, direction, and concepts of yin and yang. The Kitora kofun clearly shows these four guardians.

Based on the style of the tomb and the paintings, it is assumed that this tomb was built in the very beginning of the 8th century. Combined with tomb goods found, while we don't know who was buried there it is very likely that it was either a royal prince or high ranking noble. It has been suggested that this could have been the tomb for the Minister of the Right, others have suggested that it could be Royal Prince Takechi, who died in the late 7th century, or possibly even a high ranking member of the Baekje nobility living in the archipelago since the fall of their country, given some of the continental features of the tomb and its murals.

In addition to the spectacular directional guardians, on the ceiling of Kitora Kofun is a depiction of the stars. This star chart has been the focus of considerable study, as it depicts the stars in the sky as they might have been seen from the ground. Though there are some errors, it is remarkably accurate, and it has been heralded as the oldest such star chart in the world. There are earlier depictions of the sky, like the Nebra Sky Disc, from modern Nebra, in Germany, which dates to about 1800-1600 BCE, but those are more like an astronomical rule, rather than a chart.

It is also interesting that the positions of the stars don't exactly correspond with the sky over the Fujiwara capital: instead, it seems that the latitude better fits with the capital of Pyongyang in Goguryeo. This opens up lots of intriguing possibilities about how this star chart came to be, and who created it. It may be that some of the errors we see in the star positions come from taking a star chart possibly from the Tang court, and then localizing it to the Goguryeo capital in Pyongyang. That chart then appears to have made its way to Japan where it was used in the Kitora kofun. That means that the artist wasn't necessarily directly looking at the sky at the time, but rather looking at a depiction, probably drawn on paper which has since been lost. All of this points to the availability of, and importance placed on, astronomical information at the time.

In the Takamatsuzuka Kofun we similarly have directional animals, although in that case Suzaku, in the south, has been lost. There is also a depiction of the stars, though it is more based on the zodiac, with constellations depicted in the various "houses" of the sky, rather than a true chart of the sky. Most significantly in this tomb, however, are depictions of courtiers – groups of male and female attendance - in what appears to be court clothing, and indeed this is the best depiction we have of what court clothing may have looked like at this time. It very much is in keeping with the clothing we see on the continent. It is possible that the clothing depicted is not actually what was in use in the court, but possibly clothing from the continent as it was depicted in drawings and the like. However, the style of clothing does seem to match the continental style clothing we see later in the Nara period, and so it does seem to be our best source for the clothing of the time barring us finding actual garments or further depictions.

Both of these tombs are stunning, and have greatly increased our knowledge of the world of the court of 8th century Japan. However, they are also both extremely fragile and in need of conservation. Since being opened, humidity levels in the tombs have risen, which has led to the deterioration of the paintings themselves. Japanese historians and conservators have gone to great lengths to preserve what they could before any more was lost, and there are depictions of what they looked like when they were originally found. One of the goals of the World Heritage determination appears to be the conservation of these incredible paintings for future generations to be able to see.

And there you have it. Those are the sites that were recently listed together on the UNESCO World Heritage list as the Ancient Capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara. I hope that everyone gets a chance to go see them in person some day—it really is a beautiful and rather bucolic area with history strewn all about. It isn't difficult to walk most of it, either, though to see everything you probably want at least a couple of days, not including various museums and other institutions. And, of course, the rest of the Nara basin is full of even more treasures, such as Horyuji temple, the Makimuku Palace site, Mt. Miwa, and then the ancient capital of Nara, just to name a few.

But that will have to be for another day. For now, I think I've gone on long enough. This has been a bit longer than most episodes, so I hope that you enjoyed it. We'll be back with our regularly scheduled episodes in a couple of weeks.

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And that's all for now. Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

We continue to look at the life and times of Uno no Sarara, aka Jito Tenno, female sovereign ruling in her own right. We look at some of the places she traveled to as sovereign and, ultimately, what she did to ensure that her grandson would succeed her.

For more, check our podcast blog page: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-154

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 154: Queen Uno no Sarara, Part II

Light drifted in from outside the grand audience hall. It filtered through barred windows and screens, and glinted off of bright gold and bronze accents, as well as the polished stone floor. Upon a raised dais, surrounded by curtains, sat the tennou, arrayed in all of his youthful majesty. Before him were princes and high ranking nobles, dressed in their finest court clothing. Rich brocades of silk and black gauze hats only added to the pomp and circumstance of the moment.

The nobles bowed and brought out a small tray. Upon it were seventeen scrolls, freshly made, representing the latest updates to the laws and punishments of the land. The nobles presented the work they had overseen, the culmination of a year's effort to further bring into line the organization of the state.

Off to the side, behind a screen of her own, Uno no Sarara watched the proceedings. She thought back on all that had happened to bring them to this point. This glittering hall was a far cry from the plain wooden structures of the old Kiyomihara palace. And while she had never visited them, she could only imagine that this must rival the courts on the continent. Everything that she and her husband had worked and fought for—all of the battles they had fought, and all of the friends and children they had lost—she watched as it all came to fruition.

The court was never going to be entirely peaceful—there would always be those striving for wealth and power, however they could attain it—but at this moment she no doubt felt as confident as she ever had that her efforts hadn't been for naught. No matter what happened from here, the State, and her line, would continue.

So let's recap: We started with Part I of Uno no Sarara's reign back in episode 152, and then last episode we took a bit of a detour to go more in depth on the history of Ise and of the worship of Amaterasu more generally. We talked about how there is good reason to believe that Ise shrine's prominence—and even many of the stories about Amaterasu and her importance in the story of the royal family—were either created or at least emphasized during the reigns of Ohoama and Uno no Sarara. We ended with a discussion of the Jingikan, the newly created government organization developed to deal with so-called "Kami Matters", formally bringing the administration various shrines under the administration of the State. Specifically it seems to have focused on State sponsored rituals. I have no doubt that they took charge of the rituals at court itself, and they were likely involved in the worship at Ise Shrine, as well as the shrines of Tatsuta and Hirose. On the other hand, as with the spread of Buddhist temples, direct State control was likely limited, at least at this stage, likely focused on the most influential institutions.

This episode I want to continue with Uno no Sarara's reign. She continued to make her mark on the court, tweaking how things worked, especially around the concept of rank. And then there were her various travels. These were mostly to her palace in Yoshino, but several other journeys, including a tour of the land of Kii—modern Wakayama prefecture—as well as a visit to her half-sister, Royal Princess Asuka. For all of that, however, the entry in the Nihon Shoki ends with what was perhaps one of the most direct and unique things she did: Ensuring a smooth transition of power to her grandchild, Prince Karu. And while in this episode we'll (spoiler alert) cover both this power transition and Uno no Sarara's eventual death, we won't be done with her reign and its impact after this episode. After all, there is still a lot going on around this time, and multiple different threads to pull on. I expect several more episodes to cover things, such as the creation of hunting and fishing preserves, Buddhist merit-making, crime and punishment, and more. There are also a few more people to talk about, such as Kakinomoto no Hitormaro, the court poet, and Fujiwara no Fubito and the establishment of the Fujiwara family as we know it.

So let's take a look at Uno no Sarara and what she was up to.

She was still very much putting her stamp on things, tweaking the codes and making edicts. One of the more impactful edicts would seem to be one where she had the government officials and people of the Home provinces all divided into nine classes. This seems to be introducing yet another rank system, though this one is a bit more technical than the ones that came before.

For one thing, it divided everyone up into nine ranks. To do this, the court were going to take a look at a period of up to 6 years for those who already had rank and up to 7 years for those who did not. The court—presumably court appointed judges—would use that period to evaluate individuals and slot them into a new system of nine classes. Those in the first four classes would be given cap-rank based on their individual merits, the services that they had performed, and the importance of their house. There isn't really a mention about the other five classes, but as they were theoretically the lower classes of society, it may not have been quite so pertinent. BTW, of the three things that they were using to determine cap-rank, that last one, the importance of the individual's house, strikes me as the nod to the fact that the Japanese had not yet gotten away from the idea of "kabane" type hierarchy. Granted, it isn't like family was unimportant in the Tang court, the Japanese were just being much more blatant and direct about it.

Once everyone was properly sorted into the appropriate cap-rank, new edicts were issued on the official court clothing, which we discussed in Episode 150, and if you check out the blogpost you should be able to see what that looked like.

I would note that the cap-rank system would eventually go away and be replaced by a rank system also based on 9 ranks, which then were broken up into upper and lower and junior and senior, so very similar to what we see with cap-rank, with some slight changes.

Uno no Sarara continued to make tweaks to the system, while working on the various large scale projects of the reign. She wasn't exactly a homebody, however. As she did all of this, she was regularly taking trips away from the capital.

For example, between 689 and 697 she took at least 30 trips to visit Yoshino, sometimes taking as many as five trips in a year. These were often short—a couple of days and then back to the grind of the court. However, that's all that we get. Based on the dates, we can at least make a few inferences. For one, she was going down in all seasons, so she really must have enjoyed it, and it doesn't seem like it was attached to any particular official date or ritual. Perhaps it just got her away from the pressure of official life.

Some of her travel appear to have been work trips. Her travel to Ise, which we talked about in the previous episodes, as well as things like traveling to visit the Castle of Takayasu and also to inspect horses at the embankment of Wani-no-kami. Those appear to have been both trips where she was keeping an eye on things. Other trips, however, provide fewer details. Mostly we know where she went. This included trips to Hatsuse, Kii, Takamiya, and Yonabari, in Uda. We are also told she ascended the Peak of Tou no Mine and later that she made another journey out to the Futatsuki Palace—presumably at the same place. And we also have a trip out to the country-house of Royal Princess Asuka.

Now Hatsuse, Kii, and Uda are all places we've previously talked about. They are all on the Kii peninsula. Hatsuse—or Hase—and Yonabari, in Uda, are both due east of modern Sakurai, following the Yamato upriver and then branching off to the aptly named Yonabari river. These areas are well-referenced in the rest of the Nihon Shoki.

"Kii" is a bit more ambiguous. Kii refers to the entire land of Kii, or Kii no Kuni—by the way, if you are familiar with the Japanese bookseller "Ki-no-kuni-ya", that name directly references the land of Kii as the family who started it were from Wakayama in Kii, where they served under the Kishu—or Kii—branch of the Tokugawa family during the Edo period. That said, there were others who also used the name "Kinokuni" as a locative name as well, and you will occasionally see it here or there, even outside of the famous bookstore.

The land of Kii is basically all of the southern Kii peninsula. On the west side, it starts at roughly Wakayama, and includes the mountainous regions south of the Nara basin, wrapping around to the east side of the peninsula, to just south of Ise. Today it is split between Wakayama prefecture and parts of Mie prefecture, including the towns of Kihoku—literally "Northern Kii"—and Taiki—"Big Kii". Today, "Taiki" is part of the Watarai district, Watarai being the name of the location where Ise shrine was located. So you can see that Kii basically included everything from one side of the peninsula to the other.

Most of the time, though, I would generally assume that travel to Kii is a reference to the nearby area of Wakayama, especially as there are other references to that area in the form of hunting and fishing restrictions, which we'll discuss more fully in a later episode.

This particular trip to Kii sounds like it was a bit of a longer trip, incorporating several locations. We know that it took roughly eleven days—about a week and a half. That's enough time to do quite a bit of sightseeing. In fact, shortly before leaving, Uno no Sarara says that she is going on a "tour" of the land of Kii, and as such the land-tax and poll-tax for Kii would not be collected for a year, since, instead, they were expected to support her visit so that she could travel in appropriate style and so that temporary palaces could be made available for her use.

Kii is an interesting place for Uno no Sarara to visit. It is mentioned occasionally throughout the chronicles, and its position puts it squarely in Yamato's sphere of influence. At the same time, its mountainous nature means that it was never quite as populated as regions like the Nara basin or the Kawachi plains, where the large, flat areas were better suited to wet rice paddy agriculture. In Kii, there are only a few areas really suitable for supporting large populations through agriculture alone, and even today the mountains make travel and construction in the area more difficult, so you don't have the highly concentrated population centers as in other regions. The area around modern Wakayama city provides some of the best land for agriculture, with some other coastal regions as well.

But it is mountains that Kii is known for, and the mountains often have spiritual significance. Mt. Koya, or Koyasan, would be found in 805 as the center of Shingon Buddhism, but well before that you have the Kumano shrines, also known as the Kumano Sanzan—the three mountains of Kumano.

There is a lot of evidence that worship at the three mountains of Kumano was heavily influenced by Buddhism and Buddhist traditions, but that this was a later influence on areas that were already important spiritual sites well before Buddhism arrived in the archipelago. The exact nature of worship is debated, but the area was important, with "Kumano" once treated as its own land, overseen by the Kumano Kuni no Miyatsuko. The deities of Kumano and the area more generally features in the Nihon Shoki in the legendary stories of Iware Biko, aka Jimmu Tenno.

The Kumano shrines are, ultimately, a series of shrines in the Kumano region, roughly 20-40 kilometers from each other. There are three main shrines—Kumano Hongu Taisha, Kumano Hayatama Taisha, and Kumano Nachi Taisha—known as the three mountains. There are numerous other shrines as well. There are three main deities worshipped, but then also another nine that are considered important as well, for at least twelve kami. The three main kami – Kumano Musubi no Ohokami, Hayatama no Ohokami, and Ketsumi Mikoto Ohokami – are also considered to be manifestations of Izanami, Izanagi, and Susano'o. Izanami and Izanagi are famously the progenitor kami of the archipelago, while Susano'o is the storm and ocean deity said to be the rambunctious and troublesome brother to Amaterasu Ohokami. It is quite likely that the connection with these other kami—who feature prominently in the later stories, was actually a later addition. Similarly, around the 9th century, the Kumano shrines were heavily influenced by Buddhism, which often co-opted indigenous kami worship by associating the native kami with incarnations of Buddhist figures. In this case: Thousand-armed Kannon, Yakushi—or the Medicine—Buddha, and Amithabha. I must say that associating Amithaba—or Amida—with Susano'o seems like a bold move. The deity who tossed a backwards flayed colt into Amaterasu's weaving hut is also the Buddha who made the promise that all who call on his name would find their way to the western pure land? I guess.

Together, the kami of Kumano are known as the Kumano Gongen, and there is a pilgrimage trail, even today, that leads between the various shrines and peaks, as well as various temple complexes in the area.

There is one other interesting connection with Kumano shrines, and that is the fact that there is a Kumano Taisha up in the Izumo region. Today, they claim that despite the names being identical, there are no actual ties between Kumano Taisha and the Kumano Sanzan. The Kumano Taisha of Izumo is actually considered the Ichinomiya, or most important shrine, of Izumo—even more important than the famous Izumo shrine, itself. It lies 30 minutes south of modern Matsue, and enshrines a kami known as Kushi-mikenu-no-Mikoto, said to be another name for none other than the famous Susano'o.

Kumano Taisha claims to have been first mentioned in the Nihon Shoki back in the time of Takara Hime, aka Saimei Tennou, in an entry from 659, though that entry simply states that the Izumo no Miyatsuko was to repair the shrine of the "Itsuki" kami, and doesn't specifically mention Kumano Taisha by name. There is an entry attributed to the Izumo fudoki, which claims a shrine was located on Mt. Kumano, identified with modern day Tenguyama. And then, Kumano Taisha appears in the Engi Shiki in the 10th century. Suffice it to say, there are many different ways that this can be interpreted.

Scholars have attempted to look into the potential connections between Kumano Taisha in Izumo and the Kumano Gongen of Wakayama, but it does not appear that there is a fully formed consensus. I would note that we certainly see various important worship centers branching out throughout the archipelago, setting up branches elsewhere, and we also see the association of various local kami with other, more famous kami, making the claim that they are simply another name for the same entity. This would appear to be one way to bring different groups into communion with each other, as it were, and helping to gloss over the potential difficulties found in diverse belief and worship practices.

As a side note, there is at least one other Kumano Taisha of note, found up in the Tohoku region. It claims to be the "Ise of Tohoku", with a focus on Izanami and Izanagi. It seems to claim a founding around the early 9th century at the Tenno's request. Given that, I think we can ignore it for our current discussion.

To bring this all back around, it is unclear if Uno no Sarara's tour of Wakayama included the Kumano shrines at this time. Certainly Kumano would play an important role in the legends and stories that the court was putting together, but what structures were in place at this point in the story are unclear. Her tour may have focused much more on the area around modern Wakayama. Her tour of the area took a total of eleven days, which is more than enough time to have seen a fair bit of the area, and certainly would have been enough time to get down to the Kumano region, but we don't have any clear details that I see to say exactly what happened.

Still, I do find it interesting to look at the juxtaposition of the Kumano shrine story with that of Ise. Both took on some aspects of the official stories of the founding of Japan and appear to have been important shrines for the court to some extent, and both the trip to Ise and the trip to Kumano were events such that local taxes were commuted for a time to help pay for the royal visit.

But whereas Ise would go on to reject the merging of Buddhism with local kami worship, Kumano appears to have embraced it. Kumano worship took on a highly syncretic character, with Buddhism and Kami worship becoming inextricably intertwined, maintaining that character even today, despite numerous historical attempts to extricate the two from each other.

Ultimately, Ise shrine would take pride of place as the national shrine of the royal family, but I can't help but wonder what would have happened if Kumano had been more ascendant.

Getting back to our discussion of Uno no Sarara's various peregrinations: we also have what appear to be two trips up to Tou-no-mine—the modern pronunciation for the name which Aston transliterates as "Tamu no Mine". This is the peak where, about forty years earlier, Takara Hime is said to have built a circular enclosure and called "Futa-tsuki" or two "Tsuki" trees palace. It was also known as "Ama-tsu-miya", the Heavenly Palace. The modern Tou-no-mine is a mountain to the southeast of Asuka, however, there is also a theory that the Tou-no-mine and Futa-tsuki palace were actually on a small hill just due east of the Kiyomihara palace site. This is where we find walls, the Sakafune-ishi stone, and other examples of work from the time when the Futa-tsuki palace would have been built.

That said, to get to Tou-no-mine, we are told it was a two day trip—one day out and one day back. That said, it wouldn't have all been spent traveling. In fact, Tou-no-mine, today, is under two hours walking distance. The site by the palace is much closer, and the entry for going to the Futatsuski is only mentioned on a single day. So none of that is particularly helpful, in my opinion. Ultimately, we know that it was a location near Asuka and that it was associated with Takara Hime, the last female sovereign in her own right—even though her reign was arguably run largely by her son, Crown Prince Naka no Oe.

Speaking of whom, Naka no Oe was not only the father of Uno no Sarara, but also of Royal Princess Asuka. So when Uno no Sarara went to Asuka's country house, also known as the Denso or Tadokoro, she was actually going to pay a visit on her own half-sister. By the way, "country-house" is the Aston translation. A more direct translation might be something like "Field Place". It was a private estate belonging to powerful families, such as the local elites—or in this case the royal family. It is a rare glimpse into the living conditions of those royal princes and princesses who were not resident in the palace itself. I do find it interesting that it specifically identifies the royal princess and not some male relative or husband—and Uno no Sarara isn't really noted as visiting a lot of family members all over the place. I've seen a suggestion that Asuka may have been married to Prince Osakabe, one of Temmu's sons, but if so it is interesting that Uno no Sarara goes to visit *her* house and not *his* house.

Princess Asuka is not mentioned much, but given this and a few other things—including being mentioned in the Man'yoshu in connection with a poem by the famous Kakinomoto no Hitomaro—she seemed to be someone important, even though we don't have a lot of information on what that looked like at the time.

And with that, we've covered most of Uno no Sarara's travels. We discussed her near-constant trips to Yoshino, then there were official visits to inspect the fortifications and horses. Granted, that latter duty was also done just at the palace, in Asuka, so it wasn't necessarily terribly special. There was her expedition to Ise, which we discussed in a previous episode, and then down to tour the land of Kii. There were short jaunts out to Hatsuse and Yonabari. And the largely unexplained visits to Tou-no-mine and the enigmatic Futa-tsuki palace. Finally, there was a note about her calling on her half-sister, Princess Asuka.

So that was what Uno no Sarara was doing when she wasn't at the court. Otherwise, whether it was in the Asuka Kiyomihara palace or in the new Fujiwara Palace, she was dealing with the business of the state. Much of what is recorded are fairly common things—banquets, archery competitions, and similar events that are interesting in aggregate, perhaps, but maybe not so helpful in figuring out the larger trends that were occurring at the time. There were edicts and changes, but we can talk about those separately. There were natural disasters, as well.

Overall, she spent eleven years on the throne, from 686 to 697. In that time, she finished much of the work started by her husband, put her own stamp on the new government, and, perhaps most importantly, she set up her grandson for success. It is worth nothing that Uno no Sarara's posthumous regnal name is Jitou Tennou, and while that was probably not something she chose for herself, it may give us some insight into how the Chroniclers viewed her. Remember that the brothers, Naka no Oe and Ohoama, were given the names "Tenji" and "Temmu", respectively. Tenji is "Heavenly Wisdom", and he is counted as the brains behind the Great Change, the Taika reforms, and much of the shape that the state took from 645 onwards. Temmu is something like "Heavenly Warrior". The victor of the Jinshin no Ran was remembered for his military strategy, even though that was really only a small part of his overall reign. The characters of Jitou's posthumous title are two characters. The first, "Ji", means "to hold" or "to have". The other character is "tou" and generally means "relationship" or "to control". It can also refer to unification.

This is often considered to mean that her role was seen as continuing to hold the throne and continue the work of her husband and his line, his progeny. In this case, that means strengthening the state that Ohoama had built, following through on his national projects, and ultimately ensuring that the throne passed seamlessly to Ohoama's grandson, ensuring that his line would continue. Of course, it probably should be noted that of course it was also her own bloodline that she was continuing as well, something that would become important in later years.

And it is easy for us to look at this as simply editorializing by the Chroniclers, who were, after all, trying to craft a national narrative as well as record the history. In many ways the use of these posthumous titles allowed them to do that—to summarize an entire reign into something that could be easily remembered. And yet, based on the actions that she has taken, there certainly seems to be something to this description of Uno no Sarara and her motivations.

We saw, early on, how she cleared the way for her own son, Crown Prince Kusakabe, getting rid of his potential rival for the throne, Prince Ohotsu, and thus potentially averting another conflict at the start of the reign. But then Kusakabe died, leaving her with his young son, and while placing a young infant on the throne might have become a thing in later centuries, that precedent had not quite been set just yet. Even as it was, Uno no Sarara likely had some concept that she could not know how many years she would get. A decade on the throne was nothing to sneeze at, and many sovereigns had much less.

And so, beyond setting up the structure of government that her grandson would inherit, she also had a few more things to ensure. She would want him to be old enough to be taken seriously, and she would need to make sure that there were no other claimants that could complicate matters. There was only one other serious candidate that fit that description, and that was Prince Takechi.

Remember, Prince Takechi was Ohoama's eldest son. He was also a maternal descendant of the Munakata, meaning that he didn't have the double-royal imprimatur that was presumably required to take the throne as the sovereign. And yet, Uno no Sarara was no doubt savvy enough to understand that those kinds of traditions changed quickly and easily in the past, as long as one had the right political backing.

At the same time, Uno no Sarara appears to have leaned heavily on Prince Takechi's support. It was a risk, but his support for her efforts would help her do what she needed to do. Not only that, but if anything did happen to the young Prince Karu, Prince Takechi was the next in line. He was also the Dajou Daijin—the most powerful court position short of Uno no Sarara herself. For many reasons, it would have been difficult if the Queen felt she needed to take him out of the picture.

Perhaps then it was fortuitous that in 696 the issue resolved itself, when Royal Prince Takechi passed away.

This was no doubt a sad event, and yet it also may have set things in motion. Prince Karu had been born in 683, so he was fourteen years old—still quite young, but old enough. He was also surrounded by supporters, including his own mother, widow to the late Prince Kusakabe, Royal Princess Abe.

While it isn't mentioned in the Nihon Shoki, we get a glimpse of how all this was planned in the Kaifuso, published in 751. There, in an entry for Prince Kadono, a son of Prince Ohotomo, we are told that after Prince Takechi's death, Prince Kadono met with Uno no Sarara and others and suggested a course of action. He encourage Uno no Sarara to pass on the kingdom to Prince Karu, despite his youth. If true, this is quite the statement from someone whose own father was killed in the Jinshin no Ran, which brought Ohoama and Uno no Sarara to power in the first place. It appears as though she heeded his advice, setting up what would come next over the following year.

And so it is from the year after Prince Takechi's death that we start to really see entries focused on Prince Karu. In the second month of 697, for instance, we see that Tahema no Mabito no Kunimi was appointed to be Prince Karu's tutor. Likewise we see Michi no Mabito no Atomi and Kose no Ason no Ahamochi appointed as director and assistant director of the Spring Palace—the palace for the Crown Prince, the Heir Apparent. Interestingly, Aston notes that the Nihon Shoki never actually gives an entry for when Prince Karu was named Heir Apparent—it just seems to be assumed.

Ten days after the new directors were appointed, a public great-congregation was held at the Crown Prince's palace—here called the Eastern Palace, and I'll admit I'm not sure if "Eastern Palace" and "Spring Palace" were different names for the same place or what. I assume these were all part of the newly built Fujiwara Palace, though the most important part is the implications for Prince Karu. He was being introduced to the court, it seems, with a large congregation at his residence where the court would be expected to acknowledge his position as the crown prince and heir apparent.

Three months later, we are told that Uno no Sarara grew ill. The Ministers and various government officials made votive images of the Buddha in an attempt to make merit and help her to recover. While she would recover from whatever illness she experienced, I suspect that this was something of a wake-up call. Uno no Sarara was in her early 50s, and she wasn't getting any younger. She also lived at a time where she had to realize that many others hadn't made it as far, and perhaps her illness made her realize that if she was going to do something, she had better do it sooner, rather than later. And so, just a little more than a month later, on the first day of the 8th month, Uno no Sarara abdicated the throne in favor of her grandchild, Prince Karu, soon to become the next Tennou.

This isn't the first time we've seen an abdication in the history of Yamato, but it is perhaps the first time we've seen it quite like this. When Takara Hime abdicated, I think we can agree that it was largely under duress. She had just seen her son lead a bloody coup against the most powerful court nobles, and that really does seem to have shaken her. No such bloody struggle was happening here, however. In fact, there is plenty to suggest that avoiding a bloody struggle was exactly Uno no Sarara's point. By overseeing Prince Karu's ascension while she was still around, Queen Uno no Sarara maintained significant control over the process.

Part of this rested on the fact that when she retired from the position of Tennou she didn't just become some commoner or retreat to the position of Queen Mother or Dowager Queen or something similar. Instead, she took on a new titled: Retired Sovereign, or Dajou-Tennou. Technically this means that her own title was something like "Greater Sovereign", compared to Karu's "sovereign".

This position was new, and may not have even been fully formed at the time of the initial abdication. Unlike when Takara Hime abdicated, effectively acknowledging that she wasn't actually in charge, Uno no Sarara was planning to remain an active force in government. Her grandson would be set up as the formal sovereign, or Tennou. He would be responsible for the rituals and ensuring everything was properly carried out, but his mother, the Dajou-Tennou, would have a tremendous amount of clout and control.

By all accounts, this abdication and creation of the "Dajou-Tennou" position really does seem to have been specifically set up for this occasion, to ensure the smooth transition of power. This way, when Uno no Sarara eventually did pass away, there would be no question about who was seated on the throne. Given everything she had witnessed—from stories about her how her own father had come to power as well as the events of the Jinshin no Ran and then everything that happened in the aftermath of her own husband's death—I can understand why Uno no Sarara would have been pre-occupied with the idea of ensuring a smooth transition to the next sovereign. She likely could not foresee how this new position would be used in the future, and yet it would become something of a staple in the politics of the Japanese court.

Initially, retired sovereigns were typically doing so for reasons similar to Uno no Sarara—to ensure a smooth transition of power from one to the other and to ensure that the next tennou could be established to avoid instability. However, it would become something even more. After all, why wait until your heir is actually ready? If you are going to be running things, anyway, why not remove yourself from the tedium of ritual while retaining your authority? And in later centuries we see the tennou retiring younger, leaving younger and younger heirs to hold the actual throne. There would also be a certain Buddhist aspect to it as well, allowing the retired tennou to be seen as a kind of Golden Wheel Turning Sovereign who was theoretically beyond the material cares of the day to day. The retired sovereigns would be referred to as "In", which is likely a reference to the suffix given to their compounds, rather than the common "Miya" or "Gu". And so the government under these retired sovereigns would become known as the Insei, or government by cloistered sovereigns, but that system was still in the future. For now, we are just seeing the seeds of what was to come, eventually.

To understand this later phase of Uno no Sarara's life, we need to take our first few steps into a new source: The Shoku Nihongi. The Nihon Shoki ceases to describe anything after Uno no Sarara's abdication, and the official history of Prince Karu's reign—known to us as Monmu Tennou—is taken up by the Shoku Nihongi. This is literally the continued Japanese history, and we'll talk about it in depth at some point. For now, I would note that it was compiled in 797 – so literally a century after the last entry in the Nihon Shoki. That said, it likely had much better records to go off of compared to the Nihon Shoki, though it was still likely compiled with a view that was still quite friendly towards the royal family and the position of the Tennou.

And so, when Uno no Sarara largely disappears from the narrative, I don't know that we should assume that she had truly gone completely hands off. After all, with everything we've seen, do we think that this is a woman who would just hand the reins over to a fourteen or fifteen year old boy? And yet the first time she appears is in 701, when she is making a trip to her favorite vacation spot: the Palace at Yoshino.

That said, there were some pretty big events that happened during this period, after her abdication and assumption of the title of Dajou-Tennou. The biggest was the creation of the Taihou Code. Once again, this will need a fuller treatment, but the Taihou Code was an update to the Kiyomihara code. The Asuka-Kiyomihara code was 22 volumes, and focused on the laws, the "ryou", but not necessarily the punishments, or "ritsu". In contrast the Taihou code was 6 volumes of "ritsu" and 11 volumes of "ryou", for 17 volumes in total. Unfortunately, we mostly have scraps of indications here and there, and the codes that came afterwards, which were each based on what came before. For instance, we do know that they completely overhauled the rank system yet again. Unlike the Kiyomihara code, which took years to develop, the compilation of the Taiho code is ordered in 700 and completed by 701—likely because it was really more of an update and a compilation of what was already on the books.

This was perhaps the most significant thing that happened while Uno no Sarara was still available to exert her influence. Karu was still only about 19 years old at this point. He would turn 20 the following year, 702. That same year, Uno no Sarara would travel all the way out to Mikawa no Kuni, which is the eastern half of the modern prefecture of Aichi. The royal procession, which started in the 10th month of 702, then made its way back through Owari a month later, and from there up to Mino, and then down to Ise and back through Iga. The royal procession is first recorded on the 10th day of the 10th month and returned on the 25th day of the 11th month—a round-trip time of roughly 45 days. Throughout we are told that various ranks and awards were given out to important individuals at each stop.

Unfortunately, that trip may have taken a toll. A few weeks later, on the 13th day of the 12th month, Uno no Sarara grew ill. There was a great amnesty pronounced throughout the realm, and one hundred men took Buddhist vows on her behalf. They even read the Sutra of Golden Light in the Home Provinces. Alas, it was all to no avail. Uno no Sarara passed away on the 22nd day of the 12th month—or January 13th in 703. It was roughly six years from her abdication. She would have died with at least some knowledge that the realm was largely in order. Her grandson was on the throne and had been ruling for the past six years. He had attained the age of majority, and things seemed relatively stable. There was even a new, grand, permanent capital city, just like on the continent.

But that closes out the life of Uno no Sarara. She lived in interesting times, experienced tremendous fortune and misfortune, and she put her indelible stamp on the state of Yamato and thus the future of Japan. There is still more to go over in this period—we have interactions with the Emishi, updates to society, and various impacts to Buddhism. We'll also take a look at some more important people from this period, including Kakinomoto no Hitomaru, the famous poet, and the poems of the Man'yoshu, and Fujiwara no Fubito, the son of Nakatomi no Kamatari and the one largely responsible for making the Fujiwara house the most influential house in the entire court.

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And that's all for now. Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

This episode we are taking a quick break from our overall story of Uno no Sarara (aka Jito Tenno) and we are focusing on Ise Shrine and Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess.

There is a lot, for a bit more, check out our podcast blogpost at: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-153

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 153: Ise and the Sun Goddess.

In the newly built hall of the Fujiwara Palace, the nobles of the court were gathered for a grand banquet. Snow-white walls were off-set by bright crimson pillars and trim, highlighted by bright green windows. The nobles themselves were a rainbow of colors, arranged as they were by rank. At the head of it all, on a dais, sat the Queen herself, Uno no Sarara. However, the attention was no longer on her. Instead, it was on another figure, standing in front of the assembled audience. A quiet spread throughout the hall, the court listening as Hieda no Are began to tell the story of the Sun Goddess in the Plain of High Heaven. They listened to the story of her and Susano'o, and of the backward flayed horse. They heard the tale of the Heavenly Rock Cave, and of all that came after, including the sending of the August Grandchild, Ninigi. They listened to the story—the story of Yamato.

Last episode, we talked in more detail about Uno No Sarara—starting from her early years as the daughter of Naka no Ohoe, granddaughter of Soga no Kurayamada, and child-bride to her uncle, Ohoama. I'll admit we didn't look too hard at that last bit, and I don't have enough information to confirm what exactly "marriage" entailed in that context, but it is still something that I find tremendously creepy and, unfortunately, anything but unique. So I'm not going to dive too much further into it right now but… ew.

We talked about how she gave birth to her son, Kusakabe, in Kyushu, during the war on the continent, and how she eventually left for Yoshino with her husband when he retired from court, presumably to outsmart his court rivals, who were positioning him to be taken out. She also is said to have played a part in the planning and execution of the resulting Jinshin no Ran, later helping her husband govern the realm. And now, she was on the throne, overseeing the completion of many of the projects started in the reign of her husband. This included the completion of the Kiyomihara code, the Fujiwara palace, and the support given to the institution of Ise Grand Shrine.

This episode, I want to dive into that last topic: the emphasis in Uno no Sarara's reign on Ise Shrine and its focus, the Great God, Amaterasu no Ohokami. Although the Chronicles talk about Amaterasu as one of the founding deities of the Yamato royal line, there is plenty of evidence that this story was grafted into the tales at a later date, and that worship of Amaterasu, at least as anything more than a minor deity, likely also started relatively late. Some have even suggested that Ise Shrine itself wasn't even built until the late 7th century. So, all of this focus on Ise and Amaterasu appears to be part of the larger effort to structure the physical, cultural, and spiritual landscape of the new Yamato state.

