Episode 135: Year One

October 1, 2025 Joshua Badgley

The Reiwa Daijokyu (大嘗宮), the temporary palace complex erected in the honmaru area of Edo Castle for the Daijousai conducted in the first year of the new reign of emperor Reiwa (Reiwa 1, or 2019 CE). Influence of ancient Japanese architecture can be seen in the structures, though it has no doubt evolved some over the centuries since Temmu. Photo in public domain, by user Abasaa, taken 21 November 2019 and hosted on Wikimedia Commons.

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Ranks of 664

These were the ranks that were created in 664. For older rank charts, check out Episode 111.

Dai-shiki (大織 - Greater Woven Stuff)
Shou-shiki (小織 - Lesser Woven Stuff)
Dai-hou (大縫 - Greater Sewing)
Shou-hou (小縫 - Lesser Sewing)
Dai-shi (大紫 - Greater Purple)
Shou-shi (小紫 - Lesser Purple)
Upper Daikin (大錦上 - Greater Brocade, Upper)
Middle Daikin (大錦中 - Greater Brocade, Middle
Lower Daikin (大錦下 - Greater Brocade, Lower)
Upper Shoukin (小錦上 - Lesser Brocade, Upper)
Middle Shoukin (小錦中 - Lesser Brocade, Middle)
Lower Shoukin (小錦下 - Lesser Brocade, Lower)
Upper Daisen (大山上 - Greater Mountain, Upper)
Middle Daisen (大山中 - Greater Mountain, Middle)
Lower Daisen (大山下 - Greater Mountain, Lower)
Upper Shousen (小山上 - Lesser Mountain, Upper)
Middle Shousen (小山中 - Lesser Mountain, Middle)
Lower Shousen (小山下 - Lesser Mountain, Lower)
Upper Daiotsu (大乙上 - Greater Tiger [OR Kingfisher], Upper)
Middle Daiotsu (大乙中 - Greater Tiger, Middle)
Lower Daiotsu (大乙下 - Greater Tiger, Lower)
Upper Shouotsu (小乙上 - Lesser Tiger, Upper)
Middle Shouotsu (小乙中 - Greater Tiger, Middle)
Lower Shouotsu (小乙下 - Lesser Tiger, Lower)
Daiken (大建 - Greater Building)
Shouken (小建 - Lesser Building)

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 135: Year One
The officials of the Ministry of Kami Affairs bustled to and fro as they prepared the ritual grounds and the temporary buildings. They were carefully erecting the structures, which would only be used for a single festival, and then torn down, but this would be an important festival. It was the harvest festival, the Niiname-sai, the festival of the first-fruits. Rice, from the regions of Tamba and Harima, specifically chosen through divination, would be offered to his majesty along with the kami who had blessed the land. But this time, there was more.
After all, this was the first harvest festival of a new reign, and they had orders to make it special. The ascension ceremony had been held earlier in the year, but in some ways that was just a prelude. There had been various rituals and ceremonies throughout the year emphasizing that this year was special—even foreign lands were sending envoys to congratulate him on the event. But this wasn’t for them. This was the sovereign taking part, for the first time, in one of the most important ceremonies of the year. After all, the feast of first-fruits was the culmination of all that the kami had done, and it emphasized the sovereign’s role as both a descendant of heaven and as the preeminent intercessor with the divine spirits of the land.
And so they knew, that everything had to be bigger, with even more pomp and circumstance than normal. This wouldn’t just be about the new rice. This would be a grand ceremony, one that only happened once in a generation, and yet which would echo through the centuries. As the annual harvest festival, it was an ancient tradition. But as something new—as the Daijosai—it was something else all together.
And it would have to be perfect!

Last episode we talked about the Kiyomihara palace and a little bit about what it was like in the court of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou. After defeating the Afumi court supporting his nephew, Ohotomo, in 672, Ohoama had taken control of the government. He moved back to Asuka, and into the refurbished Okamoto palace, building a southern exclave known to us today as the Ebinoko enclosure, which held one large building, which may have been a residence or a ceremonial structure—possibly the first “Daigokuden” or ceremonial hall.
Ohoama’s court built on the ideas that his brother, Naka no Oe, aka Tenji Tennou, had put forth since the Taika era. This was a continuation of the form of government known as the Ritsuryo system, or Ritsuryo-sei, literally a government of laws and punishments, and Ohoama had taken the reins. He seems to have taken a much more direct approach to governance compared to some of his predecessors. For instance, the role of the ministerial families was reduced, with Ohoama or various princes—actual or invented relatives of the throne—taking a much more prominent role. He also expanded access to the central government to those outside of the the Home Provinces. After all, it was the traditional ministerial families—the Soga, the Nakatomi, and even the Kose—who had been part of the Afumi government that he had just defeated. Meanwhile, much of his military support had come from the Eastern provinces, though with prominent indications of support from Kibi and Tsukushi as well.
This episode we are going to get back to the events documented in the Chronicles, looking just at the first year of Ohoama’s reign. Well, technically it was the second year, with 672 being the first, but this is the first year in which he formally sat on the throne. There’s plenty going on in this year to fill a whole episode: it was the year of Ohoama’s formal ascension, and there were numerous festivals, ceremonies, and other activities that seem to be directly related to a fresh, new start. We will also look at the custom of handing out posthumous ranks, particularly to those who supported Ohoama during the Jinshin no Ran, and how that relates to the various ranks and titles used in Ohoama’s court. We have envoys from three different countries—Tamna, Silla, and Goguryeo—and their interactions with the Dazaifu in Tsukushi. Finally, we have the first Daijosai, one of the most important ceremonies in any reign.
And so, let’s get into it.

The year 673 started with a banquet for various princes and ministers, and on the 27th day of the 2nd month, Ohoama formally assumed the throne at what would come to be known as Kiyomihara Palace. Uno, his consort, who had traveled with him through the mountains from Yoshino to Ise, was made his queen, and their son, Royal Prince Kusakabe, was named Crown Prince. Two days later they held a ceremony to convey cap-ranks on those deemed worthy.
We are then told that on the 17th day of the following month, word came from the governor of Bingo, the far western side of ancient Kibi, today the eastern part of modern Hiroshima. They had caught a white pheasant in Kameshi and sent it as tribute. White or albino animals were seen as particularly auspicious signs, and no doubt it was taken as an omen of good fortune for the reign. In response, the forced labor from Bingo, which households were required to supply to the State, was remitted. There was also a general amnesty granted throughout the land.
That same month we are also told that scribes were brought in to Kawaradera to copy the Issaiko—aka the Tripitaka, or the entirety of the Buddhist canon. That would include hundreds of scrolls. This clearly seems to be an act of Buddhist merit-making: by copying out the scrolls you make merit, which translates to good karma. That would be another auspicious start to the reign, and we see frequently that rulers would fund sutra copying—or sutra recitations—as well as temples, statues, bells and all other such things to earn Buddhist merit. As the ruler, this merit didn’t just accrue to you, but to the entire state, presumably bringing good fortune and helping to avert disaster.
However, it wasn’t just the Law of the Buddha that Ohoama was appealing to. In the following entry, on the14th day of the 4th month, we are told that Princess Ohoki was preparing herself at the saigu, or abstinence palace, in Hatsuse—known as Hase, today, east of modern Sakurai, along the Yonabari river, on the road to Uda. Ohoki was the sister of Prince Ohotsu. Her mother was Ohota, the Queen’s elder sister, making her a grandchild of Naka no Ohoye as well as the daughter of Ohoama.
Princess Ohoki’s time at the abstinence palace was so that she could purify herself. This was all to get her ready to head to Ise, to approach none other than the sun goddess, Amaterasu Ohokami.
With all of these events, we see the full panoply of ritual and ceremony on display. The formal, legal ceremonies of ascension and granting of rank. The declaration of auspicious omens for the reign.   There is the making of Buddhist merit, but also the worship of the kami of the archipelago. This is not an either-or situation. We are seeing in the first half of this first year the fusion of all of these different elements into something that may not even be all that sensational to those of us, today. After all, anyone who goes to Japan is likely well-accustomed to the way that both Buddhist and Shinto institutions can both play a large part in people’s lives. While some people may be more drawn to one than the other, for most they are complimentary.
That isn’t how it had to be. For a time, it was possible that Buddhism would displace local kami worship altogether. This was the core of the backlash that we saw from groups like the Nakatomi, whose role in kami-focused ceremonies was threatened by the new religion. Indeed, for a while now it seems like mention of the kami has taken a backseat to Buddhist temples and ceremonies in the Chronicles. Likewise, as a foreign religion, Buddhism could have also fallen out of favor. It was not fore-ordained that it would come to have a permanent place on the archipelago.
This tension between local kami worship—later called Shinto, the Way of the Kami—and Buddhist teachings would vary throughout Japanese history, with one sometimes seen as more prestigious or more natural than the other, but neither one would fully eclipse the other.
One could say that was in part due to the role that Amaterasu and kami worship played in the court ceremonies. However, even there indigenous practices were not necessarily safe. The court could have just as easily imported Confucian rituals, and replaced the spiritual connection between the sovereign and the kami with the continental style Mandate of Heaven.
And thus, the choices that were being made at this time would have huge implications for the Japanese state for centuries to come.
I should note that it is unlikely that this spontaneously arose amongst the upper class and the leadership. I doubt this was just Ohoama’s strategy to give himself multiple levers of power—though I’m not saying he wasn’t thinking about that either. But the only way that these levers existed was through their continued life in the culture and the people of the time. If the people didn’t believe in Buddhist merit, or that the kami influenced their lives, then neither would have given them much sway. It was the fact that these were a part of the cultural imaginary of the state, and how people imagined themselves and their surroundings, that they were effective tools for Ohoama and his government.
And so it seems that Ohoama’s first year is off to a smashing success. By the fifth month he is already issuing edicts—specifically on the structure of the state, which we discussed some last episode.
But the high could not be maintained indefinitely. And on the 29th day of the 5th month we have what we might consider our first negative entry, when Sakamoto no Takara no Omi passed away.
You may remember Sakamoto, but I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t. He was the commander in the Nara Basin, under general Wofukei, who took 300 troops to Tatsuta. From there he advanced to the Hiraishi plain and up to the top of Mt. Takayasu, to confront the Afumi forces that had taken the castle. They fled, and Takara and his men overnighted at the castle. The next day they tried to intercept Afumi troops advancing from the Kawachi plain, but they were forced to fall back to a defensive position.   We covered that in Episode 131 with the rest of the campaign in the Nara Basin.
Takara’s death is the first of many entries—I count roughly 21 through this and the following reign—which, for the most part, are all similarly worded. Sakamoto no Takara no Omi, of Upper Daikin rank, died. He was posthumously granted the rank of Shoushi for service in the Year of Mizu-no-e Saru, aka Jinshin. We are told the individual, their rank at the time of their death, and then a note about a posthumous grant of rank.
Upper Daikin was already about the 7th rank from the top in the system of 664, and Shoushi would be the 6th rank, and one of the “ministerial” ranks. This is out of 26, total. “Kin” itself was the fourth of about 7 categories, and the last category that was split into six sub-ranks, with greater and lesser (Daikin and Shokin), each of which was further divided into Upper, Middle, and Lower ranks. There’s a lot to go into, in fact a little too much for this episode, so for more on the ranks in use at the start of the reign, check out our blogpost for this episode.

