Transcription
[Music] One of the framing ideas of this course is the notion of cycles in Japanese history: periods of great cosmopolitanism, globalization, and then periods of relative isolation and seclusion. So today, I want to talk about Japan's first period of relative isolation, beginning in the 800s and into the 1300s, and how that shaped Japanese culture and politics.
By standard chronology, this 500-year stretch spans two historical epochs: the Heian period from 794 CE to 1185, and then the Kamakura period from 1185 to 1333. Both of those period names are place names; Heian is another word for Kyoto, and Kamakura is a city near present-day Tokyo. Now, today we're going to focus on the Heian period, and in particular, I want to highlight two key issues. One is the relative decline of the powerful centralized state that was constructed in the seven hundreds, and second is the rise of a new political and cultural system—the Heian Court—which would replace the centralized state. This court was comprised of a relatively small and tight-knit nobility centered around the emperor, but it was distinct from the powerful administrative system set up in the 700s.
Now, as we've seen, the incentive to build a powerful Japanese state was connected to broader international trends—the rise of powerful centralized states on the continent. But if you look at the most important of these states—China—in the eight hundreds, what do you find? Well, basically, you find that the Tang dynasty is in serious decline. There's a major rebellion around 860, and then from 860 to 960, China is ruled by local strongmen; there's no single Chinese dynasty. And after the end of the Tang Dynasty, the next large dynasty—the Song, which reigned from the nine hundreds to the 1200s—well, the Song is known for its remarkable literary and philosophical achievements, but it controlled much less territory than the Tang, and the Song was always struggling against other empires—the Jurchen and the Mongols, for example. So a key point is that after 800 or so, China is just not a threat to Japan, and for Japan, contemporary Chinese civilization lost some of its appeal. Japanese scholars during the Heian period, they continued to revere classical Chinese civilization—ancient China—but they grew less and less interested in their Chinese contemporaries.
So, beginning in the 800s, we begin to see a disengagement from the continent. Not only isn't China a geopolitical threat, it's no longer seen as worth a trip, and that's especially because, with the decline of the Tang, the trip to China becomes dangerous. A Chinese-Japanese mission to China might be greeted by bandits or pirates or mercenaries instead of representatives of the Chinese imperial court. One good measure of this disengagement is the end of official Imperial embassies to China. Now, between 630 and 781, Japan sent 15 official embassies to the Tang—so a major mission about every 10 years. And by contrast, in the 800s, there were only two, and the 894 mission was cancelled because the leader of the scheduled mission, Sugawara no Michizane, realized that his political enemies had promoted him to ambassador to China to get him out of town—maybe they were even thinking he'd get killed on the way. So, by the late eight hundreds, being named ambassador to China is seen more as a ruse or even a punishment rather than an honor or a privilege. And that cancelled 894 embassy—that's the end to official contacts between the Chinese and Japanese Imperial courts for centuries. Contacts between Japan and China continued, but they were not led by the imperial court; instead, they were led by monks or by warriors or pirates, but not the Imperial state.
So what happens during this period of disengagement? Well, one extremely important result is the gradual transformation of the Ritsuryo state—that highly structured, highly centralized administrative system introduced in the 700s. Now, the Ritsuryo system was always difficult to run; the tax burden was so heavy, so onerous, it caused farmers to desert their fields. And another major burden on the people was conscription—compulsory military service and forced labor. And for the Imperial government, the value of that forced labor began to drop. Remember, a large infantry was useful for seizing territory and holding it against invaders, but the Imperial state stopped expanding after the 800s. It pushed the northern frontier up to northern Honshu and took control of all of Kyushu, and then it stopped. So, when it came to supporting the centralized army, or the centralized system of taxation, or that complex system of land distribution—all of which were hallmarks of the Ritsuryo system—the incentive to maintain any of those decreased markedly in the ninth century. And in that context, the imperial court gradually ceded control of those functions to powerful regional figures.
Now, because of the absence of written records, we have a very limited understanding of what was actually going on at the village level in the Heian period, but we do know that provincial governors were gradually turned into tax farmers. The central government in Kyoto really stopped caring how they collected taxes, so long as they met their quotas. And if they missed their quotas, they had to stay in the countryside, because for the refined courtiers in the capital of Kyoto, being a deputy provincial governor wasn't an honor, it was more of a punishment, because you had to be in the provinces. And at the same time, there were systematic attempts to get land off the tax rolls. Now, recall that temples and shrines had religious tax exemptions, as they do in our society, and certain noble land had tax immunity. But what we find in the Heian period is the steady expansion of these immunities. For example, maybe you once had a fixed-term exemption from certain tax payments—perhaps it was an incentive to develop new farmland—but you file a legal claim arguing that you're actually immune from all taxes forever, and you're even immune from government land surveys. And court politics in the Heian period became increasingly about cutting these sorts of deals to get tax immunities.
