This episode we'll be looking at a bunch of different references referring to the various provinces, particularly those on the far edges of the archipelago.

For more, check out: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-144

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is episode 144: On the Edge

The ships sat low in the water, bobbing gently against the docks at Naniwa. The captain eyed them warily as the officials went over the manifest. The Seto Inland Sea was generally calm and smooth sailing—at least compared to the open ocean, anywhere else -- and yet, as he looked, he could only think of how sluggish these ships would be. They were laden down with cargo—silk, cloth, thread, and of course provisions for the men accompanying them. But more than that, they were laden down with iron. Tons of iron ingots, destined for the far reaches of the archipelago. First to Suwa, but then on to the Dazai on Tsukushi, no doubt to be forged into weapons for the defense of Yamato.

But that wasn't the captain's concern. He just needed to make sure that the ships weren't weighed down too much: as long as they remained buoyant, they would make the journey, even if they had to travel at a snail's pace to do it. But if the ships sat too low in the water, then all it would take was some uncooperative waves and the ships, crew, and cargo, would be sent straight down to the palace of the dragon king, beneath the waves.

Fortunately, with enough ships, it looked like that wouldn't be too much of a problem, as long as the goods were properly spaced out. Now to just hope that the weather cooperated. Even in the relatively safe waters of the Seto Inland Sea, you never know what could happen…

So last episode we talked about two large projects that Ohoama is said to have started. First was the history project, which likely led to the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki. Second was the start of a brand new capital. This episode, we are going from the macro, down to the micro—smaller events that just weren't covered in previous episodes. For the most part the next few episodes are going to be a grab bag of various items, but I'm going to try and put some semblance of cohesion to this. Next episode we'll be looking at some of the laws that they made, including the law code and examples of the kinds of punishment—and forgiveness—that the court could bestow. This week, however, we are going to cover a bunch of stories focused on the areas outside of the Home Provinces. We'll look at the Dazai in Tsukushi—and elsewhere. We'll talk about how the provinces were governed, and what concerned them. Granted, a lot of what concerned them, at least from the Chroniclers point of view, were taxes and economic production. So we see recorded concern with taxes and with what was there—the land and the people that worked it. Also with natural events, like droughts and tsunami, which would affect that same economic production.

We're starting off with the Dazai, and the person in charge there. The Viceroy, as it is often called in English.

The Dazai appears to have started off with something of a military purpose. It was a gathering place before ships would sail off to the Korean peninsula, raiding up the rivers, or trading with their allies. As the archipelago began to be more embroiled in the wars of the peninsula, it was that much more important. And when Yamato's ally, Baekje, fell, and it looked like Silla and the Great Tang might turn their attention to the islands that had been a thorn in their side for so long, it became a bulwark against potential invasion.

However, it also had another function. It was the jumping off place for warships, but also for embassies and trading missions. It was also the primary destination for most ships approaching Yamato. They would take a route through Tsushima island, and then Iki island, and continue to the main coast of Tsukushi—Kyushu, and up and around to the sheltered waters of Hakata bay. At some point they would even move that initial contact farther out, to Tsushima island itself. Ships would dock on one side of the island, and transport their goods to a Yamato ship on the other side, with a pilot who knew the waters. The local island officials could then send word ahead to the Dazai that they were coming. No surprises, and nobody jumping the gun thinking that a fleet of warships was on their way.

The Dazai played a key role in defense, trade, and diplomacy. When the embassies arrived, they were entertained at the Dazai while word was sent to the court. If the court deemed it appropriate, then they might have the ambassadors take the journey the rest of the way. Otherwise, the court at the Dazai would stand in for the sovereign, and receive the messages, and various diplomatic gifts that were sent along.

This was a powerful and also highly lucrative position, and it is reflected in the people who were granted the title. This was the Dazai no Sochi, or Oho-mikoto-mochi no kami.

We see the post held by Soga no Himuka in 649, during the Taika era. Then we see Abe no Hirafu in the reign of Takara Hime, 655-661. Hirafu would go on to become the Minister of the Left. Then we see Prince Kurikuma.

We talked about Prince Kurikuma before—he was Ohoama's ally in Tsukushi who refused the Afumi court's request for troops during the Jinshin no Ran. He is one of the few figures that we have more than just a bit of information on. For one thing, we have two different appointments to his position as viceroy in Tsukushi—there is one in 668, and another in 671, with Soga no Akae being given the post in between. There are some questions about whether or not those were different people—the first one might have been someone named "Kurisaki" or "Kurimae", but it is generally assumed that was just misspelled, and it may be that there were just some questions as to when he was appointed. We also know that he was a friend to Ohoama. The Afumi court said as much, and in the Jinshin no Ran, when he and his sons stood up to the Afumi court's request for troops, he came down heavily on Ohoama's side. It is no wonder that he would have still been in such a powerful position.

His sons, by the way, are named as Prince Mino and Prince Takebe; we've seen what appears to be different Princes named Mino, but it is possible that this is the Prince Mino mentioned elsewhere in this part of the record.

Sources suggest that Kurikuma was a descendant of the sovereign Nunakura, aka Bidatsu Tennou, and that he was an ancestor of the Tachibana clan. There were stories about him in Tsukushi, beyond those in the Nihon Shoki, and while he isn't always named explicitly, one can infer that he hosted a number of embassies and ambassadors in his time. In fact, in his position as head of the Dazaifu in Tsukushi, he was in what was perhaps the most lucrative post outside of Yamato. In addition to being in charge of trade, diplomacy, and military readiness, the Dazaifu oversaw all of Tsukushi—the island of Kyushu, and was like a miniature representation of the central government.

I suspect it is the military responsibilities that saw Kurikuma being appointed to the post of Director of Military Affairs—Tsuwamo-no-Tsukasa-no-Kami, or Heiseikan-cho. That was in the 3rd lunar month of 675, just a few years into Ohoama's reign.

This would later be known as the Hyoubu-shou, or Ministry of War. The appointment would not last long, however. A year later, Kurikuma would pass away from disease.

Prince Kurikuma is one of those enigmatic and yet somewhat exciting individuals that exists beyond just the Nihon Shoki. The Shoku Nihongi and later sources give us additional details, which may or may not be accurate. Even moreso, there are stories in modern Nagasaki prefecture about Prince Kurikuma helping to regulate the animals that lived in the waters surrounding Kyushu. According to the Shoku Nihongi record, he was reportedly granted the 2nd princely rank upon his death—which, if true, would seem to say a lot about how he was viewed at the time.

Moving into the year 676, we see an edict that restricted governorships to individuals of the rank of Daisen and below. The exceptions to this were the Home Provinces, Michinoku, and Nagato, and let's explore why these areas were excepted.

Home Provinces make sense, as that is where the capital is and this more prestigious area was therefore deserving of a higher ranked noble. Michinoku was the opposite geographically: it was the general wilderness of Tohoku, and the land of the Emishi. It was also the farthest east of the capital, so I suspect they wanted someone of rank to handle that.

The governor of Nagato, however, is interesting. Nagato is part of Honshu, the main island, just north of Kyushu, across the Shimonoseki strait. Similar to Michinoku, Nagato was one of the most remote provinces on Honshu. It was also an important province for potential defense and trade, and often coordinated with the Dazaifu in Tsukushi, to the south. As such, it was also considered a more prominent posting than other governorships.

It is somewhat interesting that the Dazaifu is not mentioned, but I suspect this is because the head of the Dazaifu was not, in fact, a governor, but more akin to a viceroy. After all, they had to be entrusted with a certain amount of authority to be able to conduct military, trade, and diplomatic business without constantly sending back to the Yamato court for instruction. We've already seen that there were Princes and other men of wealth and status who had been given that posting.

Interestingly, in this reign we see at least one other viceroy—one other Dazai, or Ohomikotomochi—and that is in Kibi, of all places. From what we can tell Kibi was one of the main rivals for power and authority in the prior centuries. It has come up again and again in the stories. Unfortunately, most of the stories only hint at what we think actually happened. Today, when we talk about *the* Dazaifu we are almost exclusively talking about the one in Kyushu. Besides being far flung from the center of power, it had huge responsibilities.

Comparatively, though perhaps not as directly involved with trade, the rulers of Kibi were important figures, as demonstrated by the amount of manpower they were able to leverage for building their large, kingly tombs. We talked somewhat about that back in Episode 48, looking at Tsukuriyama Kofun, one of the largest in the archipelago. Furthermore, Kibi was well-placed on the Seto inland sea to be able to control the passage of ships. The Kibi Dazai appears to have been established around the time of the Taika reforms, though it is only mentioned once in the Nihon Shoki, and I don't see any other examples of it. There is also evidence that it was given authority over not just Kibi, but also the neighboring province of Harima. Eventually, however, Kibi would be broken up into the three provinces of Bizen, Bitchu, and Bingo, and it would no longer need to be aggregated under a single administration. Rather, each province would get its own governor, overseeing a much smaller part of the whole. From this I can only assume that there may have been other, similar situations, prior to the various provinces being broken up like that.

A couple months later, in the 5th month of 676, we are once again discussing governors. First was a decree about governors who weren't paying their commuted taxes on time. Aston goes on to note that non-rice taxes were due in the middle of the 8th month—at least for the home provinces. Near provinces—a little farther away—taxes had to be received by the end of the 10th month, and for those a bit farther away—in the middle distance—they had to be there by the 11th month. Finally, the taxes from the farthest provinces were due by the end of the 12th month. This would have given officials time to collect the taxes and to transport them all the way to the capital. So when the chronicles talk about governors not paying on time, not keeping to this schedule may have been what the court was getting at—or at least some kind of similar schedule with deadlines, since it might have been modified over time.

Another record, that same month—actually a few days later—concerns specifically the governor of Shimotsukenu—or Shimotsuke, on the other side of Honshu. He sent in a report that that province had been hit pretty hard that year with a poor harvest. In fact, it was so bad that many peasants were seeking permission to sell their children. The court ultimately denied the request, but this does speak to a rather disturbing—yet not exactly uncommon—cultural practice. I don't think we need to get into the different nuances here, beyond a look at the fact that this was likely not a new practice, but it does seem that the appeal to the government for permission to sell one's children was something new. Perhaps this came with all of the records and registrations that the government had undertaken to know who was in what household. Regardless, one can hardly imagine that most parents would willingly take this option unless they had no other choice, and I suspect that it is meant to show both the desperation of the people in Shimotsuke, as well as the harsh benevolence of the sovereign, who would not permit the children to be separated from their families.

Of course, we aren't told how the court otherwise ameliorated the situation, since moral righteousness is tremendous, but doesn't suddenly fix the problems with the harvest or cause food to appear out of nowhere. One hopes that the court at least sent some amount of rice or other provisions to help the people.

Although it was Shimotsuke in the 5th month, in the 6th month we see a more general report of a large drought. Messengers were sent throughout the land to get people to donate cloth, and make prayers to the kami, while Buddhist Priests called upon the power of the Three Precious Things. It was all to no avail—the usual rains didn't come, so the wugu, the five grains didn't grow, and peasants starved. The five grains per se are rice, soybeans, wheat, and two types of millet, but in this case the term is just a stand-in for all types of agricultural produce.

Possibly unrelated, but somewhat telling, two months later we see a record of the court granting sustenance-fiefs of all Royal princes and princesses down to the high ministers and female officials at the palace down to the rank of Shoukin. So only two months after the peasants of Yamato were apparently starving, the court is handing out stipend increases to the elite. So… yeah….

We do see a focus in the 8th month on an Oho-barai, or Great Purification. I'm going to talk about this more in a future episode, though, so just noting here that they seem to have been working to purify the land and that may have been part of ongoing spiritual attempts to request the support of the kami in what appear to be difficult times. There were also plenty of examples of attempts to make merit by demonstrating righteousness and reading various sutras.

Moving on to the events of 677, things seem to have been going better than the previous year, so maybe all that merit-making had an effect? Either way, we don't see any mention of droughts or famines this year, and we make it to the ninth month, when we see a notice that any vagabonds who returned after being sent back to their hometown would be set to forced labor. Vagabond, in this case, is "furounin", or "person who floats on the waves". This appears to be the origin of the term "Rounin", which would later refer to masterless samurai. At this point it seems to refer mostly to commoners who were expected to work the land—and when workers abandoned the land that had implications for the government's tax base system. So the State was invested in ensuring that people didn't just move somewhere else—at least without asking permission and being properly registered. This does seem different from an actual fugitive, such as someone who was banished who tries to leave their place of banishment.

The following month, the 10th month of 677, we see that Kawabe no Omi no Momoye was appointed head of the Minbukyo, the Minister of the Interior. In addition, Tajihi no Kimi no Maro was made a Daibu, or high official, of the province of Settsu. The term "daibu" could just refer to high ministers of the court, but the "daibu" of a province appears to be similar to a governor, but with more expansive and comprehensive authority. Settsu is one of the five home provinces, and as such an important part of the geographical heart of Yamato. So we have the local chieftains, the governors, the viceroys at the Dazai, and also, apparently, a "high official" in some regions, each with what appear to be overlapping but slightly different portfolios.

The next month we see that the Viceroy of Tsukushi—whoever had taken the place of Prince Yagaki—had his officials present a red crow to the court. The person who caught the crow was granted five steps in rank—not a small reward. Also, local officials had their own rank raised, and taxes were remitted to the peasants of that district for a year. Finally, a general amnesty was announced across Yamato.

We talked in Episode 141 how something like a red crow would have likely represented either the three-legged crow in the sun or the legendary Suzaku, the fiery bird of the south. Either way, it was clearly an auspicious discovery. It is interesting that we don't see any names at all associated with this event. We do, however, see that people were no doubt incentivized to report such things up to the court. Whoever found such a curiosity would likely have been celebrated by all of those around given the court's broad show of appreciation. No doubt the local officials were more than pleased given that they were also likely to receive some of the benefits that accrued if the court was well pleased.

As far as the type of events I'm focusing on this episode, there isn't much recorded between the red crow of 677 and a few years later in 682. Picking up in the 3rd month of that year, we get a record of the Emishi of Michinoku being granted court rank, incorporating them further into the growing Yamato polity. As I talked about a little earlier, Michinoku on the other side of the archipelago, so this event really shows expansion of Yamato and solidification of its power over the rest of Honshu. It is easy to forget that much of the Tohoku region was not firmly under Yamato control at this time. They may have claimed it, but the people and culture there were still considered distinct and not a part of Yamato, proper. But they were making inroads.

In the following month, the 4th lunar month of the same year, 682, we are back on the west coast and see Tajihi no Mabito no Shima as the latest Viceroy of Tsukushi, sending as tribute a large bell. It is somewhat interesting that, compared to the past few viceroys, Shima is actually a member of a noble family and *not* a Prince. Of course, there was no requirement that the Dazaifu be overseen by a Prince—that certainly wasn't the case for Soga no Akaye, but it is interesting given how Ohoama had been making appointments, so far. Even if they weren't princely, it is clear that this was an important posting, which says a lot for Tajihi no Shima, even if we didn't know anything more about him.

Fortunately, there are a few clues. For one thing, there are records that claim he was descended from one of the previous sovereigns, but he did not hold the title of "Prince". That is reflected in his family's kabane of "Mabito", however, or "True person", which seems to indicate at least a nominal descent from a previous ruler. Shima would continue to rise in the government, and would eventually serve as the Minister of the Right and then Minister of the Left, and at one point he would be the highest ranking noble in the government—though that was still a ways off. All of this speaks to the importance of the position of viceroy, and probably gives us a clue as to why the Chroniclers were so interested in someone sending a bell, large as it might be, to the government.

A day after the bell tribute arrived, Emishi of Koshi, including Ikokina and others, requested 70 households of prisoners of war to create a new district. While we've talked about the Emishi of Koshi, before, what is particularly interesting is the request for prisoners of war—captives. Were these Wajin, or Japanese, who had been captured by the Emishi and they were requesting permission to resettle them? Were they asking for 70 households of people being held captive by the Yamato government? It isn't clear. It also isn't clear if "Ikokina" is the name of an individual or of multiple individuals. Aston originally translated it as Itaka, Kina, and others, while Bentley's more recent translation suggests it is one name. However, given that this is an Emishi name, being transliterated in Kanji through a Japanese translator, it is hard to know without further sources.

From the fourth month to the 7th month of 682, we see a small entry that presents were given to men from Tanegashima, Yakushima, and Amami no Shima. This simple entry is important mostly just because of its mention of continued contact with these islands south of Kyushu. This helps us maintain some idea of the extent of Yamato's influence.

In the late summer of 683, we once again see a drought. It began in the 7th lunar month and lasted until the 8th. A priest named Douzou prayed for rain and eventually obtained it. Douzou is said to have been a monk from Kudara, or Baekje. Aston suggests that this means he was a priest of Kudaradera, but it isn't really clear to me.

In the early 8th month, we also see that there was a general amnesty ordered throughout Yamato, which I suspect was connected with the disaster of the drought and an attempt to help build merit and otherwise strengthen the state in the face of natural disaster and potential unrest.

At the end of 683, we see a survey team being sent out. The sovereign sent Prince Ise along with Hata no Kimi no Yakuni, Ohoshi no Omi no Homuchi, and Nakatomi no Muraji no Ohoshima with clerks and artisans to tour the realm and determine the border of the various provinces, but they were unable to determine them all in a year.

This really must have been quite the task. Certainly, the provinces were the ancient lands which people had been living in for some time, but there was never really a need for political lines on a map to determine where the boundaries were. People generally knew if they were in one or the other, and unless there was a very contentious piece of property, mostly you didn't worry about which exact land or province you were in. Now, however, the court was in the midst of trying to lock down all of the data about the land, including what was where and how much there was. After all, their entire tax base was built on arable land, so they had to know where it was and what to expect. There is no way that such a project was going to be completed in a single year.

I would also note that Aston has this particular record misplaced. He seemed to think it was on the 23rd day of the month, but it is then followed by the 17th. It seems that Aston just got his dates wrong, and can you blame him? There was a lot that he was dealing with.

We do see, almost a year later, in the 10th month of 684, Prince Ise and others are once again sent to determine the boundaries of the provinces. Second time's the charm, maybe? Evidently not, because we then see another mention in the 10th month of 685, where the court gave them gifts of robes and trousers as they headed back out to the Eastern Countries one more time.

In the 11th month of 684 we are given a small report of a huge disaster. The governor of Tosa reported that a great tide had risen high, with an overflowing rush, and destroyed many of the ships used to convey tribute.

Tosa is on Shikoku, facing out to the Pacific Ocean. It is the first piece of dry land just past the continental shelf. As such, a quake just off shore could create conditions not dissimilar to the 2011 disaster in Fukushima, and send a tsunami wave flooding the coastline. It looks like that is what happened, which would have devastated the fleet. Since Shikoku was an island, they relied on those ships to get taxes and tribute conveyed up to Yamato. So this was Tosa letting the court know that the "sea ate my homework."

I can't help but wonder if this tsunami wasn't related to an earthquake recorded for the month earlier, which we mentioned back in Episode 139. It was a huge earthquake that seems to have had a tremdous impact. Much of it was mentioned as being focused on the Toukaidou region, but that region still lies along a related fault line all the way down through Shikoku. It may be that it took a while for the two events to be reported, and there may not have been an understanding that the event in one place could have had an impact elsewhere. I don't know if they had yet connected that earthquakes could cause tsunami or not. On the other hand, it could be that it was a separate, but related quake, or even an aftershock, which caused the tsunami.

Overall, the year 684 does not appear to have been the best. We are told that in the lower district of Katsuraki, there was reported a chicken with four legs. Then, in the district of Higami, in Tanba province, there was a calf born with twelve horns. These don't sound like great omens, and given the tsunami, and the earthquake, and other such things, I can perhaps understand why the court focused on trying to do some merit-making towards the end of the year. For instance they pardoned all criminals except those guilty of capital crimes.

And we are also told that Iga, Ise, Mino, and Wohari were notified that in future years, if they were paying commuted taxes—that is taxes other than rice, in lieu of service—that force labour would be remitted, and vice versa. That is, if it was a year where they would pay in corvee labour, the commuted taxes would be remitted instead. In other words, they didn't need to do both in one year. Similarly , in the 7th lunar month of 685, we are told that the Provinces on the Tousandou, east of Mino, and the Toukaidou, east of Ise, were all exempted from sending in conscript laborers as part of their taxes.

We aren't told exactly why any of this was done, but I suspect that it had something to do with either construction going on in those regions, or just needing to have people to work the fields. Labor could always be remitted just because of something good like a good omen, but in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake, I wonder if there wasn't a lot of rebuilding that had to take place, and maybe the court just wanted to make sure those regions had the people they needed for those projects.

The Tousandou and the Toukaidou were just two of the 7 official circuits around the archipelago. In this case, the Toukaidou hugged the coastal areas, heading from Ise out to modern Tokyo. Meanwhile, the Tousandou would have cut through the mountains in the middle of that area of Honshu, passing north of Fuji and through modern Gunma. The other circuits were the San'youdou, the San'indou, the Nankaidou, the Hokurikudou, and Tsukushi, which was considered its own "circuit". The San'youdou and San'indou were the Yang and Yin roads, going through the western part of Honshu. The San'youdou was along the Seto Inland Sea, while the San'indou was along the Japan sea. The Nankaidou, or South Sea Road, was the Kii peninsula and Shikoku. The Hokurikudou went north on eastern Honshu, through the Koshi region. Finally, Tsukushi, which would also be known as the Saikaidou, or Western Sea Road, was its own circuit

In the 9th lunar month of 685 we see Commissioners or Royal Messengers appointed to six of the seven circuits, the Hokurikudou being the one left out. The commissioners were to tour and inspect the provincial and district offices and make sure they were good. Each person took a facility manager and a secretary to assist them. Bentley notes that there is, in later legal codes, a role of "Inspector", who was similarly expected to tour and inspect the various provinces – but these were assigned on an as needed basis, so it wasn't a permanent position.

Along with the inspection of the government offices, there was one other edict that same day in the 9th month of 685: the court ordered that male and female singers, as well as pipers/flute-players should pass down their skills to their descendants and make them practice singing and the flute. Thus they effectively created hereditary musicians which, at the time, was how you made sure that you had the different professions and skillsets you needed to run the State.

Then, in the 11th month of 685, we see a bunch of iron sent to the General Magistrate of Suwa. How much is a bunch? 10,000 kin, which is thought to be equivalent to roughly 6.6 tons. That is a huge amount of iron, assuming the record is true. At the same time, the viceroy of Tsukushi requested 100 bolts of coarse silk, 132 pounds of thread, 300 bundles of cloth, 4000 feet of labor tax cloth, 6.6 tons of iron, and 2,000 sets of bamboo arrows. And by all accounts, the court sent it all out. No idea why—but there we go. Presumably it was to make things—probably clothing and weapons.

We see something similar in the 12th month, when the ships carrying the newest border guards out to Tsukushi were battered by bad seas and, eventually, they were left adrift in the water. They were rescued, but lost all of their clothing, so rather than sending clothes, the court sent cloth. 450 bolts of cloth were sent, to be made into new sets of clothing for the soldiers.

Sending raw materials makes sense. After all, there were likely artisans all over the place who just needed them. Furthermore, that way you could customize the equipment to the people who would be using it, rather than shipping off finished goods.

And with that, I think we are going to call it. Next episode will be a similar overview, but we'll take a look at some of the laws that were passed, as well as how they dealt with law and order in the archipelago.

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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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 talk about two monumental projects that were started in this reign. One was the historiographical project that likely led to the creation of the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki. And then there was the start of the first permanent capital city: the Fujiwara Capital.

Listen to the episode and find more on our website: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-143

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is Episode 143: Temmu's Monumental Projects

Ohoama sat astride his horse and looked out at the land in front of him. He could still see the image of the rice fields, now long fallow, spreading out on the plain. To the north, east, and west, he could see the mountains that would frame his vision. As his ministers started to rattle off information about the next steps of the plan, Ohoama began to smile. He thought of the reports his embassies to the Great Tang had brought back, about the great walled cities of the continent. In his mind's eye, Ohoama envisioned something similar, rising up on the plain in front of him.

There would be an earth and stone wall, surrounding the great city. The gates would be grand, much like the temples, but on an even greater scale. Houses would be packed in tight, each within their own walled compounds. In the center painted red and white, with green accents, would be a palace to rival any other structure in the archipelago. The people would stream in, and the city would be bustling with traffic.

This was a new center, from which the power of Yamato would be projected across the islands and even to the continent.

Greetings everyone, and welcome back. This episode we are still focused on the reign of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou, between the years 672 and 686.

Last episode we talked about the Four Great Temples—or the Four National Temples. Much of this episode was focused on the rise and spread of Buddhism as we see in the building of these national temples, but also on the changes that occurred as the relationship between Buddhism and the State evolved. This was part of Ohoama's work to build up the State into something beyond what it had been in the past—or perhaps into something comparable to what they believed it to have been in the past. After all, based on the size of the tomb mounds in the kofun period, it does seem that there was a peak of prosperity in the 5th century, around the time of Wakatakeru, aka Yuryaku Tennou, and then a decline, to the point that the lineage from Wohodo, aka Keitai Tennou, seemed to have come in during a time when they were rebuilding Yamato power and authority.

This episode we are going to talk about two projects that Ohoama kicked off during his reign. He wouldn't see the completion of either one, since both took multiple decades to complete, but both focused on linking the past and the future.

The first we'll talk about is a new attempt to gather historical documents and records—the last time that was done was in the time of Kashikiya Hime, over 50 years ago. That was during the height of Soga power. Since then a lot had changed, and presumably there were even more stories and records that had been written down. Plus the tide had changed. So they needed to update—and maybe even correct—the historical record. But beyond that, there was a greater goal: Ohoama and his court also needed to make sure that the past was something that they wanted to go back to, among other things.

The other thing we are going to discuss is the start of a project to build a brand new capital city. And when we talk a bout city, we really mean a city. This was a massive undertaking, likely unlike anything that we've seen so far. Sure, there had been monumental building projects, but this was something that was going to take a lot more work - how much more monumental could you get than a new city? And it would create a physical environment that would be the embodiment of the new centralization of power and authority, and the new state that Ohoama was building, with his administration—and Yamato—at the center.

Let's start with the big ones. First and foremost, we have the entry from the 17th day of the 3rd month of the 681. Ohoama gave a decree from the Daigokuden to commit to writing a Chronicle of the sovereigns and various matters of high antiquity. Bentley translates this as saying that they were to record and confirm the Teiki, which Aston translated as the Chronicle of the Sovereigns, and various accounts of ancient times. This task was given out to a slew of individuals, including the Royal Princes Kawashima and Osakabe; the Princes Hirose, Takeda, Kuwada, and Mino; as well as Kamitsukenu no Kimi no Michichi, Imbe no Muraji no Kobito, Adzumi no Muraji no Inashiki, Naniwa no Muraji no Ohogata, Nakatomi no Muraji no Ohoshima, and Heguri no Omi no Kobito. Ohoshima and Kobito were specifically chosen as the scribes for this effort.

We aren't told what work was started at this time. Aston, in his translation of the Nihon Shoki, assumes that this is the start of the Kojiki. Bentley notes that this is the first in a variety of records about gathering the various records, including gathering records from the various families, and eventually even records from the various provinces. And I think we can see why. Legitimizing a new state and a new way of doing things often means ensuring that you have control of the narrative. Today, that often means doing what you can to control media and the stories that are in the national consciousness. In Ohoama's day, I'd argue that narrative was more about the various written sources, and how they were presented. After all, many of the rituals and evidence that we are looking at would rely on the past to understand the present. The various family records would not only tell of how those families came to be, but would have important information about what else was going on, and how that was presented could determine whether something was going to be seen as auspicious, or otherwise. Even without getting rid of those records, it would be important to have the official, State narrative conform to the Truth that the state was attempting to implement.

Ultimately, there is no way to know, exactly, how everything happened. If the Nihon Shoki had a preface, it has been lost. The Kojiki, for its part, does have a preface, and it points to an origin in the reign of Ohoama—known as the sovereign of Kiyomihara. In there we are told that the sovereign had a complaint—that the Teiki and Honji, that is the chronicles of the sovereigns and the various other stories and legends, that had been handed down by various houses had come to differ from the truth. They said they had many falsehoods, which likely meant that they just didn't match the Truth that the State was trying to push. Thus they wanted to create a so-called "true" version to pass down.

This task was given to 28 year old Hieda no Are. It says they were intelligent and had an incredible memory. They studied all of the sources, and the work continued beyond the reign of Ohoama. Later, in 711 CE, during the reign of Abe, aka Genmei Tennou, Oho no Yasumaro was given the task of writing down everything that Hieda no Are had learned.

The astute amongst you may have noticed that this mentions none of the individuals mentioned in the Nihon Shoki. Nor does the Nihon Shoki mention anything about Hieda no Are. So was this a separate effort, or all part of the same thing? Was Are using the materials collected by the project?

As you may recall, we left the Kojiki behind some time ago, since it formally ends with the reign of Kashikiya hime, aka Suiko Tennou, but realistically it ended with Wohodo, aka Keitai Tennou—after that point there are just lists of the various heirs. As such, there is some speculation that this was originally built off of earlier histories, perhaps arranged during the Soga era.

The general explanation for all of this is that Hieda no Are memorized the poems and stories, and then Yasumaro wrote them down. Furthermore, though the language in the Kojiki does not express a particular gender, in the Edo period there was a theory that Hieda no Are was a woman, which is still a popular theory.

Compare all of that to the Nihon Shoki. Where the Kojiki was often light on details and ends with Suiko Tennou, the Nihon Shoki often includes different sources, specifically mentions some of them by name, and continues up through the year 697. Furthermore, textual analysis of the Nihon Shoki suggests that it was a team effort, with multiple Chroniclers, and likely multiple teams of Chroniclers. I have to admit, that sounds a lot more like the kind of thing that Ohoama was kicking off.

We have an entry in the Shoku Nihongi, the work that follows the Nihon Shoki, that suggests 720 for the finished compilation of the Nihon Shoki. So did it take from 681 to 720 to put together? That is a really long project, with what were probably several generations of individuals working on it.

Or should this be read in a broader sense? Was this a historiographical project, as Bentley calls it, but one that did not, immediately, know the form it would take? It isn't the first such project—we have histories of the royal lineage and other stories that were compiled previously—much of that attributed to Shotoku Taishi, but likely part of an earlier attempt by the court. In fact, given that the Kojiki and Sendai Hongi both functionally end around the time of Kashikiya hime, that is probably because the official histories covered those periods. Obviously, though, a lot had happened, and some of what was written might not fit the current narrative. And so we see a project to gather and compile various sources. While this project likely culminated in the projects of the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, I doubt that either work was necessarily part of the original vision. Rather, it looks like the original vision was to collect what they could and then figure things out.

It would have been after they started pulling the accounts together, reading them, and noticing the discrepancies that they would have needed to then edit them in such a way that they could tell a cohesive story. That there are two separate compilations is definitely interesting. I do suspect that Oho no Yasumaro was working from the efforts of Hieda no Are, either writing down something that had been largely captured in memory or perhaps finishing a project that Are had never completed. The Nihon Shoki feels like it was a different set of teams, working together, but likely drawing from many of the same sources.

And as to why we don't have the earlier sources? I once heard it said that for books to be forgotten they didn't need to be banned—they just needed to fall out of circulation and no longer be copied anymore. As new, presumably more detailed, works arose, it makes sense that older sources would not also be copied, as that information was presumably in the updated texts, and any information that wasn't brought over had been deemed counterfactual. Even the Nihon Shoki risked falling into oblivion; the smaller and more digestible Kojiki was often more sought after. The Kojiki generally presents a single story, and often uses characters phonetically, demonstrating how to read names and places. And it just has a more story-like narrative to it. The Nihon Shoki, comparatively, is dense, written in an old form of kanbun, often relying more on kanbun than on phonetic interpretations. It was modeled on continental works, but as such it was never going to be as easy to read. And so for a long time the Kojiki seems to have held pride of place for all but the most ardent scholars of history.

Either way, I think that it is still fair to say that the record of 681 was key to the fact that we have this history, today, even if there was no way for Ohoama, at the time, to know just what form it would take.

Another ambitious project that got started under Ohoama was the development of a new and permanent capital city.

Up to this point we've talked about the various capitals of Yamato, but really it was more that we were talking about the palace compounds where the sovereign lived. From the Makimuku Palace, where either Mimaki Iribiko or possibly even Himiko herself once held sway, to the latest palace, that of Kiyomihara, the sovereigns of Yamato were known by their palaces. This is, in part, because for the longest time each successive sovereign would build a new palace after the previous sovereign passed away. There are various reasons why this may have been the case, often connected to insular concepts of spiritual pollution brought on by the death of an individual, but also the practical consideration that the buildings, from what we can tell, were largely made of untreated wood. That made them easier to erect, but also made them vulnerable to the elements, over time, and is probably one of the reasons that certain shrines, like the Shrine at Ise, similarly reconstitute themselves every 20 years or so.

Furthermore, we talk about palaces, but we don't really talk about cities. There were certainly large settlements—even going back to the Wei chronicles we see the mention of some 70 thousand households in the area of Yamateg. It is likely that the Nara basin was filled with cultivated fields and many households. Princes and noble households had their own compounds—remember that both Soga no Umako and Prince Umayado had compounds large enough that they could build temples on the compounds and have enough left over for their own palatial residences, as well. However, these compounds were usually distributed in various areas, where those individuals presumably held some level of local control.

It is unclear to me how exactly the early court functioned as far as housing individuals, and how often the court was "in session", as it were, with the noble houses. Presumably they had local accommodations and weren't constantly traveling back and forth to the palace all the time. We know that some houses sent individuals, men and women, to be palace attendants, even though they lived some distance away. This was also likely a constraint on the Yamato court's influence in the early days.

We do see the sovereign traveling, and various "temporary" palaces being provided. I highly doubt that these were all built on the spot, and were likely conversions of existing residences, and similar lodging may have been available for elites when they traveled, though perhaps without such pomp and circumstance.

What we don't really see in all of this, are anything resembling cities. Now, the term "city" doesn't exactly have a single definition, but as I'm using it, I would note that we don't see large, permanent settlements of significant size that demonstrate the kind of larger civil planning that we would expect of such a settlement. We certainly don't have cities in the way of the large settlements along the Yangzi and Yellow rivers.

