HISTORY OF JAPAN
Migration by sea in the north Pacific: from 2500 BC
It is not known when human beings first make the crossing from the Asian mainland to the islands of Japan. However the first human traces reveal a society capable of producing neolithic wares but still living by hunting and gathering.
This society is known as the Jomon culture from the cord design of the pottery, which has similarities with archaeological finds in eastern Siberia. It is probable that people make the first crossing to the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido in about 8000 BC, either from Sakhalin or along the line of the Kuril Islands.
From about 250 BC a different neolithic community is found in Japan. It is known as the Yayoi culture, from the street in Tokyo where the first traces of it are discovered. These people cultivate rice and are therefore assumed to have reached Japan from the south, along the line of the Ryukyu Islands.
A century or two later another wave of immigrants arrives. They come through Korea, bringing the bronze culture of China, soon to be followed by iron. From this time onwards there are constant links with Korea, including Japanese invasions of the mainland.
Sumo: 23 BC
In this year, according to tradition, Japan’s spectacular national sport of sumo wrestling has its first contest. It is won by a legendary figure, Sukune, regarded ever since as the patron saint of sumo wrestlers.
The date is too precise and too early, for this is still a prehistoric period in Japan. But sumo tradition also tells of dramatic events in early historic times. In AD 858, for example, two sons of the emperor Buntoku wrestle for the throne, and the winner succeeds his father. In subsequent centuries sumo is closely linked with the training of the samurai, the military caste.
The Yamato clan: from the 4th century AD
The first clear political structure to emerge in Japan is based on large independent clans (or uji) with powerful leaders. By the 4th century the clan occupying the Yamato plain (the region now known as Nara, south of Osaka) establishes sufficient ascendancy for its chieftain to be seen as emperor. The status of a 4th-century emperor, Nintoku, can be judged by the scale of the earth mound at Sakai which is his tomb; more than 500 yards long and 35 yards high, it is surrounded by a great triple moat.
The leader of any clan, and above all of the imperial dynasty, has much more than a secular role. He has an important function in Japan’s indigenous religion, Shinto.
Shinto: from the 4th century AD
The first inhabitants of Japan, migrating from the mainland, bring with them their own version of the shamanism which prevails in prehistoric Asia. To the pantheon of the spirits and forces of nature, the Japanese add famous people, significant places or any other phenomena seeming worthy of reverence. The result is a profusion of local deities or kami, the worship of whom is given the name Shinto, meaning roughly the ‘way of the gods’.
With the emergence of a strong clan system, each clan gives special honour to one particular god considered to be the ancestor of all members of the group – and particularly, in the most direct line, ancestor of the clan leader.
By the 4th century AD, when the Yamato clan has achieved an imperial pre-eminence, their forebear has a similarly prominent place among the gods. The Yamato claim as ancestor the Sun empress, who shines above all others in the heavens. A creation story is commissioned to chronicle the descent of the emperors from the sun.
Thus begins the imperial family’s political use of Shinto, an issue of importance in the 20th century. At a deeper level this very ancient religion remains a thriving popular cult. Lacking an official ritual or sacred text, Shinto is able to absorb elements of Buddhism, a later arrival in Japan, without losing its own sense of conviction.
The Soga family and Buddhism: 6th – 7th century AD
The Soga, a minor branch of the imperial family, do much to further the cause of Buddhism. Soga Iname becomes minister to the crown in AD 536. In 538 a present arrives for the emperor from the Korean state of Paekche. It is a Buddhist image, together with some Buddhist texts in Chinese.
Accompanying this missionary gift is a letter emphasizing that Buddhism is the proper religion for any civilized state. Soga Iname takes this message to heart. He builds a Buddhist temple, the first in Japan, in his own home.
During the rest of the 6th century the members of the Soga family steadily increase their power. They also pioneer a pattern of reducing the emperor to a figurehead, in a system of divided rule which becomes characteristic of Japan – particularly in later centuries under the shoguns.
In 592 Soga Umako has the emperor assassinated and replaced with his more biddable younger sister. Umako then appoints as regent a junior member of the imperial family, Prince Shotoku Taishi – who in this case proves to be a ruler with ideas of his own.