The giving of posthumous rank is mostly just an honorific. After all, the individual is now deceased, so it isn’t as if they would be drawing more of a stipend, though their new ranks may have influenced their funerary rites and similar things.
As I said, on a quick scan of the text, I counted 21 of these entries, though there may be a few more with slightly different phrasing or circumstances. Some of them were quite notable in the record, while others may have only had a mention here or there. That they are mentioned, though, likely speaks to the importance of that connection to such a momentous year. The Nihon Shoki is thought to have been started around the time of Ohoama or his successor, along with the Kojiki, and so it would have been important to people of the time to remind everyone that their ancestors had been the ones who helped with that momentous event. It really isn’t that much different from those who proudly trace their lineage back to heroes of, say, the American Revolution, though it likely held even more sway being closer to the actual events.
After the death of Sakamoto no Takara, we get another death announcement. This is of someone that Aston translates as “Satek Syomyeong” of Baekje, of Lower Daikin rank. We aren’t given much else about him, but we are told that Ohoama was shocked. He granted Syomyeong the posthumous rank of “Outer Shoushi”, per Aston’s translation. He also posthumously named him as Prime Minister, or Desapyong, of Baekje.
There are a few clues about who this might be, but very little to go on. He is mentioned in 671, during the reign of Naka no Oe, when he received the rank of Upper Daikin along with Minister—or Sapyong—Yo Jasin. It is also said in the interlinear text that he was the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Judgment—the Houkan no Taifu. The Ministry of Judgment—the Houkan or perhaps the Nori no Tsukasa—is thought to have been the progenitor of the later Shikibu, the Ministry of Ceremony. One of the major roles it played was in the selection of candidates for rank, position, and promotion.
We are also told that in the year 660, in the reign of Takara Hime, one of the nobles captured in the Tang invasion of Baekje was “Desapyong Satek”, so perhaps this Syomyeong was a descendant or relative of the previous prime minister, who fled to Yamato with other refugees. We also have another record from 671 of a Satek Sondeung and his companions accompanying the Tang envoy Guo Yacun. So it would seem that the Sathek family was certainly notable
The name “Satek” shows up once more, though Aston then translates it as “Sataku”, like a monk or scholar’s name. “Sataku” would be the Japanese on’yomi pronunciation of the same characters, so perhaps another relative.
What we can take away from all of this is that the Baekje refugee community is still a thing in Yamato. This Satek Seomyeong has court rank—Upper Daikin rank, just like Sakamoto, in the previous entry. And we know that he had an official position at court—not just in the Baekje court in exile. We’ll see more on this as the community is further integrated into the rest of Society, such that there would no longer be a Baekje community, but families would continue to trace their lineages back to Baekje families, often with pride.
The other odd thing here is the character “outer” or “outside” before “Shoushi”. Aston translates it as part of the rank, and we see it show up a total of four times in some variation of “Outer Lesser X rank”. Mostly it is as here, Outer Lesser Purple. Later we would see a distinction of “outer” and “inner” ranks, which this may be a version of. Depending on one’s family lineage would denote whether one received an “outer” or “inner” rank, and so it may be that since Satek Syomyeong was from the Baekje community, it was more appropriate for him to have an “outside” rank.
“Outer” rank would also be given to Murakuni no Muraji no Woyori, the general who had led the campaign to Afumi, taking the Seta bridge. He was also posthumously given the rank of “Outer Shoushi” upon his death in 676. Murakuni no Woyori is the only person of that surname mentioned around this time, so perhaps he wasn’t from one of the “core” families of the Yamato court, despite the service he had rendered. We also have at least one other noble of Baekje who is likewise granted an ”outer” rank.
On the other side there are those like Ohomiwa no Makamuta no Kobito no Kimi, who was posthumously granted the rank of “Inner” Shoushi. Here I would note that Ohomiwa certainly seems to suggest an origin in the Nara Basin, in the heartland of Yamato.
The terms “Inner” and “Outer” are only used on occasion, however, and not consistently in all cases. This could just be because of the records that the scribes were working off of at the time. It is hard to say, exactly.
All of these entries about posthumous ranks being granted tend to refer to cap ranks, those applying to members of various Uji, the clans that had been created to help organize the pre-Ritsuryo state. The Uji and their members played important roles in the court and the nation, both as ministers and lower functionaries. But I also want to mention another important component of Ohoama’s court, the members of the princely class, many of whom also actively contributed to the functioning of the state.
Among this class are those that Aston refers to as “Princes of the Blood”, or “Shinnou”. These include the royal princes, sons of Ohoama who were in line for the throne, but also any of his brothers and sisters. Then there were the “miko”, like Prince Kurikuma, who had been the Viceroy in Tsukushi, denying troops to the Afumi court. Those princes claimed some lineal descent from a sovereign, but they were not directly related to the reigning sovereign. In fact, it isn’t clear, today, if they were even indirectly related to the reigning sovereign, other than through the fact that the elites of the archipelago had likely been forming marriage alliances with one another for centuries, so who knows. And maybe they made their claims back to a heavenly descendant, like Nigi Hayahi. Either way, they were the ones with claims—legitimate or otherwise—to royal blood.
Notably, the Princes did not belong to any of the Uji, , and they didn’t have kabane, either—no “Omi”, “Muraji”, “Atahe”, et cetera. They did, at least from this reign forward, have rank. But it was separate and different from the rank of the Uji members. Members of the various Uji were referred to with cap rank, but the Princely ranks were just numbered—in the Nihon Shoki we see mention of princes of the 2nd through 5th ranks—though presumably there was also a “first” rank. It is not entirely clear when this princely rank system was put into place, but it was probably as they were moving all of the land, and thus the taxes, to the state. Therefore the court would have needed to know what kind of stipend each prince was to receive—a stipend based on their rank. These ranks, as with later numbered ranks, appear to have been given in ascending order, like medals in a tournament: first rank, second rank, third rank, etc. with fifth rank being the lowest of the Princely ranks.
Many of these Princes also held formal positions in the government. We saw this in Naka no Oe’s reign with Prince Kurikuma taking the Viceroy-ship of Tsukushi, but during Ohoama’s reign we see it even more.
Beneath the Princes were the various Ministers and Public Functionaries—the Officers of the court, from the lowest page to the highest minister. They were members of the elite noble families, for the most part, or else they claimed descent from the elite families of the continent. Either way they were part of what we would no doubt call the Nobility. Their cap-rank system, mentioned earlier, was separate from that used by the Princes.
And, then at the bottom, supporting this structure, were the common people. Like the princes, they did not necessarily have a surname, and they didn’t really figure into the formal rank system. They certainly weren’t considered members of the titled class, and often don’t even show up in the record. And yet we should not forget that they were no doubt the most numerous and diverse group for the majority of Japanese history. Our sources, however, have a much more narrow focus.
There is one more class of people to mention here, and that is the evolving priestly class. Those who took Buddhist orders and became Buddhist monks were technically placed outside of the social system, though that did not entirely negate their connections to the outsided world. We see, for example, how Ohoama, even in taking orders, still had servants and others to wait on him. However, they were at least theoretically outside of the social hierarchy, and could achieve standing within the Buddhist community through their studies of Buddhist scripture. They had their own hierarchy, which was tied in to the State through particular Buddhist officers appointed by the government, but otherwise the various temples seem to have been largely in charge of their own affairs.
But anyway, let’s get back to the Chronicles. Following closely on the heels of Satek Syomyeong’s passing, two days later, we have another entry, this one much more neutral. We are told that Tamna, aka the kingdom on Jeju island off the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, sent Princes Kumaye, Tora, Uma, and others with tribute.
So now we are getting back into the diplomatic swing of things. There had been one previous embassy—that of Gim Apsil of Silla, who had arrived just towards the end of the Jinshin War, but they were merely entertained in Tsukushi and sent back, probably because Ohoama’s court were still cleaning house.
Tamna, Silla, and Goguryeo—usually accompanied by Silla escorts—would be the main visitors to Yamato for a time. At this point, Silla was busy trying to get the Tang forces to leave the peninsula. This was partly assisted by the various uprisings in the captured territories of Goguryeo and Baekje—primarily up in Goguryeo. There were various attempts to restore the kingdom. It isn’t clear, but I suspect that the Goguryeo envoys we do eventually see were operating largely as a vassal state under Silla.
Tamna, on the other hand, seems to have been outside of the conflict, from what we see in the records, and it likely was out of the way of the majority of any fighting. They also seem to have had a different relationship with Yamato, based on some of the interactions.
It is very curious to me that the names of the people from Tamna seem like they could come from Yamato. Perhaps that is related in some way to theories that Tamna was one of the last hold-outs of continental proto-Japonic language prior to the ancestor of modern Korean gaining ascendancy. Or it could just be an accident of how things got copied down in Sinitic characters and then translated back out.
The Tamna mission arrived on the 8th day of the 6th intercalary month of 673. A Silla embassy arrived 7 days later, but rather than tribute, their mission was twofold—two ambassadors to offer congratulations to Ohoama and two to offer condolences on the late sovereign—though whether that means Naka no Oe or Ohotomo is not exactly clear. All of these arrived and would have been hosted, initially, in Tsukushi, probably at modern Fukuoka. The Silla envoys were accompanied by Escorts, who were briefly entertained and offered presents by the Dazaifu, the Yamato government extension on Kyushu, and then sent home. From then on, the envoys would be at the mercy of Yamato and their ships.
About a month and a half later, on the 20th day of the 8th month, Goguryeo envoys also showed up with tribute, accompanied by Silla escorts. Five days later, word arrived back from the court in Asuka. The Silla envoys who had come to offer congratulations to the sovereign on his ascension were to be sent onwards. Those who had just come with tribute, however, could leave it with the viceroy in Tsukushi.    They specifically made this point to the Tamna envoys, whom they then suggested should head back soon, as the weather was about to turn, and they wouldn’t want to be stuck there when the monsoon season came.
The Tamna cohort weren’t just kicked out, however. The court did grant them and their king cap-rank. The envoys were given Upper Dai-otsu, which Yamato equated to the rank of a minister in Tamna.
The Silla envoys—about 27 in total—made their way to Naniwa. It took them a month, and they arrived in Naniwa on the 28th day of the 9th month. Their arrival was met with entertainments—musical performances and presents that were given to the envoys. This was all part of the standard diplomatic song and dance—quite literally, in this case.
We aren’t given details on everything. Presumably the envoys offered their congratulations, which likely included some presents from Silla, as well as a congratulatory message. We aren’t given exact details, but a little more than a month later, on the first day of the 11th month, envoy Gim Seungwon took his leave.
Meanwhile, the Goguryeo envoys, who, like Tamna, had arrived merely with tribute, were still in Tsukushi. On the 21st day of the 11th month, just over two months after they arrived, we are told that they were entertained at the Ohogohori in Tsukushi and were given presents based on their rank. The Ohogohori, or “Big District”, appears to mirror a similar area in Naniwa that was likewise known for hosting diplomatic envoys.
With the diplomatic niceties over, there was one more thing to do in this first year of the new reign: the thanksgiving ritual always held at the beginning of a new reign, the Daijosai, or oho-namematsuri. This is a harvest ritual where the newly enthroned sovereign offers new rice to the kami and then eats some himself. At least in the modern version, he gives thanks and prays to Amaterasu Ohomikami, as well as to the amatsu-kami and kunitsu-kami, the kami of heaven and earth.
The Daijosai shares a lot in common with another important annual festival, the Niinamesai, or the Feast of First Fruits. This is the traditional harvest festival, usually held in November. The Daijosai follows much the same form as the Niinamesai, and as such, in years where there is a new sovereign, and thus the Daijosai is held, the Niinamesai is not, since it would be duplicative.
Many of the rituals of the Daijosai are private affairs and not open to the public. There are various theories about what happens, but only those who are part of the ritual know for sure, and they are sworn to secrecy.
The first instance of the Daijosai in the Chronicles is during the reign of Shiraga Takehiko Kunioshi Waka Yamato Neko, aka Seinei Tennou, in the 5th century, but we should take that with a huge grain of salt. Remember, one of the purposes behind the chronicles was to explain how everything came to be, and saying “we just made it up” wasn’t really going to fly.
I’ve seen some sources suggest that the Daijosai can be attributed to the first reign of Ohoama’s mother, Takara Hime, aka Kougyoku Tennou. The term used in her reign, though is Niiname, which seems to refer to the annual Niinamesai, though she is the first in the Chronicles that seems to celebrate it in the first year of her reign, sharing with the Crown Prince and Ministers.
It is likely that the ritual is much older in origin. After all, giving the first fruits of the harvest to the kami to thank them for their assistance seems like the core of harvest festivals around the world. We see it mentioned as the Niinamesai in much of the rest of the Nihon Shoki, even back to the Age of the Gods, when it played an important part in the stories of Amaterasu and Susanowo.
It is in Ohoama’s reign, though, that it seems to first take on its character as a true ritual of the state. We see that the Nakatomi and the Imbe were involved. Together these two families oversaw much of the court ritual having to do with kami worship. We also know that the officials of the Jingikan, the Ministry of Kami Affairs, were also present, as they were all given presents for attending on the sovereign during the festival. We also see that the district governors of Harima and Tamba, which were both in the area of modern Hyougo Prefecture, as well as various laborers under them, were all recognized with presents as well. We can assume that this was because they provided the rice and other offerings used in the festival. In addition to the presents they received, the two governors were each given an extra grade of cap-rank.
Another Daijosai would be carried out in the first year of Ohoama’s successor, and from there on it seems to have become one of if not the major festival of a reign. It marks, in many ways, the end of the first year of ceremonies for the first year of a reign. And even in other years, the Niinamesai is often one of the pre-eminent festivals.
The Daijosai may have been the climax of the year in many ways, but the year was not quite done yet. We have two more entries, and both are related to Buddhism. First, on the 17th day of the 12th month, just twelve days after the Daijosai, Prince Mino and Ki no Omi no Katamaro were appointed Commissioners for the erection of the Great Temple of Takechi—aka the Ohomiya no Ohodera, also known as the Daikandaiji.
The Daikandaiji was a massive temple complex. It is thought that it was originally a relocation of Kudara Ohodera, and we have remains at the foot of Kaguyama—Mt. Kagu, in the Asuka region of modern Kashihara city. Many of the ruins, however, seem to date to a slightly later period, suggesting that the main temple buildings were rebuilt after Ohoama’s reign. Still, it is quite likely that he had people start the initial work.
In setting up the temple, of course it needed a head priest. And so Ohoama called upon a priest named Fukurin and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse… literally. Fukurin tried to object to being posted as the head priest. He said that he was too old to be in charge of the temple. Ohoama wasn’t having any of it. He had made up his mind, and Fukurin was in no position to refuse him.
A quick note on the two commissioners here. First off, I would note that Prince Mino here isn’t mentioned as having Princely rank. Instead, he is mentioned with the ministerial rank of Shoushi. Ki no Katamaro, on the other hand, is Lower Shoukin, several grades below. Once again, a bit of confusion in the ranks, as it were.
The final entry for the year 673 occurred 10 days after the erection of the great temple, and it was a fairly straightforward entry: The Buddhist Priest, Gijou, was made Shou-soudzu, or Junior Soudzu. Junior Soudzu was one of the government appointed positions of priests charged with overseeing the activities of the priests and temples and holding them to account as necessary. Originally there was the Soujou and the Soudzu, but they were later broken up into several different positions, likely due to the proliferation of Buddhism throughout the archipelago.
There doesn’t seem to be much on Gijou before this point, but we know that he would go on to live a pretty full life, passing away over thirty years later, in 706 CE. He would outlive Ohoama and his successor.
And with that, we come to the end of the first year. I am not planning to go year by year through this entire reign—in fact, we have already touched on a lot of the various recurring entries. But I do think that it is worth it to see how the Chronicles treat this first year for a reign that would have been considered pretty momentous to the people of the time.
Next episode we’ll continue going through the reign of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou. There is a lot going on, which, as I’ve said, will influence the nation for centuries—even up until the modern day.
Until then, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.
Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.
Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Ellwood, R. S. (1973). The Feast of Kingship: Accession Ceremonies in Ancient Japan. Japan: Sophia University.
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4.