So here's a modern analogy: Many of you probably make a tax-deductible contribution to a university or maybe a religious charity. But imagine if someone from that church or university suggested that you put all of your assets in the name of the tax-exempt institution—everything—so from now on, everything is tax-exempt; you don't owe any income tax, real estate tax, and nothing. Now, that would be extremely generous if you are actually giving away all your assets. But suppose the deal was that you kept control over your land and much of the income, and that instead of paying taxes, suppose now you paid a tithing fee to the church or the university, and that fee was significantly less than your earlier tax bill. Well, and hey, in Japan, temples and shrines and high-ranking officials could offer just such deals to landowners, and the high-ranking officials could use their influence in the capital to make sure that no one audited the books. So what was the result of all this deal-making? Well, over the course of a few centuries, a small number of tax exemptions swelled to include more than half the land in Japan. These tax-exempt estates were called shoen or shōen, and historians sometimes like to talk about the shōen system. Now, shōen are sometimes described as feudal holdings, which is fine as a sort of shorthand, but I prefer my analogy of farming out tax exemptions. And the key thing to remember is that during the Heian period, the growth of the shōen undermined the power of the central government to tax and redistribute land.
Now what about the military? Well, beginning as early as the 700s, the government began authorizing local commanders to raise their own forces, and in 792, Emperor Kanmu scrapped the large conscript army entirely. The government did maintain a police force for the capital, but beyond that, the Heian government allowed and even encouraged the growth of private armies. Provincial governors started to develop their own armies to maintain order and to collect taxes, and all those tax-exempt estates, they began to develop their own security forces. Well, you can see how this might not end well, but because Japan is at peace internationally, the Heian Court felt secure, even as it was losing control of the countryside. So long as the revenue kept flowing into the capital, they really didn't care. And this era in which the Kyoto Court gradually lost control of the countryside—it's ironically the high point of Japanese classical culture.
Now, I know that sounds absurd, but think of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette—the French court at Versailles. They were blissfully ignorant of the realities of rural France, and their lifestyles weren't sustainable. But if you were inside that charmed circle, I'd imagine it was glorious while it lasted. So let's look at the court in Kyoto, and let's look at how it worked and who were the powerful figures. Most important was the Fujiwara family. The Fujiwara were originally known as the Nakatomi; they were a powerful ancient clan that began enjoying special imperial favor after 645, when they helped overthrow the Soga. The Fujiwara rose to power by marrying into the imperial line. They did not directly challenge the imperial line; in fact, they honored the tradition that emperors be sons or grandsons of emperors. But through marriage politics, they ensured that emperors married Fujiwara women, and that meant that emperors were routinely surrounded by Fujiwara men. For centuries, emperors were raised with Fujiwara uncles and Fujiwara grandfathers, and those uncles and grandfathers routinely served as the emperor's regents. Gradually, the position of regent became as important as the position of emperor. The best single example of this process is the case of Fujiwara no Michinaga, who lived from 966 to 1028. Through his marriage connections, he was the uncle of two emperors, the grandfather of three emperors, the father of four empresses, and regent for his grandson, Emperor Go-Ichijo. Now, Fujiwara no Michinaga did also have titles in the ancient Ritsuryo system—the official civil bureaucracy—but it was his position as the head of the Fujiwara house and his roles as grandfather and uncle to five emperors that gave him real power; his position as Dajōdaijin—Prime Minister, sometimes translated Grand Minister of State—that was almost an afterthought.
Now, during the Heian period, the aristocracy that comprised the court, it was a small, tight-knit group. At the apex, there were about 20 noble houses, and the extended nobility might have numbered 20,000 people. And since Japan in the 900s had a population of about 5 million, well, this was a tiny fraction of the population. And of course, in such a political environment, marriage politics became extremely important, and courtly behavior was extremely important as well. Now, national politics centered around intrigue amongst 20 elite families, so it became extremely important to know who is having a scandalous affair, who is having a discreet affair, and refinement was essential. Courtly, or Heian era, standards of elegance included a striking level of cultivation; it included the ability to compose impromptu poetry that reflected the season, the weather, the occasion, and writing poems in response to other poems—basically flirting and bantering through poetry—those were essential social skills.