Last episode we mentioned how, according to the Nihon Shoki, Ohoama turned to worship towards Ise. Well, specifically, he worshipped Amaterasu Ohokami. So let's take a moment and talk about what we know of the history of this Great God of Heavenly Brightness.

Unfortunately, most of that history is based on what we know of the kami from works like the Nihon Shoki, the Kojiki, and the Sendai Kuji Hongi, all of which came out in the 8th century or so. As such, it can be hard to know what things were actually like, earlier on, as opposed to what was added or removed later.

Much of what I'm going to be talking about, today, I'm going to be pulling from a book written in 2017 by Mark Teeuvwen [Tayvin?] and John Breen titled "A Social History of the Ise Shrines", as well as Michael Como's work "Weaving and Binding: Immigrant Gods and Female Immortals in Ancient Japan", published in 2009, along with other sources. In their book, Breen and Teeuwen point out that for those who do not take the events of the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki at face value, there are two primary theories for the origin of the worship of Amaterasu: an early theory and a late theory. The early theory places the development of the worship of Amaterasu in the 5th and 6th centuries, during the reigns of such figures as Wakatakeru no Ohokimi, aka Yuuryaku Tennou. The Late Theory places the development in the 7th century, largely at the feet of such figures as Ohoama and Uno no Sarara herself. We'll take a look at the evidence and see what it says.

I would note that compared to the official history, both of these would be very late theories. According to Ise Grand Shrine even today, Amaterasu arrived in Ise in the 26th year of Ikume Iribiko, aka Suinin Tennou, as stated in the Nihon Shoki, which corresponds to 4 BCE if you take the dating of the Nihon Shoki to be accurate. Of course, we've already spent plenty of time talking about the problems with the Nihon Shoki prior to the 6th century CE, as well as how the political nature of the text affected what it contained.

So to kick things off, let's address the biggest question of all: why don't we believe that Amaterasu no Ohokami was always the primary deity of the pantheon of Yamato, at the very least, if not all of the Wa people of the archipelago? After all, isn't she a sun goddess, and isn't sun worship fairly well documented among the ancient Japanese? Just take a look at words like "Hiko" and "Hime", referring to rulers as sun man and sun woman. Also note that early on, worship seems to have centered around places such as mountaintops, which focused worship towards the sky and the highest point. In fact, as wet rice paddy agriculture became the dominant economic factor driving the engine of the archipelago in the Yayoi and early kofun period, early shrines were very likely about bringing the spirit of the mountain from the mountaintop and giving them a home amongst the rice fields..

And then we have the stories. Don't the ancient stories all tell about Amaterasu as the ruler of Takama no Hara, the Heavenly Plain? And isn't it her grandchild that then descends to the earth to pacify the Land of the Reed Plains—aka the Japanese archipelago?

Well let's take a look at those same stories, which we've covered in earlier episodes of the podcast. The first deities mentioned in the Chronicles are deities like Ama no Minaka Nushi, Lord of the August Middle of Heaven; Takami Musubi, High August Growth; and Kami Musubi, Divine August Growth. There are other deities, like Kuni Toko Tachi, but they are barely mentioned again. Later we get Izanagi and Izanami, the masculine and feminine, who create the world and give birth to numerous deities from that point on. Among the children of Izanagi are said to be Amaterasu, Tsukiyomi, and Susano'o. Amaterasu, Heaven's Brightness, represents the sun while Tsukiyomi represents the dark of the moon. Susano'o is then the god of the storms and seas, and was sent to the Nether Land, the Ne no Kuni.

Right away we see that there are numerous different stories listed in the Nihon Shoki for just about everything. Only the Kojiki gives everything as a single, coherent narrative, but surely the readers in the 8th century would have known some of these other stories, and thus the Nihon Shoki gives the alternates as well.

Now the main narrative of the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki tells us that Ama-terasu no Oho-kami was born to rule over everything. In the Nihon Shoki, Izanagi and Izanami specifically mention that divine destiny in Amaterasu's creation—although actually, in that part of the text, the deity they are creating is named Oho-hiru-me no Muchi; the Great Sun Female Holder. And in the next entry they call Amaterasu: Ama-terasu Oho-hiru-me. Tsukiyomi, the deity of the moon, is made to be her consort, and they are supposedly sent to rule the plain of Heaven, Takama no Hara.

The problem is that there are other entries that suggest that Takama no Hara already had a ruler: Taka-mi-Musubi. Reading the sections on Taka-mi-Musubi, we see a deity who is said to have produced 1500 children, himself—no mention of Izanagi and Izanami. Some of his children are mentioned as Omohi-kane: the Thought-Combining deity, and Sukuna-bikona: the Little-Prince-Named deity.

Amatsu Hiko Hiko Ho Ninigi no Mikoto, the August Heavenly Prince, Prince Ho-ninigi, is not just a grandson of Amaterasu no Ohokami, but also a grandchild of Taka-mi Musubi. In at least one story, Takami Musubi is the one who wants Ninigi no Mikoto to become the ruler of the Central Land of the Reed Plains. Towards that end, he gathers the various kami and chooses someone to go down and prepare the way—Ama-ho-hi no Mikoto—who was to quote-unquote "expel and subdue" the evil gods of that land. We covered this story in episode 21 and 22. When that doesn't work, he gathers them again, sending others to try and do the same. Eventually he sends Takemikazuchi and Futsunushi down. All of this sounds like Taka-mi Musubi, whose name appears to refer to being the "high" deity, was the one in charge.

In addition, we have the court ritual from sources like the Engi Shiki, which illustrates the deities that were invoked for the protection of the palace and the royal family. These were: Kami-musubi, Takami-musubi, Iku-musubi, Taru-musubi, Tamatsume-musubi, Oomiya-no-me, Oomiketsu-no-kami and Kotoshironushi. One might notice a lot of the "musubi" names among the deities, and a distinct lack of appeal to Amaterasu. If Amaterasu were the central deity and ancestral deity of the royal family, why is she not invoked in the rituals of the court itself?

The thought, here, is that these rituals are likely much older than the worship of Amaterasu, and while Amaterasu would come to prominence in the stories that the court would tell, it was much more difficult for them to rearrange the traditional rituals to put her front and center. Those rituals were maintained by ritualist families like the Nakatomi, and they weren't likely to change the rituals willy-nilly, even for a sovereign. That was playing with supernatural fire, after all—if you changed the rituals, would they still even be effective? Granted, rituals do change, so it isn't a perfect argument; perhaps it was just not considered to be important enough to make the change since it was not something that anyone except the court ritualists needed to worry themselves over. Either way, it appears that we do have a list of deities that may have been the deities of the ruling elite prior to the rise of Amaterasu and Ise shrine more generally.

We have a few other clues of what was going on in the narrative. For instance, we see the story from the reign of Mimaki Iribiko, aka Sujin Tennou, also called the First Sovereign of Yamato, despite the legendary figures inserted prior to his reign. It is in this chapter that we see a note that Ama-terasu no Oho-kami and Yamato no Oho-kuni-dama, which is to say the Spirit of the Country of Yamato, were both worshipped together in the hall—that is in the royal palace itself. And yet apparently Mimaki Iribiko feared these deities residing with him in the palace, and he had their worship moved to locations outside of the palace. Amaterasu's worship was given to Toyosuki-iri-bime, one of Mimaki Iribiko's daughters, and established in the district of Shiki, in Yamato. Yamato no Ohokunidama, on the other hand, was given over to Nunaki-iri-bime no Mikoto, another daughter through a different wife. but we are told that she was lean, and her hair was falling out, and so she couldn't perform the rites.

Turning our attention back to Ama-terasu—in the reign of Ikume-Iribiko, aka Suinin Tennou, son and heir of Mimaki Iribiko, the worship of Ama-terasu would pass from Mimaki Iribiko's daughter, Nunaki Iri Bime to Ikume Iribiko's daughter, Yamato Hime. She would move the worship site from Shiki to Uda, in the shadow of Mt. Miwa, and then proceed over to the upper banks, or Kawakami, of Isuzu, in the district of Watarai. Here, in one of the alternate stories about this episode, we get the Great God of Yamato—Ohoyamato no Ohokami—speaking through a medium to warn the sovereign that he had better be careful. Mimaki Iribiko had not been quite thorough enough in his worship, so he had not had a long life, and if Ikume Iribiko didn't do the same, he would suffer a similar fate.

And so, in a record eerily similar to what we see in the previous reign, the worship of the "Great God of Yamato", the Oho-Yamato no Oho-kami, is given to Nunaki-waka-hime—as opposed to Nunaki-Iri-bime—who also fails in the task because of her emaciated body. This also introduces Fukayu nushi, an ancestor of the Nakatomi, who was the one who divined what should be done.

There is so much to unpack in these stories. For one, the kami bring power, but also danger. One can try to placate the kami, but it isn't like a ritual will always work, and the story is of the sovereign being actively afraid of what they might do, so they were removed from the palace. Then there is the fact that we see two seemingly similar names—Ohoyamato no Ohokami and Yamato no Kunidama both seem like we are talking about the same spirit of Yamato, though some would point out that one is the spirit of the country and one is the great kami of the country, so, clearly different. Both are also being given to someone named "Nunaki—something-something—Hime", and in both cases Nunaki seems to fail in her task because she is apparently not hot enough for the kami. She's described as too thin and emaciated or balding. We aren't given the lineage of Nunaki Waka Hime, but Nunaki Iri Bime is connected with the land of Owari. Nunaki Iri-bime is said to be the daughter of Mimaki Iribiko and Ohoama Hime, ancestor of the Owari no Muraji. Owari was the land that supported Ohoama during the Jinshin no Ran.

Finally, in both cases, we see the worship of the spirit of Yamato being given over to someone name "Nagochi", later identified as Nagochi no Sukune, ancestor of the Yamato no Atahe.

One more note—closely on the heels of moving these two kami out of the palace, we see that the court brings in the worship of Oho-mono-nushi, the god of Mt. Miwa, under Ohotataneko, the ancestor of the Miwa clan.

So the stories here account for Ama-terasu being moved to Watarai and why she isn't worshipped in the palace. It also places Oho-mono-nushi at the center of worship in Yamato. Oho-mono-nushi and Miwa continue to dominate the narrative from here on out, with a few notable exceptions, such as with Okinaga Tarashi Hime, aka Jingu Tennou and her mythical conquest of the Korean peninsula. I'm sure that had no political implications at all given everything that had happened with Baekje, Silla, and the Tang dynasty in the latter half of the 7th century. Other than scenes like that, however, the Miwa clan and worship of the Miwa deity appear frequently in the narrative. It is clear that Mt. Miwa, and its deity, were important, and when Breen and Teeuwen hypothesize that when Naka no Ohoe, which is to say Tenji Tennou, took the drastic step of moving the capital up to Ohotsu, in the land of Afumi, he also brought the Miwa deity with him. Those Afumi court rituals were conducted under the auspices of the Nakatomi, and particularly the auspices of Nakatomi no Kane, who would become one of the chief opponents of Ohoama during the Jinshin no Ran in 672.

After that conflict, Ohoama and his wife, Uno no Sarara, were building new traditions using Ise and constructing new legends. Legends that would be under their control and influence and which would further bolster their rule from the city that they had designed to fit inside of this newly constructed cosmological framework.

And yet this also brings up what seems like an obvious question. If Ise Shrine and the worship of Amaterasu were so central to Ohoama and Uno's plans, then why would they put it so far away? Proponents of the "early" theory of the development of Amaterasu and Ise Shrine suggest that the answer lies in the text of the Chronicles. That there is some truth to the idea that there was worship in Yamato and that, for various reasons, it moved out to Watarai district early on and developed into Ise Shrine. Those who hold to the "late" theory of development see all of those stories as later inserts meant to explain away why Ise Shrine was so far away—and perhaps why Amaterasu was not included in the cool-kami club of court ritual. Teeuwen and Breen mention a few of the theories, from Naoki Koujiro stressing Ise as a strategic gateway between Yamato and Eastern Japan to Tanaka Takashi proposing that the movement of Amaterasu to Ise is actually a stand-in for one or more military campaigns to that area to bring it under Yamato control.

And before we move too much further in the narrative, let's talk about how Ise is physically and geographically situated. Ise is part of modern Mie prefecture, on the eastern edge of the Ki peninsula. It is at the southern end of a series of adjoining alluvial plains that follow the coastline north to the modern prefectures of Aichi and Gifu—the ancient provinces of Owari and Mino. The capital of Ise Province used to be in Suzuka, near the the two Tsubaki shrines which both lay claim to the title of Ise no Ichinomiya, the First shrine of the land of Ise, and the pass that served as one of three major routes from eastern Japan into the Home Provinces and beyond. This puts Ise about as far away as you can get from the capital of the province without going over the mountains, themselves. It also puts it a good deal south of most major travel routes. If you are going to Ise shrine then it is pretty clear you were going to Ise shrine, as there isn't a lot of evidence for anything else in the area.

The Shrine itself is actually made up of two primary shrine complexes. There is the Naiku, the inner shrine, and the Geku, or outer shrine. The Naiku, or inner shrine, is probably the area most people think about. It is at the foot of the mountains where the Shimamichi River joins the Isuzu River and both flow out of the mountains. The Naiku contains the shrine to Amaterasu no Ohokami, and is famous for its layout, where there are actually two shrine enclosures, one next to the other. The main shrine is then rebuilt in the empty enclosure every 20 years, at which point the worship is moved to the new shrine, the old shrine is torn down, and the cycle is started once again.

The Outer Shrine, or Geku, is further north, and probably not as well known to foreigners. The Geku is said to enshrine the spirit of Toyouke-bime, a kami dedicated to food. According to the traditions of the Geku itself, Toyouke-bime was enshrined in the Geku at the command of Wakatakiru no Ohokimi, aka Yuuryaku Tennou, based on a dream.

Regarding the history of why the Shrines—both Inner and Outer—are located here, archaeological evidence doesn't give us a lot to suggest that these might be the case. Despite the presence of the Miya River near Ise Shrine, we haven't found evidence of a large harbor or port, like we might expect if it was the jumping off point for crossing Ise Bay—or even the center of another large polity. Instead, the areas to the north—around Fujikata and Matokata inlets, for instance—show much more evidence of occupation and, presumably, use. Heck, the modern district of Fujikata is in the town of "Tsu", which literally means "port". And the capital area of Suzuaka and the Ichinomiya of Tsubaki Grand Shrine is even farther north, still. So who, if anybody, was living down in the area of Ise Shrine?

If we look at the progression of tomb mounds in the area in previous centuries, we see that they start in the Matokata region in the 5th century and work their way down towards the south, with late 5th century tombs found in the district of Taki, the district bordering on Watarai and modern Ise City to the northwest. It is also where you can find the Saikuu, the site of the old purification palace for the Shrine Princesses. Grave goods seem to show close ties with Yamato, in the Nara basin. While the tombs expanded to the south through the 5th century, they appear to have stopped altogether in the 6th century—or at least we haven't found any. This may indicate that the political situation had changed and there was no group in the area that could organize the labor for such an undertaking. Whether that was because Yamato was taking it as corvee labor or just that population had dwindled due to war, famine, or something else, I don't know that we could say.

Around the year 600, at the opening of the 7th century, we do see a large grave mound erected in the core area of what would later become Ise Shrine, on the east side of the Miya River, overlooking what would become the Geku, the Outer Shrine of the Ise complex. For those who aren't aware, Ise Grand Shrine is a large complex of shrines, and it is divided into two main areas. The "inner shrine", or Naiku, is where most people go, and it is the site of the famous shrine building that is supposed to be rebuilt every 20 years. The Geku is the "outer shrine" complex, technically dedicated to Toyouke hime, a kami of agriculture. The kofun overlooking the outer shrine is known as the Takakurayama kofun. This is a round kofun, about 35 to 40 meters in diameter, with a horizontal stone chamber. It is the largest in the Ise region. It has been mentioned in records going back to at least the Kamakura era, and even though most of the grave goods are gone, there is evidence that it was richly appointed. Given its shape and location, there were even those in later centuries who connected it with the Heavenly Rock Cave in which Amaterasu hid according to the ancient stories.

The fact that there was nothing around this area and suddenly we see a giant tomb mound is pretty puzzling. Why was it built here? Is it connected to the founding of the Outer Shrine in some way, or is that just coincidental? Teeuwen and Breen point out that it is pretty rare for a large tomb mound to be build in the precincts of an active shrine, which suggests that whatever was happening there, that area was not part of the shrine grounds. That said, I have to wonder if the ritual worship at the kofun might not have later been transformed or coopted into something else.

There also is no other indication that the Outer Shrine area was used for ritual purposes any earlier than the kofun would have been built. In contrast, around the Inner Shrine area, several kilometers away, there are caches of beads dated to the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries in a small valley where a brook runs down from Mt. Asama, not too far from the current shrine complex. Teeuwen and Breen suggest that this may relate to the "upper reaches of the Isuzu River", mentioned in the Chronicles, and that it may have had to do with rituals related to water supply—hence being found at the point where the water was coming down from the mountains. And yet, despite these finds, there really aren't any large scale archaeological remains that have been discovered east of the Miya river, though there are modest signs of dwelling and habitation, and some minor burials mounds.

Compare this to Tsubaki shrine, the home of Saruta Hiko no Kami, and the main shrine of Ise, situated in the ancient capital of Ise no Kuni. Downstream from there are numerous tomb mounds and indications of habitation. So this was probably the center for early sun worship in the region.

Teeuwen and Breen conclude that all of this indicates that the region of Taki and areas east of the Miya river were probably more of an outpost—no major powerful chieftains or large polity had set up in the region. In the late 6th century, some power had to move in to build Takakurayama kofun, but that was an outlier. Maybe this area just largely fell under Yamato hegemony. And perhaps that was the key. Perhaps initially this wasn't a place to center power and authority, but rather it was more like a prison. It was a place far away from the court, where a deity that was more of a threat could be kept away from the palace and the sovereign. Perhaps Amaterasu, or whoever the kami was at the time, was placed out here because of the threat they posed, much as the Chronicle seems to suggest—just not necessarily at the time that is suggested.

One of the aspects of the mythmaking that we see in the Chronicles appears to be the stress on the Amatsu kami and Kunitsu Kami—the Heavenly deities and the Earthly deities. The Heavenly deities are those in Takama no Hara, and they are the progenitors of the royal line. On the other hand are the earthly kami, the Kunitsu Kami, those dwelling on the earthly plane. In the stories that were recorded in the Nihon Shoki, before the August Grandchild of Takami Musubi and Ama Terasu descended to take control of the Central Land of the Reed Plain, they sent down heavenly kami as warriors to subdue the earthly kami. On the one hand, this may have been driven by some kind of deep memory of early conquests of the archipelago by various forces. However, these legends also served another purpose, in that they set up the royal family's right to rule, and appear to establish a de facto hierarchy between those families descended from the Heavenly Kami and those descended from the earthly Kami.

Another thing that Teeuwen and Breen point out and that is that Amaterasu is not necessarily a female deity, to start with. In fact, Amaterasu was probably easily overlain atop the worship of Oho-mono-nushi of Mt. Miwa, at least early on. To that point, they note stories where Oho-mono-nushi and other deities were commonly depicted as arrows, snakes, or similarly phallic imagery finding or even penetrating women who were thought to have a connection with them. This suggests a context of these priestesses being married to the kami, and even fits in with early descriptions of individuals like the famous Queen Himiko being a spiritual leader as well as a political one. If the original Amaterasu was conceived of as a male deity, then this could also explain the tradition of the Saigu, the consecrated shrine princess. We only see a few royal princesses designated to the position up to this point in the narrative, and, beyond Tokosuki Iri bime and Yamato hime, we don't necessarily learn much more. One wonders if there weren't other royal princesses likewise sent elsewhere to serve other deities. We know about Nunaki Iri Hime, and presumably Nunaki Waka Hime. There was also Yamato Totohi Momoso Hime, who was married to Oho-mono-nushi. Presumably there were others who just never ended up in the stories that were passed down.

The idea of a kami taking a "wife" and connecting that to the idea of women holding these priestly positions seems to fall in line with much of what we see, though, as I said, we only hear occasionally about the appointment of royal princesses to the position until the reign of Ohoama. That's when we see specifics about appointments, the purification palace in Hase, and other arrangements. It makes you wonder more than a little bit if Royal Princess Ohoku was, perhaps, the first royal princess to actually be appointed. It would have been easy enough to add in previous "shrine princesses" into the lineage, especially far enough back that nobody could really fact check it. We also see Royal Princess Taki journey to Ise with her companions, Princess Yamashiro no Hime and Lady Ishikawa.

It is intriguing that this practice was temporarily interrupted during the reign of Uno no Sarara, as I mentioned last episode. Could this have something to do with a female ruler on the throne and a corresponding lack of urgency about having a female representative at Ise?

And in stories about Amaterasu, she is frequently shown with certain masculine qualities. When she confronts her younger brother, Susano'wo, she is concerned that he might try to take her authority from her, so she meets him decked out in armor, her hair tied up in a typical male fashion, with a bow, ready for a fight. It would be just as easy to imagine that Amaterasu and Susano'wo were brothers, contending over rulership. Add to all of that the idea that kami were often personifications of various natural phenomena or ideas, and Japanese is not a naturally gendered language, and there are those that believe that the stories of Amaterasu were not necessarily about a female deity in the beginning, but a male deity, similar to Ohomono Nushi and others, who then took on a feminine persona.

On the other hand there are passages in the old stories recounted in the Chronicles that clearly make Amaterasu out to be a woman. To start with the activities she is associated with, such as weaving, are often associated with women as something they do in the home. This is a tradition carried over from the continent, along with silk and the techniques to weave it. In the lands where silk production started, there are silkworm goddesses and the gendered nature of silk production and weaving appears to have come over to Japan as well. There is also the fact that Amaterasu is said to have another name: Oho-hiru-me no muchi. In this case, it would seem to mean something like Great Noontime Female Possessor. And in the weaving hall it is sometimes Amaterasu that is weaving and sometimes Waka Hirume. "Hirume" certainly feels like a feminine name.

There is the distinct possibility that the stories of Amaterasu as recorded were actually about two or more different kami, so Amaterasu and Ohohirume could have been separate deities having to do with the sun that were rolled into a single kami. As mentioned before, it is also possible that Amaterasu ended up with some stolen valor taken from the other Ise deity worshiped at Tsubaki, Saruta-hiko no Kami. Teeuwen and Breen also note that the name "Amaterasu" is hardly unique, noting at least ten other shrines with a kami called "Amateru" or "Amaterasu", mostly in Yamato, but some as far away as Kyushu and Tsushima. Nine of those shrines were dedicated to Ame no Hoakari, an ancestor deity of the Owari lineage who was also closely tied to metalworking. It is worth remembering that it was Owari who helped support Ohoama during the Jinshin no Ran, and who may have even fostered Ohoama for a while when he was just a young prince. All that to say there may have been several different traditions that were all contributing different elements to the story.

And then there is the connection between Amaterasu and Uno no Sarara.

Herman Ooms, in his book: "Imperial Politics and Sybmolics in Ancient Japan", notes the similarities between Amaterasu and Uno no Sarara, talking about the differences between the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, both of which had events that mirrored Uno no Sarara's own life. According to Ooms, "The Kojiki's Amaterasu is a transparent double of the female tennou Jitou". He points out that Uno no Sarara, besides her posthumous title of Jitou Tennou, also had a title making reference to Takamanohara: Takama no Hara Hirono no Hime—the Princess High-Heaven-Plain. But beyond that, we also see other linkages between the stories. For instance, it isn't Amaterasu's son, Ame no Oshihomimi who is given the realm, but rather her grandchild, Ninigi. This parallels the way that Uno no Sarara's son, Kusakabe, didn't ascend to the throne, but instead Uno no Sarara was holding the seat for his son, her grandson. So one sees how Uno no Sarara could be seen as Amaterasu, and her grandson, Prince Karu, could be seen as Ninigi, the August grandchild.

Teeuwen and Breen also note that during this same time, we see the rise of a new institution: the Jingikan. Again, we touched on this last episode, so just a quick recap: The Jingikan was a government organization set up specifically to oversee the shrines, rituals, ceremonies, and other such things pertaining to the kami matters. It does not appear in the initial stand-up of the new, bureaucratic government, wherein is created the bureaus, ministries, or departments, depending on your chosen vernacular, which make up the Dajokan, the Great Council of State. Instead, the Jingikan is a separate organization, specifically organized around kami matters.

The term "Jingi" is also a shorthand for "Ama-tsu-kami, Kuni-tsu-kami", or the kami of Heaven and the Kami of the earth. "Ama-tsu-kami", meaning Kami of Heaven, was written with two characters meaning "Heaven" and "Kami", pronounced "Tenjin". "Kuni-tsu-kami", or the Kami of the Earth, was written as "Earth" and "Earth Spirit", which was then pronounced "Chigi". By taking the last character of each compound Tenjin-Chigi becomes just Jingi, for short. Throughout the Chronicles, this term, "Jingi" is thrown around when they want to quickly note all the kami, together, though sometimes it is fully written out as "Tenjin Chigi", as well. Interestingly, "Tenjin" or "Ama tsu Kami", sometimes appears alone, especially in the chapters on the Age of the Gods. However, "Chigi" seems to only be used in the whole phrase. There are a few instances, however, of "Chijin" being used, but they are few.

That said, the term "Jingikan", also read as "Kami Tsukasa" or even "Kan Zukasa", doesn't appear until 690, in the reign of Uno no Sarara. This probably means that it was part of the reforms encompassed by the Kiyomihara codes. The head of the Jingikan is known as the Jingihaku or "Kan-zukasa no Kami". This term actually shows up well in advance of the Jingikan itself, initially referring to an unnamed official or officials in charge of kami worship at the court. Nakatomi no Kamatari is said to have been offered the position in the first reign of Takara, aka Kougyoku Tennou, though the first confirmed individual appears to be Nakatomi no Ohoshima, during the reign of Uno no Sarara.

This appears to be a distinctly Yamato invention in the bureaucratic system. It leverages the language and structure of the Tang dynasty, but in its own way. There was a Tang department of shrines, but it was described differently, as befits a different spiritual environment focused on ancestor worship and Confucian and Taoist ideas. The Jingikan system seems to have been a deliberate re-organization of the indigenous kami worship, incorporating what was probably traditional roles into the new bureaucratic system. In so doing, however, it also gave the court greater control, and given that this was happening at the same time as the establishment of various stories and myths around Ise and the foundation more generally, it appears to be part of a concerted and deliberate effort to construct a new narrative.

All of this points to them architecting much of what was going on, from the stories to the landscape. Ohoama likely built the inner shrine as we know it. If it really was an obscure, out-of-the-way shrine, perhaps that also meant that there weren't any other powerful court factions that were enhanced by it. And then, over time, the Ise shrine and the deity there could be better incorporated into the overall myths and stories that surrounded the formation of Yamato. A new Yamato, one that would soon enough be referring to itself as the origin of the Sun: Nippon, a name often attributed to Ohoama and Uno no Sarara, though not found in the record of their reigns in the Chronicles.

Another aspect to all of this, however, is what happened immediately after Uno no Sarara's reign, and into the 8th and early 9th centuries. In the 8th century—the Nara period—Buddhism started to merge with a lot of the local practices. This was not uncommon. Buddhism had been born in a land with myriad deities and styles of worship, and it had the means to incorporate local deities into its cosmological worldview. Kami were just other beings, stuck in the cycle of rebirth, who, as sentient beings, could equally benefit from the Buddha's teachings. They became guardians of Buddhist institutions, and the lines between shrines and temples were often blurred. At the same time, kami worship was also taking on various concepts from continental worship, such that even today we find a lot of what we might consider Taoist practices influencing Shinto worship.

Had this continued, worship of the kami may have been completely subsumed into the Buddhist ritual practices, but there were areas where kami worship remained distinct. One of these was at Ise.

Early on, there was an attempt to build a temple at Ise, but it didn't last long. The temple was eventually moved out of the shrine complex, and then eventually it was removed altogether. Later writings from the Shrine would include certain Buddhist terms among the things that were taboo within the shrine grounds, considering Buddhism as something of a corrupting or polluting influence. Shrine Princeses, during their tenure, had to devote themselves to the kami, and though they might retire as nuns, later in life, during their appointment they were to be free of any Buddhist influences.

In many ways this would make Ise a prime example of what would eventually be termed "Shinto", which gave it, and the worship of Amaterasu, a certain pride of place. Of course, it didn't hurt that it was also intertwined with the State and the founding myths of the nation. As such, Ise Shrine and its worship would become a template for many others to follow, helping to shape what we know as "Shinto" today.

There are still a lot of questions. We don't exactly know what Uno no Sarara did on her trip to Ise Shrine, and we don't know how things surrounding the worship at Ise and of Amaterasu herself changed in the intervening years between when these events happened and when, about two to three decades later, the Chronicles were finalized and published. Certainly some of this seems tied to the Fujiwara capital, which was no longer populated at that point, the move to Heijo-kyo, in Nara, occurring between 708 and 710, two years before the Kojiki and a decade before the Nihon Shoki would come out. And yet, the three sacred mountains that were incorporated into the plan of the Fujiwara Capital, Mt. Kagu, Mt. Miminashi, and Mt. Unebi, seem to continue to be important. This is especially true of Mt. Kagu, whose heavenly counterpart, Ame no Kaguyama—literally Heavenly Mt. Kagu— continues to play a major role in the stories surrounding Amaterasu and the Heavenly Rock Cave. In addition,Mt. Unebi is closely tied to the story of Iware-biko, aka Jimmu, conquering and settling the land—perhaps to draw attention away from the stories about Mimaki and Ikume iribiko, aka Sujin and Suinin, who were both associated more with Mt. Mimoro, aka Mt. Miwa. So even though the physical presence was moved, by that point we know that foundation of many of these stories were likely laid down around the time that the Fujiwara capital was in operation. What does seem clear is that, just as there were clear efforts to set up the new State government, including the new capital, the court were also taking control of other levers of power and influence. We previously talked about how they had created National Temples and included government positions to oversee Buddhist affairs more generally. With Ise and the creation of the Jingikan, it appears as though that trend continued with the traditional kami worship.

Many of the elite families still had connections to their own shrines, with their own kami. Through the stories collected and written down—with a few editorial additions to help place them in an approved context—they were able to construct a narrative from separate or divergent traditions. These traditions had already accreted to themselves various stories and culture-ways, some of them with clear links to the continent and others with overlapping portfolios. The kami, and the ability to intercede with them for their blessings or to avert their wrath, were a form of power that was being structured for the purpose of supporting the new State. A state now under the control of one Uno no Sarara.

And we don't exactly have to wonder about this… the preface of the Kojiki all but says it. They put the words in the mouth of Ohoama, or, as they call him, the Sovereign of the Kiyomihara Palace. But the words are pretty clear:

"I hear that the Imperial Records and Ancient Writing handed down by the various houses have come to differ from the truth and that many false hoods have been added to them. If these errors are not remedied at this time, their meaning will be lost before many years have passed. This is the framework of the state, the great foundation of the imperial influence. Therefore, recording the Imperial Records and examining the Old Writings, discarding the mistaken and establishing the true, I desire to hand them on to later generations."

With that, 28 year old Hieda no Are was given the command to learn all the stories and presumably to recite them for the court. And several decades later, Oho no Yasumaro was given the task to take Are's stories and write them down. I imagine that Hieda no Are, or perhaps someone else who had learned the stories well enough, would be called into court or banquets to present some of the stories, or would be asked questions if there was any need for precedence. Thus creating a single source for truth, according to the administration.

At the same time, the court had a problem. They couldn't control all of the sources of written material, with all of the various contradictions, so we also would eventually get the more comprehensive—but also less narratively direct—Nihon Shoki as well. After all, the game of propaganda was being played at many levels, and while the royal household had their motivations—primarily to support the legitimacy of their claim to power and the system within which that claim was validated— other families wanted to ensure that they were properly recorded as having connections to traditional nexuses of power—be that the ancient kami of Heaven or Earth, or their relationship to the royal family. This is because precedence was important, even as new traditions were being created. Like the way that the Mononobe and the Nakatomi played important roles in Uno no Sarara's ascension ceremony despite the actual individuals using new or different names, like Isonokami or Fujiwara. See Episode 151 for the explanation, there. And new traditions were much easier to justify if you could connect them with older traditions—whether those older traditions were truly ancient or newly made inventions.

And all of this suggests that this was not an accident and it wasn't simply being imposed from the top down. One could be charitable and suggest that those involved felt that this got them closest to what the truth actually was, given that they had now been inculcated in a new worldview and they were trying to view the ancient stories through the interpretive lens of that worldview. On the other hand, they were ultimately doing it to structure power and authority that favored them and the government they had created. A government that they hoped would outlast them, and be passed on to their descendants.

Next episode, we will continue our discussion of Uno no Sarara's life and reign and the incredible steps she took to ensure that her line would continue to rule Yamato for decades.

Until then if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.

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And that's all for now. Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

We've looked at several different members of the court during the reign of Uno no Sarara, aka Jitou Tennou. Today we start to look at her life, who she was, and what she did. In this first part we'll touch on some of her big accomplishments, including building the Fujiwara capital, patronage of Ise Shrine, and even the publication of the Kiyomihara law code.

For more, check out the podcast blogpost: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-152

Rough Transcript:

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is episode 152: Queen Uno no Sarara, Part 1

It was rare that something would pull people from the fields at the height of the season, but it wasn't every day that people of Iga had the opportunity to watch a true royal procession. They gathered on either side of the street as the parade passed through town. There were horses and carts, but also just numerous men carrying various bags and provisions. There were also military guards, decked out in their finest—just in case anyone got any ideas. There were also various nobles and government officials, riding with her. The outfits and color would have been striking, particular to those who had little business with the court. And at the height of it all was a covered palanquin. Nobody could see the royal presence inside through the screens, though later they would talk about getting a peek of her hair or her robes. It didn't matter, the procession itself was enough of a spectacle for all to see.

Not everyone was pleased. A few of the more dour elders complained about how much of a disruption and a distraction it was. They would at least be somewhat mollified by the news that, for enduring the disruption, they would at least get a break on their taxes that year.

The procession was headed east, to the land of Ise. Apparently they were going to pay their respects at the shrine there. Did you know that it was dedicated to the ancestor of the royal family itself? The actual sun goddess herself, Amaterasu. Some of the elders shook their heads. They remembered when everyone had been focused on Mt. Miwa, to the west. And what about this Buddha that had shown up from overseas? There were temples to him popping up all over the place. They weren't so sure about all of this, but they knew their local kami and their local priests, who helped with the local harvests, and that was enough for them. The court and their fancy learning could figure out what the country needed, but they were going to stay focused on the day to day, instead.