We talked some time back about the evolution of capital city layouts on the continent. We mentioned that the early theoretical plan for a capital city was based on a square plan, itself divided into 9 square districts, with the central district constituting the palace. This design works great on paper, but not so much in practice, especially with other considerations, such as the north-south orientation of most royal buildings. And then there are geographic considerations. In a place like Luoyang, this square concept was interrupted by the river and local topography. Meanwhile, in Chang'an, they were able to attain a much more regular rectangular appearance. Here, the court and the palace were placed in the center of the northernmost wall. As such, most of the city was laid out to the south of the palace.

In each case, however, these were large, planned cities with a grid of streets that defined the neighborhoods. On each block were various private compounds, as well as the defined markets, temples, et cetera.

The first possible attempt at anything like this may have been with the Toyosaki palace, in Naniwa. There is some consideration that, given the size of the palace, there may have been streets and avenues that were built alongside it, with the intention of having a similar city layout. If so, it isn't at all clear that it was ever implemented, and any evidence may have been destroyed by later construction on the site. Then we have the Ohotsu palace, but that doesn't seem to be at the same scale as the Toyosaki palace—though it is possible that, again, we are missing some key evidence. Nonetheless, the records don't really give us anything to suggest that these were large cities rather than just palaces.

There is also the timeline. While both the Toyosaki palace and the Ohotsu palace took years to build, they did not take the time and amount of manpower that would be needed to create a true capital city. We can judge this based on what it took to build the new capital at Nihiki.

This project gets kicked off in the 11th month of 676. We are told that there was an intent to make the capital at Nihiki, so all of the rice-fields and gardens within the precincts, public and private property alike, were left fallow and became totally overgrown.

This likely took some time. The next time we see Nihiki is in the 3rd month of 682, when Prince Mino, a minister of the Household Department, and others, went there to examine the grounds. At that point they apparently made the final decision to build the capital there. Ohoama came out to visit later that same month.

However, a year later, in the 12th month of 683, we are told that there was a decree for there to be multiple capitals and palaces in multiple sites, and they were going to make the Capital at Naniwa one of those places. And so public functionaries were to go figure out places for houses. So it wasn't just that they wanted to build one new, grand capital. It sounds like they were planning to build two or three, so not just the one at Nihiki. This is also where I have to wonder if the Toyosaki Palace was still being used as an administrative center, at the very least. Or was it repurposed, as we saw that the Asuka palaces had been when the court moved to Ohotsu?

This is further emphasized a few months later, when Prince Hirose and Ohotomo Yasumaro, at the head of a group of clerks, officials, artisans, and yin yang diviners were sent around the Home Provinces to try and divine sites suitable for a capital. In addition, Prince Mino, Uneme no Oni no Tsukura, and others were sent to Shinano to see about setting up a capital there as well. Perhaps this was inspired by the relationship between the two Tang capitals of Chang'an and Luoyang. Or perhaps it was so that if one didn't work out another one might.

Regardless, Nihiki seemed to be the primary target for this project, and in the third lunar month of 684 Ohoama visited the now barren grounds and decided on a place for the new palace. A month later, Prince Mino and others returned with a map of Shinano, but there is no indication of where they might want to build another capital.

After that, we don't hear anything more of Shinano or of a site in the Home Provinces. We do hear one more thing about Naniwa, which we mentioned a couple of episodes back, and that is that in 686 there was a fire that burned down the palace at Naniwa, after which they seem to have abandoned that as a palace site. And so we are left with the area of Nihiki.

This project would take until the very end of 694 before it was ready. In total, we are looking at a total of about 18 years—almost two decades, to build a new capital. Some of this may have been the time spent researching other sites, but there also would have been significant time taken to clear and level. This wasn't just fields—based on what we know, they were even taking down old kofun; we are later told about how they had to bury the bodies that were uncovered. There was also probably a pause of some kind during the mourning period when Ohoama passed away. And on top of it, this really was a big project. It wasn't just building the palace, it was the roads, the infrastructure, and then all of the other construction—the city gates, the various private compounds, and more. One can only imagine how much was being invested, especially if they were also looking at other sites and preparing them at the same time. I suspect that they eventually abandoned the other sites when they realized just how big a project it really was that they were undertaking.

Today we know that capital as Fujiwara-kyo, based on the name of the royal palace that was built there, and remarkably, we know where it was. Excavations have revealed the site of the palace, and have given us an idea of the extent of the city: It was designed as a square, roughly 5.3 kilometers, or 10 ri, on each side. The square itself was interrupted by various terrain features, including the three holy mountains. Based on archaeological evidence, the street grid was the first thing they laid out, and from what we can tell they were using the ideal Confucian layout as first dictated in the Zhouli, or Rites of Zhou. This meant a square grid, with the palace in the center.

Indeed, the palace was centered, due south of Mt. Miminashi, and you can still go and see the palace site, today. When they went to build the palace, they actually had to effectively erase, or bury, the roads they had laid out. They did the same thing for Yakushi-ji, or Yakushi-temple, when they built it as part of the city; one of the reasons we know it had to have been built after the roads were laid out.

We will definitely talk about this more when we get to that point of the Chronicles, but for now, know that the Fujiwara palace itself, based on excavations of the site, was massive. The city itself would surpass both Heijo-kyo, at Nara, and Heian-kyo, in modern Kyoto. And the palace was like the Toyosaki Naniwa palace on steroids. It included all of the formal features of the Toyosaki Palace for running the government, but then enclosed that all in a larger compound with various buildings surrounding the court itself. Overall, the entire site is massive. This was meant as a capital to last for the ages.

And yet, we have evidence that it was never completed. For one thing, there is no evidence that a wall was ever erected around it—perhaps there was just no need, as relations with the mainland had calmed down, greatly. But there is also evidence that parts of the palace, even, were not finished at the time that they abandoned it. Fujiwara-kyo would only be occupied for about 16 years before a new capital was built—Heijo-kyo, in Nara. There are various reasons as to why they abandoned what was clearly meant to be the first permanent capital city, and even with the move to a new city in Nara it would be clear that it was going to take the court a bit of time before they were ready to permanently settle down—at least a century or so.

Based on all the evidence we have, and assuming this was the site of the eventual capital, Nihiki was the area of modern Kashihara just north of Asuka, between—and around—the mountains of Unebi, Miminashi, and Kagu. If these mountains are familiar, they popped up several times much earlier in the Chronicles--Mostly in the Age of the Gods and in the reign of the mythical Iware-biko, aka Jimmu Tennou. Yet these three mountains help to set out the boundaries of the capital city that was being built at this time.

There is definitely some consideration that they were emphasized in the early parts of the Chronicles—the mythical sections, which were bolstering the story of Amaterasu and the Heavenly Grandchild, setting up the founding myths for the dynasty. Even though the Chronicles were not completed until well after the court had moved out, the Fujiwara capital is the climax of the Nihon Shoki, which ends in 697, three years into life at the new palace. And so we can assume that much of the early, critical editing of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki were done with the idea that this would be the new capital, and so it was woven into the histories, and had it continued as the capital, the very landscape would have recalled the stories of the divine origins of the Royal family and the state of Yamato itself.

This was the stage on which Ohoama's state was built. He, and his successors, didn't just change the future path of the Yamato government. They rearranged the physical and temporal environment, creating a world that centered them and their government. I suspect that Ohoama didn't originally consider that these wouldn't be finished during his reign. That said, he came to power in his 40s, only slightly younger than his brother, who had just died. He would live to be 56 years old—a respectable age for male sovereigns, around that time. From a quick glance, Naka no Oe was about 45 or 46 years old, while Karu lived to about 57 or 58. Tamura only made it to 48. The female sovereigns seem to have lasted longer, with Ohoama's mother surviving until she was 66 or 67 years old, and Kashikiya Hime made it to the ripe old age of 74. That said, it is quite likely that he thought he would make it longer. After all, look at all the merit he was accruing! Still, he passed away before he could see these projects fully accomplished. That would have to be left for the next reign—and even that wasn't enough. The Fujiwara Capital would only be occupied for a short time before being abandoned about two reigns later, and the histories as we know them wouldn't be complete for three more reigns.

So given all of this, let's take another quick look at Ohoama himself and where he stands at this pivotal moment of Yamato history.When we look at how he is portrayed, Ohoama is generally lionized for the work he is said to have accomplished. I would argue that he is the last of three major figures to whom are attributed most of the changes that resulted in the sinification of the Yamato government.

The first is prince Umayado, aka Shotoku Taishi, who is said to have written the 17 article constitution, the first rank system, and the introduction of Buddhism. To be fair, these things—which may not have been exactly as recorded in the Chronicles—were likely products of the court as a whole. Many people attribute more to Kashikiya Hime, aka Suiko Tennou, as well as Soga no Umako. Of course, Soga no Umako wasn't a sovereign, or even a member of the royal family, and Kashikiya Hime, aka Suiko Tennou, seems to have likewise been discounted, at least later, possibly due to the fact that she is thought to have come to power more as a compromise candidate than anything else—she was the wife of a previous sovereign and niece to Soga no Umako. Many modern scholars seem to focus more on the agency of Kashikiya Hime and suggest that she had more say than people tend to give her credit for. That said, Shotoku Taishi seems to have been the legendary figure that was just real enough to ascribe success to. That he died before he could assume the throne just meant that he didn't have too many problematic decisions of his own to apparently work around.

The next major figure seems to be Naka no Oe, aka Tenji Tennou. Naka no Oe kicks off the period of Great Change, the Taika era, and is credited with a lot of the changes—though I can't help but notice that the formal sovereign, Naka no Oe's uncle, Karu, seems to have stuck with the new vision of the Toyosaki Palace and the administrative state while Naka no Oe and his mother moved back to the traditional capital. And when Naka no Oe moved the capital to Ohotsu, he once again built a palace more closely aligned to what we see in Asuka than the one in Naniwa, which brings some questions about how the new court was operating. But many of his reforms clearly were implemented, leveraging the new concepts of continental rulership to solidify the court's hegemony over the rest of the archipelago.

Ohoama, as represented in the Chronicles, appears to be the culmination of these three. He is building on top of what his brother had implemented through the last three reigns. Some of what he did was consolidate what Naka no Oe had done, but there were also new creations, for which Ohoama is credited, even if most of the work was done outside of Ohoama's reign, but they were attributed to Ohoama, nonetheless. Much of this was started later in Ohoama's reign, and even today there seem to be some questions about who did what. Nonetheless, we can at least see how the Chroniclers were putting the story together.

There are a lot of scholars that point to the fact that the bulk of the work of these projects would actually be laid out in the following reigns, and who suggest that individuals like the influential Uno no Sarara, who held the control of the government in Ohoama's final days, may have had a good deal more impact on how things turned out, ultimately. In fact, they might even have been more properly termed her projects—there are some that wonder if some of the attributions to Ohoama were meant to bolster the authority of later decrees, but I don't really see a need for that, and it seems that there is enough evidence to suggest that these projects were begun in this period.

All of this makes it somewhat ironic that by the time the narrative was consolidated and published to the court, things were in a much different place—literally. The Fujiwara capital had been abandoned. The court, temples, and the aristocracy had picked up stakes and moved north. Fujiwara no Fuhito had come on the scene, and now his family was really taking off. This was not the same world that the Chronicles had been designed around.

And yet, that is what was produced. Perhaps there is a reason that they ended where they did.

From that point on, though, there were plenty of other projects to record what was happening. Attempts to control the narrative would need to do a lot more. We see things like the Sendai Kuji Hongi, with its alternative, and perhaps even subversive, focus on the Mononobe family. And then later works like the Kogoshui, recording for all time the grievances of the Imbe against their rivals—for all the good that it would do. With more people learning to write, it was no longer up to the State what did or did not get written down.

But that has taken us well beyond the scope of this reign—and this episode, which we should probably be bringing to a close. There are still some things here and there that I want to discuss about this reign—so the next episode may be more of a miscellany of various records that we haven't otherwise covered, so far.

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.

This episode we are talking about the Four Great Temples--Asukadera, Daikandaiji (aka Kudara Odera), Kawaradera, and Yakushiji. Much of the information, outside of the Nihon Shoki itself, comes from Donald F. McCallum's book: "The Four Great Temples: Buddhist Archaeology, Architecture, and Icons of Seventh-Century Japan".

For sources, photos, and more information, check out our blogpost at: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-142

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 142: The Four Great Temples

Rising up into the sky, the bronze spire atop the pagoda seemed to touch the heavens. The beams, doors, and railings were all painted bright red, with white walls, and green painted bars on the windows. At each level, the eaves swept out, covered in dark ceramic tiles, with shining bronze plaques covering the ends of the roof beams. At each corner, a bronze bell hung, chiming in the breeze. This pattern continued upwards, tier after tier.

Around the base of the pagoda, throngs of government officials dressed in their formal robes of office moved past, flowing through the temple's central gates. As they passed, they looked up at the impressive tower, the largest of its kind in all of Yamato. From somewhere, a deep bell chimed, and the crowds made their way towards the lecture hall. There, the monks were prepared, with sutras and voices at the ready. Facing a sacred image, they would read through their sutras in unison. Their voices would carry through the great empty space and reverberate through the crowds—those that could get close enough to hear, anyway. The chanting created a musical cacophony. In that sea of human voices, one could almost sense something more—something spiritual. A power, that one could almost believe could hold at bay just about any disaster that could befall a person—or even the state itself.

Alright, so this episode we are still in the reign of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou. I know we've already seen how that ends, but there is still a lot to cover.

But before I go too far, I'd like to first give a shout out to Lisa for helping to support the show on Ko-Fi. I can't tell you how much we appreciate it. If you would like to support us as well, we'll have more information at the end of this, and every episode.

We've talked about how the reign of Ohoama was a time where the court reinforced, but also subtly adjusted, the laws of the Ritsuryo state. They seem to have equally courted the Kami, Buddhism, and even continental ideas of yin and yang. Today we are going to dive into Buddhism and the State. More specifically, I want to talk about something called the Yondaiji, the Four Great Temples, and look at how these government temples, also known as "kanji" or "Tsukasa no dera" came to be, what we know about them from archaeological research, and the role they played in the State. This is going to probably recap things from earlier episodes. I am also drawing a lot from a book by Donald F. McCallum called, appropriately, "The Four Great Temples", which goes into a lot more detail than I'll be able to get into, here, but I recommend it for those who are really interested in this subject.

Up to this point, we've talked a little about the relationship that the court had with Buddhism. By the late 7th century, Buddhism had spread throughout the archipelago, and there were many temples likely created by local elites. Sensoji, in Asakusa, Tokyo, claims a founding of 628, though it may have actually been founded sometime just after 645. There are other temples around Japan, far from the Home Provinces, which likewise had similar claims to being founded in the early to late 7th century, and I question how much a role the government had in each of them.

. In 673, there were two temple-related mentions of note in the Chronicles. In one of Ohoama's earliest edicts he orders the copying of the Issaiko, the Buddhist canon, at Kawaradera. That same year, 673, Prince Mino and Ki no Omi no Katamaro—whom we discussed last episode—were sent to build Takechi temple, later known as Daikandaiji. I mention Daikandaiji specifically because

while it was originally built as the Temple of Takechi, at some point took on that other name—"Daikandaiji", aka Ohotsukasa no Ohodera—which Aston translates as the "Great Temple of the Great Palace", as it appears to have specifically been designated as the great temple of the government. In other words, it is one of a few National Temples. And this became particularly important in the year 680, which is the year we are told the government stopped administering—and, more importantly, stopped funding—all but a handful of so-called "national temples". At this point, as I've mentioned, Buddhism was widespread enough that there were enough adherents that could maintain their own local temples. Of course, local elites likely found some cachet in funding temples, and communities of believers in various areas would likewise have been asked to provide funds as well.

So the court accordingly declared that going forward, the government would only administer 2 or 3 national temples. For all other temples, if tthey had been granted the proceeds of sustenance-fiefs, those would be limited, from the first year to the last, of 30 years in total. As I read it, that indicates that if they had received the fiefs 15 years ago, they would be allowed to hold onto them for another 15 years, after which point they would need to find alternative sources of funding.

The early national temples appear to be Daikandaiji and Kawaradera. Finally, there is Yakushiji, which Ohoama began construction on in 680 for his queen, Uno no Sarara, when she was ill—and just hold on to that for now. Interestingly, Asukadera, or Houkouji, in many ways the original national temple, was not designated as such in the new reorganization, but it would continue to be administered by the government as a temple in a special arrangement. That's why the original count in the Nihon Shoki mentions "2 or 3" national temples instead of four.

These four temples are mentioned in the Shoku Nihongi, the Chronicles following the Nihon Shoki, as the Four Great Temples, or Yondaiji. Although that work wasn't compiled and published until the end of the 8th century, the term Yondaiji appears in an entry for 702, about five years after the last entry in the Nihon Shoki, and over a decade before its publication

So at this point we're going to look at each of these "great" temples individually, plus a couple of other important ones, and what they tell us about the history of Buddhism, Buddhist temples, and the Yamato state at this point in Ohoama's reign.

The first of these four temples, chronologically, is Asukadera. This is the temple originally built by the Soga, and the first major Buddhist temple built. Its layout shows three separate golden image halls, or kondou. And here we should probably recap something about the general layout of a Buddhist temple, so we can understand what we are talking about.

The most important buildings in a Buddhist temple at this time were the kondou, the golden image halls; the pagoda, or stupa; and the koudou, or lecture hall. The golden image halls held golden Buddhist images—Buddhas, Boddhisatvas, Arthats, and more. These rooms are often somewhat dark, and would have been lit mainly by candles, as well as the sun coming through—though even then the sun often is obscured by overhanging rooves and latticework. Sometimes the doors would have small openings so that the sun's rays strike in a particular way at different times. All of this presents an image of bright gleaming gold in the darkness—a metaphor for the teachings of the Buddha, but also an intentionally awe inspiring display for those who came to view them and pray.

The kondo were usually the first structures to be built for a temple, so if your temple had nothing else, it probably had an image hall.

The next structure that one would probably build would be the stupa, or pagoda. A pagoda was a tower, in which were sometimes kept images, but more importantly, it would often hold some kind of relic. The idea of the stupa originated as a place to house relics—often bone fragments and teeth attributed to the Buddha, even if those were actually precious stones. Stupas were originally (and still, in many places) large mounds, but as Buddhism made its way over the Silk Road, these were replaced with multi-tiered towers. Pagodas are often 3 or 5 storeys, though the number of stories can go up to 7 or 9 or as low as 1. Once again, in a world where most buildings, other than perhaps a specially made lookout tower, were only one or maybe two stories in height, a three to five story pagoda must have been something to behold, especially covered with tiled eaves, adorned with bronze bells, and brightly painted in the continental fashion.

In Europe I would point to similar uses of gold and ostentatious ornamentation on the cathedrals of the day, and even in churches more generally, if on a smaller scale. This is meant to impress and thus lend authority to the institution. And of course, because that institution was so closely aligned to the State, it gave the State authority as well. We mentioned, previously, how the monumental structures of the kofun had given way to the Buddhist temples as a form of ritual display.

The last of the three buildings I would mention is the lecture hall, or Koudou. This would also likely have Buddhist images, but it was more of a functional hall for conducting rituals, including recitation of sutras and presenting Buddhist teachings. The koudou was often at the back or north end of the temple complex. In early Buddhist temple layouts, it was common to have everything in a straight line, more or less, and to remain symmetrical. So there would be a main gate through which one would enter. In front of you there you probably saw the pagoda. Beyond the pagoda was a path, and then the kondou, or image hall, typically with a lantern in front, and behind that was the koudou, or lecture hall.

This was all typically oriented on a north-south axis, such that one would enter through the southern gate and walk north towards the lecture hall. The north-south orientation is likely another feature from the continent, where the most important buildings were often south-facing, and thus in the north of the compound. This was the same with the palace layout, and likely for similar reasons—not just cultural, but also practical. After all, the sun, in the northern hemisphere, remains slightly to the south, and so this would have provided the most light through the day.

This layout was not strictly adhered to, however. For instance, if we look at Asukadera, you would enter through the southernmost gate and you were then met with another gate for an inner compound. This middle gate would lead you to a large courtyard, about 320 meters on a side, with a covered walkway, or gallery, along the entire circumference of the compound. Entering through the middle gate one would have first noticed the large pagoda and not one but three golden image halls. A path led to the pagoda, and then beyond from the pagoda to the central kondou. There is even a stone where a large bronze lantern was likely situated between the pagoda and the kondou. Based on archaeological evidence, it appears that there was originally just one image hall, directly north of the pagoda, but at a later date, they added two more kondou to the east and west of the pagoda. This has been compared to a temple layout found in Goguryeo, but given that these were likely later additions, and we know that Baekje artisans were involved, I suspect that is just later coincidence.

Connecting the layout of the temples to continental examples has been a keen area of study for many scholars. The general theory is that temple layouts can help point to whether there was more of a Baekje, Silla, or Goguryeo influence during the construction of the temple, and what that might have meant for Yamato's international relations as well as various political factions in the court who may have leaned more towards one group or another.

The last building at Asukadera, the koudou, or lecture hall, was directly north of the kondou, but you couldn't get there directly. The entire pagoda and image hall compound was separate from the lecture hall, which stood north and apart, though still on the temple grounds, which would have been surrounded by an outer wall.

At this point, since we're talking about the layout of Asukadera and where it came from, I'm going to digress from the next of the four great temples and talk about two other early temples that are important for understanding Buddhist temple building at this time. So bear with me for this slight detour.

The first of these is Shitennoji, the Temple of the Four Heavenly Kings, in modern Osaka. This temple is said to have been built in 593, and is attributed to Shotoku Taishi. Presumably he made a vow to do so during the war between the Soga and the Mononobe, which we discussed back in episode 91. As you may recall from that and earlier episodes, the Mononobe were considered to be against the idea of Buddhism, while the Soga were promoting it.

Shitennouji was important, but doesn't show up in the Chronicles as much as other temples, and was all the way over in Naniwa. As such, I suspect that it was not considered a good candidate for "national" temple status at the time. Still, if we look at the original layout, Shitennoji is quite similar to what we see in Asukadera. Everything is on a north-south axis. You go through a middle gate to the inner compound. There you find a pagoda, and past that, a lantern and then the kondou. Unlike Asukadera, the koudou, or lecture hall, is incorporated into the back wall, such that the gallery continues from the middle gate around to either side, and then meets at the sides of the lecture hall. There are also east and west gates, as well as other buildings, but the main layout is pretty comparable.

The second is another temple, which also lays claim to being founded by Prince Shotoku Taishi, and which was not included in the four great temples. This may have had to do with the fact that it wasn't in the Asuka valley, but also may have had to do with just the timing. That temple is the famous one known as Horyuji. Horyuji was founded on the site of the Ikaruga palace, said to have been the home of none other than Prince Umayado, aka Shotoku Taishi. As such, one imagines it was quite the prominent temple in its day. However, it was at a distance from the capital, and it also had the misfortune to have burned down in about 670, just before Ohoama ascended the throne, and it wasn't fully rebuilt until about 711, leaving a forty year gap where the temple was not necessarily at the forefront of Buddhism.

Still, like Shitennoji, it is interesting to look at the original layout for Horyuji and compare it to Asukadera. First off, you have the same north-south orientation, and you have the same separate, internal compound for the image hall and the pagoda. Unlike in Asukadera, however, the kondou and the pagoda, which both faced south, were on an east-west axis, flanking the central pathway. Entering through the middle gate one would have seen a five storey pagoda on the left and the kondo on the right. The Koudou was outside the inner compound in the rear, along that central north-south axis. There is also evidence of two other buildings. One likely held a large bell—and possibly a drum—and the other was likely a sutra repository, where they could keep holy texts and various ritual implements.

I will also note that, even though Horyuji burned down in 670 and was accordingly not that prominent during Ohoama's reign, it is absolutely worth visiting because substantial portions of those rebuilt buildings are still standing today. Indeed, both the Horyuji pagoda and kondou are among the oldest wooden buildings in the world. The central pillar of the pagoda was felled in 594 according to dendrochronological dating. The kondou was damaged by fire during a restoration in 1949, but about 15-20% of the original building from 670 still remains.

Going back to the Great Temples, the next of these to be built was Kudara Ohodera. Kudara here means "Baekje", but this appears to refer more to the temple's location near the Kudara river, rather than to the kingdom of Baekje. Kudara Ohodera is remarkable in a couple of different ways. First off, there is the fact that it is the first temple with a firm royal lineage—that is to say a temple that claims to have been founded by the sovereign. Asukadera was founded by Soga no Umako, the Prime Minister, and though Prince Umayado is said to have been the Crown Prince, nonetheless, he never reigned as sovereign, though he was considered the founder of both Shitenouji and Houryuuji. Kudara Ohodera, however, is said to have been founded at the behest of Tamura, aka Jomei Tennou, who reigned from 629-641. The temple appears to get its start in a record dated to 639, and by 645 it appears to be fully operational.

There is another tale of its founding—in the Daianji Engi, the history of Daianji, a successor temple to Kudara Ohodera, there is mention of a Kumagori Dojo, and many modern histories claim that this was the actual first temple, but there isn't much evidence. Donald McCallum, in his treatment of Kudara Ohodera's history in his book, "The Four Great Temples", suggests that the Kumagori Dojo story is likely a later legendary founding that got recorded, as there is scant evidence for it, and no mention of it in other records. On the actual founding of Kudara Ohodera, however, there does appear to be general agreement with the Nihon Shoki, despite some minor differences in the dates.

The call to build Kudara Ohodera comes alongside Tamura's also building Kudara Palace. Kudara Ohodera was also built on a grand scale, and it is said to have had a nine-storey pagoda—almost double the size of a five-storey pagoda, which already towered over other buildings of the time.

Despite all of this, for a long time it was unclear where Kudara Ohodera was actually situated. There were several sites proposed, but most recently archaeological research on Kibi Pond seems to have placed the temple there. At excavations on the southern side of the pond were found remnants of the foundations of two buildings, arranged in an east-west format. The western foundation would appear to be for a pagoda—but one much larger than any of the five storey pagodas we've seen elsewhere. And to the east was the foundation for what appears to be the kondo. This golden image hall, however, is likewise much larger than any other hall of this time. This arrangement would fit very well with a Houryuuji-like temple layout. There were also various other traces that were consistent with the early mid-7th century, which would coincide with the 639-645 dates for Kudara Ohodera's construction.

Subsequent excavations appear to have found quarters for the priests, as well as at least part of a gallery wall and one gate, situated due south of the kondo. There may have been another gate south of the pagoda. The koudou, the lecture hall, may have been in the area that was later excavated to create the pond, and therefore we may never have any hard evidence of its location, despite numerous attempts to dig trenches to find more of the temple buildings. This probably also means that, similar to Shitennouji, the lecture hall was incorporated into the enclosing gallery wall rather than being outside, because if it was outside, then it likely would have been farther north and we would probably have seen some trace. As it is, the lack of any trace suggests that it was inside or part of the enclosure with the pagoda and kondou.

The large size of this archeological site concurs with what we know about Kudara Ohodera, both in its description and in the fact that it is referred to as "Ohodera", or "Great Temple"—no other temple has really been given that name directly, though there are a few references to "Ohodera" that are ambiguous and might refer either to this temple or Asukadera.. Still, if this temple, sometimes also called Kibi Pond Temple due to its location, is *not* Kudara Ohodera then that just brings up more questions. How could there have been such a monumental Buddhist temple this close to Asuka and within the bounds of the later Fujiwara-kyo and yet nobody thinks to mention it? It doesn't appear to have been started and abandoned, as there were quite a few structures built. So if this isn't Kudara Temple then someone has some 'splaining to do.

Indeed, McCallum notes that while there are some objections, the preponderance of evidence seems to lean greatly in favor of the Kibi Pond site for Kudara Ohodera. We still have yet to find the Kudara palace, however, so who knows. There are also questions about the construction as various architectural features are missing in ways that are not consistent with other sites. Some oddities, such as a seeming lack of rooftiles given the apparent size of the building, actually may be a point in favor of this being Kudara Ohodera, since we know that the temple was moved in 673 when Ohoama requested that they build the Takechi Ohodera, which appears to have been Kudara's successor temple. If they had reused the material from Kudara Ohodera to build, at least in part, Takechi Ohodera, that could explain why rooftiles and other such things are not present in the numbers expected at the Kibi Pond site.

Takechi Ohodera is another bit of a mystery. I can't help but note that Takechi is the name given Ohoama's son who was with him on the front lines of the Jinshin no Ran. We also see a "Takechi no Agata-nushi", who is noted as the governor of the district of Takechi. In all cases here it is spelled "Taka-ichi", or "high market", and it is not an uncommon name—we even find a Miwa no Kimi no Takechimaro.

In the record of the Jinshin no Ran it is noted that the governor of Takechi was possessed by the kami of Takechi and of Musa. These were named as Kotoshironushi and Ikuikazuchi. They claimed that they had been the kami that escorted Ohoama to Fuwa and saw him safely there. As such, donations were made to their shrines. Musa is an area in modern Takaichi district, which includes the area of Asuka, and is part of Kashihara city. The Takaichi Agata Jinja—or the Takechi District Shrine—sits in the Shijo area of Kashihara city, north of Mt. Unebi.

There are several proposed locations for Takechi Ohodera, but despite excavations, no clear temple features have been found. As such, there isn't anything to clearly point to one or the other.

What we do know is that Takechi Ohodera underwent another transformation. According to the Daianji Engi, the Takechi Ohodera was renamed to Daikandaiji in 677. There is no specific mention of this in the Nihon Shoki, other than a note that Takechi Ohodera was also known as Daikandaiji and a reference, in 679, of "fixing the names". Personally, I can't help but wonder if this is a case of a nickname becoming the name-in-fact. As I mentioned earlier in the episode, Daikandaijij, which can also be read as "Oho-tsukasa no Oho-tera" can be translated into something like Great Government Official Great Temple or Great Temple of the Royal Court.

We do know the location of this temple in later years, but this is probably not exactly where Takechi Ohodera was originally built. For one thing, it is suspicious that the temple lines up exactly with the later grid for Fujiwara-kyo, the later capital city that was built north of Asuka. We also are told by the Daianji Engi that a nine storey pagoda and kondou were built between 697 and 707 CE. There are also notes about activities at the temple mentioned in the Shoku Nihongi for the same period. And yet there were also activities being held during that time which would not seem feasible if they were renovating in place. So likely the new construction was at a new site—possibly near the old site. And at this later site, the rooftiles were from a later period, closer to the period of the later construction and not really matching with earlier construction dates.

So what did this temple of many names – Kudara Ohodera, then Takechi Ohodera, then Daikandaiji – actually look like? We probably have a layout for the original temple and the later temple. If Kibi Pond Temple is the original Kudara Ohodera, the original temple had the kondou and the pagoda on the same east-west axis, and likely had the koudou north of that – very Horyuji-like. But based on the layout at the later temple site, we have something quite different. From the central gate, there is a path straight towards the Kondou, with the Koudou directly north of that, and the nine-storey pagoda in an odd, off-set position, southeast of the kondou. This disrupts the symmetry even more than the Kudara Ohodera layout. There is some speculation that this asymmetry was temporary and that they planned to fill the other space but just never got around to it, but there is no indication that they had prepared for anything, either. Also odd is the fact that the koudou, the lecture hall, was the same size as the image hall, the kondou, and that was roughly the same size as the enormous hall at Toudaiji, which is really saying something. This really was a tremendous building, fitting for the main temple of the royal government.

The third of the four great temples is Kawaradera, and this one is challenging to plot out chronologically as there isn't a lot of documentation. There is no exact date for the building of Kawaradera. There is a mention of it in 653, but the same entry in the Nihon Shoki also states that there are sources that claim it should be Yamadadera, instead. Based on other evidence, this actually seems more likely.

Yamadadera is thought to have been the work of Soga no Kurayamada no Ishikawa no Maro, and it is where he eventually fled when accused of treason. It was founded in 641, according to the Joguki, the record of Prince Shotoku, but construction didn't actually start until2 years later, and monks only began to occupy it in 648. The following year, however, construction halted as that is when Ishikawa no Maro fled there and committed suicide. Construction was resumed in 663, but still took time. Still, even in the middle of this very long DIY project, it makes sense that there might be some activities in 653, even if construction was paused. Later the temple would be completed, and seems to have had powerful backing. Uno no Sarara, Ohoama's queen, was a granddaughter of Ishikawa no Maro, and so likely had a connection to the temple, but it never attained the status of a national temple the way the others had. As far as its layout—it was similar to Shitennouji, with the pagoda, kondo, and koudou all in a line on the north-south axis.

Kawaradera was another matter. Though we aren't sure when it was built, exactly. If we discount the 653 date as applying to Yamadadera instead, then the first date we really see anything at Kawara is Kawara Palace, built for Takara Hime—aka Saimei Tennou—who took up residence there when the Itabuki Palace burned. Later it would be used for her mogari—her temporary interment. The next mention of a temple at Kawara isn't until this reign, in 673, when Ohoama had the Buddhist canon, the Issaiko, copied, as I noted at the top of the episode. So it must have been established and built some time before 673.

Although we don't know when it was founded, we very clearly know where it was, as the foundations stones are still present, and quite clear—and unlike other Asuka era temples, it would stay in Asuka, rather than being removed up to the new capital at Heijo-kyo.

Given everything else and its apparent importance, the lack of information on when Kawaradera was established is quite odd. McCallum suggests that this could have been deliberate as a way to help delegitimize the temple in the 8th century, but also admits that it may have just been due to the general problems with early record keeping back in the day and there may not have been a good record of why and when the temple was founded. The rooftiles are similar to those used during the time that the court was at Ohotsu. I would also note that there is a connection between the foundation stones and a quarry up near Ohotsu at what is, today, Ishiyamadera. That still doesn't tell us when Kawaradera was founded, as that could have been any time, and doesn't necessarily mean that it was during the time the court was in Ohotsu.

