: A History of the Japanese People From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era by Brinkley F Frank Kikuchi Dairoku - Japan Civilization; Japan History

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WAMMU

THE HEIAN EPOCH

THE FIFTIETH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR KWAMMU

JAPANESE history divides itself readily into epochs, and among them not the least sharply defined is the period of 398 years separating the transfer of the Imperial palace from Nara to Kyoto and the establishment of an administrative capital at Kamakura . It is called the Heian epoch, the term "Heian-jo" having been given to Kyoto soon after that city became the residence of the Mikado. The first ruler in the epoch was Kwammu. This monarch, as already shown, was specially selected by his father, Konin, at the instance of Fujiwara Momokawa, who observed in the young prince qualities essential to a ruler of men. Whether Kwammu's career as Emperor reached the full standard of his promise as prince, historians are not agreed.

Konin receives a larger meed of praise. His reforms of local abuses showed at once courage and zeal But he did not reach the root of the evil, nor did his son Kwammu, though in the matter of intention and ardour there was nothing to choose between the two. The basic trouble was arbitrary and unjust oppression of the lower classes by the upper. These latter, probably educated in part by the be system, which tended to reduce the worker with his hands to a position of marked subservience, had learned to regard their own hereditary privileges as practically unlimited, and to conclude that well nigh any measure of forced labour was due to them from their inferiors. Konin could not correct this conception, and neither could Kwammu. Indeed, in the latter's case, the Throne was specially disqualified as a source of remonstrance, for the sovereign himself had to make extravagant demands upon the working classes on account of the transfer of the capital from Nara to Kyoto. Thus, although Kwammu's warnings and exhortations were earnest, and his dismissals and degradations of provincial officials frequent, he failed to achieve anything radical.

TRANSFER OF THE CAPITAL TO KYOTO

The palace was never finished. While it was still uncompleted, the Emperor took up his abode there, in the fall of 784, and efforts to hasten the work were redoubled. But a shocking incident occurred. The Crown Prince, Sagara, procured the elevation of a member of the Saeki family to the high post of State councillor , and having been impeached for this unprecedented act by Fujiwara Tanetsugu, was deprived of his title to the throne. Shortly afterwards, the Emperor repaired to Nara, and during the absence of the Court from Nagaoka, Prince Sagara compassed the assassination of Tanetsugu. Kwammu exacted stern vengeance for his favourite minister. He disgraced the prince and sent him into exile in the island of Awaji, which place he did not reach alive, as was perhaps designed.

ENGRAVING: COURTYARD OF THE IMPERIAL PALACE, AT KYOTO

These occurrences moved the Emperor so profoundly that Nagaoka became intolerable to him. Gradually the work of building was abandoned, and, in 792, a new site was selected by Wake no Kiyomaro at Uda in the same province. So many attractions were claimed for this village that failure to choose it originally becomes difficult to understand. Imperial decrees eulogized its mountains and rivers, and people recalled a prediction uttered 170 years previously by Prince Shotoku that the place would ultimately be selected for the perpetual capital of the empire. The Tang metropolis, Changan, was taken for model. Commenced in April, 794, the new metropolis was finished in December, 805.

The main streets, which have already been mentioned as connecting the gates in opposite walls, varied in width from 80 feet to 170 feet. They divided the city into nine districts, all of the same area except the ones immediately east of the palace. The subdivisions were as formal and precise. Each of the nine districts contained four divisions. Each division was made up of four streets. A street was made up of four rows, each row containing eight "house-units." The house-unit was 50 by 100 feet. The main streets in either direction were crossed at regular intervals by lanes or minor streets, all meeting at right angles.

The Imperial citadel in the north central part of the city was 4600 feet long and 3840 feet wide, and was surrounded by a fence roofed with tiles and pierced with three gates on either side. The palace was roofed with green tiles of Chinese manufacture and a few private dwellings had roofs made of slate-coloured tiles, but most of them were shingled. In the earlier period, it is to be remembered, tiles were used almost exclusively for temple roofs. The architecture of the new city was in general very simple and unpretentious. The old canons of Shinto temple architecture had some influence even in this city built on a Chinese model. Whatever display or ornament there was, appeared not on the exterior but in inner rooms, especially those giving on inner court yards. That these resources were severely taxed, however, cannot be doubted, especially when we remember that the campaign against the Yemishi was simultaneously conducted. History relates that three-fifths of the national revenues were appropriated for the building.

INTERCOURSE WITH CHINA AND BUDDHIST PROPAGANDISM

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