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by Edwin Reischauer


  Paralleling the flow of people and probably carried in part by it, a series of cultural influences also spread from the Asian continent to Japan. Pieces of the world’s oldest known pottery, dating from around 10,000 years ago, have been found in Japan as well as China. From around 10,000 B.C. there developed in Japan a primitive hunting, fishing, and gathering society, known as Jomon from its mat-patterned pottery, which shows great variety, boldness, and originality in its designs.

  Although Jomon culture lingered on until comparatively modern times in the extreme north, it was beginning to be displaced or absorbed by a more advanced agricultural society by around 300 B.C. This new culture, called Yayoi, is identified by its relatively simple, thin, wheel-shaped pottery, but its outstanding feature was its irrigated rice cultivation, much like that in use today. It also possessed bronze and iron; bronze artifacts, including obvious imitations of Chinese bronze mirrors, were used primarily for ceremonial purposes. Starting in north Kyushu, the area closest to Korea, Yayoi culture spread rapidly up the Inland Sea to central Japan and on to the Kanto Plain in the east. This plain, where modern Tokyo is located, is the largest relatively level area in Japan. The metallurgy and agriculture of the Yayoi culture were ultimately derived from China, but only indirectly. They probably came to Japan as the result of waves of culture and movements of peoples from Korea and areas north of China, most likely pushed eastward into Japan by the unification of China in the third century B.C.

  A new archeological era, the tumulus period, named for the large earth mounds erected over the graves of dead leaders, began around 300 A.D. In time these mounds came to be of huge size, indicating the existence of relatively large political units capable of marshaling a great deal of manpower. The largest mound, located in central Japan and dating probably from the late fifth century, is almost 2,700 feet long and surrounded by moats. Many were of keyhole shape—square in front and round behind. The arms and horse trappings associated with finds from this period suggest a mounted, warlike, aristocratic people, much like the nomadic warriors of Northeast Asia who were invading Korea at that time. The wall paintings on some of the tombs from the seventh century are almost identical to contemporary paintings from North Korea. The tumuli often had cylindrical pieces of pottery, known as haniwa, arranged on them in rings. Haniwa were often capped with decorative figures, a few of which depicted warriors and horses, but most of which were simple and highly artistic representations of other people, animals, houses, and the like.

  Tumulus burials lasted through the seventh century and then ceased abruptly, probably because of the influence of Buddhism, but by that time we have entered fully into the historical period and can shift from archeological to written evidence for our knowledge of Japan. Chinese histories record an emissary coming from Japan as early as A.D. 57, and a late third-century Chinese text gives a fairly detailed and seemingly accurate description of Japan as an agricultural society with sharp class distinctions, divided into a large number of petty countries, presumably tribal units, each ruled over by a semireligious leader, some men and others women, and all under the loose control of what the text calls “the queen’s country.”

  The earliest Japanese histories, the Kojiki of 712 and the Nihon shoki of 720, start with creation myths reminiscent of Southeast Asia and Polynesia. They also tell of a supreme Sun Goddess, the descent of her grandson to earth, and the founding of the Japanese state by his grandson in 660 B.C.—a date chosen at a much later time, probably around A.D. 600, with the intention of giving Japan a respectable antiquity comparable to that of China. The mythological descent of the imperial line from the Sun Goddess, still worshipped at Japan’s most sacred shrines at Ise, east of the capital region, and the Chinese account of the supremacy of the “queen’s country,” suggest an originally matriarchal people who became the strongly male-dominated society of later history only through subsequent influences from the highly patriarchal society of China. The histories then go on to recount a confused but somewhat plausible story of conquest from Kyushu up the Inland Sea to central Japan and on to the Kanto Plain. By the fourth or fifth century, Yamato, one of the tribal units in the central area, had clearly established its control over most of the others, and this political unit grew into the completely historical nation of Nihon or Nippon, known to us through its South Chinese pronunciation as Japan.

  The concentration of the largest tumuli in central Japan around the modern cities of Osaka and Nara corresponds well with the rise to supremacy of Yamato, and some are traditionally identified with early priest-chiefs of that state. The traditional symbols of authority of these priest-chiefs, the so-called Three Imperial Regalia, also tie in well with the archeological record. They are a long iron sword like those common throughout Northeast Asia, a bronze mirror representing the Sun Goddess but clearly derived from China, and a so-called curved jewel (magatama), a small comma-shaped stone, perhaps originally representing a bear claw and common also in Korean archeological finds.

  The Japanese state that emerged into history in the fifth and sixth centuries was clearly a further development of the tribally divided country described in the early Chinese records. Under the leadership of Yamato, the country was divided into a number of local hereditary units called uji, sometimes translated as “clans.” These had their hereditary chiefs and their own uji deities. Under the controlling family and tied to it by pseudofamily bonds were hereditary functional groups called be, which consisted mostly of farmers but also included pottery makers, weavers, and other specialized groups. The uji were ranked in hierarchical order under the ruling Yamato group, which also had certain uji under its direct control to perform various functions, such as military service, the manufacture of various goods, ritualistic divining, and supervision of the Yamato group’s lands, which were scattered throughout Japan.