Regardless of what textual evidence does or does not exist, the archaeological evidence is pretty staggering. Even today you can go and see some of the exposed foundation stones. This was a massive temple. There was a south gate and then a middle gate just north of that. The main enclosure was divided into two courtyards. In the first, just beyond the middle gate, at the north end was the middle kondo, while in the courtyard itself, facing each other on an east-west axis, was a western kondou and the temple pagoda. Past the middle kondou was a larger courtyard, with the koudou, or lecture hall, in the north, with a bell tower or sutra hall in the south west and southeast corners. The walls of the enclosure were made up of a covered gallery, and around the outside of the northern courtyard, containing the koudou, were smaller chambers believed to be the monks quarters, something we don't necessarily see at all of the other sites.

Despite being an important temple, and one of the Four Great Temples during the Asuka periods, when the capital eventually moved to Heijo-kyo, in modern Nara, Kawaradera had the distinction of being the only one of the four that was not moved as well. All three of the other Great Temples had new compounds built in Heijo-kyo, and the temples were thus "transferred" to the new capital. Presumably that means that most of the monks and administration moved there, and those new temples took up the roles, duties, and responsibilities of the old temples. The temple complexes in Asuka were not necessarily destroyed or deconstructed, but instead were apparently left to their own devices, becoming reduced in status. Many of them fell into disrepair, and when disasters, such as fire, struck they were not rebuilt to the same extent as before, if at all.

Kawaradera, however, appears to have not been transferred. It would eventually be replaced as one of the Four Great Temples by the temple of Koufukuji, which was specifically a temple for the Fujiwara family, who were having a bit of a moment in the Nara period. Some have speculated that Kawaradera was specifically left behind in Asuka for that reason—so that the Fujiwara family temple could sneak into the ranks of national temples. Or it may have been that Kawaradera had a particular connection to Takara Hime and the site of her interment. If it was a memorial temple to her, then perhaps it didn't seem appropriate to remove it from its physical location. McCallum also suggests that it was so powerful in its position in Asuka that it preferred to stay and keep its stipend-fiefs, perhaps believing that even the move to Heijo-kyo would be just another short fad, as had been Ohotsu and Fujiwara-kyo. Of course, if so, they were sorely mistaken.

And so Kawaradera would eventually fade from the picture, but during the time of Ohoama's reign, and into that of his immediate successors, it seems that it certainly held some sway.

The fourth of the Four Great Temples was the temple of Yakushiji—the temple of the Medicine Buddha. This is the latest temple of the bunch. Its construction was ordered in the year 680 in response to Ohoama's queen, Uno no Sarara, falling ill. And so he vowed to build a temple for her—specifically a temple to Yakushi Nyorai, the Medicine Buddha, whom we discussed last episode. That said, there is considerable time between the order to construct a temple and getting enough of it built to actually be functional. I haven't really touched on this, except when I briefly discussed Yamadadera and how long that took to build, but all of these temples were massive works, much more complicated than the traditional palace buildings. For the most part, palace architecture could be built relatively quickly with the tools and labor available. This was a good thing, seeing as how, for many years, the sovereign had moved again and again, either because of the previous sovereign's death in the palace or just because they chose a new location for a palace. As such, one couldn't spend years building a new palace. So palace buildings were simply made with wooden posts, sunk into the ground, with thatched roofs. In a few examples we see attempts to use wooden boards or tiles, but they weren't complicated.

A temple, on the other hand, was something different. Temples were largely wood, but they were massive in size and their roofs were covered in heavy ceramic tiles. All of that weight had to be properly distributed on a strong base—simple posts were not likely to work. Instead they were built on raised stone foundations. That's great for us looking at them, today, but at the time it would have been an inordinate amount of labor. Hence why a temple like Yamadadera took so long to build.

So Yakushiji may have been founded in 680, but was likely not finished until much later, which is why we don't really see it in the records for Ohoama's reign and why the order for national temples probably only states that there were just two or three. However, it would become one of the four great temples, and is also notable because, in its transfer to Heijokyo, it largely retained its shape and layout, meaning that you can go to it, today, and still get some sense of what it may have been like back in the Asuka period. Granted, there are certainly differences, but there are enough similarities that it is likely worth a visit. Many of the other temples were significantly modified when they were rebuilt in the new capital in Nara.

The layout for Yakushiji is a basic rectangular layout. North of the central gate there is not one, but two pagodas, on an east-west axis from each other, flanking the path to the kondo, roughly in the center. Finally the koudou at the north end, built into the roofed gallery. The modern Yakushiji, a UNESCO world heritage site, maintains one of the pagodas from 730. Other buildings have been lost and rebuilt over the years. Today, the covered gallery only goes around half of the compound. This temple would be important, but mostly in the period following the current reign.

This period of the four Great Temples perhaps gives us some insight into the relationship between Buddhism and the State. Early on, Buddhism was the province largely of the Soga family, and Soga no Umako was apparently the most powerful figure of his day. He founded Asukadera, and early temples weree founded by Soga or their associates, including Prince Umayado. McCallum points out that the National Temples, however, were, with one exception, founded by sovereigns. Kudara Ohodera was the first, Kawaradera was likely founded for Takara Hime, and Yakushiji was founded for Queen Uno. The only one of the four that wasn't expressly founded on a sovereign's order was that of Asukadera, the temple by Soga no Umako. This may explain why it was both included and excluded as a national temple in the Chronicles. After all, there is no doubting its importance, but the narrative of a single, strong, royal house is somewhat impeded by the idea that one of those temples was founded by what was, for all of his power and authority, a private individual. Ultimately they didn't include it in the edict and yet still acknowledged it as one of the Great Temples.

McCallum also points out that these four may not have been fixed quite so early on. For example, on the matter of Houryuuji—there is a bronze plaque that mentions an "Ikaruga no Ohodera", suggesting that the Ikaruga Temple—that is to say Houryuuji, founded on the estates of Prince Umayado—was at one time granted that title. Of course, there are questions as to the exact date of the inscription, and whether or not they meant "Ohodera" in the later sense of a national temple or simply in the sense that it was large; and the term may have meant something else, earlier on.

The roster of official temples, the Tsukasa no Tera or Kanji, would grow over time, but that is something for a later period. It is worth noting, though, that the Chronicles at this point seem to distinguish between three types or levels of temples at this time, based on other edicts that we see. There is also the matter of temple names.

The first edict is from the 5th day of the 4th lunar month of 679, six years into Ohoama's reign. The declaration states that the court would consider the history of any temple with sustenance fiefs and add or remove them as appropriate. This suggests that there were temples with sustenance fiefs—that is, that had stipends based on lands whose official output went to their upkeep—and temples without such fiefs. The latter were likely more local temples, likely funded by local elites, possibly out of actual devotion, or an attempt to gain the power that Buddhism presumably brought, or possibly just in emulation of the central court, much as the peripheral elites had also constructed the keyhole shaped kofun. Along with the adjustments of stipends, we are also told that the administration quote-unquote "fixed" the names of the temples.

This again goes to the government's control of the temples and Buddhism. McCallum suggests that what is meant here is that they moved away from locative names to Buddhist names for the temple; up to this point, temple names appear to be about the location of the temple. So we have Asuka dera, or Asuka Temple, built in Asuka. Kudara Ohodera is Kudara Great Temple because it was by the Kudara river and the Kudara palace. When it was moved to Takechi, they changed the name to Takechi temple. Kawaradera was at Kawara, while the temple we know as Houryuuji was known at the time as Ikaruga Temple—or possibly Ikaruga Great Temple. But later these temples would be known by their Buddhist names, so Asukadera is Houkouji. Kudara Ohodera becomes Daikandaiji—and in fact, it is after this point that we see Daikandaiji in the narrative. Ikaruga dera—though not one of the yondaiji, or four Great Temples—becomes Horyuuji. I'm not quite so sure about Kawaradera, but Yakushiji, which is founded after this decree, comes to us with a Buddhist name rather than just the name of a location.

This change in name likely simplified, somewhat, the concept of moving, or transferring the temples. Rather than establishing a brand new temple with new administration and everything, they could build a new temple, but grant it the name and rights of the old temple. The old temple grounds could still be used and occupied—it was still *a* temple, but it was no longer *the* temple, at least for official purposes. It would be strange, however, to move the Asuka Temple up to the area of modern Nara city and still call it the Asuka Temple.

The year after reassessing the stipends and fixing the names of the temples we get the edict about the 2 or 3 national temples. And we've mostly discussed that, but here I would just point out that it does add a third distinction to the types of temples. So we have temples with no stipends, temples with stipends—but they would only last for 30 years total after which they were expected to find new sources of funding—and the national temples, which would presumably receive funding through the government in perpetuity—or until the court changed its mind.

So why do we care about any of this? Obviously Buddhism has had a huge impact on Japanese culture. However, this isn't just about the religion as an idea, but about the institutions. These temples—especially these great temples—contained a fair amount of wealth. It wasn't just the golden images, or the elaborate amount of work and materials that went into the creation of the buildings. There was also the sustenance-fiefs that were paying for the upkeep. These temples were also being managed by formal government administrators. They also performed rituals that the court relied on. Association with these temples was no doubt important. Later we see princes and other members of high status families taking high ranking positions, and the temples ended up cultivating their own power. Over time, the power of various Buddhist institutions would grow, often challenging or even rivaling the power of the court itself.

There are a few other items from this reign that we see related to these temples and Buddhism, more generally. In 677 we see a Buddhist festival at Asukadera, where the entire canon was apparently reda out. The sovereign himself showed up and did obeisance to the Three Precious Things—an interesting bit of religious piety and humility. At the same time, he had all of the Princes and Ministers find one person each to renounce the world and become a monk or nun—both men and women were chosen, without apparent distinction. We are also assured that they all did so of their own volition, and weren't forced.

In 679, we see a regulation on the clothing of priests and nuns, as well as the men and horses who accompanied them when they traveled. If priests are going around with a full on noble retinue, well, that probably says something about the status of priests—at least the abbots and heads of these institutions.

680 – A fire breaks out at the nunnery at Tachibana temple. Tachibanadera is situated south of Kawaradera, and similar to that temple, it seems to have previously been the site of a royal palace and also isn't recorded as being founded in the Nihon Shoki—it appears fully formed in this record. Tachibanadera's own records seem to suggest that it was founded in 606, and claims a founding by Shotoku Taishi. It is also said to be the site of the palace where Shotoku Taishi was born to his mother, Princess Anahobe no Hashibito, consort of Tachibana no Toyohi, aka Yomei Tennou. Shotoku Taishi is also the subject of the primary image of Tachibana temple, today.

Although Tachibanadera wasn't one of the Four Great Temples, it was likely connected to one—Kawaradera. Not only was it built on the same north-south axis as Kawaradera, but some of the tiles are similar to Kawaradera's founding tiles. The layout was similar to Yamada-dera or Shitennouji, with the pagoda, kondou, and kooudou, all in a single north-south orientation. It is possible that Kawaradera was a monastery for male monks while Tachibanadera may have been the complementary nunnery for female initiates.

680 had a lot going on. In the 10th lunar month, the sovereign handed out alms to monks and nuns—silk and cloth. A month later, Ohoama vowed Yakushiji in hopes that it would help his wife, Queen Uno, who was unwell. He also granted a general amnesty, likely to just add further merit. Apparently it was successful, as she would go on to live for quite some time after that, even helping to take the reins of government when Ohoama himself fell ill.

In 682, Princess Hidaka fell ill. 190 people, both men and women, were pardoned for capital or lesser crimes, in an attempt to make merit, and the following day we are told that over 140 people renounced the world at Daikandaiji—likely on the Princess's behalf.

The year after that, 683, we see the sovereign making appointments to the official buddhist offices of Soujou, Soudzu, and Risshi—Doctors of the Law. This was probably a somewhat regular occurrence, though this is the first time we see the Risshi, it seems. The mention here is apparently due to the admonition given that "Those who control the monks and nuns should act according to the law." Definitely seems to be something there—perhaps a reason as to why the Soujou and Soudzu were being appointed. But the Nihon Shoki doesn't give us a lot more to go on other than speculation.

Later that same year, in the 7th lunar month, we see priests and nuns gathered at the palace for the first ever ango, or retreat. An ango is where priests and nuns of different temples are brought together. The term refers to a practice said to come from the time of Shakyamuni, before there were temples. Shakyamuni's acolytes, who spent much of the year wandering, would return to one place during the rainy season. At that time they would listen and discuss Shakyamuni's teachings. In some sects, this practice of coming together would be particularly important, and it was a mark of honor for how many retreats a monk might have attended over the years.

In 685, the court promoted Buddhism with an edict requiring every household to maintain a Buddhist altar, with a statue of the Buddha and a copy of a sutra inside. It is unclear to me if this was just for merit-making or what, but it must have been somewhat lucrative for the various temples, who would have likely been the source for said sutras, and, at least peripherally, the statues as well.

Later that year, in the 4th lunar month, there was another ango at the palace. The month after that, Ohoama went to Asukadera and presented precious objects and worshipped. In the 8th lunar month Ohoama went to Joudouji – Aston claims this is Asukadera, also known as Houkouji—and the next day he visited Kawaradera and provided rice to the monks there. One month after that, Ohoama was feeling ill, so the court ordered Daikandaiji, Kawaradera, and Asukadera—the three Great Temples that were fully operational at that point—to chant sutras for his sake. In return they were granted various quantities of rice.

Ohoama recovered for a time, but it was perhaps a precursor of what was to come. A month later a monk from Baekje and a lay monk were sent out to seek a medicinal herb known as white okera. Today, a similar compound is known in Chinese traditional medicine as Bái Zhú. A few months later Ohoama went to the medicinal herb garden of Shiranishiki, and a few weeks later he was presented with Bai Zhu, the boiled white okera. That same day, ritualists performed the Chikonsai, the "Calling of the Spirit". All of this seems to indicate the early onset of symptoms that may have been temporarily abated, but likely were part of the disease or illness that would eventually take his life.

But we covered most of that last episode, and we are already dragging on longer than I expected, so I think I'm going to end it here. Coming up in the narrative, since I started to mention it, I'll probably take a look next at the founding of the new capital of Fujiwara kyo, and what that would mean, along with other initiatives that would outlive Ohoama.

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.

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.

For the first regular episode of the year (excepting our New Year's recap) we take a look at the New Year Traditions at Temmu's court. How did the court celebrate the New Year in the late 7th century?

For more, check out our blogpost: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-141

Rough Transcript:

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 141: Temmu's New Year's Traditions

The chill winter air meant that most of the assembled crowd had donned multiple layers of robes. Men and women had assembled together, upon the open, rock-covered courtyard, both to see and be seen. To the north and east of the courtyard were the walls and gates of the buildings that made up the royal palace, the rooves of the buildings just visible beyond the gates.

The onlookers stood arrayed around the open lanes that had been created for the event—at one end of the rocky field were targets, while at the other were archers, also arrayed in their finest outfits. While technically they wore hunting robes, cut to allow greater movement in the arm, many of these fabrics had no business being anywhere near a moor or the dirt of open fields. After all, this wasn't just some hunt: They were demonstrating their skills in the center of the State.

At the officials' command, the archers let loose their arrows. The crowd murmured at the soft crack of the bowstring, the faint whisper of arrow as the fletchings cut through the air, and the thud as the arrows struck their targets. Looking downrange, approval bubbled through the crowd: the targets were well-struck. Behind the archers on the field, another group awaited their turn.

The events of the day would be the talk of the court, from the lowest clerk to the highest prince , for days to come. Not just the well-placed shot, but also the grace and poise of the one who had let loose an arrow of particular note. And heaven forbid an arrow miss its target. Even kicking up stones or scraping the earth could have negative social consequences. A particularly good showing could inspire poetry, and beyond the prizes being offered to the winner, could also bring notice to those from more obscure backgrounds.

The new year had just started, and a good performance might be just what was needed to help put the rest of the year on a good footing.

Welcome back! This is the first episode of the new year, 2026, and we are still going through the reign of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tenno, covering the period from 672 to 686.

Before we get started, though, a quick shout out to Suzuki for supporting us on Patreon. It means a lot and helps us keep this thing going. If you would like to support us or our efforts to maintain the website, where we also have the Armor manual, clothing, and a miscellany on various topics, we have information at Sengokudaimyo.com and we will have more information at the end of this and every episode. Support is appreciated as I really do want to try and minimize ads—I don't put any into the podcast myself, though some platforms may place ads around the podcast, which I cannot always control.

Now we've covered a lot this reign, but this episode we are going to cover three things in particular. First off, and perhaps a bit of a tangent, we'll talk about some of the issues with the Chronicles when it comes to reading it,especially in translation. It seems quite clear to me that even the sources that the Chroniclers were using weren't always in agreement with each other on how they spelled certain things or even in properly recording when things happened.

After that we'll cover the major topics of this episode, focusing primarily on the New Year traditions of the court—we'll look at the major events of the first month for each year in the reign, allowing us to see some of the similarities, and differences.

Finally, we'll look at the last year of Ohoama's reign, particularly as he grew ill, because it can be a fascinating question: What did people do when disease struck before we had modern medicine? Here the Chronicles reveal a lot about not only the beliefs of the time, but of their syncretism: how people were willing to reach out to whatever power they could in order to cure disease. Whether it was Yin-yang divination, beseeching the local kami, or attempting to make merit, all of these things were on the table when it came to illness and mortality.

And so, let's get into it.

One of the first things I want to talk about is the problem that we have in trying to read the Chronicles, both in the way they are written and then the translation issue on top of that. Even in Japanese the Chronicles have to be translated out of an ancient form of kanbun—basically a Japanese version of Chinese, using Sinitic characters.

Like any document written by non-native speakers, the Chronicles have their idiosyncrasies that make it different from what someone in Chang'an might be writing at the same time. There are times and places where it is clear that something is meant to be read in the Japanese pronunciation, which itself was different from modern Japanese. Add to this the fact that there are many times that different Sinitic characters sound alike in Japanese—especially in modern Japanese. So any English translation of the Chronicles which doesn't give the actual characters in the source text can add to the confusion.

This is why I like to consult either the Japanese Historical Text Initiative or an electronic version of the National History series text—though even those have issues at times when the characters used in the text don't exist in modern character sets, though that seems to be less and less of a problem.

One example I want to give of the complexities of reading the Chronicles, and the need to dive deeper into the original language and consult multiple versions, is a set of records for Ki no Omi no Abemaro and others. He is our first mention of a member of the Ki family: on the 9th day of the 8th month of 673, the first year since Ohoama's ascension and one year after the Jinshin no Ran, we are told that Ki no Omi no Abemaro and others were given favors and rewards for their service during the war in Iga province. Indeed, Ki no Omi no Abemaro is listed prominently in the records of the Jinshin no Ran and appears to have been one of the generals for Ohoama and the Yoshino faction in general. Less than a year later, on the 28th day of the 2nd month, Ki no Omi no Abemaro died and was posthumously awarded the rank of Daishi, which was 5th from the top in the old system of 26 ranks. A rather respectable rank, to be sure.

Later that same year we get a note that Ki no Omi no KATAmaro—another member of the family, apparently--was appointed, along with a "Prince Mino" as a commissioner for the erection of the Great Temple of Takechi.

Two years later, however, we get a record on the 22nd day of the 4th month of 676 that the sovereign, Ohoama, sent an order to the Governor of Mino telling him to let the children of Ki no Omi no Abemaro, resident in the district of Toki, be removed to the East country and become peasants in that country. On the face of it, this appears to be an incredible fall from grace. Ki no Omi no Abemaro is basically one of the top generals and heroes of the Jinshin no Ran, but his children are so unruly that they are banished to the East and stripped of their noble status? There has to be a story there, right?

Then in 679, on the 3rd day of the 2nd month, we are told that Ki no Omi no Katamaro died. For his service in the Jinshin War he received the posthumous rank of Upper Daikin. That would have been roughly the 7th rank—two below Ki no Abemaro. So was the Ki family back in the good graces of the court? What is going on?

First off, when we go to the original text, we see that Aston, whose translation of the Nihon Shoki we've been working on Ihas made an apparent error in translation. Remember, Aston was translating the Chronicles back in 1896, without the aid of modern computers, along with a lot of other research that has happened since then, and I can hardly fault him for missing things here and there. This is why, if you cannot check the original, you may want to also look at the new translation from John Bentley. Here we can see that he translates the name not as "Ki no Omi no Abemaro", but rather that of "Ki no Omi no KASAmaro". And if we compare Ki no Omi no KaSAmaro with the previous entry on Ki no Omi no KaTAmaro we can see that these are actually the exact same names except for a single character.

Which leads us to the question: Are these the same person, and the scribes simply miswrote one of the characters in the name? It may not even be on the Chroniclers so much as whatever texts they were, themselves, working on. This isn't helped by the fact that we later on see another entry for Ki no KATAmaro, but that one uses character for "KATA", meaning "hard", using the kun'yomi, or Japanese reading, rather than using two phonetic characters in the on'yomi reading. So is this just another way to write "KATAmaro" or is this a different person altogether?

Ultimately, we cannot be entirely sure. It does seem wild that there would be two "Ki no Omi no Katamaro" at court at the same time and nobody otherwise distinguished the two. The question about KaSAmaro and KaTAmaro, and whose kids were sent into exile, is a bit harder to untangle.

And, truth be told, it is ultimately a minor point. We have only a couple of lines here, and maybe these passages will help illuminate something later in the histories, but for now, they are just fragments of the story of what was happening. Parts of the tattered tapestry from which the royal history was ripped out and restitched together, the rest of the story largely discarded, unless it made its way to us through other means.

The Chronicles may be flawed, but they are still our main source for the period, and while we might challenge individual items, we still get a glimpse at how things operated back at this time. For instance, if we look at the events happening around the New Year, we can see some common threads.

The New Year is an important tradition in many cultures. Whether it was a solar or lunar cycle—or some combination—the new year indicated a new cycle, and was often accompanied by associated symbols and rituals. Today in the US it is often celebrated with fireworks and champagne, followed by making resolutions for the new year. In Japan, people will often go to their local shrine or temple for an important first visit, and temple bells will ring out 108 times.

Another tradition is the osechi-ryori, the traditional new years foods. This has grown over time from a tradition of eating a large bowl of rice to various other foods that are seen as auspicious or having special properties, such as the hardening of teeth—a major concern before the era of modern dental hygiene! Then there are traditions such as the Kagami Biraki, or opening of the mirror, and the creation of special mochi, or rice cakes for the purpose.

Of course all of these traditions started somewhere and have evolved over time, so what do we know about the New Year celebrations during the late 7th century? One caveat: in the Chronicles, we only really see what was happening in the court, and the Yamato court at that. There may have been local traditions that others were following that, unless we find documentation about them, we likely would never know. But many of the court traditions were passed down to later generations. These traditions appear to include the giving of gifts; large, celebratory banquets; and the annual archery tournament.

Banquets are some of the first and most common things we see. We see a banquet as Ohoama assumed the throne in 673—which probably was the event that overshadowed anything else they might have done that year. The following year, 674, there doesn't seem to have been much recorded, and I wonder if they were still pulling everything together after the turmoil of Ohoama's ascension. And so it is that in the first month of 675 we really get to see the annual new year's events in their full form.

On the second day of that year, from the Royal Princes on down, all of the public functionaries presented their respects to the sovereign. I suspect that this was a large ceremony, where everyone gathered in the courtyard of the palace together or something similar, not that each person individually went up and presented their respects—I doubt Ohoama would have wanted to sit through all of that. Also, as we've already seen, there were limits on what parts of the palace different functionaries were allowed to enter. So some of these well-wishers may have been "outside", others in the courtyard, and others in the palace building itself, depending on their rank and importance in the bureaucratic hierarchy.

On the following day, all public functionaries, from the initial rank upwards, presented firewood. Aston notes that this is the first mention of what would become a yearly practice. Firewood may not seem like much, but it would have likely been important to keeping things running, especially given how early people were supposed to arrive at the palace and administrative complex each day. This wasn't firewood for a fireplace—they didn't have those—but probably would have been used either for cooking or, I suspect, for the large braziers that burned with wood and pitch to light the darkness, particularly in the winter months. Firewood could also be processed into smaller pieces of coal for other uses.

It is interesting that for the first ceremony, the Chronicles describe the court from the Royal Princes on down, while for the giving of firewood the order is from the initial—which is to say the lowest—ranks upwards. This could indicate the order in which things progressed in these cases.

Several days after that, on the 7th day of the first month, a banquet was given at court for the Ministers—so only the higher ranking functionaries. But ten days later, on the 17th, everyone of rank—the Ministers of State; the Daibu, or high officials; and all of the public functionaries from the initial rank upwards had an archery meeting in the Court of the Western Gate.

Archery and archery contests had been important to the Yamato people for ages—and the same on the continent. Confucius, in his day, suggested that archery was a martial skill that even nobles should cultivate. I believe we've noted before how archery could be used both for warfare and for just feeding your family. As such, it was considered a particularly useful skill for just about everyone to have. It probably also helped that it was a martial skill that noblemen and others could use to show off without actually risking any injury to themselves in the process. I'm just saying. And as we described at the top of the episode, this particular archery contest would, for both participants and spectators, likely have been a chance to show off the top of their game, whether in martial prowess, clothing, or behavior.

And since we are looking at the new year's celebrations, let's keep this going and look at later years in Ohoama's reign. As I go through these you'll start to see the patterns, where the events I've just described will generally recur year after year, but not identically, sometimes with a shuffle in the schedule.

In 676, we see that the Ministers and public functionaries pay their respects on the first day of the new year. On the 4th day, the sovereign granted gifts to the higher level officials, from Royal Prince Takechi, down to the high officials, or Daibu, of Shoukin rank. Their not so secret Santa gifts included robes, hakama, lined garments, obi for their waist, leg straps, and staves, or walking sticks. We are also told that everyone above the rank of Shoukin also got an armrest thrown in, as well. Further gifts or grants were given out several days later, on the 7th, to everyone from Shoukin on up, based on their individual circumstances. Then, on the 15th, we again see all of the functionaries present firewood and then they were all entertained at a court banquet.

The following day they held the annual new year's archery contest, with prizes, at the court of the western gate. Those who hit the target received prizes of different values. In his recent translation of the Nihon Shoki, Bentley references Kuroita on Article 41 of Miscellaneous Statutes, saying that this archery event was apparently a regular new year's occurrence, and even the prizes were noted as varying over time.

The same day they held the archery contest, that year, Ohoama held a banquet at the Shima Palace. Shima was the name given to the Soga Prime Minister, back in the day, so I assume that this was at or near the site of the old Soga residence?

In 677, by comparison, we don't see nearly as much referenced. There is archery at the South Gate, vice the west gate, but that is it. The festivities in 678 similarly only talk about the archery at the south gate. There is also mention of a preparation for worshipping the kami of heaven and earth, for which a purification was held throughout the state. In addition, an abstinence palace, or saiguu, was erected on the bank of the Kurahashi river. Kurahashi appears to refer to a tributary of the Ohara river, in Sakurai. This feels less like a New Year's celebration, however, and more like a sign of merit-making. The Saiguu would have likely been to prepare for a trip to Ise shrine, and three months later Ohoama was preparing to go to the Saiguu, but that is when Princess Towochi suddenly died, and they scuttled the plans.

In 679, the court greeted the New Year with a new decree. Ohoama declared that Princes, Ministers, and public functionaries—anyone in service to the government, basically, were to refrain from paying respects during New Years or other ceremonies to anyone except relatives of the grade of elder brother, elder sister, and above, or to the senior members of the Houses. Princes weren't even to pay respects to their own mothers unless they were, themselves, princesses. Ministers were likewise not to pay respects to their mothers if they were of "mean" rank. In other words, if they were commoners.

These kinds of statutes are interesting. First of all, you ask yourself why? In all likelihood, there were various local traditions and individuals paid respects to their parents as well as to others to whom they owed respect for one reason or another. Here the State is ordering society such that there is a clear hierarchy, at least among the members of the court. Since women often found advancement by marrying up, it was usual for one's mother to have been born a lower rank in society than oneself. And so we see them enforcing the social order. That new order was based on Confucian concepts of hierarchy, and this seems to go along with those same ideas.

What we don't really see is how this was enforced—if at all.

The day after that, the yearly archery competition took place at the West Gate of the palace.

The next year, 680, we see a New Year's Banquet at the Court of the Great Hall. Ohoama himself occupied the Mukai-kodono, which appears to refer to one of the smaller wings. Based on the palace layout that we see in the posthole remains, this probably means that he was set up in the smaller wing, likely in a more intimate space, while most of the other guests were in the large hall, maintaining that crucial separation of sovereign and subjects.

This New Year's archery event included Princes of the Blood all the way down to the rank of Shouken—the very lowest rank in the court—and it was held at the South Gate.

You may be noticing a pattern, that the archery competition is listed as being held at either the south or west gates. The south gate probably refers to the main gate of the later Okamoto—aka the Kiyomihara—palace. The West gate refers to the west gate of the Ebinoko enclosure. We talked about these and the general layout of the palace back in Episode 134, and you can check out that podcast blog post for some images of what things looked like, as well.

These gates were on the north and east sides of a large, rectangular courtyard, which was likely the actual event location. So it isn't as if these were separate areas, just a difference of where things were set up in what was otherwise the same relative space.

The following year, 681, we see similar ceremonies. We see offerings made to the kami of Heaven and Earth, and we once again see a note about various functionaries paying their respects at court. Even though this wasn't mentioned every year, it could have been an annual thing and just wasn't always recorded so the Chroniclers just wrote down what they had records for. There are certainly other things we don't necessarily witness in the records, such as the annual promotions and promulgations. We see irregular promotions, of course, such as on someone's passing, but the regular administration of the government and promotions of people to new positions is not something we really see regularly documented, since it doesn't really shed much light on the sovereign and the royal household. And so we sometimes see things if they get mentioned, but otherwise we only see glimpses. That would change as records became more administrative and the histories were more about simply recording what was happening—though still from a particular angle. At this point, however, we aren't dealing with a single court record, but rather with numerous records, stories, and recollections.

That same year, 681, we also see another banquet, with Ohoama situated in the Mukai no Kodono, while the Princes of the Blood and non-royal Princes were both introduced into the inner reception chamber. Ministers attended in the outer reception chamber. They all received sake and musical performances, and rank advancements were given out. Kusakabe no Kihi no Ohogata was graduated from the rank of Upper Daisen to Lower Daikin, and given the title of Naniwa no Muraji. A few days later, Sakahibe no Muraji no Iwazumi was granted a fief with 60 horses and received presents of coarse silk, floss silk, cloth, and one hundred mattocks—the last one being a rather interesting gift, I have to admit. Of course, in true Chronicles fashion, we have no idea why these gifts were made—we don't even have another reference to Iwazumi around there, but he must have done something.

We are later told that there was the annual archery shoot, and then a decree, possibly unrelated to New Years, that the various provinces were ordered to repair the shrines to the kami of heaven and earth.

The year 682 is an anomaly. There is no mention of a banquet, nor of an archery tournament. I wonder if this may have to do with some of the sad events of that first month. While it started fine—Toneri no Miyatsuko no Nukamushi was raised from Daisen to Lower Shoukin—we are told that on the 18th, Lady Higami, one of Ohoama's consorts, died in the palace. The next day there was an earthquake, and she was buried on the 27th. A prominent illness and death may have put a pall on the ceremonies, and could explain why we don't see any mention of them for that year.

It is also possible that some of this New Year tradition had become so routine that people were no longer commenting on it, and therefore the Chroniclers weren't including references to it.

The following year, in 683, we again see the functionaries paying their respects. We also see the presentation of a three legged sparrow by the Viceroy of Tsukushi, Tajihi no Mabito no Shima, along with others. A three legged sparrow would have been something: it is reminiscent of the three legged crow, often depicted in the sun. It is unclear if it was still alive, but that wasn't the point. They invited the Princes of the Blood down to the Ministers to great hall, the Daigokuden, for a banquet, where the three legged sparrow was displayed.

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Later that month, Ohoama issued a decree in regards to all of the auspicious omens and made presents to everyone, from Shouken rank upwards. There was also a general amnesty—all crimes were pardoned, from capital offenses on down, and all forced labor was remitted, so that people didn't have to provide the normal service. The phrasing for this particular entry is intriguing. Ohoama is mentioned as Yamato Neko Sumera no Mikoto and is specifically called a "God Incarnate". This is one of the rare times that we see the Chronicles explicitly call out the sovereign as a living deity. Of course, they trace the royal lineage back to Amaterasu, but there isn't a lot suggesting that the sovereign is necessarily a deity.

And in reality, this was probably something that was more honorific than anything else. Heck, at times in Japanese history we would see sovereigns selling their calligraphy to help keep the royal palace funded while warriors went around actually being in charge of things. However, this divine language did show up in the 19th and 20th century, especially as the Tennou, now called Emperor in English terminology, once again was recognized as the Head of State, and people would actually pray to him. Not necessarily like praying at a shrine, but out of respect. And remember, a lot of time the Tennou was kept out of sight of regular people and hidden, much like the way that the kami were treated. The concept of the Emperor's divinity was very much tied up in the elevation of the State and the general sense of Nationalism that had gripped Japan in the early half of the 20th century. And so the allies quite explicitly had Emperor Showa renounce his divinity after Japan World War II.

Those studying Japanese history have probably heard of this concept, and so it is interesting to see evidence of it here, as well as the nature of the royal house, where the sovereign is kept at a distance from those of lower rank, unless they are directly serving him. But it was not as though the sovereign was a god in the sense of being all powerful. Even if he were considered a living, visible kami, the kami were not omnipotent, and there was no getting over the fact that our particular sovereign, Ohoama, was getting older. Only a year or so earlier, he had suffered a rather bad illness, so he clearly was not invincible. And it is of course possible that this language was simply royal exaggeration, rather than any attempt to define the sovereign as something more than he was. Still, that concept would continue to play a part throughout Japanese history.

The same day in 683 that Ohoama issued the pardons, we are told that there was a special performance at the Woharida Court of dance and music from Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla—the "Three Countries" of the Korean peninsula, even if only one of them was still going strong. The Woharida palace is thought to have been north, along the banks of the Asuka River. It may have been moved over time—there appears to have been a palace in the Furumiya area, near Toyoura, but there is also evidence of a palace by a shared name over by Ikazuchi-no-oka, on the other side of the river. Excavations at Ikazuchi no oka revealed pottery with the name of the palace, suggesting that this was the site, but even then, that pottery was from the later Tempyo era. Regardless, it seems that the Asuka valley was just chock full of palaces, new and old, though the older ones were not as regularly used for government functions, one assumes.