Now, this emphasis on family politics and court culture had an important gender component, because the Fujiwara didn't displace the imperial line; they married into it. Men got power through their daughters' husbands and their daughters' children. Now, this didn't produce anything resembling gender equality, but it did make for very different marriage patterns, especially as compared to later samurai families. It was common in the Heian period for a nobleman to get married and keep his own residence and visit his wife at his father-in-law's residence, or the couple might get an independent residence together. Now, contrast that with a living pattern that became common under the samurai: Under the samurai, a woman left her father and mother and went to live with her husband's family. That pattern was incredibly rare in the Heian period. In fact, if a patriarch was trying to rule through his grandchildren and nephews, well, then he wanted to bring his son-in-law into his house as much as possible, both physically and politically. The Heian period also produced a surge in women's fiction; in fact, many of the classics of Japanese literature were produced in this period by women.
Now, why might that be? Why did Heian court culture nurture women's literature? First, remember the turn away from continental culture—classical Chinese culture. Now, while classical Chinese language remained the language of serious philosophy and political arguments, and classical Chinese into the modern era was considered the realm of men and inappropriate for women, Heian court poetry, by contrast, was composed in Japanese, and poetry was considered appropriate for women. In fact, composing court poetry was considered part of courtly elegance. In the 900s, the imperial court began emphasizing the importance of Japanese poetry by compiling anthologies of great poems. So, vernacular poetry in Japanese was celebrated at the highest levels of society. Now, many of the poems in these imperial anthologies are about the beauty of the seasons, about love and longing, about parted lovers waiting for each other. And while men maintained a monopoly on some topics, such as writing about valor and classical Chinese, in the Heian period, we see an entire area of literature in which women's voices were welcomed. One of the great works written in this period by a woman is Genji Monogatari, or The Tale of Genji.
So let me tie Heian politics and Heian culture together with a discussion of this masterpiece. The Tale of Genji was composed in the early years of the 11th century. It was written by Murasaki Shikibu—that's a pen name, and we're not sure of her real name. She was born around 978, and she lived until either 1014 or 1025. She was probably the daughter of a mid-ranking Fujiwara noble. Evidently, she rose to be a lady-in-waiting to an empress. Now, The Tale of Genji is a closely observed story, and the main character, Genji, is inspired by, but not directly modeled after, Fujiwara no Michinaga. Genji is sometimes called Japan's first novel, but I think that's misleading, because the plot and the characters of Genji Monogatari don't resemble a modern novel. There is a narrative arc to the story, but the vignettes, the individual chapters, are often better enjoyed on their own than as part of a massive work. The Tale of Genji is over a thousand pages in most English translations.
Now, the hero of the story is a character known as Hikaru Genji. He is the son of an emperor—he's begotten by that emperor's favorite mistress, known as Lady Kiritsubo. And while the emperor adores his son Genji, he knows that Genji cannot succeed at the highest levels of court because he does not have a powerful sponsor on his mother's side. So he removes him from the direct imperial line, and then he's still a noble, but Genji will no longer be a contender for the throne. Then Genji's mother, Lady Kiritsubo, dies, and when the Emperor later takes a wife, the wife looks just like her, and Genji develops a kind of Oedipal crush on his stepmother. Now, Genji himself is impossibly gorgeous; the text explains that it is impossible to look at him without pleasure, and he can have almost any woman he wants, which means that primarily he wants the women he can't have. And that's worth a side note, because for centuries, Genji's story was taken as a sort of morality play or even a Buddhist parable, because Genji's troubles reflect a Buddhist understanding of desire. Since Genji can have almost anything he wants, he wants what he can't get, and then when he gets what he wants, he finds he doesn't want it anymore. And in Buddhism, the idea is you cannot quench desire; you have to transcend desire.
Now, from a modern perspective, some of Genji's romantic exploits would be described as scandalous. He actually has an affair with his own stepmother, and then their son becomes Emperor. And although they must keep this relationship a secret, the emperor eventually learns that Genji is not his stepbrother, but actually his father. Genji also gets a hold of a young girl who reminds him of his stepmother, and therefore also his mother, and he raises this girl to be his perfect wife. This is sort of a cross between Lolita and My Fair Lady, with a bit of Oedipus thrown in. At any rate, when this girl is old enough, Genji marries her, but of course she dies tragically. So again, there are clear Buddhist overtones to this story. In fact, whenever Genji seems to have a moment of true love, his lover dies; or conversely, only when they die does Genji realize that he loved them. So there's certainly plenty of the "desire leads to ruin" theme here. Okay, Genji has lots of women, and he's handsome, and even when his son, the emperor, learns that Genji is his father and not his stepbrother, instead of becoming furious, the emperor promotes Genji to high court rank. And even then, Genji is still not happy.