Here we are, in the reign of Uno no Sarara, widow of Ohoama and mother to the late Prince Kusakabe, known to history as Jitou Tennou. We've actually been in Uno's reign for several episodes now, but while we've talked about how that reign began and the roles a lot of other people played in that beginning, this episode I would finally like to start focusing on her—who she was, where she came from, and what she did. Since that covers a lot of ground, we are going to cover some of her history up to this reign, and we'll be mostly focusing on two major updates—the creation of the new capital of Fujiwara, aka Fujiwara-kyou, and the increased royal patronage of Ise, which is thought to have been responsible for the ascendancy of Amaterasu as the paramount kami of the pantheon of Shinto kami.

So let's start at the very beginning. It is traditionally held that Uno no Sarara was born around 645 to Naka no Oe and Soga no Ochi no Iratsume. Ochi was the daughter of Soga no Kurayamada no Ishikawa no Maro, cousin to the powerful Soga no Iruka. Naka no Oe's marriage to Ochi no Iratsume and her sister, Mehi no Iratsume, had been part of a strategic alliance with Ishikawa no Maro, who helped him overthrow his cousins and institute the Taika Reforms. We talked about all of that back in Episode 106, as well as subsequent podcasts after that covering the next several reigns.

So 645 is about the earliest Uno no Sarara may have been born, the very start of the Taika era, when her father began instituting a lot of changes based on continental practices. She would have grown up in the inner buildings of the Asuka court during this time of immense change. She was probably a bit young when the Toyosaki palace was first built, though she may have remembered when the court abandoned it and moved back to Asuka.

Unfortunately, when she was only five years old, tragedy struck. Ishikawa no Maro, who had been made the Udaijin, or Minister of the Right, was slandered by his own brother, Soga no Himuka, and in return, Naka no Oe sent a force to have him punished. When he saw he could not get away, Uno no Sarara's grandfather, Ishikawa no Maro, took his own life. The Nihon Shoki—written, I should note, at least partly under the direction of Maro's granddaughter—claims that evidence came to light demonstrating his innocence, and he was posthumously exonerated.

Maro's daughter, Miyatsuko no Iratsume, was so saddened by all of this that we are told she died of a broken heart. Miyatsuko no Iratsume appears to be another name for Ochi no Iratsume, and if so, it would mean that Uno no Sarara lost both her mother and grandfather when she was only five years old due to the actions of her own father. This sounds to me like it should be some kind of villain origin story.

From there, she was likely taken care of by her aunts and other women in the palace, at least until 657. It was about that time, at the age of 13, that she was married off to her uncle, Prince Ohoama. We don't have a precise age for Ohoama, but he was likely no more than 5 years younger than Uno's father, Naka no Oe, and some estimates suggest he was in his late 20s or early 30s, taking to wife his 13 year old niece. I can't help but think, here, of the Heian period novel, the Tale of Genji, where the titular character, Genji, finds Lady Murasaki and marries her at the age of 10.

Uno no Sarara would have grown up in her uncle-husband's home, and she was still young when the entire realm was placed on a war footing.When the court moved to Kyushu in 661 for the prosecution of the war on the continent, Uno no Sarara went with her husband, and a year later gave birth to their son, Prince Kusakabe. She was probably about 18 years old at the time. I suspect that means She probably knew about her grandmother, Takara Hime, passing away, something that the inner circle of the royal family had attempted to keep relatively quiet for fear of disrupting the war effort.

Soon after her own son was born, news came back that the forces on the continent had lost. Baekje had fallen, and Yamato could be next. She would have traveled with her husband and the rest of the court back to Asuka and, eventually, up to Ohotsu, where her father now ruled with his brother as his right-hand man and heir to the throne.

At this time, Uno no Sarara was no stranger to politics. While her husband was in line for the throne, she knew that her brothers were also potential claimants, once they came of age. The Nihon Shoki disqualifies them through their parentage, but we see that didn't stop the Afumi court from rallying behind Prince Ohotomo. There was also the royal princes Kawashima and Shiki. Prince Takeru would have technically been a potential threat as well, had he not died, tragically, at only eight years of age.

Now, technically, some may have been more in line than others, but Uno no Sarara knew how her own father had jumped the line, displacing her late uncle, Furubito no Oe, and it was clear something similar might happen this time around. There were also likely a few indications that not everything was great between her father and her husband, although you would hardly know it from the number of her siblings that were also residing in the north chambers of his residence.

Things came to a head in 671. At this point, Uno no Sarara was in her late 20s with a 10 year old son, and it was looking, for a moment, like her father, despite his illness, might have Ohoama killed to pave the way for Naka no Oe's own son, Uno's brother, Ohotomo. When Ohoama surprised everyone and stepped down, taking the tonsure, she was the only one to follow him. We don't know if this is because she was that loyal to her husband, or because she had no other options. If her mother had taken her own life after her grandfather's death, she may have had nobody but her father, Naka no Oe, to turn to, and he was clearly doing poorly. If she stayed, then she would be relying on the goodwill of Prince Ohotomo and others while looking after the nine year old son and heir of Ohoama, who was clearly persona non grata at court.

In contrast, one of Ohoama's other consorts, Munakata no Amago no Iratsume would have had the Munakata family to fall back on, should she need it, and her son, Prince Takechi, was a bit older. In addition, Uno's sister, Ohota no Himemiko had passed away earlier, in 667, and it is unclear who cared for her son, Prince Ohotsu, who was only a year younger than Uno's son, Kusakabe. However, he, too, appears to have remained at the Afumi court with his caretakers.

So Uno no Sarara went to Yoshino with her husband. From this point on, Yoshino would become an important place for her, and during her own reign she would frequently make visits to the palace there, sometimes just for a couple of days at a time.

After Naka no Oe's death, and the entire conflict of the Jinshin no Ran that kicked off in 672, Uno stayed by her husband's side. She and Kusakabe made the incredible overnight journey from Yoshino to the other side of the Kii Peninsula, eventually setting up in Mie. Ohoama would continue on towards Fuwa pass, where his son Takechi was already stationed with loyal soldiers. Before that, however, he is mentioned as turning towards Ise—towards Amaterasu. The implication seems to be that he was praying for victory. It is also notable that a large part of his support was coming from the East and from areas around Ise.

Little is mentioned of Uno's role in the record of the Jinshin no Ran, but in the opening to her reign there is a mention that she addressed the troops and mingled with the throng, until at last they formed a plan. This seems to indicate that she was involved in the planning, at least, for the prosecution of the war. On the one hand she was placed well behind the front lines. On the other hand, she was well positioned to assist with logistics. Troops and supplies from the north could come down and be redirected to the south depending on what was needed, and communications would likely be more secure through that area fully controlled by Ohoama's troops. It is easy enough to imagine Uno no Sarara taking a role, even if it isn't explicitly mentioned. The fact that she is mentioned as much as she is suggests to me that she had plenty to contribute to the war effort.

As the war of 672 came to a close, Ohoama had to move from a war footing to one of peacetime governance. As he ascended to the throne in 673, Uno no Sarara was made his queen. And in light of the recent issues, Ohoama appears to have leaned heavily on her and other members of the royal family for support.

And so Uno no Sarara was not just a delicate flower sitting in the hinter palace, waiting on her husband. She was an active participant in the government. When Ohoama called the various princes down to Yoshino and had them swear to uphold and support each other, she was included in their number. And the Chronicles explicitly mention that when the princes swore to uphold each other, Ohoama swore he would also support them, and then Uno no Sarara made her oath like his. That is interesting in that she isn't included in the five princes, but rather with the sovereign, her husband. It appears she approached this from the point of view of a ruler already. Or perhaps she was not considered to be in the line of succession, and the focus was on upholding the various princes. Either way, we see how that eventually turned out.

Later, when starting the project for what is believed to be the Kiyomihara codes, she was seated on the dais with her husband, indicating that she certainly was involved in various matters of state. She also gave and received presents from the various nobles, including suits of clothing, gold, and more. When Ohoama grew ill, and could not carry out the functions of the government alone, he deferred matters to her and to the Crown Prince, presumably meaning her son, Prince Kusakabe.

Now Kusakabe is recorded as being made Crown Prince, and thus heir to the throne, however, it has also been suggested that this might not have been the case. Some have suggested that Prince Ohotsu may have been the actual Crown Prince, and that he wasn't plotting against Kusakabe and his mother, but rather it was the other way around, with Uno no Sarara clearing him off the field to make room for her son.

Ohotsu, remember, was the son of Ohoama by way of Ohota-hime, who was a full sister to Uno no Sarara. That meant that, from a strict bloodline perspective, Ohotsu had just as much of a claim to the throne as did Kusakabe, but Kusakabe was a year older—or so the Nihon Shoki, compiled under the reign of Uno and her successors, would have us believe. We are also told that Uno was formally designated as Ohoama's queen—but again we have that from the Nihon Shoki, which is more than a little bit biased.

Personally, I feel this theory that Uno no Sarara plotted to have Ohotsu removed without anything else stretches some of what we know, but it does illustrate that Uno no Sarara had a vested interest in ensuring that the crown went to her own progeny. I'd be more inclined to believe that there was some movement a foot, even if it was perhaps not quite as treasonous as the response to it would warrant.

And this catches us up with much of what we know. Ohotsu was executed, but then Kusakabe passed away, and so Queen Uno no Sarara became Tennou in her own right.

Things hadn't gone exactly to plan, but she still had her grandson, Prince Karu, the late Kusakabe's son, whose mother, Princess Abe, was a younger-half sister to Uno no Sarara. Abe was the daughter of Naka no Oe and Mehi no Iratsume, making Abe another grand-daughter of Soga no Kuramayada no Ishikawa no Maro. She was also 17 years Sarara's junior and only a year older than the late Kusakabe. By all accounts, it seems that Abe and Sarara got on well together, though she is not as prominent in the narrative that we have in the Nihon Shoki. Still, she had an important role, not in terms of governance, but in terms of ensuring that the line continued. She was in charge or protecting and raising young Prince Karu until he was ready to take the throne. In so doing, she would no doubt have had a front row seat to Queen Uno's own efforts.

Since Uno no Sarara had already been so involved with the government, it should come as no surprise that she continued many of the efforts attributed to her husband. In fact, you'll often find references to Temmu and Jitou side-by-side to describe what happened because very few things can be attributed to just one of the two, especially given how long some of these projects seem to have taken. That said, there were some differences. While Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou, had relied primarily on members of the royal family following the Jinshin no Ran, Uno was much more likely to rely on trusted nobles, whose position at court was largely held thanks to the patronage of the royal family. Having nobles running things again, rather than handing over power to those of the Princely class, may have provided opportunities for those noble houses to once again flex and grow their political muscle, but it was either that or hand that same power over to other princes with claims to royal descent—princes who might encourage the court that it would better if they, themselves, were to succeed the Queen, rather than the young prince, her own actual bloodline. Even the loyal Prince Takechi, who seems to have supported her and Prince Karu as best he could, could easily have become a threat. This could be one of the reasons she held on to power as long she did. It was, after all, a deliberate choice on her part. She could have had someone else step in as regent, but she chose not to.

We've talked about Uno's dealings with Silla and the continent at this time. That was back in Episode 148, when we talked about how Ohoama was mourned and how Yamato dealt with the early missions. We discussed, thenhow she berated the Silla envoys for not adhering to protocol and turning them away. She also met with Emishi and Hayato embassies, which only helped to cement Yamato's place as the central hegemony over the archipelago and all those living on the islands.

At first, this was just an extension of what she and Kusakabe had been doing since Ohoama had first grown ill and handed over the reins of government. But then Kusakabe died—and life went on. Later, Kusakabe would be remembered as Okanomiya Tennou and the Nagaoka Tennou. While not counted in the formal lineage, he was still granted the title "Tennou" posthumously, likely to help legitimize his son and that lineage. And yet, despite this, there is no report of a eulogy or anything similar upon his death. Even Royal Prince Ohotsu, when he was killed for threatening Kusakabe's own ascendance, is given a fairly wordy entry full of praise for his virtues and how he was remember. For Kusakabe we get silence. Things just move on.

Indeed, just two weeks after the Crown Prince's death, we get orders talking about given people four holidays each month. It seems a rather banal announcement coming the same week that the Crown Prince passed away.

And banal it may be, but I do want to pick at it a bit. I think it helps us understand even more the life at that time. In most of the world, today, we have become accustomed to the western concept of a week with seven days, including two holidays every week—though we just refer to it as the weekend. Saturday and Sunday began as holy days—the Sabbath in Jewish and then Christian tradition. Even Judaism only had a single day of rest every seven days. Many cultures did not have the concept of a weekend. After all, there wasn't anything particularly special about one day or the other. A lunar month is just under 30 days—alternating between 29 and 30 days depending on various factors. Five would fit into that much better than four seven day weeks and two more days. Or divide it into two 15 day periods, more or less. Or three weeks of ten days each. In fact, that is what was popular in the Tang dynasty at the time—though a seven day week had crept in through Buddhism, which had been picked up on the Indian subcontinent thanks to Hellenic influences. This seven day week, which is now used in modern times, was originally used more by astronomers. The days corresponded to the Sun, the Moon, and the visible planets.

The point is, there's no such thing as a natural weekend. At some point, the Tang court introduced a rest period every five days for court officials. In Yamato, it seems that they introduced four holidays. Specifically, the local governors were to give laborers—those conscripted as corvee labor—four days every month. It doesn't mention if they are spaced out, or at what intervals, and it was specifically for laborers. I should probably also mention that, at this time, there wasn't a concept of a "9-to-5" job. Sure, the court operated on a schedule that may have fit fairly well in our modern life, other than its extremely early start due to the lack of cheap, safe artificial light sources. Most people, however, especially in the agricultural sectors, were likely working from sunrise to sunset, when necessary. There was no concept of overtime or a forty hour work week. You worked when you needed to work, and that was it. No time cards, just life, punctuated by holidays, festivals, market days, and whatever else needed to happen. Oddly, in our modern, more regular work schedule we work both more and less, in some ways, than our ancestors did. Our labor often goes into things beyond our job—everything from taking care of our home to various hobbies that we enjoy. Giving laborers time off from their endeavors was no doubt something they appreciated, but I don't know how much of an impact it had on things long term.

A more interesting endeavor comes a few months later. That is when Uno had a royal commission come together as commissioners of "good words". We mentioned this before, especially when talking about Kose no Tayasu, who had been part of this commission, though he was the lowest ranked of the bunch. At the top it was headed by Prince Shiki, a half-brother to Uno, and one of those who had pledged his loyalty with other members of the royal family down in Yoshino, though at the time Shiki was only about 11 years old. He was the son of Koshi no Michi no Kimi no Iratsume, and a brother to Prince Osakabe. In 689, when he took charge of this commission from his half-sister, he would have been in his 22nd year, so this was probably one of his first major assignments.

We don't have a finished product that we can point to from this project, so there isn't a clear idea of exactly what the commission did. Aston believed that they were attempting to determine auspicious words to be used by the court. By this one could infer that they were looking into the way to draw up formal language for edicts, or how to formally address the sovereign and members of the court. However, others have suggested that this was more about finding stories and other such things and writing them down. If that is the case, this may have been a continuation of—or perhaps an addendum to—the history project started during the reign of Ohoama. The words, or stories, that the commission wrote down were likely used by later Chroniclers, though there is no specific work that is clearly attributed to their efforts. So in the end we can't exactly know for sure.

What we can see is that Uno no Sarara was continuing to make tweaks and changes to things—and in particular in how things were stated, remembered, and passed down to posterity, one way or another. This is also part of what we see later that same month, when the 22 books of what we now call the Kiyomihara Law Codes were also published. Like the history project, this was also begun during the reign of Ohoama, and Uno had continued to see it through. It appears to have been just the law itself, not necessarily the punishments which made up the other half of the Ritsuryou, but it is still significant. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly what was in it—the earliest law code that we have good evidence for is the Taihou code, which would come over a decade later—but we have seen some of the edicts and orders and we can make some assumptions based on later law codes as well as the language used to even define the court and how things ran. Much of what was written had likely been promulgated, previously, and a lot of this may have been more documenting the changes they had already put in place.

There is also the Afumi law code, but there are even more questions about that one. This is possibly the first one written down to this level of detail. Though it would be superseded, later, it was still an impressive work.

As in past reigns, we see things both monumental and mundane. A month after the law codes were finished, we see about orders to the Mayors of the Left and Right to set up places for Archery—literally glossed as "Ikusa", or "war", but likely because the two had a common root and archery and war were closely intertwined. As for the Mayors of the Left and Right, this is the first time we are seeing those terms, and I suspect they are also part of the reforms that Uno no Sarara and her late husband had been implementing. The Mayors of the Left and Right of the Capital are known as Kyoushiki or, alternatively, as Misato-zukasa. They were like kokushi, or governors, except they oversaw the capital city. Now remember, the quote-unquote "capital city" in use at this point is Asuka—it is the Kiyomihara palace and environs. There were other streets, buildings, and such around, but nothing terribly organized. Most family estates were off in their own lands or strongholds. At the same time, the court was building out a new, permanent capital. It was taking time—and likely had been put on hold during the three year mourning period for the late Ohoama Ohokimi. It required that they survey and transform an immense and populated area into a new and impressive capital in the area known today as Kashihara. This work took years—they likely had to divert labor to build the late sovereign's mausoleum, or misasagi, and there were droughts and other reasons why they may have had to pause work. And yet, it continued, nonetheless.

The main ideal for a capital city was based off of continental models. While Luoyang may have been the more active capital, the western capital of the Tang dynasty, at Chang'an—modern Xi'an—appears to have been a more quintessential capital city layout, and may have been what the Yamato capital was attempting to mimic—though they may have also been relying on the theoretical Confucian model, as well. In fact, I tend to think that the Confucian model was closer to this first attempt at a permanent capital. Early on, excavations assumed that the palace structures were towards the northern end of the city, but further investigations have suggested that the scale of Fujiwara-kyo was much more ambitious, and some maps of the area place the palace towards the center of the city. Either way, there were several key things about the capital and how it mimicked the continental models. One of the primary things that Yamato had appropriated from across the strait was the north-south orientation of the palace, with the main audience hall facing south, so as to get the sun. This meant that, from the point of view of the sovereign in that hall, the left side would be the east and the right side would be to the west. And so the capital city was divided into a left and right, east and west, and each half had its own administrator responsible for taxation, public safety, and general law and order. They were, as I said, similar to the governors of the various provinces in the scope of their powers, except that they oversaw the capital city.

The building of the Fujiwara capital is perhaps one of the most obvious changes that Uno no Sarara was overseeing. As I've mentioned before, it was a physical manifestation of court. The three sacred mountains which were included within the boundaries of the capital were woven into the myths and legends that would find their way into the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki. The size and scale of the earthworks and the stones laid as foundation demonstrate that this was clearly meant to be a permanent capital, overturning the idea that there would be a huge change every time a sovereign passed away. Instead, there would be consistency. The order of the state would go on.

Later we'll talk about reasons why the Fujiwara capital was abandoned. For now, though, let's look at what we see about its construction.

In 690, the same year that Uno ascended to the throne, Royal Prince Takechi, Ohoama's oldest son, inspected the site where the new Fujiwara palace was to be placed. Two months later, Uno no Sarara came out to see it for herself. I imagine this as being the point where the land had been cleared, and they could see the mountains and the placement and get an idea of the overall size of what they were looking for. With royal approval, the project continued.

A year later, in 691, officials were sent to perform the Chin-sai, the pacification ceremony, for the new capital. Today, this is a common ceremony, known as a Jichin-sai, or Earth Pacification Ceremony, done before undertaking a construction project. Theoretically it is before breaking ground on the project, though there is often some amount of preparation that has to be done in preparation. The idea for the Jichin-sai is to effectively negotiate with the spirits of the land before disturbing the area, a recognition that the process of construction is going to alter the natural landscape. As such, one wants to propitiate the spirits and the kami that are on the land to ensure that the construction is successful. This was likely a much older ritual, but this is the first mention we have of it in the record. This ceremony was also apparently directed at the new capital as a whole, while a year later another ceremony was held specifically for the new palace complex. In the intervening time we see the court laying out the roads and giving land for the various mansions of court nobles, like Tajihi no Shima's four chou of land—roughly ten acres. Those of Jikikwoni rank and above were given two chou, and those from Jikidaisan down were given one chou. Those of Gon rank on down would get land dependant on the number of inhabitants in their fiefs. First class fiefs would get one chou, while second class would warrant a half chou and at the bottom they would get one quarter chou. This was apparently the land that they were being given in the capital to build their personal residences. Other land was given out for markets, temples, and other necessary facilities, but this whole city really was being built from scratch.

Shortly after the pacification ceremony for the palace, officials were sent out to the major shrines of the time. This included the great gods, the Ohokami, of Ise, Yamato, Sumiyoshi, and Kii. So not just the local kami, but also the larger kami who were seen as the kami of the archipelago more generally.

It would still take another year to build the palace. Uno visited the site a few times during the construction, with her last visit just a quick outing on the 8th month of 693. At that point it was likely ready, though she wouldn't formally move into the new palace until the first month of 694. Before that, though, there was one other thing that had to happen. In the 2nd month of 693 they had to rebury the bodies.

That's right. The Fujiwara capital occupied a huge swath of the plain of what is now known as Kashihara. And that plain had been settled for centuries—all through the kofun period. And those kofun, and possibly even older funkyubo, the older mixed-use burial mounds—would have been destroyed in the making of the new capital. There also may have been plain pit burials that were dug up while laying out roads and foundations. I don't know that there was anything approaching the size of the larger, keyhole shaped mounds, but we have no way to know for certain how many were there that had to be destroyed or moved. I also have not seen any indications of any mass reburial site—whether they opened an existing tomb or simply dug a pit in the ground somewhere. I imagine that such a find would be incredible, but unless archaeologists stumble upon it, I guess we'll never know. Still, it is interesting, and almost poetic as we move further and further from the kofun period, this feels like the final nail in the proverbial coffin, if you'll forgive the pun. Indeed, when Uno no Sarara finally passes away, she will become one of the first sovereigns to be cremated, with her ashes and burnt remains then deposited in the existing tomb with her husband, Ohoama, rather than having a new mounded tomb built. Buddhist style cremation would eventually become commonplace throughout the archipelago, though sovereigns would still have special mausoleums built for their memory, it really was a change from the ancient practices.

From 694 onward, the court would meet at the new Fujiwara Palace. Compared to previous palaces, I can only imagine how impressive this one must have seemed. Based on what we can tell, it was likely built much more in the continental style. Previous palaces had largely been in the style of the archipelago, with what we believe was plain wood and a thatched roof. The Fujiwara palace was likely a mix, but with more of the continental style than the previous Kiyomihara place. It also dwarfed its predecessor, at over twice the size. It was actually much closer in size and shape to the Toyosaki palace, in Naniwa. At the southern end of the palace was the Suzaku mon, the Suzaku gate, followed by the choshu-den'in, a courtyard with two buildings, one in the east and one in the west, where officials could wait and prepare for the day. From there they would be let into the Chodoin, a large court yard with four buildings on the east and west, and four more at the southernmost point. These would be where the various departments, or bureaus, would operate. There were also gates in the east and west of the Chodoin for easier access. To the north was another gate, leading to the Daigokuden, the main audience hall. This would have been quite the impressive and imposing structure—the main focus of the palace. It was in its own walled enclosure, and would have been the seat of the sumera Mikoto, or Tennou. It was both inside and apart from the Dairi, the inner palace. This was the actual residence of the sovereign and the royal family. The dairi itself occupied more land than the entire Kiyomihara palace. None of the buildings exist, but we can see their footprint from the large foundation stones and there are numerous rooftiles and other architectural features that fell off or were removed and then buried, purposefully or not, allowing us to get some idea of the size and scale of the project.

And yet, it appears that this palace may not have been completed when they moved in. The entire city was likely still under construction, in fact. The main pieces were in place, but to build an entire city from scratch took a lot of work. Most of the buildings would have been built with more traditional—and less labor intensive—practices. You didn't need a false second story gallery some thirty feet off the ground, even if you were the Minister of the Right. It was enough to have a relatively simple mansion with gardens, servants quarters, and everything else needed to keep you comfortable. That in and of itself was going to put a strain on labor and other resources.

And so it looks like some parts of the galleries and other features may not have been finished even while Uno no Sarara was there. In fact, it may not have been fully finished by the time they moved again. The Fujiwara capital, the first permanent capital city, was only occupied from 694 until about 710—less than two decades. This massive project, taking multiple years and how many people to create, would be abandoned several years later. The buildings would be torn down and moved to the new site—Heijou-kyou, in modern Nara city. And yet, the impact of Fujiwara kyou would remain.

Besides making changes to the physical landscape, Uno no Sarara was also focused on the spiritual landscape as well. Both Ohoama and Uno not only supported the Buddhist temples, building new temples and leveraging the ceremonies, but they also supported the traditional kami. During the Jinshin no Ran, Ohoama turned and addressed the kami of Ise before heading to the Fuwa barrier. Later we see a greater focus on Ise Shrine, with Saigu, the royal princesses sent to Ise Shrine as the Shrine priestess, being heavily reported. In fact, the position seems to have not been commented on much until this reign, and there is some thought that Ohoama and Uno actually instituted the practice—or at least made it a formal part of the court and the royal household. This is combined with their support of the Jingikan, the state governmental body responsible for dealing with kami matters. At this time it appears to have been even more powerful, in many ways, than the other bureaus or departments of the Great Council of State, the Dajokan.

There are plenty who argue that the preeminence of Ise was born in this period. Early Yamato worship focused more on the deity of Mt. Miwa: Ohomononushi. Sun worship seems to have also been baked into the rituals of the ethnic Wa people, but that wasn't necessarily focused on Amaterasu—and Amaterasu was not necessarily seen as a feminine goddess. Early worship appears to focus on the deities such as Takabi Musubi, and similarly named deities. These are deities that show up in court ritual, and presumably date back to well before this period. Thanks to the fact that we get alternate stories in the Nihon Shoki, we occasionally see them take a more central role in events, such as the descent of the Heavenly Grandson, but at the same time we also see that the main throughline of the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki has placed Amaterasu more front and center in the narrative.

Ama Terasu effectively translates to something like "The Shining of Heaven". In neither the Japanese nor Sinitic language is she particularly gendered most of the time, and this may have been a more generic name for the concept of a sun deity. I believe it is also somewhat telling that the Ichi-no-miya, the First Shrine, or primary shrine, of Ise is not Ise Shrine, but rather Tsubaki Grand Shrine, which is the home of Sarutahiko Ohokami. Even in the Nihon Shoki, there is a narrative regarding the yata no kagami, the great mirror, that it was moved from its original location in the Nara Basin over to Ise and the shrine was then established there, marking the shrine as a relative late-comer to the region rather than marking a particularly ancient spot. The Great Kami of Ise then appears to have taken on some of the shine, pun intended, of Sarutahiko, who is no longer seen as a sun-deity, and is even placed in the way of the Heavenly Grandchild's descent—perhaps a subtle nod to some of the tensions between the worship of one over the other.

Besides sending the Shrine Princess, the Saigu, to Ise, the sovereigns themselves made plans to go, in person. Ohoama made preparations, including purifying himself, but his trip was cancelled due to a sudden death in the palace. He is never recorded as making the trip, after that. Uno no Sarara, however, did make the trip, in 692.

This was clearly quite the production, and requires several entries in the Nihon Shoki. The first entry is in the 2nd month of the year, when she makes her intentions clear. The Court officials were set to task to prepare all the necessary clothing for the trip, which was about 3 weeks out. This likely also meant preparing the road, ensuring that there would be food, and a place for Uno no Sarara and her entourage to stay when they reached Ise. The preparations clearly had an impact, as Miwa no Ason no Takechimaro, a Chunagon, or Middle Counselor, presented a memorial to remonstrate with her majesty on the trip. He noted that they were in the middle of the agricultural season—roughly April or May by modern standards—and a royal trip would have an outsized impact on the areas where she would be traveling through. His remonstration was heard, and overruled. Uno no Sarara was determined to go. As she delegated the Prince Hirose, Tahema no Mabito no Chitoko, and Ki no Ason no Yumibari to all look after the palace while she was away, Miwa no Takechimaro reiterated his remonstration and then took a drastic step: He offered to her his cap—basically he offered to resign his rank. This was quite the step, and not from nobody.

Miwa no Takechimaro was from a prominent family. As their name suggests, they were connected to Mt. Miwa, and the worship, there. Based on what evidence we have, he was probably born around 657 CE, and when he was about 16 years old he was fighting on the side of Ohoama in the Jinshin no Ran. In particular, he was involved in the fighting near Hashihaka kofun, and then moved over to attack the Afumi forces on the Middle Road. There is evidence after that of him making his way up through the ranks, and was even one of those who offered a eulogy for Ohoama. As Chunagon, he was in a fairly powerful position in court, and giving up his court rank would mean not just a loss in status, but also giving up the income associated with that rank.

And this remonstration may be why we are told that the court commuted taxes, including forced labor, for the lands that she passed through, and she recognized the local Kuni no Miyatsuko with cap-rank. She also remitted taxes for those who had been conscripted to help from elsewhere, such as her baggage handlers, the people who built the temporary palace for her to stay in, in Ise, etc. So even if the procession to Ise had an impact, she seems to have done her best to lessen the blow.

As for Takechimaro, we don't see him again in the Nihon Shoki, but he does show up later. He would become the governor of Nagato, and then later he is given positions such as the Mayor of the Sakyou, or Left Capital. So it would seem that either his resignation wasn't accepted, or that he was re-hired at some later point. He would pass away in 706 CE.

By the way, there is one other notable feature about him, and you may have caught it as I went over all of this. That was the name of his uji, or clan: Miwa, or Ohomiwa. This means he had a connection to—and possibly a vested interest in—promoting the worship at Mt. Miwa, the traditional Yamato cultic center. Nothing is outright stated, but it makes sense that someone from Miwa might be a little bit concerned with the extra attention being given to the shrine at Ise around this time—so there is that, as well.

Regardless of his intentions, it certainly seems that from that point on Ise Shrine and the deity worshipped there, Amaterasu Ohokami, would be tied to the imperial line from the late 7th century onward. Clearly the royal patronage of the shrine stepped up, and for the most part we do see a fairly regular stream of Saigu, with one slight exception: There doesn't appear to have been one during Uno no Sarara's reign. Ohoku no Himemiko had been sent down during the reign of Ohoama, but she was the sister to Prince Ohotsu, and appears to have returned after his death. The position appears to have remained vacant until after Uno no Sarara's reign. It makes me wonder if she wasn't "filling in" for the Saigu, in a way. That could, in part, explain her travels there. There also may not have been a good candidate at the time, but I find that less believable—perhaps there was no candidate that Uno trusted given the precarious position her own bloodline was in at the moment. Still, after her reign, the position of Saigu would be regularly filled by a member of the royal family through the end of the Heian period. It was interrupted by the Genpei wars, and then the practice fell into decline during the period of the Kamakura bakufu. Late Edo period pro-imperialists tried to restore the practice, but it didn't catch back on.

Despite the apparent importance of the shrine to the royal family, it would also remain somewhat aloof. The priests of the shrine would provide the sacred mirror for ascension ceremonies, but it would be very rare for any sitting sovereign to actually pay a visit to the shrine, and, as I mentioned before, Amaterasu was not one of the deities reflected in the inner court rituals. Still, she would come to be seen as the dominant kami of the Shinto pantheon, and even today, many shrines will hold space for her as well as the primary deity; home shrines, or kamidana, will often include ofuda for Amaterasu as a central point of worship, with kami associated with one's local shrines as well.

So there you have just a little taste of what Uno no Sarara was up to. Whether she had intended to be in this position or had it thrust onto her, she was no shrinking violet. She took control of the ship of state and set a course that would continue to influence the archipelago down to the modern day. The reforms that started with her father and husband she continued and made manifest in the physical and spiritual world. And this is only the beginning. There is more to talk about regarding Uno no Sarara's reign, and her eventual abdication, but for that, we will have to wait until Part 2.

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And that's all for now. Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

The Dazai no Sochi--the head of the Yamato government in Kyushu--was a powerful position, with a lot of autonomy with lucrative opportunities. The people in this position were often powerful members of the court capable of representing the sovereign. They would often go on to become quite powerful in their own right. So who were the movers and shakers that held this prestigious position during Uno no Sarara's reign? This episode, we take a look at those who held the position and those who supported them.

For more, check out our blogpost: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-151

PS: Hang around to the end (or check the end of the transcript) for information on some possible updates coming to the show.

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is Episode 151: The Dazai no Sochi of the late 7th century

Tsukushi no Masaru was busy. A new boss was coming in, and he wanted to make sure everything was prepared. The Dazai may have been about as far as one could get from the capital and still be in Yamato, but it was also the first—and sometimes only—encounter some would have with the archipelago, so there was no excuse to be slacking off. Of course, this was hardly his first new boss, though for as long as he'd been on the job, each one could well be his last. He was getting a bit long in the tooth, after all. Twenty-nine years was a long time to be working in the same position. As Masaru paused, he thought back on some of the people he'd served.

There was Soga no Akae—he was ambitious. Apparently he'd been in some rather compromising positions before coming out, but he'd done well enough when he went back. Shame that he backed the wrong horse.

That did bring a chuckle to old Masaru's throat, though. He remembered when Prince Kurikuma had come out there, to the the Dazai, , and there were still people around who told stories of him. When those Afumi court stooges had showed up to try and conscript the barrier guards, Prince Kurikuma and his sons just stared them down. Everyone had been afraid that it would end in bloodshed, or at least that there would be consequences for defying the court, but Kurikuma was adamant, and the messenger had left with his tail firmly between his legs.

Then there was Shima. By the time he came, Masaru already knew how everything was supposed to work. He may not have been in charge, but that wasn't his ambition. It was enough for him to be good at what he did. He didn't need to go all the way to the Palace and deal with the politics there—there were enough politics out here already. Shima, though, he was clearly suited for that Palace life. He was a capable administrator, but Masaru could tell he was ambitious. When he left, everyone knew that he would be going on to bigger and better things.

And now there was another Prince coming out. So they would get the government offices prepared and greet him with proper fanfare. They'd bring him in and hold the ceremonies, and then they would get down to work. A stream of officers would present him with what they were working on and what had to happen. Masaru would be there to help make sure that everything was running smoothly and nothing got too out of hand. And that was the way things worked out on the edge of the realm.

Welcome back to Sengoku Daimyo. We are still covering the reign of Uno no Sarara, and, similar to last episode, we are going to continue to talk about the people who made up Yamato at this time. This episode, more specifically, we are going to be turning away from the capital, in Asuka, and looking all the way over to Tsukushi—modern Kyushu—and at the people who served as Dazai no Sochi, or head of the local government out there, as well as the bureaucrats and staff that worked for them—at least as far we know. Many of them went on to have considerable careers that took them well beyond Kyushu. At the same time, we'll take a look at some of the things that happened under their rule as what Aston translates as the "Viceroy of Tsukushi".