  Yamato by this time controlled most of modern Japan, except for the northern part of Honshu and Hokkaido, and until 562 it maintained some sort of foothold on the south coast of Korea. Though explained in the Japanese histories as the result of conquest by a warrior empress, the Korean foothold was more probably connected with the movement of peoples from Korea to Japan and the resulting close relations between certain groups on both sides of the straits separating the two countries. In any case, Japanese armies were active on the peninsula in the fifth and sixth centuries, and Yamato did not finally give up the attempt to reestablish a foothold in South Korea until 663, shortly before the unification of Korea by the southeastern state of Silla in 668.

  Many characteristics of uji society were to remain typical of Japan in its later history. This was certainly true of the strong emphasis on hierarchy and hereditary authority. The aristocratic mounted warrior of the tumulus period was also to emerge again as a dominant figure in feudal times. And of particular significance, the early Yamato priest-chiefs developed into the imperial line, which served as the sacerdotal source of political authority throughout history and is today by far the oldest reigning family in the world.

  The religious beliefs and practices of uji times have also continued as one of the main religious streams of Japan. Nameless, at first, these beliefs were subsequently called Shinto, “the way of the gods,” to distinguish them from Buddhism. The worship of the Sun Goddess and other uji ancestors and deities was part of a much broader worship of fertility and the wonders and mysteries of nature. A waterfall, a mountain crag, a mysterious cave, a large tree, a peculiarly shaped stone, or an unusual person might inspire a sense of awe. Such objects of worship were called kami, a term somewhat misleadingly translated as “god” but obviously not comparable to the Judeo-Christian concept of God. This simple Shinto notion of deity should be borne in mind when trying to understand the “deification” in modern times of emperors and of soldiers who died for their country.

  Early Shinto had almost no ethical content, except for an emphasis on ritual purity, which may have contributed to the Japanese love of bathing. On the other
hand, it had numberless places of worship and countless festivals and ceremonies. Places where people felt a sense of awe became cult spots and eventually shrines. Today tens of thousands of such shrines dot the landscape of Japan, each with its characteristic torii gateway. Some are great institutions dating back to antiquity; thousands are village shrines still identified as the abode of the local uji deity; and others are merely miniature edifices of stone or wood recently erected in front of a gnarled old tree or on a mountain top.

  The underlying stream of Shinto today remains little changed since prehistoric times, although much has been done during the past thousand years to make it into a more organized religion. In modern times it was consciously used, through an emphasis on the early mythology connected with it, as an inspiration for national solidarity and fanatical patriotism. But despite these later uses, Shinto remains basically unchanged: It still centers around the worship of nature, fertility, reverence for ancestral deities, and a sense of communion with them and the spirits of nature.

  2

  THE ADOPTION OF THE CHINESE PATTERN

  The peoples of North Europe have always been conscious of their double heritage—their primitive Teutonic roots and the cultural legacy of ancient Greece and Rome. Similarly, the Japanese have a double heritage—the native culture of early Japan and the higher civilization of classical China. As in North Europe, true history started for Japan only when the broad stream of a highly developed civilization reached its shores and, in a different geographic setting, combined with the simpler traditions of the local people to form a new culture, based directly on the old civilization but differentiated from it by a richer and more complex superstructure.

  The Japanese had long had some contact with Chinese civilization. Envoys and traders had gone back and forth between the two countries since at least the first century A.D. Immigrants from Korea brought with them the arts and sciences of the continental civilization. Knowledge of Chinese writing, for example, had become well established in Japan by the fifth century. These early borrowings from China, however, were made only very slowly and almost unconsciously, as has been the usual pattern in the spread of civilization throughout the world. But an abrupt acceleration in the rate of learning from the continent started in the second half of the sixth century, when the Japanese suddenly became conscious of the advantages of the superior continental civilization and the desirability of learning more about it. Why this spurt in the process of learning from China should have come at just this moment in Japanese history is not certain. The Japanese may have reached a level of cultural attainment and political organization that for the first time permitted more rapid and more conscious learning from abroad. And the renewed vigor displayed by Chinese culture at that time may have facilitated the process.

  China’s history as a highly civilized part of the world reaches back into the second millennium before Christ. Its first great period as a colossal military empire came during the time of Rome’s greatness, roughly from about 220 B.C. to A.D. 220. The era of political disruption that followed came to an end in the second half of the sixth century, when a new and greater Chinese empire emerged from the chaos of three centuries of civil war and barbarian invasions. This new empire was far richer and stronger than the first. In fact, during the seventh and eighth centuries China was, with little doubt, the richest, most powerful, and technologically most advanced country in the world. This period, which was known by the dynastic names of Sui (581–618) and T’ang (618–907), was a time of unprecedented grandeur, might, and brilliant cultural attainment.