Now, I must admit, I'm not a big fan of the plot of The Tale of Genji. Instead, I find the true pleasure of Genji Monogatari is in the small details—the romantic banter—that's the aspect of the story that remains compelling for me today, over a millennium later and across a huge cultural divide. Let me give you a sense of this with a fragment of the fourth of the 54 chapters; it's called Yugao, and Japanese "evening face," or "Twilight Beauty" in English. In this episode, Genji is 17, and he is already married—it's an arranged marriage to the daughter of a powerful minister. And Genji already has a mistress, Lady Rokujō, and now he's working on a third liaison with a woman known as Yugao. Now, as you might gather from this backstory, marital fidelity was not highly valued in Heian society. And while men were certainly allowed more latitude than women, Heian society was just not that worried about monogamy. In fact, because women kept their property in a marriage, divorce was rather informal; couples just drifted apart, then they connected with new partners, often without a formal divorce proceeding. But Genji is a rogue, even by the permissive standards of the Heian court. And one morning, he awakes early in the house of his mistress, Lady Nijō, and he sees Lady Rokujō's lady-in-waiting, a young woman named Lady Fujitsubo. Now, Lady Fujitsubo's robes are so perfectly matched to the season that Genji just has to seduce her too. So he looks into the garden, and he sees a flower called a yugao, or "mourning face," and he writes a poem explaining how hard it is to pass by such a beautiful flower without plucking it. Well, the flower that Genji can't resist is, of course, Lady Fujitsubo, the lady-in-waiting, and she understands his meaning, and she is not pleased. She responds, "You were thinking of cutting out at dawn on my lady, but first you stop to hit on me, really?" But she delivers this rebuke, this response, in a poem. Lady Fujitsubo basically flips Genji's poem, and she writes a poem back about waiting for the morning fog to lift so that Genji can then enjoy the morning face in the sunlight. So basically, she's saying, "Ah, the morning face flower—you can't mean me; you must mean my mistress. So wait, and then get back in there and say a proper goodbye to my mistress, you cad." But she says this all in an elegant poem about flowers. Now, that's what I enjoy about Genji more than the total arc of the massive story—it's the richness of these individual episodes, and in that richness we can gain an insight into Heian society.
Here's another example: Angry spirits keep cropping up in The Tale of Genji. Now, in Heian culture, powerful spirits needed to be appeased lest they kill people. Usually, this was posthumous; if you were wronged in this world, it was thought that your angry spirit would linger as a vengeful ghost. But in Genji Monogatari, Genji's mistress, Lady Rokujō, is so jealous that her spirit keeps leaving her body and killing people. So when Genji finally seduces Yugao, "evening face," as he's drifting off to sleep after enjoying her, and his dream—or at least he thinks it's a dream—he sees Lady Rokujō, who says merely, "Genji, I'm not enough for you; you need to seek out this little..." And then Genji wakes up, and he sees that evening face is trembling; she's having a seizure, and then she dies. Lady Rokujō's jealous spirit has killed her. Now, Genji is fiction, but this sense that angry spirits could kill led Heian era leaders to build shrines to appease the spirits of people they had wronged, lest those angry spirits seek vengeance. So The Tale of Genji is a wonderful window on the attitudes and practices of the Heian court.
Okay, let's conclude this lecture by stepping back and putting Heian society into the broad sweep of Japanese history. As I hinted earlier, there's a sort of Louis XVI quality to late Heian society. In retrospect, and hindsight is always 20/20, we can see the collapse coming centuries in advance. The Heian elite dismantled the Ritsuryo system, churning basic government functions like tax collection and military readiness into private family ventures, and eventually that opened the way for military leaders to challenge the Fujiwara. But one way in which the Fujiwara and the rest of the imperial court did not quite see the danger of their own actions was that those rising military families, they were actually petty nobles at the margins of the Heian court. The Fujiwara didn't think that they were seeding important powers to outsiders; they thought they were...
Entrusting the unsavory business of tax collection to their country cousins, minor Nobles who might come to kill, do on occasion, but who really needed to stay out there in the provinces. Well, starting in the eleven hundreds, that Heian worldview collapsed, but that's a story for an upcoming lecture.