After that, I have a special announcement about the podcast at the end of the episode, so if you are interested in learning more about what we plan on doing, please listen all the way to the end to hear about some plans for the future.

And with that out of the way, let's begin.

So we are talking about the position of Dazai no Sochi or the Viceroy of Tsukushi. Often these people are referred to only as being of the "Tsukushi no Dazai" or the "Tsukushi no Ohomochi". The term "Sochi" appears later, and we first see this term applied to Prince Kawachi, in 689. It seems to show up with two different characters, which might be a term from the later Taihou code that was retroactively applied or may refer to an evolution of the position over time. I'm honestly not sure. There is still plenty of confusion over what was meant in some of the references.

We've discussed this position before on the podcast: This was the sovereign's representative to the world outside of the archipelago. Not only did the Dazai no Sochi oversee all of Tsukushi—all of Kyushu— and extensive defensive forces stationed there and in the outlying islands, but they oversaw all diplomatic and trade missions to and from the archipelago. Envoy missions would come to Tsushima, where they would get a local pilot and send word ahead. They would then be received at the government center, the Dazai, near modern Fukuoka and Hakata bay. For most envoys, this was as close as they would ever get to Yamato proper. They would offload their goods there and be put up at the government supplied quarters in Wogohori. They would be wined and dined there, entertained as appropriate to their status, while word was sent on to the capital. In rare cases, envoys would be sent on another journey through the inland sea to Naniwa, and then on to Asuka, but otherwise their journey would end at the Dazaifu. Any return gifts would come back with the correspondence from the capital, and thus be handed out to the envoys and their escorts before the mission was sent back home to Silla, Tamna, or wherever they had come from.

Being the middle man in this operation offered a lot of power and authority, but it also would have been quite lucrative. While diplomatic missions brought gifts for the court, they also brought trade goods, of which the Dazai no Sochi could have first pick. This is on top of the fact that this position often came with a stipend equaling the labor of hundreds of individuals.

Many of the Dazai no Sochi would serve limited terms, eventually returning to Asuka, where we see them take on powerful positions. Take, for example, our first Dazai no Sochi, Tajihi no Mabito no Shima.

Tajihi no Shima was born, we are told, in or around 624 to Tajihi no Maro and a daughter of Ohotomo no Hirafu. Tajihi no Maro, Shima's father was a powerful noble in the court of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou, and he had enough standing that he was one of the named individuals who provided eulogies for Ohoama on the occasion of his passing. The Tajihi family were quite well placed: they were descendants of Hinokuma no Takata no Miko, aka Senka Tennou, Shima's great-grandfather. This earned them the kabane of "Mabito", or "True Person" because of their royal lineage. Tajihi no Shima was placed in charge of the Dazai from at least 682. His predecessor that we know about is Prince Yagaki, who was dismissed around 676, and we don't know who filled the gap between him and Shima.

Shima had quite the run. We don't know exactly when he returned to the court in Asuka, but it cannot have been later than 689, when we see Awada no Mahito in the position. A year later, in 690, Shima was made Udaijin, or minister of the right. That's a huge deal and we will talk about that in a bit, but what did Shima actually oversee during his tenure as Dazai no Sochi? We have quite a few events attributed to him, this reign. In 686, we see the Tsukushi no Dazai sending tribute in the form of human beings: Common men and women of Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla, along with 62 priests and nuns. We aren't told where these men and women came from, but I suspect that they were refugees or captives from all the fighting on the peninsula. That they were given as tribute suggests to me that they were enslaved—or at the very least they were not free. If they were uneducated, they were likely put to work as labor, perhaps building out the new capital or opening new farmlands.

Later we see the various missions from Silla around the death of Ohoama, and the back and forth that went on, there, and in 688 the Tsukushi no Dazai entertained Kara, a Minister of Tamna, aka modern Jeju island, who had been sent by the king of that small country. You may recall that Tamna, while late to the game, may have been one of the last holdouts of an early Japonic speaking people outside of the archipelago.

Being the Tsukushi no Dazai, Shima would not have only been concerned with foreign envoys, but also with two other groups of Hayato—specifically the Ohosumi no Hayato and the Ata no Hayato. Little is known about them, other than that Yamato considered them to be distinct ethnic and cultural groups living in the far south of Kyushu. We've talked before about how southern Kyushu maintained a significantly different material culture through Kofun period until more recent times. We also have indication that they had a distinctive shield and even art style—the famous "Hayato shields" appear to have been appropriated by the court, along with a contingent of Hayato men that were expected to act as an exotic guard for the sovereign and the court. The earliest reliable evidence we have for them is a record from 682. There are some questions as to whether or not they were related to the groups previously called Kumaso or even the Tsuchigumo, but there is no clear historical or archaeological evidence linking them other than the common cultural finds in Kyushu more generally.

The Ata and Ohosumi Hayato may have been distinct clans or lineage groups living in Ohosumi and the area of modern Satsuma.

We have a record in 687 of the Ata no Hayato attending Ohoama's funeral and presenting a eulogy. The chiefs who came brought 337 others—a sizeable contingent—and they were all given presents by the court. Later, we would see presents given out to 174 Hayato by Shima's successor in the Dazai, Awada no Mahito, and then in 692 we know that the court sent priests to preach Buddhism to Ata and Ohosumi. In 695, Hayato of Ohosumi were entertained in the capital, and they even held a wrestling match for the Queen and her attendants in the area west of Asukadera, by the site of the famous Tsuki tree.

So the Hayato would have been another group that Shima no doubt dealt with on a somewhat regular basis in his capacity as Dazi no Sochi—and then later on when he returned to Asuka and took up his new role as Udaijin.

And as I mentioned, that appointment was a Big Deal. The position of Udaijin had been vacant since Nakatomi no Kane, one of the infamous leaders of the Afumi court, was non-consensually removed from the position—and this plane of existence—when he was executed in 672, at the closure of the Jinshin no Ran. After that, Ohoama appears to have been gun-shy about sharing power with anyone outside the royal family. The position had been left vacant for about 18 years. So what made Uno no Sarara take up Shima as Minister of the Right? And what about the Minister of the Left, or the Sadaijin?

Well, we don't have a Sadaijin, but we do have a Dajodaijin in the form of Prince Takechi, Ohoama's first-born son. The Dajodaijin was the Prime Minister in charge of the entire Dajokan, the Council of State, made up of the ministers of the left and right and the 8 bureaus of the government. The Sadaijin and Udaijin served under the Dajodaijin, in that hierarchical order, with the Sadaijin generally being considered higher in precedence. So it looks like, in this case, they had the Dajodaijin, Prince Takechi to run the Council and Shima, as Udaijin would have been responsible for ensuring the administration of the eight bureaus was properly carried out.

That Shima was appointed just under Prince Takechi again shows the power and influence he likely had and the trust he must have had from Uno no Sarara. Remember, the Crown Prince, Kusakabe, had died before he could take the throne. Uno was enthroned as Queen, while the Crown Prince, Karu, was still a minor. Whereas Ohoama had his wife and many sons to help him run things, Uno no Sarara was running thin. As had been seen with Prince Ohotsu, there was always the threat that one of Ohoama's other sons could be propped up on the throne. Uno had to look after Karu's birthright, but there was no guarantee that he would make it to adulthood in times before modern medicine. It appears that Prince Takechi was actually considered the next in line, just in case something happened to Karu before he could ascend the throne, which makes sense that Prince Takechi was also trusted as Dajo Daijin. Shima's place as Udaijin must have been indicative of similar trust that he would look after the royal family's interests. This was no doubt helped by the role he played as Dazai no Sochi.

As Udajin, Tajihi no Shima went on to have a rather incredible career. He was given 4 cho of land for his residence. This appears to be around 10 acres or so—a not inconsiderable amount of land, and it probably refers to the amount of land he was granted in the new Fujiwara capital city. Later, in the Nara capital of Heijo-kyo, Prince Nagaya's residence was about that size and Fujiwara no Nakamaro's residence is thought to have been about twice that. This would have given Shima space for multiple buildings, sprawling gardens, servants quarters, quarters for his wives and children, and much more.

Tajihi no Shima would continue in his role as Udaijin, and would eventually, be promoted to the position of Sadaijin, a post he held only briefly, as he passed away almost a year later. He was not forgotten, however. It is thought that he was the model for one of the suitors of Kaguya Hime in the famous story of Taketori Monogatari—the tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Taketori Monogatari, also known as Kaguya Hime Monogatari, is considered the oldest known story in the Monogatari form. It was probably written in the late 9th or early 10th century, with references to it appearing in works as early as 909 CE. This suggests that Tajihi no Shima and others were still remembered, at least in part, over a century later.

Shima is also thought to have been the patron of the famous poet, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, one of the famous 36 immortal poets. We'll have to include Hitomaro in a later episode, though we might come back to him after this reign, as he isn't mentioned in the Chronicles, but we do have some fragmentary biographical information thanks to his inclusion in the Man'yoshu. In fact, he's probably one of the most famous poets in the Man'yoshu who is not otherwise mentioned. We are told that he was the court poet during the reign of Uno no Sarara, so it makes sense that Shima may have very well been his patron and helped him get his start.

Now while Shima was back in Asuka, making it big in the court, the position of Tsukushi no Dazai had to be filled, and we are told that the mantle was taken up by Awada no Mahito no Ason. This name is a bit tricky, as it seems to have two kabane: Mahito and Ason. Since his father is said to have been Kasuga no Awada no Omi no Kudara, the assumption seems to be that "Mahito" was his name, rather than his kabane. Although it was likely pronounced "Mabito" at the time, I'm going to go with the modern pronunciation of "Mahito" in part to distinguish it from the kabane. A quick side note: When reading names from this period, we usually see the kabane coming right after the family name, as the kabane is basically a rank for the family and not the individual. But we do occasionally see the kabane tacked on at the end of a name, as in Awada no Mahito's case.

I would also like to quickly draw your attention to his father's name: Kudara. That can also be read as Baekje. Was this an indication that his father or an ancestor came from the continent, perhaps from Baekje? Or just that he had close ties to that kingdom? I couldn't find anything specific, but it seems interesting that he was put in place at the Dazai, where dealing with the continent would have been an important part of his duties.

Awada no Mahito was not just a noble of the court, and even if his father was of Baekje descent, that may not have been the main thing that gained him the position. It may have also had to do with an earlier incident. We are told that in 653 Mahito was one of those who traveled with the 2nd envoy to the Tang court as a scholar monk. He would later return to secular life, but that experience must have been a big feather in his cap, helping him land a good position at court. In fact, in 685, we are told that he was Jikikwoushi rank—a fairly respectable position for anyone at the time—and he apparently tried to get his father raised to the same rank as he was. Aston translates the record as saying he was willing to give his rank to his father, but it is unclear to me if this means he was offering to give up his rank altogether. At the very least it seems that he felt awkward outranking his father—a good, filial attitude, it would seem. However, Ohoama didn't care. In the past, rank may have been given to entire families, but now the court was giving rank to individuals, and the rank Mahito had earned was his, not his father's. And so his request was denied.

Four years later, Ohoama was gone and Awada no Mahito was sent to the Tsukushi no Dazai. We are told that he was in that position as of 689. If that was the position of Dazai no Sochi, however, he didn't hold it for long, as Prince Kawachi was raised up to that position that same year, and here we have a bit of a conundrum.

Mahito is only mentioned as "Tsukushi no Dazai" while Prince Kawachi is specifically mentioned, at least twice, as Tsukushi no Dazai no Sochi. There are some who suggest that Mahito may have been the Dazai Daini, an assistant to the Dazai no Sochi—effectively the second-in-command it would appear. This makes some sense, when you consider it, and he may even have been acting Dazai no Sochi until Prince Kawachi was appointed.

Of course, because our records are quite lackluster, and we are never actually told when Tajihi no Shima left the position, it is possible that Awada no Mahito was actually the Dazai Sochi for many years leading up to 689, and that Shima had returned to Asuka some time ago. This is the problem with the way things are written—sometimes they mention a name and sometimes just a position, and rarely do they mention when someone stepped down.

Still, Mahito oversaw a few things that we can be somewhat sure about as they happened after he is first mentioned in the position, though it was all in the same year. For one thing, he is the one who presented gifts to the 174 Hayato in the first month of 689. This included cloth, ox hides, and deerskins. He was also there when the Queen sent relief to the Barrier Wardens whose terms were up. These were the Sakimori, a position set up to defend the archipelago and repel any potential invasions. I would assume they were regularly rotated out, especially if they were expected to man the fortifications out on some of the islands. It is interesting that we don't often see them referenced, so it isn't clear to me why the reference was made here—it may have just been a note in one of the sources the Chroniclers were using.

Later that same year, we also see garments being given out—likely meaning official court clothing—to the Tsukushi Dazai and others. This was probably to bring them all in line with the latest formal wear being used in the court in Asuka. We also know that in the 6th month of that year they entertained the Silla envoys, who were given various presents.

And then, two months later, Mahito is out and Prince Kawachi comes in. At the same time that Prince Kawachi is being made the Dazai no Sochi, our previous Dazai no Sochi, Tajihi no Shima, had his rank and fief increased. I doubt this was a coincidence, and it is one of the things that, for me, lends credence to the idea that Shima had just then returned to Asuka and Prince Kawachi was his replacement, suggesting that Mahito had really just been in an acting capacity while the change over was taking place.

Unfortunately, if we were looking for more information about Prince Kawachi's background, we would be disappointed. Although he is a prince, probably descended from Nunakura, aka Bidatsu Tennou, we don't have a lot about him. He—or someone with the same name, since we do see these Princely titles get reused, it seems—is found in the reign of Ohoama traveling with Ohotomo no Yasumaro and Fujiwara no Ohoshima to go entertain Gim Jisyang of Silla. Later we see a Prince Kawachi delivering eulogies during Ohoama's funeral. That suggests he held an important position, and that he was somewhat familiar with the continent, but we don't get a whole lot more. Our next evidence is when he was appointed to the post of Dazai no Sochi in 689, a position he would hold until his death in 694—which may also explain why we just don't see too much of him in the record. A promising career may have been cut short, as happened all too often back in that day and age.

Still, as Dazai no Sochi, he had plenty to keep him busy. Not a month after he arrived, Isonokami no Maro and Ishikawa no Mishina arrived at the head of a delegation. They were there to deliver patents of rank to members of the Tsukushi government and to inspect the fortifications at the edge of the archipelago. These were the same fortifications being manned by the newly arrived Sakimori.

Speaking of the members of the Tsukushi government, it took a lot of people to make the Dazaifu work, not just the Sochi giving people orders about what they should do. There were numerous assistants helping to keep everything running. Some of them would have just been dealing with the Sochi's own residence, while others were clerks, guards, and more. It really was a miniature version of the court in Asuka, and would have required a lot of people to tend to it.

And we know of at least one of them: Tsukushi no Fubito no Masaru, whose imagined thoughts we heard at the top of the episode. In 691, Masaru was recognized for 29 years of service as a secretary to the Tsuksuhi no Dazai. Twenty-nine years in place suggests to me that he would have likely been one of the longest serving members of the Tsukushi government center. He would have known where all the bodies were buried—perhaps quite literally. While the Dazai no Sochi was often a temporary appointment, sometimes just for a few years, they would have likely leaned on Masaru for his expertise. This is just like how modern government appointees like ambassadors may come and go, including for political reasons, but they rely on permanent staff, including a lot of locals, to provide the institutional knowledge they need to do their jobs. One can assume that if Masaru had been successful for 29 years he knew how things were supposed to work. And so I hope that his superiors made sure to remember that when Secretary's day rolled around.

Prince Kawachi didn't make it 29 years, but he made it five. He might have gone even longer, but he died in office in 694 and was posthumously raised in rank for his service. History is full of stories, but in real life, the stories don't always follow the expected narratives. As much as we'd like to think otherwise, good, moral people do not always triumph and sometimes those who do awful things are never punished. And some times stories come to abrupt ends. Of course, looking back, it just is what it is. Prince Kawachi's life becomes little more than a footnote. And yet, what if he had gone on? Would he have followed Tajihi no Shima to help become one of the grand ministers of the court? Unfortunately, we will never know. He could have been a rising star, but we just know about his passing.

Five months after Prince Kawachi's untimely death, he was followed in the post by Prince Mino. Prince Mino would continue in the position, it seems, through the end of the reign in 697—or at least nobody else was appointed until 700, when Isonokami no Maro—apparently the same one who had previously come out to inspect the fortifications during Prince Kawachi's tenure—was appointed. Although he came into the position in the next reign, we'll still touch on him, as he was another notable figure at this time.

Looking back at Prince Mino, however, we seem to run into a problem—there are too many Princes Mino in the record. If you just use the English translations, you'll find several references to Prince Mino, but if you look at the original text, you'll see that there are at least three different spellings. For one it means "Beautiful Field" and another is just "Three Fields". A third "Mino" is spelled with characters that don't necessarily create obvious meaning, and may just be a phonetic spelling.

It is possible that all of these Princes Mino are the same. Spelling wasn't standard, and different characters could be used for the same name. On the other hand, we have one set of characters being used to describe a Prince Mino who supported Ohoama during the Jinshin no Ran, while another, the "Three Fields" Prince Mino, describes one of the sons of Prince Kurikuma, who was with his father in Tsukushi when the Afumi court came calling. Since travel wasn't necessarily an overnight endeavor—unless you were Ohoama, rushing through the mountains to the east—it would seem that the Prince Mino in Tsukushi is unlikely to be the same one as the Prince Mino who joined Ohoama's forces back in the Home Provinces.

So let's make the assumption that Prince Mino—Prince "Three Fields" Mino—is one person and the others are separate. What do we know about him?

Well, he appears to have had experience with Tsukushi and the government out there, since he would be the son of Prince Kurikuma, a former Tsukushi Dazai no Sochi. We talked about Prince Kurikuma before, back in numerous episodes, but particularly in episodes 128 and Episode 144, as well as references in betweend. Prince Kurikuma was not only a significant factor in the outcome of the Jinshin no Ran, denying the Afumi court the resources of all of the defenders at the Tsukushi fortifications, he shows up in local legends in Tsukushi still today. So he definitely seems to have had an impact on the region. It also suggests that Prince Mino had connections in the area through his father.

After his father's posting as Dazai no Sochi ended, Prince Mino appears to have returned with him to Asuka. He is described as a key member in Ohoama's court. He was one of the Princes mentioned in the audience at the Daigokuden in 681, when Ohoama instituted the commission to bring together the various court sources that we presume would eventually lead to the creation of the Chronicles—the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki. Later, he become a daibu, a high official, of the Household Bureau, responsible for the household of the sovereign, the sumera no mikoto. This meant the upkeep of the palace, the kitchens, and the various servants waiting on the sovereign and his family. This also means that he was likely close to the movers and shakers of the court.

One of the projects under his purview appears to have been the laying out of a new palace and a new capital city. In 682 he headed up the investigations at the place called Nihiki, determining that it would be a good location for what would eventually become Fujiwara-kyo—a project still underway in Queen Uno's reign. He was also sent out to Shinano two years later to look for a site for a second capital. It ended up not happening, but he spent a couple months and eventually came back with a map of the region.

It may be that the Fujiwara-kyo project took up a lot of Mino's time and effort, because we then don't hear from him for another decade, during which Ohama passed away and so much more happened. Assuming he was still involved with the Fujiwara capital project, however, we see that in 691 there was a ceremony held for the tranquility of the new capital—a Chin-sai or, what we would today call a "Ji-chin-sai". This is a "land pacification ceremony" done when breaking ground on a new building or other project. So it looks like planning and land clearing had taken some 10 years, but it was finally ready to get started. Later that same year we hear of them laying out the residences of high ranking nobles, like the Udaijin, Tajihi no Shima, and we also see the Queen inspecting the roads. Then, a year later in 692, they were holding the land pacification ceremony for the new palace. The queen would move into the new palace in the very last months of 694.

But by that time, Prince Mino was on to his next assignment. He had been appointed Tsukushi Dazai no Sochi earlier that year following the death of Prince Kawachi. Not much more is said of Tsukushi for the next three years of the reign, but we do see the Hayato visiting Asuka, presumably with Prince Mino's assistance.

We don't have a clear idea of when Prince Mino retired—it's certainly not in the Nihon Shoki—but we know that he did because he was succeeded in the role by none other than Isonokami no Maro, who would take up the position in 700. Prince Mino, on the other hand, returned to the court, where he would eventually pass away in the year 708.

And that was the last Dazai no Sochi who held the position during this reign, but I do want to talk about the one who came after Prince Mino just a bit—though more because this was an up-and-coming court noble whom we should be watching.

Isonokami no Maro was born, by all accounts, in the year 640. Despite his name he was actually born to a family that we know somewhat well from much earlier on: The Mononobe. In fact, his father is apparently Mononobe no Muraji no Umaro, and he appears to be descended from the main line of the Mononobe family, which had declined ever since Mononobe no Moriya had been defeated and killed by Soga no Umako and others.

And it seems that the Mononobe curse of being on the losing side in a contest for power hit Maro during the Jinshin no Ran, because we see him, at that time referenced as Mononobe no Muraji no Maro, along with two servants, or Toneri, serving Prince Ohotomo—aka Koubun Tennou—up to the very end. In fact, when Ohotomo fled and the Afumi court deserted him, only Mononobe no Maro and the servants stayed with him when he eventually strangled himself.

And one would think that would be it. You were with the rival for the throne in the most contentious fight in recent memory. You couldn't protect him and you were on the wrong side. Sure, Ohoama was going to pardon you because he couldn't just rid himself of half of the court and hope things would still run smoothly—that would be a surefire recipe for disaster, and nobody wanted the government crippled like that. However, you can't imagine that those on the losing side would be given any position of trust or authority.

And yet, in 676, we see that Mononobe no Maro was sent to Silla. And he wasn't just helping out: he was sent as the chief envoy of Ohoama's court. That is quite the turnaround in four years, and we don't really know why, but it has been speculated that Ohoama was actually impressed. While other members of the Afumi court fled and abandoned Ohotomo to his enemies, Maro and the two toneri with him did not, staying with Ohotomo until the bitter end, and likely conveying what had happened to the other side once it was all over. That kind of loyalty was impressive, especially back then.

It is also thought that Maro may have benefited from the fact that Enoi no Okimi, who was also descended from the Mononobe family, fought on the side of Ohoama. This is a common scenario we see throughout Japanese history, where different members of the same family fight on different sides of a conflict, often meaning that no matter who wins the family can still claim to have been on the winning side. When Okimi passed away in 676 he was posthumously recognized as the ujigami, or clan head, of the Mononobe, leading some to suspect that a bit of his shine may have rubbed off on Maro as well.

In 684, when the various kabane were being rectified by Ohoama's court, the Mononobe no Muraji were included as Ason, or Asaomi. There is some thought that around this time is when Maro changed his name to Isonokami, which is a name that was previously used by members of the Mononobe, including one of the brothers to Mononobe no Moriya. We see him mentioned as Isonokami no Maro in 686, as one of those giving a eulogy for Ohoama: specifically he gives the eulogy on behalf of the Houkan, or Nori no Tsukasa, the Judicial officers. He is mentioned right after Fuse no Miushi, whom we talked about last episode, who would go on to become a Dainagon and, later, Udaijin, or Minister of the Right.

The first connection between Isonokami no Maro and Tsukushi was in 689, and we noted it earlier—he came out to inspect the fortifications as well as to hand out patents of rank to the court officials working out there on the edge of the realm. He would return to Asuka in time to be a part of Uno no Sarara's official enthronement ceremonies. There he is named Mononobe no Maro, and is in charge of the shields. Given what we know of the role of the Mononobe as the early soldiers of the court, it makes sense that he would play this role, and that they would use the name Mononobe rather than Isonokami. In the same way, the ritual was conducted by Fujiwara no Ohoshima, but he is recorded as Nakatomi no Ohoshima, probably because these were roles specifically for the Mononobe and Nakatomi, rather than for the Isonokami and the Fujiwara.

This is another thing that can be quite frustrating when researching Japanese history—names can change at the drop of a hat, and people often had various ancestral names and titles that could be pulled out for various political or ceremonial reasons. If you don't have the history or understand the nuance it can be easy to just think that it is a different person altogether. And when you don't have much information, sometimes you have to ask yourself which is it?

Maro would stay close to Queen Uno, even accompanying her to Ise shrine, and then, in the following reign, he would succeed Prince Mino as Dazai no Sochi in the year 700. It isn't clear, however, if he left for the Dazaifu immediately, since in 701 he is noted as having been promoted from the office of Chunagon to Dainagon, and in that same year he went with Royal Prince Osakabe to pay respects at the house of the late Udaijin, Tajihi no Shima, who had just passed away. He then left for Tsukushi in 702—or possibly headed back. But in 703, he was once again back in Asuka, paying condolences on the death of the next Udaijin, Abe no Miushi—aka Fuse no Miushi, the same one whom Maro had pronounced a Eulogy with during the funeral ceremonies for Ohoama. Isonokami no Maro would go on to take the mantle of Udaijin, and then eventually Sadaijin as well. He would be raised up to the second rank, along with the famous Fujiwara no Fubito, who took the vacated position of Udaijin. This meant that technically Maro was the senior of the two, though many people think that Fujiwara no Fubito held most of the actual power.

Regardless of that, Isonokami no Maro nonetheless would go on to become the highest ranking court noble before his eventual death in 717. At that point he was 78 years old, by the reckoning of the day, and he had seen multiple sovereigns, several bloody conflicts, and the creation of two permanent capitals—Fujiwara kyo and Heijo kyo, in modern Nara. He went from being a supporter in the Afumi court, on the wrong side of the Jinshin no Ran to become the highest ranking court noble in the land. He would be granted the head of the Mononobe family and would continue to prosper as Isonokami. It was truly a remarkable career over an incredible span of time.

And there you have it. A look at some of those that were sent out to the Dazaifu in Tsukushi. In later years, the post of Dazai no Sochi would be seen more as a burden than a blessing, but at this point it was still a lucrative and powerful position. Several of those involved in the Dazaifu or who held the position as Dazai no Sochi would go on to even more powerful positions back in Asuka. Whilst this posting did move you further away from the politics—perhaps not always a bad thing—it also put you atop a structure where one had considerable power, authority, and autonomy, at least at this point.

Next episode we'll get back to the court in Asuka and take a look at a little more of what is going on.

Before I end this, however, a quick administrative note about the podcast. This creation is a labor of love. It was started largely as a way to get myself to regularly dive into the Chronicles and really see what was going on. In particular, I was excited about the Asuka period, because I don't think we really have enough of a sense of what life was like and what was going on back then. It was clearly a very dynamic time, and yet we tend to see it through the lens of later Nara and Heian court culture, which was still very much evolving. The stories that I *didn't* know about were what drew me to this project, and I hope that we've all learned a bit more as the project has continued.

And we are reaching the end of the area that is covered by the main Chronicles, the Kojiki, the Nihon Shoki, and the Sendai Kuji Hongi, which have been our main guides through this period. But that doesn't mean we are bringing things to a close.

Next we have the Shoku Nihongi and many other grecords, and I am going to keep up with the project and the schedule as best I can. In fact, it looks like I may be able to devote even more time to it in the near future as some drastic life changes are coming for me, such that I will no longer be working a 9-to-5 job while also trying to get this podcast out like clockwork twice a month—not to mention my other passion, teaching traditional Japanese martial arts here in the DC region at a local not-for-profit dojo. This is happening as we are also in the process of building a house, traveling, and more.

But it does mean that we are going to be looking into alternative sources of funding beyond just donations. We are eternally grateful to everyone who has donated, but I may end up doing something that I've been putting off for a while: allowing advertisements. I want to do this so that we can continue to offer this for podcast for free, but hosting, staying up to date on sources, etc. does cost money. I'm not looking to make a huge profit, but if we can at least get the podcast paying for itself, that would be a good start.

Before I do that I'll look to find a way that we can get subscribers on Patreon and elsewhere ad-free copy. I just need to figure that out, but once I do, I'll let you all know.

So there you have it. We aren't going to stop the podcast, but we may be adding a bit more to it in the future. I hope, though, that we can do more beyond the historical chronicles. For instance, did you know that we have an English translation of a 17th century cookbook up on our website, SengokuDaimyo.com? I would love to redact those recipes and maybe provide some cooking videos for anyone who would want to try them. A shoutout to Max Miller of Tasting History, who reached out to us about using a couple of our translations for his episodes on historical Japanese cooking – Max is a great guy and his series and cookbook are well worth following. But there's a lot more to explore: one of my favorites so far that we've tried is "keiran", or "eggs": doughy balls filled with brown sugar and cooked in a miso based soup. I don't know if there is anything like that still being served in Japan, but it's a strange and pleasant recipe and I would love to do that again and record it for everyone to try.

All of this is in the works, and nothing will change immediately, but I wanted to keep you all in the loop. Thank you so much for listening, I can't tell you how much it means.

And of course, as always, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.

Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at [email protected].

Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast.

And that's all for now. Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

A big part of the court are the actual court nobles, so this episode we are taking a look at some of the ones mentioned in the Chronicles for this reign.

For more, check out https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-150

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 150: Nobles of Jitou Tennou's Court

Maro donned his light blue robes and made his way to the court. As he arrived, the sun was just peaking over the horizon, and as it bathed the court in the golden morning light the dark shadows were dispelled, leaving in their wake a colorful scene, as various court officials headed this way and that, gathering in their offices to pick up on the work that they had left unfinished the day before.

As an ohotoneri, Maro was often sent to and fro between the offices of the different departments. As such, he was able to see how they worked, and he wondered to himself which department would have the best opportunity for advancement. His family had connections over at the Department of Prisons, and it was definitely a place he could make a name for himself, especially if he attached himself to one of the newly minted magistrates. On the other hand, the Jingikan, the Ministry for Kami Matters, had some of the most important and sought after positions. After all, no matter what the secular administration did, when there was no rain for the fields, it was the kami to whom the court turned. And the members of the Jingikan who helped make those ceremonies happen were known to be well rewarded for their troubles.

Perhaps he would be better off taking a more modest position, such as with the Jibu-sho, the Department of Civil Administration. It was mostly focused on the maintenance and execution of the bureaucracy, and wasn't necessarily a place to seek the limelight, but perhaps that also offered some opportunity. Do well in one position, and who knows what that could open up to you in the long run? Maybe one day Maro could make it up to become a Nagon, a Counsellor, or even one of the Daijin, the great ministers at the very head of the council of state.Maro almost laughed at the thought, but he didn't put it aside entirely. After all, as impossible as it might seem now, the world was still changing, and who knew what opportunities might be waiting just around the corner?

This episode continues our look at the reign of Uno no Sarara, aka Jitou Tennou.

I would note that we have now reached the last chapter of the Nihon Shoki, which ends with the end of Uno no Sarara's reign in 697. In this chapter, we have not quite 11 years to cover, and we've already talked about the first three of those years, which featured succession issues and a long mourning time for Uno's husband Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou, culminating in the sudden death of her only son, the Crown Prince and heir apparent, Prince Kusakabe, in 689. We also went over what was happening on the continent, with powerful women like Uno no Sarara either on or behind the throne in Silla and the Tang dynasty.

To quickly recap the succession issues: When Kusakabe died, tthat left the throne in a somewhat tenuous position. There were two other male heirs that would seem to have a claim on the throne as well. The first was Prince Takechi, who was technically Ohoama's eldest son, but the Chroniclers claim that his late mother was not sufficiently royal for him to have a serious claim. Then there was Prince Karu, the only known son of the late Crown Prince Kusakabe, and had been born 6 years earlier, in 683, to the Crown Prince and his wife, Princess Abe. Princess Abe was a daughter of Naka no Oe, and a half-sister to Uno no Sarara. She was actually a year older than Kusakabe, and would continue to look after the young Prince Karu. So, Prince Karu was only about 7 years old when his father passed away: much too young to be taking the throne, let alone a firm hand in the politics of the time. And given the mortality statistics of the time, there is so much that could happen to him before he reached the age of majority.

And remember, there were already some questions about legitimacy, and we already discussed the fact that about 30 nobles had gathered in support of Prince Ohotsu right after Ohoama's death. Uno no Sarara had that whole issue quashed and Prince Ohotsu had died, but it was nonetheless a stark reminder that things could change quickly.

So at this point in Uno no Sarara's reign, there is a great deal of uncertainty afoot, and there are quite a few individuals named in the Chronicles who stand to benefit from sticking their fingers into politics in one way or another. This episode, we're going to look at some of those individuals, their roles in the court, and the effect they had on Yamato. Some of those people named are particularly interesting in that they were involved in the conspiracy with Prince Ohotsu, and would continue to be highly influential in the government. For example, Iki no Hakatoko, Nakatomi no Omimaro, and Kose no Tayasu, and Yakuchi no Wotokashi are all name-dropped, which we'll get into more later. It feels significant, however, that there were some 30 nobles all told, and beyond these four and the apparent ringleaders, we don't learn anyone else's names.

The importance of prominent individuals in the court has been a constant theme in the Chronicles and in this podcast, so getting to know the court is definitely important. Moreover, during this time period as we get more and more written sources from which to work from we will see more and more information on individuals. Some of that will come from the Nihon Shoki and the records that come after—the Shoku Nihongi. Others, however, are from sources like the Man'yoshu, where bits of biographical data are found about the authors that they mention. There are also family diaries and later genealogies. Some of these sources are a bit more trusted than others, especially when they were compiled centuries later and we don't exactly know what sources they, themselves, were working on. Still, even if it isn't 100% accurate, it does give us a picture of what was going on beyond just the royal family.

I think it is also helpful to understand some of the overall court dynamics. If you are familiar with the Heian period, especially around the time of things like the Tale of Genji, you are probably well acquainted with the Fujiwara family—I'll probably need to do an entire episode just on them at some point. Essentially, there would come a time where almost the entire court was made up either of royals or of members of the Fujiwara clan, or uji. In fact, even that distinction wasn't really accurate as the Fujiwara family had so intermarried with the Royal family that every sovereign—every Tennou and even most of their consorts—were directly related to members of the Fujiwara. Not only that, but members of the Fujiwara family held the position of regent—whether the sovereign was of age or not—and effectively ruled the country, with the Tennou being largely relegated to a mouthpiece with ceremonial duties. It would get so bad that we would see the splitting of the Fujiwara uji into smaller households, and the political fights were often between members of the different households of the same family. There is a reason that a good portion of the Heian period is sometimes called the Fujiwara period.