  It is small wonder that the Japanese felt the reflected glory of the new Chinese empire and attempted to create a small replica of it in their own isolated islands. Other petty states in Korea, Manchuria, and on the southwestern borders of China, dazzled by the grandeur and might of Sui and T’ang, were attempting to do the same. A millennium or more later, the borrowing of political, social, and economic institutions from more advanced countries was to become commonplace throughout the world; but it is surprising that the Japanese at this early date went about transplanting the more complex Chinese institutions and techniques with such great zeal and in so systematic a way. The result during the next two centuries was a cultural surge forward in Japan that stands in sharp contrast to the slow, fumbling progress of North Europe at this time. This difference may not have been due so much to the tribal people of Japan and North Europe, who were actually somewhat similar, as to the attractiveness of their respective models. While Rome was falling completely to pieces, China was rising to new heights of grandeur.

  The start of the heavy flow of Chinese influences to Japan is usually dated as 552, the year the Buddhist religion is said to have been officially introduced to the Yamato court from Paekche, a kingdom in southwestern Korea. Actually, Buddhism had probably entered Japan even earlier, but this official introduction affords a convenient date to mark the time when the Japanese first started consciously to learn from the Chinese. During the next few centuries, Buddhism served as an important vehicle for the transmission of Chinese culture to Japan, just as Christianity served as a vehicle for the transmission of Mediterranean civilization to North Europe. Buddhism is by origin an Indian religion, but it had slowly spread to China and won a place of importance in Chinese culture during the troubled era between the two great periods of empire. It was a vigorous proselytizing religion at that time, and missionary zeal carried it beyond China to Korea and from there to Japan. From the sixth to the eighth centuries, continental priests occasionally came to Japan, and scores of Japanese converts went to China to learn more about the new faith. Returning from the continent, these student priests, even more than foreign missionary teachers, took the lead in transmitting to Japan the new religion and many other aspects of Chinese civilization.

  In the second half of the sixth century, Buddhism and other new influences from abroad so affected the Yamato court that clashes broke out between a faction favoring the acceptance of Buddhism and other continental ideas and an opposition group that resisted the new religion and all change. More fundamentally, this was a battle between leading uji groups for dominance of the Yamato court and its priest-chiefs. The pro-Buddhist Soga uji, which was closely intermarried with the reigning family, emerged victorious in 587, and under its dynamic leader Umako embarked on a series of significant innovations. Most of these were later attributed to Prince Shotoku, the regent for the reigning empress from 593 to 622, but Shotoku was probably at most only a partner in these enterprises. In large part of Soga blood himself, he was made regent only after Umako had murdered his own reigning nephew and put his niece Suiko on the throne. Umako, until his death in 626, was clearly the most powerful figure at court.

  Suiko was the first of several women who reigned between 592 and 770, usually as compromise candidates chosen to head off succession disputes. When the last of these women rulers fell so much under the influence of a Buddhist monk that it was feared he would usurp the throne, feminine leadership was permanently abandoned, except for two much later cases in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by which time the position lacked any semblance of power. Another and probably more basic reason for the switch to purely male rule was growing Chinese influence and the Chinese abhorrence of women rulers. Japanese women, who in earliest times may have enjoyed a position of social and political dominance over men, gradually sank to a status of subservience. Their rights and influence in the early feudal society of medieval times were still considerable, but eventually even these were lost as they were turned into mere handmaidens to men.

  Among the most significant innovations carried out by Umako and his associates in the early seventh century was the reinstitution of embassies to China. One may have been sent in 600, and three more certainly went between 607 and 614. These were followed by periodic embassies during the next two centuries, until 838. The immediate political results of these embassies were slight and their economic significance was no
t much greater, but they were of the utmost cultural importance. Buddhist monks as well as scholars, artists, and technicians of all sorts accompanied these missions, some staying in China for years of intensive study. Upon their return to Japan they became leaders in their respective fields, the men most responsible for the successful transmission to this isolated land of the science, arts, philosophy, and institutions of the great continental civilization. Japanese leaders showed extraordinary wisdom in sending students to China in this way; it was, in a sense, the world’s first program of organized study abroad.

  Another innovation of this period was the creation in 603 of twelve court ranks for courtiers. This probably was an effort to strengthen central power by emulating the system of bureaucratic rule in China and lessening the prestige of the uji ranks. Eventually, uji ranks, along with the uji themselves, shrank into insignificance, while the court ranks gained in importance, becoming an exceedingly complex system of twenty-six grades that was to last, at least in outward form, until modern times. The Chinese calendar was adopted in 604, and in the same year a so-called Seventeen Article Constitution, consisting of general Buddhist and Chinese Confucian precepts, was issued. Although the remaining text is probably of later date, the original document, like the remaining one, probably manifested the desire of the leaders for more centralized political power and the adoption of Buddhist concepts.

  Prince Shotoku appears to have had a genuine interest in Buddhism, and some of the Buddhist writings attributed to him may be genuine. He definitely was associated with the founding of the beautiful Horyuji monastery near Nara. Some of its present buildings, which date from late in the seventh century, are the oldest wooden buildings in the world, and they are crammed with superb Buddhist art from those early times. While the Japanese were perhaps slow in grasping all the intricacies of Buddhist doctrine, they showed an amazing skill in mastering the continental art that accompanied these teachings and soon were producing masterpieces to rival those of their Korean and Chinese teachers.

 

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