A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower

A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower by Kenneth Henshall Read Free Book Online

Book: A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower by Kenneth Henshall Read Free Book Online
Authors: Kenneth Henshall
One
     
    In Part One we have seen the development of civilisation in Japan from a primitive land of palaeolithic hunter-gatherers to a sophisticated court-centred state. The thousand or so years from around 400 BC to around AD 700 have been seen to be particularly important, spanning key developments such as those outlined in Table 1.1 .
    Many matters are still unclear, such as the nature and scale and date of Yayoi immigration. However, knowledge of ancient Japan is increasing. Many earlier assumptions are now known to be incorrect.
    There is now recognition of the diversity and change within Japan’s ancient past. But there are also elements of continuity. The establishment of the Yamato imperial line, the world’s longest imperial lineage, provides a constant element through all succeeding historical periods until the present day. Certain policies and preferences, such as a desire to learn from others in order to strengthen oneself, and an avoidance of judgement as to good or evil, also have great bearing on present-day Japanese behaviour. These policies and behavioural patterns are based on values and practices summarised in Table 1.2 .
    We have seen, in short, the birth of a nation, a nation with distinct characteristics.

P ART T WO

    O F C OURTIERS AND W ARRIORS: E ARLY AND M EDIEVAL H ISTORY (710–1600)
     
    2.1   Learning from the Chinese – within Limits: The Nara Period (710–794)
     
    The Yamato state needed a capital. Without this its centralised system of control would have no real core. In the final stages of the Yamato period there had been a few attempts to establish a permanent capital, 1 but these had all failed for one reason or another.
    Then, in 710, the capital was moved to Heij, better known now as Nara. Nara was modelled on the T’ang Chinese capital, Ch’ang-an. It was a similar rectangular grid pattern, but at 20 sq km was only about a quarter of Ch’ang-an’s area.
    In less than a hundred years the capital was to move again. Nara proved not to be the hoped-for permanent site. Nevertheless, it represents the high point of the Japanese effort to learn from China. Physically, China’s influence was seen not only in the design of the city but also in grand buildings such as the Tdaiji Temple – the largest wooden building in the world – and the huge bronze statue of Buddha it contained. In broader terms, the age of the Nara capital may have been brief, but it shows most clearly the workings of the
ritsury
and other Chinese-inspired political and legal reforms.
    And it was during the age of Nara that Chinese writing led to the appearance of the first real books produced in Japan, the
Kojiki
and
Nihon Shoki
chronicles of 712 and 720. These were followed shortlyafterwards by the first poetry anthologies, the
Kaifs
(Fond Recollections of Poetry) of 751 and the
Manysh
(Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves) of 759. Some documents were even printed – another Chinese influence. 2
    However, the respect for things Chinese did not lead to indiscriminate imitation. More often than not there were distinctive Japanese modifications to Chinese ‘imports’. For example, the ‘cap rank’ system introduced earlier by Prince Shtoku was in theory based, as in China, on merit not birth. However, in practice, and particularly during the Nara period, both rank and position in the Japanese bureaucracy quickly became determined by inherited family status rather than by individual merit. 3 That is, the examination-based meritocracy of China’s bureaucratic world was not too palatable to the Japanese. This is ironic in view of the prominence of examinations in present-day Japan, but understandable from the perspective of an established elite wishing to safeguard control and stability. 4
    The
Kojiki
and particularly the
Manysh
already show the embryonic development of a distinctly Japanese writing system, albeit based on Chinese characters. The law codes, too, show significant modification, such as the leniency

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