Shotoku and Confucianism: AD 593-622
Shotoku, himself a scholar, sees the Chinese pattern of government as the right way forward for Japan. He attempts to introduce Confucian bureaucracy, based on merit, in place of the more warlike rivalries of Japanese clan society. He also sponsors Buddhism, even more actively than the Soga family. His superb Horyuji temple and pagoda in Nara, dating from 607, still survive.
Shotoku is associated with a famous constitution of seventeen articles, attempting to establish a centralized imperial administration on the Chinese pattern. It is debatable how many of his reforms are effective, but the direction is continued later in the 7th century after the fall of the Soga family.
In 645 the two leading members of the Soga family are assassinated by a group of nobles, including a member of a future dynasty of regents – the Fujiwara.
A new regime announces a new imperial programme, known as the Taika reforms. These continue the trend towards absolute rule by the centralized bureaucracy of the imperial court. Promotion, however, does tend to be more by hereditary rank than merit – a Japanese preference against which the Chinese tradition of examinations can make little headway.
Nara: AD 710
Until the early 8th century the Japanese court has been peripatetic, moving from town to town. But the increasing weight of imperial bureaucracy now suggests the need for a capital city. In 710 the empress decrees that one shall be built in the Yamato plain.
Nara is closely modelled on the T’ang capital at Xi’an; the fashion for all things Chinese is now at its peak. So is the influence of Buddhism. It has been decreed in 685 that every household shall have a Buddhist family shrine, and the avenues of Nara are lined with magnificent monasteries. Nara remains the capital city for less than a century before the next move (to Kyoto), but it sees the first flowering of Japanese culture.
Printed Buddhist texts in Korea and Japan: AD 750-768
The invention of printing is a striking achievement of Buddhists in east Asia. Korea takes the lead. The world’s earliest known printed document is a sutra printed on a single sheet of paper in Korea in AD 750.
This is closely followed in Japan by a bold experiment in mass circulation (precisely the area in which printed material has the advantage over manuscript). In AD 768, in devoutly Buddhist Nara, the empress commissions a huge edition of a lucky charm or prayer. It is said that the project takes six years to complete and that the number of copies printed, for distribution to pilgrims, is a million. Many have survived.
The first Japanese texts: 8th century AD
A powerful influence reaching Japan from China (along with Buddhism, the bureaucracy of Confucianism and even the game of go) is Chinese literature and the Chinese script. When the first texts reach Japan, perhaps in the 4th century AD, the Japanese language has not yet been written down. The first Japanese scribes adapt the Chinese characters to the needs of a very different language, in an unnatural alliance which has remained awkward ever since.
The earliest surviving works in Japanese date from the flowering of court life at Nara in the 8th century. There are compilations of legend and history, and a magnificent anthology of early Japanese poems.
The historical works are the Kojiki, or ‘Records of Ancient Matters’, compiled in AD 712, and the Nihongi, or ‘Written Chronicles of Japan’, which follows in 720. Both are gathered from oral sources by court scholars, who read them to the emperor when required. Kojiki deals mainly with legend, whereas Nihongi brings Japanese history up to AD 697.
From about AD 759 a group of poets compile the Manyoshu, an anthology of some 4500 poems by more than 450 authors. The verses are simple, direct and powerful – particularly in the short 5-line form known as the tanka, which becomes an important and lasting part of the Japanese literary tradition.
Heian or Kyoto: from AD 794
The new capital city, to which the court moves in 794, is – like its predecessor, Nara – closely modelled on the Chinese example of Xi’an. But it differs in one significant respect. This time the imperial palace does not have monasteries and temples for its immediate neighbours. The rulers of Japan remain fervently Buddhist. But they have learnt a valuable lesson – not to allow too much influence, in matters of state, to rich monks and abbots.
The new city is first called Heian-kyo (‘capital of peace and tranquillity’), but soon becomes known by the simpler name Kyoto (‘capital’).
A new title, of great significance in later Japanese history, emerges briefly at the end of the 8th century. The government in Kyoto has difficulty in controlling a more primitive people, the Ainu, who live beyond the northern border of the imperial territory. A general sent to subdue them is given the resounding title sei-i-tai-shogun (‘great general for the subjugation of the barbarians’).
After a successful mission, he resigns his title. It will be revived, and made familiar in the shortened form of ‘shogun’, by feudal lords in later centuries exercising a military dictatorship.