The following year, 684, we again get told about the annual archery shoot. It took place in the Eastern court this time, with Ministers in attendance. Apparently they had men skilled in archery shooting alongside palace attendants and little people—the word used in Japanese is "Shuju" or "Hikihito". This word is often translated as "dwarf"; it appears to be a derogatory term for anyone considered short of stature, though it is also used to refer more generally to those seen as either lacking wit or to actors and performers.

This isn't the first time we see the term. Back in 675, about 9 years prior, Ohoama had sent orders to a number of regions near the capital, from Awaji to Tamba, to Afumi and to Mino and Wohari, among others, to send as tribute common people who could sing, shuju—or dwarfs—and jugglers. More generally they seem to be referring to entertainers, and it strikes me that could be what is meant here. Either way, the entertainment industry was hardly a lucrative one, and we can see that performers are almost more of a commodity, to be "paid" as tribute, rather than a professional who is "hired" to work. I suspect that, as in many other times and places, individuals who were shorter than average often found work as entertainers in this sense—whether they wished it or not.

The year 685 we don't see any mention of archery, though it probably still happened. Instead the Chronicles focus on the various government officials paying their respects to their sovereign. The rest of the entries for the month are largely concerned with changes to the rank system as of that year.

The year 686, we get the last records of various new years festivals—four months later, the sovereign would grow terribly ill, and he would eventually pass away later that year. However, for those still celebrating the new year in 686, that was all in the future.

The last year of Ohoama's reign started out relatively like others. Ohoama went to the Daigokuden, the Great Hall of Audience, and gave a banquet to the Princes and High Officials. There he decided to have something of a riddle challenge. He would ask riddles, and then offer prizes for the correct answer.

And no, unfortunately we don't have any of the riddles, at least that I have seen. Aston calls these "conundrums" and notes that they are specifically nonsensical questions, and provides examples such as "Why does a horse, after a rapid run, listen to the earth? Why does a dog, when he goes slowly, raise his leg?"

Ohoama's son, Prince Takechi, answered correctly, and so did Prince Ise. Their prizes differed in content, but in both cases were pretty extensive. The winners received ceremonial robes, brocade or purple hakama, numerous bolts of coarse silk, many pounds of thread, hundreds of pounds of flossed Silk, and hundreds of bolts of cloth. I think that makes it quite a bit more lucrative than any of the quiz nights I've ever been to.

Later that month, there was another banquet, this time for nine Buddhist monks of Daikan-daiji. Besides its status as a national temple, this may have also been related to the year before, when Ohoama had fallen ill, and prayers had been offered at Daikandaiji for his recovery. The courthad likewise provided gifts to the temple in the last month of the previous year, and then, at the banquet, gave to the attending monks silk and cloth, based on their rank.

But that wasn't the end of the gifts. The following day the Princes and High Officials all received upper garments and hakama—likely referring to official garments—each getting one suit, each. Then, on the 13th day of the new year, the court invited 20 exceptional individuals to a banquet. These were talented people, professors, divination specialists, and physicians. They were also wined and dined and presented various gifts. On the 16th day, the Princes and High Officials were then invited to a banquet in the Daigokuden. They were given gifts of silk and cloth, based on their rank. Then they held another riddle competition, with correct answers rewarded with gifts of coarse and flossed silk.

This was only a short time after disaster had struck, though a bit removed—two days earlier, in the evening, the royal storehouse at Naniwa had caught fire, eventually burning the entire Toyosaki palace complex to the ground. Some claimed that it was actually started at a private residence, that of Ato no Muraji no Kusuri, and then spread to the Palace. In the end, only the military storehouse was spared.

This would have been quite the tragedy for the government, but it did not halt the festivities happening down in Asuka. The Naniwa Palace appears to have been a major government center for the administration of the state, but it was not the royal court which had been in Asuka for over a decade. Indeed, I imagine that the news probably reached Asuka around the time of the Banquet itself.

And yet, rather than putting a damper on the festivities, they continued another couple of days – presumably everything was already prepared and there was no point in canceling. On the 17th, the court sponsored a banquet in the rear palace, presumably for the Queen and members of the imperial family. Then the following day there was a great revel at the palace. Ohoama took his place in front of the royal muro and made presents to performers, as well as to the singers. As before everything varied according to rank.

Asuka wasn't the only place to get in on the festivities. The same month, the court also sponsored a banquet for the Silla envoys in Tsukushi, sending Prince Kawachi and others.

Regrettably, that would be the last new year that Ohoama would see. In the fifth month, he grew ill, and what we see in the Chronicles after that is an interesting look into how people of the time dealt with sickness.

First, the court had the Sutra of Yakushi expounded at Kawaradera and held a Buddhist retreat in the palace, inviting monks to come and expound Buddhist teachings. Yakushi, or Yakushi Nyorai—Bhaisajyaguru in Sanskrit—was known as the Medicine Buddha, and his name in Sinitic characters was basically "Master of Medicine". It is said that he was responsible for the Eastern Pure Land, and that, as a Bodhisattva, he had made 12 great vows to cure the illnesses of all living beings in the world. For that reason, Yakushi Nyorai was often called upon to cure illness.

In fact, six years earlier, when the Queen, Uno no Sarara Hime, had taken ill, Ohoama erected an entire temple to Yakushi Nyorai, known as Yakushiji. He then had 100 people take vows as priests, and they attributed her recovery to this effort.

In this case, however, it seems that it didn't have quite such an effect, and Ohoama remained under the weather. We are also told that the court sent Palace Attendants, the Oho-toneri, to clean the pagodas of various temples and that a general amnesty was announced for all under heaven, emptying the prisons. All of this points to the idea of making merit in the hope of bringing good karma, and thus healing.

But the following month, Ohoama was still ill. Divination was performed by the Onmyoji, the court diviners, and they claimed that there was a curse from Kusanagi, the sword that is considered one of the three main royal symbols. This is the sword that was said to have been found by Susanowo in the tale of Yamata no Worochi, and which gained its name, Kusanagi, when used by Yamato Takeru, cutting down the grass to save him when his enemies tried to catch him by setting fire to the field where he was hunting. For more on that, check out Episodes 34 and 35.

Given the importance of Kusanagi, I suspect that the idea of destroying it to remove the curse was out of the question, and so it was sent to Atsuta Shrine, where it was enshrined and would largely stay except when needed for enthronement ceremonies.

And yet, even after the sword was taken away, the illness remained. Six days later, on the 16th day of the 6th month, the court sent Prince Ise and officials to Asukadera and asked the monks there to make and oath with the Buddha to make Ohoama whole through the power of the Three Treasures of Buddhism. For their work, the three Buddhist Officers, the Master of the Law, and the Upadhyaya and temple directors, as well as those monks with the rank of "master" each received a donation of one robe and one cover, or "Ohi".

Three days later, the court ordered the hundred officials to go to Kawaradera and perfom the ceremony of lighting lanterns and giving offerings to Buddha. Then they held a great feast and offered repentance for their transgressions. All of this sounds like a continued attempt to make merit for the state, and thus for Ohoama.

We then see the court granting the monks Hounin and Gishou 30 stipend-households to provide for them in their old age, which may be more merit-making, or possibly was related to some of the many other activities so far. There are a few issues with this entry, and Aston and Bentley don't seem to agree on the actual date. Bentley has it on the 28th, but that seems odd as it comes before the entry for the 22nd of the same month. Aston has it as the 20th, but then claimes that there is something odd about the date of the 22nd.

On the 22nd, we are simply told that the district kitchen of Nabari caught fire. Aston notes that this would have been the official government arm in the district gathering food to supply the royal household—rather than being a kitchen in terms of a place to prepare food.

Merit-making continued into the 7th month. We see the Soujou and Soudzu, the primary and secondary prelates of the Asukadera, performing ritual repentance. The following day there is another general amnesty, and Aston specifically mentions performing a Oho-harai, or cleansing.

The day after taxes were halved from the provinces and corvee labor with local conscripted labor was exempted for the year. Then we see the court presenting paper offerings to the Kunikasu Kami in Ki provinces, as well as the four shrines in Asuka and the Great Suminoe—aka Sumiyoshi—shrine.

On the 8th day of the 7th month, 100 monks were invited to the court to read the Golden Light Sutra—Konkoymyou kyou. And on the 15th there was another court issued amnesty.

Despite all of these attempts to make merit and intercede with the Buddha or with various kami, Ohoama's illness continued. We see that the court issued a decree that all things that should occur, great or small, should be reported to the queen and the crown prince—presumably because Ohoama was no longer in a state to be able to do so.

Continuing with their efforts, the court declared that destitute commoners who had been forced to borrow rice seed or money before the 12th month of the previous year would be exempted from repayment. And then the court changed the name of the year to Akami-tori, or Shuuchou. They also renamed the palace in Asuka to "Kiyomihara"—again, go check Episode 134 for more on the palace. "Shuuchou" is the Red Bird, likely referring to Suzaku, though Aston also points out that "Asuka" here is given as "flying bird", as well, and there had been numerous bird-related omens reported throughout the reign.

Although these names would not have been used prior to this point—the 7th month of the final year of the reign—the Chroniclers applied the nengo, Shuuchou, to all of the entries for this year, and the name of the palace is often given as "Kiyomihara" is given to distinguish it from the Later Okamoto Palace, even though it was simply the latter palace with the addition of the Ebinoko enclosure.

The changing of the era name was likely another attempt to change the seemingly inauspicious year, along with all of the merit-making that the court had been undergoing.

And yet they kept going.

The court selected 70 people who were diligent in keeping Buddhist laws and had them take the tonsure, and they sponsored a feast—or festival—in the Royal Muro of the Palace.

At the same time the various princes had a statue of the Boddhisatva of Compassion, Kannon, made for the sovereign and had the Lotus sutra—the sutra where Kannon is first mentioned—read out at Daikandaiji.

Kannon, or Avalokitesvara, was originally seen as a male Boddhisatva, but is often depicted as a woman. They are also known as Guanyin, from which we get Kannon in Japanese. Guanyin is also seen as Goddess of Mercy, and is one of the most popular figures across multiple sects of Buddhism and even outside of the Buddhist faith, where she is still seen as a goddess. In this case, however, it seems clear that the princes were seeking compassion to relieve the sovereign of his affliction.

And yet it persisted.

They had 80 more people take the tonsure, and then 100 more men and women, placed 100 statues of the Boddhisatva, Kannon, in the palace, and then read out 200 volumes of the Lotus Sutra.

And then they made prayers to the kami of Heaven and Earth. And they dispatched Hata no Imiki no Iwakatsu to present paper offerings to the Tosa great shrine. Nothing seemed to be working.

In the 9th month, we see the royal princes and others, down to the various ministers, all gathered at Kawaradera making oaths for the health of the sovereigns. This last ditch effort would go unrewarded. Five days later, and Ohoama would pass away. Of course, they couldn't just say that he died: The Chronicles actually say that he divinely departed. After all, didn't they call him an incarnate kami?

Two days later, the court began the ritual of mourning, raising voices in lamentation, and setting up a temporary palace of interment in the courtyard, south of the palace. Ohoama's body was placed there some thirteen days later, and people mourned his passing.

For the rituals, we see monks and nuns performing ritual lamentation in the courtyard between 3 and 5 am, around the time that court officials would normally be waiting at the gates. Over the next several days, various ceremonies were held and eulogies given. We are told that the court presented offerings of food for the dead for the first time, and over the next several days monks and nuns would offer their laments and then various individuals would provide their eulogies. Finally, on the last day of the ninth month, the eulogies concluded with Nyang-u, a Baekje prince, who pronounced a eulogy on behalf of his father, and then the Miyatsuko of various provinces came and did likewise. There were also performances of all manner of singing and dancing.

With that, the reign of Ohoama would come to an end. The government would continue under his wife, the Queen, and Crown Prince. We'll get into the succession in a later episode. For now I'll just say that he was eventually buried in a large tomb in the modern Noguchi area of Asuka, and you can still go see it.

And while that does bring us to the end of the reign, we still have a few more things that I want to discuss. This episode just seemed a good time to talk about all of the various new years ceremonies, and that seemed to lead naturally into the very last year, but there is still more to discuss. For one thing, we still haven't quite covered the spread of Buddhism and the changes in the structure. There are also various laws and punishments that are worth covering. Finally, there are the Chronicles themselves: we've talked about it all along, but the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki are attributed to this era, as is the start of what would become the capital of Fujiwara-kyo—many works that Ohoama would not live to see to the end, but is largely held responsible for starting.

But 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.

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.

Happy New Year! As we start a new year, here is a new recap, covering all of the previous year and bringing us up to date with where we are today. Enjoy!

As usual, we have our sources and more over at our website: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/newyears2026

Rough Transcription:

Shinnen Akemashite! Happy New Year and Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is the New Year's Recap episode for 2026!

Here's hoping that everyone has had a great new year. I'm not sure about everyone else, but this past year seemed particularly long, and yet what we have covered on this podcast is only a relatively small part of the history of Yamato, so let's get into it.

And in case anyone is wondering, this is covering episodes 118 to episode 140, though we will likely dip a little bit into the past as well, just to ensure we have context, where needed.

We started last year in the 650's, in the second reign of Takara Hime, where we know her as Saimei Tennou. We discussed Yamato's place in the larger world, especially in connection with the Silk Road. In fact, we spent several episodes focused on the wider world, which Yamato was learning about through students, ambassadors, and visitors from far off lands. Of course, that all came to a head at the Battle of Baekgang, when Yamato and their ally, Baekje, were defeated by a coalition of Tang and Silla forces, putting an end to the Kingdom of Baekje and driving Yamato to fall back and reinforce the archipelago.

This was also the start of the formal reign of Naka no Oe, who would go on to be known as Tenji Tennou. Naka no Oe would be a major proponent of substantial reforms to the Yamato government, as well as moving the capital to a new, more defensible location called Ohotsu, on the shores of Lake Biwa, in the land of Afumi. He also introduced new concepts of time through water clocks both in Asuka and in the Afumi capital.

Upon Naka no Oe's death, almost immediately, violence broke out between the Yamato court's ruling council led by Naka no Oe's son, Prince Ohotomo, and Naka no Oe's brother, Prince Ohoama. Ohoama would emerge victorious and ascend the throne, being known as Temmu Tennou. During his reign he took his brother's government and placed upon it his own stamp. He reinvigorated Shinto rites while also patronizing Buddhism. Meanwhile, relations with the continent appear to be improving.

So that is the summary, let's take a look at what we discussed in more detail.

First off, back to the reign of Takara Hime, aka Saimei Tennou—as opposed to her first reign, where she is known as Kougyoku Tennou. Takara Hime came back to the throne in 654 after a nine-year hiatus, having abdicated in 645 when her son, Prince Naka no Oe, had killed Soga no Iruka in front of her at court, violently assassinating one of the most powerful men in Yamato. Naka no Oe had then gone on to take out Soga no Iruka's father, Soga no Emishi, a few days later. Upon abdicating, Taka Hime's brother, Prince Karu, aka Koutoku Tennou, took the throne, but there are many that suggest that the real power in court was Naka no Oe and his allies—men such as the famous Nakatomi no Kamatari. When Karu passed away, Naka no Oe still did not take the throne, officially, and instead it reverted back to his mother.

Takara Hime is interesting in that she is officially recognized as a sovereign and yet she came to the throne when her husband, known as Jomei Tenno, passed away, even though neither of her parents were sovereigns themselves. This may have something to do with the fact that much of the actual power at the time was being executed by individuals other than the reigning sovereign. First it was the Soga family—Soga no Emishi and Soga no Iruka—but then it was Naka no Oe and his gaggle of officials. This makes it hard to gauge Takara Hime's own agency versus that of her son's.

Still, the archipelago flourished during her reign. This was due, in no small part, to the growing connectivity between the Japanese archipelago and the continent—and from there to the rest of the world. And that world was expanding.

We see mention of the men from "Tukara" and a woman—or women—from Shravastri. Of course it is possible, even likely, that these were a misunderstanding—it is most likely that these were individuals from the Ryukyuan archipelago and that the Chroniclers bungled the transcription, using known toponyms from the Sinitic lexicon rather than creating new ones for these places. However, it speaks to the fact that there were toponyms to pull from because the court had at least the idea of these other places. And remember, we had Wa students studying with the famous monk Xuanzang, who, himself, had traveled the silk road all the way out to Gandhara and around to India, the birthplace of Buddhism. The accounts and stories of other lands and peoples were available—at least to those with access to the continent. This helped firm up the Japanese archipelago's location at the end of a vast trading network, which we know as the Silk Road. Indeed, we find various material goods showing up in the islands, as well as the artisans that were imported to help build Buddhist temples.

And just as all of this is happening, we hit a rough patch in relations between Yamato and the Tang dynasty. In fact, in one of our most detailed accounts of an embassy to date, thanks to the writings of one Iki no Hakatoko. Because the fateful embassy of 659 saw the Tang take the odd step of refusing to let the embassy return to Yamato.

It turns out that the Tang, who had, for some time now, been in contact with Silla, had entered into an alliance and were about to invade Baekje. It was presumed that if the Yamato embassy left the Tang court they might alert Baekje, their ally, that something was up. And so it was safer to place them under house arrest until the invasion popped off.

Sure enough, the invasion was launched and in less than a year King Wicha of Baekje and much of the Baekje court had been captured. With the initial invasion successful, the Yamato embassy was released, but that is hardly the end of the story. Baekje had sent a request to Yamato for support, but it came too late for Yamato to muster the forces necessary. That said, some factions of the Baekje court remained, and one of their Princes was still in Yamato. And so, as they had done in the past, Yamato sailed across the strait with the goal of restoring a royal heir to the throne.

Unfortunately, this was not quite as simple as it had been, previously. For one thing, the Tang forces were still in Baekje, and the fight became long and drawn out. Things finally came to a head in the early months of 663, at the mouth of the Baekgang river—known in Japanese as Hakusuki-no-e. This was a naval battle, and Yamato had more ships and was also likely more skilled on the water. After all, much of the Tang fighting was on land or rivers, while the Wa, an island nation, had been crossing the straits and raiding the peninsula for centuries. Even with all of the resources of the Tang empire, there was still every reason to think that the forces from the archipelago could pull off a victory. However, it was not to be. The Tang forces stayed near the head of the river, limiting the Wa and Baekje forces' ability to manuever, drawing them in and then counterattacking. Eventually the Tang ended up destroying so much of the fleet that the remaining Wa ships had no choice but to turn and flee.

This defeat had profound consequences for the region. First and foremost was the fall of Baekje. In addition, Yamato forces pulled back from the continent altogether. Along with those Baekje refugees who had made it with them back to the archipelago they began to build up their islands' defenses. Baekje engineers were enlisted to design and build fortresses at key points, from Tsushima all the way to the home countries. These fortresses included massive earthworks, some of which can still be seen. In fact, parts of the ancient fortifications on Tsushima would be reused as recently as World War II to create modern defenses and gun placements.

Even the capital was moved. While many of the government offices were possibly operating out of the Toyosaki palace in Naniwa, the royal residence was moved from Asuka up to Ohotsu, on the shores of Lake Biwa. This put it farther inland, and behind a series of mountains and passes that would have provided natural defenses. Fortresses were also set up along the ridgelines leading to the Afumi and Nara basins.

And all of this was being done under a somewhat provisional government. The sovereign, Takara Hime, had passed away at the most inconvenient time—just as the Yamato forces were being deployed across to the peninsula. A funerary boat was sent back to Naniwa, and Naka no Oe took charge of the government. That there was little fanfare perhaps suggests that there wasn't much that actually changed. Still, it was a few years before the capital in Ohotsu was completed and Naka no Oe formally ascended the throne, becoming known to future generations as Tenji Tennou.

Naka no Oe's rule may have only formally started in the 660s, but his influence in the government goes all the way back to 645. He assassinated the Soga family heads, and then appears to have been largely responsible for organizing the governmental reforms that led that era to be known as the Taika, or era of great change. He served as Crown Prince under Karu and Takara Hime, and from that office he ensured his supporters were in positions of authority and instituted broad changes across the board.

He continued in this position under the reign of his mother, Takara Hime, and so the transition upon her death was probably more smooth than most. This also explains how things kept running for about three years before he took the throne.

In officially stepping up as sovereign, however, Naka no Oe continued to solidify the work that he had done, focused largely on consolidating power and control over the rest of the archipelago. There were tweaks here and there—perhaps most notably changes to the ranking system, which allowed for a more granular level of control over the stipends and privileges afforded to different individuals as part of the new government. This work was presumably being done with the help of various ministers and of his brother, Ohoama. Ohoama only really shows up in the Chronicle around this time, other than a brief mention of his birth along with a list of other royal progeny of the sovereign known as Jomei Tennou.

We also see the death of the Naidaijin, Nakatomi no Kamatari—and supposedly the head of what would become known as the Fujiwara family. His position as Inner Great Minister was not backfilled, but rather Naka no Oe's son, Ohotomo, was eventually named as Dajo Daijin, the head minister of the Council of State, the Dajokan, placing a young 20 year old man above the ministers of the left and right and in effective control of the government under his father—though his uncle, Prince Ohoama, maintained his position as Crown Prince.

However, even that wasn't for long. As Naka no Oe became gravely ill, he began to think of succession. Ohoama, having been warned that something was afoot, offered to retire from his position as Crown Prince and take up religious orders down in Yoshino, theoretically clearing the line of succession and indicating his willingness to let someone else inherit. His actual suggestion was that Naka no Oe turn the government over to his wife, who could act as a regent for Ohotomo. What actually happened, however, was that the movers and shakers in the Council of State pledged their loyalty to the Dajo Daijin, Prince Ohotomo, who was named Crown Prince and ascended the throne when his father passed away.

Here there is a bit of a wobble in the historical record. The Chronicles never mention Prince Ohotomo formally assuming the throne and therefore the Chroniclers never provide him a regnal name. It isn't until more modern times that we get the name "Kobun Tennou" for his short-lived reign.

And it was short-lived because early on Ohoama raised an army, and after several months of fighting, took the throne for himself. Because the year this happened was known by its sexagenary term as "Jinshin", often colloquially known as a Water Monkey year, the conflict is known as the Jinshin no Ran. "Ran" can mean disturbance, or chaos, and so is often translated as "Jinshin Disturbance", "Jinshin Revolution", or the "Jinshin War". The entirety of the fighting is given its own chapter in the Chronicles, known as either the first year of Temmu or sometimes as the record of the Jinshin War. This chapter actually shows some stylistic differences with the chapter on Tenji Tennou, just before it, and tells the story of the events slightly differently, in a light generally favorable to Ohoama, who would go on to become Temmu Tennou. As such, while the broad strokes and military actions are likely correct, there are a lot of questions around the details, especially around the motivating factors.

Regardless, what is known is that Ohoama was able to quickly move from his quarters in Yoshino eastward towards Owari and Mino, where he was able to cut off the capital from support and gather troops from the eastern lands. The Court tried to take the Nara Basin—a huge symbolic and strategic point—as well as cut off his supply lines, but these actions were thwarted by those loyal to Ohoama. Attempts to gather troops from the west had mixed results, with several allies of Ohoama resisting the Court—most notably Prince Kurikuma, who at that time was the head of the government presence in Kyushu, where a large number of troops had been stationed to defend against a possible Tang invasion.

Eventually, Ohoama's troops defeated those of the Court. Ohotomo was killed, and those running the government, including Soga no Akae, Nakatomi no Kane, Soga no Hatayasu, Kose no Hito, and Ki no Ushi, were either executed or exiled.

Ohoama then swept into power. He moved the court back to Asuka—the move to Ohotsu had not been a popular one in the first place—and took up residence in his mother's old palace, renovating it. It would eventually be known as the Kiyomihara palace. From there Ohoama continued his brother's reforms, though with his own spin.

First off was a reform to the ceremonies around royal ascension. Taking the existing feast of first fruits, the Niiname-sai, Ohoama made it into a new public and private ceremony known as the Daijo-sai, which is still practiced today upon the elevation of a new sovereign. He reformed the government court rank system and also instituted reforms around the ancient kabane system—the ancient rank system that contained both clan and individual titles. These old kabane titles had certain social cachet, but were otherwise being made obsolete by the new court ranks, which were, at least on paper, based on merit rather than just familial connections. Of course, the truth was that family still mattered, and in many ways the new kabane system of 8 ranks simply merged the reality of the new court with the traditions of the older system.

And this was something of a trend in Ohoama's reign. The court seems to have taken pains to incorporate more kami-based ritual back into the court, with regular offerings, especially to gods associated with food, harvest, and weather. There is also a clear focus on the shrine at Ise. The Chroniclers claim that Ise was established and important since the time of Mimaki Iribiko, but it is only rarely mentioned, and while its founding story might be tied to that era, the Chroniclers, who appear to have started their work this reign, appear to have done their best to bolster that connection.

As for actual governance, we see another change from the government of Naka no Oe. The former sovereign relied heavily on noble families to run the government, granting them positions of responsibility. In the Ohoama court, however, most of those positions appear to lay dormant. Instead we see copious mention of princes—royal and otherwise—being delegated to do the work of the throne.

Indeed, Ohoama seemed to want to reinstate the majesty of the royal society, including both the royal family, but also others with royal titles as well. Still, there were plenty of ways that the noble families continued to have an influence in various spheres of government, they just weren't handed the kind of prime ministerial powers that previous generations had achieved.

Within the royal family, itself, Ohoama attempted to head off future succession disputes. He had been through one himself, and history was littered with the violent conflicts that followed on the heels of a sovereign's death. So Ohoama gathered his family together, to include sons and nephews of consequence, and he had them swear an oath to support each other and the Crown Prince. After doing so, he seems to have utilized them to help run the country, as well.

Of course, we've seen how such pledges played out in the past, so we'll have to wait to see how it all plays out, eventually. I'm sure it will be fine…

Whilst the archipelago was going through all of this transition—from the death of Takara Hime, and then the reign and death of her son, Naka no Oe, along with the Jinshin no Ran that followed-- we have a glimpse of what was happening on the peninsula. Yamato had fortified against a combined Silla-Tang invasion, but it seems they needn't have done so.

First off, that alliance's attention was turned northwards, to Goguryeo. With the death of the belligerent tyrant and perpetual-thorn-in-the-side-of-the-Tang-Court, Yeon Gaesomun, the Tang armies were finally able to capture the Goguryeo court. However, for years afterwards they were dealing with rebellions from those who had not gone quite so quietly. And to make matters worse it turns out that these Goguryeo recalcitrants were apparently being funded by none other than Silla, the Tang's supposed ally.

From the Yamato perspective this manifested, initially, as embassies from both the Tang court and the Silla court. While the content of the embassies' messages are not fully recorded, we can imagine that both the Tang dynasty and Silla were looking for support. At one point there was a direct request for military support, but Yamato offered a half-hearted reply along the lines of the fact that they didn't have as many able-bodied men as they once did—not after the fighting in Korea. And that might have even been true.

Either way, the Tang embassies petered out, as the Silla influence came to dominate the embassies and trade more generally. The Tang attempted to push back against Silla, militarily—their alliance now long since dead. Silla took some initial losses, but ultimately was able to push the Tang off of the peninsula, uniting everything from Pyongyang south. North of Pyongyang, though still nominally under Tang dynasty control, a rebel Goguryeo court continued to act as though they were still a going concern. They hitched a ride on Silla ships and traveled to Yamato for regular missions, maintaining diplomatic ties.

As such, Yamato itself relaxed, to a certain extent, its defensive posture—but not entirely. They continued to maintain the fortresses and there were several edicts addressing military preparedness, so as to ensure that Yamato would be ready should anything occur.

And though the missions to the Tang court themselves may have been stymied in this period, it doesn't mean that Yamato lost interest in continental learning. They had acquired numerous texts, and appear to have been devouring them, as well as generating their own observational data. They were recording a variety of phenomena, some more clearly consequential than others. Some of that was practical, but, in a time where there was very little dividing the natural and the supernatural in the minds of the people, they were just as likely to record a storm or an earthquake as they were the finding of a white or albino animal that is not normally that color. Science, myth, and legend often clashed and intermingled. Regardless, they carried on, figuring out what they could and filling in the gaps where they had to do so.

And I believe that catches us up for the year. If I were to add anything, it would probably be a short note on Ohoama's wife, Uno no Sarara hime. Uno no Hime is only mentioned occasionally during Ohoama's reign, and yet those few times are more than many others appear to have been mentioned. She is explicitly said to have traveled with him when he went on campaign, and is said to have been there when he made his prayers to Ise shrine. She was also there when the family was gathered to swear to assist each other in the smooth running of the government.

There is plenty to suggest that, especially with many of the Great Minister roles left empty, that Uno Hime had a much greater role in the administration of the government than is otherwise assumed. This may have also been the case with Naka no Oe's wife. Both women are mentioned in ways that suggest they were considered to have some amount of political clout and savvy, and had greater agency than one might otherwise conclude. Remember, Takara Hime had twice reigned in her own right, and we aren't so many generations removed that people wouldn't know the name of Kashikiya Hime, aka Suiko Tennou. We also know that there was a lot more going on, but the focus of the Chronicles is pretty firmly on the sovereign, and it is only with the greatest of reluctance that the Chroniclers turn that lens on anyone else except the sovereign who was reigning at the time. So I think it is safe to say that Uno likely played a large role in the court, and we will see even more of that in the coming year.

But first, there is going to be more to say about the reign of Ohoama. After all, we aren't entirely through with his reign. We have only barely touched on the various Buddhist records in the Nihon Shoki, nor some of the various court events, as well as some sign of how the government enforced these new laws and punishments—the Ritsuryo system. Finally, we'll talk about Ohoama's dream and vision for a new capital—a permanent capital city unlike anything that had yet been seen. Ohoama would not see that through to completion, but we can talk about what it meant, the first permanent capital city in the archipelago: Fujiwara-kyo.

Until then, I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday season. As usual, thank you for listening and for all of your support. Thanks also to my lovely spouse, Ellen, for their continued work at helping to edit these episodes!

Remember, 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.

The last time Yamato was heavily involved on the continent, they were defeated militarily, and they returned to fortify their islands. So how are things looking, now?

This episode we will talk about some of what has been going on with Tang and Silla, but also touch on the Mishihase, the Hayato, the people of Tamna and Tanegashima, and more!

For more information and references, check out: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-140

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 140: Improving Diplomatic Ties

Garyang Jyeongsan and Gim Hongsye looked out from the deck of their ship, tossing and turning in the sea. The waves were high, and the winds lashed at the ship, which rocked uncomfortably beneath their feet. Ocean spray struck them from below while rain pelted from above.

Through the torrential and unstable conditions, they looked out for their sister ship. It was their job to escort them, but in these rough seas, bobbing up and down, they were at the mercy of the elements. One minute they could see them, and then next it was nothing but a wall of water. Each time they caught a glimpse the other ship seemed further and further away. They tried calling out, but it was no use—even if they could normally have raised them, the fierce winds simply carried their voices out into the watery void. Eventually, they lost sight of them altogether.

When the winds died down and the seas settled, they looked for their companions, but they saw nothing, not even hints of wreckage on the ocean. They could only hope that their fellow pilots knew where they were going. As long as they could still sail, they should be able to make it to land—either to the islands to which they were headed, or back to the safety of the peninsula.

And so the escort ship continued on, even without a formal envoy to escort. They would hope for the best, or else they would explain what would happen, and hope that the Yamato court would understand.

The seas were anything but predictable, and diplomacy was certainly not for the faint of heart.

We are going through the period of the reign of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou. It started in 672, with the death of his brother, Naka no Oe, remembered as the sovereign Tenji Tenno, when Temmu took the throne from his nephew, Ohotomo, aka Kobun Tenno, in what would become known as the Jinshin no Ran. From that point, Ohoama continued the work of his brother in creating a government based on a continental model of laws and punishments—the Ritsuryo system. He accomplished this with assistance from his wife, Uno, and other members of the royal family—his own sons, but also nephews and other princes of the time. And so far most of our focus has been on the local goings on within the archipelago.

However, there was still plenty going on in the rest of the world, and though Yamato's focus may have been on more local affairs, it was still engaged with the rest of the world—or at least with the polities of the Korean Peninsula and the Tang Dynasty. This episode we are going to look at Yamato's foreign relations, and how they were changing, especially as things changed on the continent.

Up to this point, much of what had been happening in Yamato had been heavily influenced by the mainland in one way or another. And to begin our discussion, we really should backtrack a bit—all the way to the Battle of Baekgang in 663, which we discussed in Episode 124. That defeat would lead to the fall of Baekje, at the hands of the Silla-Tang alliance. The loss of their ally on the peninsula sent Yamato into a flurry of defensive activity. They erected fortresses on Tsushima, Kyushu, and along the Seto Inland Sea. They also moved the capital up to Ohotsu, a more easily defended point on the shores of Lake Biwa, and likewise reinforced various strategic points in the Home Provinces as well. These fortresses were built in the style and under the direction of many of the Baekje refugees now resettled in Yamato.

For years, the archipelago braced for an invasion by the Silla-Tang alliance. After all, with all that Yamato had done to support Baekje, it only made sense, from their perspective, for Silla and Tang to next come after them. Sure, there was still Goguryeo, but with the death of Yeon Gaesomun, Goguryeo would not last that long. With a unified peninsula, then why wouldn't they next look to the archipelago?

And yet, the attack never came. While Yamato was building up its defenses, it seems that the alliance between Silla and Tang was not quite as strong as their victories on the battlefield may have made it seem. This is hardly surprising—the Tang and Silla were hardly operating on the same scale. That said, the Tang's immense size, while bringing it great resources, also meant that it had an extremely large border to defend. They often utilized alliances with other states to achieve their ends. In fact, it seems fairly common for the Tang to seek alliances with states just beyond their borders against those states that were directly on their borders. In other words, they would effectively create a pincer maneuver by befriending the enemy of their enemy. Of course. Once they had defeated said enemy well, wouldn't you know it, their former ally was now their newest bordering state.