Episode 134: An Image of the Court at Kiyomihara

September 16, 2025 Joshua Badgley

Model of the palace at Kiyomihara and conjectural buildings around it. From the Asuka Historical Museum. Photo by author.

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(Former) Okamoto (岡本宮) and Itabuki (板蓋宮) Palaces

Layout of the archaeological findings at the Asuka Palace site, corresponding to different periods, believed to be the Okamoto, Itabuki, Later Okamoto, and Kiyomihara palaces. From the Asuka Historical Museum, with English overlay by author.

Built in Asuka, both of these were more modest affairs, probably built largely as the residence of the sovereign where court rituals could also take place. We have some idea of what a palace compound might have looked like, with a series of buildings of various sizes, since at least the Makimuku palace near Mt. Miwa. But these also followed some of the continental geomantic details, such as being, as far as we can tell, south-facing.

Naniwa Nagara Toyosaki Palace (難波長柄豊碕宮)

Composite Image showing the layout of the Naniwa palace (from the Ōtsu History Museum) and a model from the Ōsaka Museum of History, with explanatory labels.

This is remarkable as it appears to be the first palace truly built for the new system described by the Ritsuryō laws and state bureaucracy.

Suzaku-mon (朱雀門)

The southernmost gate of the compound is known as the Suzaku mon. Suzaku is one of the four directional guardians—the red bird of the south. Thus the southernmost gate.

Chōshūden (朝集殿)

Literally the place that people gather. This has a few buildings for changing out of civilian clothes and into one’s official court uniform. This is where people would come and prepare and get ready to enter at the start of the workday, which went from sunrise until just about noon.

Chōdōin (朝堂院)

The chōdōin is the central area of the palace, and contains the chōdō (朝堂), the main “office” buildings of the court. Each ministry had one, and presumably people could go to the appropriate office to address their concerns. At the south was the chōdōin’s south gate, and north was the south gate of the dairi, leading to the private quarters of the sovereign and main ceremonial compound.

Dairi (内裏)

The dairi was the area of the sovereign. Just past the southern gate, flanked by two octagonal buildings—possibly Buddhist in nature—were two large halls. These are the forward and rear halls of the Dairi, and probably served a function similar to the later daigokuden (大極殿), with different halls for ceremonies involving individuals of different ranks. North of those halls were the actual living quarters for the sovereign and their household.

Ōtsu Palace

We only have a little to go off of for the Ōtsu palace, and it is possible it was larger, but it seems to have been reduced, similar to the Okamoto Palace before it.

Later Okamoto (後岡本宮) and Kiyomihara (浄御原宮) Palace

The later Okamoto and the Kiyomihara Palace are really the same palace, but in different periods. They served Takara Hime (Saimei Tennō), Naka no Ōe (Tenji Tennō), Ōama (Temmu Tennō), and eventually Uno (Jitō Tennō). We mostly have the postholes, gravel, and paving stones. A noticeable lack of rooftiles suggests that the buildings had wooden roofs, which may have been the origin of the previous “Itabuki” palace name.

Uchi no Andono (内安殿)

The “Inner” palace (so presumably the one farther north, closest to the personal quarters). It was a three part hall, which is all we can really tell. This was probably only for ceremonies with higher ranked individuals.

To no Andono (外安殿)

The “Outer” palace, and thus presumably the one slightly more south. At some point the western wing was destroyed—accidentally or on purpose—and a pond was put in.

Ōandono (大安殿)

This was the southernmost of the various “andono” within the main enclosure. North of this area we see the courtyards paved with river stones, but here it is just gravel, suggesting that this was for ceremonies with various court functionaries. To the south was the main gate of the palace, the South Gate.

Ebinoko enclosure (エビノコ郭)

Built specifically for the Kiyomihara Palace, this enclosure sits to the southeast of the main palace site and has only a few buildings. We aren’t exactly sure of the function, and the gate to the enclosure opens west, towards the courtyard between the two compounds, rather than south, to the buildings that were lined up in front of it. Perhaps this was a personal building of the sovereign, or perhaps this was an expansion because the rest of the palace was too small and cramped? It is hard to know for sure.

