The Ancient Emperors — From Great King to Emperor

When the stories of myth fade and the doings of people begin to remain as records, we at last find the figures of kings within the light of history. What rose in ancient Japan was the Yamato power, centered on the land of the Kinki region. The one who stood at its summit was not called ‘emperor’ from the start. The ancient kings called ‘great kings,’ passing through the reforms of Empress Suiko’s age and through the great turning point of the Jinshin War, would in time take up the title of ‘emperor’ and the new framework of the state — the ritsuryo system — that supported it. In Episode 2, we follow, faithfully to the historical record, the course of the ancient state as it shifted from great king to emperor.

The Great Kings of Yamato

In ancient Japan, a powerful force grew up centered on the Kinki region, bringing local clans under its sway and forming a single political unity. This is what is called the Yamato polity. The one who stood at its summit is thought to have been called the ‘great king’ at the time. The inscriptions on iron swords and blades found in various places bear the names of those who served this great king, and one can glimpse how, around the fifth century, the power of the great king of Yamato reached across a wide range.

The great king of this age was quite different in character from the later emperor. The great king, mighty though he was, stood alongside other powerful clans, and his position is thought to have rested upon the consent and support of those clans. Powerful clans such as the Soga and the Mononobe at times held power enough to sway politics, and were sometimes deeply involved in struggles over the position of great king. Rather than a centralized state, a great king standing atop a coalition of powerful figures — this is said to have been the rough shape of the earlier ancient period.

In time, in the sixth century, Buddhism was transmitted from the continent, and conflict arose among the clans over whether to accept it. How to take in the advanced culture and institutions of the continent was a great challenge of this age. Learning from the advanced statecraft beyond the sea, the Yamato polity advanced toward a more ordered framework of rule.

The Reforms of the Suiko Court — Empress Suiko and Prince Shotoku

Amid such transitions, the age regarded as a great turning point is that of Empress Suiko. Empress Suiko is said by tradition to have acceded around the end of the sixth century, and is spoken of in later ages as a forerunner among female emperors. Her reign is said to have been assisted by her nephew Prince Shotoku, and new statecraft is said to have advanced in cooperation with the powerful Soga clan.

What are said to have been put in order in this age are the Twelve Cap Ranks of 603 and, the following year in 604, the Seventeen-Article Constitution. The Twelve Cap Ranks are said to have been a system that sought to confer rank according to individual ability and merit rather than birth, while the Seventeen-Article Constitution is said to have gathered ideals such as honoring harmony and preaching loyalty to the sovereign. Whether these were the work of Prince Shotoku himself, and how far they were embellished in later ages, are matters of scholarly debate; but that an orientation toward ordered statecraft budded in the age of the Suiko court is something many sources allow us to glimpse.

Further, in this period, envoys were sent to the continental Sui. This attempt, called the missions to Sui, was an expression of the will to learn the advanced institutions and culture, and also showed a new consciousness of kingship — of how to position oneself within East Asia. The reforms of the Suiko court are valued as the first great step toward a new form, moving from the old form of a coalition of powerful figures toward a state ordered around the sovereign.

The Jinshin War and the Ritsuryo State — The Emergence of the ‘Emperor’

In the mid-seventh century, in 645, the movement for reform aiming at a centralized state began in earnest. This current, which sought to gather land and people uniformly under the sovereign, transcending the coalition of clans, was later called the Taika Reform. Yet the road of reform was not level, and struggles over the throne continued. The greatest crest of these was the Jinshin War of 672.

The Jinshin War was a great civil conflict over the imperial succession that broke out after the death of Emperor Tenji. Prince Oama, victorious in this struggle, acceded as Emperor Temmu, and against the backdrop of mighty authority, drove forward at a stroke the building of a state centered on the emperor. In the age of Emperor Temmu and Empress Jito, who succeeded him, the laws called the Asuka Kiyomihara Code were put in order, and the framework of the ritsuryo state — the compiling of household registers, the construction of a capital, and more — was formed one after another.

And it is the view now held to be most likely that the title of ‘emperor’ became fixed in this age of Temmu and Jito. The accepted theory once held that the imperial title was already in use in the Suiko court, but as research advanced, the view placing the emergence of the imperial title in the latter half of the seventh century came to gather support. As for the certain time of its emergence, various theories still remain. In time, in 701, the Taiho Code was completed, and under a full legal code furnished with both penal and administrative law, the framework of rule with the emperor at its summit was put in order. The ‘emperor’ as the sole sovereign furnished with sacred authority thus rose together with the shape of the ancient state.

Thus the figure of the king, told within myth, took shape as the institution of the ‘emperor’ standing upon the historical record. Yet as the ritsuryo state matured, new dynamics began to move within the court. Even as the position of the emperor was esteemed, the power that actually moved politics gradually passed into the hands of the nobles who served around the emperor. Next time, we will trace how authority and power came to part — within the regency politics of the Fujiwara, and within the new framework of cloistered rule that was in time to be born.