In the case of the Silla-Tang alliance, it appears that at the start of the alliance, back in the days of Tang Taizong, the agreement, at least from Silla's perspective, was that they would help each other against Goguryeo and Baekje, and then the Tang dynasty would leave the Korean peninsula to Silla. However, things didn't go quite that smoothly. The fighting against Goguryeo and Baekje can be traced back to the 640s, but Tang Taizong passed away in 649, leaving the throne to his heir, Tang Gaozong. The Tang forces eventually helped Silla to take Baekje after the battle of Baekgang River in 663, and then Goguryeo fell in 668, but the Tang forces didn't leave the peninsula. They remained in the former territories of Baekje and in Goguryeo, despite any former agreements. Ostensibly they were no doubt pointing to the continuing revolts and rebellions in both regions. While neither kingdom would fully reassert itself, it didn't mean that there weren't those who were trying. In fact, the first revolt in Goguryeo was in 669. There was also a revolt each year until 673. The last one had some staying power, as the Goguryeo rebels continued to hold out for about four years.

It is probably worth reminding ourselves that the Tang dynasty, during this time, had reached out on several occasions to Yamato, sending diplomatic missions, as had Silla. While the Yamato court may have been preparing for a Tang invasion, the Tang perspective seems different. They were preoccupied with the various revolts going on, and they had other problems. On their western border, they were having to contend with the kingdom of Tibet, for example. The Tibetan kingdom had a powerful influence on the southern route around the Taklamakan desert, which abuts the Tibetan plateau. The Tang court would have had to divert resources to defend their holdings in the western regions, and it is unlikely that they had any immediate designs on the archipelago, which I suspect was considered something of a backwater to them, at the time. In fact, Yamato would have been much more useful to the Tang as an ally to help maintain some pressure against Silla, with whom their relationship, no longer directed at a common enemy, was becoming somewhat tense.

In fact, just before Ohoama came to the throne, several events had occurred that would affect the Silla-Tang alliance.

The first event is more indirect—in 670, the Tibetan kingdom attacked the Tang empire. The fighting was intense, and required serious resources from both sides. Eventually the Tibetan forces were victorious, but not without a heavy toll on the Tibetan kingdom, which some attribute to the latter's eventual demise. Their pyrrhic victory, however, was a defeat for the Tang, who also lost troops and resources in the fighting. Then, in 671, the Tang empire would suffer another loss as Silla would drive the Tang forces out of the territory of the former kingdom of Baekje.

With the Baekje territory under their control, it appears that Silla was also working to encourage some of rebellions in Goguryeo. This more than irked the Tang court, currently under the formal control of Tang Gaozong and the informal—but quite considerable—control of his wife, Wu Zetian, who some claim was the one actually calling most of the shots in the court at this point in time. Silla encouragement of restoration efforts in Goguryeo reached the Tang court in 674, in and in 675 we see that the Tang forces were sent to take back their foothold in the former Baekje territory. Tang defeated Silla at Gyeonggi, and Silla's king, Munmu, sent a tribute mission to the Tang court, apologizing for their past behavior.

However, the Tang control could not be maintained, as they had to once again withdraw most of their troops from the peninsula to send them against the Tibetan kingdom once more. As soon as they did so, Silla once again renewed their attacks on Tang forces on the peninsula. And so, a year later, in 676, the Tang forces were back. They crossed the Yellow Sea to try and take back the Tang territories on the lower peninsula, but they were unsuccessful. Tang forces were defeated by Silla at Maeso Fortress in modern day Yeoncheon. After a bit more fighting, Silla ended up in control of all territory south of the Taedong River, which runs through Pyongyang, one of the ancient capitals of Goguryeo and the capital of modern North Korea. This meant that the Tang dynasty still held much of the territory of Goguryeo under their control.

With everything that was going on, perhaps that explains some of the apparently defensive measures that Yamato continued to take. For example, the second lunar month of 675, we know that Ohoama proceeded to Takayasu castle, likely as a kind of formal inspection. Then, in the 10th lunar month of 675 Ohoama commanded that everyone from the Princes down to the lowest rank were to provide the government with weapons. A year later, in the 9th month of 676, the Princes and Ministers sent agents to the capital and the Home Provinces and gave out weapons to each man. Similar edicts would be issued throughout the reign. So in 679 the court announced that in two years time, which is to say the year 681, there would be a review of the weapons and horses belonging to the Princes of the Blood, Ministers, and any public functionaries. And in that same year, barrier were erected for the first time on Mt. Tatsta and Mt. Afusaka, along with an outer line of fortifications at Naniwa.

While some of that no doubt also helped to control internal movements, it also would have been useful to prepare for the possibility of future invasions. And the work continued. In 683 we see a royal command to all of the various provinces to engage in military training. And in 684 it was decreed at that there would be an inspection in the 9th month of the following year—685—and they laid out the ceremonial rules, such as who would stand where, what the official clothing was to look like, etc.

Furthermore, there was also an edict that all civil and military officials should practice the use of arms and riding horses. They were expected to supply their own horses, weapons, and anything they would wear into battle. If they owned horses, they would be considered cavalry soldiers, while those who did not have their own horse would be trained as infantry. Either way, they would each receive training, and the court was determined to remove any obstacles and excuses that might arise. Anyone who didn't comply would be punished. Non compliance could mean refusing to train, but it could also just mean that they did not provide the proper horses or equipment, or they let their equipment fall into a state of disrepair. Punishments could range from fines to outright flogging, should they be found guilty. On the other hand, those who practiced well would have any punishments against them for other crimes reduced by two degrees, even if it was for a capital crime. This only applied to previous crimes, however—if it seemed like you were trying to take advantage of this as a loophole to be able to get away with doing your own thing than the pardon itself would be considered null and void.

A year later, the aforementioned inspection was carried out by Princes Miyatokoro, Hirose, Naniwa, Takeda, and Mino. Two months later, the court issued another edict demanding that military equipment—specifically objects such as large or small horns, drums, flutes, flags, large bows, or catapults—should be stored at the government district house and not kept in private arsenals. The "large bow" in this case may be something like a ballista, though Aston translates it to crossbow—unfortunately, it isn't exactly clear, and we don't necessarily have a plethora of extant examples to point to regarding what they meant. Still, these seem to be focused on things that would be used by armies—especially the banners, large bows, and catapults. The musical instruments may seem odd, though music was often an important part of Tang dynasty military maneuvers. It was used to coordinate troops, raise morale, provide a marching rhythm, and more. Granted, much of this feels like something more continental, and it is unclear if music was regularly used in the archipelago. This could be more of Yamato trying to emulate the Tang dynasty rather than something that was commonplace on the archipelago. That might also explain the reference to the Ohoyumi and the catapults, or rock throwers.

All of this language having to do with military preparations could just be more of the same as far as the Sinicization of the Yamato government is concerned; attempts to further emulate what they understood of the civilized governments on the mainland—or at least their conception of those governments based on the various written works that they had imported. Still, I think it is relevant that there was a lot of uncertainty regarding the position of various polities and the potential for conflict. Each year could bring new changes to the political dynamic that could see military intervention make its way across the straits. And of course, there was always the possibility that Yamato itself might decide to raise a force of its own.

Throughout all of this, there was continued contact with the peninsula and other lands. Of course, Silla and Goguryeo were both represented when Ohoama came to the throne—though only the Silla ambassador made it to the ceremony, apparently. In the 7th lunar month of 675, Ohotomo no Muraji no Kunimaro was sent to Silla as the Chief envoy, along with Miyake no Kishi no Irishi. They likely got a chance to witness first-hand the tensions between Silla and the Tang court. The mission would return in the second lunar month of the following year, 676. Eight months later, Mononobe no Muarji no Maro and Yamashiro no Atahe no Momotari were both sent. That embassy also returned in the 2nd lunar month of the following year.

Meanwhile, it wasn't just Yamato traveling to Silla—there were also envoys coming the other way. For example, in the 2nd lunar month of 675 we are told that Silla sent Prince Chyungweon as an ambassador. His retinue was apparently detained on Tsukushi while the actual envoy team went on to the Yamato capital. It took them about two months to get there, and then they stayed until the 8th lunar month, so about four months in total.

At the same time, in the third month, Goguryeo and Silla both sent "tribute" to Yamato. And in the 8th month, Prince Kumaki, from Tamna, arrived at Tsukushi as well. Tamna, as you may recall, refers to nation on the island known today as Jeju. The late Alexander Vovin suggested that the name originated from a proto-Japonic cognate with "Tanimura", and many of the names seem to also bear out a possible Japonic influence on the island nation. Although they only somewhat recently show up in the Chronicles from our perspective, archaeological evidence suggests that they had trade with Yayoi Japan and Baekje since at least the first century. With the fall of Baekje, and the expansion of Yamato authority to more of the archipelago, we've seen a notable uptick in the communication between Tamna and Yamato noted in the record. A month after the arrival of Prince Kumaki in Tsukushi, aka Kyushu, it is noted that a Prince Koyo of Tamna arrived at Naniwa. The Tamna guests would stick around for almost a year, during which time they were presented with a ship and eventually returned in the 7th lunar month of the following year, 676. Tamna envoys, who had also shown up in 673, continued to be an annual presence at the Yamato court through the year 679, after which there is an apparent break in contact, picking back up in 684 and 685.

676 also saw a continuation of Silla representatives coming to the Yamato court, arriving in the 11th lunar month. That means they probably passed by the Yamato envoys heading the other way. Silla, under King Mumnu, now had complete control of the Korean peninsula south of the Taedong river. In the same month we also see another mission from Goguryeo, but the Chronicle also points out that the Goguryeo envoys had a Silla escort, indicating the alliance between Silla and those attempting to restore Goguryeo—or at least the area of Goguryeo under Tang control. The Tang, for their part, had pulled back their commandary to Liaodong, just west of the modern border between China and North Korea, today. Goguryeo would not go quietly, and the people of that ancient kingdom—one of the oldest on the peninsula—would continue to rise up and assert their independence for years to come.

The chronicles also record envoys from the somewhat mysterious northern Mishihase, or Sushen, thought to be people of the Okhotsk Sea culture from the Sakhalin islands. There were 11 of them, and they came with the Silla envoys, possibly indicating their influence on the continent and through the Amur river region. Previously, most of the contact had been through the regions of Koshi and the Emishi in modern Tohoku and Hokkaido. This seems to be their only major envoy to the Yamato court recorded in this reign.

Speaking of outside groups, in the 2nd lunar month of 677 we are told that there was an entertainment given to men of Tanegashima under the famous Tsuki tree west of Asukadera. Many people may know Tanegashima from the role it played in the Sengoku Period, when Europeans made contact and Tanegashima became a major hub of Sengoku era firearm manufacturing. At this point, however, it seems that it was still a largely independent island in the archipelago off the southern coast of Kyushu. Even southern Kyushu appears to have retained some significant cultural differences at this time, with the "Hayato" people being referenced in regards to southern Kyushu—we'll talk about them in a bit as they showed up at the capital in 682.

Tanegashima is actually closer to Yakushima, another island considered to be separate, culturally, from Yamato, and could be considered the start of the chain of islands leading south to Amami Ohoshima and the other Ryukyuan islands. That said, Tanegashima and Yakushima are much closer to the main islands of the archipelago and show considerable influence, including Yayoi and Kofun cultural artifacts, connecting them more closely to those cultures, even if Yamato initially saw them as distinct in some way.

A formal Yamato envoy would head down to Tanegashima two years later, in the 11th lunar month of 679. It was headed up by Yamato no Umakahibe no Miyatsuko no Tsura and Kami no Sukuri no Koukan. The next reference to the mission comes in 681, when the envoys returned and presented a map of the island. They claimed that it was in the middle of the ocean, and that rice was always abundant. With a single sowing of rice it was said that they could get two harvests. Other products specifically mentioned were cape jasmine and bulrushes, though they then note that there were also many other products that they didn't bother to list. This must have been considered quite the success, as the Yamato envoys were each awarded a grade of rank for their efforts. They also appear to have returned with some of the locals, as they were entertained again in Asuka—this time on the riverbank west of Asukadera, where various kinds of music were performed for them.

Tanegashima and Yakushima would be brought formally under Yamato hegemony in 702 with the creation of Tane province, but for now it was still considered separate. This was probably just the first part of the efforts to bring them into Yamato, proper.

Getting back to the Silla envoys who had arrived in 676, they appear to have remained for several months. In the third lunar month of 677 we are told that they, along with guests of lower rank—thirteen persons all told—were invited to the capital. Meanwhile, the escort envoys and others who had not been invited to the capital were entertained in Tsukushi and returned from there.

While this was going on, weather out in the straits drove a Silla boat to the island of Chikashima. Aboard was a Silla man accompanined by three attendants and three Buddhist priests. We aren't told where they were going, but they were given shelter and when the Silla envoy, Kim Chyeonpyeong, returned home he left with those who had been driven ashore, as well.

The following year, 678, was not a great one for the Silla envoys. Garyang Jyeongsan and Gim Hongsye arrived at Tsukushi, but they were just the escorts. The actual envoys had been separated by a storm at sea and never arrived. In their place, the escort envoys were sent to the capital, probably to at least carry through with the rituals of diplomacy. This was in the first month of the following year, 679, and given when envoys had previously arrived, it suggests to me that they waited a few months, probably to see if the envoys' ship eventually appeared and to give the court time to figure out what to do. A month later, the Goguryeo envoys arrived, still being accompanied by Silla escorts, also arrived.

Fortunately the Yamato envoys to Silla and elsewhere fared better. That year, 679, the envoys returned successfully from Silla, Goguryeo, and Tamna. Overall, though, I think it demonstrates that this wasn't just a pleasure cruise. There was a very real possibility that one could get lost at sea. At the same time, one needed people of sufficient status to be able to carry diplomatic messages and appropriately represent the court in foreign lands. We often seen envoys later taking on greater positions of responsibility in the court, and so you didn't have to go far to find those willing to take the risk for later rewards.

That same year, another tribute mission from Silla did manage to make the crossing successfully. And in this mission we are given more details, for they brought gold, silver, iron, sacrificial cauldrons with three feet, brocade, cloth, hides, horses, dogs, mules, and camels. And those were just the official gifts to the court. Silla also sent distinct presents for the sovereign, the queen, and the crown prince, namely gold, silver, swords, flags, and things of that nature.

This appears to demonstrate increasingly close ties between Silla and Yamato. All of that arrived in the 10th lunar month of 679, and they stayed through the 6th lunar month of 680—about 7 to 9 months all told, depending on if there were any intercalary months that year. In addition to entertaining the Silla envoys in Tsukushi—it is not mentioned if they made it to the capital—we are also told that in the 2nd lunar month, halfway through the envoys' visit, eight labourers from Silla were sent back to their own country with gifts appropriate to their station.

Here I have to pause and wonder what exactly is meant by this. "Labourer" seems somewhat innocuous. I suspect that their presence in Yamato may have been less than voluntary, and I wonder if these were captured prisoners of war who could have been in Yamato now for over a decade. If so, this could have been a gesture indicating that the two sides were putting all of that nastiness with Baekje behind them, and Yamato was accepting Silla's new role on the peninsula. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it does seem to imply that Silla and Yamato were growing closer, something that Yamato would need if it wanted to have easy access, again, to the wider world.

Speaking of returning people, that seems to have been something of a common thread for this year, 680, as another mission from Goguryeo saw 19 Goguryeo men also returned to their country. These were condolence envoys who had come to mourn the death of Takara Hime—aka Saimei Tennou. They must have arrived in the midst of all that was happening peninsula, and as such they were detained. Their detention is somewhat interesting, when you think about it, since technically Baekje and Goguryeo—and thus Yamato—would have been on the same side against the Silla-Tang alliance. But perhaps it was just considered too dangerous to send them home, initially, and then the Tang had taken control of their home. It is unclear to me how much they were being held by Yamato and how much they were just men without a country for a time. This may reflect how things on the mainland were stabilizing again, at least from Yamato's perspective. However, as we'll discuss a bit later, it may have also been another attempt at restoring the Goguryeo kingdom by bringing back refugees, especially if they had connections with the old court. The Goguryeo envoys—both the recent mission and those who had been detained—would remain until the 5th lunar month of 681, when they finally took their leave. That year, there were numerous mission both from and to Silla and Goguryeo, and in the latter part of the year, Gim Chyungpyeong came once again, once more bearing gives of gold, silver, copper, iron, brocade, thin silk, deerskins, and fine cloth. They also brought gold, silver, flags of a rosy-colored brocade and skins for the sovereign, his queen, and the crown prince.

That said, the 681 envoys also brought grave news: King Munmu of Silla was dead. Munmu had reigned since 661, so he had overseen the conquest of Silla and Goguryeo. His regnal name in Japanese might be read as Monmu, or even "Bunbu", referencing the blending of literary and cultural achievements seen as the pinnacle of noble attainment. He is known as Munmu the Great for unifying the peninsula under a single ruler—though much of the Goguryeo territory was still out of reach. Indeed he saw warfare and the betterment of his people, and it is no doubt significant that his death is recorded in the official records of the archipelago. He was succeeded by his son, who would reign as King Sinmun, though the succession wasn't exactly smooth.

We are told that Munmu, knowing his time was short, requested that his son, the Crown Prince, be named king before they attended to Munmu's own funerary arrangements, claiming that the throne should not sit vacant. This may have been prescient, as the same year Munmu died and Sinmun ascended to the throne there was a revolt, led by none other than Sinmun's own father-in-law, Kim Heumdol. Heumdol may, himselve, have been more of a figurehead for other political factions in the court and military. Nonetheless, the attempted coup of 681 was quickly put down—the envoys in Yamato would likely only learn about everything after the dust had settled upon their return.

The following year, 682, we see another interesting note about kings, this time in regards to the Goguryeo envoys, whom we are told were sent by the King of Goguryeo. Ever since moving the commandery to Liaodong, the Tang empire had claimed dominion over the lands of Goguryeo north of the Taedong river. Originally they had administered it militarily, but in 677 they crowned a local, Bojang as the "King of Joseon", using the old name for the region, and put him in charge of the Liaodong commandery. However, he was removed in 681, and sent into exile in Sichuan, because rather than suppressing revolt, he had actually encouraged restoration attempts, inviting back Goguryeo refugees, like those who had been detained in Yamato. Although Bojang himself was sent into exile, his descendants continued to claim sovereignty, so it may have been one of them that was making the claim to the "King of Goguryeo", possibly with Silla's blessing.

Later that year, 682, we see Hayato from Ohosumi and Ata—possibly meaning Satsuma—the southernmost point of Kyushu coming to the court in 682. They brought tribute and representatives of Ohosumi and Ata wrestled, with the Ohosumi wrestler emerging victorious. They were entertained west of Asukadera, and various kinds of music was performed and gifts were given. They were apparently quite the sight, as Buddhist priests and laiety all came out to watch.

Little is known for certain about the Hayato. We have shields that are attributed to them, but their association may have more to do with the fact that they were employed as ceremonial guards for a time at the palace. We do know that Southern Kyushu had various groups that were seen as culturally distinct from Yamato, although there is a lot of overlap in material culture. We also see early reports of the Kumaso, possibly two different groups, the Kuma and So, in earlier records, and the relationship between the Kumaso and the Hayato is not clearly defined.

What we do know is that southern Kyushu, for all that it shared with Yamato certain aspects of culture through the kofun period, for example, they also had their own traditions. For example, there is a particular burial tradition of underground kofun that is distinct to southern Kyushu. A great example of this can be found at the Saitobaru Kofun cluster in Miyazaki, which contains these unique southern Kyushu style burials along with more Yamato style keyhole shaped and circular type kofun. Miyazaki sits just north of the Ohosumi peninsula, in what was formerly the land of Hyuga, aka Himuka. This is also where a lot of the founding stories of the Heavenly grandchild were placed, and even today there is a shrine there to the Heavenly Rock Cave. In other words there are a lot of connections with Southern Kyushu, and given that the Chronicles were being written in the later 7th and early 8th centuries, it is an area of intense interest when trying to understand the origins of Yamato and Japanese history.

Unfortunately, nothing clearly tells us exactly how the Hayato were separate, but in the coming century they would both come under Yamato hegemony and rebel against it, time and again. This isn't the first time they are mentioned, but it may be the first time that we see them as an actual people, in a factual entry as earlier references in the Chronicles are suspect.

Continuing on with our look at diplomacy during this period, the year 683 we see a continuation of the same patterns, with nothing too out of the ordinary. Same with most of 684 until the 12th lunar month. It is then that we see a Silla ship arrive with Hashi no Sukune no Wohi and Shirawi no Fubito no Hozen. They had both, previously been to the Tang empire to study, though we don't have a record of them leaving for that or any other purpose. They are accompanied by Witsukahi no Muraji no Kobito and Tsukushi no Miyake no Muraji no Tokuko, both of whom had apparently been captured and taken by the Tang dynasty during the Baekje campaign. Apparently they had all traveled back from the Tang empire together to Silla, who then provided them passage to Yamato.

The timing of this suggests it may have had something to do with the changes going on in the Tang empire—changes that I desperately want to get into, but given that we are already a good ways into this current episode, I think I will leave it for later. But I will note this: Emperor Gaozong had passed away and his wife, Empress Wu Zetian, was now ruling as regent for her sons. Wu Zetian is probably the most famous empress in all of Chinese history, and while she held de facto power as a co-regent during her husband's reign and as a regent during her sons' reigns, she would actually ascend the throne herself in 690. Her reign as a woman during a time of heightened patriarchal tradition is particularly of note, and it leads us to wonder about the vilification that she received by the men who followed her rule. And I really want to get into all of that but, thematically, I think it better to wait. Those of you reading ahead in the syllabus—which is to say the Chronicles—probably know why. So let us just leave it there and say that the Tang was going through a few things, and that may explain why students were returning back in the company of former war captives.

A few months later, the Silla escort, Gim Mulyu, was sent home along with 7 people from Silla who had been washed ashore—presumably during a storm or other such event, again illustrating the dangers of taking to the ocean at this time. Perhaps related to that theme is the entry only a month later, which merely stated that Gim Jusan of Silla returned home. Gim Jusan was an envoy sent to Yamato in the 11th lunar month of 683. He was entertained in Tsukushi, and we are told that he returned to his own country on the 3rd month of 684. Now we are seeing an entry in the 4th month of 685 that this same person apparently returned home.

It is possible that something got mixed up, and that the Chroniclers were dealing with a typo in the records that made it seem like this took place a year later than it did. This was certainly an issue at this time, given all the math one had to do just to figure out what day it was. There is also the possibility that he returned on another embassy, but just wasn't mentioned for some reason. The last possible explanation is that he somehow got lost and it took him a year to find his way back. Not entirely impossible back then, though I am a bit skeptical. Among other things, why would that note have found its way into the Chronicles in Yamato? While they were certainly using some continental sources, this seems like something they were talking about as far as him leaving the archipelago, rather than discussion of something happening elsewhere.

Speaking of happening elsewhere, I'm wondering about another event that happened around this time as well. In fact, it was while Gim Mulyu was still in the archipelago. For some reason the Yamato court granted rank to 147 individuals from Tang, Baekje, and Goguryeo. Interestingly, they don't mention Silla. Furthermore, there is no real mention of any Tang envoys during this reign. In fact, there is hardly mention of the Tang dynasty at all. There is a mention of some 30 Tang men—captives, presumably—being sent to the Yamato court from Tsukushi. Those men were settled in Toutoumi, so there were men of Tang in the archipelago. But beyond that, there are only three other mentions of the Tang dynasty. One was when the students and war captives came back. Another was this note about giving rank to 147 individuals. Finally there is a similar record in 686, at the very end of the reign, where it is 34 persons who were given rank. This time it was to carpenters, diviners, physicians, students from Tang—possibly those who had just come back a year or so earlier.

So if there weren't envoys from Tang, Goguryeo, and Baekje, who were these people and why were they being granted Yamato court rank? My assumption is that it was foreigners living in the archipelago, and being incorporated into the Yamato court system. Still, it is interesting that after the overtures by the Tang in the previous reign we have heard virtually nothing since then. Again, that is likely largely due to the conflicts between Tang and Silla, though now, things seem to be changing. The conflicts have settled down, and new rulers are in place, so we'll see how things go.

Speaking of which, let's finish up with the diplomatic exchanges in this reign. I'm only hitting some of the highlights here. First is the return from Silla, in the 5th month of 685, of Takamuku no Asomi no Maro and Tsuno no Asomi no Ushikahi. They had traveled to Silla in 684, and they did not come back emptyhanded. The new King of Silla presented them with gifts, including 2 horses, 3 dogs, 2 parrots, and 2 magpies. They also brought back the novice monks Kanjou and Ryoukan. Not bad, overall.

Then, 6 months later, another tribute mission came, but this one has an interesting—if somewhat questionable—note attached to it. It is said that the envoys Gim Jisyang and Gim Geonhun were sent to request "governance" and to bring tribute. This certainly go the court's attention. They didn't bring the envoys all the way to the capital, but they did send to them, in Tsukushi, Prince Kawachi, Ohotomo no Sukune no Yasumaro, Fujiwara no Asomi no Ohoshima, and Hodzumi no Asomi no Mushimaro. About three months later they send the musical performers from Kawaradera to provide entertainment during a banquet for the Silla envoy, and in payment some 5,000 bundles of rice rom the private lands attached to the queen's palace were granted to the temple in gratitude.

The Silla tribute was then brought to the capital from Tsukushi. This time it was more than 100 items, including one fine horse, one mule, two dogs, a gold container inlaid with some kind of design, gold, silver, faint brocade, silk gauze, tiger and leopard skins, and a variety of medicines. In addition, as was now common, the envoys, Gim Jisyang and Gim Geonhun, apparently had personal gifts to give in the form of gold, silver, faint brocade, silk gauze, gold containers, screens, saddle hides, silk cloth, and more medicine. There were also gifts specifically for the sovereign, the queen, the Crown Prince, and for the various princes of the blood.

The court returned this favor with gifts to the envoys, presented at a banquet just for them, before sending them on their way.

A couple of notes. First off, it is interesting that they are entertained at Tsukushi rather than being invited to the capital, and I wonder if this was because the sovereign, Ohoama, wasn't doing so well. This was all happening in 685 and 686, and the sovereign would pass away shortly afterwards. So it is possible that Ohoama just was not up to entertaining visitors at this time. Of course, the Chronicles often don't tell us exactly why a given decision was made, only that it was. And sometimes not even that.

The other thing that seems curious is the mention of a request for governance. That almost sounds like Silla was asking to come under Yamato hegemony, which I seriously doubt. It may be that they were asking something along the lines of an alliance, but it is also possible that the scribes recording things for Yamato heard what they wanted to hear and so wrote it down in the light most favorable to Yamato laying claim to the peninsula.

Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding exactly what they were asking for. Maybe "governance" here means something else—perhaps just some kind of better relationship.

And with that, we'll leave it for now. There is more developing in the next reign, but I think we want to wait until we get there. There are still a lot more things to cover in this reign before we move on—we haven't even touched on the establishment of the new capital, on the various court events, not to mention some of the laws and punishments that this period is named for. And there is the minor issue of a rebellion. All of that will be dealt with. And then, after that, we get to the final reign of the Chronicles: the reign of Jitou Tennou. From there? Who knows.

It is the winter holiday season, so I hope everyone is enjoying themselves. Next episode will be the New Year's recap, and then we should finish with this reign probably in January or early February.

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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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 look at many of the natural events and talk about those observing and writing things down, and why they may have wanted to do so.

For more, check out our podcast blogpage: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-139

Rough Transcript:

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 139: Observing the "Natural" World.

Members of the Onmyou-ryou, dressed in the official robes of their office, sat around in their observation tower, measuring the location of the stars. They kept their light to a minimum, just enough so that they could write down their observations, but not so much that it would destroy their vision. As they looked up, suddenly they saw a strange movement: a streak through the sky. They waited, and observed, and then there was another, and another after that. It was as if the stars themselves were falling from the heavens. They watched as it seemed that the constellations themselves were melting and falling apart. Quickly they scribbled down notes. Tomorrow, with the light of day, they would consult various sources to see just what it could mean. For now, their role was simply to observe and record.

Welcome back, everyone. It is the height of holiday season in the US as I record this, and in our narrative we are in the middle of the reign of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou, who came to power in 672 and who has been shoring up the Ritsuryo state instigated by his late brother, Naka no Oe, aka Tenji Tennou. We have talked in recent episodes about how Ohoama put a lot of the state under the control of members of the royal family, or at least those with claims to royal blood, and how he had also begun work on the Chronicles—the very works that we have been using to try and understand the history of this and earlier periods.

It seems clear that Ohoama and his cohorts were doing their best to solidify their control and, in the process, create what they felt was a modern state, leveraging the continental model, but not without their own local flavor. After all, they were also investing in the kami based rituals of state and specifically in Ise shrine, which they claimed as an ancestral shrine for their lineage.

This episode, let's dig into another thing that was getting reported around this time. And that is… science! Or at least observations of the world and indications of how people were interacting with it.

Before going into the subject, I want to acknowledge that "science", or "Kagaku" in modern Japanese, may not look like what we think of as "science" today. The word "Kagaku" itself appears to come about in the late Edo period, and became associated with the western idea of "Science" in the Meiji period. Today we think of it as observations, yes, but also testing via the scientific method.

I think it might be more appropriate to categorize a lot of earlier science under a term like "learning" or "study", and it seems to have encompassed a wide range of topics of study, some of which we would include as "science" and some which we might refer to more as "arts". There is also a very fine line with religion and philosophy as well.

From a modern perspective, I think one could fairly argue that "science"—particularly the so-called "hard" sciences—refers to something that can be empirically tested via the scientific method. So you can see something, form a hypothesis, create a test, and then that test should produce the same results no matter who conducts it, assuming you account for the variables.

And please don't @ me about this… I know I am simplifying things. This isn't a podcast about science unless we are talking about the social sciences of history and archaeology.

In contrast to our modern concept of science, much of what we see in the Asuka era is built around using our reasoning to arrive at the truth of something. In cases where we are dealing with clearly physical phenomena that have observable causes and effects, this can lead to remarkably reliable results. One example of this is calendrical science—it isn't that hard to observe the passing of days and seasons. Even the rotation of the earth and the movements of stars and even something with as large a period as comets could be observed and tracked, especially if you had centuries of data to comb through. In fact, they often would predict things that it turns out they couldn't, themselves, see. They could predict that an eclipse would occur, for example, even when that eclipse was only visible somewhere else. And they didn't have to calculate gravitational pull, mass, or distances between different heavenly bodies for that to occur.

Similarly, in the agricultural sphere: you had so many people who observed the seasons and would figure out new ways of doing things. It doesn't take an understanding of chlorophyl to know that plants generally do better when exposed to sunlight.

I believe the leap happens when you get to things that go beyond purely observable means. Sickness, for example—how do you explain viruses or germs without equipment like microscopes to see what our eyes alone cannot? And if such "invisible" things could cause so much damage, then why could there not be other "invisible" elements, such as kami and boddhisatvas?

And as humans we are driven to make connections. It is one of the things that has driven our technological innovation and rise, but it is also something that can easily go awry. Like when you are sitting in a dark house, alone, and you hear a noise. Rationally, you might know that houses settle and creak, but that doesn't necessarily stop your brain from connecting it with thoughts that someone must be in the house making that noise. Or even how we make judgments based on nothing more than how someone talks or what they look like, because our brains have made connections with those things, for good or ill.

A large part of the rationalization that was accomplished in Asian thought had to do with concepts of Yin and Yang, the negative and the positive, the dark and the light. This was thought of as a kind of energy—qi or ki—that was embedded in things. We discussed this somewhat back in episode 127, because yin yang theory, along with the five element theory, known as Wuxing or Gogyou in Japanese, became embedded in the idea of the calendar. Why was summer hot, except that it was connected with an excess of fire energy? And the cold, dark days of winter would be associated with an excess of water, naturally.

I should note that while this is one of the more comprehensive philosophical systems in use, it was not the only means by which various phenomena and effects were rationalized. After all, it had to be imposed on a framework of how the world otherwise worked, and descriptions of the world came from a variety of places. There was, for example, the Classic of Mountains and Seas, or Sanhaijing, which detailed the world as envisioned in the period before the Qin dynasty, although there were occasional updates. The Sanhaijing described regular plants and animals in the same breath as gods and monsters. There were also various buddhist sutras, which brought their own cosmological view of the universe that had to be squared with other visions, including those passed down locally describing the archipelago as the "Reed Plain" and giving particular importance to eight of the islands—though which eight depends on which variant of the creation myth you are referencing.

To categorize the study of the natural—and what we would consider the supernatural—world around them, the Ritsuryou set up specific bureaus. One of these was the Onmyou-ryou, the Bureau of Yin-yang, also known as the Onyo no Tsukasa. This Bureau oversaw divination, astronomy, time, and calendars. At its head was the Onmyou-no-kami. Below them were the various scholars studying the core subjects, as well as technical practitioners to carry out the rites and divination.

On the continent, priority was generally given to astronomical and calendrical studies, and many of the more magical practices or rituals would fade away, likely because there were local Taoist institutions who could take up much of that work. In Japan, however, it seems that the calendrical studies tended to ossify, instead, while onmyoji came to fill a role not just for the state but also among the population for divination and other such practices. Even into the Edo period one could find private onmyoji, and the Bureau itself lasted until the very beginning of the Meiji period.

Another important institution of the Ritsuryo government for learning was the Daigakuryou, the Bureau of Great Learning. Students of Japanese may recognize the term "Daigaku" referring, today, to universities.

The original concept for the Daigaku-ryou, or Daigaku no Tsukasa, was focused on the study of those things that were considered perhaps a bit more practical and necessary to anyone who might want a political career. Since this was founded on concepts of Confucian government, it is little wonder that it was originally designed to focus on Confucian studies, among other things. This fits into the idea of a supposed meritocracy, where one's education was part of the examination. You may recall from Episode 115 we talked about the National University in Chang'an, which is likely something that the Daigaku Ryou could only ever dream of becoming.