However, now during the late Asuka period, we see something a little different. The marriage politics of the Soga had been violently suppressed about a half century earlier, and a lot of different names flourished in the Yamato court, as youmay have noticed any time I've rattled off a bunch of names and your eyes started crossing because of it. But that's the reality we see: there were a lot of different families, and individuals, all jockeying for influence. And they were in a period of disruption, where lots of change was happening. That change meant there was also a lot of potential.

And I hope you don't mind if I take a quick time-out here, but so often we read history and we forget to learn lessons from it, and one overarching lesson is: if you are a part of an organization—a company, a club, government, school, or anything like that—one thing you are going to have to deal with is change. It comes in many forms and happens whether or not you personally agree with it. It can be destructive and it can be frightening, because we often don't know what is on the other side of it, but it also presents opportunities. After all, if you don't know what comes next it probably means other people don't, either. And if you can be the one to provide direction you can have a huge influence on what comes next.

And change has been a constant theme in this period of Yamato history, in so many ways. Take the reorganization of the government as one example: they had introduced these 8 departments, which had names and were set up in various ways, but it wasn't like you had experienced people to run them as they had been on the continent. So you had names and the forms of things, but there were a lot of people figuring out just how to actually put this new structure into practice, and leverage them to do what they were supposed to do. In the process, there were a lot of opportunities to innovate and figure out how to do it within the cultural milieu of the archipelago. So all of these individuals, from these various families, all had opportunities staring them in the face. They just had to figure out how to make the best of it.

Now, don't get me wrong: Those with the money, the connections, and the influence still had a leg up, and this was still a hierarchical society, where your family dictated, to some extent, your position in society. The introduction of individual court rank, as opposed to just the kabane that ranked uji, was pushing against that, and had already caused a reformation that flattened a lot of the previous kabane into just eight distinctions, but those distinctions still existed. Even had they not, simple matters of inherited wealth and the value of goods produced in a family's home territory would still have provided tremendous advantages. But there isn't an indication of the kind of large-scale consolidation of resources that we will see in later periods, such as the Fujiwara example that we were just discussing. Oh, sure, we aren't going to see a farmer suddenly make it big at court in some kind of rags-to-riches story, but at the upper end of society we still have a lot of apparent diversity.

And so, let's get to know some of these individuals that the Chronicles tell us about. Before we do that, though, let's recap a little bit about how the court worked.

Every member of the court was effectively employed by the State. They had an official job with duties they were supposed to oversee. In the case of lower level functionaries, they were likely expected to actually do most of the work, while at the top of the hierarchy you had nobles who were more likely decision-makers, who would approve or disapprove of the work and direct strategic resources.

Those working in the court had official uniforms—the round-necked garments of the continent. What would be called a "caftan" farther west. These were based on the foreign garments popular in the Tang court and elsewhere.

The color and pattern of official clothing appears to be something that goes back to early in this new continental style government, and we see suggestions of color schemes from a relatively early age. However, in 690 we see the clearest such outline of just what everyone was wearing.

As a reminder, the court rank system of the day was made up of a Princely and a Commoner system. Princely ranks originally included two ranks of the Myo class, and four of the Jou class, each rank divided into either "Great" or "Broad", for twelve Princely ranks, though honestly we only ever really see the four Jou class of ranks in use.

Below that were the ranks for the common nobles—those with family names who did not have any kind of royal claim. For them there were six classes of rank—Shou, Jiki, Gon, Mu, Tsui, and Shin, in that order. Each class was made up of four ranks, which were further divided into upper and broad categories, creating 48 total ranks.

Your rank determined your precedence at court—where you were sat, what jobs you were allowed to take on and, most importantly, the amount of money that you could expect to receive as part of a stipend. Naka no Oe had previously consolidated the land-holdings and asserted claim over all of it. The taxes from the households on the land went to the government to pay the stipends of the nobles in the court, who were, ostensibly, employees of that same government. Your rank determined what you were owed, though this could also be augmented by various edicts.

So there you go: rank in the court was tied to many of the things that the elites wanted, from wealth to status and access to various opportunities.

The color of official clothing followed the rank system. So Princes of the first two ranks of the Jou class were given robes of dark purple, and the third and four ranks were given robes of bright purple, which they shared with highest class of rank of the common nobles, the Shou rank class.

Below that, nobles of the Jiki class would wear robes of dark red, and those of Gon would wear dark green. The Mu rank class, the next down, was Light Green, and then Tsui was Deep Blue and Shin was Light blue.

So in order you would see robes of Dark Purple, Bright Purple, Dark Red, Dark Green, Light Green, Deep Blue, and Light Blue. The color gave you a certain indication of where the person sat in the overall hierarchy of the court, and provided you clues as to how you should address them, who would give deference, etc. In later centuries, we are even told that deference was given in meetings, which is to say that once a person of higher rank provided input on a topic, nobody of lower rank was able to contradict them for fear of the consequences. So it also told you who got the last word.

This then was the world that the nobles of the court inhabited. As we've seen in previous episodes it wasn't just bureaucratic work, but also banquets, archery contests, and Buddhist congregations and sutra readings. There were rituals, dances, and diplomatic embassies—not to mention all of the ceremonies around the death or ascension of the sovereign. In this world, one's reputation was everything. You wanted to be seen as good at your job, but also, just like today, people were more likely to promote and support those they knew, and so it helped to have friends. However, there were also a limited number of top spots, and so every promotion would have likewise meant plenty of disappointed nobles who didn't get the job.

But that is enough background. Let's take a look at some of the nobles themselves, starting with the four from the Prince Ohotsu conspiracy.

The first name in the list is perhaps the least interesting. His name is Yakuchi no Wotokashi. Although he was the highest ranking of the four, he is also the least mentioned in the Chronicles and elsewhere, and we know very little about him. So we'll talk about him later on, for completeness, but for now it may be best to skip him until we have a better handle on others in the court.

In contrast, we know a bit more about his co-conspirators. In fact, we've already talked about one of them at length: Iki no Hakatoko. We first heard about Iki no Hakatoko when talking about the Tang dynasty, and discussed him at length in Episode 123. He was one of the members of the embassy to the Tang dynasty back in the early 660s that got delayed on account of Tang Gaozong initiating the war against Yamato's ally Baekje. The fact that the Nihon Shoki directly pulls from Hakatoko's work, known to us, today, as the Iki no Hakatoko Sho, makes it one of the few early named written works that we know about. Unfortunately, it is no longer extant except for what is preserved in the Chronicles, but it is still incredible that we have essentially an eyewitness account of what happened. He would later be one of the escort envoys for one of the Tang embassies during the reign of Naka no Oe.

That he was then embroiled in the conspiracy with Prince Ohotsu would seem to be at odds with his standing, and yet after his pardon he eventually got back into the court's good graces. In 695, about 9 years after the incident, he was assigned as an assistant envoy to Silla. By that point he was of Mudaini rank, which was only about 35th in the overall scheme of things. Later on we know he would work on the famous Taiho code, which was published in 701, and enacted a couple of years later. It was here that he worked with the famous Fujiwara no Fubito—about whom we will discuss more, later—and although he would pass away in 703, this may be how his own writings came to find their way into the Chronicles, since Fubito is said to have had a large influence on them—as he had on many of the court's projects.

Overall, Iki no Hakatoko may not have been the one in charge, but we see in his life an incredible career, much of it spent on multiple voyages across the ocean, whether on an embassy or as an escort. He likely was highly proficient in the language of the Tang court—what we typically refer to, broadly, as Middle Chinese. He also had direct experience with the Tang court and system, and so it makes sense that he was one of those helping to build an administrative state based on that system.

If we were to imagine Hakatoko in the court of the day, at least in 695, he would have likely had light green colored robes, indicating that he was of the "Mu" class of ranks. He would have worn the black gauze cap of the court and worn white hakama, or trousers, underneath. His long, continental style, round-necked robes—likely relatively slim, with overly long, but narrow, sleeves—would have been tied closed in the front with a braided silk cord. He likely worn black leather boots, covered in a light lacquer to protect them from the elements, with cloth insoles and perhaps a hint of brocade along the top. He likely kept with him a ruler, and perhaps a few slips of paper or even just wood on which to take occasional notes. A mid-level functionary of the court.

We can compare and contrast Hakatoko to two other co-conspirators: Nakatomi no Omimaro and Kose no Tayasu.

We are given neither Omimaro's rank nor Tayasu's at this time. It is interesting that they listed after Hakatoko, who is actually listed as having "Lower Shousen" rank—an older rank that was no longer in use at this point in time. Also, both Nakatomi and Kose were Ason level families while Iki no Hakatoko is listed as being merely "Muraji". So it seems that the Chroniclers were probably pulling from what they could find elsewhere, although where they found that Wotokashi had Jikikwoshi rank I have no idea, as we don't have any other record for him. And it is possible that deference to Wotokashi and Hakatoko are as much a nod to their age as anything else, though probably not by much.

Of four co-conspirators mentioned here—and I'm leaving out the two who were exiled or banished, as they were clearly not hanging around the court later—Nakatomi no Omimaro and Kose no Tayasu were probably from the most established families. Indeed, we see both of their names show up multiple times in the record, giving us a better idea of who they might have been.

Of the two, the name Nakatomi probably is more likely to ring a bell, as that as the surname of the famous Nakatomi no Kamatari—as well as the later Nakatomi no Kane. Nakatomi no Kamatari was the head of court ritual when he and Naka no Oe kicked things off with the Isshi Incident and the Taika reforms, at which point he became the "Inner Prime Minister", or Naidaijin.

Much of what we know of Omimaro comes from outside of the Chronicles themselves. For instance, we are told that he was the son of Nakatomi no Kunitari, a cousin to the famous Kamatari, at least according to the 10th century Engi Shiki. However, we have no other records of Kunitari, and so there is more than a little doubt cast as to whether or not that was actually the case. Similarly, we are told that Omimaro married one of Kamatari's daughters, and was eventually adopted by Kamatari.

Once again, the evidence for this is pretty thin, and it is unclear to me just how adoption worked at this point. Certainly in later periods, adoption was often a way to ensure that a family had a male heir to ensure the family's continuity, and marrying someone's daughter and being adopted into the family is an age old tradition in the archipelago and Japan more generally. At the same time, give some thought to what we know about this period: male primogeniture was not exactly the norm, although Confucian values had definitely made inroads into court. The family headship often went to the eldest—or most prominent—family member. This wasn't necessarily a son and often was a brother, a nephew, or even a cousin. We have a few famous Nakatomi at this point in time, and all I can say for certain is that they were part of the same family. Later traditions would make things a bit more clear.

Whatever his parentage, our first encounter with Omimaro appears to be in the Ohotsu conspiracy, when he was arrested and then pardoned. He shows up again in the record just three years later, along with Kose no Tayasu, as both were made judges, along with Fujiwara no Fubito—Nakatomi no Kamatari's biological son and eventual heir.

In fact, there were nine judges, or magistrates, made that year, and they are listed in rank order. The first is Prince Takeda, said to be a great-grandson of Nunakura, aka Bidatsu Tennou. He was Joukwoshi rank, meaning he wore bright purple court robes, sitting in the lower half of the princely ranks. He had been quite prolific ever since 681, when he was one of the Princes called to help bring together the Chronicles. After being made a judge, he would continue in that position, it seems, and by 708 he would become the head of the Ministry of Prisons.

After him we have Haji no Nemaro, in the dark red robes of the Jiki rank class. Though someone of rank, less is known about Nemaro. His father is said to be Haji no Mi, who was part of the forces that set out to Yamada-dera to capture—and likely kill—Soga no Kurayamadera. Haji no Nemaro's son is Haji no Oi, who was sent to the Tang court but returned in 684, along with several repatriated soldiers. Oi would assist with the Taihou code, but little more is said about him or his father.

Other judges were Ohoyake no Maro, Fujiwara no Fubito—also of the Jiki class rank. Maro would go on to take a job as a jusenshi, responsible for minting coins, and Fubito would go on to reach the highest levels of government.

Then there was Tahema no Sakurawi, Hodzumi no Yamamori, Nakatomi no Omimaro, Kose no Tayasu, and Ohomiwa no Yasumaro. They were all Mudaishi rank at this point, wearing dark green. Sakurai would go on to become the governor of Ise in 705, and then the governor of Musashi in 708. Hodzumi no Yamamori we don't have as much information on, other than that he kept climbing the ranks, by 704 he had made Junior 5th rank, lower grade in the system that replaced the cap-ranks, and by 712 he made it to the senior fifth rank, lower grade. Ohomiwa no Yasumaro, on the other hand, would make it to the Senior 5th rank, lower grade by 707, and the upper grade by 708, when he was made the Dayu—the high minister in charge—of Settsu. He would eventually make it into the Junior Fourth rank, upper grade, as the Minister of the Military Department, or Hyobu-sho.

So this gives you an idea of the people with whom Nakatomi no Omimaro and Kose no Tayasu were rubbing elbows. That they were made judges, responsible for justice, seems to say something as that would seem to be a powerful position. At the same time, they are both lower ranked than the much younger Fujiwara no Fubito—but once again, he was the direct son of Nakatomi no Kamatari. He also seems to have avoided any unpleasantness from the Jinshin no Ran as he was only 14 at the time, and though it does seem that the Nakatomi were generally knocked down a peg or two in court—thanks in large part to the fact that Nakatomi no Kane had been one of the leaders of the Afumi court. That and the whole thing with Prince Ohotsu may be why Omimaro was not exactly in the top ranks, but his appointments weren't nothing, either. By 693, Omimaro would be granted the rank of Jikikwoshi, the lower fourth rank of the Jiki class. In that entry he is recorded as Fujiwara no Omimaro. I believe we discussed this a few episodes back, but the Fujiwara name was still new. It had been granted to Nakatomi no Kamatari on his deathbed—or possibly even posthumously—by Naka no Oe, and to his family. So technically that would seem to extend to the entire Nakatomi family. And with Nakatomi no Kane having been one of the main figures on the losing side of the Jinshin no Ran, it was no doubt a savvy political move for Nakatomi courtiers to lean into the Fujiwara name, and they seem to have done just that. It wouldn't be until later, in the reign just following this, that a new decree would straighten everything out, such that only the actual descendants of Fujiwara no Kamatari, such as Fujiwara no Fubito, would be allowed to use the Fujiwara name.

Throughout this, I have focused mostly on Omimaro, but Kose no Tayasu was in the mix as well. He, too, was made a judge and in 693 he would also be awarded the same Jikikwoshi rank. In addition, in 689, he was made a "commissioner of good words", along with the Royal Prince Shiki and others. This seems to be a singular position, and Aston suggests that it was their job to figure out the kind of auspicious language that should be used in the court. What kind of language should be used by the sovereign and the courtiers in drawing up official edicts. I imagine that they were figuring out the form to give to formal court documents as well as the kinds of titles and honorifics to use for the sovereign and the state more generally. Of course, that is just an assumption based on Aston's understanding of what is, ultimately, a single line. Still, it is clear that Tayasu was helping to make things happen.

Tayasu would eventually go on to become the Minister of the Department of Ceremonies, the Shikibu-sho, and would later serve as a secretary to the Viceroy in Tsukushi—the Dazai Daini. He would pass away in 710, one year before Omimaro.

Before leaving Tayasu behind completely, I would like to point out his family name: Kose. The Kose family were one of the families granted the kabane of Ason, or Asaomi. They had previously been known as the Kose no Omi, and had a long history in the court, claiming descent from the famous Takeuchi no Sukune, legendarily known as the first Oho-omi of Yamato. Kose no Tokuda had been a supporter of Soga no Iruka, but after the Isshi Incident he supported Naka no Oe and eventually replace Abe no Uchimaro as Sadaijin—Minister of the Left. Another Kose, Kose no Hito, would also rise in the government, becoming one of two Goshi-daibu made when Prince Ohotomo was appointed Dajodaijin. The other was Ki no Ushi. They were both in attendance and counted among the six who swore to protect and support Ohotomo, along with Nakatomi no Kane and others. So they, too, found themselves on the wrong side of the Jinshin no Ran.

In this case, however, it is unclear how much Tayasu was impacted by that. He may have been the son of Kose no Shitano, brother to Kose no Hito, but the Kose were prolific in the court, with many people of the name. The family would continue going through the Heian period. Their fortunes ebbed and flowed, as did so many families, but they would eventually find themselves as Hatamoto to the Tokugawa shogun, so they never actually disappeared.

Finally, let's talk about Yakuchi no Wotokashi. As I mentioned earlier, he is actually one of the first names mentioned in the list of co-conspirators with Prince Ohotsu, suggesting that he outranked others in the group. Indeed, he is noted as being of Jikikwoshi rank—fourth lower Jiki rank. The bottom of the Jiki class, but that was still the third class from the top. However, despite this, very little is actually said about him. In fact, this is the only instance I could find of the name Yakuchi in the Nihon Shoki, at least in that spelling—there is also a Yakuchi no Uneme, but it is spelled differently and is probably not related. It is also the only evidence of the name Wotokashi. That means we don't even see him in the list of names being granted Ason in the first place.

It is quite possible that Yakuchi was a name he took later and that he was from another family. Indeed, there are a couple of traditions around Wotokashi that suggest he was the founder of the Yakuchi family in Shinano. Indeed, there is a Yakuchi family that comes out of Shinano, near Adzumino. And Shinano was one of the places that Ohoama had sent people to examine as another site for an alternative capital, and Prince Mino and others had gone to check it out. So maybe Wotokashi headed out there—or his descendants, anyway—and decided to try and make a go of it. Proponents of this theory also connect Wotokashi to a line descended from the Soga family, which would certainly explain his prominence. There are others, however, who claim that the Yakuchi family out of Shinano is actually descended from the Otomo, suggesting that the similarities in the name are just coincidental, which is also possible. Ultimately, our sources fail us here, and so we just have speculation. It is possible that even with the pardon, Wotokashi was just never able to regain the trust of the sovereign or his position in court, and so whether he took a hike for the hinterlands or just faded from the picture it is hard to say.

With that, let's take a look at just two more courtiers, and what kinds of lives and careers they had at court, at least from what we can see. These two we've also mentioned in passing: Fuse no Miushi—whom Aston transliterates as Miaruji—and Ohotomo no Miyuki.

Fuse no Miushi and Ohotomo no Miyuki were both mentioned as performing eulogies for Ohoama, though there is more to them than just that. We'll start with Fuse no Miushi, who is said to have been the son of none other than the Taika era Sadaijin, or Minister of the Left, Abe no Uchimaro. You may recall that Abe no Uchimaro was the Sadaijin under Karu no Ohokimi, aka Koutoku Tennou, along with the Udaijin, Soga no Kurayamadera. They were both supporters of Naka no Oe, though much of the Chronicles focus appeared to be more on Kurayamadera than on Uchimaro.

We don't know when Miushi was born, nor when he received the name "Fuse", the name by which he is known when we first meet him in the Chronicles. That family name only shows up two other times in the Chronicles. Based on other sources, it seems that the Abe family was divided at some point into the Fuse and the Hikida, likely because it became too large and they needed to distinguish the different parts of the family.

It is said that Fuse no Miushi served as a retainer to Ohoama during the Jinshin no Ran. That, along with his family connections, helped secure him a good place in the government. By 686, we see him pronouncing the eulogy for Ohoama's funeral on behalf of the Dajokan, the Counil of State. He was already Jikidaishi, one rank above the standard Jikikwoshi, but still clothed in the same dark red robes. In 687, he is again pronouncing the eulogy, but this time we are told that his a Nagon, or councilor, a rather prestigious posting that would later get broken up into three different levels: Dainagon, Chunagon, and Shonagon. For my Heian fans out there, that last is the same Shonagon as in the name of the famous poet, author, diary-keeper, and all around queen of snark, Sei Shonagon. By 688, pronouncing the Eulogy seems to have become an annual event for Miushi, only this time he teamed up with Ohotomo no Miyuki. The two of them seem to have had similar careers, and would, for a time, come up together through the ranks.

Ohotomo no Miyuki is said to have been born in 646, though that isn't recorded in the Nihon Shoki and comes from other sources. The Ohotomo family goes back quite a ways, and we are told that his father was Ohotomo no Nagatoko, who served as Minister of the Right under Naka no Oe. However, in 672, the Ohotomo, including Miyuki, sided with Ohoama in the Jinshin no ran. In 675 he was made Tayu while Prince Kurikuma was made Director of Military Affairs. He then drops out of the narrative until 688, when he is pronouncing the eulogy with Fuse no Miushi.

Miushi would go on, two years later, to present the formal congratulations from the court to the Queen upon her ascencion to the throne, and then the following year, 691, both Miushi and Miyuki were granted the rank of Jikidaiichi, the highest rank in the Jiki class, along with 80 households to support them and their families. This brought both of their stipends up to roughly 300 households each. Then, in 694, they were both raised in rank again, this time to Shoukwoushi. Only one rank up, yet they went from the top of the Jiki class to the bottom of the Shou class. They would have gotten new robes of Bright Purple to indicate their new status, and they each had their stipends increased by the taxes of 200 households each. At the same time, they were also acknowledged as senior members of their houses. That means that Miushi was considered the head of the Fuse branch of the Abe family and Miyuki was now acknowledged as the head of the entire Ohotomo family.

Two years after that, in 696, they were each given 80 retainers to support them. Fuse no Miushi is actually mentioned at that time as Abe no Miushi. That same year, we again see Fujiwara no Fubito show up, but with only 50 retainers. Fubito would eventually rise to the top of the court food chain, but at this point, it was still in the hands of courtiers like Fuse no Abe no Miushi and Ohotomo no Miyuki.

Fuse no Miushi would go on to have an incredible career. He would become Dainagon and eventually he would become the Udaijin, the Minister of the Right, one of the highest positions anyone could hope to achieve at court.

Ohotomo no Miyuki would not make it quite so far. Like Miushi, he made it to Dainagon, but he died in the first month of 701, just 55 years old. He had made it to the third rank, and he was posthumously granted the title of Udaijin—the position was vacant at the time—and granted second rank. His colleague, Abe no Miushi, would go on to take the position only four months later and serve for a couple of years before passing away himself.

These two would have worked closely together throughout their careers, and the fact that they were raised in rank and position on similar timelines suggests to me that they ran together in very close circles. They would have been working in similar positions, at the same levels of the government. They would have been going to the same parties and partaking in the same banquets and entertainments. They were no doubt rivals, in a sense, but also equals. Both families would go on, even as the Fujiwara clan came to dominate the politics of the era, the Ohotomo and Abe would continue to hold power in the court during the Nara period, though eventually it would decline. The Ohotomo would eventually become just the Tomo, to avoid conflicting with the name of a slater sovereign, and the main house would eventually decline, though branch families would continue to claim descent from the Ohotomo into to the Edo period.

The Abe would continue, similarly pushing against the Fujiwara. The most famous Abe was probably Abe no Seimei, who became known for his skills as an Onmyouji, or master of Yin-yang divination and magic. The Tsuchimikado branch of the Abe family would continue that tradition, and it would come to largely define the main branch of the family.

I hope that gives a bit of an idea of what was going on in the court and the kinds of careers that people were looking at and what was happening. We cannot get into every single person, but I'm going to try and note some of the more prominent courtiers and what they were doing. It isn't always clear from the Chronicles what was going on between the various houses, but one can largely assume that the court was highly political. Different factions were vying for power and position. Sitting atop all of it, Uno no Sarara would have to perform her own kind of balancing act, doling out rewards and punishments as necessary, and ensuring to place the right people in positions of power and authority. On the one hand, that ambition was a motivating factor, keeping the people of the court focused on the tasks at hand and ensuring that the court was running smoothly. On the other hand, too much power in the hands of any one individual could cause them to get ideas that they should have even more. The main bulwark against this was everyone else in the system—the checks and balances were literally the other court nobles, who weren't going to just let someone take power unless there was something in it for them as well.

More on that as we watch this reign unfold.

But for now, thank you so much for listening and downloading the podcast. If you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.

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And that's all for now. Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

We talk about the famous Wu Zetian, as well as Kings Munmu, Sinmun, and Hyoso in Silla. These were the rulers at the same time that Uno no Sarara was overseeing things in Yamato. Here we see a bit of tit for tat politics between Yamato and Silla. We also get a tale of personal sacrifice from veterans of the Silla-Tang war against Baekje.

For more notes and references, check out our blogpost page: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-149

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 149: Kings, Queen, and an Empress

Uno no Sarara and her son, Crown Prince Kusakabe, sat in court. The trappings of the recent mourning period had been put aside with the recent burial of Uno's husband, Ohoama, and they were now preparing for Crown Prince Kusakabe's coronation. However, the matter in front of them had nothing to do with that. Instead, they listened to an official recounting of what had transpired on the peninsula. The court had explicitly sent an envoy to Silla to inform them of Ohoama's death, but it took much longer than it should have for Norimaro and his party to return. There had even been an envoy mission from Silla while they were away.

As Uno no Sarara listened intently, she found it harder and harder to keep her emotions in check. She listened as the story of the Yamato mission was told, and as she heard of how her messengers were treated—how they weren't even allowed to tell the Silla court their news all because someone in Silla had decided that they weren't appropriate ambassadors.

Silla had finally come to learn of Ohoama's death, and the mission returned home, but this treatment was inexcusable. These were not just Yamato's messengers, they were carrying the royal word of Queen Uno no Sarara, head of the state and de facto ruler as they mourned the loss of her husband and predecessor. To have them kept waiting because of some invented protocol was an affront to the nation, but it was also an affront to her.

This.

Would.

Not.

Do...

Greetings, everyone! Thank you once again for tuning in. As you may recall, last episode we covered the ceremonies around the death and burial of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou, as well as the unceremonious death of Crown Prince Kusakabe, leading to the throne being taken by his mother, Queen Uno no Sarara, aka Jitou Tennou.

One aspect of everything that was going on was the relations with the continent. This included missions from Yamato to the continent—especially those involved with communicating information about the changes in the Yamato court. So this episode I thought we could look at some of the things we see in the record and go over where things sat with regards to the continent.

First things first, let's brush up on where we left off. Back in episode 140 we talked about how the Silla-Tang alliance had broken down. With Baekje and Goguryeo both defeated, the Tang had set up commanderies to oversea captured territory in both kingdoms, and even though Emperor Tang Taizong had promised Silla suzerainty over Baekje, his successor, Gaozong, had not adhered to that agreement. In response, and with the help of Goguryeo rebels, Kind Munmu of Silla had fought back against the Tang forces, eventually consolidating everything south of the Taedong river, approximating the extent of the modern country of South Korea.

Meanwhile, Goguryeo rebels continued to trouble the Tang, and King Bojang set up by the Tang dynasty would eventually betray them, allying with the northern Malgal people. They would continue to fight to restore their sovereignty. With pressure from Silla and Goguryeo, the Tang commandery pulled back from Pyongyang to Liaoyang—effectively putting the mountainous regions at the head of the Korean peninsula between them and their enemies. Silla control was de facto, but would not be recognized formally by the Tang dynasty until the early 8th century. That didn't meant they were completely at odds, however. Silla would resume diplomatic mission to the Tang, despite their territorial disagreements.

Silla's King Munmu, who had pushed back against the Tang, was succeed by his son, known as King Sinmun. Sinmun had been Crown Prince during the wars against Baekje and Goguryeo. Much as Ohoama and Uno no Sarara had been doing on the archipelago, he was working to centralize royal authority in Silla.

In 681, as Silla was still mourning the death of King Munmu, a rebellion broke out. It was led by a high ranking Silla official, and father-in-law to Sinmun, Kim Humdol. It was quickly put down, and Kim Humdol and other officials who were implicated were executed. This was actually a golden opportunity for the new King Sinmun to help purge the court of any rivals or ministers with less than absolute dedication to his plan to centralize authority.

I kind of get the feeling that, for all of the past conflicts between their nations, Sinmun, Ohoama, and Uno might have gotten along quite well. However, that didn't stop the fact that they were rulers of rival nations, and while they may have had similar concepts of leadership, they also were focused on their own rule and authority.

To that end, Sinmun also reached out to the Tang court with tribute missions, and in so doing was at least recognized by the Tang court, who enfeoffed him as King of Silla. This appears to have been a bit of polite fiction, but that was how a lot of this operated, ultimately. King Sinmun would have held power in Silla regardless of the Tang court's approval, but the fiction that the court had bestowed his authority no doubt provided some diplomatic benefits, and a context within which to operate on the international stage. It also no doubt allowed for increased trade, bringing in exotic and high status items, which would have been useful for boosting approval ratings back home.

King Sinmun ruled until his death in 691. He was succeeded by his son, known as King Hyoso. However, Hyoso was young—about 5 years old when he took the throne. And so his mother, Queen Sinmok, acted as regent for much of his reign—right up until her death in 700. Hyoso ended up reigning for a decade, until 702, meaning that he and his mother reigned throughout Uno no Sarara's period as sovereign in Yamato.

Hyoso's reign saw continued progress towards centralization of authority, as well as improved relationships with the Tang court. Silla maintained diplomatic ties and tribute missions, and the Tang court conferred recognition on Hyoso as the King of Silla, in return.

Speaking of the Tang Court, Emperor Tang Gaozong passed away before Ohoama had, departing this world in 683. However, for all that he was the emperor, he had not really been the one running things for some time. Gaozong came to the throne at roughly 21 years of age, and throughout most of his reign he had to share power with others in the court. Originally this meant high ranking minister, but there was also his wife, Wu Zhao, aka Wu Zetian. Wu had been a consort under Tang Taizong, and then continued as a consort for Gaozong as well. Then, in 655, she was officially made empress.

In 660, Gaozong began to suffer from an unknown illness, characterized by headaches, dizziness, , and occasional seizures and loss of vision. Some have suggested it was a stroke or some form of hypertension. Either way, these symptoms would plague him for the rest of his reign, and so he began to delegate more and more authority to Wu Zhao, who would handle things on his behalf.

Thus, Wu was effectively already running things by the time of Gaozong's death in 683. At that point, she became the Empress Dowager, and her third son became emperor Zhongzong—at least in name. Because Wu Zhao maintained all of the power and authority at court. She was, in fact, the regent, and a mere six weeks after Zhongzong took the throne he was removed by his own mother. It seems that Zhongzong, who came to the throne at the age of 28, was showing signs of being a little too much under the influence of his wife, Empress Wei. In fact, he is said to have considered giving her the Empire. And so Wu had him deposed and exiled. She then had his younger brother made Emperor Ruizong, though still under Wu Zhao's term as regent.

Ruizong was about 22 when he took the throne under his mother in 684. He would continue to reign until 690, when he abdicated the throne in favor of his mother. From that point on, Wu Zhao ruled as the sovereign for another 15 years, until the year 705, declaring it a return of the ancient Zhou dynasty. In other words, for all of Uno no Sarara's reign in Yamato, another woman, Wu Zhao, sat atop the traditionally patriarchal seat of power in the Tang—and later Zhou—court.

Wu Zhao is more commonly known to us, today, as Wu Zetian. This comes from her final title as reigning monarch: Zetian Dasheng Huangdi, or Heaven-following Great Holy Emperor. She is often depicted as a ruthless and politically savvy ruler who usurped the throne through her feminine wiles and violence. We see how she dethroned her own son to avoid him giving up the throne to his wife. She is also said to have had another son killed because of her ambitions, and is even accused of killing her own daughter just to blame a rival at court. She is also depicted performing plenty of other unflattering acts.

Of course, it is worth noting that she was not the one to write her own history. After her reign, her epitaph was inscribed by her own political rivals. It is notable that she is the only Empress to be recognized as ruling in her own right in the entire history of China. Certainly there were others who reigned as regents, and women with tremendous power and influence, but none of them really held the throne uncontested.

Given the animosity of the authors who wrote about her reign, we have to take anything we hear about Wu Zhao with a bit of salt. On the other hand, Tang dynasty imperial politics were ruthless, and you didn't get to the top because you had a charming demeanor. While there is no doubt more than a little slander written into the history books, one only has to look at the men who ruled before and after her to wonder whether she really did anything that was so much better or worse than what they did. Just keep that in mind as we go through some of what she was accused of.

Now what we are told is that with her younger son, Emperor Ruizong, she was only nominally pretending to be regent. She didn't bother to hide behind a screen with him out front and we are told she openly whispered answers and commands that Ruizong would immediately parrot. Ruizong never moved into the imperial suites of the palace, which his mother maintained. Ruizong didn't even attend imperial functions, and officials were not allowed to meet with him privately.

An uprising in Yang state was said to be in part because of her rule, and it was suggested that she should step aside and let her son truly rule to restore confidence, but she was having none of it and had those who suggested it arrested. Later, she would institute post boxes around government buildings for people to snitch on those around them who might be disloyal, and she instituted secret police, who investigated various rumors and false accusations with torture, leading to numerous executions.

In 685 she is said to have had an affair with a Buddhst monk, Huaiyi, who was then conferred with various honors. Then, in 686, she offered to return the throne to Ruizong, but Ruizong, realizing that there was no way she would let go of power, saw it as a test of his obedience, and declined. In 688 she summoned senior members of the Li Family, the family of the Tang emperors, under the pretense of making sacrifices to the spirit of the Luo river, which flowed through the Eastern Capital of Luoyang. Several of the Princes of the Li house were worried that she was going to slaughter them all, Red Wedding style, if they showed up, in order to secure the throne to herself, and so they plotted to rebel, but coordination was not the greatest back then, and two princes rose up before the others were ready. They were crushed, and many other members of the Li family were implicated, arrested, and forced to commit suicide.

In 690, she completely did away with any dissembling and declared a new dynasty—the Zhou dynasty—declaring herself Shengshen Huangdi, or Holy Divine Emperor of the Zhou dynasty. And yes, this is the same Zhou as the ancient Zhou dynasty—she was apparently claiming descent from the ancient rulers of Zhou.

Her son was thus deposed and she ruled uncontested from 690 until her death in705. She would go by various names. Three years in and she would add "Jinlun", or "Golden Wheel" to her title, referring to the Buddhist concept of a Chakravartin, or Golden Wheel Turning Monarch.

This latter title came in part as she is said to have elevated the foreign religion of Buddhism over the native Taoist religion. She is also said to have built numerous temples around the capital cities and elsewhere.

In 692, the rising power of the secret police appeared to have been halted. One of the officials in charge, Lai Junchen, attempted to have a handful of officials executed for false accusastions. He told them that if they confessed to the accusations, their lives would be spared, and so many of them confessed to the false accusations, but Junchen conspired to have them executed anyway. One of the officials was none other than the famous Di Renjie. Renjie wrote a petition on his blanket and then hid that with the laundry that he sent to his family when it was time to change from winter to summer robes. His family found it and submitted the petition to Wu Zhao, who became suspicious of Junchen. For his part, Junchen has submitted forged petitions from the prisoners, thanking Empress Wu for preparing to execute them.