A model of Asuka during the time of the Asuka Kiyomihara Palace based on archaeological finds and conjecture. It shows the Kiyomihara palace, Ebinoko enclosure, and various other possible buildings around it. You can also see the Asuka river and Kawaradera temple. In the north is Asuka Temple, aka Hōkōji, as well as the guesthouse for visiting envoys and what is believed to be the water clock installed by Naka no Ōe. Model from the Asuka Historical Museum. Photos by author.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 134: An Image of the Court at Kiyomihara
Maro sat under the eaves of the hall to which he was assigned. The journey from Mino hadn’t been so hard, but he was still far from his family, back home. He knew as much as they did that serving at the court of the Great Lord was a tremendous opportunity. He would be at the heart of the court, in the presence of those running the country, and he could learn a lot from them. After passing his internship, he would have a chance to prove himself. If he worked hard, he could look forward to continued promotion, with the greater stipend and influence that came with it.
Maro had no illusions that he would someday be at the top of the court hierarchy, but perhaps he could make some modest improvements in his station. His elder brother was expected to inherit their father’s position back in Mino, but the court provided a different opportunity. Maro had always been a quick learner, and had learned to read and write at an early age, devouring whatever knowledge he could get his hands on – and that had helped make him that much more desirable to the court. Now he was learning the ins and outs of how it worked, mostly by doing odd jobs while observing the various interactions, the politics, and the rhythm of it all. Life at the Court really was something.
And yet he still felt homesick. And so here Maro sat, looking out at the full moon in the sky, its light so bright that he barely needed any other illumination. Maro wondered at the idea that his family might be looking up at the same moon at the very same time. As that image took hold, he could feel in the experience a poetic verse. He took out one of the wooden slips used for labels and notes, scraped off the previous writing, and began jotting down his composition.
He only got through a couple of lines before he heard his name being called, and since he was on night duty he put down the brush and the wooden slip. Poetry would have to wait. With everything put back away, he rushed off to find out what new task awaited him.
So here we are, the year is 673 and we are at the start of a new era. Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou, had defeated his enemies and was now in the process of taking the reins of power and officially ascending the throne. In so doing he was moving the capital from Ohotsu, on the shores of Lake Biwa, back to Asuka. Arriving back, he took up residence in what is called the Shima palace for a few days, presumably as they prepared the Okamoto Palace for him. At the same time, we are told that a “palace” was erected for Ohoama south of the Okamoto Palace, and this was called the Kiyomihara Palace.
I’d like to spend this episode talking about this Kiyomihara Palace, and what life was like there, not just for Ohoama but for his new court. While we talked about some of the other palaces, this is perhaps one of the better known from the archaeological record, and it is the backdrop for so much that happens. Ohoama is even known as the Sovereign from Kiyomihara. So let’s talk about what the palace consisted of, and what it was, and a little bit about what life was like there.
In addition to that, we’ve discussed in previous episodes how Ohoama’s ascension to the throne kicked off a whole new era in the evolution of the Yamato state, with numerous innovations and new paradigms in the idea of the ruler and the court and their relationship – so it’s worth taking a closer look at the setting where all of that was happening, so we can try and put ourselves in the shoes of those doing the work, and understand their daily grind, as it were.
There is unfortunately plenty about the Kiyomihara Palace that we don’t know - it isn’t like there is a detailed account of the palace in the records - but its ruins are probably the most complete of all those found in Asuka. This makes sense, given that it would have been built over the earlier palace sites. In fact, for the most part, the Kiyomihara Palace is just the Later Okamoto Palace, in other words where Takara Hime, aka Saimei Tennou, ruled, but updated and expanded to fit Ohoama’s and his court’s needs.
Archeological work in Asuka has done some tremendous work to help us understand the Asuka Palace Site. By studying the various post holes, ditches, and other evidence, along with occasionally discarded items, we have a general idea of the palace’s shape, and when we combine this with what we know from other sites—the Naniwa Palace ruins in Ohosaka, the Fujiwara palace ruins in Kashihara, and the Heijo-kyo ruins in Nara, among others—along with an understanding of how palaces were being built on the continent, we are able to piece together what we think was going on. Of course these interpretations aren’t unanimous, and there are parts that scholars will no doubt quibble over—such as the use of the Ebinoko compound, which I’ll talk about in a bit—but in general we have a picture of what things probably looked like, at least from a layout perspective, and how the site may have been used.
To start, let’s go back for a moment to the Toyosaki Palace in Naniwa, the first palace purpose built for the new governmental system being brought over from the continent. This was the palace of Karu Ohokimi, aka Koutoku Tennou, uncle to Naka no Ohoye. It was built in the aftermath of the Isshin Incident of 645, an architectural centerpiece of the Taika reforms. As you may recall, this was a massive undertaking. This palace was largely rectangular, and consisted of three compounds from south to north, ranging from most to least public.
Most people would enter from the south gate, later known as the Suzaku-mon, the gate of the crimson bird of the south, a pattern that would generally hold true for other palaces. Entering the compound, you would find yourself in the Choshuden, a space holding two pavilions with several rooms where officials could change into or out of their official robes. The gates to the Choshuden would open at sunrise for the clerks and functionaries would enter.
At the northern end of the Choshuden was the Southern gate of the Chodoin, the main working area of the court. There were 14 halls, or Chodo, each one dedicated to a different ministry. The size of these halls varied, likely based on importance or at least the size of their government portfolio.
Most of the middle area of the Chodoin was open, but at the northern end was the gate to the Dairi, the inner palace. This gate was flanked by two octagonal buildings, and it led to an area between the Chodoin and the Dairi where there sat the building that would become the Daigokuden. This was the main audience chamber for meetings with the sovereign, who would preside and make pronouncements in the early morning hours, at the start of the day.
To the north of the Daigokuden was the rest of the Dairi, where the sovereign’s personal quarters lay, including the quarters for his consorts and children, maintained by his personal servants.And there were other gates into and out of the Dairi—after all, the palace was so large you didn’t want to have to go through the Choushuden and Choudouin just to get to the sovereign’s quarters. Those who lived in the Dairi and those who worked there would be able to have their own entrances and exits.
Let’s contrast all of this with the Okamoto Palace in Asuka. More precisely the Later Okamoto Palace. This was the successor palace to the Itabuki palace, both of which were built for Takara Hime, aka Kougyouku—and by this point Saimei—Tennou. In fact, Itabuki palace burned down at the end of 654, just as Takara Hime came to the throne a second time. This palace was, in total, maybe the size of the Chodoin of the Toyosaki Palace, if that. For one thing, there wasn’t as much flat land easily available in the valley, but for another, the builders maybe didn’t think they needed quite that much space and that many buildings. You see, while the Toyosaki palace in Naniwa was likely meant to model the kind of infrastructure necessary for the Tang court, in Chang’an, Yamato was still building up its fledgling bureaucracy. It wasn’t like there were a flood of reports and correspondences coming in from all over the archipelago that had to be handled by an army of clerks. At least not yet.
The Okamoto palace, from what we can tell, was also a rectangle, once again facing south , on the east side of the Asuka river. This palace did not necessarily have the same kinds of dedicated spaces as the Toyosaki Palace.
The main gate that we know of was in the south, leading to a courtyard with another building—possibly the Ohoandono, alternatively the Ohoyasumidono or the Daianden. This may have been an audience hall for meeting with public officials. The ground here was covered in gravel, a fairly common thing for palace compounds.
Though we don’t know exactly what the buildings looked like, we have some idea based on the size and number of post-holes. We also haven’t found any ceramic tiles in or around the ruins so far, which suggests that Okamoto Palace did not have ceramic tile roofs as were common on temple architecture, but instead were likely covered with wooden shingles, like the Itabuki Palace that used to be in relatively the same spot. From an archeological perspective, any tiled building of this size leaves a lot of indications behind: over the years tiles fall off, break, get buried, etc. Even if, as was common, the court meticulously dismantled the buildings down and reused as much as they could, we would still expect to see some tiles or tile fragments in the ground where the pillars are found, and yet we find nothing of the sort.
To the east and west of the Ohoandono were long, narrow structures, oriented north to south rather than east to west. These are thought to have been the offices where government officials could do their work.
Moving into the northern section of the palace, the ground was paved with river stones. There were two large buildings with small wings, running east to west, lengthwise, and situated on the same line as the Ohoandono. These may have been what have been called the To no Andono, or outer Hall, and the Uchi no Andono, the inner hall, and they would have been used for ceremonies for those of the appropriate rank.
The middle hall it seems was modified from its original form. While it was similar in size and footprint to the hall north of it, the western wing of the southern hall at some point was destroyed—whether on purpose or accidentally—and it was replaced with what appears to have been a pond.
On each side of this central area we see more space for buildings, but only some of the post holes have so far been uncovered. There were other buildings further in the northernmost third of the compound that were likely for the sovereign’s private usage, as well as a well, and what may have been a building for some kind of semi-private religious ceremony.
This palace, the Okamoto Palace, was essentially what Ohoama started from when he relocated the capital back to Asuka – but when he ascended to the throne, he did make a few changes. Most notable was the creation of something called the ebinoko-kuruwa, the Ebinoko enclosure. This was to the southeast of the main palace, and had a rectangular wall surrounding one large building and two smaller ones. Interestingly, the buildings would appear to be oriented in a symmetrical shape that would suggest a southern entrance, like the other palace compounds we’ve been discussing, and yet the gate was to the west, opening to the area between the Ebinoko enclosure and the main palace. And based on postholes and other evidence, there appear to have been at least four other rectangular buildings stretching out to the south, outside of the walls.
Some have theorized that the large building in the Ebinoko was an early form of the Daigokuden, a ceremonial hall where Ohoama held court, rather than reusing the facilities of the old Okamoto palace. Alternately, perhaps it was actually more like the buildings of the Chodoin in Naniwa, where the different departments of the court actually did business, but here with all of the officials working in one, single building. A third idea that others have suggested that this was actually Ohoama’s private residence—again, somewhat odd given the size and shape and the fact that there were the seemingly larger facilities of the Okamoto palace already right there for the taking.
So which is it? We do have a clue in the record of the 15th day of the 9th month of 672, and the lines following it. According to the Aston translation of the Nihon shoki:
He removed his residence from the Palace of Shima to the Palace of Okamoto.
In this year a Palace was erected south of the Palace of Okamoto, and the Emperor removed his residence thither that same winter. This was called the Palace of Kiyomibara in Asuka.
So it does seem like something was built south of Okamoto and that is where Ohoama resided.
It is somewhat uncommon for a sovereign to reuse an old palace like this. Traditionally, sovereigns had regularly moved to new palaces, seemingly because of the attempts to avoid ritual pollution associated with death. Of course, it had been a while since Takara hime had passed away, and Naka no Ohoye had moved everything to Ohotsu, but nonetheless, is it possible that the Ebinoko kuruwa was built to, in some way, give Ohoama new quarters?
We may never know for sure. There are plenty of inconsistencies. For one, if it was meant as a residence, I would expect more buildings for his consorts and others. There are also some things to note about the account in the Nihon Shoki. For one thing, although the initial account calls this the Kiyomihara Palace, the Chronicles also suggest that it wouldn’t actually get that name until the 20th day of the 7th month of 686, about 14 years later. That record describes how a new era name was also announced: the Akamitori, or red bird, era. I don’t want to get too much into it right now, but suffice it to say that a red, three legged crow is often depicted as the symbol of the sun; and the important south gate of the palace, the Suzaku-mon, is named for the vermillion bird of the south, one of the four guardian animals. When this era name—more commonly read as “Shucho”, today, since era names are commonly red in on’yomi reading rather than kun’yomi—well, when it was declared, we are told that the palace was titled the Palace of Kiyomihara of Asuka.
What are we to make of this? Well, today, it is assumed that the Kiyomihara palace refers to the Okamoto Palace starting from the creation of the Ebinoko-kuruwa and its occupation during what is assumed to be Ohoama’s rule. Earlier in the Nihon Shoki we are told that Ohoama was known as the Kiyomihara sovereign, and so even though that name technically wasn’t applied to the palace until later, it makes some sense just to assume it applied from the start of Ohoama’s renovations.
One more thing that I would point out. While we talked about the original Okamoto Palace and the newly built Ebinoko enclosure, they were arranged as though around a large open area, like a courtyard. The original palace stood at the north, where one could enter the south gate of the palace, and then the Ebinoko enclosure sat on the east side of the courtyard, with its western gate between the two. The southern and western sides of the courtyard, on the other hand, followed the snaking flow of the Asuka River.
From about 675 to 681, on or about the 17th day of the first month of the year, it’s recorded that the court held an annual archery shoot in the court of either the West or South Gate—which would seem to refer to this large area. This makes sense, as the space is large enough to accommodate plenty of room for the range and for others to watch The archery exhibition was held here, in the space between the two compounds, like clockwork until 681, when we are just told that it was held in the “Courtyard”, which feels like it is referring to an area inside the main compound of Kiyomihara.
There are no more mentions of the tradition after 681, though there is an archery shoot in front of the South Gate on the 5th day of the 5th month of 685, but that was probably done as part of the regular 5/5 celebrations—a holiday today known as Kodomo no Hi, or Children’s Day, but more traditionally known as Tango no Sekku, the Iris festival. Some form of celebration on this date seems to have occurred throughout East Asia up until the modern day.
Whether the archery stopped or just became such a standard thing that it was no longer noteworthy in the record, I can’t really say. However, one can possibly imagine what it was like, with all of the courtiers out there watching as the arrows shot down the field. The occasional twang of bows and the faint whistle as it sped towards its target, hitting the target with a sharp thwack. Murmurs from the crowd regarding how well—or how poorly—any given person was doing.
Beyond the courtyard and what we know of the two compounds—the Kiyomihara palace and the Ebinoko Enclosure—there is plenty still to discover. There were likely other compounds around the palace, possibly as an extension of the palace. And then there were the temples: west, across the river, was Kawaradera, and north of the palace and surrounding compounds was Houkouji, or Asukadera. There is even some evidence on the northwest edge of the compounds, southwest from Asukadera, of an ancient garden surrounding several manmade ponds.
And so, the entire valley appears to have been filled with buildings and official spaces , running up against and being constrained by the natural features of the valley itself. As I mentioned above, there just isn’t that much buildable space in the Asuka valley, compared to other places like Naniwa. And this contributed to one of the other problems that the court would have experienced: according to tradition, the front of the palace and other buildings were all oriented south, but for this location, this meant that they didn’t face the expansive fields of the Nara basin, but instead they faced the mountains themselves. All in all, there was not much room here to grow, and yet the government and the court had grown, at least by all accounts.
Though, how much had the court grown? Maybe not as much as we might expect, despite Ohoama’s ambitions. First of all there had been the purge of the powerful ministers at the head of the Afumi court, but there are some startling omissions in the records from the beginning of Ohoama’s reign. There is no mention of the Daijin, or Great Minister. There is no Minister of the Right or Minister of the Left. There is no Inner Minister, and there is no Great Minister of State. There are mentions of the “kugyou”, or “Ministers of State”, which traditionally includes the Daijin, but there is no mention of the Daijin, suggesting that the “kugyou” of this time may have only referenced the heads of the 8 ministries of the Dajokan, the Council of State.