Early arts taught at the Daigaku Ryou included the Confucian classics, mathematics, writing, and Chinese pronunciation. These were all things that you would need to know to become a part of the bureaucracy

The idea of a school may have been born along with the early institution of the government, with mention as early as 671, in the last year of Naka no Oe's reign, but we don't have it clearly established in the code until later. Full operations may have been somewhat delayed due to the tumultuous events of Ohoama's accession to power in 672, but we do see it explicitly mentioned in the year 675. On the first day of the year we are told that Students from the Daigaku Ryou, along with students from the Onmyou-Ryou and from the Gaiyaku Ryou, the Bureau of External Medicine; along with the Woman of S'ravasti, the Woman of Tara, Prince Syeonkwang of Baekje, and Silla labourers offered presents of drugs and various rarities.

We talked about the first two, the Daigaku-ryou and the Onmyou-ryou, but the Gaiyaku Ryou doesn't seem to have a lot of information out there beyond this mention. Later there would a "Ten'yaku Ryou", or Bureau of Medicine, established in the code. Since we don't have any extant codes from this period beyond what was written down in the Nihon Shoki, we don't know for certain what the Gaiyaku-ryou was , and it is possible that the Gaiyaku-Ryou was a precursor to the Ten'yaku Ryou. "GAI" means "outside" or "external", leading me to wonder if this referred to external medicine in contrast to internal medicine, or if it meant medicine or drugs from outside teh archipeloago.

I would point out that these students are found with the Woman of S'ravasti, or Shae; the Woman of Tara; a Baekje prince and Silla labourers. In other words, they were all people from outside of the archipelago. This is not entirely surprising as it was from outside that much of the learning was coming into the country.

"Yaku" or "Kusuri", which can be translated as either "Drugs" or "medicine", could refer to a number of things. How effective they were is somewhat questionable. Almost certainly some of them had confirmed medicinal efficacy, but others may have been thought to have been effective due to things like their connection to the five elements, or wuxing, theory. For example, something red might be assumed to have a warming effect because of the presumed presence of the fire element. And the power of the placebo effect no doubt made them seem at least partially effective. Consider, for example, how many people will swear by certain remedies for the common cold when all it really does is distract you, or perhaps make you a bit more comfortable, until the symptoms pass on their own.

A more certain science was probably that of Astronomy, which we've mentioned a few times. The passage of the stars through the sky was something that could be easily observed. There is a theory that some of the first lines in the Yijing, or book of changes, may actually be a description of the changing of seasons as different aspects of a given constellation rise over the horizon, and the placement of certain stars would help in the adjustment of the lunar calendar, since the moon's orbit does not match up exactly with the solar year, and year the solar year was quite important to things like agriculture and even sailing to the mainland.

This all makes 675 a seemingly banner year for science, as four days after the presentation of medicine to the throne, the government erected a platform by which to observe the stars. This wouldn't need to be much—it could have been an earthen mound, or just a tower, from which one could get above the ground, presumably see over any buildings, to the horizon. Granted, Asuka might not be the best place for such observations, with the nearby mountains meaning that the true horizon is often obstructed. Nonetheless, it may have been enough to make calculations.

Astronomy platforms, or Tenmondai, would continue to be used up until at least the Meiji period. Without a telescope, observations were somewhat limited—though they also didn't have the same level of light pollution that we have today. Remember, many woke just before dawn and went to sleep not too long after the sun went down, which only makes sense when you are living in a place where creating light, while doable, also ran the risk of burning your entire house to the ground.

It is worth noting that the sky for the ancient Japanese was likely quite different than what most of us see when we look up, unless you are fortunate enough to live in a place with very little light pollution. For many of those living today in the cities and suburban landscape, go outside at night and you might see the moon and some of the brightest stars, but for most of the ancient Japanese, they would look up and see the heavenly river, the Amakawa, or Milky Way. They would have looked up at a sky glittering with myriad dots of light, as well as planets and more. It was both familiar and strange—something one saw regularly and yet something that was also extremely inaccessible.

Astronomical observations would have been important for several reasons, as I've mentioned. They would have been used to keep the calendar in check, but they would also have likely been used to help calibrate the water clock, which helped to tell time. Of course, going back to the five elements and yin yang theory, it is also believed that the energy, the qi or ki, changed with the seasons and the movements of the stars and planets—planets were not known as such, of course, but their seemingly erratic movements compared to bright lights in the sky meant they were noticed and assigned values within the elemental system.

One of the things that came with the changing seasons, the heavenly movements, and the flow of ki was a concept of "kata-imi", literally directional taboos. There were times when certain directions might be considered favorable or unfavorable for various actions. This could be something as simple as traveling in a given direction. In the centuries to come this would spawn an entire practice of kata-tagae, or changing direction. Is the north blocked, but you need to travel there, anyway? Well just go northwest to say hello to a friend or visit your local sake brewery, and then travel due east. Ta-da! You avoided going directly north! There were also mantra-like incantations that one might say if they had to travel in an inauspicious direction to counteract the concept of bad influences.

This also influenced various other things, and even today you will often see dates where a year and month might be followed by simply the character for "auspicious day" rather than an actual day of the month.

So observing the heavens was important, and it was also important that they tostudy the works of those on the continent, whose records could help predict various astronomical phenomena. Except that there was one tiny problem: I don't know if you've noticed, but Japan and China are in two different locations. Not all astronomical phenomena can be observed from all points of the globe. The Northern Lights, for example, are rarely seen in more southerly latitudes, and while eclipses are not too rare, a total eclipse only impacts certain areas of the earth, along relatively narrow paths.

I mention this because it isn't always clear if the records we get in the Nihon Shoki are about phenomena they directly observed or if they are taking reports from elsewhere and incorporating them into the narrative. One such event is the comet of 676.

The entry in the Nihon Shoki tells us that in the 7th lunar month of the 5th year of Temmu Tennou, aka 676 CE, a star appeared in the east that was 7 or 8 shaku in length. It disappeared two months later.

We've mentioned some of this before, but the sky was divided up into "shaku", or "feet", though how exactly it was measured I'm not entirely sure. It appears to be that one foot was roughly 1.5 degrees of the sky, give or take about a quarter of a degree, with 180 degrees from horizon to horizon. So it would have been about 10 to 12 degrees in the sky. Another way to picture it is if you hold out your arm towards the object, and spread your index and little finger, it would probably fit between those two points.

This comet hung around for some time, and a great part about a comet like this is that it was viewable from multiple locations. After all, as the earth turned, different areas were exposed to the comet as it passed through our part of the solar system. Thus we have records of it from not just the Nihon Shoki: We also find it in the Anglo-Saxon chronicles, where it was thought to have foretold the end of Bishop Wilfred's control of Northumbria. We also see it in Tang, Silla, and Syrian sources.

These sources aren't always in complete agreement. For one thing, they noted when they first saw it, which might have been impacted by local conditions. And then conversion between lunar and solar calendars can also sometimes get in the way. Roughtly speaking, we have the Nihon Shoki providing dates of somewhere from about August or September of 676, on the Western calendar, to October or November. Tang sources put it from 4 September to 1 November. Silla Chronicles claim that it first appeared in the 7th lunar month, so between August and September. A Syrian Chronicle notes a comet from about 28 August to 26 October in the following year, 677, but this is thought to have been a mistake. European sources generally seem to claim it was seen in August and lasted for three months. All of these sightings put it at roughly the same time.

Working with that and with known comets, we think we actually know which comet this is: The Comet de Cheseaux also known as the Comet Klinkenberg-Cheseaux. And I should mention this is all thanks to a research paper by M. Meyer and G. W. Kronk. In that paper they propose that this is the comet with the designation of C/1743 X1, or the common names I just mentioned. If so, based on its trajectory, this comet would have been visible in 336, 676, 1032, 1402, 1744, and is next predicted to show up in 2097. And no, those aren't all exactly the same amount of time. It is roughly every 350 years or so, but with the movements of the solar system, the planets, and various gravitational forces that likely slow or speed up its movement, it doesn't show up on exactly regular intervals. Still, it is pretty incredible to think that we have a record of a comet that was seen the world over at this time, by people looking up from some very different places.

Comets were something interesting for early astronomers. They may have originally been seen as particularly ominous—after all, in the early eras, they were hardly predictable, and it would take years to get enough data to see that they were actually a somewhat regular occurrence. In fact, it is likely that early astronomers were able to figure out eclipse schedules before comets. Still, they seem to have come to the realization that comets were in fact another type of natural and reoccurring phenomenon. That isn't to say that they didn't have any oracular meaning, but it did mean they were less of an obvious disturbance of the heavenly order.

We have another comet mentioned in the 10th lunar month of 681, but that one seems to have had less attention focused on it, and we don't have the same details. Then in the 8th lunar month of 682 we have an entry about a Great Star passing from East to West—which was probably a shooting star, rather than a comet. Comets, for all that they appear to be streaking across the sky thanks to their long tails, are often relatively stable from an earthbound perspective, taking months to appear and then disappear again.

Then, on the 23rd day of the 7th month of 684 we get another comet in the northwest. This one was more than 10 shaku in length—about 15 degrees, total, give or take. Given the date, we can be fairly confident about this one, as well: it was the famous Halley's comet.

Halley's comet is fascinating for several reasons. For one, it has a relatively short period of about 72 to 80 years, though mostly closer to 75 to 77 years in between sightings. The last time it visited the earth was in 1986, and it is expected back in 2061. Halley's comet has been recorded since the 3rd century BCE, and, likely because of its short period, it was the first periodic comet to be recognized as such. There are other periodic comets with short periods, but many of them are not visible with the naked eye.

Halley's comet is perhaps the most studied comet, given its regular and relatively short periodicity. It is also connected to the famous writer, humorist, and essayist, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain. He was born only a few days after the comet reached perihelion in 1835 and died a day after it reached the same point again in 1910, and while he may not have visited Japan in his lifetime, it was a period of great change both in his home country of America and in Japan. America, of course, would undergo a Civil War over the issue of slavery in the early 1860s, and shortly after that Japan would have its own civil war in the form of the Meiji Revolution. And while he never visited—and translation could only do so much to capture the art of his prose—Mark Twain's works were apparently quite influential in Japan in the early 20th century.

Of course, comets were just one of the celestial phenomena to be observed. The astronomers were interested in just about anything happening in the sky. We have accounts of both solar and lunar eclipses, and not necessarily full eclipses either. We even have notice of the movement of some planets, such as in 681, when they noted that the planet mars "entered" the moon.

Obviously the astronomers weren't recording every raincloud that came through—at least not in the main chronicles—but they did capture a fair number of events. They did record particularly memorable storms. For instances, in the 8th lunar month of 675 there was a storm that is said to have caused sand to fly and which then damaged houses. This sounds like a wind storm without rain—after all, if there was rain, you would expect that the sand would have been wet and tamped down.

It is possible to have hurricane level winds without the rain. While typhoons typically bring rain, especially as they usually build up their strength at sea, it is possible to have the winds alone, as I've experienced, myself, in Tokyo. This most likely happens in an isolated area—there is water and rain somewhere, but the typhoon can be large, so parts of it may only get the wind and little or no rain. I wonder if something like that happened in this instance. It is also possible that this record refers to actual sand being brought across from the continent. In some instances, sand can be lifted up from as far away as Mongolia and carried all the way to Japan, though it is pretty rare.

And it wasn't just wind and sand. We get accounts of hail coming down as large as peaches, torrential rainstorms, and even ash, likely from a volcanic eruption that was otherwise unrecorded. There are also accounts of snow, though typically recorded in times where you wouldn't expect to see it, such as the third lunar month, which would mean snow in late April or early May.

Mostly these storms are mentioned in terms of how they affected the immediate fortunes of the living, but sometimes storms did even more damage. In 682, for example, a hoar-frost was reported in both Shinano and Kibi in the 7th lunar month. On its own, this probably wouldn't have been worth mentioning, but the chroniclers add that because of storms the "five grains had not formed". So storms had diminished the crops and the hoar-frost was apparently the killing blow. The harvest that year would be lean, and it would not be a happy time for many that winter.

And then, just as important as what was happening was what was not. There are several mentions of droughts, particularly towards the end of Spring, early Summer. This is traditionally a drier period, and if it is too dry it could harm the harvest. And so the government was expected to find a way to bring the rain—a tall order, the general resolution to which seems to be prayers and rituals designed to bring rain. In a place like Japan, I suspect that it was usually just a matter of time before the prayers were "successful", thus reinforcing their presumed efficacy.

Some of the things that they recorded were a bit more mysterious. For example, in the second lunar month of 680 we are told that a sound like drums was heard from the East. There are many things this could theoretically be, from rumbles of thunder to some other phenomenon, though the following year we have a note about thunder in the West, so theoretically they knew the difference between thunder and drums. Later that same year, 680, we are told that there was a "brightness" in the East from the hour of the dog to the hour of the rat—about 8pm to midnight. Was this some kind of aurora? But wouldn't that have been in the north, rather than the east? Could it have been some kind of lightning? But that is a long time for a lightning storm to hang around.

And there are other strange things, some of which seem impossible and we have to doubt. For example, in 684 they said that, at dusk, the seven stars of the Big Dipper drifted together to the northeast and sank. Unless they are just recording the natural setting of the stars of the big dipper. Certainly, over time the constellation appears to rotate around the north star, and it dips down to or below the horizon in the autumn months. So were they just talking about the natural, yearly setting of the stars, or something else?

There may be some clues in that the 11th lunar month, when that was recorded, we see several other heavenly phenomena recorded. Two days after the Big Dipper set, at sunset, a star fell in the eastern quarter of the sky that we are told was as large as a jar. Later, the constellations were wholly disordered and stars fell like rain. That same month, a star shot up in the zenith and proceeded along with the Pleiades until the end of the month.

While this sounds like shooting stars and a possible meteor shower, a later commenter suggested that this was all a heavenly omen for the state of the court, showing the "disordered" state of the nobility at this time. Of course, this was also a year and change before the sovereign's eventual passing, so there is also the possibility that the Chroniclers were looking at events later and ascribing meaning and importance after the fact.

In another account of something seemingly wonderous: in 682 we are told that something shaped like a Buddhist flag, colored like flame, was seen by all of the provinces and then sank into the Japan sea north of Koshi. A white mist is also said to have risen up from the Eastern mountains.

There are various things that could be going on here. It strikes me that the white mist could be a cloud, but could also be something volcanic. And the flame colored prayer flag makes me think about how a high cloud can catch the light of the rising or setting sun. That could look like a flag, and can seem extremely odd depending on the other conditions in the sky.

Or maybe it was aliens.

Okay, it is unlikely that it was aliens, but I think that these do give an idea of the kinds of records that were being made about the observed phenomena. Obviously the Nihon Shoki is recording those things that were considered particularly significant for whatever reason. This could just be because it was something odd and unexplained, or perhaps it was more well known but rare. It may have even had religious connotations based on some aspect, like evoking the image of Buddhist flags. And it is possible that it was thought to have had significant impact on events—perhaps even an impact that isn't clear to us today, many centuries removed from the events.

Some things were clear, however. Lightning strikes are often mentioned specifically when they strike something of note. In 678, we are told that a pillar of the Western Hall of the New Palace was struck by lightning, though apparently the building itself survived. Then, in 686, Lighting appeared in the southern sky with a large roar of thunder. A fire broke out and caught the tax cloth storehouse of the Ministry of Popular affairs, which immediately exploded in flames. After all, a thatched roofed, wooden building filled with kindling in the form of cloth—and likely a fair amount of paper and writing supplies to keep track of it all—sounds like a bonfire waiting to happen. There were reports that the fire had actually started in Prince Osakabe's palace and then spread to the Ministry of Popular Affairs from there.

It is also worth noting that recording of such events was still somewhat new to the archipelago as a whole. They were learning from the continent, but also defining their own traditions.

Observations of natural phenomena weren't just relegated to celestial occurrences or weather. After all, there was something else that one could observe in the sky: birds. Now this wasn't your average bird-watching—though I'm not saying that there weren't casual birders in ancient Japan, and if we ever find someone's birding diary from that era I think that would be so cool. But there were some things that were significant enough to be mentioned.

For example, in 678 we get a report of "atori", or bramblings. Bramblings are small songbirds which are found across Eurasia. Notably they are migratory, and are known to migrate in huge flocks especially in the winter time, and sure enough on the 27th day of the 12th month we are told that the bramblings flew from the southwest to the northeast, covering the entire sky. This makes me think about some of the other mass migrations that used to occur that have largely been reduced significantly due to habitat loss, disruption to traditional migratory routes, and other population pressures on various bird species. Still, having so many birds that it blocked out the sky certainly seems a significant event to report on. We later see a similar account in 680, with the flock moving from southeast to northwest. Given the location of Asuka it sounds like they were flocking in the mountains and heading out over the Nara Basin, perhaps seeking food in another mountainous area.

In 682, the birders were at it again. This time, around midday on the 11th day of the 9th lunar month, several hundreds of cranes appeared around the Palace and soared up into the sky. They were there for about two hours before they dispersed. Once again, cranes are migratory and known to flock. Cranes are also known as a symbol of long life and joy—and I can understand it. Have you ever seen a flock of cranes? They are not small birds, and they can be really an incredible sight. Flocks of cranes themselves were probably not that rare, and it was no doubt more about so many gathering around the palace which made it particularly special.

It wasn't just birds in the sky that were considered important symbols, though. Birds often are noted as auspicious omens. Usually strange birds, plants, or other such things are found in various provinces and presented to the throne. So in 675, Yamato presented auspicious "barn-door fowl", likely meaning a fancy chicken. Meanwhile, the Eastern provinces presented a white falcon and the province of Afumi presented a white kite. Chickens are associated with the sun and thus with the sun goddess, Amaterasu, and albino versions of animals were always considered auspicious, often being mentioned in Buddhist sources. Later, in 680, we see a small songbird, a "Shitodo", also described as white, and probably albino, sent to the court from nearby Settsu.

Then, in 681 there is mention of a red sparrow. Red coloration is not quite the same as albinism, though it is something that does occur at times, when the brownish coloration comes out more red than brown, and I suspect this is what we are talking about. This is most likely just a recessed gene or genetic mutation, similar to causes for albinism, but just in a different place in the DNA. As for why it was important: I'd first and foremost note that anything out of the ordinary (and even some ordinary things) could be considered a sign. Red was also seen as an auspicious color, so that may have had something to do with it as well. And then there is the concept of Suzaku, the red bird of the south. Suzaku is usually depicted as an exotic bird species of some kind, like how we might depict a phoenix. But it was also just a "red bird", so there is that, and perhaps that was enough. Not that this red sparrow was "Suzaku", but evoked the idea of the southern guardian animal. A year prior, in 680, a red bird—we aren't told what kind—had perched on a southern gate, which even more clearly screams of the Suzaku aesthetic.

It is probably worth noting here that in 686, towards the end of the reign, not that anyone knew it at the time, Ohoama decided to institute a new nengo, or regnal period. It was called Shuuchou—red or vermillion bird—and it likely referred to Suzaku. This nengo was cut short, however, with Ohoama's death that same year. Nengo were often chosen with auspicious names as a kind of hope for the nation, so clearly "red bird" was considered a good thing.

A month after the red sparrow, Ise sent a white owl, and then a month after that, the province of Suwou sent a red turtle, which they let loose in the pond at the Shima palace. Again, these were probably just examples of animals seen as auspicious, though they would have likely been recorded by the Onmyou-ryou, who would have likely combed through various sources and precedents to determine what kind of meaning might be attached to them.

Color wasn't the only thing that was important. In 682, the Viceroy of Tsukushi reported that they had found a sparrow with three legs. There are numerous reasons why this could be, but there is particular significance in Japan and Asia more generally. A three legged bird is often associated with the sun Andusually depicted as a black outline of a three legged bird inside of a red sun. In Japan this was often conflated with the Yata-garasu, the Great Crow, which is said to have led the first mythical sovereign, Iware Biko, to victory in his conquest of Yamato. Thus we often see a three legged crow depicted in the sun, which was an object of particular veneration for the Wa people from centuries before. And I suspect that the little three-legged sparrow from Tsukushi I suspect that this had particular significance because of that image.

Animals were not the only auspicious things presented to the throne. In 678, Oshinomi no Miyatsuko no Yoshimaro presented the sovereign with five auspicious stalks of rice. Each stalk, itself, had other branches. Rice, of course, was extremely important in Japan, both from a ritual and economic sense, so presenting rice seems appropriate. Five stalks recalls things like the five elemental theory—and in general five was consider a good number. Three and five are both good, prime numbers, while four, pronounced "Shi", sounds like death and is considered inauspicious. Three, or "San" is sometimes associated with life, and five is associated with the five elements, but also just the fact that it is half of ten, and we have five fingers on one hand and in so many other ways, five is regarded as a good number in much of Asia.

That the stalks had multiple branches likely referred to them bearing more than the usual amount of rice on them, which seems particularly hopeful. Certainly the court thought so. In light of the auspicious gift, all sentences of penal servitude and lower were remitted. In 680, Officials of the Department of Law gave tribute of auspicious stalks of grain, themselves. I'm not sure, in this case, that it was all that they hoped, however, as that began three days straight of rain and flooding.

A year earlier, in 679, we are told that the district of Ito, in Kii, immediately south of Yamato, sent as tribute the "herb of long life". We are told that it "resembled" a mushroom—probably meaning it was a mushroom, or maybe something formed into a mushroom shape. But the stem was about a foot long and the crown was two spans, about 6 feet in diameter. This is pretty incredible, and I have to wonder if there is a bit of exaggeration going on here.

Another tribute was a horn found on Mt. Katsuraki. It branched into two at the base, was united at the end, and had some flesh and hair still attached, about an inch in length. They claimed it must be horn or a Lin, or Kirin, sometimes referred to as an Asian unicorn—a mythical creature considered to be quite auspicious and benevolent. This was on the 26th day in the 2nd lunar month of the year 680, probably around March or April. I highly suspect that what they found was an oddly shaped bit of antler from a buck whose antlers had begun to come in and which might have been taken out by wolves or bears or something else altogether. The fact that the ends were said to be fused together could just be referring to some kind of malformation of the antlers. The fur and flesh could mean that the antlers were still growing—antlers would probably just be coming in around early spring time. Still, there is no telling how long it was there, so it could have been from the previous year as well. Attributing it to a kirin seems a bit of a stretch, but it was clearly something unusual.

Animals and plants were recorded in tribute, but also when something odd happened. Fruiting out of season was one such occurrence, which we've seen elsewhere in the chronicles as well. There was even a record when the famous Tsuki tree outside of Asukadera had a branch fall down. Presumably it was a large and noticeable branch, and by now this appears to have been a tree with a bit of age to it that had seen a lot, so it makes sense it got a mention.

Finally, we go from the heavens to the earth. Perhaps the most numerous observations in the Chronicles were the earthquakes. We've noted in the past that Japan is extremely active, volcanically speaking, so it makes sense that there are multiple accounts of earthquakes each year, especially if they were compiling reports from around the country. Most of these are little more than just a note that there was an earthquake, but a few stand out.

The first is the 12th lunar month of 678. We are told that there was a large earthquake in Tsukushi—modern Kyushu. The ground split open to the width of about 20 feet for more than 30,000 feet. Many of the commoners' houses in the area were torn down. In one place there was a house atop a hill, and though the hill crumbled down the house somehow remained intact. The inhabitants had apparently been home and must have been oblivious, as they didn't realize anything had happened until they woke up the next morning.

Again, probably a bit of hyperbole in here, but if we think back to things like the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake, where large areas of land shifted noticeably along the fault lines, it is likely that this was a similar or even more catastrophic event. And here I'll give a quick plug for Kumamoto, which is still working to rebuild from the earthquake, and if you ever get a chance, I recommend a visit to the Kumamoto Earthquake Memorial Museum or Kioku, where you can see for yourself just how powerful mother nature can be.

Another powerful earthquake was mentioned in the 10th lunar month of 684. If the earthquake in Tsukushi had hit mostly agricultural areas, based on the description, this seems to have hit more populated regions. We are told that it started in the dark of night, the hour of the boar, so about 10pm, give or take an hour. The shaking was so bad that throughout the country men and women cried out and were disoriented—they could not tell east from west, a condition no doubt further hindered by the dark night sky. There were mountain slides and rivers changed course, breaking their banks and flooding nearby areas. Official buildings of the provinces and districts, the barns and houses of the common people, and the temples, pagodas, and shrines were all destroyed in huge numbers. Many people and domestic animals were killed or injured. The hot springs of Iyo were dried up and ceased to flow. In the province of Tosa, more than 500,000 shiro of cultivated land sank below sea level. Old men said that they had never seen such an earthquake. On that night there was a rumbling noise like that of drums heard in the east—possibly similar to what we had mentioned earlier. Some say that the island of Idzu, aka Vries Island, the volcanic island at the entrance of Edo Bay, increased on the north side by more than 3,000 feet and that a new island had been formed. The noise of the drums was attributed to the gods creating that island.

So here we have a catastrophic quake that impacted from Iyo, on the western end of Shikoku, all the way to the head of Edo Bay, modern Tokyo. This appears to be what seismologists have labelled a "Nankai Trough Megathrust Earthquake". Similar quakes have occurred and are predicted to occur in the future., along a region of Japan from the east coast of Kyushu, through the Seto Inland Sea, including Shikoku, through the Kii peninsula and all the way to Mt. Fuji. The Nankai Trough, or Southern Sea Trough, is the area where the continental shelf drops down, and where the Philippine tectonic plate slips underneath the Eurasian—or more specifically the Amuric—plate. As these plates move it can cause multiple events all along the trough at the same time. Since being regularly recorded, these quakes have been noted every 100 to 150 years, with the last one being the Showa Nankai quakes of 1944 and 1946.

For all of the destruction that it brought, however, apparently it didn't stop the court. Two days after this devastating quake we are told that Presents were made to the Princes and Ministers. Either they weren't so affected in the capital, or perhaps the date given for one of the two records is not quite reliable. Personally, I find it hard to believe that there would be presents given out two days later unless they were some form of financial aid. But what do I know? It is possible that the court itself was not as affected as other areas, and they may not have fully even grasped the epic scale of the destruction that would later be described in the Chronicles, given the length of time it took to communicate messages across the country.

Which brings us back to the "science" of the time, or at least the observation, hoping to learn from precedence or piece out what messages the world might have for the sovereign and those who could read the signs. While many of the court's and Chronicler's conclusions may give us pause, today, we should nonetheless be thankful that they at least decided to keep notes and jot down their observations. That record keeping means that we don't have to only rely on modern records to see patterns that could take centuries to reveal themselves.

Sure, at this time, those records were still a bit spotty, but it was the start of something that would be remarkably important, and even though these Chronicles may have been focused on propaganda, the fact that they include so many other references are an incalculable boon to us, today, if we can just see to make the connections.

And with that, I think I've rambled enough for this episode. We still have a couple more to fully cover this period.

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.

This episode we cover the first silver mine in Japan, as well as the way that this sovereign is approaching offerings to the kami and handling family matters.

For more check out: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-138

Rough Transcript:

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is Episode 138: Offerings and Covenants

A gentle summer breeze blew through the cherry-tree-covered hills of Yoshino valley. The royal residence, a kind of summer home for the royal family, normally somewhat quiet, was suddenly abuzz with activity. The regular groundskeepers and those who tended the site throughout the year mingled with servants sent from the capital to make it ready for a royal visit. Rooms were aired out and swept. Metal fixtures were polished. The kitchen was stocked and ready to go.

It had been some years since the prince—now sovereign—had resided in the valley as an attempt to proclaim he had retired from the world. Now he was sitting at the top of the state government, but as such, he was more often than not living in the grand palace in Asuka, which he had renovated at the start of his reign. This, the Yoshino palace, was left as more of a vacation home—though "home" hardly did it justice given its majesty compared to the meager dwellings that otherwise surrounded it.

And now there was a massive royal procession on their way. Sure, it was the sovereign and his queen, and only a handful of princes, but they would each need their own quarters and likely have their own household staff that would no doubt need to be fed and housed. In such a way a "simple" outing for the royal family was so often anything but for those who had to make it happen.

And yet, such labor was much preferred to toiling in the fields, especially as the heat of the day started to rise, and the height of summer loomed large in the all-too-immediate future.

Alright, so we are in the midst of the reign of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou, the brother of Naka no Ohoe, who came to power through the use of military force—purportedly used in self-defense—and the sovereign who would have a profound effect on solidifying the Ritsuryo state, as well as the Chronicles and the history of the archipelago as we know it. We've talked about Ohoama's ascension to the throne, and even his first year. We mentioned how, during his reign, he rewarded those who helped him, tweaked the rank system, and we talked a bit about what we know of the clothing and the material culture of the period.

This episode, we continue looking at what occurred during Ohoama's reign. Specifically we'll be covering some of the ways in which Ohoama and his court were shaping the government and the structures of power to serve him and his family. This includes everything from ritual, such as making offerings to various kami, to the way that he seems to have centralized power to himself and his family, which would have lasting impacts through the Asuka and Nara periods.

First, though, a tiny little digression about silver. We start in the 3rd lunar month of the second year since Ohoama ascended the throne, or the year 674 by the western calendar. We are told that Woshiumi no Miyatsuko no Ohokuni, the governor of Tsushima, the island that formed the main border between the archipelago and the mainland, reported that silver had been produced there for the first time, and sent in some as tribute. This is the first recorded instance of silver being produced in Japan.

At this time, silver mining was mostly limited to finding a vein of silver on the surface and digging it out as far as one could possibly go into the rock and stone. Still, silver would eventually become an important resource for the archipelago. Tsushima would continue to produce silver through modern times. Granted, production was limited until new refining techniques were introduced from Joseon Korea in the 16th century. This was just as Ming dynasty deposits were declining, and as such, silver would become a major export from the archipelago to the mainland. Indeed, by the 17th century, it is said that Japan accounted for one quarter to one third of the entire world's silver production.

For now, however, the discovery of native silver was certainly a good start, but the Yamato court wasn't switching to a silver coin currency just yet—rice and cloth were still the major currencies for tax and trade purposes. Still this find seems not insignificant, and clearly the chroniclers thought so as well -- as did the court. They granted Ohokuni, the governor of Tsushima, the rank of Lower Shoukin. The silver produced by the mine was offered to the various kami of heaven and earth, and presents were made to the high ministers and others of the rank of Shoukin and above.

Now back to the Chronicles, and to the meat of what I'll be talking about this episode.

On the 3rd day of the 8th lunar month of 674, we are told that the Royal Prince Wosakabe was sent to Isonokami shrine to polish up the divine treasures, at which point the sovereign made a rather spectacular decree: he declared that all of the precious things originally deposited in the sacred treasuries by the various houses should be returned to their descendants.

This appears to be a reference to the long-standing practice by Yamato of demanding that those they had gained some level of hegemony over turn over their sacred objects for Yamato's keeping. We talked about this back in episodes 19 and 29, for example, when we talked about how Mimaki Iribiko, aka Sujin Tenno, and Ikume Iribiko, aka Suinin Tenno, had both requested treasures from Izumo and elsewhere, to be stored in the treasure house of Isonokami.

We aren't told what all of these treasures were, but we can deduce that these were sacred treasures of the different houses and localities, much as the mirror, jewel, and sword were sacred treasures of Yamato. These were items that early on distinguished the elite class in the archipelago, and had come to be gathered in the divine store houses. You may recall how, early on, we saw mentions in the Chroncles that ships sent out to meet with others from different lands would place such treasures on a makeshift tree on the deck as a way of depicting who they were—who they represented.

It would seem that these sacred objects came to represent the divine ancestors of the elites, and so eventually were associated with the idea of power and authority. As Yamato spread its influence, possibly as much through the spiritual authority of Mt. Miwa as through its economic and military capability, it seems to have demanded that the various lands that came under its sway place their sacred treasures in Yamato's storehouse—a powerful image of Yamato's authority. In a sense, this was a kind of hostage situation: recognize our authority, or your most sacred treasures, representing your ancestors, will be at risk . One wonders if this isn't part of the reason that we find buried caches of bronze ritual items, including weapons, bells, and other such things, perhaps as a means of keeping them safe from those who would steal them away.

However, in the new era of the Ritsuryo system, those objects, while still considered divine and sacred, did not hold the same value as they once had. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but this really seems to me to be particularly illustrative of the idea that the cultural imaginary of state power and authority had shifted. Yamato's power and authority was no longer based on its role as a spiritual powerhouse as much as it was centered on the continental framework of a heavenly mandate and a system of laws and punishments.

And so, the sovereign could return the sacred items back to their descendants, because to do so did not cost him anything, and at the same time would no doubt earn him goodwill. He could appear magnanimous and, in so doing, solidify his position as the supreme hegemon of this new state. In many ways this acknowledged the importance of the divine treasures to the people and to the kami while also no doubt reinforcing Confucian stereotypes of the benevolent ruler.

More importantly, this shows how Ohoama was restructuring the rituals of the state. After all, he had the Jingikan, an entire governmental department dedicated to administering the various shrines and sacred rituals; so even if the sacred treasures were returned, they were still technically under the control of the state apparatus. We've already talked about the Daijosai, the Feast of First Fruits for a new reign, a central ritual to which Ohoama had added further pomp and circumstance. But as no less a scholar than Herman Ooms has written about, Ohoama also initiated the practice of ordering regular centralized offerings to not just one particular kami, but to several or even a number of kami, or shrines, at any given time. We see this in the following year, on the 23rd day of the first lunar month of 675, in an almost off-hand remark. Later, in the 10th month of 676 offerings were made to all of the "Ahimbe" kami of Heaven and Earth—that is all of kami that were part of the festival of first fruits held on the first day of the rabbit on the 11th lunar month. Offerings were also made to all of the Heavenly and Earthly kami on the second day of the year in 681.

Of course, these offerings would not just be enriching the shrines of these various kami, but it would also reflect on the various uji connected to each of those shrines, as well.

Another example of the court's involvement in these ritual innovations appears to be the worship of the deities at Tatsuta and Hirose. The first example of that is also in 675, in the 4th month of that year. Prince Mino and Saheki no Muraji no Hirotari were sent to the Wind-gods at Tateno, in Tatsuta. Aston notes that there is a litany to the Wind-gods mentioned in the Engishiki, a 10th century collection of information on various rituals of the time, so this practice seems to have taken hold, at least enough to persist over 3 centuries later.