Other accusations against Junchen's methods came to light, and so Empress Wu interrogated the prisoners personally. They all disavowed their confessions, and so Wu commuted their sentences from death to exile. Junchen continued to operate until 697, but there seems to have been a notable decrease in the number of executions after that point. He would eventually go too far, and planning to accuse the Li and Wu princes and princesses of treason, but they acted first and he ended up being executed. Without Lai Junchen, the secret police seem to have largely fallen apart.

As for Di Renjie, he eventually worked his way back into the good graces of Wu and the court, eventually being recalled to Luoyang to serve. Di Renjie's own legend grew, and in the 18th or 19th century he was recast as a kind of Tang dynasty detective in the historical crime drama genre popular at the time. The book, "Di Gong An", or "Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee", was found by a Dutch Ambassador to China, Robert van Gulik, in a used bookstore in Tokyo, of all places. Van Gulik would go on to translate the stories and penned a number of others using the style and characters of the original. Judge Dee was cast as the "Sherlock Holmes of China" and has since become popular in both China and the West. The first novel in the series was actually set in the time of Empress Wu.

Robert van Gulik also had several scholarly works, including a translation of the Tang Yin Pi Shih, a 13th century manual for magistrates with examples of cases spanning approximately 1400 years, from the Qin to Song dynasty. This work really helps to illuminate how the ancient justice system worked back then.

Fictional detectives aside, Empress Wu would continue to reign over an impressive period in history. There were plenty of deadly politics, various attacks by outside forces, and more. Overall, it was a fairly prosperous time for the empires.

When Wu passed away in 705, her son, Emperor Zhongzong, resumed the throne, ending the Zhou dynasty and resuming the Tang dynasty of the Li family. Still, Wu Zhao, aka Wu Zetian, would be well remembered. She was buried in the Qianling Mausoleum, near Chang'an, alongside her late husband, Emperor Gaozong. Various other members of the Royal Li family were also buried there, and many of their tombs have been opened. The paintings, statues, and artwork and funerary goods provide a tremendously detailed look at Tang court culture and society at this time. Statues outside indicate officials and ambassadors from across the Tang courts sphere of influence. There are depictions of court dress and the elaborate hairstyles, fabrics, and more, as the tombs generally include court men and women. The famous mural of the Ambassadors is shown with Korean, western, and possibly even a Japanese envoy. The murals also show architectural elements of ancient Chang'an and more.

The tombs of Gaozong and Zetian clearly known, but currently have not undergone excavation. Much like with the tomb of Qin Shihuangdi, the government has put a moratorium on opening the tombs until they can be sure that everything can be properly protected as they do so. There is a huge concern that the tombs could be robbed or that priceless works could be damaged if they are opened improperly or without sufficient techniques to adequately preserve them.

As noted above, although Empress Wu is often demonized by historians, we have to ask if her reign was truly so much different from others. She was certainly a woman taking power in a male-dominated system. Where a man projecting power was seen as normal, Empress Wu was seen as perverting the natural order. An emperor taking to bed numerous consorts and concubines was considered only natural. However, Empress Wu taking to bed various men for her own enjoyment was seen as licentious and indecent. The double-standard seems pretty clear.

I even have to wonder about things like the secret police. While it certainly is alarming to see a government sending people out to arrest and charge people on the barest of evidence, often with little or no accountability or transparency, one should consider what justice looked like at the time, more generally. Tang dynasty justice was often harsh, and torture was considered a standard practice to elicit a confession. Once someone was accused of a crime, their guilt was assumed, and it was on them to prove their innocence. This was a tall order, as the thinking of the day was often that if you hadn't done anything wrong, why would anyone risk falsely accusing you? So clearly you had done *something* to disrupt the social order, even if it wasn't what you were actually accused of.

Furthermore, there is a fine line between rooting out disloyalty to the regime and rooting out corruption. Anonymous tips can be used to call SWAT to someone's house, but it can also be a way for a whistleblower to alert those in authority that something untoward is going on. And something begun with the best of intentions, can easily be corrupted, especially in the wrong hands.

And so I think we can give Empress Wu at least the benefit of the doubt that she seems to have tried to do right by the people and her country. The Tang court, by all accounts, was a nest of vipers, and I don't think she was a saint, but neither was she the devil incarnate.

In fact, a lot of the accusations against Empress Wu would appear to be paralleled, years later, in the archipelago—possibly being parroted by men who were aware of the anti-Wu propaganda. Kouken Tennou—who would also reign a second time as Shoutoku Tennou, was embroiled in conflict.

Like Wu, she came to power in a court embroiled in familial politics. She was known to be a supporter of Buddhism, and she was also said to have had an affair with a monk, Doukyou, upon whom she is said to have lavished power and authority. She is also said to have modeled her nengo, the auspicious names for the year, off of Empress Wu. After her death, her reign was used as a reason why there was not another regnant female sovereign on the throne until the Edo period, and she is often seen as the Last Female Sovereign, much as there was never another Empress regnant amongst the various Sinic dynasties.

However, returning ourselves back to the 7th century, those histories had yet to be written. Instead, one has to wonder how much communication there was between the continent and the archipelago. Did Uno no Sarara realize that she was not the only woman taking charge at that time? Was Empress Wu considered a model for her? Or was she seen as more of a rival? Or was it neither? Did either one regard the other at all, embroiled as they were in their own, local and domestic pursuits?

If they did, there isn't much, if anything, in the record.

There is plenty to be said about relations with both Silla and the Tang dynasty in general, however. Most of the focus was actually on Silla, to be honest—not surprising given Silla's place in the international arena in relation to Yamato.

Last episode we mentioned that an embassy was sent to Silla to announce the death of Ohoama. It was only several months after he had passed away, on the 19th day of 687. The chief and assistant envoys were Tanaka no Ason no Norimaro and Mori no Kimi no Karita. Norimaro is listed as Jikikwoshi rank—the lowest of the Jiki category, which was the 3rd of 6. This put him about 24 ranks down in the 48 rank system. Karita, on the other hand, was Tsuidaini, putting him at about 43 of 48 court ranks. Normally, I don't pay too much attention to the ranks that are given in the Chronicles, mainly for two reasons. First off is that you aren't always sure that the rank given in the Chronicle corresponds with the rank at the time of the event—sometimes we see ranks that are clearly anachronistic—typically later in their life. Since people don't typically drop in rank, unless they are demoted, this usually gives you some information, but not always.

The second reason I often don't pay attention is because it usually isn't germane to the story. It is why I'll also drop the uji and the kabane, once we establish a particular person. Otherwise it feels like word salad.

Every once in a while I do like to look at the ranks, however, because they do give us information about things like the individual's general position in the court hierarchy. In this case we see that, of the officials selected for this assignment, one was near the bottom of the upper half of the court, while the other was really in a much more junior position. I believe this may also be important later on, because there was a certain expectation that the person representing a sovereign in diplomatic situations would have sufficient rank to indicate some amount of pull, back home.

The mission of Norimaro and Karita to Silla may have been ordered in the first month of the year, but it seems it likely took time before it actually left—or something happened. I say this because in the 9th month we see an embassy from Silla arrive, and they are apparently unaware of any changes in the archipelago. The embassy was headed by the Prince Gim Sangnim. We are also told that there were two other officials, Gim Salmo and Gim Insyul, both of Geupson rank. Then there was So Yangsin of Daesa rank. That was two of vice ministerial rank and one of lower official rank. These ranks were connected both to their office and to their family, as Silla still used a fairly rigid system based on the rank of one's family, similar to the way that the old Kabane system worked before it was reformed under Ohoama in the previous reign.

The embassy from Silla also included a student-priest, Chiryu. Presumably Chiryu was from Yamato and had gone abroad to study, and was now making his way back home.

It appears as though the embassy had no idea that Ohoama had passed away as we are told that they had to be informed by the Dazai—the Viceroy of Tsukushi. Once they were informed, they all put on mourning clothing, turned towards the east—towards the capital of Yamato—and they bowed three times and then cried out lamentations three times.

I would note that there is another record in the first month of the following year, which states that Gim Sangnim and his colleagues were informed of Ohoama's death and lamented three times. That could just be a misplaced duplicate of the previous entry, about the embassy—possibly it got recorded multiple times and different ways and on different dates. It isn't exactly clear. Either way, it seems that this was not meant to be an official condolence envoy, but just a regular embassy bringing trade goods disguised as tribute. In fact, in the 2nd month of 688 we are told that the Viceroy of Tsukushi presented the tribute from Silla to the capital. It is said to have included gold and silver, thin silks, cloth, skins, copper, and iron. There were also images of the Buddha, all kinds of coloured fine silks, birds, and horses. Sangnim himself had presents of gold and silver, colored stuffs, and various rarieties—80 items all told.

Sangnim and his crew probably didn't travel to Asuka, because we are told that as of the 10th day of the 2nd month of 688 they were being entertained in the Tsukushi government house, where they were given various gifts by the court, and then they headed out on the 29th day of that month.

A year after that, in the first month of 689, Norimaro and Karita returned from Silla, suggesting that the two embassies really had just passed each other—such were the issues with international travel back in the day.

Now, normally, we don't hear much about what happened during these embassies. The Nihon Shoki doesn't typically record anything, possibly because they just didn't have any records. And the records in the Samguk Sagi often don't mention anything, either. It is possible that it was just considered too routine to mention the ins and outs. However, in this instance, we may have some insight, because it is mentioned later in the narrative.

You see, four months behind Norimaro and Karita came the formal Silla condolence envoy. It was headed by Gim Dona, of Geupson rank—so a vice minister instead of a prince heading up the embassy. Silla also sent student-priests Meiso, Kwanchi, and others, along with a gold-copper image of Amida Buddha and a gold-copper image of Kannon and an image of Daiseishi Boddhisatva, along with colored silks and brocades.

A month after they arrived, the condolence envoy received a message from none other than Queen Uno no Sarara herself, but this was not necessarily a good thing. In fact, she appears to be dressing down the Silla envoys and the Silla court more generally, because of how things had gone with Norimaro and Karita—and this possibly also explains why it took so long for them to get to Silla and back.

According to the Yamato court, Norimaro and Karita were sent to Silla to announce the death of Ohoama. However, Silla protocol stated that persons charged to deliver a royal message had always had the rank of Sopan. This appears to be equivalent to the rank of Japchan, and indicates the third rank in Silla's system. Because of this, Queen Uno's message goes on to state, Norimaro and Karita were not allowed to deliver their message about Ohoama's passing to the court. However, back when Karu—Koutoku Tennou—had passed away in 654, Kose no Inamochi went to announce the funerals dates, and he was received by Gim Shunshun listened to the report. So saying that it is someone of the third rank that is needed goes against precedent.

Furthermore, when Naka no Oe passed away in 671, Silla sent Gim Salyu, who was of 7th rank, but now they send someone of 9th rank. So if precedent was to be followed, wouldn't that also be a problem?

This whole thing is really fascinating in that it demonstrates the kind of delicate balance and back and forth that was going on—and I suspect that it was growing even more specific as each country was adopting more rules and laws, and compiling them into codes. It is notable that the Chronicles make sure to state the rank of each ambassador from Silla, at least in the last several reigns. That suggests that the government was tracking such things, and that it was important.

The rest of the screed by the Yamato court seems a little more about setting out Yamato's position on Silla-Yamato relations. Here Yamato puts words into the mouths of former Silla officials, claiming that they always addressed Yamato's sovereign with deference. Yamato claimed Silla had promised service to Yamato since the remote royal ancestors, promising that the oars of the ships bringing tribute to the archipelago would "never become dry", and yet this time, there was only one ship that came to offer condolences. Furthermore, the Silla kings were to serve the sovereigns of Yamato faithfully, but they had now broken the faith.

Therefore their tribute goods were sealed up and returned back.

That said, they weren't completely breaking off communications. This was a rebuke, certainly, but they were willing to keep channels open with hopes that relations might improve in the future.

My read on all of this is that the Yamato envoys to Silla had been snubbed by that court for not being of appropriate station by Silla's rules. Therefore, in a tit-for-tat move, Yamato was treating the condolence envoy similarly.

That doesn't mean they didn't show them any hospitality, though. Queen Uno no Sarara had the Viceroy, Awada no Mabito no Ason, give the student-priests Meiso and Kanchi, who had just come back with the condolence envoy, 140 kin of floss silk for their teachers back in Silla, in apparent gratitude. And then a few days later they were entertaining the condolence envoys in Wogohori in Tsukushi, and giving them various presents for their trouble.

This is likely the kind of "don't shoot the messenger". Sure, they were returning the tribute and sending a message to Silla, but that wasn't the fault of Gim Dona and his colleagues. And they were now taking a rather disappointing message back with them—I doubt anyone wanted to be in Gim Dona's shoes as he told the court what had transpired.

Gim Dona and crew left shortly after that. From there, we don't have a lot of information on what happened. The Silla annals of the Samguk Sagi don't record Gim Dona's embassy, let alone what happened when they came back. However, Silla would send future envoys, and diplomatic relations between the two countries continued throughout the reign.

The Silla embassies from that point on are largely, for our purposes, unremarkable. I may mention them if they relate to other items of note, but for the most part there is really only two other embassies of note, and they were in the year 693. The first was from Silla, led by Gim Gangnam of Sasan rank, along with Gim Yangweon of Hannama rank—so 8th and 11th rank in the Silla hierarchy, apparently. They had come to announce the death of King Sinmun, who had passed away the previous year. And so, on the 16th day of the 3rd month, an embassy was prepared to depart for Silla. It was headed up by Okinaga no Mabito no Oyu, of Jikikwoshi rank—much as Norimaro had been. He and his proposed vice envoy, Ohotomo no Sukune no Kogimi, who was Gondaini rank—27th of 48—were both given gifts prior to their election as ambassadors, and were sent as condolence envoys, themselves.

Meanwhile, let's take a look at Yamato's interactions with the Tang dynasty.

First of all, we see a note in the 6th month of 689 that presents of rice were given to Xu Shouyen, Sa Hungko, and others from the land of the Great Tang. So was this an embassy? Not quite.

Remember that little scuffle back in the 660s on the Korean Peninsula? That special military operation by Silla and Tang forces against Baekje, where Yamato had tried to assist, only to have their navy bested by Tang forces?

Well during the fighting , there had been numerous prisoners taken, on both sides. Xu Shouyen and Sa Hungko were two such prisoners. Except that "prison" in this case was largely being sent to live off the land. They were probably forced to do labor, though if they had special skills, such as reading and writing, they may have been put to work in another way. Indeed, we later see these two mentioned not as prisoners or even slaves, but as teachers of "pronunciation". They were even given rice-land and stipends of their own. Granted, this is decades after they first came to Yamato, so this wasn't exactly a smooth ride.

But it wasn't just Tang prisoners in Yamato. Yamato soldiers had also been captured and taken prisoner by Tang forces. And so, in the 9th month of 690, we see three priests who had gone to the land of Tang to study returned in the company of a Silla escort envoy, and they brought back with them a soldier, Ohotomobe no Hakama, from the Upper Yame district in Tsukushi.

The three priests, Chishiu, Gitoku, and Jougwan all made their way to the capital, arriving several weeks after they first made landfall in Tsukushi. At this point, Prince Kawachi was the Dazai in charge of affairs out there, and soon after the priests arrived at Naniwa and made their way to the capital, in Asuka, messengers going the other way made it out to Tsukushi with orders to give presents and gifts to the Gim Gohun, the escort envoy who had shuttled them all back from the continent.

But even more impressive was the royal edict that was dated a week later for Ohotomobe no Hakama. It lays out the circumstances of his capture and what happened to him that he stayed in the land of the Tang for so long. You see, Hakama was one of many soldiers who was captured during the war to defend Baekje. But three years after that conflict, the Tang dynasty was no longer trying to keep them prisoner. This was a time when you didn't necessarily need to have buildings with walls to keep people prisoner—you just moved them to a new area where they could farm or otherwise set up a livelihood, or starve. Travel was dangerous and expensive, especially if you didn't speak the language. Nonetheless, if you did wish to return, there wasn't a lot stopping you, beyond just having the means to do so.

And so this group of Wa soldiers got together and debated what to do. We are told that it was four men—Hashi no Hoto, Kohori no Oyu, Tsukuhi no Satsuyama, and Yuge no Gen Jitsuni—the last one apparently having taken a local name on the continent. Amongst themselves, they wanted to return to the archipelago not just to see their families and friends, but also to let people back home know about the changing conditions on the mainland. As you may recall, around this time, Yamato was fiercely building up forces and defenses because they were convinced that there was going to be an attack by the Tang and Silla forces at any moment.

The only problem that these four had in getting back was that they had, well, nothing. They had neither the clothing nor provisions to make such a journey. What would they eat and how would they pay for passage? As such, they were unable to get back. Hearing this, Ohotomobe no Hakama spoke up. He declared that, as much as he also wished to return, he could at least help them out. He offered to be sold into slavery so that his companions could obtain money with which to buy food and clothing.

And so they did. Hakama was sold, and he probably had no idea what happened to the four after that. It turns out, however, that they did make it back and were able to give the Yamato court some idea of what had happened. Meanwhile, Hakama remained in a foreign land as a slave for some 30 years, until he was finally able to make it back to Yamato, apparently with the help of the three monks.

This whole story was relayed to the court, and when the Queen heard it, she decided to act. And thus the edict. Not only did she recount his story and praise him for his loyalty, but he was granted certain honors. First off, he was granted the rank of Mudaishi—the 39th rank in the court hierarchy, which gave him not a small amount of status, especially if he stayed in Tsukushi. He was also granted5 pieses of coarse silk, 10 bundles of floss silk, 30 tan of cloth, and 1000 sheaves of rice. On top of that, though, he received four chou of rice-land, which was given to him and his descendants, until at least his great-grandchildren. Finally, his parents, siblings, and children, were also exempted from having to ever provide corvee labor.

Now, nobody could give him back his 30 years, but this was quite the consolation prize, at the time. To basically get rank and status, a stipend down four generations, and exemption from forced labor for him and his relatives, that was pretty incredible, if you think about it.

Hakama wasn't the only one who had suffered in the country of the Great Tang and was rewarded for it. Mononobe no Kusuri, from Iyo, and Mibu no Moroshi, in Higo, were also paid out handsomely in consolation for their sufferings, though we aren't given details on their stories, or even when they came back.

There are also other descriptions of Tang men, but it seems that these were individuals in a similar position to Xu Shouyen and Sa Hungko—they had been captured and were now living in Yamato. That they were integrating into Yamato society seems clear from the fact that they were given rank and similarly treated like vassals of the throne.

What we don't see, however, are any further diplomatic missions. Those wouldn't start up for a while, and so even if Queen Uno no Sarara had wanted to confer with another female monarch, it would have to have been done through the auspices of Silla, who at t his point seem to have largely controlled the flow of goods, people, and thus information between the straits.

And with that, I think we can close out this episode. Moving forward, we have more details about a lot of different things, and yet others are still lacking. It is my goal to try and be a little more selective about the passages we pull from the Chronicles. We don't need to go over every natural disaster or prayer to the wind-gods. We will take a look at things like the completion of the Fujiwara capital, as well as the 22 volumes of the Asuka-Kiyomihara law codes. And then there are a few persons of note that we should probably mention as well, such as the appearance of Fujiwara no Fubito. We should also talk about some of the other royal edicts that were made.

All of that for later. For now, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.

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Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast.

And that's all for now. Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

Last episode we briefly talked about what happened when Ōama passed away, including the apparent conspiracy around the Royal Prince Ōtsu, and then the question as to why his son, Crown Prince Kusakabe, didn't then succeed him to the throne.

This episode we are taking a look at that period, but more focused on the rituals and what went into a royal funeral, and then take a look all the way to the eventual ascension to the throne of not Crown Prince Kusakabe, but instead his mother, Ōama's queen, Uno no Sarara. She would eventually be known as Jitō Tennō.

For photos and links to other episodes, check out our blog post: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-148

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is Episode 148: A Nation Mourns

Crown Prince Kusakabe approached the temporary palace structure that had been hastily assembled in the courtyard in front of the Kiyomihara Palace. Solemnly arrayed around him, dressed in their court garments, were the ministers and government officials. Together, they approached the palace building, where the Crown Prince's father, Ohoama, also known as Ame no Nunahara oki no Mabito, lay in state. He had passed away, and according to the imported Confucian values of filial piety, Kusakabe was now expected to mourn in ritual fashion.

The court ritualists had seen to every detail of what should be done and even said, to the extent that the crown prince's actions almost felt like a performance of grief, rather than a heartfelt tribute. And yet, Kusakabe could not help but feel some emotion at the sight of his father, once the most powerful man under heaven, now laid out in this place of temporary interment. There would be many more ceremonies and rituals before the final mausoleum would be built and the former sovereign's body finally laid to rest. Until then, even though Ohoama's spirit had left, his body would remain as a symbol to the people, and as the centerpiece of an elaborate ritual, designed, in part, to continue to bolster the state he had helped to create.

Last episode we went into some of the shenanigans around the death of Ohoama and the succession to the throne. As we saw, not everyone was apparently on board with the idea that Crown Prince Kusakabe would take the throne, leading to the arrest and execution of Prince Ohotsu. However, we noted that Crown Prince Kusakabe didn't end up on the throne after all: for whatever reason, he never ascended to the honor, and died in 689 – not even three years after the death of his father. And so we saw Uno no Sarara, Ohoama's wife and queen and mother of Crown Prince Kusakabe, formally take the reins of state and go on to reign as the sovereign, the Sumera Mikoto, or Tennou, until 697. From there she would become the first ever Retired Sovereign, keeping her hand in government until her death in 703.

This episode we are going to look a little more in depth regarding everything that went on around Ohoama's death and the various rites accompanying his passing.

Ohoama's was obviously not the first royal death that we have seen in the Chronicles. It is perhaps, however, one of the best documented in terms of the funerary arrangements and the various rituals that accompanied his passing. Some of those arrangements are mentioned previously in the Chronicles, but not to the same extent as we see for Ohoama. This leaves me wondering: are we seeing something novel—new rites for a new type of sovereign, perhaps? Or was this just the first time the ritual had been documented to this level of detail?.

Before jumping into what we see this time around, we should probably look back at what we have seen around the death of previous sovereigns, and which are still going on here.

First and foremost is the creation—or at least the designation—of a "Palace of Temporary Interment". This is the Mogari no Miya, with "mogari" being the term for the period between an individual's death and their eventual burial. In the Nihon Shoki we see this practice go back to the earliest times. After all, most deaths do not occur on a set schedule, and once someone has passed away, funerary arrangements would need to be made. Now, if all you are doing is putting a body into a box and lowering it into the ground, you can probably bring it all together rather quickly. However, for centuries the burial practices on the archipelago had been significantly more elaborate. Even those without royal blood might be afforded a special mound, or kofun. There would be giant stones selected to create the chamber, and then tons of earth and pebbles placed on top. There might also be haniwa—clay cylinders—which then might even be topped with special figures. All of this had to be planned out and taken care of, and in some cases, such as the creation of haniwa, it appears as there was a major industry involved in funerary preparations. In the case of royal family members things got even more elaborate, and based on the size of many of the kofun that we see one can assume that their construction took time. In fact, I would not be surprised if the construction of a new tomb mound might not have kicked off on or near the ascension of the sovereign just to make sure it would be ready, but even still it would take time for all of the rites associated with a royal burial to be ready to go.

And so it was common practice that one would have to wait before a burial could actually take place. Since you couldn't just leave a body out in the open in the community, the corpse would be deposited, instead, in a temporary building. These are sometimes referred to as mogari huts, which would likely be placed well away from others. Here we should also take into account the general pollution associated with death in its various forms. So you would want to have the body kept out of sight and away from people as best you could while you prepared for the actual burial at some later date.

For sovereigns, this mogari hut, or hut of temporary interment, was eventually referred to as a "miya", or "palace". In some cases it seems as if one of the buildings of the sovereign's old palace was used for this purpose, while a new palace was then also built for the new reign.

In addition to the place of temporary interment, one of the common traditions we see in funerals in the Chronicles is the role of the eulogy. While a person lay in state during their temporary interment, we are told that people could come to eulogize and lament. In the case of a sovereign, the high ministers and politically connected would come together and deliver speeches. This served multiple purposes. On the one hand, these rituals reinforced concepts of the State and the central authority in the body of the sovereign. On the other hand, they also served as markers of status for those delivering the speeches, and provided opportunities to be seen and heard, signaling their support of the system that provided them their own power and authority.

So all of this process and ritual that we see for Ohoama is familiar, from previous royal deaths. However, it's interesting to note that in the most recent years before Ohoama's funeral, a lot of these traditions seem to have been scaled back. For one thing, there was the decline of large, keyhole shaped kofun, ever since the introduction of Buddhism in the 6th century and the move to memorial temples over large tombs. Furthermore, as part of the Taika era reforms we see regulations on how long temporary interment may last for those of princely rank and below—though nothing is clearly stated for the sovereign themselves.

Let's look at the most recent royal death's before Ohoama's, but since the beginning of the Taika era. There are at least three we've talked about. First off is the death of Karu, aka Koutoku Tennou. Karu's death is barely remarked upon—he was buried about two months after he passed away, and very little fanfare is given. One can't help but wonder if this was, in part at least, due to the fact that Naka no Oe was actually in charge and running things at the Crown Prince.

Takara hime, aka Saimei Tennou, would pass away in the middle of the Baekje war against the Silla-Tang alliance. Her body was sent back to Yamato, but the Crown Prince and many of the elites established themselves in Tsukushi—modern Kyushu—to better conduct the war on the peninsula. Not only was her interment thus delayed, but Naka no Oe's own ascension wouldn't take place for several more years, possibly because of the new capital he was building in Ohotsu.

Naka no Oe's own funerary arrangements were interrupted by the events of the Jinshin no Ran. In fact, the building of his tumulus was used by the government as a cover to bring in soldiers to prepare for the conflict. There may have been various funerary rituals planned or even carried out by the Afumi court, but if so they were overshadowed by the civil war that broke out between the two claimants to the throne.

As such, Ohoama's appears to be the first royal funeral of this magnitude in a while, and in this case they really pulled out all the stops. There were various activities and rituals associated with Ohoama's passing up through the 11th month of 688, over two years later, when he was finally buried. So let's go over what happened and maybe what dragged it out so much longer.

First off were the immediate lamentations and eulogies. Ohoama passed away on the 9th day of the 9th month, according to the Nihon Shoki. It was the year 686 according to the western calendar. Two months later the erection of the temporary palace of interment began in the southern courtyard—presumably the area south of the Asuka Kiyomihara palace, where they had previously held the various archery competitions. This took a couple of weeks, and Ohoama's body was finally placed in the temporary palace as of the 24th of that month.

While ritual lamentations were raised at the start of the building of the mogari palace and when the sovereign's body was interred, the major rites appear to have started three days after he was laid to rest, on the 27th day, proceeding for the next three days, from the 27th until the 30th.

The rites started with Buddhist monks and nuns who arrived before sunrise and began to perform lamentations in the courtyard of the mogari. Later that day, we see food offerings, apparently for the first time in the Chronicles.

Offering food to the dead is not unique to Japan. Some in Japan will offer food to their ancestors, especially during the Obon festival. People will also offer food to kami. In the case of Obon, a bowl of rice is often served with two chopsticks sticking straight out of it. This has actually led to a social taboo on leaving your chopsticks "stuck" in food, as it looks as though you are offering the food up to the dead. Instead, chopsticks will be placed on a chopstick rest, on the table, or even across the top of a dish, just not sticking up out of the food, especially the rice.

In this case it isn't clear exactly how the food offering was done, nor what happened to the food afterwards. In the case of food offered to the kami, it is often the case that once the kami have had enough time to partake of the aura of the food—its spiritual essence—the food will then be removed and often consumed by people. So for Ohoama's funerary offerings, something similar may have happened—possibly with a feast of some kind to which the various nobles were also invited.

Along with the offering of food, we are told of a whole list of individuals who gave eulogies—though we aren't told what the content was. It is likely that these eulogies were largely ritual utterances—stock phrasing by the participant to demonstrate their active performance of the rituals, rather than a deeply thought sermon about the sovereign. After all, this seems to have gone on at a rather constant pace for the next several days. The ritual order seems to have stayed the same, with priests and nuns kicking things off with lamentations in the courtyard, and various nobles presenting their eulogy. The third day, the 29th, was the same.

On the fourth day, the 30th, the last day of the month, the priests and nuns raised lament, and the eulogies were given by a Baekje prince in exile, on behalf of his father, as well as the various Miyatsuko of the various provinces. In addition there were all performances of all manner of singing and dancing—which makes it sound more like a wake than anything else.

With the close of the 9th month, we have a break in the tale of Ohoama's funeral, as the narrative switches over to the next part of the Chronicles covering the reign of Uno no Sarara, aka Jitou Tennou. The first order of business—other than telling us who Uno no Sarara was and covering some of her history—was to deal with the Prince Ohotsu conspiracy. So we see Prince Ohotsu arrested, along with 30 conspirators. Prince Ohotsu was killed at his residence, where his wife and consort ran to him and took her own life as well. That all happened the 2nd and 3rd days of the 10th month. The 30 co-conspirators were apparently held for about twenty-seven days while the court debated what to do with them. Finally, the decree was made to pardon all except Toki no MIchidzukuri, who was only banished instead of executed, and the monk Heng-sin, who was exiled to a temple in Hida, over on Kyushu. The month after that, Ohotsu's sister, Royal Princess Ohoku, returned to the capital from Ise Shrine where she had been serving as the Shrine Princess—though we aren't told who replaced her.

And so it isn't until the twelfth month that we see what appears to be the rites for Ohoama's passing seem to resume. This takes the form of a universal great assembly held in Ohoama's name at the Five temples, listed as Daikandaiji, Asukadera, Kawaradera, Toyoradera in Woharida, and Sakadadera.

This is an interesting list, as one would have expected that the rites would have occurred at the National Temples established previously—for more on the National temples, we talked about that back in Episode 142.. Daikandaiji, Asukadera, and Kawaradera were, of course, national temples. Yakushiji is not mentioned, probably because it was still under construction. At this date it's only been dedicated, and we won't see it show up in the Chronicles until 688—a year and change from the current gathering. Toyoradera was the nunnery of Toyoura temple, and Sakada temple appears to be another nunnery, formerly known as Kongoji. It is said to have been in MInabuchi, and ruins of a temple are found in the southeast of Asuka, in an area known today as, funnily enough, Sakada. There is also a modern temple known as Kongoji nearby, though I can't tell if there is any connection between the two other than the name— whether its a true successor temple or just given that name because of the proximity of the ruins.

Either way, in this phase of the funerary rites, we have a combination of temples and nunneries involved. I wonder if that was so that men and women could gather in spaces for them. Either way, it is clear that these rites were held specifically to build merit for Ohoama. This was probably also the intent behind the actions of the court a week later, when presents of cloth and silk were made to orphans, as well as childless, widowed, and elderly men and women of the capital—those who didn't have someone else to look after them or who were assumed to not have a stable income.

Come the first day of the new year of 687, we see a return to the palace of temporary interment, and this time it is in a new and different fashion. We are told that the Crown Prince, accompanied by ministers and public functionaries, proceeded to the Palace of Temporary Interments and made lament. We are told that it was the Nagon, Fuwe no Ason no Miaruji, who performed the eulogy, after which everyone once again raised a lament. Then the common people raised a lament. Then Ki no Ason and others of the High Stewards of the Palace made food offerings. After this, the Uneme of the Steward's department raised a lament and then music was performed by the officials of the Department of Music.

This clearly indicates an involved ceremony, with set roles and functions. It is being headed by Ohoama's son, Crown Prince Kusakabe, and attended by all the high ministers, and it is being held on the first of the year in place of other festivities for that day. Other than the timing, the basic pattern of events is similar to the other rituals of lamentation. . The contents of the ceremony might be different, and it was always someone new who was chosen to give the formal eulogy, but there does seem to be some ritual and pattern to the rites performed.

For major ceremonies, we are told of the Crown Prince, the ministers, and the various public functionaries who are there, in attendance, but in other instances we are just told of who is providing the lamentations or the eulogy. For example, on the 5th day of the first month—four months after the big ceremony, we are told that everyone—Crown Prince down to the common people—proceeded to the Palace of temporary interment and made lamentations. Either way, the period for the next year and change is filled with various ceremonies either at the palace of temporary interment, where Ohoama's body lay in state, or elsewhere in the capital, such as at various temples. There were also various gifts from the court.

All of this was as much political spectacle as it was grieving. There are some suggestions that, according to Confucian tradition, a son was expected to mourn the loss of his father for up to three years. So perhaps that is part of what was happening—the royal family was participating in some costly signaling to both raise Ohoama—and thus, themselves—up on a pedestal and to try to demonstrate the virtue of Crown Prince Kusakabe. After all, the Queen and her son had been effectively running the government before Ohoama had passed, so it wasn't like there was any actual change and only minor risk. The timeframe also allowed the court time to send messengers out to inform the far reaches of the archipelago of Ohoama's passing and give them time to come and do homage. They even sent messengers to Silla, no doubt to both let them know about what had happened and possibly to solicit a condolence embassy. All of that would also play into the pageantry and mythmaking of the moment, further strengthening the position of the Yamato court, which was, of course, under the control of Uno no Sarara and her son.

And so we see numerous, and quite public, displays. Besides the lamentations and the eulogies, we see repeated gifts to the underprivileged, like giving gifts of coarse and floss silk to those residents of the Capital who were at least 80 years old, as well as to invalids with little hope as well as to the poor people who had no other means to support themselves. All of it being done in Ohoama's name, even though the reputation no doubt was actually accruing to his son and widow.

In the third month we see a special mention: an ornamental chaplet of flowers, known as a mikage, was offered at the Palace of Temporary Interment. Today, flowers are often found in abundance at Japanese funerals. Certain flowers may be "gifted" to the deceased as a last gift from mourners, and large, elaborate flower constructions are often used to decorate the funeral parlor where the corpse is laid out. Groups and individuals may pay exorbitant sums to place flowers with a name card indicating who donated it, and some flowers may be for the grieving family to take home. There are meanings behind the type of flowers, and often white flowers are preferred, as white is often seen as the color of death.

Some of this appears to be influenced by the West, but flowers have long been symbols and used in various ceremonies and rites. It is possible that some of this was influenced by Buddhist and Tang court rituals. Or maybe they just wanted something that was sweet smelling to help cover up the inevitable odor that no doubt resulted from leaving a body out for about six months at that point.

Whatever the purpose, we aren't given too many details on just what this floral display was. Aston calls the "mikage" a "chaplet" and Bentley simply describes it as decorative flowers placed at the mogari palace—the palace of temporary interment. Once the flowers were placed, then Taji no Mabito no Maro performed the ceremony of the eulogy.