What does this mean? Many scholars interpret this period as a time of extremely centralized power. Coming off of his military victory, Ohoama seems to have ridden a wave of support and control. Combine that with the continued absorption of Tang dynasty propaganda-slash-government theory that saw the sovereign—the emperor—as the central authority, and one can see how Ohoama may have been able to do something that few sovereigns in Japanese history were able to actually do, which is to wield real power. This may seem odd for a position translated into English most commonly as “Emperor,” but as we’ve seen, in glimpses through the way they are depicted in the Chronicles, or through the archaeological record, which shows different loci of power and authority across the archipelago in ancient times, the Ohokimi, later dubbed the Tennou or Sumera no Mikoto, was not necessarily all powerful. Not only did they have to contend with rivals to the throne, but even various court nobles who made their way into the centers of power. From figures like Takeuchi no Sukune, to the Ohotomo, the Mononobe, and more recently the Soga—in all of these cases various nobles often held considerable power, though often in tension with one another.
Sources of authority also varied. There were the individual religious centers through which families exercised some ritual authority, while there was also more secular authority in the various court positions. The Ohokimi certainly were respected, from what we can tell, and had a powerful source of authority going back to at least the holy kami of Mt. Miwa. They even spread that authority through their kannushi, their priests, which they sent out as an extension of the state. But they weren’t entirely independent, either.
But Ohoama seems to have reached a point where he did hold a tremendous amount of authority. Because there is another telling omission from the chronciles: we don’t see any more Soga members. With the death of Soga no Akaye, the Soga family’s influence seems to have disappeared this reign. We also don’t see that much about other prominent families compared to earlier: we see the Mononobe as ambassadors, and we see the Nakatomi are still conducting rituals. But we don’t see any of them rising to the same positions as their forebears. Instead, we see a lot of focus on the Princely class—those members who claim some descent from a previous sovereign, or even the current sovereign, and how they, themselves, are divided up with their own system of ranks that are outside the civil service ranking system.
Speaking of civil service, it does always strike me that the ranking systems of various east Asian courts very much resemble the way that, even today, many modern bureaucracies create wage scales for their civil servants. In the US the most common such scale is the GS or “General Schedule” pay system. In that system, positions are associated with a particular grade, between 1 and 15, and federal employees are also referred to in terms of those grades. Grade typically reflects some level of seniority and pay. It isn’t a one-for-one analogy, of course: the court ranks in Yamato were handed out by the sovereign, or at least through their authority, as were the various court positions, though I doubt that Ohoama was spending much personal time approving promotions for a low level clerk writing down inventories and suchlike—but who knows. But it does emphasize that this system is built to be a centralized bureaucratic monarchy, based on the continental model, and it now seems to have come into its own. The court seems to have bought into the idea, and now, intentionally or not, much of their own position in society was directly tied to the autocratic whims of the monarch, or Ohoama himself.
Indeed, some of the first records from the year 673 are focused on the court and court system. The very first thing this entailed: a banquet on the 7th day of the first month of the new year. We are told that it was a “drinking party” or “shuen”, and boy does that draw some parallels with modern Japanese companies. We aren’t exactly given the form of this party, but we do have later examples. There was likely a formal start, with various nobles set out at assigned seats based on their rank. It was an official event, so officials would have been expected to wear the appropriate clothing, including their caps of rank, letting everyone know exactly who’s who, and reinforcing the social hierarchy imposed by the rank system in the first place. I suspect that it started with ritual and formality. Later, you would have the after party, where people might more freely mingle and drink and recite poetry. This was both an official and social occasion, because there really wasn’t much of a line drawn between the two. As a ritual, it displayed Ohoama’s power over the state through his ability to host them all. As a social function it was an important time in the political life of the court, where everyone was together, and you could find your cliques and supporters.
Drinking alcohol, while being something that many enjoy for its own sake, was also a kind of religious observance. Sake was made to be offered to the kami, as well as to be used at parties. It was made from rice, the staple on which the agricultural success of the archipelago was based, and which held a particularly sacred place in other rituals and ceremonies.
And then there was the poetry. As would be true for much of Japanese history, poetry infused all aspects of life at the court, and being able to compose good poetry was just as important to one’s social standing as reading, writing, and other such skills. There were generally two kinds of poetry practiced at the court. There was the traditional Japanese poetry, or waka, with alternating verses of 5 or 7 syllables—more properly morae, but no need to get into that. Then there was poetry composed in the Sinitic style. Known as “Kanshi”, which translates directly as “Han Poetry”, this mimics the poetic forms brought over in literature from the continent. It required a certain amount of education to be able to compose and was based on the characters, or kanji, used. Kanshi can generally be divided into at least two categories. There is the Kotaishi, or the Old Style Poetry, which consists of poetic form used prior to the Tang dynasty. Then there is Kintaishi, or Modern Style Poetry, which is based on the forms from the Tang dynasty and later. Kintaishi is usually recognized for adhering to more rules of structure and composition, usually using lines of 5 or 7 characters, while Kotaishi is more fluid and less concerned with specific rules and rhythms.
Poetry was also not necessarily a solo activity. It was common in later eras to arrange poetry competition, where the court would divide itself, much like the bureaucracy, between the Left and the Right. Each group would compose poetry, often on a set theme, and then put up the poems they felt were the best against those of the other side and then the entire court would listen and judge. The only tangible reward, assuming the sovereign was not so moved as to do something extraordinary, was bragging rights. And yet, that social capital was important among the nobles of the court. Image was extremely important to individuals, and embarrassment could be a political death sentence. And so many would work hard at these poems to make sure that they were the best they could be.
At this point, though, we are still in the early years of many of these traditions. The poetry that we have appears to be less formulaic than we see in later eras, when there were so many precedents to which one was expected to adhere. Poems could be about feeling and were not required to hearken back to previous poems and poetic allusions.
By the way, official events like this are also one of the ways that we get compilations of poems, later on. These events would get transcribed and then later those poems would be referenced, particularly if they were noteworthy or by noteworthy individuals. This kind of event may have been where a lot of the poems from works like the Man’yoshu and the Kaifusou, the earliest compilations of Waka and Kanshi, respectively. At some point I”d love to dig into the poetry more in depth, but for the moment, I think it is best to leave it there.
Now besides one’s skills at poetry there were other skills that the court was interested in. The court system that they had lifted from the continent was based, at least theoretically, on the idea of a meritocracy. The monarch, of course, was judged to be worthy to rule through the mandate of Heaven, which often demonstrated itself early in the regime through the Emperor’s forces defeating their enemies, much as Ohoama had defeated his rivals in the Afumi court. However, for the rest of the government, the sovereign needed to make sure that he had qualified individuals. From an early point in history, people recognized that not everyone born into power and wealth was necessarily the best person to help run things. If you could only find those of the greatest intellect, discernment, and moral compass, then those are the ones you would want to have running things, right? And this is fine in theory.
However, determining who has those qualifications can be a bit tricky. We talked about this back in episodes 71 and 72 when we talked about the Han dynasty more generally. In that case, while the civil service exam was open to any person, the reality was that only those with enough wealth and leisure time could afford to study to take the test. And so while it did open up opportunities for some, it did not truly apply equally across all classes of people. And this was likely fine with most of the ruling class at the time, since there were also still theories that there were different classes of people, and it simply reinforced their ideas that those in the lower classes just didn’t have the same capabilities that they had.
In the Yamato court early in Ohoama’s reign it isn’t clear to me exactly how individuals were being chosen for service. We know that rank was handed out as a reward for service, varying with the individual. Ohoama handed out rank at the end of 672 to those who had helped him to come to power, and then, on the 29th day of the 2nd month of 673, just two days after he formally ascended the throne, we are told that he conferred cap-rank on those who had performed good service, each according to their situation.
Of course, that is about how promotions were rewarded. But what about how people entered into service in the first place? How did you get introduced to a job in the bureaucracy in the first place? Well for that we have Ohoama’s pronouncement on the first day of the fifth month. He addressed the court and set it up as follows:
First, anyone who would take a government position would begin their career as an “ohotoneri”. These were low level functionaries who supported the various bureaus as guards, messengers, and whatever else was needed. Previously, this all would have fallen under the general term of “toneri”, who were those members of the nobility who had been sent to serve in the royal palace. Aston translates this as a “chamberlain”, and thus equates oho-toneri—literally “great toneri”—as “high chamberlain”, though I’m not sure if that was actually the distinction or not. It looks like the term “toneri” itself may pre-date the Ritsuryo system, but now was being more standardized, with expanded categories of “toneri” within the system itself. Interestingly, there is only one other example I could find of Ohotoneri before the reign of Ohoama and that was in the account of Waketakeru no Ohokimi, aka Yuryaku Tennou, which makes me think that might be an anachronism. We definitely see “toneri” used since just before that reign and continuously onward, and we see them in regards to not just the royal house, but as the functionaries and servants in various places and for other aristocratic families, but the “ohotoneri” seem to have been specifically connected to the royal family… and thus the state.
Ohotoneri, despite being quote-unquote “great” toneri, were at the relative bottom of the hierarchy. They were the night shift, the guards, the messengers, and the general go-fers. They were essentially paid interns. As they did their tasks, they were learning about how the various offices and ministries worked, and they were demonstrating their own aptitude. Based on how they did, they would then be assigned to various offices as seemed most suitable.
There were also offices that were staffed by women. Though separate and distinct, women also had a role in the palace and thus the maintenance of the court and the state. They were to be selected for service regardless of their age or even whether they were married or not, but they fell under a separate set of rules from the men, because, well, patriarchy.
So that’s what happened when people were selected to serve, but who was selected? The chronicles don’t say explicitly until a decree about three years later in the 4th month of 676, when it was decreed that all those from provinces outside of the Home Provinces could enter the service of the sovereign, no matter their family’s rank, whether Omi, Muraji, Tomo no Miyatsuko, or Kuni no Miyatsuko. They would also allow men of quote-unquote “distinguished ability” enter service, even though they were commoners.
From that we can surmise that when they are talking about “all” people really they are talking about “all” the nobility—the only people for whom the Nihon Shoki was really intended, if you think about it. Thus, logically it would seem that prior to this only members of the nobility were allowed to enter government service—but there is even more. Because before this pronouncement in 676, only people in the Home Provinces were theoretically allowed to enter government service.
The Home Provinces, or Kinai, are traditionally the five provinces of Yamato, Kawachi, Izumi, Yamashiro, and Settsu. At this point, though, Izumi was still a part of Kawachi, so it would have just been the four. These provinces were likely the first lands to really come under Yamato’s direct control, and as such they all held a certain pride of place. This is also where we assume that the powerful families of Yamato had their strongholds. Certainly the Soga, the Mononobe, and the Ohotomo all had claim to traditional land in and around this region. When the court had moved to Ohotsu it would have been the first time in many years that the capital was moved out of the Home Provinces, which was probably a large part of the dissent expressed at the time. How would you like it if your job up and moved two states away and forced you to relocate with them, likely at your own expense?
In 676, though, the court decreed that it would no longer restrict itself to noble families of the Home Provinces, but instead would open up service, and the lucrative stipends that came with it, to members of the nobility in the rest of the archipelago.
This seems particularly intriguing given the two swords we have from the time of Waketakeru no Ohokimi, aka Yuryua Tennou, in the 5th century, where elites had served—or at least claimed to serve—at his court. It is possible that during his day the influence of Yamato was more expansive, and that influence contracted after him. Or it could be that it was a different type of service that they had provided.
And then there is the comment in Ohoama’s decree that the court would also allow men of “distinguished ability” to also enter service, even if they were commoners. How very progressive. This seems clearly designed to suggest the meritocratic system that was the ideal, even if it was only truly observed in the breach.
I can’t help but think about how this symbolizes the court’s expanded control across the archipelago, and the idea that all of the archipelago was truly under their control. It also meant that they had opened up the candidate pool to a wider audience. Does that mean that they were growing the size of the government, too?
I also can’t help but wonder how the old guard took this—the traditional families from the Home Provinces who suddenly found themselves competing with people from the periphery. Did they see them as equals, or the equivalent of upstart country bumpkins? And let’s not even get started on anyone who joined government service as a Commoner.
On the other hand, I suspect these new functionaries would have owed their position even more directly to the sovereign and the court, and they might not have strong familial ties to the local area. This is all just theory, but seems to follow with Ohoama’s general efforts at centralization and accretion of power and authority to himself whilst further building out the structure that his brother, Naka no Ohoye, had set up.
Along those lines, at the same time that the sovereign opened up membership in the court to those outside of the Kinai region, he also meddled with the incomes of the various Princes and Ministers. He insisted that those Princes and Ministers who were receiving taxes from fiefs in the West—by which I assume is meant western Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu—they should instead get their income from fiefs in the East. So he was taking away the western fiefs and instead swapping them with eastern fiefs. Those western taxes could then, presumably, come straight into the government coffers, and the princes and ministers would be connected with land in the east, which I suspect meant they would be expected to invest in those fiefs and encourage them to produce.
This feels like it goes along with something from two years earlier, in 675, the third year of Ohoama’s reign. In the second month of that year he abolished the serfs granted to the various Uji back in 664, and he abolished any claims by Princes—Royal or otherwise—as well as Ministers and Temples to any mountains, marshes, islands, bays, woods, plains, and artificial ponds. It seems clear that he claimed the right of eminent domain to himself and the state. By extension, all land effectively belonged to Ohoama, and everyone else became, de facto, his tenants. They paid taxes up to him, and he had the right to grant or take away the land as he saw fit.
I can’t imagine that went over well with those who had lost their rights to those lands, but either he compensated in them in some other way or his power had grown such that they didn’t dare to oppose him. Certainly not everyone was happy.
In 677, Saita no Fubito no Nagura was banished to the island of Izu for apparently scoffing—or otherwise disrespecting—Ohoama. Well, it says his vehicle, but Aston notes that this is probably just a polite euphemism for the sovereign himself.
But that rebuke seems to have been pretty light compared to two years earlier when a man—we aren’t even given his name, assuming it was known, hiked up the hill east of the palace, cursed Ohoama, and then cut his own throat. How it was known that he had been cursing anyone isn’t explained—though perhaps he had written it down or otherwise communicated his intentions. Either way, it was certainly a rebuke.
But if it phased Ohoama, we can’t tell. He did give those on duty that night a step in rank, presumably for the trauma they had experienced in dealing with everything.
Possibly related—we are told that same month there was a great earthquake. So was that thought to be the curse being fulfilled? There is nothing to connect them except that the one immediately follows the other.
And yet, Ohoama would continue to rule as he saw fit. In fact, he would rule roughly 14 years, in total, right up to his death in 686. A rather substantial reign compared to so many other sovereigns. And he would continue to make his mark.
Next episode we will continue our journey through the reign of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tenno.
Until then, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.
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Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4.