Also in the 4th month of 675, Hashibito no Muraji no Ohobuta and Sone no Muraji no Karainu were sent to worship the Oho-imi deity at Kahawa, in Hirose. The Oho-imi appears to be a "big abstinence" deity, whom Aston identifies with Waka'ukahime, responsible for food. Worship is again paid twice in the year 676, once in 677, then twice again in 679, continuing twice a year, almost exclusively in the 4th and 7th lunar months, through the end of the reign. Why were these particular deities chosen for special worship by the court? Ooms notes that these shrines were built downstream along the Yamato river, which, along with its tributaries, was responsible for the irrigation of the crops in the Nara basin. This mirrors, in some ways, the responsibility of rulers in the Yellow River and Yangzi river regions to help ensure the flow of the rivers while preventing devastating flooding – a very continental idea of the responsibilities of the sovereign, though expressed here with a particularly Japanese style.

Indeed, Aston associates the deity at Hirose, with the deity of food. Likewise, the Wind-deities at Tatsuta were also related to helping to grow crops. After all, Tatsuta would have been situated near the break in the mountains that surrounds the Nara basin, where the Yamato River flows out towards the Kawachi plain. As anyone who lives near a mountain gap is no doubt familiar, those areas are notorious for channeling weather phenomena, including storms, which can bring rain, but could also bring terrible winds. So it does seem a natural point to pray for good weather for your harvest or otherwise, given the geography that made up the sovereign's world.

We also have, in this reign, considerably more discussion of Ise than we've seen, previously. In 673 we have the Royal Princess Ohoku no Himemiko entering the Saigu, the Abstinence, or Purification, Palace, where she was to be purified before going to Ise, which she did in the 10th lunar month of 674. Ohoku is said to have been the first official Saiou, the unmarried royal princess sent to oversee shrine operations, of Ise Shrine. This is a practice we see at multiple shrines, although it's most prominent at Ise. The term for the position in general is Saiou, although at Ise the royal princess would also be known as the Saiguu, after the purification palace.

Although Ohoku is said to have been the first Saiguu at Ise, this is muddied somewhat by some earlier mentions in the Chronicles. There are those who are said to have been sent as Shrine Princesses to Ise back in the time of Mimaki Iribiko and Ikume Iribiko, but the process was largely discontinued—or at least rarely mentioned—until this period. There are certainly several named individuals who are said to have served the Deity of Ise previously, starting with the presumably mythical Yamato Hime, who is credited with founding the shrine. There are also various royal princesses are noted as either having served or as having been made ineligible due to their indiscretions.

However, those earlier mentions rarely go into the detail we see here —starting with the abstinence hall, where the would-be Shrine Princess must purify herself prior to approaching the shrine, a process that took some time. Certainly we first really see this put into action with Ohoku, and from that time the position of Saiguu or Saiou at Ise does appear to have been regularly filled.

That Ohoku was actually the first "Saiguu" shrine princess appears to be confirmed by the "Fusou Ryakki", which states that the first Saiou was appointed when then Prince Ohoama, in the midst of the Jinshin war, made a prayer to Ise and offered the royal princess Ohoku no Himemiko in exchange for victory. In fact, a lot of the focus on Ise seems to stem from its apparent involvement, at the behest of either Ohoama or his consort, Uno no Sarara Hime, in the conflict.

The following year we are told that the Royal Princesses Towochi and Abe proceeded to Ise Shrine as well, though presumably just for a brief visit. Towochi, you may recall, was Ohoama's daughter who had been married to Ohotomo, aka Koubun Tennou, whom Ohoama had defeated to take the throne. Abe was a daughter of Naka no Oe, half-sister to Ohoama's queen, Uno, and would eventually go on to marry the Crown Prince, Kusakabe. That gives you some idea of the position of those were going to the shrine.

Princess Towochi herself would fall ill a few years later in 678. In fact, it was just as the sovereign himself was preparing to go pay a visit to the abstinence palace, perhaps so that he could also head out to Ise. The court had a divination to figure out when he would leave, officers had cleared the roads, and the public functionaries were in a line of procession when word came that Princess Towochi, suddenly took ill and died within the palace. This stopped everything in its tracks, and in that year there was no sacrifice made to the kami of heaven and earth. I suspect that this was in part due to mourning and in part due to the pollution more generally associated with death. Two weeks later, she was buried at Akaho, and Ohoama raised a lament for her.

Later, in 686, we are told that the Royal Princess Taki, the Princess Yamashiro no Hime, and the Lady Ishikawa were all sent to Ise Shrine, though Princess Taki returned in less than a fortnight.

Why all this focus on Ise? Remember that the Chronicles were begun in this era, and so the "truth" they would tell would be the truth that Ohoama and his immediate successors orchestrated. The focus on Amaterasu, her shrine at Ise, and the role of the sovereign as Heavenly Descendant was thus part of the overarching narrative that the Chroniclers tried to promote.

Still, hints that the focus on Ise shrine may have been something largely created in this era, however, are scattered throughout the existing literature, despite the Chroniclers' best efforts. For one thing, it is fairly clear that early on, the focus in the Chronicles is on Mt. Miwa and the deity Ohomononushi, rather than Amaterasu. We also see the fingerprints of deities like Takami no Musubi, who in one story is the one who is actually responsible for sending the Heavenly Grandchild down to earth in the first place.

It also seems telling that Amaterasu is not mentioned in earlier court rituals. Worship of Amaterasu by the royal family takes place at Ise shrine. Meanwhile, there are various rituals preserved within the traditions of the palace that include many other, seemingly older deities.

I have also noted in the past how Ise shrine isn't even the primary shrine of Ise no Kuni. In fact, that is claimed by Tsubaki shrine, the shrine to Saruta Hiko no Ohokami, with a separate shrine to Ame no Uzume, who are both said to have met the heavenly grandchild on his descent.

None of this is to say that Ise Jingu was brand new at the time of the Chronicles' writing —there does seem to have been a shrine on that spot for some time, though even the Chronicles suggest that it might have been moved from a shrine originally housed in the Nara basin. It is also possible, and even likely, that the rise of Ise and Amaterasu coincided with other trends at the time. Even if the Sun Goddess had not always been centered in Yamato ritual, she was not a new deity, and it may have been the case that her prominence, and that of her shrine in Ise had been growing in prominence before this time, and so the court was now adopting that popularity for themselves. Of course, Ohoama and Uno don't exactly spell out what they were attempting to achieve, beyond the unification of the archipelago, more broadly. How, exactly, their focus on Ise Shrine was meant to play into that I don't know that I could fully state, but it certainly seems to have allowed the sovereign to create a new cultic focus for kami worship with a story that touched on regions from Kyushu all the way to the eastern shore of the Kii peninsula.

Given the decentralized nature of kami worship, I don't believe it was possible to completely rewrite all of the stories—hence the numerous and conflicting accounts given in the Chronicles. However, that is also what would have made it easier to hide newly fabricated—or perhaps simply exaggerated—stories in the mix. And of course, it wasn't necessarily that the Chroniclers were creating things out of whole cloth, but they were able to choose those things that people would remember and what would be lost and forgotten over time. They had to make the decision, for instance, which story they told was the "main" storyline, and which were listed as coming from "other books", implying a degree of separation from the truth.

Through all of this, it certainly seems that propping up the royal family and its lineage was a central focus—even if that lineage was largely something that had recently been created. As a reminder, we see a lot heavier reliance at this point on royal princes as opposed to other elite families, and an actual or implied reliance, in particular, on the royal family, as that is where Ohoama was consolidating most of the power and authority.

Kitayama Shigeo coined the term "Koushin Seiji" to refer to this idea of a consolidated royal—or imperial—family managing the affairs of state. Literally it is something like "Imperial Family Government". In Shigeo's concept this was specifically an autocratic authority executed by the sovereign, and those of his immediate family. Of course, writing in the post-war era, it is more than a little likely that Shigeo and others were looking at the concept of Tennou in the 20th century compared with many other world monarchs. In that vein, the Asuka and Nara periods do seem to have been one of the rare times—perhaps even the last time—that the sovereigns had such a direct hand in the government and the making and establishment of law and tradition.

That said, not everyone ascribes entirely to the idea that Ohoama was a completely autocratic despot—after all, it was clear that there were still plenty of powerful families in the archipelago, and the Ritsuryo state itself was also being strengthened. Still, it does seem that Ohoama had brought his queen, Uno no Sarara, and his descendants into government. And they would not only assist him, but continue his work for the next generations, such that even though the histories would not be finished until well after Ohoama's death, they would still show his influence on events.

The dedication of the royal family to work as one is perhaps most clearly demonstrated in the events of the 5th lunar month of 679. It was then that the sovereign, and his family, proceeded to the Yoshino Palace.

Now Ohoama had plenty of offspring—among them 10 sons. And as long as he was around, there would be a certain amount of civility, but he knew all too well how things could break down after a sovereign's death. And so he brought them together and he made them enter into a pact, which we know as the Yoshino Covenant, or Yoshino no Meiyaku. Besides Ohoama himself, there were several others in attendance, presumably those who might stand to one day inherit the realm. These included his partner and queen, Uno no Sarara Hime, as well as her son, Prince Kusakabe, who would be named Crown Prince, only a couple of years later. It also included the Royal princes Ohotsu, Takechi, Kawashima, Osakabe, and Shiki. All of these individuals were made to swear an oath to support each other, even though they were all from different mothers, and they agreed.

But so what? Why does it matter? It is all well and good that Ohoama brought them together for a bit of kumbaya in his old digs away from the capital, but was there anything really to this covenant.

This covenant is significant in several ways. First off, it is clear that Ohoama was pulling in his family and trying to ensure they were onboard with what he was doing and what was planned. Furthermore, it set out a clear line of succession, something that had not really been done up to this point. We have ideas on what would have made a candidate eligible, but other than naming a particular crown prince there hasn't exactly been any clear process or rules of precedence for who would assume the throne. Here, though, we have a list that appears to be in order of precedence, since it otherwise may not seem to make sense, at least from a modern perspective.

A key clue in the Chronicles is often the order of the names. The most important or highest ranking person is usually given first, and then names are typically given in descending order of precedence. There are clues that this is the case, but it becomes even more stark when we actually see reference to an individual's court rank or the size of their fief. Since this period brings about court rank even for royal princes, we have some of that, at least in later records. As such, there is the idea that this order was actually providing for a line of succession.

As I mentioned, up to this point, the contest for the throne was a toss up with each monarch's death. Claims from competing princes were often considered equally valid until one proved their claim through a political or military victory. Ohoama appears to have been trying to add greater structure to this. Specifically, we see that Uno no Sarara's son, Kusakabe, is given pride of place. In fact, throughout the Chronicle it is typical that we see the Chroniclers designate a queen—a Kougou—that is considered the primary wife. This queen is almost always found to be the descendant of previous royalty, granting their child a doubly royal lineage, through both the maternal and paternal lines. There has been plenty of reason to doubt that this was actually the case, and it often seems like the Chroniclers stretched things more than a bit to make it all work out. However, now we are almost more concerned with the very *truth* that the Chroniclers were attempting to burn into the social consciousness rather than the historical facts, because that gives us direct insight into how the court of the day viewed succession and legitimacy.And that does lead to another possible thought: since the Chroniclers knew how things turned out it is possible that they were the ones ensuring that the order was as we have it. So we cannot definitively say that this exactly mirrors's Ohoama's idea, but it certainly seems in line with his history and intentions and helps set the stage for us, at least, regarding what would later transpire in regards to succession..

Getting back to the covenant, as I noted, the first person listed, after Ohoama and Uno no Sarara Hime, is Prince Kusakabe. He would be about 17 or 18 years old at this time, which is probably why he wasn't formally named Crown Prince until a couple of years later. He isn't the eldest son, however. Rather he was the second son. Ohoama's eldest son, Prince Takechi, was actually third in line. Takechihad been with his father helping to lead the troops during the Jinshin War. While he was some 8 years senior to Kusakabe, he was nonetheless a son of Amago no Musume, one of Ohoama's consorts from a powerful clan, but not a royal princess like Uno no Sarara, Kusakabe's mother.

Between Kusakabe and Takechi, in the second place spot for succession, was actually Prince Ohotsu, whom we also mentioned during the Jinshin War. Ohotsu was likely 16-17 years old around this time. While he was the third eldest child, he, like Kusakabe, was the son of a Royal Princess, Princess Ota, daughter of Naka no Oe, giving him greater bonafides than Takechi, apparently.

So, in the top three slots, we have: Ohoama's eldest son by a royal mother, Ohoama's second eldest son by a royal mother, and finally Ohoama's eldest son by a non-royal mother.

Fourth in line, and the 4th eldest, presumably, though I don't know that we have an actual age for him, is Prince Wosakabe. He likely wasn't too young, however, as he had been given the task, previously, to polish the divine treasures in Isonokami's storehouse.

It would appear that six of Ohoama's other sons didn't even get a mention. That includes Princes Naga and Yuge, born to another daughter of Naka no Ohoe, Ohoye no Himemiko. Then there is Prince Toneri, son of Royal Princess Nittabe, not to be confused with Royal Prince Nittabe, Ohoama's son by way of a daughter of Fujiwara no Kamatari. Finally there was Royal Prince Hodzumi, a maternal grandson of Soga no Akaye, and Prince Shiki, a full brother to Prince Wosakabe.

Prince Toneri is particularly conspicuous in his absence. We know that he held the 5th rank, and two positions in government—that of Nagon, or Councillor, as well as the Minister of the Household, our Kunaikyou. This may be because he was not doing so well. We aren't told the story until the following year, on the 2nd day of the 7th lunar month of 680, when we are told that Prince Toneri took ill and was on the point of death. His half-brother, Prince Takechi, went to check on him, and a day later Toneri passed away. The way these are written it would be easy to believe that it all happened in a pretty short timeframe, but it is also just as likely that illness lingered, especially without modern medicine. So it is possible that Prince Toneri was too sick at the time of the original covenant, though there could be some other reason we weren't told.

This doesn't necessarily hold for all of the others, though. For instance, we have the Princes Naga and Yuge mentioned in 693, well over a decade later, being granted the 2nd Broader Pure Rank at the same time that Prince Takechi is granted the 1st Broader Pure Rank. So we can at least see that they were ranked below Takechi. Similarly we see Prince Hodzumi likewise attained 2nd Broader Pure Rank at some point, and was still around to have his own fief and to receive houses to it in the following reign. Hozumi even ranked above some of the others were in Yoshino, and yet was not present.

It is possible that the princes not mentioned, assuming they had not met with an untimely end that was not mentioned in the record somewhere, could have been too young or too junior at the time of the meeting. After all, when we look at the known ages of those who were there, we see that Prince Takechi may have been 25 years old, but Prince Kusakabe and Prince Otsu were just under 20, and it is unclear if others were older or younger than they were.

There are two other princes who were part of the covenant who were not, perhaps surprisingly, sons of Ohoama. Rather they were his nephews, sons of Ohoama's brother, Naka no Ohoe. They were the princes Kawashima and Shiki.

Kawashima is mentioned several times throughout the record. Kawashima's mother was from a high ranking noble family, but given that Kawashima was married to his cousin, one of Ohoama's daughters, that may have brought him closer to the family. He was about 22 years old at the time, too. We see him often teaming up with Prince Osakabe on various projects, including the project to compile together the history of the royal household. In fact, Prince Kawashima always precedes Prince Osakabe when they are mentioned together. That said, we have evidence of Kawashima only being awarded up to 3rd Greater Pure rank, below even that of some who were not present, such as Prince Hodzumi. His importance and impact, however, is noted through his numerous appearances in the record.

In contrast, Prince Shiki has almost no mentions in the record. It doesn't help that there are two Princes Shiki, one born to Naka no Ohoye and one born to Ohoama. Their names are spelled differently, however, and although the first character of "Shiki" used in the Yoshino record matches neither name, the second character suggests that this was the son of Naka no Ohoye and not the Shiki that was brother to Prince Osakabe—though given that one followed the other in the record, there may have been some confusion on this point.

And with all of that we have our apparent line of succession, as well as an idea of who the movers and shakers might be within the royal family. From Ohoama and Uno no Sarara, we have Princes Kusakabe, Ohotsu, Takechi, Kawashima, Osakabe, and Shiki. Six princes, four directly descended from the current sovereign, Ohoama, and two from the Naka no Ohoe lineage.

Obviously, promoting the idea of a strictly patrilineal succession of father to son would have caused some problems for Ohoama's own legitimacy, not that anyone was going to gainsay him while he was on the throne. However, with Kusakabe they seem to have established that in a de facto format, at least. Furthermore it provided a blueprint for succession might fall to the other lines should the main line not work out. This put Prince Ohotsu as next in line, should anything happen to Kusakabe, followed by Takechi. That Kawashima may have had a shot over Osakabe and then Shiki is interesting as it suggests that it wasn't strictly about who descended from whom.

We'll have to wait for Ohoama's death before we can fully appreciate how well this worked, of course. Throughout history, agreements and covenants amongst powerful interests are often only as permanent as long as all of the interests remain aligned with one another, whether through mutual benefit or threat of consequences. Once the power shifts, as it always does, those promises and treaties are almost always up for renegotiation, unless they are supported by some higher authority, whatever that might be.

Following the royal family's off-site, they returned to the palace in Asuka. There they had a formal ceremony in the Great Hall, the Ohodono, where the six princes all demonstrated their allegiance and paid respects to Ohoama. Given the timing of this event, one can likely assume that it was a kind of public acknowledgement of the covenant and the agreement that they would all be working together as a united front on the project of the government.

And with that, I think we can bring it to a close for now. There is plenty more about this reign to discuss before we move on, but we'll get there.

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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 start to get more into the material culture of the period with court fashion, as we look at the court robes that went along with the updated court ranks. Granted, we only have a few resources, but from those it does seem like we can construct at least a plausible idea of what the court may have looked like at this time.

For more discussion, check out the blogpost: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-137

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is Episode 137: Courtly Fashion.

In the New Year's ceremony, the court officials lined up in front of the Kiyomihara Palace, arranged by their relative court rank, dressed in their assigned court robes. The effect was impressive—the rows of officials painting the courtyard like the bands of color in a rainbow, albeit one with only a couple of hues. The fact that they were all wearing the same style of dress and black, stiffened gauze hats only added to the effect. The individual officers were all but lost in what was, at least in outward form, a single, homogenous machine of government, just waiting for the command of their monarch to attend to the important matters of state.

We are covering the reign of Ohoama no Ohokimi, aka Ama no Nunahara oki no mabito no Sumera no Mikoto, aka Temmu Tennou. Last episode we went over the changes he had made to the family titles—the kabane—as well as to the courtly rank system. For the former, he had consolidated the myriad kabane and traditional titles across Yamato into a series of eight—the Yakusa no Kabane. These were, from highest to lowest: Mabito, Asomi, Sukune, Imiki, Michinoshi, Omi, Muraji, and Inaki. By the way, you might notice that "Mabito" actually occurs in Ohoama's posthumous name: Ama no Nunahara oki no mabito, which lends more credence to the idea that that kabane was for those with a special connection to the royal lineage.

Besides simplifying and restructuring the kabane, Ohoama also reformed the court rank system. He divided the Princely ranks into two categories: Myou, or Bright, and Jou, or Pure. For the court nobles the categories were:

Shou – Upright

Jiki – Straight

Gon – Diligent

Mu – Earnest

Tsui – Pursue

Shin – Advancement

Each category was further divided into four grades (except for the very first princely category, Myou, which was only two). Each grade was then further divided into large, "dai", or broad, "kou".

And this brings us to our topic today. Along with this new rank system, Ohoama's administration also instituted a new set of court sumptuary laws. Some are vague in the record—we can just make assumptions for what is going on based on what we know from later fashion choices. Others are a little more clear. We'll take a look at those sumptuary laws, particularly those that were directly associated with the new court rank system, but we'll also look at the clothing styles more generally.

To start with, let's talk about what we know about clothing in the archipelago in general. Unfortunately, fabric doesn't tend to survive very well in the generally acidic soils of the Japanese archipelago. Cloth tends to break down pretty quickly. That said, we have fragments here and there and impressions in pottery, so we have some idea that there was some kind of woven fabric from which to make clothing out of.

And before I go too far I want to give a shout out to the amazing people at the Kyoto Costume Museum. They have a tremendous website and I will link to it in the comments. While there may be some debate over particular interpretations of historical clothing, it is an excellent resource to get a feel for what we know of the fashion of the various periods. I'll also plug our own website, SengokuDaimyo.com, which has a "Clothing and Accessory" section that, while more geared towards Heian and later periods, may still be of some use in looking up particular terms and getting to know the clothing and outfits.

At the farthest reaches of pre-history, we really don't have a lot of information for clothing. There is evidence of woven goods in the Jomon period, and we have Yayoi burials with bits of cloth here and there, but these are all scraps. So at best we have some conjecture as to what people were wearing, and possibly some ability to look across the Korean peninsula and see what people had, there.

There are scant to no reliable records from early on in Japanese history, and most of those don't really do a great job of describing the clothing. Even where we do get something, like the Weizhi, one has to wonder given how they tended to crib notes from other entries.

There is at least one picture scroll of interest: Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang, or Liáng -Zhígòngtú. It is said to have been painted by Xiao Yi in the early 6th century, and while the original no longer exists there is an 11th century copy from the time of the Song Dynasty. The scroll shows various ambassadors to the Liang court, including one from Wa. The Wa ambassador is shown with what appears to be a wide piece of cloth around his hips and legs, tied in front. His lower legs are covered in what we might call kyahan today: a rather simple wrap around leg from below the knee to the foot. He has another, blue piece of cloth around his shoulders, almost like a shawl, and it is also tied in front. Then there is a cloth wrapped and tied around his head. It's hard to know how much of this depiction is accurate and how much the artist was drawing on memory and descriptions from things like the Weizhi or Wei Chronicles, which stated that the Wa people wore wide cloths wrapped around and seamlessly tied

As such, it may be more helpful to look at depictions actually from the archipelago: specifically, some of the human-figured haniwa, those clay cylinders and statues that adorned the burial mounds which gave the kofun period its name. Some of these haniwa are fairly detailed, and we can see ties, collars, and similar features of clothing. These haniwa primarily seem to cluster towards the end of the Kofun period, in the later 6th century, so it is hard to say how much they can be used for earlier periods, though that is exactly what you will typically see for periods where we have little to know evidence. I'm also not sure how regional certain fashions might have been, and we could very much be suffering from survivorship bias—that is we only know what survived and assume that was everything, or even the majority. Still, it is something.

Much of what we see in these figures is some kind of upper garment that has relatively tight sleeves, like a modern shirt or jacket might have, with the front pieces overlapping create a V-shaped neckline. The garment hem often hangs down to just above the knee, flaring out away from the body, and it's held closed with ties and some kind of belt, possibly leather in some cases, and in others it looks like a tied loop of cloth. There is evidence of a kind of trouser, with two legs, and we see ties around the knee. In some cases, they even have small bells hanging from the ties. Presumably the trousers might have ties up towards the waist, but we cannot see that in the examples we have. We also see individuals who have no evidence of any kind of bifurcated lower garment. That may indicate an underskirt of some kind, or possibly what's called a "mo"—but it could also be just a simplification for stability, since a haniwa has a cylindrical base anyway. It is not always obvious when you are looking at a haniwa figure whether it depicts a man or woman: in some cases there are two dots on the chest that seem to make it obvious, but the haniwa do come from different artisans in different regions, so there is a lot of variability.

We also see evidence of what seem to be decorative sashes that are worn across the body, though not in all cases. There are various types of headgear and hairstyles. Wide-brimmed and domed hats are not uncommon, and we also see combs and elaborate hairstyles depicted. On some occasions we can even see that they had closed toed shoes. For accessories, we see haniwa wearing jewelry, including necklaces (worn by both men and women), bracelets, and earrings. In terms of actual human jewelry, early shell bracelets demonstrate trade routes, and the distinctive magatama, or comma shaped jewel, can be found in the archipelago and on the Korean peninsula, where it is known as "gogok".

Based on lines or even colored pigment on the haniwa, it appears that many of these outfits were actually quite heavily decorated. Paint on the outfits is sometimes also placed on the face, suggesting that they either painted or tattooed themselves, something mentioned in the Wei Chronicles. We also have archaeological examples of dyed cloth, so it is interesting that people are often depicted in undyed clothing.

There is one haniwa that I find particularly interesting, because they appear to be wearing more of a round-necked garment, and they have a hat that is reminiscent of the phrygian cap: a conical cap with the top bent forward. These are traits common to some of the Sogdians and other Persian merchants along the silk road, raising the possibility that it is meant to depict a foreigner, though it is also possible that it was just another local style.

If we compare this to the continent, we can see some immediate difference. In the contemporaneous Sui dynasty, we can see long flowing robes, with large sleeves for men and women. The shoes often had an upturned placket that appears to have been useful to prevent one from tripping on long, flowing garments. Many of these outfits were also of the v-neck variety, with two overlapping pieces, though it is often shown held together with a fabric belt that is tied in front. The hats appear to either be a kind of loose piece of fabric, often described as a turban, wrapped around the head, the ends where it ties together trailing behind, or black lacquered crowns—though there were also some fairly elaborate pieces for the sovereign.

As Yamato started to import continental philosophy, governance, and religion, they would also start to pick up on continental fashion. This seems particularly true as they adopted the continental concept of "cap rank" or "kan-i". Let's go over what we know about this system, from its first mention in the Chronicles up to where we are in Ohoama's reign. As a caveat, there is a lot we don't know about the details of these garments, but we can make some guesses.

The first twelve cap-ranks, theoretically established in 603, are somewhat questionable in their historicity, as are so many things related to Shotoku Taishi. And their names are clearly based on Confucian values: Virtue, Humanity, Propriety, Faith, Justice, and Wisdom, or Toku, Nin, Rei, Shin, Gi, and Chi. The five values and then just "Virtue", itself. The existence of this system does seem to be confirmed by the Sui Shu, the Book of Sui, which includes a note in the section on the country of Wa that they used a 12 rank system based on the Confucian values, but those values were given in the traditional Confucian order vice the order given in the Nihon Shoki.

The rank system of the contemporaneous Sui and Tang dynasties was different from these 12 ranks, suggesting that the Yamato system either came from older dynasties—perhaps from works on the Han dynasty or the Northern and Southern Dynasty, periods—or they got it from their neighbors, Baekje, Silla, and Goguryeo. There does seem to be a common thread, though, that court rank was identifiable in one's clothes.

As for the caps themselves, what did they look like? One would assume that the Yamato court just adopted a continental style cap, and yet, which one? It isn't fully described, and there are a number of types of headwear that we see in the various continental courts. Given that, we aren't entirely sure exactly what it looked like, but we do have a couple of sources that we can look at and use to make some assumptions.

These sources l ead us to the idea of a round, colored cap made of fabric, around the brim that was probably the fabric or image prescribed for that rank. It is also often depicted with a bulbous top, likely for the wearer's hair, and may have been tied to their top knot.

Our main source for this is the Tenjukoku Mandala Embroidery (Tenjukoku-mandara-shuuchou) at Chuuguuji temple, which was a temple built for the mother of Prince Umayado, aka Shotoku Taishi.

This embroidery was created in 622, so 19 years after the 12 ranks would have been implemented. It depicts individuals in round-necked jackets that appear to have a part straight down the center. Beneath the jacket one can see a pleated hem, possibly something like a "hirami", a wrapped skirt that is still found in some ceremonial imperial robes. It strikes me that this could also be the hem of something like the hanpi, which was kind of like a vest with a pleated lower edge. Below that we see trousers—hakama—with a red colored hem—at least on one figure that we can see. He also appears to be wearing a kind of slipper-like shoe.

As for the women, there are a few that appear to be in the mandala, but it is hard to say for certain as the embroidery has been damaged over the years. That said, from what we can tell, women probably would have worn something similar to the men in terms of the jacket and the pleated under-skirt, but then, instead of hakama, we see a pleated full-length skirt, or mo. We also don't have a lot of evidence for them wearing hats or anything like that.

The round necked jacket is interesting as it appears to be similar to the hou that was common from northern China across the Silk Road, especially amongst foreigners. This garment came to displace the traditional robes of the Tang court and would become the basis for much of the court clothing from that period, onwards. The round necked garment had central panels that overlapped, and small ties or fastenings at either side of the neck to allow for an entirely enclosed neckline. This was more intricate than just two, straight collars, and so may have taken time to adopt, fully.

The next change to the cap-rank system was made in 647, two years into the Taika Reform. The ranks then were more directly named for the caps, or crowns—kanmuri—and their materials and colors. The ranks translate to Woven, Embroidered, Purple, Brocade, Blue, Black, and finally "Establish Valor" for the entry level rank.

The system gets updated two years later, but only slightly. We still see a reference to Woven stuff, Embroidery, and Purple, but then the next several ranks change to Flower, Mountain, and Tiger—or possibly Kingfisher. These were a little more removed from the cap color and material, and may have had something to do with designs that were meant to be embroidered on the cap or on the robes in some way, though that is just speculation based on later Ming and Qing court outfits.

Naka no Ohoye then updates it again in 664, but again only a little. He seems to add back in the "brocade" category, swapping out the "flower", and otherwise just adds extra grades within each category to expand to 26 total rank grades.

And that brings us to the reforms of 685, mentioned last episode. This new system was built around what appear to be moral exhortations—Upright, Straight, Diligent, Earnest, etc. And that is great and all, but how does that match up with the official robes? What color goes with each rank category?

Fortunately, this time around, the Chronicle lays it out for us pretty clearly. First off we are given the color red for the Princely ranks—not purple as one might have thought. Specifically, it is "Vermillion Flower", hanezu-iro, which Bentley translates as the color of the "Oriental bush" or salmon. In the blogpost we'll link to a table of colors that the founder of Sengoku Daimyo, Anthony Bryant, had put together, with some explanation of how to apply it. I would note that there is often no way to know exactly what a given color was like or what shades were considered an acceptable range. Everything was hand-dyed, and leaving fabric in the dye a little longer, changing the proportions, or just fading over time could create slightly different variants in the hue, but we think we can get pretty close.

From there we have the six "common" ranks for the nobility. Starting with the first rank, Upright, we have "Dark Purple". Then we have "Light Purple". This pattern continues with Dark and Light Green and then Dark and Light Grape or Lilac. Purple in this case is Murasaki, and green here is specifically Midori, which is more specifically green than the larger category of "Aoi", which covers a spectrum of blue to green. The grape or lilac is specifically "suou", and based on Bentley's colors it would be a kind of purple or violet.

The idea is that the official court outfits for each rank would be the proper color. And yes, that means if you get promoted in rank, your first paycheck—or rice stipend—is probably going to pay for a new set of official clothes. Fortunately for the existing court nobles at the time, in the last month of 685, the Queen provided court clothing for 55 Princes and Ministers, so they could all look the part.

And the look at court was important. In fact, several of the edicts from this time focus specifically on who was allowed—or expected—to wear what. For instance, in the 4th month of 681, they established 92 articles of the law code, and among those were various sumptuary laws—that is to say, laws as to what you could wear. We are told that they applied to everyone from Princes of the blood down to the common person, and it regulated the wearing of precious metals, pearls, and jewels; the type of fabric one could use, whether purple, brocade, embroidery, or fine silks; and it also regulated woollen carpets, caps, belts, and the colors of various things.

And here I'd like to pause and give some brief thought to how this played into the goals of the court, generally, which is to say the goal of creating and establishing this new system of governance in the cultural psyche of the people of the archipelago. From the continental style palaces, to the temples, and right down to the clothing that people were wearing, this was all orchestrated, consciously or otherwise, to emphasize and even normalize the changes that were being introduced. When everything around you is conforming to the new rules, it makes it quite easy for others to get on board.

The court had surrounded themselves with monumental architecture that was designed along continental models and could best be explained through continental reasoning. Even if they weren't Confucian or Daoist, those lines of reasoning ran through the various cultural and material changes that they were taking up. Sure, they put their own stamp on it, but at the same time, when everything is right in front of you, it would become that much harder to deny or push back against it.

And when you participated in the important rituals of the state, the clothing itself became a part of the pageantry. It reinforced the notion that this was something new and different, and yet also emphasized that pushing against it would be going against the majority. So court uniforms were another arm of the state's propaganda machine, all designed to reinforce the idea that the heavenly sovereign—the Tennou—was the right and just center of political life and deserving of their position.

Getting back to the sumptuary laws and rank based regulations: It is unfortunate that the record in the Nihon Shoki doesn't tell us exactly how things were regulated, only that they were, at least in some cases. So for anything more we can only make assumptions based on later rules and traditions. A few things we can see right away, though. First is the restriction of the color purple. Much as in Europe and elsewhere in the world, getting a dark purple was something that was not as easy as one might think, and so it tended to be an expensive dye and thus it would be restricted to the upper classes—in this case the princely and ministerial rank, no doubt. Similarly brocade and fine silks were also expensive items that were likely restricted to people of a particular social station for that reason.

The mention of woolen rugs is particularly intriguing. Bentley translates this as woven mattresses, but I think that woolen rugs makes sense, as we do have examples of woolen "rugs" in Japan in at least the 8th century, stored in the famous Shousouin repository at Toudaiji temple, in Nara. These are all imported from the continent and are actually made of felt, rather than woven. As an imported item, out of a material that you could not get in the archipelago, due to a notable lack of sheep, they would have no doubt been expensive.

The funny thing is that the carpets in the Shousouin may not have been meant as carpets. For the most part they are of a similar size and rectangular shape, and one could see how they may have been used as sleeping mattresses or floor coverings. However, there is some conjecture that they came from the Silk Road and may have been originally meant as felt doors for the tents used by the nomadic steppe peoples. This is only conjecture, as I do not believe any of these rugs have survived in the lands where they would have been made, but given the size and shape and the modern yurt, it is not hard to see how that may have been the case. Either way, I tend to trust that this could very well have meant woolen rugs, as Aston and the kanji themselves suggest, though I would understand if there was confusion or if it meant something else as wool was not exactly common in the archipelago at that time or in the centuries following.

The last section of the regulations talks about the use of caps and belts. The caps here were probably of continental origin: The kanmuri, or official cap of state of the court nobles, or the more relaxed eboshi—though at this time, they were no doubt closely related.