Next, in the 5th month, we see the Crown Prince and various government officials once again involved. This time they were accompanied by the chiefs of the Hayato and the Ata of Ohosumi, accompanied by their people, advancing and providing a eulogy. The Hayato and the Ata were both indigenous groups of people from southern Kyushu, who were considered to be outside of the Yamato polity, with distinct cultural differences. It is unclear if they were ethnically Wa people. Evidence from that area suggests that the people there, whatever their ethnicity, had adopted many of the Yayoi and Kofun cultural life-ways. This was not without some differences, such as distinct burial practices, such as underground burial chambers. Hayato were also known in Yamato for their shields, which are often depicted as long, thin pentagonal shapes with red, white, and black figural paintings.

The propaganda-slash-merit making continued over the next few months. In the 6th month we see an amnesty, where criminals were pardoned, and in the 7th month the court unilaterally cancelled out any interest on debts contracted in the year 685 or earlier. In cases where the debtors already owed service to their creditors, for some reason, they made it so that the creditors could not demand that they provide additional service. People still had to pay back the balance, but they didn't have to pay back anything extra.

The next ceremony at the palace of temporary interment wasn't for about three months later, in the 8th month of 687. We are told that offerings of food were made, and that only awokimono—green things—were offered. Bentley translates this passage to say that it was the feast of first fruits, the Niinamesai, and they do use the character for "namé", but not the full name. As for "Awokimono" – Aston translates this as plain, boiled rice, and says it is meant that it was without meat of any kind. Indeed, the characters appear to be for blue or green cooked rice. There is another reading for "Awokimono" as "Hijikioono", and Aston suggests that there may have been some hijiki, or seaweed, involved. Regardless this appears to have been specifically a funerary tradition.

A day after the food was offered—and we aren't told who did that—the elderly people of the capital, both men and women—some possibly with new duds thanks to the silk they had received earlier—came and made lamentation west of the bridge. I suspect that this means they didn't enter the actual courtyard where the palace of temporary interment was set up, but simply gathered on the west side of the Asuka River, which flowed past the west side of the courtyard.

Later that month, we see another Buddhist ceremony. Fujiwara no Ason no Ohoshima and Kibumi no Muraji no Ohotomo invited 300 Buddhist dignitaries, known as Ryuuzou and Daitoku, to Asukadera. There they gave each one of them the present of a kesa—a Buddhist sash worn as part of their vestments. Kesa were typically stitched together from cloth donated by Buddhist laypersons, and we are told that these kesa were made from the garments of the late sovereign. The language of the decree itself was apparently so painful—Aston translates it as pathetic—that it couldn't be fully set forth. That sounds to me like someone forgot to write it down.

Eleven days after the assembly at Asukadera, a national Buddhist feast was sponsored at all of the Temples in the capital. The day after that, a feast was sponsored at the mogari palace.

Later that same month, Silla ambassadors arrived at the archipelago. The Dazai, the viceroy of Tsukushi, met with them and informed them of what had happened. It is likely that they had left before any word had reached the peninsula, so this was the first they heard of it. Nonetheless, they all put on mourning clothes, turned to face the East, and bowed three times and raised lamentations. This was all being done in Kyushu, but nonetheless it was clearly important to the people who were recording these interactions.

A similar note in the record appears on the 23rd day of the first month of the following year, where we are told that Ohoama's death was announced to the Silla ambassador, Gim Sangnim, and his colleagues. They, in turn, made their lament three times. It is possible that these are records of the same event, and I even wonder if one was recorded on the date they arrived and the other was recorded on the date that they were formally told what was happening. Either that, or the events of the 9th month of 687 were an informal notice, so that they could get ready, after which they traveled the three months and change to Asuka, where they then were given the formal notification.

Moving on to finish out the year 687: on the 22nd day of the 10th month, the Crown Prince and government officials, along with all of the governors and Kuni no MIyatsuko—and not forgetting the common people—all began work on the sovereign's tomb. This is one of the few tombs that we have some confidence in, though it isn't a keyhole shaped kofun like many others from previous eras. Today it looks mostly like a round hill, but originally it seems to have been an eight-sided tomb with five distinct levels. Eight sides suggests a Buddhist influence, as eight is an auspicious number, such as in the 8-fold path. I can't help but wonder if the five levels were connected to concepts of five in Confucian and Daoist teachings. For instance, there was the idea of five Confucian virtues as well as the Wuxing, or Gogyou, where we have five specific elements. Given the importance and influence of continental thinking at the time, neither one would surprise me.

The tomb would take almost a year to complete, which almost doesn't seem like enough time given everything that they did. It is possible that they had already prepped much of what they needed and that the 10th month of 687 was simply the date they broke ground, but either way it was an impressive feat.

Meanwhile, as the construction was ongoing, the public displays of mourning continued. Once again, new year's day celebrations of 688 were postponed in favor of public mourning, with the Crown Prince and all of the ministers making their lamentations on the first day of the year, followed by a company of priests the following day.

On the 8th day of the first month of the year we are told that there was a public great congregation of priests held at Yakushiji. This is the first official event held at Yakushiji, and so presumably the temple was now finished—or at least finished enough. Since Ohoama isn't mentioned, it is certainly possible that this wasn't directly connected to the ceremonies around the official mourning of Ohoama. On the other hand, Yakushiji was commissioned by Ohoama for the health of his wife, Uno no Sarara, so I have a hard time thinking that there weren't any connections at all.

In the second month of 688, we get a decree that has a few different interpretations. The decree states that, "in the future, on all days of national mourning, it is absolutely necessary that abstinence be practiced." Bentley translates this to mean that there would be a feast on the day of national mourning every year after. The key contention appears to be whether or not the day of mourning was a monthly or annual thing. The court appears to have been creating a national holiday around the memory of Ohoama, and it may have chosen the second month for that day of mourning and remembrance. Alternatively, this was for a day of mourning each month of the current year. The wording is vague. It is like the question of whether or not "Bi-weekly" means twice a week or once every two weeks, and I don't know that there is any consensus. Still, it is interesting that they created their own holiday to remember Ohoama, and as far as I can tell this is the first such example of a holiday being used to remember a person in this way.

Once again on the 22nd day of the third month, flowers were again presented at the palace of temporary interment. This was only two days different from when the mikage had been set up in the previous year, so it would seem that the timing was significant—possibly because it was spring and the flowers were blooming. Fujiwara no Ason no Ohoshima, the same individual who had helped gather the various priests together at Asukadera to hand out kesa made of the sovereign's own garments, presented the eulogy.

The ceremonies are then put on hold for a bit. There is an account from the 11th day of the 6th month where prisoners guilty of capital crimes would have their punishment mitigated one degree while those in prison for lighter offenses would be pardoned altogether. In addition, only half of the commuted taxes were to be levied. This might have been more merit-working for Ohoama or it may have been because the nation itself was undergoing a drought and they were seeking the Buddha's favor to bring the rains.

Once again in the 8th month we see offerings of food are made, and a lament raised inside the palace of temporary interment. This time the eulogy was performed by Ohotomo no Sukune no Yasumaro. The day after that, Prince Ise was given commands regarding how the upcoming funeral was to be handled, which was to happen three months later.

The 11th month kicked off with the Crown prince and the ministers once more going to the palace of temporary interment, this time on the 4th day of the month. They had with them guests from the "frontier lands" as Aston notes—Bentley says foreign countries. Offerings of food were made, and the Tatefushi dance was performed. This was a dance with shields and swords, according to later records. It seems that the dancers also wore armor, or something to approximate armor. All of the ministers then advanced, each in turn, and pronounced a eulogy, with each recounting the services that their ancestors had rendered to the throne.

The following day, there was further ceremony as over 190 Emishi brought tribute in on their backs, and pronounced a eulogy for the departed sovereign.

Six days later, on the 11th day of the 11th month, Fuse no Ason no Miaruji and Ohotomo no Sukune no Mimiyuki both pronounced eulogies, and then Tahema no Mabito no Chitoko recited, as a eulogy, the succession to the throne of the royal ancestors.

And when that was finished, Ohoama's body was finally placed in the Ohouchi tomb and the tomb was sealed.

And with that, the sovereign was put to rest, after over two years of mourning and ceremony, specifically designed to put on display the court's apparent grief. Whether they were actually grieved or not, the importance was the performance of grief through the rituals set forth by the state. Individuals and groups demonstrated their loyalty through their participation. Noble families used the platform to recount their service and thus demonstrate their own history and pedigree and thus why they were deserving of their status in the court.

Furthermore, during all this ceremony around the funerary arrangements, to try to also have an ascension ceremony for the new sovereign was probably a little too much to try and push through. It would have also meant that they would been holding a ceremony that should be joyful and august under the pall of the mourning period. For the Crown Prince to don the robes of office while his father's body lay in the courtyard was probably, as they say, a bad look. And, as I mentioned earlier, it wasn't like it was making any real, practical difference. The ship of state was hardly rudderless, with Kusakabe and his mother both guiding it through the various ceremonies.

Sure enough, in the following year, 689, the new year ceremonies were no longer about mourning and lamentation. The queen gave an audience to all the lands in the Front Hall, and the following day the Ministry of Education presented 80 wooden staves, presumably for an old form of the Setsubun festival. Today, Setsubun, the day before Spring, is celebrated with soybeans, which are tossed at characters in oni masks, and then inside the house. The cries ring out "Oni ga soto" – "Demons Out" and then again, "Fuku ga uchi" – "Good luck inside!" Thus evil spirits are kept at bay and good fortune is welcomed into the home. In the older version of a similar ritual, it seems that wooden staves were used to symbolically drive the demons out, rather than just a handful of auspicious beans.

The first month of year 689 continued to look a lot like previous years, prior to Ohoama's death. There was a banquet given to the Ministers, and gifts of clothing were handed out to them. And then, halfway through the month, the various officials brought presents of firewood to the palace. And then a meal was given to the various public functionaries.

A few days after that, Queen Uno left to visit the Yoshino palace for a few days, returning two days later.

There is something that is not mentioned in all of this that I suspect was happening. First of all, they had no doubt torn down the palace of Temporary Interment, and they were likely preparing for Crown Prince Kusakabe's ascension. There are some that suspect Prince Kusakabe was waiting until three years had passed before taking the throne, mimicking a tradition sometimes observed on the continent, but nothing is explicitly said.

Instead, we see that on the 24th day of the 3rd month there was another amnesty across the realm, and we are explicitly told that crimes that hadn't been pardoned in ordinary amnesties were also excepted in this amnesty. Amnesties typically seem to be part of merit-making to either prevent disaster or to celebrate something auspicious. Was this clearing the way for the ascension ceremony to take place? Or had something befallen the royal family?

We aren't given many details, but on the 13th day of the 4th month, we are simply told that Crown Prince Kusakabe died. We aren't told that he had previously been ill, or that anything in particular had happened. It is just a simple line in the text. And yet, this must have had tremendously serious consequences. I think we can fairly safely assume that he was prepared to ascend the throne—unless he was thinking of pulling something like Naka no Oe and running things from behind the scenes. However, there is plenty of evidence that Uno no Sarara was more likely to be the one to step back and be the power in the shadow. She had operated from that position before.

Whatever the plan was, clearly that plan was no more. Crown Prince Kusakabe was dead, and his only heir was still a young child. He also had no brothers to take the throne. The Chronicles don't mention it, but this must have been a moment of incredible weakness for the court and the Queen. History as we know it could have turned out very differently from this point.

Also, sidebar—Prince Kusakabe's death is recorded on the 13th day of the 4th month. While 13 would not necessarily be an inauspicious day until the Western superstition was introduced in recent times, the number 4 has long been associated with death because the pronunciation, "Shi" is the same as—or at least very similar to—the pronunciation of the character for death. This is also the case in Chinese, and so the number four is often avoided and seen as unlucky. Sometimes hotels will skip both the 4th and 13th floors in Asia to avoid any inauspicious vibes. In Japanese, the numbers 4—"Shi" and seven—"Shichi"—will often be pronounced with their kun'yomi readings, so "yon" and "nana" respectively. So I just find it rather an unfortunate coincidence that Crown Prince Kusakabe died on the 13th day of the 4th month. Yikes.

Anyway, if there was any wavering or grief by Uno no Sarara, it isn't mentioned in the Chronicles. They continue to march on. Later that same month, Prince Kasuga passed away. Prince Kasuga was a non-royal prince, and the death of Prince Kasuga and the Crown Prince were met with an equal lack of fanfare or explanation. Compare to the death of Prince Ohotsu, who was given an entire eulogy about how he was really well liked.

Instead, the Chronicle simply moves on. The rest of the year passes by as though nothing had happened. The government continued with Uno no Sarara at its head. In the first day of the first month of the following year, Uno no Sarara formally ascended to the royal dignity in a ceremony where Mononobe no Maro set up the shields, Nakatomi no Ohoshima recited a prayer for the blessings of Heaven, and Imbe no Shikofuchi delivered the divine seal, sword, and mirror to her majesty. At that point all of the ministers and government officials made their obeisance in turn, clapping their hands as they did so.

One has to wonder if this ceremony wasn't a little bittersweet, given everything that had happened. A few things about the ceremony to note. First are the three families mentioned: Despite the fact that the Mononobe house had been defeated by the Soga centuries back, here they stand in their traditional role as soldiers, raising up the shield. Then we see Nakatomi no Ohoshima—earlier mentioned as Fujiwara no Ohoshima—as the director of the Ministry of Kami matters, handling the ceremony. And then there is the Imbe, in some ways the rival to the Nakatomi and their descendants, the Fujiwara, who is handling the regalia.

Also of note is that the three regalia here are not the jewel, sword, and mirror, but the seal, sword, and mirror. We mentioned this many episodes back when we had seen these same three used for the ascension ceremony, and noted then that a royal seal appears to be used, rather than mention of a jewel. The character used, on the continent, referred to the imperial seal of the dynasty, which itself would have been carved into jade, or a jewel. And in Japan the character is also said to refer to the "Yasakani-magatama", the sacred jewel. So was it the jewel, and they just called it the seal? Or is that a later attribution to try and maintain the concept that the three regalia remained the same? I couldn't honestly say, but either way we see the concept of these three regalia as central to the ceremony.

And with that, Uno no Sarara, known to us as Jitou Tennou, ascended the throne. She would continue the process of making updates to the court and to the laws and regulations. She would also see the creation of the Fujiwara palace and accompanying city—designed as the first permanent capital city in all of Japan. She would also take a hard line with Silla and make her mark on the world stage, as well. But we'll talk about that in future episodes.

And so, until next time, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.

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Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast.

And that's all for now. Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

Another episode, another new reign--same old problems. This episode we talk about what happened after Ohoama, aka Temmu Tenno, passed away. We'll touch on the fact that it wasn't entirely a smooth transition, and there are certainly hints that not everyone was in agreement as to what should happen. And then there were other problems, such that the heir apparent never actually took the throne. So what happened?

For more information on the main characters in this episode, check out the blogpost at https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-147

(Also apologies ahead of time--my voice was not in great shape, and that may come through on the audio)

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is episode 147: Here We Go Again

Iki no Hakatoko looked around the spacious room and recognized many of the faces he saw there. There were various nobles from around the court present. All of them were familiar, even if they were not the closest of acquaintances—they ran in similar circles and were connected to each other over various political positions. Some were connected by marriage, some were just allies, and others were almost rivals—but they were all there for a common cause.

The open chamber had been buzzing as all of those elites of Yamato talked about why they might have gathered. Of course, the big news was the death of the sovereign. Ohoama had passed away, and the court was formally in mourning. And yet the government seemed stable. The Queen was at the helm, guiding t he government, and her son was beside her as the Crown Prince. So what was everyone doing here, gathering for what they could only assume were… other options?

Finally, the buzzing started to die down as the doors to the chamber were closed and guards posted. And then, the host for the discussion arrived, as Royal Prince Ohotsu stepped out and greeted all of his soon-to-be co-conspirators….

This episode, at long last, we are about to dive into a new reign. And if you haven't picked up by now, this, the end of the 7th century, was a turbulent time. Although the court had been instituting reforms to be more like the courts on the continent—and it wasn't like Ohoama died without any heir whatsoever—things were still unstable. I know, shocker, right? So what happened?

Let's go over the history some, and the main players, and then we can see what happened and the aftermath. Before that, however, let's talk about what we might expect to have happened, if everything had worked like clockwork.

While Ohoama passed away in 686, it wasn't as if he hadn't made any plans. His wife and Queen, Uno no Sarara, was deeply entrenched in governmental affairs, and their son, Prince Kusakabe, had been named Crown Prince in 681. This meant that both were in positions of significant power within the current government. All things being equal, and assuming a Confucian model, one would expect that upon Ohoama's passing, Kusakabe would step up and take the reins of the government, ascending to the throne as the new ruler. Uno would oversee the transition and take her place as the Queen Mother, remaining in the palace and helping to shepherd the new rule, while one of Kusakabe's wives—probably Abe-hime, who, like her half-sister Uno, was also a daughter of Naka no Oe—would become his queen.

And yet that is not what happened. Prince Kusakabe does not show up in our list of sovereigns, and we are told he never ascended the throne. Instead, his mother, Uno no Sarara, came to power. So what exactly happened? Why would she not have handed over power to her only son and set him up on the throne? To understand all of that, I think there are several things we need to discuss, first of them being just how tenuous and fragile transitions like this were.

If you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you might be nodding in agreement with this statement: for more than a century, at this point, whatever high-minded ideals the rulers of Yamato may have espoused, their path to the throne had been covered in blood. Let's roll back to the events of 587. We talked about this in Episode 91, when the Soga and Mononobe families had each lined up behind different aspirants to the royal throne. The Mononobe were a powerful family, known to be warriors for the throne, and the head of the Mononobe, the Ohomuraji, Moriya, was one of the most influential people at court. However, in recent years, the Soga family had been on the rise. Soga no Iname had married his daughters to members of the royal family, and he and his son, Umako, were known as the Ohoomi. The Mononobe were not having it with these uppity newcomers, but the Soga seem to have built their power, anyway, likely using their connections to the continent to do so. In a series of succession disputes, the Soga came out on top, defeating the Mononobe and eventually killing Moriya. It was a bloody fight, but eventually the Soga's royal relatives won out.

This brought Hasebe Wakasasagi, aka Sushun Tennou, to the throne. For a time, Wakasasagi and Soga no Umako ruled the land, but eventually Wakasasagi grew suspicious of Umako—perhaps jealous of his power. He considered taking him out, but Umako caught wind and had the sovereign assassinated, instead. Umako then put his own niece, Kashikiya Hime, on the throne, where most know her as Suiko Tennou.

Kashikiya was no stranger to the court, having served as the wife of her own half-brother, Nunakura, aka Bidatsu Tennou. Kashikya is thought to have been a compromise candidate, chosen specifically to avert any further power struggles. Certainly, Umako did not want a repeat performance of what had just happened with Wakasasagi. And though she reigned, power was apparently shared between Soga no Umako, Kashikiya Hime, and Kashikiya Hime's nephew—Umako's grandnephew—Crown Prince Umayado, aka the legendary Shotoku Taishi.

By all rights, it seemed like things should have gone smoothly. Umako, the eldest, would pass away to be succeeded by his niece, and it would make sense that after Kashikiya Hime's passing, Umayado would assume the throne. Instead, Umayado would be the first to pass, creating uncertainty as to the future of the throne. Then Umako would follow several years later. Finally, Suiko would pass away soon thereafter.

So, in about six years the three most powerful people in court all passed away. Soga no Umako's son, Soga no Emishi, was still coming out from under his father's shadow. Furthermore, it was not clear who should sit the throne—should it be Prince Yamashiro no Oe, the son of the Crown Prince, Umayado? After all, his father would have likely inherited the throne and then it would have no doubt been passed to him. And yet, there was another contender: Prince Tamura. Ultimately Soga no Emishi backed Prince Tamura, a man with ties to Nunakura through both his father and mother, and yet who was not truly a royal prince in that his own parents had never held the throne. Then again, neither had Umayado.

Eventually, Prince Yamashiro no Oe would back down from his claim to avoid bloodshed—and yet blood would be shed anyway. When Prince Tamura died, in an apparent bid to keep Soga power and quash any resistance before it started up, Soga no Emishi had Tamura's wife, Takara hime, aka Kougyoku Tennou, installed—but Prince Yamashiro no Ohoe was still alive, and his heirs were still out there. Soga no Emishi appeared to be content, but his son and heir, Soga no Iruka, was not. And when his father was ill and Iruka had a free hand, he ordered the destruction of Prince Yamashiro no Oe, presumably to avoid a future challenge to the throne and thus to the Soga family's hold on power.

This move shocked many, and rather than preventing conflict, it seems to have stirred up ill feelings against the Soga for their heavy hand in the politics of the period. This would lead Prince Naka no Ohoe and several co-conspirators to rise up, killing Soga no Iruka in court, and then attacking his father, Soga no Emishi, in their home. See episode 106 for more on that, known as the Isshi Incident. Naka no Ohoe and his supporters would take their place in the court, but Naka no Ohoe would not ascend to the throne, himself – at least not yet. Instead, he took the position of Crown Prince, and his uncle, Prince Karu,aka Kotoku Tennou, took the throne.

However, that still left a loose end. Prince Furubito no Oe, who had appeared to be the favorite for the throne under the Soga, was still alive. Furubito no Oe was the son of Tamura and a Soga consort—Hotei no Iratsume, the daughter of Soga no Umako. Although the Chronicles do not mention it, he seems to have been well placed to be Crown Prince in place of Naka no Oe, especially in a Soga dominated court. Without that backing, however, his claim may not have been quite so strong. He had gone into exile in Yoshino, but opponents of Naka no Oe's faction and their bloody coup began to use him as a rallying point. It is unclear if Prince Furubito himself had any ambitions, but the fact remained that he was a threat, nonetheless, and Prince Naka no Oe had him taken out.

By controlling things from behind the throne, Prince Naka no Oe seems to have been able to keep things fairly stable. When his uncle Karu passed away, the throne went back to his mother, who is known as Saimei Tennou in her second reign, but Naka no Oe was still in a place of considerable power, and the continuity likely helped keep things on track. Then Takara Hime passed away in the midst of a national crisis—the mobilization to support Baekje against the Silla-Tang alliance. That military effort turned out to be less than successful, but by that point, there does not seem to have been much question over who was in charge – it was finally Naka no Oe's turn to take the throne, and he did, as Tenji Tennou.

And so it wasn't until Naka no Oe's own death that we again see major violence. Naka no Oe's brother, Ohoama, is said to have been the Crown Prince, but then Naka no Oe's son, Ohotomo, came of age. He was made the Dajo Daijin and supported by the most powerful nobles in court. It is clear that there were divergent factions within the court itself, though, with some supporting Ohotomo and others supporting Ohoama. In the midst of this, Ohoama chose to bow out, at least while his brother Naka no Oe was still on the throne. However, Ohotomo and his supporters could not leave Ohoama out there as a loose end. They knew that he still had a claim and supporters, and they started to make plans to move against him after Naka no Oe's death. They were too slow, however—Ohoama caught word and moved against the court, instead. In a bloody struggle that upended the politics of the court one more time, Ohoama came to the throne. That struggle, the Jinshin no Ran, was covered in detail in episodes 129 to 132.

So if we look back we can see that for all of the thoughts of inheritance and legitimacy, most of those who had ascended the throne had done so by eliminating their rivals—either before or just after they assumed the royal mantle. As such, this is something that Ohoama was, himself, quite concerned about, and he took several steps to try to avoid a repeat of this scenario.

First, and perhaps somewhat confusingly, he ensured that those in positions of authority in the government were largely tied by blood to the royal family. The royal and non-royal princes were all nominally related in one way, shape, or form. If nothing else this meant that the nobility— those elites without direct blood ties to the throne—were not, themselves, gaining the kind of power and authority that had previously been given out to families like the Ohotomo, the Mononobe, and the Soga. We don't even hear that much about the relatives of Nakatomi no Kamatari, who had achieved such heights under Naka no Oe that he had become the Naidaijin, the great minister of the interior.

One might think that this system still had issues, however. After all, each princely line had their own tie to a previous sovereign, and we've certainly seen times where a sovereign came in out of left field, with a nominal, but hardly convincing, connection to the throne. This is particularly true in a time when succession was still not necessarily a strictly patrilineal custom; where it was not unusual for a senior family member to take up the mantle of leadership, rather than just the first-born son of the current ruler.

And that seems to be why Ohoama also held the Yoshino conference with his immediate family members in 679. This included his Queen Consort, Uno; the Royal Prince Kusakabe, the Royal Prince Ohotsu, the Royal Prince Takechi, the Royal Prince Kawashima, the Royal Prince Osakabe, and the Royal Prince Shiki. These were sons of both Ohoama and Naka no Oe, but they were all considered to be loyal insiders of the royal family. Ohoama had them swear to work together and to protect one another. And yet, as we shall see, that promise does not seem to have survived Ohoama himself.

So let's talk about some of these characters, now that we are here at another question of succession.

We'll start with the Queen herself, Uno no Sarara. Uno was born in 645, the daughter of Naka no Oe and a consort, Wochi no Iratsume, daughter of Soga no Yamada no Ishikawa no Maro. Ishikawa no Maro had been a powerful ally of Naka no Oe, assisting with the overthrow of his own uncle and cousin, Soga no Emishi and Soga no Iruka. In turn, he seems to have become the head of the Soga family. Despite the rhetoric that the Soga family was destroyed, it was more that the power of Emishi and Iruka was broken. Ishikawa no Maro had parlayed his assistance into another means to access power at the court, and married his own daughter to Naka no Oe. That worked until it didn't—enemies in court slandered Ishikawa no Maro and Naka no Oe had him killed in 649.

Wochi no Iratsume would have three children with Naka no Oe. The eldest was Princess Ota, followed by Princess Uno, and finally Prince Takeru. There is a theory that she died in 651, giving birth to Prince Takeru. Prince Takeru himself would only survive a short while passing away in 658. He was only seven years old.

Both Princess Ohota and Princess Uno were married off to their uncle, Prince Ohoama. Princess Ohota was the elder of the two, and bore Princess Ohoku and Prince Ohotsu, whom we'll discuss in a bit. However, Princess Ohota passed away in 667, during the reign of Naka no Oe, and so did not play as big a role in the politics of the day as her younger sister.

Uno, on the other hand, appears to have been Ohoama's ride-or-die. They were married when she was only thirteen years old, and she followed him when he and Naka no Oe went to Kyushu to oversee the war on the peninsula. It was there that she gave birth to her first and only son in 662. She left the court behind to follow Ohoama to Yoshino, along with their son, Prince Kusakabe. She then followed Ohoama on his lightning blitz through the mountains over to the east. It is said that while he went on to the front, she maintained a place in the relative safety of the land of Mie. From there she likely organized the rearguard and would have been involved with the back-end logistics. She is also said to have made particular entreaties to the deities of Ise shrine, and may have had a hand in raising the Shrine to greater prominence during the reign of Ohoama and later.

A key note is the fact that, when Ohoama became ill, and could not effectively manage the affairs of state, Uno stepped in and made sure that things continued to operate. And so, when Ohoama finally passed away, his projects were not simply left hanging—his queen and consort, Uno no Sarara, was there to see that everything remained on track.

As queen, Uno's son, Prince Kusakabe, was the favorite to succeed his father. In fact, in 681, he was named Crown Prince at the age of 19. Kusakabe had even married his own aunt, Princess Abe—his mother's half-sister. Princess Abe was another daughter of Naka no Oe and a Soga related consort; in this case it was Wochi no Iratsume's younger sister, Mehi no Iratsume—sometimes called Sakurai no Iratsume. I should note that Princess Abe was only about 20 years old in 681, only a year older than the Crown Prince, so it isn't like there was a huge age gap between them, even if he was technically marrying his own aunt. Still, they had already had a child between them the year before, in 680—this was Princess Hidaka or Niimi. Two years later, in 683, they had another child, Prince Karu, and later we know that they had a third child, Princess Kibi. This is all a pretty good start for a future sovereign, and Kusakabe seems to have been on track to succeed his father.

By all rights, it seems that Kusakabe should have stepped up in 686 to take the throne, but that was not to be. Instead, his mother, Queen Uno no Sarara, would retain her place at the head of the government. It is possible that this was meant to be merely temporary —there were still many things to be taken care of. With Ohoama's death there were numerous rituals having to do with his interment, and the Crown Prince, Kusakabe, appears to have been integral to those events. Whereas we may have previously seen powerful nobles step up, with the increased influence of Confucianism, it makes sense that a son would be responsible for ensuring that things were taken care of. There was also the issue of a new palace that would need to be built, and the court would need to prepare for the various enthronement ceremonies. After all, Naka no Oe himself wasn't formally enthroned for three years into his supposed reign. And just like his grandfather, as Crown Prince, Kusakabe maintained a powerful portfolio at the court that would still allow him to have a heavy hand on the rudder of the ship of state. In fact, had things gone differently, then the Chroniclers may have simply counted these early years as part of Kusakabe's reign, as they had done with Naka no Oe.

And all that would have been great—except that, despite all those nice family agreements at Yoshino, there were others who seem to have had designs on the throne.

The first claim that likely could have been made was by Prince Takechi. Prince Takechi—written as Takaichi, like the district of the same name—was technically the eldest son of Ohoama. He had been called to Ohoama's side during the Jinshin no Ran, and given nominal control over the troops waiting to cross the pass from Ohowari into Afumi. This was likely more of a sinecure, however; Prince Takechi was still quite young, and while the position would no doubt teach him much about organization and leadership, I certainly hope that there were more experienced individuals assisting him.

However, for all of that, Prince Takechi had a major strike against him In the form of his parentage. Although he was Ohoama's eldest son, his mother was not a royal princess. Instead she was Amago no Iratsume, the daughter of the powerful head of the Munakata family, Munakata no Tokusen.

Munakata was a powerful area on the northwest coast of Tsukushi—modern Kyushu. It is famous for the three Munakata shrines. The outer, or Hetsu, shrine is on the land, but the middle shrine is on the island of Ohoshima, 11 kilometers from the Hetsu shrine. Then the Oki, or deep sea, shrine is on the aptly named Okinoshima, another 49 kilometers past that, out in the middle of the Genkai Sea, the body of water between Kyushu, Tsushima, and the Korean peninsula. Even today, Okinoshima is considered a sacred place, and has never been developed: even today, only those closely associated with the shrine are allowed to set foot there. Because of that we can see something remarkable, as Okinoshima was held as sacred for hundreds of years, during which time, offerings were regularly made to the kami there, presumably for safe passage across the waters. These offerings have accumulated over the centuries and serve as a fascinating glimpse back into the history of the shrine and of the relations between the archipelago and the peninsula.

The land of Munakata—and by extension the rulers, or Kimi—appear to have had not inconsiderable influence over the trade back and forth across the ocean to the continent. This is further corroborated by the wealth left at Okinoshima and elsewhere, as well as by large kofun nearby, thought to be those of the ruling family of the area. This would have no doubt been a powerful and prestigious family to be allied with, especially in Ohoama's role as a Prince. However, despite all of that, they were not, ultimately, a royal family. That would seem to have made Prince Takechi ineligible to take the throne—at least without some serious backing and perhaps a little re-working of his parentage.

And this brings us to the third eldest son of Ohoama: Prince Ohotsu. Unlike Prince Takechi, Prince Ohotsu was the son of a royal princess—Princess Ohota. In fact, not only was she a royal princess, but she was the sister to Queen Uno. And Prince Ohotsu was born only a year later than Prince Kusakabe. Furthermore, during the Jinshin no Ran, Prince Ohotsu was called to Ohoama's side, along with his half-brother, Prince Takechi, and he is specifically mentioned in that role, despite the fact that he was still too young to have played much of a role. Like Prince Kusakabe, Prince Ohotsu was in his early twenties.

So if we put Kusakabe and Ohotsu side-by-side, we can see that they have a lot of similar qualifications. Both were the sons of Ohoama by daughters of Naka no Oe, giving them double-royal lineages. Their mothers were even full sisters, so they were both great-grandsons of Soga no Ishikawa no Maro, for whatever that means. Kusakabe was older by a day, but Ohotsu's mother was the eldest of the two sisters. But for the fact that his mother had passed away, she could possibly have been declared Queen, and Ohotsu might have ended up as Crown Prince, instead of Kusakabe. Even if something had simply befallen Kusakabe, Ohotsu likely would have been able to step in, especially since Kusakabe had no full-blooded siblings, himself.

The reign of Ohoama is replete with examples of Kusakabe, Ohotsu, and Takechi often acting together or being given honors together. While it is always clear to rank them in that order, it is also clear that all three seemed to hold a place of high esteem. What we don't seem to see is any ill will between them—but then again, the Chronicles rarely give much attention to anyone who is not the sovereign except to mention them in passing.

As such, we get only a simple sentence in the record, dated barely two weeks after Ohoama's passing, that Prince Ohotsu conspired against the Crown Prince, which is to say, Prince Kusakabe. As is so frustratingly often the case we aren't told how he was conspiring. Clearly, it refers to succession and we can see that it wouldn't take much for Ohotsu to gather support and place himself on the throne—had that occurred, we likely would see some differences in the Chronicles as well.

However, as it stood, the conspiracy came to naught. We are told that about one more week later, after the temporary interment of Ohoama's body and the many, many days spent eulogizing him and those around him—seriously, the Chronicles go into way too much detail, which is great for giving us a lot of details on people in the court and their court ranks, but otherwise is mostly paragraphs of names of individuals who were likely important enough for the Chroniclers to ensure that they got at least a mention.

It was after that was finished that we are told that Prince Ohotsu's conspiracy was discovered. He had the support of some thirty nobles, including a priest from Silla and the famous Iki no Muraji no Hakatoko—the one who had written the detailed account of the embassy that had been held under arrest by the Tang court, which we talked about back in Episode 123. The point is these were people with some amount of clout and who moved in important circles, and for thirty of them to be in Ohotsu's camp might not seem like much, but that doesn't begin to illuminate all of the people that they would have brought with them to the party. Furthermore, once they went public, who knows how many others might have joined them.

Fortunately for Kusakabe—and unfortunately for Ohotsu—the would-be conspiracy was quashed and quashed hard. We are told that it was discovered on the second day of the tenth month of 686—less than 30 days after Ohoama's death—and the Queen herself, Uno no Sarara, stepped in and had Ohotsu executed at his own mansion in Wosada. She then issued a royal decree, stating to everyone that Ohotsu had committed treason, and that the punishment for treason was death. She also stated that those who had assisted him were also guilty, and should likewise receive the same sentence, except that she was going to be merciful. And so she ended up pardoning Prince Ohotsu's co-conspirators. The only exceptions were Toki no Michidzukuri, who was banished to Idzu, and the Silla priest, who was exiled to a temple in Hida. While we aren't told what roles they played, those two apparently were considered more complicit than the others.