Episode 133: Reimagining Yamato

September 1, 2025 Joshua Badgley

Copies of the Nihon Shoki, which has continued to influence the concept of Japan down to the modern day. Photo by author.

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With the end of the Jinshin War, Oama, posthumously known as Temmu Tenno, came to the throne. And though they would need a new Great Council of State, they continued to build up and bolster the Ritsuryo state. They were imagining a new Yamato based on continental models of what a state should look like, but also influenced by tradition. This episode we take a look at that reimagining in broad strokes, asking a few questions--what was Oama's relationship with his brother, and touching on the relationship of Nakatomi no Kamatari and his brother, Nakatomi no Kane. We also take a look at some of the literary propaganda that also helped to codify this new imaginary--the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki. We also touch on other sourcesof information, like the Fudoki and Man'yoshu.

With the end of the Jinshin War, Oama, posthumously known as Temmu Tenno, came to the throne. And though they would need a new Great Council of State, they continued to build up and bolster the Ritsuryo state. They were imagining a new Yamato based on continental models of what a state should look like, but also influenced by tradition. This episode we take a look at that reimagining in broad strokes, asking a few questions--what was Oama's relationship with his brother, and touching on the relationship of Nakatomi no Kamatari and his brother, Nakatomi no Kane. We also take a look at some of the literary propaganda that also helped to codify this new imaginary--the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki. We also touch on other sourcesof information, like the Fudoki and Man'yoshu.
For more information, check out our blog: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-133