In fact, a year later, we have the most specific mention to-date of what people were actually wearing on their heads: there is a mention of men tying up their hair and wearing caps of varnished gauze. Earlier caps related to the cap rank system are often thought to be something like a simple hemisphere that was placed upon the head, with a bulbous top where the wearer's hair could be pulled up as in a bun.

The kanmuri seems to have evolved from the soft black headcloth that was worn on the continent, which would have tied around the head, leaving two ends hanging down behind. Hairstyles of the time often meant that men had a small bun or similar gathering of hair towards the back of their head, and tying a cloth around the head gave the effect of a small bump. This is probably what we see in depictions of the early caps of state. Sometimes this topknot could be covered with a small crown or other decoration, or wrapped with a cloth, often referred to as a "Tokin" in Japanese. But over time we see the development of hardened forms to be worn under a hat to provide the appropriate silhouette, whether or not you actually had a topknot (possibly helpful for gentlemen suffering from hair loss). And then the hat becomes less of a piece of cloth and more just a hat of black, lacquered gauze made on a form, which was much easier to wear.

At this point in the Chronicle, the cap was likely still somewhat malleable, and would made to tie or be pinned to that bun or queue of hair. This explains the mention of men wearing their hair up. This pin would become important for several different types of headgear, but ties were also used for those who did not have hair to hold the hat on properly.

Two years after the edict on hats, we get another edict on clothing, further suggesting that the court were wearing Tang inspired clothing. In 685 we see that individuals are given leave to wear their outer robe either open or tied closed. This is a clue that this outer robe might something akin to the round-necked hou that we see in the Tenjukoku Mandala, where the neck seems to close with a small tie or button. However, we do see some examples, later, of v-necked garments with a tie in the center of the neck, so that may be the reference.. Opening the collar of the formal robes was somewhat akin to loosening a necktie, or unbuttoning the top button of a shirt. It provided a more relaxed and comfortable feeling. It could also be a boon in the warm days of summer. Leaving it closed could create a more formal appearance.

The courtiers also had the option of whether or not to wear the "Susotsuki", which Bentley translates as "skirt-band". I believe this refers to the nai'i, or inner garment. This would often have a pleated hem—a suso or ran—which would show below the main robe as just a slight hem. Again, this is something that many would dispense with in the summer, or just when dressing a bit more casually, but it was required at court, as well as making sure that the tassles were tied so that they hung down.

This was the uniform of the court. We are also told that they would have trousers that could be tied up, which sounds like later sashinuki, though it may have referred to something slightly different. We are also given some regulations specifically for women, such as the fact that women over 40 years of age were allowed the discretion on whether or not to tie up their hair, as well as whether they would ride horses astride or side-saddle. Presumably, younger women did not get a choice in the matter. Female shrine attendants and functionaries were likewise given some leeway with their hairstyles.

A year later, in 686, they do seem to have relaxed the hairstyles a bit more: women were allowed to let their hair down to their backs as they had before, so it seems that, for at least a couple of years, women under the age of 40 were expected to wear their hair tied up in one fashion or another.

In that same edict, men were then allowed to wear "habakimo". Aston translates this as "leggings" while Bentley suggests it is a "waist skirt". There are an example of extant habakimo in the Shousouin, once again, and they appear to be wrappings for the lower leg. It actually seems very closely related to the "kyahan" depicted all the way back in the 6th century painting of the Wo ambassador to Liang.

Even though these edicts give a lot more references to clothing, there is still plenty that is missing. It isn't like the Chroniclers were giving a red carpet style stitch-by-stitch critique of what was being worn at court. Fortunately, there is a rather remarkable archaeological discovery from about this time.

Takamatsuzuka is a kofun, or ancient burial mound, found in Asuka and dated to the late 7th or early 8th century. Compared to the keyhole shaped tombs of previous centuries, this tomb is quite simple: a two-tiered circular tomb nestled in the quiet hills. What makes it remarkable is that the inside of the stone burial chamber was elaborately painted. There are depictions of the four guardian animals, as well as the sun and the moon, as well as common constellations. More importantly, though, are the intricate pictures of men and women dressed in elaborate clothing.

The burial chamber of Takamatsuzuka is rectangular in shape. There are images on the four vertical sides as well as on the ceiling. The chamber is oriented north-south, with genbu, the black tortoise, on the north wall and presumably Suzaku, the vermillion bird, on the south wall—though that had been broken at some point and it is hard to make out exactly what is there.

The east and west walls are about three times as long as the north and south walls. In the center of each is a guardian animal—byakko, the white tiger, on the west wall and seiryuu, the blue—or green—dragon on the east. All of these images are faded, and since opening of the tomb have faded even more, so while photos can help, it may require a bit more investigation and some extrapolation to understand all of what we are looking at.

On the northern side of both the east and west wall we see groups of four women. We can make out green, yellow, and red or vermillion outer robes with thin fabric belt sashes, or obi, tied loosely and low around the waist. There is another, lightly colored—possibly white, cream or pink—that is so faded it is hard to make out, and I don't know if that is the original color. These are v-necked robes, with what appear to be ties at the bottom of the "v". Around the belt-sash we see a strip of white peaking out from between the two sides of the robe—most likely showing the lining on an edge that has turned back slightly. The cuffs of the robe are folded back, showing a contrasting color—either the sleeves of an underrobe or a lining of some kind. Below the outer robe is a white, pleated hem—possibly a hirami or similar, though where we can make it out, it seems to be the same or similar color as the sleeves. Under all of that, they then have a relatively simple mo, or pleated skirt. The ones in the foreground are vertically striped in alternating white, green, red, and blue stripes. There is one that may just be red and blue stripes, but I'm not sure. In the background we see a dark blue—and possibly a dark green—mo. At the base of each mo is a pleated fringe that appears to be connected to the bottom of the skirt. The toe of a shoe seems to peek out from underneath in at least one instance. They don't have any obvious hair ornaments, and their hair appears to be swept back and tied in such a way that it actually comes back up in the back, slightly. They appear to be holding fans and something that might be a fly swatter—a pole with what looks like tassels on the end.

In comparison, at the southern end of the tomb we have two groups of men. These are much more damaged and harder to make out clearly. They have robes of green, yellow, grey, blue, and what looks like dark blue, purple, or even black. The neckline appears to be a v-necked, but tied closed, similar to what we see on the women. We also see a contrasting color at the cuff, where it looks like the sleeves have turned back, slightly. They have belt-sashes similar to the women, made of contrasting fabric to the robe itself. Below that we see white trousers, or hakama, and shallow, black shoes. On some of the others it is suggested that maybe they have a kind of woven sandal, but that is hard to make out in the current image. On their heads are hats or headgear of black, stiffened—probably lacquered—gauze. They have a bump in the back, which is probably the wearer's hair, and there is evidence of small ties on top and larger ties in the back, hanging down. Some interpretations also show a couple with chin straps, as well, or at least a black cord that goes down to the chin. They carry a variety of implements, suggesting they are attendants, with an umbrella, a folding chair, a pouch worn around the neck, a pole or cane of some kind, and a bag with some kind of long thing—possibly a sword or similar.

The tomb was originally found by farmers in 1962, but wasn't fully examined until 1970, with an excavation starting in 1972. The stone at the entryway was broken, probably from graverobbers, who are thought to have looted the tomb in the Kamakura period. Fortunately, along with the bones of the deceased and a few scattered grave goods that the robbers must have missed, the murals also survived, and somehow they remained largely intact through the centuries. They have not been entirely safe, and many of the images are damaged or faded, but you can still make out a remarkable amount of detail, which is extremely helpful in determining what clothing might have looked like at this time—assuming it is depicting local individuals.

And there is the rub, since we don't know exactly whom the tomb was for. Furthermore, in style it has been compared with Goguryeo tombs from the peninsula, much as nearby Kitora kofun is. Kitora had images as well, but just of the guardian animals and the constellations, not of human figures.

There are three theories as to who might have been buried at Takamatsuzuka. One theory is that it was one of Ohoama's sons. Prince Osakabe is one theory, based on the time of his death and his age. Others have suggested Prince Takechi. Based on the teeth of the deceased, they were probably in their 40s to 60s when they passed away.

Some scholars believe that it may be a later, Nara period vassal—possibly, Isonokami no Maro. That would certainly place it later than the Asuka period.

The third theory is that it is the tomb of a member of one of the royal families from the Korean peninsula—possibly someone who had taken up refuge in the archipelago as Silla came to dominate the entire peninsula. This last theory matches with the fact that Takamatsuzuka appears to be similar to tombs found in Goguryeo, though that could just have to do with where the tomb builders were coming from, or what they had learned.

That does bring up the question of the figures in the tomb. Were they contemporary figures, indicating people and dress of the court at the time, or were they meant to depict people from the continent? Without any other examples, we may never know, but even if was indicative of continental styles, those were the very styles that Yamato was importing, so it may not matter, in the long run.

One other garment that isn't mentioned here is the hire, a scarf that is typically associated with women. It is unclear if it has any relationship to the sashes we see in the Kofun period, though there is at least one mention of a woman with a hire during one of the campaigns on the Korean peninsula. Later we see it depicted as a fairly gauzy piece of silk, that is worn somewhat like a shawl. It is ubiquitous in Sui and Tang paintings of women, indicating a wide-ranging fashion trend. The hire is a fairly simple piece of clothing, and yet it creates a very distinctive look which we certainly see, later.

Finally, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that almost everything we have discussed here has to do with the elites of society—the nobles of the court. For most people, working the land, we can assume that they were probably not immediately adopting the latest continental fashions, and they probably weren't dressing in silk very much. Instead, it is likely that they continued to wear some version of the same outfits we see in the haniwa figures of the kofun period. This goes along with the fact that even as the elite are moving into palaces built to stand well above the ground, we still have evidence of common people building and living in pit dwellings, as they had been for centuries. This would eventually change, but overall they stuck around for quite some time. However, farmers and common people are often ignored by various sources—they aren't often written about, they often aren't shown in paintings or statues, and they did often not get specialized burials. Nonetheless, they were the most populous group in the archipelago, supporting all of the rest.

And with that, I think we will stop for now. Still plenty more to cover this reign. We are definitely into the more historical period, where we have more faith in the dates—though we should remember that this is also one of the reigns that our sources were specifically designed to prop up, so we can't necessarily take everything without at least a hint of salt and speculation, even if the dates themselves are more likely to be accurate.

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.

This episode looks at the Kabane and Court Rank systems in light of the changes made during this reign, in 684 and 685. We go a bit more in depth on the kabane, what they were, and how they were organized, prior to the reorganization that took place at the end of the 8th century into just 8 kabane, total.

For more, check out our blogpost: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-136

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 136: Kabane and Court Rank

Mononobe no Muraji no Ujimaro was in a foul mood. Once more he had been passed over for promotion, and so he continued to toil away, tallying reports as they came in from the various provinces across the kingdom. Meanwhile, Hasama no Atahe no Woshibi was now his superior, with an exalted rank and the generous stipend that came with it. Ujimaro fumed—he was Mononobe, and his family had once all but ruled Yamato. Though they had been perhaps reduced in circumstances since then, they still proudly held to their place as a Muraji family—a distinction that demonstrated their superior pedigree. Meanwhile, Woshibi was from the Hasama family. Sure, his relative, Nemaro, had been one of those on the front lines in the recent conflict, but still, his family was only atahe. Honestly, a Mononobe was supposed to take orders from someone of an Atahe family?

But this was the new way of things. The ancient traditions were no longer enough—you had to work hard and make sure way up through this new court rank system if you wanted to succeed. Ujimaro grumbled, but there was little he could do in the moment. Nonetheless, he couldn't help but think about how the natural order of the world was somehow turned upside down…

Greetings and welcome back, everyone. We are working our way through the reign of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou. This reign spanned fourteen years, if you include the Jinshin year of 672, though it is broken into two narratives in the Nihon Shoki. The first chapter covers the year of the disturbance, the Jinshin no Ran, when Ohoama fought with the Afumi court, who supported his nephew, Ohotomo, on the throne. We've covered that turbulent period previously. The second chapter covers the other 13 years of Ohoama's reign.

Last episode we covered the first year of Ohoama sitting properly on the throne. The year 673 included Ohoama's ascension; the confirmation, continuation, and evolution of the Ritsuryou system instituted during Naka no Oe's time; as well as various ceremonies around Ohoama's ascension to the throne, including the first verifiable "Daijosai", the specialized harvest ceremony for the first harvest season of the reign.

This episode we are going to try and tackle something that people have sent in questions about. We've touched on it here and there, but I really want to get into the Kabane system—that ancient practice of family titles that were like a collective rank system. It was during Ohoama's reign that the court made major reforms to the kabane system and restructured it pretty extensively. At the same time, the kabane system was gradually being replaced by other systems of displaying one's status in society—such as the court rank system, which was also revised this reign. Eventually, without the same purpose as before, kabane would fade away, with a few remaining as honorifics and titles, but at this point they were still important.

So we'll get into both of these status systems and discuss a little bit about what that meant for the people of the late 7th century court.

From the beginning of Ohoama's reign, the court had continued to implement the cap-rank system, most recently amended in 664, by Ohoama's brother, Naka no Ohoye. With the new rank system of 685, the format changed considerably. To better understand this, let's talk about the rank systems in Yamato and how we have gotten to this point. We'll want to start with the kabane, and to do that, I want to take us back to a much earlier time.

As you may recall, in the oldest stories in the Nihon Shoki, the Kojiki, and the Sendai Kuji Hongi, most individuals only have a single name, or they are known by the name of a location and a title. Iware Hiko, for example, with Hiko and Hime being general masculine and feminine terms for elites from a given area.

From this, it would appear as though there was no such thing as a "family" name in early Wa societies. As I've pointed out before, that does not mean that there were not families, of course, or that lineage and family relationships were not important; we do see familial relationships, and we see concepts of lateral inheritance—from brother to brother rather than necessarily from father to son. The rules behind such inheritance seem to have been rather malleable, however.

And that all makes some sense in a society where most people are dealing with the people of their village and surrounding communities—there is no need for anything more than a given name. Otherwise one's place of origin or their profession could easily be used to identify any given individual. Even the elites would be known by the territory they control.

I mention all of this because some of the earliest terms we see as "kabane" appear to be titular in nature—that is to say they are derived from ancient titles. Hiko, Hime, Wake, Mimi, and Ushi are all terms we see from the ancient past, commonly found in the names of sovereigns, among other things.

It isn't until some time in about the 5th century that we start to see the family units arise. These started as something like a corporate group or guild: Those who looked after horses were all labelled as Umakai, while those who worked jade and made magatama jewels were labelled as Tamatsukuribe. These groups or "be" were familial in that they were structured much as a family, with a single family head. That gave the ruler a single point of contact to presumably administer all of the work that particular corporate group was expected to perform. Furthermore, the name passed to their children, who would presumably have been brought up in the family business.

For some of these families, rather than overseeing a business, craft, or similar thing, they were, instead, administrators of a given region or locality. We might think of these as chiefly families, overseeing domains of varying sizes.

These families were known as "uji". This is often translated in English as "clan", which is an overloaded term used to describe a group that all claim familial descent from a single putative ancestor—whether real or fictional. Many of the earliest uji were created as "-be" groups: Abe, Mononobe, Imbe, Kataribe, etc., but they eventually started dropping "-be" altogether: Inukahi, Umakahi, Soga, Nakatomi, Wani, and the like. For these Uji, many were connected to various deities, or kami, from which they claimed descent. These kami are thought to be some of the original ujigami, though that term later came to be applied to various kami that were seen as guardians of a particular locale, and later uji need not claim direct descent from a kami for it to be special. For example, the main deity of Kasuga Taisha, the shrine built in Nara in the 8th century, said to house the ujigami of the Nakatomi and Fujiwara, primarily pays worship to Takemikazuchi no Mikoto and Futsunushi no Mikoto, deities brought from the east. Takemikazuchi is considered an ujigami of the two uji, but the oyagami, the actual parent or ancestral kami from which they claim direct lineage, would be Ame no Koyane no Mikoto, who is also worshipped as the third deity at the shrine.

The fact that these uji operate more like clans means that they were made up of numerous family units, who might be scattered across the archipelago. At the head of each uji would have been a central family to provide the uji leadership and interface with the court. Nonetheless, they were all considered the same uji, and a rise in the fortunes of the uji applied to all of its disparate members.

To be clear, there were titles attached to individual names, Sukune, for example, which is one we've encountered several times in the narrative.

Professor Kan'ichi Asakawa, in his work "The Early Institutional Life of Japan", provides an overview of some of these corporate titles, that came to be known as "kabane".

In all likelihood, they all had a straightforward meaning at some point. "Omi" means minister, for example, and continues to be used in that sense—as well as as a title—up through at least the 7th century. Another common kabane that we see is "Muraji", which appears to originally reference someone in charge of a village or similar polity. Asakawa suggests that it comes from Mura no Ushi, with "Ushi" meaning something like "lord" and showing up elsewhere as well. "Kimi" also appears to be demonstrating some kind of hegemony over a land.

Beyond that, here are a few others that we have seen: Atahe—or Atai—as well as Suguri, which appears to truly be a lower level village headmaster. Then there is Agata-nushi, aka Agata No Ushi, the Lord of an Agata, or district. Asakawa also notes Wake, Inaki, Sukune, Kishi, and Tamitsukasaas other kabane.

The kabane are interesting in that they do appear to be precedental—that is to say that there does appear to be some kind of hierarchy in terms of the social position of each uji. The kabane did not, however, confer any particular resources. There was no stipend attached to a given kabane, though certain court positions were only open to members of uji with the appropriate kabane. Perhaps most notable in this are the Omi and the Muraji, which were the only two family types that held the supreme court positions—what we would likely refer to as "Prime Minister". These included families such as the Ohotomo no Muraji, the Mononobe no Muraji, the Kose no Omi, and the Soga no Omi. The heads of these families had a special title—the Ohomuraji or the Oho-omi, the Great Muraji and the Great Omi. These positions were placed at the top of the court system, allowing them unrivaled access to the levers of power. Typically there were two to three of these individuals at any given time, down to as few as one during the height of the Soga no Omi's power and influence.

It is unclear if all uji at the Omi and Muraji level had a designated Oho-Omi or Oho-Muraji at their head, or if that was only for those who were in actual positions at the top of the court structure.

It is also unclear if the precedence between the Omi and Muraji was always fixed. Early on, we see Muraji houses that appear to be holding the majority of the powerful positions, and later we see the ascendancy of the Omi households. By the 7th century, however, it appears that Omi came first, followed by Muraji, based on the order that individuals are frequently named in the Chronicles, among other things.

As for the other titles, some of them we believe we know, and others are more of a mystery. The origin of "wake" and "kimi" are rather obscure, though they both appear to have something to do with territorial rule and belong to uji that lay some kind of claim to a blood relationship with the royal house. Some of them may have been rulers in their own lands, prior to Yamato hegemony.

"Inaki" may be related to rice castle, or storehouse, and seems to have referred to one of the smallest local units. That also means we rarely see it in the narrative, which tended to focus on those more closely tied to the court and the royal house. Asakawa notes that the Atahe, or Atai, seems to be for uji who possessed some amount of private land and private soldiery, but we don't know much more. Asakawa also points out that the Suguri, Tamitsukasa, and the Kishi kabane all seem to be related to groups with ties to the continent—perhaps descended from immigrant groups.

The Kuni no Miyatsuko and the Agata-nushi are the titles with the clearest seeming ties to territorial hegemony. "Kuni" is the term for the ancient lands, such as Yamato, Kibi, Kenu, Koshi, etc. There seem to be around 140 such "kuni" described in the archipelago. Agata, on the other hand, were much smaller districts. While some of these district names have survived, it is hard, if not impossible, to know exactly how many of them there were.

Then you have this term: "Miyatsuko". Breaking that apart, he translates it as child or servant—ko—of the exalted house—miya. Taken together, these appear to reference the elite families in charge of overseeing territorial lands.We also see another term that uses "Miyatsuko": Tomo no Miyatsuko. Unlike Kuni no Miyatsuko, Tomo no Miyatsuko is a term representing a group, rather than a kabane attached to an individual family. When the sovereign addresses the court, for example, he typically addresses the Omi, the Muraji, the Tomo no Miyatsuko and the Kuni no Miyatsuko.

Asakawa proposed that, technically, all of these could fall under the term "Miyatsuko" as servants of the sovereign's house. Rather than focusing on specifics of all the myriad kabane, however, Asakawa treats them broadly as the Omi, Muraji, Tomo no Miyatsuko, and Kuni no Miyatsuko.

The Omi and the Muraji we already touched on. They were the houses that could, among other things, supply the court with their Ohoomi and Ohomuraji—their prime ministers. So it makes some sense. The Tomo no Miyatsuko and the Kuni no Miyatsuko are a little more tricky to pin down, but Asakawa suggests that, ased on what we can tell, the heads of the Omi, Muraji, and Tomo no Miyatsuko likely attended court on a regular basis and lived nearby, whereas the Kuni no Miyatsuko were those whose heads dwelt elsewhere, likely because they were the local elites in various other areas of the archipelago. This is in the name—the term "tomo" might be thought of as being "with" someone, and at one point it is suggested that the Tomo no Miyatsuko are related to those who traced kinship back to the kami who originally descended from the Plain of Heaven. However, among the myriad kabane, not all of them were strictly local, and we find some kabane doing double duty for both local and geographically dispersed uji.

Thus he also suggested that Kuni no Miyatsuko, though it was a kabane in its own right, also represented the other forms of territorial elite titles—all those who did not regularly attend the court, but instead administered their own lands.

Richard Miller, in his work, "Ancient Japanese Nobility", does provide a suggested hierarchy of the kabane. I don't know if I completely agree, as I think that it was a lot more complicated across the entire archipelago, but nonetheless I'll add the information to the blogpost page if you want to see at least one suggestion of relative precedence between uji of different kabane.

Now let's not forget that not everyone was a member of an uji. For one thing, the royal family—both the sovereign's immediate family and Princes who claimed a more distant relationship—were exempt from the Uji-Kabane system. Also, the commoners, those who actually toiled and worked the land, likewise would not have been included in a given Uji. The Uji may have directed production, and even included certain artisans, but it still only included those who were tied, in some way, to the government.

Now while the Uji-Kabane system may have started as titles with actual meanings—that is to say that the names and titles were essentially indicative of a group's role in society—it didn't take too long for it to become a little more abstract. After all, generation after generation, people change. Individuals vied for power and position in the court and elsewhere, and one's uji may rise, and even fall, depending on how they were able to succeed in the political climate of the day. This was augmented with the marriage politics which no doubt was conducted as much between the elite families as well as with the royal family.

And then there were the branch or cadet families. For example, let's say that the head of a family has four children. Each one of those children could theoretically succeed their father—if his own siblings don't do so. With each generation, the familial ties get weaker, and smaller, sub-houses could form. If the uji was geographically dispersed, then local branches could become more or less independent.

All of this seems to have caused not a small bit of confusion, and thus we get an edict in the last months of 682: it instructed all of the uji to ensure that they had a senior member—an uji-no-kami or ko-no-kami, with "kami", in this instance, meaning top or head, rather than deity. This family head was to be reported to the government, presumably so that the government knew exactly who was in charge of each family. If there were too many people in a given uji, then they were encouraged to split themselves up and submit their own heads, with government officials adjudicating the decision. Finally, they are exhorted not to include any people that do not belong.

A few things this seems to indicate. First is that the government did not have a handle on all of the different families out there, which makes some sense. It had been many generations since the uji had been initially set up, and the State had gone through a lot in that period. It may also indicate that there were those making a false claim to a family name specifically for the added prestige. How difficult would it be to claim to be a member of a prominent family that just happened to have been from a far-flung, out of the way branch? We see this in the 10th century with the Oushu Fujiwara—a family in Tohoku, around the region of Hiraizumi, who claimed descent from the famous Fujiwara family. Of course, the Fujiwara family by that point had grown so large, that it was next to impossible to check any such claim. How much moreso in the age before written records were common?

We've seen examples where different parts of a given Uji were recorded separately. For example, the Aya were split early on into different groups, with the Yamato no Aya being perhaps the most often referenced, but we also have the Kawachi no Aya—the Aya from Kawachi. And then we have the Inukahi, where we see the Ama no Inukahi and the Agata no Inukahi, referring to the Inukahi of the Sea and the Inukahi of the District, though sometimes just a reference to "Inukahi".

Of course, it also seems that these branch families maintained the kabane of the original. Over time, uji were promoted, but rarely were they demoted. And so, over time, more and more uji are counted among the ranks of the Omi and the Muraji.

At the same time, the court was changing. With the Taika reforms and the development of the ritsuryo codes, the Uji-kabane system was no longer required for managing the realm. Furthermore, the government was centralizing land and the produce thereof. And so they instituted the cap-rank system, a more explicit system of rank within the court that was held by the individual, not by the entire uji. In addition, cap-rank could be tied directly to a stipend, making the court officers more dependent on the central government, rather than on their own uji's resources.

Early on, it is likely that higher cap rank was given to members of the more highly exalted uji, as those were the uji that also filled the upper echelons of government and therefore would have been best prepared to succeed in those roles. However, as things continued, it was likely that it was going to get even more confused. Or they would need to raise up all of the families to Omi and Muraji status, but as that happened, the meaning of the kabane themselves became less and less clear. After all, if everyone is an "Omi" and "Muraji" than, really, nobody is.

In 681, we are told that they began to put together a law code, and later a law code of 92 articles is said to have been established. However, it seems it was still being updated, and wasn't until 689, after Ohoama's death, that all 22 volumes would be distributed to the various governors. It became known as the Kiyomihara Codes. In 684, Ohoama's reforms attacked the problem of the Kabane. The record complains that the various titles had become confused. That there were people out there taking kabane they were not entitled to, and just a general confusion because it no longer aligned quite so well with the evolving cultural norms of the new Yamato state.

Early attempts to deal with this appear to have been, in the years since they began codifying it all in 681, to raise up families and individuals to the rank of "Muraji". There are several records where lists of families are all given "Muraji". In the case of individuals being granted Muraji, it is unclear if that was going just to them or to their entire family, though there are some examples where it seems an individual was granted the title and then their uji was separately awarded the same.

This seems like an initial attempt to straighten things out. With the new bureaucratic system and the court ranks, no doubt there were people of worth from uji with less prestigious kabane who now outranked individuals from uji that were, at least on paper, more prestigious. This can't really have solved the problem. If anything, it just watered down the meaning of "muraji" even further, since now everyone and their brother seemed to have been granted that title.

Ohoama's solution was to pare down the system to only eight kabane, total. Some of these were existing kabane, and others were entirely new.

At the bottom of this new system was the title of Inaki, which had been about the lowest territorial kabane of the existing system. I suspect that this included all of those families that were still below the rank of Muraji, who had not been raised up in the preceding years. However, from there it immediately jumped up to the Muraji and Omi, in that order. And so the kabane that were previously at the top of the system were now towards the bottom. That way, they could "promote" families into greater kabane, without needing to "demote" a bunch of existing families at the same time.

Above the Omi were mostly new kabane, except for one. The first was "Michinoshi", a Master of the Way. It is unclear what this was intended for, as we aren't told who was promoted to this kabane. Based on the name, it is thought that this may have been for uji that had demonstrated a mastery of learning or perhaps some other pursuit, such as medicine, science, crafts, etc.

Above the Michinoshi title was the kabane of Imiki, the fourth of eight. This may mean something like "One who arrived". Some suggest that it may have originally been "imaki". Richard Miller, in his work "Ancient Japanese Nobility" suggests that this was effectively the equivalent of the old title of "Atahe". That said, most of those who received this kabane had previously been promoted to the old title of "Muraji", though before that they were mostly Atahe, or else Obito, Kishi, or Miyatsuko.

There is a thought that Imiki had something to do with "coming" and was meant for uji descended from immigrant families. Miller notes that this is not immediately born out in the data from the Nihon Shoki, where we see about a 50:50 split between immigrant and native uji. However, in the following chronicle, the Shoku Nihongi, we see about 100 of 150 of uji with the Imiki kabane that were of immigrant origins, so 2/3rds. That still isn't entirely conclusive, but does add some weight to the idea.

Continuing to the 3rd kabane from the top we are at "Sukune". This was previously used as a kabane, but from what I can tell it was given to an individual and was not passed down to the entire uji. Now it was something different. Miller suggests that this kabane was for those uji who claimed descent from one of the kami, but not necessarily from the royal lineage.

In contrast, Asomi, later read as "Ason", the 2nd of the 8 kabane, literally reads as "court minister". It appears to be for those who claimed some connection to the royal family. It is notable that Ohoama awarded this to some 52 families during his reign. Compare that with making 11 Imiki and 13 Mabito, the next and highest ranking kabane. Asomi would be the most common kabane among those at the top of the court bureaucracy. Of all of them, this one seems to linger, perhaps because it is the kabane that was given to the Fujiwara family, who then carried that with them into later centuries.

Finally, there is Mabito. Mabito means something like "True Person" or perhaps "Upright Person", and it seems to have gone exclusively to families with the old kabane of "kimi". An examination of the thirteen uji in this group indicates that they were those with close royal ties, who claimed a descent closely related to that of the royal family.

So those were the new kabane. Although they were declared in 684 and handed out through the following year, we do see some individuals referenced with these kabane earlier in the narrative. This is likely just due to the fact that it is how they were eventually known, and so they are given an anachronistic kabane, which was probably much easier for the compilers than trying to make sure that all of the names were exactly correct for each record.

With the kabane thus dealt with, Ohoama then went on to make some major changes to the court rank system as well. In many ways I would say that his ranks were quite novel—previous changes to the cap-rank system had largely been additions or slight modifications but had left many of the names intact with each change. As such, the rank system decreed in 664 was really just an update to the previous cap-rank system of 649 and earlier. And so even through 664 you still had things like "Greater brocade" as someone's rank. Towards the end of his reign, though, along with other reforms to the government,

Determining what exactly the rank system was at any given point can be a little confusing. Depending on the record being used, names are sometimes referenced anachronistically: That is they are given with the ultimate title, kabane, or rank by which they were known. This could sometimes be after multiple phases of reform, and so the honors mentioned may not necessarily reflect that individual's ranks and position at the date of the entry. Also the various rank systems are close enough, sharing many of the various rank names, such that it isn't immediately obvious if something different is being used. This is true of both kabane and court ranks. Furthermore, as many individuals may only be mentioned once or twice, we may not always have a lot of data on how things may have changed.

The new system enacted in 685 was different in several ways that make it quite distinct. In fact, we see in the record of this reign earlier mentions of individuals where their rank is given in terms of the new system even in records predating 685. So what did that look like?

The rank system of 685 still used various signifiers, which broke things up into categories, but these were broken up into 2-4 numerical grades: Ichi-I, Ni-I, San-I, Shi-I, or first rank, second rank, third rank, and fourth rank. This gets us closer to what was eventually an almost purely numerical system. Each grade was then divided further into "Larger": "Dai"; or "Broader": "Kou"

This is also where we see Princely ranks enumerated for the first time. As we noted, previously, princely rank was something that we started to see at the beginning of this reign in the Nihon Shoki, with Prince of the third rank, etc. In 685, however, we get an actual proclamation.

The Princely ranks are broken into two large categories—the bright, or Myou, ranks and the Pure, or Jou ranks. There were two grades of Myou—Ichi-I and Ni-I, and four grades of Jou—Ichi-I, Ni-I, San-I, and Shi-I. Each grade was further divided twice into large, dai, or broad, kou. So you had Myou-dai-ichi-I, Myou-kou-ichi-I, Myou-dai-ni-I, Myou-kou, ni-i… et cetera. That translates to something like Large First Bright rank, Broad First Bright rank, Large Second Bright rank, and Broad Second Bright rank. This would continue with "Jou" replacing "Myou", and provided a total of 12 princely ranks.

As for how they were divvied out, we only see the granting of "Jou" ranks. In fact, Kusakabe, the Crown Prince himself is given Broader Pure First Rank (Jou-kou-ichi-i). His brother, Prince Ohotsu, was given Larger Pure Second Rank, their brother Takechi, who had helped lead the forces in the Jinshin war, was given Broader Pure Second Rank, one lower than his younger brother. Both Kawashima and Osakabe were given Larger Pure Third Rank. So if the highest "Pure" rank was going to the Crown Prince, then who were the Myou ranks going to? Unfortunately, thou the system would last until the development of the Taihou code, in 703, we don't have any clear examples of the Myou ranks being handed out, so that may be a puzzle we don't unravel.

Beyond the ranks for the various princes, there was another, similar set of ranks for the common court nobles. This system had 6 categories, broken up, like the Princely ranks, into four grades, each further divided into Larger and Broader, as before. In this case the categories were:

Shou – Upright

Jiki – Straight

Gon – Diligent

Mu – Earnest

Tsui – Pursue

Shin – Advancement

This created 48 total rank divisions, which gave an unprecedented granularity for the court.

As for granting rank, we have a couple of examples of that, beyond just the posthumous grants. In 686, Ohoama conferred Gon-I, the Dilligent rank, on six ministers who attended to him, personally. There was also a request that provincial governors should select nine people of achievement who could likely be given the same.

There is one strange account: in 685, Awata no Asomi no Mabito—Mabito, in this case, being his given name—requested permission to transfer his rank to his father, but this was refused.

And I think this gets to the heart of the cultural change that was underway, and which Ohoama and the court was actively encouraging. Although the kabane titles were a collective rank, court rank, and the accompanying stipend, was for the individual. This wasn't something that could accrue to the head of a family. That would have been an important point at a time when the traditions of the uji system were still quite strong.

So there we have it. Hopefully there was something new for you to take away as we come to better understand Ohoama and his court.

We still have plenty more to discuss—probably enough for a few more episodes as we cover some of the natural events and disasters, the ties between the court and religion, as well as what was going on with peninsular affairs, not to mention the myriad other little random tidbits. We'll get to all of that as we can.

Next episode we'll take a look at the material culture of the court. Specifically we'll take a look at what we know about their dress and clothing, much of which was influenced by that sumptuary laws that were, themselves, tied in closely with this new rank system.

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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.