A few days later, Prince Ohotsu's sister, Princess Oku, was recalled from her position as the shrine princess of Ise. It is unclear if this is related, but it seems relevant given the proximity of the two events.

There is one other thing I should likely mention, and that seems to come from the Kaifuso. The Kaifuso is a collection of continental style poetry from the 8th century, similar to the Man'yoshu, but with a different focus. In both works they often given some description of the authors of the poems, which provide us more information on the people of the time. For instance, the Kaifuso speaks favorably of Prince Ohotomo, Ohoama's rival in the Jinshin no Ran, and seems more than a little sympathetic towards him and his cause, compared to the way he is treated in the Nihon Shoki's main narrative. In regards to our current point in the narrative and the treason of Prince Ohotsu the Kaifuso tells us that Prince Ohotsu was ratted out to the Queen by none other than his best friend, Prince Kawashima. Prince Kawashima was another one of the princes who had been called to Yoshino and who had pledged to work together. He was not Ohotsu's brother or even half-brother, however, as Kawashima was the son of Naka no Oe. He was actually a good deal older than Ohoama's actual sons, but apparently trusted by Ohoama at the same time. The Kaifuso also seems to tell us that Kawashima was rewarded for his efforts by the court.

The only problem is that the Nihon Shoki, our primary source, tells us none of this. Not only is Prince Kawashima not mentioned in regards to the plot, neither is he mentioned as having received any kind of reward or gift by the court. That doesn't mean the Kaifuso is wrong, but it does raise the question.

Similarly, it is just as easy to suggest that the Nihon Shoki itself may be covering up what actually happened. After all, we only have one side of the story. What if there wasn't a conspiracy? Or what if the conspiracy were of the Queen's making, instead. Prince Ohotsu was clearly popular, and had a reasonable claim to the throne. That was a threat to her own son's eventual ascension. It is possible that the Queen, Uno no Sarara, saw a threat and decided to do away with it, herself, keeping her own son's hands relatively clean in the process.

Whatever the truth, we likely will never know, and so this is all we have to go on. Whether it was an actual conspiracy or just the paranoid concerns of a queen and mother, it is clear that it was not yet enough to have an heir named—there was always the possibility for these things to go sideways and for someone else to jump in with a claim of their own.

For all of that, while it seems that Prince Kusakabe was intended to ascend to the throne, for one reason or another, that was delayed. For some three years, as we've mentioned, Kusakabe and his mother ruled as Queen and Crown Prince, perhaps just because they were handling Ohoama's burial and the creation of a new palace from which Kusakabe himself could then reign. Unfortunately, it seems that time accomplished what Prince Ohotsu and his conspirators could not, and in 689, Prince Kusakabe passed away. Shortly thereafter, the Queen, Uno no Sarara, ascended to the throne herself. This appears to have been because Kusakabe's own son and heir, Royal Prince Karu, was only about 6 years old, having been born in 683, and his daughter was only 9. So rather than giving up the throne to some other woman's child, Uno no Sarara took the throne for herself. She is remembered, today, as Jitou Tennou.

Jitou Tennou continued to work the initiatives that had been pushed forward during the reign of her husband. These were projects that she herself was quite familiar with, and in fact, many of the projects are sometimes thought to have been hers, with attribution given to her husband just to give it a greater air of legitimacy. Ultimately, however, she would oversee some quite formidable changes, even if many of them started in the previous reign or not.

And so begins the last reign of the Nihon Shoki, covering the years 686 to 697. The Nihon Shoki itself wouldn't be complete and presented to the court for another 23 years or so, and yet this is where they chose to leave off. Perhaps that is because of when it was started, or they just didn't have all the records ready for anything beyond. They clearly had to end somewhere, after all. And given that both Ohoama and Uno had such a hand in many of the changes, perhaps it just made sense to end here. Much of what would come would set the tone for centuries to come.

There is one more thing that I want to address in all of this. We've talked about the lineages of the various individuals, who trace their lineages back to either powerful noble families, like the Soga, or to specific sovereigns. There is a tendancy by some to talk about Ohoama having started what some would call the Temmu Dynasty. The idea being that Ohoama's offspring would continue to reign for a time, displacing the offspring of his brother, Naka no Oe. Then, at a later date, Naka no Oe's line would reassert itself.

This seems to be pretty clear cut from a strictly patrilineal viewpoint of royal succession, but I think it ignores a lot about the cultural aspects of the time. For one thing, descent was about both the father AND the mother, and too often people discount the mother's influence, when, in fact, the mother most likely had more influence in the raising of children than did a royal father. After all, we don't exactly get a lot of anecdotes about sovereigns spending quality time with their children—and I don't think calling them to help you on campaign counts. To be fair we get hardly any anecdotes about children. But we also see that sovereigns were having multiple children with multiple consorts. Naka no Oe is said to have had about 14 children—possibly more. I count 17 children for Ohoama. And we see the ages spread out across the sovereigns' lifetimes, with some children being born at a point that they had not even attained the age of majority by the time their father passed away. Put another way, look at how Prince Kusakabe was able to marry his own aunt, who was only a year older than he was. Clearly there was a bit of an age difference between siblings. I don't imagine that they were being raised by their father, necessarily, but probably by their mothers and the servants at the palace, generally.

I would also point out that Ohoama included both his own children as well as children of his brother in the Yoshino conference, further indicating that he did not have any specific intention to entirely shut out the his brother's line.

And then there is Uno no Sarara. She was Ohoama's spouse, but also the daughter of Naka no Oe. Are we to think that she stopped being her father's daughter because she married someone?

That doesn't mean that labels might not be helpful in some ways, but I just don't want to over emphasize the familial or dynastic connections. Brothers regularly turned on each other, and blood ties were no guarantee of cordial relations. In fact, only maternal siblings—those with the same mother—were actually considered true siblings in most cases. That's how they justified so much of what we would consider incest in the royal family in the first place.

So while I do think that Ohoama and Uno tweaked the system set up by Naka no Oe and made their own impression on Yamato and, by extension, Japanese culture, I just don't want to read too much into the lineages. The stories of politics and royal succession are often much more involved and complex.

And hopefully, we'll get to see how complex as we continue on down this path. For now, I think I'm going to leave it here, and so, until next time, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.

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Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast.

And that's all for now. Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

This episode we close out discussion of this reign with a bit of a grab bag. There is the minting of new coins, new letters to write Japanese, board games, and more.

For more, check out our blogpost: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-146

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is episode 146: Coins, Letters, Games, and More

The large audience hall was filled with nobles, sitting in pairs across from each other. Throughout the hall, the roof and walls reverberated with the sounds of numerous stone markers being placed on painted wooden tables—or more appropriately, game boards. It was accompanied by the sound of dice clattering. At the far end of the hall was the royal presence, where his majesty could likewise join in the entertainment—with someone of sufficient standing, of course.

Throughout the day there were bursts of joy and frustration throughout the hall. In some instances, one could see two players sharing in the joy and love of the game. In other cases, political rivals stared each other down, neither one willing to give away any strategic advantage. Any smiles there were merely a mask. And yet, no matter how hard one tried, there was only so much you could do. Ultimately, your fate was in the hands of the dice, though you could certainly do your best to nudge it here and there.

And so they continued. As they played, small wagers were made between players. At the conclusion of their match, each player could find another opponent, and see if their luck held out. Victory was desired, but at the very least one didn't want to be embarrassed. As such, losing gracefully was just as important as winning with humility. Sure, there were the petty stakes that were gambled here and there, but the real stakes were embedded in the politics of the court. That was a game that everyone was playing, except that there was no board, and the rules were often merely suggestions, at best.

This episode we are going to close out the reign of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tenno. It has been a while getting here—but then again, Ohoama's reign is the best documented so far, almost like the entire Chronicle has built up to this point. We have spent about a dozen episodes on this reign—not including the four before that discussing the Jinshin no Ran.

During that time we've talked about how Ohoama continued the Ritsuryou experiment, while at the same time shaping it into something that was even more directly under his control. A lot of this appears to have been done with the mostly willing consent of a good part of the archipelago.

That may have been because of a few different things. For one, all of this was justified through the philosophical underpinnings of the continent. This is the new knowledge that the court had been devouring for over a century, and so I suspect that none of it seemed particularly surprising or out of place. Furthermore, it seems that Ohoama's actions may have appealed to some of the more middle-tier elites; those for whom the idea of a government stipend was quite appealing.

There was also the external threat of Silla and Tang. Though in reality, Silla was in conflict with the Tang dynasty, up until the conclusion of the Silla-Tang War, around 676. In truth, the Tang court wouldn't recognize Sillan sovereignty south of the Taedong river until 736, so there were still tensions. However, early on in the reign there was at least the thought that hostilities could spill over onto the archipelago.

And then there are all of the projects. The designation of national temples, the beginning of a national history project, the founding of a permanent capital city, and the creation of a formal code—the Asuka Kiyomihara Code.

Compared to all of that, the topics of this episode really are some miscellaneous stuff that I didn't have anywhere else to put, but wanted to bring to light anyway.

First, we'll talk about the minting of coins, and what that meant. Once again, this is really neat because we actually have some coins that appear to be from this time frame, providing what might be a direct relationship between what is written down and what we have in the archaeological record.

Then we'll touch on another project of Ohoama's—this one less successful than some of the others we've discussed. This was an attempt to create a new writing system specific to the Japanese language. Remember, at this point literate people in the archipelago were using kanji to write everything down, and for the most part they were using kanbun—so Sinitic characters and grammar, with occasional use of characters purely for their phonetic qualities when they absolutely had to spell something out. Eventually this would evolve into the syllabaries of katakana and hiragana, but there were several false starts before that, and we'll talk about what was being attempted during Ohoama's reign.

Beyond those court projects we'll talk about some of the kami and Buddhist related rituals, especially as they related to growing merit and attempting to protect the state and its people from disasters—natural or otherwise. And then there are various omens, and just a few edicts that were more geared towards the court but are still fun, like when Ohoama forced the entire court to join him for a day of… board games. I guess when you are the sovereign and trying to set up a game day, scheduling is suddenly not so big of a problem.

So that's what we are going to cover. We are skipping around throughout the reign, and so while I'll mention dates here and there, I'll try not to get too bogged down with the exact dates unless it really matters.

First off: coins. We are going to start somewhere in the middle, on the 15th day of the 4th month of 683. It is here that we see a note that Ohoama decreed that copper coins would be used, and not silver. Remember that a silver mine had been discovered in Tsushima back in 674. At that time we know that there were silver coins being made, but in 683 it looks like they were changing from silver to copper. But three days later, they reversed the decision to completely cancel the silver coins, so they presumably had both silver and copper coins.

Coins are interesting for several reasons. For one, coins often help us to date various collections—if they are distinctive enough. They can be quite helpful in telling us that a particular archaeological assemblage is almost certainly from sometime after the coins had begun to be circulated. After all, if you unearth a stratum of an archeological dig and you find a penny dated to 1912, you can be reasonably confident that that layer was last exposed on or after 1912, unless time travel was at play. There are some exceptions where animals or tree roots or other forces can disturb the layering, but that's why archeologists carefully pay attention to soil features.

That isn't to say that all coins of the time had clear dates on them. In fact, the oldest coins we have in the archipelago are something called "Mumon Ginsen"—literally unmarked silver coins. They are found in various assemblages and thought to have originated under Naka no Oe, aka Tenji Tennou. The silver from Tsushima would have likely been used for this. For many reasons it is unclear if these were minted by the state or if they were privately minted and circulated.

The copper coin mentioned in Ohoama's record in the Nihon Shoki would appear to be what is known as a Fuhonsen coin, which we also have extant examples of. These are round copper coins with a square hole in the middle, as was common on the continent. The previous unmarked silver coins were just small circles of solid silver. In contrast, the Fuhonsen bear the characters "FU-HON": FU, or "Tomi", means wealth, and HON, or "moto", means something like base or basis. "SEN" just refers to the fact that it is a coin. So the coin represents the basis of wealth. They are just under an inch in diameter, and 1.5 millimeters thick. While primarily copper, they do have traces of antimony, silver, and bismuth. The use of copper was likely because of its lower melting point, which would have been easier to cast with.

So it seems that these were the new copper coins mentioned in the Chronicles, and the intent was originally to completely replace any silver currency. I suspect that they quickly realized that they could not easily replace all of the silver, and so the older silver coins were probably still in circulation—though I don't know if any new ones were being minted.

We don't exactly know how the coins were used. They weren't being used to pay taxes or similar things—that was still all being handled in rice, silk, cloth, and labor. They might have been used by the government to pay individuals, who would then exchange them for goods, but they were probably not used very often between individuals. There is even some suggestion that they had a more ritual meaning.

Coins of a similar shape—round with a square hole in the center—go back to at least 350 BCE on the continent, and were quite common by the time of the Han dynasty. The round hole allowed them to be placed on strings—you'll often see references to strings of cash. In the Qin dynasty, a string was meant to be a superunit, made up of 1000 coins. Merchants and others operating at some scale could then just pay in "strings" of cash rather than counting out each and every coin. It also provided a way of transporting them. Anyone doing business in east Asia would have encountered coinage from one of the dynasties on the mainland, and we certainly see various coins making their way over to the archipelago, though how exactly they were used and valued isn't certain. It may have been more important to just have them on hand for trips to the continent so that an embassy or trading vessel could participate in the economy, there.

The next coin to be minted in the archipelago itself wasn't until 708, and that was the Wadokaichin, or Wado coins, named for the four characters around the square hole, which included the era name that they were created, "Wado". This seems to have kicked off an actual national currency that would only last for a couple hundred years before it was debased and lost its value. For centuries after that, rice was once again the primary currency, and would continue to be so, even though the Tokugawa shogunate would begin to mint and issue coins again through much of their rule. Still, coins were often outside the grasp of most of the common people.

While coins may not have fully caught on, they did better than our next project. This was a task that was given to Sakahibe no Muraji no Iwashiki who compiled, by royal command, a new set of characters, which were recorded in a book of 44 volumes. Though this book is no longer extant, we do have later sources that claim it was once in the royal library. It describes the characters as similar to Sanskrit characters.

This appears to be an attempt to create an alphabet, or syllabary, for the Japanese language. While Yamato had adopted the Sinitic systems of logographic writing, it wasn't exactly up to the task of directly writing in Japanese. For one thing, the languages had different sounds that they used, and in different combinations. Furthermore, grammatically, the two were quite different. Many Sinitic languages are Subject, Verb, Object, similar to English, while Japanese is Subject, Object, Verb, meaning the verb goes at the end. But beyond that, Japanese relies extensively on conjugation of verbs, with verbs and adjectives changing to express tense and other such things that Sinitic languages, such as modern Putonghua and languages such as Middle Chinese handle in other ways.

To give an English speaking person a similar experience, imagine writing sentences as "The bird in the tree sat" or "the man the bread at the store bought". Now remove many of the articles and prepositions, so you get things like "bird tree sit" and "man bread store buy". You can imagine how that can really get unwieldy if you want to convey more nuanced concepts.

Japanese would either need to add a phonetic writing system—which it did—or it would need to come up with new characters to use in place of the special qualities of the language. Or they would need to continue to write in Sinitic grammatical order and continue to do the translation to Japanese on the fly. One can imagine that this was hardly efficient—in order to learn how to write you would basically have to learn a whole new language.

That these new symbols were similar to characters associated with Sanskrit also makes sense, and we even see similar attempts on the continent, though they had other writing systems to compare to as well. For example, we see the Persian Sogdian, written with a variation of Syriac script, and the Ghandari language written with its own Ghandari or Kharosthi script, but the influence of Buddhism likely explains why scripts associated with Sanskrit likely had a greater influence than other languages. I should note here that Sanskrit itself does not have a single script—today, people probably think of the Devanagari script, commonly used in India, but that doesn't seem to have been developed until the 8th century. The work of Iwashiki was likely based on something like the Siddham, or Kutila, script. This is an abudgida, where consonants and vowels are connected together when written. This would have worked well for the Japanese language as phonemes are often grouped together as consonant-vowel clusters known as morae. Siddham evolved in the late 6th century and many Buddhist scripts that were making their way along the Silk Road would have used it. However, it is said that Siddham proper—or at least as we know it today—was introduced to Japan by the famous monk Kuukai in the early 9th century. If that is the case, then what script was Iwashiki using as his inspiration?

Regardless of the details, this new script doesn't seem to have taken off. It may have just been too much to ask someone to learn the various kanji AND another system on top of that. Instead, the Japanese would adopt certain kanji over time, and simplify them into what we know, today, as kana.

Our earliest example is what we know of as Man'yogana, named for the Man'yoshu, an 8th century collection of poems attributed to various contemporary and historical figures. Because the poetic structure of Japanese required specific counts of syllables or, more specifically, morae, it was important to capture the actual pronunciation of the language. Certain characters were chosen and used over and over again purely for their phonetic value, rather than any other inherent meaning. Over time, those characters were simplified and standardized, developing into the katakana and hiragana still used today. While it was these organically-evolving systems that would eventually be most popular and fill the gap, but it is still incredible to see someone deliberately tackling the problem at this early date.

Moving on from money and writing, let's turn now to matters of the kami and the Buddha. Yamato existed in a world that saw itself as being caught between forces both seen and unseen. Besides the natural world there was the spiritual world, and to many it was just as real as anything else.

We've talked all along about the interplay between the court, the kami and the Buddha, and some of the evidence we see is relatively simple. For instance, in 675, the Ohokami, the great god, of Tosa presented a divine sword to the sovereign. I doubt that a kami was showing up in person to the court—this would have been priests from the shrine. Aston suggests that the kami in question was probably either Hitokotonushi no Mikoto or Misukitakahikone no Mikoto, quoting "authorities" which he does not otherwise name.

We get more serious, though, when it comes to major events. And the drought and famine of 676 seems to fit that description. As you may recall from episode 144, the governor of Shimotsukeno reported a bad harvest in the 5th month, and by the 6th month we see more reports coming in of a great drought. Clothing was collected for the Buddhist temples to help build merit. Later, there was a comet in the sky, and then, in the 8th month, we see that the court compelled the Kuni no Miyatsuko and the governors to all contribute to an Ohoharae, or Great Purification.

Eventually, the Ohoharae would become a regular ceremony held on the 30th day of the 6th and 12th months of the year, with royal princes down to the high ministers gathering at the southern gate—the Suzaku-mon. Members of the Urabe, the Diviners, would read the various norito, the ritual prayers, to disperse evil influences. It was, and is,also used when there is a royal visit to the Ise or Kamo shrines, as well as at the Dajosai festival at the start of a new reign. It can also be done if there is thought to have been some kind of offense that was committed.

"Harae", or "purification", is a common part of Shinto ritual today. From the simple washing of the hands and mouth before entering the shrine grounds to pray to spiritual purification performed by a priest who waves a large stick with paper streamers—the ohonusa or haraegushi—while chanting prayers to ward off evil influences, purification is a key component in Shinto, which often concerns itself with aspects of spiritual pollution. And so the Oho-harae, the Great Purification, is that, but turned up to eleven.

The litany used for the Ohoharae, today, is also known as the Nakatomi no Ohoharae, indicating the importance of the Nakatomi in the ritual. This Ohoharae, however, was taking place in the 8th month, and may not have had all of the traditions of the later rituals we know today. Rather, we are told what was required: The Kuni no Miyatsuko of the provinces were instructed to send one horse and a piece of cloth to specific shrines of purification. In addition, the governors of the various districts were each told to supply one sword, one deerskin, one mattock, one smaller sword, one sickle, one set of arrows, and one sheaf of rice. In addition, each household had to supply a bundle of hemp cloth. These may not have been used in the ritual as much as they were offerings to the kami and their shrine.

We'll see this in various cases where the State places rather onerous financial requirements on the population in order to perform rituals. Of course, by the logic of the time, whatever was donated would make the ritual more effective—it would be more pleasing to the kami. Still this seems remarkably costly in a year where we are told that the peasants were starving just a few months prior.

I'll also take this moment to point out a link here to something that anyone who has been to a shrine may be familiar with, and that is the donation of horses. Horses were common enough a donation—if people of status rode horses, then how much more so the kami themselves? Sacred or votive horses could be used to carry the kami, and even today some shrines keep sacred horses for the kami. However, not everyone has horses to donate, and I suspect that the shrine probably didn't need an entire herd of horses. And so some would pay money for an image of a horse, instead, to be hung in the shrine, likely indicating the donor. Of course, this wasn't just a picture, but an official record of some kind of donation, which could theoretically go to purchase horses and other such things that the shrine might need. These pictures of horses were known as "e-ma", literally "picture horse", and we still see them today: The most common type of e-ma will be small wooden placards sold at the shrine, and people will write their desires on the back, with their name and information. They will often be found hanging in groups on specially designated racks meant for that purpose. Today, e-ma might have horses on them, but more often have other pictures, associated with the particular shrine and kami.

Speaking of horses, we have a couple more references to them this year. At some point, Ohoama had issued an edict seeking horses, not just for riding, but other good horses so that the givernment would have them when needed, distributed to the various post-stations. So when he was returning from a banquet by the Todoroki pool in Hatsuse—modern Hase--Ohoama made a diversion to the post-station of Tomi and had the horses demonstrate their speed. Presumably this was just a horse race, which seems to be popular around the world, in any place with horses.

We see something similar when we are told that Ohoama went to Asatsuma to inspect the horses of the officials there. At his request, the officials organized a competition of horseback archery. This appears to reference the famous art of Yabusame—though it may not have been recognized as such just yet, there is some thought that the idea of a horsed archer shooting at three targets while galloping past may have originated in the 6th century, with ties to Usa Jingu. Still, horseback archery would remain important, and later it would become the primary art of the warrior class from about the 12th to the 13th century or so—and arguably even up until the Sengoku period, with its spear formations and foreign guns.

Later, in the 10th lunar month of 681, Ohoama and the court were prepared to go hunting on the Hirose plain. A temporary palace was prepared and all of the bags were packed, but ultimately, Ohoama didn't go. Instead, those from the rank of Prince to high ministers stayed at Karunoichi—a market at a cross-roads in the Nara basin that likely was the location of a government stable. There, they inspected the horses and saddle equipment. Those from the rank of Shokin up sat under the trees while those of Daisen and below mounted up and passed along from south to north. Not quite as exciting as horse racing or horsed archery, but who doesn't like a parade.

One wonders what happened to call off the hunt. Perhaps Ohoama, while not bedridden, was not in the best of health. If he was having some kind of recurring problems then that could explain some of the merit-making as well. You may recall we discussed how much merit the state seemed to be trying to make in support of the sovereign's health, which we discussed in episode 142.

Getting back to the Ohoharae—the great purification. That was followed up by a general amnesty, which we talked about last episode, as well as a command to let loose living things. This is a Buddhist practice that one still sees today in various places, usually in the form of letting loose animals like fish and birds that were kept by individuals. I don't think they were just opening up the paddocks and letting the horses, cattle, and other animals go. As fascinating as that might be to contemplate, with horses just running wild and cattle trampling the rice fields, I doubt they took it that far.

Still, this practice was clearly an attempt to make more merit for the State. This edict was repeated only a few months later, in the 11th lunar month, but then it was confined to those provinces that were considered to be "near" to the capital, so a little more focused. The day after that second release of animals, men were dispatched to all parts to expound the Konkwoumyou and Ninou sutras. This was the Sutra of Golden Light and the Sutra of the Benevolent King—both sutras focused on concepts of good rulership and protection of the State. In fact, together with the Lotus Sutra, they would come to be considered the Gokoku Sanbukyou—the Three sutras for Protection of the State. They were read for the purpose of averting disaster, but they also helped to prop up the image of a righteous and benevolent ruler—what might be termed a golden-wheel turning sovereign, or Chakravarti.

So all of this would seem to simultaneously reflect an intention to protect the State while also demonstrating performative regnal righteousness. It was, after all, what a good ruler was supposed to do, which also conveniently told people what a good ruler was supposed to do.

It is unclear whether or not the court actually felt this did anything. I would note that a month later they were asking Princes and Ministers to gather up weapons, so it is possible that they were concerned about more than just natural disasters— such as a concern that the people were getting restless. A few days later, we see more largess, as the court made presents to public functionaries and men of the frontier states. It is unclear to me if this is a reward of some sort or perhaps an attempt to boost their morale and support.

Later in that month we see preparations for the upcoming Feast of First Fruits, or Niinamesai, two months later. We are told that the Jingikan, the Office of Kami Matters, had made the divination that the Yuki, the ceremonially pure rice for the ritual would come from the District of Yamada, in Owari. For the Sugi, the "next" lower quality of rice, that would come from the district of Kasa, in Tamba. The feast went off as usual in the 11th month, pre-empting the normal announcement of the first of the month.

Later in the record we see that preparations were started for another Ohoharae, or Great Purification, and a general amnesty was issued. This time, instead of sending horses for the kami, the Miyatsuko of each province were to supply one male and one female servant to the shrines, instead.

Fifteen days later, in the intercalary 7th lunar month—an extra month inserted to keep the lunar and solar calendars in synch—we see the queen, Uno, hosting a feast after ritual fasting. She then had sutras expounded throughout the capital. I find it particularly interesting that this was apparently instigated by the queen, but along with the Ohoharae, this all speaks towards the feeling that the State needed to be purified and supplied with good merit.

The Ohoharae was not the only way to curry favor with the kami. For example, in one record we see Ohoama designating sacred rice-tax for the shrines of Heaven and Earth—shrines for the Amatsu kami and Kunitsu kami. One third of the rice was to go to the kami directly, while two thirds of the rice was to go to the priests who kept the shrines going.

This same year, 677, we aren't told where the rice for the Niiname-sai came from, but we are told that those who donated as well as members of the Jingikan, who were involved in the divination and ritual more generally, were all compensated for their troubles with various presents.

The Jingikan is one of those aspects of the new, bureaucratic state, that feels extremely tied to the archipelago. It literally is the Bureau of Kami Matters, or the Bureau of Kami Affairs—the Kami no Tsukasa. It would even come to be ranked above the Council of State in the official org chart of the government. While the government had national temples and appointed members of the clergy who were responsible for keeping the Buddhist institutions in line with the State, the Jingikan was that entity for court ritual, and even for interfacing with various shrines around the country. In the 10th century, all of the official shrines across the archipelago would be catalogued and assessed a rank and position, with Ise Shrine and the royal court at the top of the list.

Speaking of the national temples, the fourth month of 680 was when Ohoama designated the national temples—which we also covered in Episode 142. On the first day of month after that, we are told that he bestowed gifts of silk and cloth to 24 temples around the capital; and if there really were 24 temples just around the capital itself, one can imagine why they had to put a stop to publicly funding all of them. That must have been quite the upkeep. That same day, the Golden Light Sutra was expounded in the palace and at select temples as well. As we've seen, the court relied just as heavily—or more—on Buddhism for certain rituals and providing spiritual power.

While both Kami-based rituals and Buddhism were revered for their ability to affect the supernatural, Buddhist priests seem to have had a particularly revered place in—or perhaps more rightly outside—of society. One is more likely to hear about someone who was a Buddhist priest or a novice being revered than a kannushi, or shrine priest. For example, in the 7th month of 680, the priest Kouchou, of Asukadera, passed away. The royal princes Ohotsu and Takechi were sent to express royal condolence. Later that same year we would see something similar, with Royal—later Crown—Prince Kusakabe visiting the eminent priest (Y)emyou on his death bed. Yemyou died the next day, and three royal princes were sent to offer the condolences on behalf of the royal family.

Towards the end of 680, Ohoama fell ill. One hundred individuals were made to take holy orders on his behalf, after which he appears to have recovered—or at least recovered enough for the time. Earlier in the month his queen, Uno no Sarara, had taken ill, for which Ohoama had pledged to build Yakushiji, a temple of the Medicine Buddha, as we talked about in Episode 142.

Although Ohoama temporarily recovered, we have mentioned how there are plenty of suggestions that he may not have been entirely better. It could just be that time and numerous diseases were taking a toll, or perhaps he had an ailment that came and went. I get that impression from things like in the 10th month of 685, as autumn changed to winter, several nobles were sent to Shinano to build a temporary palace in preparation for a royal progress. It seems that Ohoama wanted to visit the hot springs at Tsukama. Tsukama may have been located on the outskirts of modern Matsumoto city, in Nagano, which is known for its hot springs, today. Bentley implies that the court was not entirely thrilled with Ohoama taking this journey. I have to wonder whether or not this was all about Ohoama's health—hot springs were often seen as restorative. At the same time, this sounds like a fairly long journey into the mountains as the weather was growing colder. That also may have been part of the draw, however, allowing them to travel and see the changing leaves, a very common pastime in successive centuries, and even today.

I can't help but imagine that Ohoama was seeking the restorative properties, while his court may have been apprehensive about the journey there and back as the days were getting colder. Compare this to his actions at the start of the Jinshin no Ran, when he made that incredible dash from Yoshino, through the mountains, over to Owari. But that was well over a decade ago, at this point, and he seems not quite so spry as he once had been.

Another popular record that we find in this reign were various oddities and omens. We've covered quite a few, but I did want to cover a few more before we pull the curtain closed on this era.

First off, early in the reign, we see a record in the 10th month of 675 for a woman in the district of Takakura, in the province of Sagami, giving birth to triplets. A quick Internet search suggests that natural triplets occur in about 1 in every 8000 or 10,000 births. However, there is another thing to consider at this time: giving birth to a single child was already a risky business, and death during or just after childbirth was a constant threat. So now consider the issues with giving birth to twins or even triplets. The odds that there is a complication just go up at that point. So I suspect this was a very rare occurrence. The fact that it was three sons was probably also seen as particularly auspicious, at least for any who were studying traditional Confucian scholarship.

Moving on to the 4th day of the 4th lunar month of that same year, we get an omen for the court. First is a cock sent to the court by Wanitsumi no Yogoto, from the Lower Sofu district in Yamato province. This cock is said to have had a comb like a camelia flower, which was apparently quite auspicious. On the other hand, a report came in from Akunami, also in Yamato province, about a hen that had turned into a cock. Aston, of course, considers that this would have been an ominous sign—a disruption of the natural order. To be honest, I don't see any particular judgment placed on it one way or the other. It is just listed as a wondrous or miraculous occurrence.

The year 678 has remarkably few events, in total, with nothing recorded between the 4th and 9th months. And the 9th month was just a note about the death of one, Prince Wakasa, of the third princely rank. The month after that we have another one of those strange occurrences. This time it is a report of something falling from the sky like silk floss, except that it was 5 or 6 feet long and 7 or 8 inches wide. It supposedly floated on the wind and waved from the fir woods and the reed plains. People who saw it called it kanro, or "sweet nectar".

This is really just a crazy entry. I've wracked my brains to think of a natural event that could cause something like this, but this seems like something that was more like a rumor that got written down. "Kanro" is thought to be something that Buddhist texts refer to as "Amrita", an exlixir of immortality. In continental lore, it is said to be a sweet nectar that forms when yin and yang are in harmony—such as during a benevolent reign. So whatever the truth of any natural event, to the Chroniclers the entry is clearly a chance to hype up Ohoama's reign.

And then, towards the end of the 8th month, we see Katsura no Miyatsuko no Oshikatsu presenting auspicious stalks of grain. Reportedly they all came from different plots and yet had very similar ears of grain. Auspicious stalks of rice weren't uncommon, but Aston suggests that this was possibly an allegory for all of the royal princes who were brought together in Yoshino to swear to support each other. The 8th month may have been when the grain was harvested—because it wasn't until the final month of the year that we see the court reacting. At that point presents were made to the Royal and non-Royal Princes, the Ministers, and the public functionaries, all according to rank, in consequence of the auspicious stalks of grain. In addition there was an amnesty for all offences from capital crimes on down.

Now on top of all of that, there were a few edicts that touched on various topics that we just haven't gotten to, elsewhere.

For instance, in the 8th month of 681, on the 10th day, we see a notification to all of the people in the archipelago who claimed descent from those from the continent—specifically those from the Korean peninsula, or the Samhan. They were told that the taxes, which had previously been remitted for 10 years, so starting in 671, had come to an end. However, corvee labor was still remitted for ten years to them and their children and grandchildren who had been with them when they first arrived.

There are some questions about this passage, but in general it seems that those refugees who had escaped to the archipelago from Baekje and Goguryeo had previously been given 10 years from the time they arrived during which they did not owe taxes. This included corvee labor—which also extended to any children that had been with them at the time. Children that were born after that… well they wouldn't be of age to be used as corvee labor in 10 years so this would only apply to those who were with them at the time and who would be of age within that 10 year timeframe.

This exemption from taxes appears several times in different forms, and appears to be a grace period, during which people were expected to establish themselves, open fields, and begin to thrive. At the end of 10 years, then they would start paying taxes, with the assumption that they had more than enough time to prepare and work the land.

Moving on to one of my favorite entries, on the 18th day of the 9th lunar month in 685, Ohoama declared a game day. He had the Princes and Ministers gather at the Ohoandono, the Great Audience Hall, and had them play a game called "Pakugi" or "Bakugi". We aren't quite sure what the rules were—it probably wasn't Settlers of Catan, but you never know. It was likely a game with dice, possibly a version of backgammon, which is quite old and commonly known as a game for gambling. That same day, Ohoama gave out gifts of robes and trousers to ten princes and others—perhaps related to the gaming session?

The history of games and gaming is particularly fascinating. For one thing, many of the games that were played in the archipelago had come from the continent, and many had variants that had traversed the entirety of Eurasia. Backgammon and Chess were both games that had variants that would be known in Japan. Backgammon was known as sugoroku, and in Japan they played a game similar to chess known as Shogi. They would also play go—or more appropriately igo—from at least the Nara period, though that game, invented in what is now China, does not seem to have spread quite as much as either backgammon or chess variants. And while chess was a game that was often highly localized—with different pieces representing different things and often moving in different ways depending on the variant—backgammon seems to have been quite similar everywhere, and could probably be played by two people with wildly different cultural backgrounds with very little interpretation needed.

The day after Ohoama had the court join his game day, there were more presents. This time it was brown bear hides given to the royal and non-royal princes. In total there were 48 hides given out, which is really pretty incredible. I have this image in my mind of a very Asuka era wooden mansion, with wood and bronze and silk, and then a large bear hide sprawled out on the floor. I'm not sure exactly how they were used, but I suspect that they were mostly used as floor coverings for people to sit or lay on, though I could also see them being used as sleeping mats. It seems they were clearly elite status goods, but hardly what we think about in this period.

And that is where we are going to come to a close. There are only a few more things that we'll get to, but they are all related to what happened with the events surrounding Ohoama's death and the succession that followed, so we'll touch on those when we kick off the next reign.

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And that's all for now. Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.