Rough Transcript
Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is episode 133: Reimagining Yamato
As the bells of Houkouji tolled, Ohoama and his wife, Uno, surveyed the construction on going in the Asuka valley. Hordes of workers had been called up, and now they were working furiously towards the deadline of the new year. Where once stood the later Wokamoto palace of Takara Hime, aka Ohoama’s mother, Saimei Tennou, now the land was being prepared for a palace on a much grander scale. And just as the palace was being remade, Ohoama’s thoughts went beyond the valley, to the entire archipelago. His brother, Naka no Oe, had started something profound. Now here he was, helming the Ship of State, and Ohoama had plans of his own, built upon his brother’s ideas. He would build a new state, ensuring that the reforms that started back in 645 would continue for generations.
Greetings everyone and welcome back. As we dive back in, let’s recap where we are.
The year is now 673, and the fighting from the previous year—the Jinshin war—is over. Prince Ohoama and his Yoshino forces were victorious and he is now poised to ascend the throne in the recently built Palace of Kiyomihara, in Asuka. He will be known to future generations by his posthumous name: Temmu Tennou.
Ohoama would go ahead and continue to centralize the government under the continental model. That said, he also would pay a not insignificant amount of attention to local tradition as well. His reign would lead to the establishment of the first permanent capital city: Fujiwara-kyo. He is also credited with initiating the projects collecting various historical records, which culminated in the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, the very chronicles on which this podcast is based – and both of which seem to have been designed specifically to promote the authority of the throne, specifically Ohoama and his descendants.
Those descendants—the Temmu dynasty—would rule for almost a century, including four of the eight official female sovereigns (those eight become ten if you count the unofficial Himiko and Okinaga Tarashi-hime, aka Jingu Tennou). This dynasty would reign from the end of the Asuka period up through to the Nara period, and it would see the evolution of the Yamato state into the kingdom of Nihon—which is to say the kingdom of Japan.
The politics of this period were also quite something. It is during this coming period that we see the rise of the famous Fujiwara family, who would come to dominate the political landscape. We also see the continued contact with the mainland, with numerous trade goods coming over, many of which would be included in the famous Shousouin storehouse of Toudaiji temple, in Nara.
Buddhism would also thrive, with Kokubunji, or provincial temples, being set up in a network around the archipelago. There was also the building of the famous Daibutsu, or Giant Buddha statue, of Toudaiji.
Art would also flourish. The Man’yoshu would be published at this time—a collection of around 4,500 Japanese poems, or waka. Meanwhile, the court would also focus on continental styles as well. From this point on, not only do we have more evidence of what was happening through the written record, but the writing itself changed. Different Sinitic characters were borrowed solely for their sound to help spell out Japanese words. These would eventually be simplified, and known as “kana”. The earliest use of these characters is known as “Man’yo-gana” because so many are traced back to the Man’yoshu itself. They would eventually be standardized and simplified, becoming the hiragana and katakana we know and use today.
But in 673, all of this is still on the horizon. So this is a great time to pause for a bit in our journey through the chronicles and set the stage for this next, incredibly transformative period in the archipelago by going over these larger patterns in some depth, so that, as we start to go through this period we get a better idea of just what was happening, and perhaps why. That’s what we’ll do this episode.
To start with, let’s go back to the relationship between Naka no Oe and Ohoama. As far as we can tell, these brothers were fairly close to one another. Not only was Ohoama married to one of Naka no Oe’s daughters, Princess Uno, he had actually taken as consort at least four of Naka no Oe’s other daughters—all of which were Ohoama’s nieces. In turn, one of Ohoama’s own daughters, Princess Touchi, had been married off to Ohotomo, aka the ill-fated Koubun Tennou. On top of that, Naka no Oe and Ohoama both had taken as consorts daughters of Soga no Akaye, and both Ohotomo and Ohoama had consorts from Nakatomi—or Fujiwara—no Kamatari. This demonstrates just how interrelated everyone was at court, presumably as a means of strengthening the ties between them. Of course, as we’ve seen time and again, those ties were more symbolic than anything else, and certainly did not prevent the occasional use of violence, nor did it protect the fathers of those women from political repercussions when they found themselves on the wrong side.
On the other hand, beyond the initial mention of their births, we don’t see the two brothers together until Naka no Oe came to the throne. Why? Well, to be fair, we don’t see much of anyone but the sovereign in the Chronicles unless there is a specific thing they are called out for—like an embassy, presenting something to the throne, etc. Even Naka no Oe often isn’t mentioned directly, even when he was the Crown Prince and supposedly helping run the government. So that could be it.
There are two apparent counter arguments to the idea that Naka no Oe and his brother, Ohoama, were tight. First is a mention in the Toushi Kaden, the Family History of the Fujiwara Family, about Ohoama thrusting a spear into a board, which rattled Naka no Oe enough that he was apparently wondering if he needed to have his own brother taken out. Then there is Ohoama’s resignation at the time of Naka no Oe’s death, presumably because he was warned that a plot was afoot, and that if he accepted Naka no Oe’s offer to take the reins of the state in his own two hands then something—we aren’t told what—would unfold.
I can’t rule out the idea that neither of those accounts is quite accurate either, however. It is possible that the Toushi Kaden account is embellished to heighten Fujiwara no Kamatari’s own role as peacemaker between the brothers. I also have to wonder if the warning to Ohoama around Naka no Oe’s death wasn’t so much about Naka no Oe, but about his ministers. After all, they seem to have had no problem supporting the much younger—and likely more malleable—Prince Ohotomo. So it seems to me entirely possible that there were other threats that Ohoama was concerned with.
That brings me to one of those ministers: Nakatomi no Kane. We talked about him before and during the war. He first showed up participating in ritual and speaking on kami matters. He would later rise to be one of the Great Ministers of State, and was one of the six ministers who had pledged themselves to Prince Ohotomo. At the end of the Jinshin War, he was put to death and his family was banished.
That said, in period leading up to all of that, we spent a good amount of time with another Nakatomi: Nakatomi no Kamatari. He was the head of the Nakatomi clan and the Naidaijin, the Interior Minister, a special position placing him on par, or even above, the Ministers of the Left and Right, but which did not have a well defined portfolio noted in the literature.
Interestingly, this position also doesn’t seem to have survived Kamatari, at least in the short run. From the time of Naka no Oe, aka Tenji Tennou, to the time of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou, it seems that the office of Naidaijin fell out of favor, possibly due, in part, to Prince Ohotomo being raised to a different post, that of Dajou Daijin, placing him in charge of the Great Council of State. The Naidaijin role wouldn’t be revived until 717 for Kamatari’s grandson, Fujiwara no Fusasaki (interestingly, only three years before the completion of the Nihon Shoki).
Nakatomi no Kane was, as far as we can tell, the brother to Kamatari. When Kamatari passed away, Kane seems to have taken on the role as head of the Nakatomi family and he was also made Minister of the Right. This mirrors, in its way, the relationship between Naka no Oe and Ohoama, and the common system of inheritance that would often go brother to brother.
And yet, while Kamatari was a hero of the Taika era, Nakatomi no Kane was executed for his role in the Jinshin War. So in the context of the rise of the Fujiwaras to greater prominence later on in Ohoama’s reign, it is significant that Kamatari’s line would be set apart from the rest of the Nakatomi to the extent of giving it the new Fujiwara name. Although the Chronicles claim that the “Fujiwara” name was actually granted by Naka no Oe, there is a thought that this was granted posthumously, and may have even been retconned by later members of the family, possibly to distance themselves from Nakatomi no Kane and his role on the losing side of the Jinshin War, and tie themselves clearly to Kamatari and his founding role in Naka no Oe’s and Ohoama’s new vision, instead.
This all brings me to my next point: the creation of the national histories. The projects that culminated in what we know today as the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki are said to have been started under Ohoama’s reign, though they wouldn’t be finished until much later, well into the 8th century.
A lot of what went into them was work under Ohoama’s wife Uno, who succeeded him as Jitou Tennou, as well as her successors. Prince Toneri, one of Ohoama’s sons, is said to have overseen the Nihon Shoki’s compilation. Prince Toneri was son of Ohoama and princess Niitabe, one of Naka no Oe’s daughters, and while he never sat the throne, himself, one of his sons would eventually do so. As such, we can see a strong royal hand on the project, even though the actual composition was probably by several teams of Chroniclers—we touched on this briefly back in Episode 131.
The Kojiki, on the other hand, is said to have been written by Oho no Yasumaro based on the oral history that had been maintained by Hieda no Are. We don’t know much about Hieda no Are—there are some that believe they may have been a woman, since a passage in a later work, the Seikyuuki, suggests that they were a member of the Sarume no Kimi family, descended from Ame no Uzume no Mikoto, who is said to have danced and helped lure Amaterasu out of the rock cave. And so they were particularly known for their role as shrine maidens—a particularly female role. That said, Are received the title of “toneri”, which is often assumed to be male, and there is nothing else that explicitly says they were not.
Either way, Hieda no Are is said to have been commanded by the sovereign, Ohoama, to memorize the history of the nation, presumably to then perform it as needed, for the court. Only later was Oho no Yasumaro asked to write it down in what became known as the Kojiki.
Both of these chronicles were attempts to organize the history of the nation and to put together all the stories in a way that would establish a foundation for the new state that was evolving out of ancient Yamato. A large part of that effort was going to be to justify those who were in power at the time—including both the royal family and the various noble houses at the time, including the powerful Fujiwara.
Now, when we talk about how these histories were created to bolster the state, I want to be careful. It may not have necessarily been the case that the chroniclers were actively and consciously promoting a fictional account. From what we can tell, the chroniclers drew from a collection of stories, some written down in diaries and court records, works like the Baekje annals and continental histories, and some that were likely just memorized tales that were part of the general culture.
There were a couple of existing histories—we are told, for example, that there was a Teiki and a Kyuji floating around, both attributed to the legendary Shotoku Taishi, and both supposedly including the royal lineage at least to Toyomike-kashikiya-hime, aka Suikou Tennou. However, the copies that were being passed around were apparently suspect, and we are told that there were inconsistencies. Which probably means that the way they told the story did not conform to the way that Ohoama and the royal family wanted it told, though it could also refer to the fact that different accounts had slight variations on the stories, many of which had probably started as oral traditions that were only later written down. It is also likely that there was only so much detail in those ancient texts, but we can’t know for sure. The Sendai Kuji Hongi purports to be the text of the original Kyuuji, or Kyuujiki, but that claim is dubious, at best, though it may have used an older, no longer extant history to crib its own notes from.
So there were probably some writings, already, but there was also so much more. There were stories from various familial records, stories told by various shrines about their kami and their histories, and stories passed down as local history that had never been captured, previously. All of this was good material for the project of creating an official national history that aimed to tell the whole story.
To get an idea of what the Chroniclers of that time might have been going through, imagine that you have some 2,000 random facts about the United States, or any country of your choice, in no particular order—stories of heroes, presidents, wars, etc. On top of that, only a few of them ever give you any kind reference dates, and when they do, those dates are only in relationship to the presidents in office – the third year of the presidency of Roosevelt, for example - or maybe they reference another event. In addition, some of the facts have been lost, or they come from history books with a slightly different format. Or they come from diaries with different perspectives and takes on the same event. And then, without the aid of the Internet or any other reference material, you are asked to put all of that together into a coherent narrative.
In all likelihood you would be able to generally construct many of the broad strokes. You would leverage what you know to be true and do your best to put things in place, but there is no guarantee that everything would be in the right order. And in places where there wasn’t any clear through line, you may have needed to come up with your best, most plausible explanation and write that down.
Also, imagine you had, in the interests of completeness, thrown in some of the more, shall we say, apocryphal stories. George Washington cutting down a cherry tree, for instance, or the story of Johnny Appleseed, or even the more fantastical stories of Davy Crockett. Without other reference points, would you know where they went, or how true they actually were?
Add to all of that the lack of a referential calendar. The sexagesimal system helps for units of 60 years, but there was nothing comparable to a western calendar in use at the time. Instead, everything was based on the number of years in a given reign. So instead of thinking about it as “did this happen in 584 or 524?” it was more like “Did this happen in the years of the sovereign reigning from X palace or Y palace?”
Now that said, there do appear to have been individuals whose job was to memorize the stories and the histories and recite them. We have, for example, the Kataribe, the guild of storytellers. It may have been out of this tradition that we get the eventual commission of the previously mentioned Hieda no Are, who was to memorize all of the historical events and recite them back, which I can only imagine would have been a kind of performance for the court, helping to reinforce the narrative.
But still, as Are was putting everything together, what were the assumptions and guidelines they were working under? After all, there were no doubt certain truths, whether factual or not, that were pushed by the court. Things like the idea of an unbroken line of sovereigns going all the way back to the mythical founding, just like in continental stories. Or, the idea that worship centered from the beginning around the sun goddess, Amaterasu.
There is plenty of evidence that while the early Wa people practiced various forms of sun worship, with traces found in their language as well as stories, cultural traditions, etc., it was not necessarily Amaterasu who was the primary deity of worship. Back in the Age of the Gods we talked about the creator deities, Izanagi and Izanami, and about the High god of Heaven, Takami Musubi, who seems to at one point been the most prominent central deity, but who had since been eclipsed, if you will, by the likes of Amaterasu.
We also see evidence that there were other sun deities. The language around Sarutahiko no Ohokami suggests that he may have once been worshipped as a sun deity as well. And there is the early primacy of Mt. Miwa as a place of worship, and the spirit of Ohomononushi. This is to say nothing of Ohokuninushi, and all of his stories, up in Izumo.
Furthermore, it seems telling that Amaterasu is not even central to the rituals conducted in the palace itself, which likely went back to an even earlier period. If Amaterasu were central, and the ancestral kami of the royal family since its inception, one would expect that Amaterasu would also be central to the rites carried out by her descendants in the royal palace. And yet most of her worship appears to have continued to be set apart from the palace ritual, and conducted out of Ise shrine (albeit after a certain point ceremonially led by a designated female member of the royal line).
Even Ise shrine itself isn’t the primary shrine in the Ise area—the Ichi-no-miya, or most important shrine, of Ise is actually said to be Tsubaki shrine, worshipping Saruta Hiko no Ohokami and Ame no Uzume.
So how did Amaterasu come to be so central in Ohoama’s vision? There are stories that say that worship at Ise Shrine—and worship of Amaterasu—was specifically conducted by Ohoama’s wife during the Jinshin campaign. This is to say Ohoama’s wife, primary consort, eventual queen and then queen regnant, Uno, later known as Jitou Tennou. Remember, Uno had fled with Ohoama and had been on the trail with him at first, but had stayed behind in Ise. Worship towards Ise seems to have later been counted as foundational to Ohoama and Uno’s victory, and many suspect that they themselves may subsequently have encouraged greater worship of Amaterasu and placed her in the central position of sacral authority amongst the various kami.
If so, that could explain why their histories focus so much on Amaterasu and her Heavenly descendant, from which the royal line claimed direct lineage. It might also be around this time that the story of Iwarebiko, aka Jimmu Tennou, and the conquest of Yamato from Himuka may have been introduced: telling how Iwarebiko justifiably took away the land from the descendants of Nigi Hayahi, and then connecting Iwarebiko, in an extremely loose fashion, to Mimaki Iiribiko no Mikoto, aka Sujin Tennou.
Another influence on all of this was likely the continental concept that time is a circle, and history repeats itself. Chroniclers seeking to place events in a narrative context would have likely seen reflections of more recent events and used that to help order their compilation.
And of course, if there were events that seemed to run counter to the truth as known by the court, well, those could be smoothed over. In this way, co-rulers were probably serialized, inconvenient interim rulers may have been excised altogether, and different dynasties, which may have only had tenuous connections, at best, were written down as direct lineal descendants. It also seems telling that the Chroniclers may have reduced the role of what appears to be matrilineal succession to a more patriarchal and patrilineal determination of legitimacy. Similarly, connections could be made for families to ancient ancestors through whom they were able to claim a certain proximity to the royal family. Likewise, rules for legitimacy could be imposed—or perhaps just assumed—for previous reigns, doing their best to bring them into harmony with the social norms and the cultural imaginaries of the late 7th and early 8th centuries.
So that’s the general context the Chroniclers were working under. But at this point it’s illuminating to take a look at the two histories and how they differ, to see what we can understand about where those differences came from.
The work of Hieda no Are, eventually recorded and written down as the Kojiki, seems to have dealt with history that was far enough back that it was likely hard to argue with—it isn’t like there was anyone alive who could counter with their own facts. And the Kojiki reads as a fairly straightforward narrative, relatively speaking.
The Nihon Shoki, on the other hand, is a different beast. While the Kojiki may have captured the official narrative, the Nihon Shoki seems to have been designed to include more—including some of the competing accounts. Thus you’ll get a lot of things like “another source says…” with a different take on the same event. This is much more prevalent in the Age of the Gods, but still pops up occasionally throughout the rest of the text. Nonetheless, it is still very much focused on the royal line from Amaterasu down to Naka no Oe and Ohoama. Even their posthumous names, Tenji and Temmu, specifically reference Ten, also pronounced Ama, at the start of their names, in what appears to be a bid to further connect them to the sun goddess of Heavenly Brightness--Amaterasu.
Both of these works have their own character, and while the dates they were presented to the throne—713 for the Kojiki and 720 for the Nihon Shoki—suggest that they were published in succession, there are those that argue that the Kojiki is largely a reaction against the Nihon Shoki.
In all likelihood the contents of the Nihon Shoki were known to many people before it was presented. There were groups of Chroniclers involved, after all -- which meant teams of scribes pouring through sources, seeking out myths and legends, and generally trying to bring everything they could to the table. And there is no indication that this was done in secret. So it is quite possible that the writers of the Kojiki had seen some of the early drafts and cribbed from those notes.
Some of the ways that the the history differ are in their portrayal of certain accounts. For example, the Kojiki presents Iwarebiko and the pacification of Yamato and archipelago more generally in terms of that mythical sovereign conversing with the spirits. And so he converses with, for instance, Ohomononushi, the deity of Mt. Miwa, a spirit whose name might be translated as the Great Lord of the Spirits, or “Mono”. This idea places the sovereign as an intercessor between the mortal and the spirit world. It hearkens back to earlier systems of sacral kingship, where power and authority came, at least in part, from supposed power of one’s sacred sites and protective spirits.
The Kojiki is also written in a much more vernacular style, using kanji and what we know of as man’yogana, the kanji used for their sound, rather than meaning, to provide a syllabary with which to write out Japanese words. This may have been done for similar reasons to why it was also used in the Man’yoshu itself—because the Kojiki was meant to be recited aloud, not just read for meaning.
The Nihon Shoki, in contrast, is clearly attempting to emulate the continental style. It relies much more heavily on not just the characters but the grammar of Chinese, though not without its own idiosyncrasies. The Nihon Shoki incorporated classical references that mirrored the references found in the histories of the Tang and earlier dynasties. I suspect, for instance, that this is one of the main reasons that Naka no Oe and Ohoama are given the posthumous names of “Tenji” and “Temmu”. Tenji means something like the Wisdom of Heaven while Temmu is more like the Martial Virtue of Heaven. This immediately brings to mind, for me, the continental concepts of Wen and Wu—Culture and Warefare, or Bunbu in Japanese. This even mirrors the founding Zhou kings, King Wen and King Wu. Later, in the Han dynasty, you have Emperor Wu of Han, the grandson of Emperor Wen of Han, and Wu was considered to be one of the greatest emperors of the Han dynasty. And so I can’t help but think that there was a similar attempt at mythmaking going on here, connecting these two reigns with the reigns of famous emperors of the continent. Of course, “Wu” was a popular name amongst the imperial dynasties from that period onward, with emperors of Jin, Chen, Liang, and others all being given the same name.
This all accords with the way that the sovereign in the Nihon Shoki is less of a sacral king, interceding and speaking with the kami, and more along the continental model of an absolute ruler who ruled by divine right and heavenly mandate.
The lands outside of Yamato are subdued and, except for the occasional uprising, stay subdued—or at least that is what the narrative would seemingly have us believe.
Now, I would argue that these distinctions are not absolute. The Kojiki contains plenty of concepts of imperial trappings, and the Nihon Shoki contains plenty of examples of the sovereign playing a more traditional role. But it is something to consider in the broad strokes of what they are saying, and I would argue that it also speaks to the duality of what was going on in this period. Clearly the Ritsuryo State was built on the continental model, with an absolute ruler who ruled through a Heavenly mandate. And yet at the same time, we see Ohoama patronizing the traditional spiritual sites and kami worship, like the emphasis on Amaterasu and Ise shrine.
Besides the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, we have one more set of official records that were compiled just as the major histories were beginning to be finished. These were the Fudoki. Fudoki were texts about the various provinces, and they include information on the various places, population, soil quality, as well as various local myths and legends attached to such things. Rather than supporting the royal lineage, the Fudoki were more geared towards supporting the process begun under Karu and Naka no Oe with the Ritsuryo system whereby knowledge of the archipelago was being centralized such that the State could know about its territories. Still, there are many times that the various Fudoki refer to different sovereigns, often to help situate a given event roughly within the historical narrative.
The Fudoki were commissioned in 713. At least 48 chronicles were said to have been compiled, but only a handful of them remain extant today. Most are only partial texts, though even those can still contain significant information. We also have purported text from certain fudoki that were reprinted in later histories. The Shaku Nihongi seems to have been one such work, expressly commissioned to try and compile various older records that were likely aging and in danger of being lost altogether. However, there is a concern regarding just how faithful those later transcriptions might have been, meaning that we cannot rely on them, entirely. Still, they are an invaluable addition to our study of the history of this period.
I mention all of this because much of this period seems dedicated to remaking the nation of Yamato into what we know as Japan. This evolution didn’t happen overnight, and it seems clear that it started gradually, but had now come to a head. There is some consideration, though, that many of the things attributed to earlier reigns—the work done by Shotoku Taishi, for example, or even that of Naka no Oe—may have been embellished in this period. After all, consider the difference between Ohoama trying to institute something entirely new versus pointing back to a previous sovereign and claiming that he wasn’t innovating, he was just following tradition.
But there are still unmistakable signs of innovation in the following reigns. The creation of the first permanent capital city, for one. There was also the blending of Buddhist and local kami-based traditions. While Buddhism had been ascendant for a while, now, we see Ohoama seemingly paying equal homage to Amaterasu and the local kami. Even while instituting new fangled continental ideas, he is also hearkening back to traditions that I can only imagine helped assuage some of the fears of any traditionalists who saw the rapid speed at which the archipelago was adopting at least the trappings of continental imperial culture.
Speaking of culture, there was one other work that we should probably mention, and that is the famous Man’yoshu—the collection of 10,000 Leaves. I mentioned this briefly earlier in the episode, but I do want to discuss it a bit, because as much as we may glean from the official histories, as well as the various fudoki texts, the Man’yoshu provides an invaluable view into the minds of the people of the time, and contains some incredibly useful tidbits of information that, when put together, help give us a better idea of what was happening during this period.
The Man’yoshu is a collection of more than 4500 poems attributed to various historical figures, from sovereigns, such as Ohoama and Naka no Oe, to common soldiers. It is remarkable in that the poems are largely in native Japanese and are not using the Sinitic poetry styles that were popular with scholars of the time.
These poems are waka, Japanese verse, which typically follows a pattern of repeating verses of 5-7-5 syllables or morae, ending with two lines of 7-7. The most simple of these are tanka—one top verse of 5-7-5, and one bottom verse of 7-7. However, the poems in the collection can vary quite a bit.
They are also remarkable in that they are written in what we know as Man’yogana. That is to say they use Sinitic characters—kanji—but for their sound rather than their meaning in many cases. This practice allowed for much more nuanced writing, such that the author could be more certain that the correct meaning could be taken away, since Japanese grammar differs greatly from various Chinese languages, and leverages particles and suffixes that are non-existent in Sinitic script. Often times, when reading something like the Nihon Shoki, one has to infer the Japanese word order, particles, and suffixes from the text as a whole. This is common with any kanbun—a very Japanese style of Chinese writing that often requires its own study to fully understand.
Meanwhile, the Man’yogana allowed someone to more easily sound out the letters in the Man’yoshu. This must have been important when morae or syllable count was important to the art form. Furthermore, it gives us tremendous insight into how spoken Japanese may have sounded back in the 8th century.
And of course it is great that we have all of these poems, but almost more important is the other information contained in the collection. Most poems not only are attributed to a particular author, but they often give a brief introduction to lay out the circumstance in which the poem was composed. These poems are, in many ways, more straightforward than many later poetic styles, which relied much more heavily on so-called “pillow words”, poetic allusions, or callbacks to previous poems—not that they were completely devoid of such references, especially to other, often continental, works.
Some poems are actually paired—a type of call and response. A man would often be expected to send a poem to a lady with whom he had recently had assignations, and she would often respond. Through such correspondence, preserved in the poetic record, we can see connections that might not be as clear in the various historical texts.
Now, 4500 is a lot of poems and I’ll be honest, I’m probably not going to be researching all of them for historical tidbits, but it is nonetheless important to understand. One should also be careful—while the poems are often attributed to various artists and famous persons, this may sometimes be misleading. The attribution may have been garbled or forgotten, and recreated.
Most of the poems in the Man’yoshu are presented with at least some amount of framing around them. They are grouped loosely by various themes. We are then told, for each poem, the composer and the occasion for which it was created. Sometimes this may be as simple as “when they were out hunting”, but that still gives us some context on which to go by as for why the author was writing the poem in the first place.
The poems themselves vary in size. There are short poems, or tanka, but also longer form chōka poems, with multiple verses. Some may allude to previous poems, but many of the poems are just about the author’s feelings. Unlike haiku, they were not quite so proscribed in terms of “pillow words” or requisite seasonal descriptions.
And yet these poems, just as much as the histories, were important in capturing some part of the cultural zeitgeist from that time. We can see what was considered popular or important, and it was there for future generations down until today.
Ultimately the Kojiki would largely be overshadowed by the more comprehensive and prestigious seeming history in the Nihon Shoki. The Nihon Shoki would become the official history, inspiring future historical records, such as the Shoku Nihongi, the continuation of the records. The Man’yoshu, likewise, would be emulated, with future compilations like the Kokinshu.
These, in turn, would impact the cultural imaginary of the time. They would shape people’s ideas about the past, about art, and even about the nature of the kami themselves. During this period it is hard to understate just how much they were setting in place a new system. It is even difficult to tell how much of that system had actually been instituted by previous sovereigns, even though it’s hard to tell how much that actually happened as opposed to simple claims by Ohoama and, later, Uno, to justify what they were doing. Up to this point, the Ritsuryou State and the various reforms had been an experiment, but under Ohoama we truly see that the new government upgrades would be fully installed.
At the same time, we also see a shake up in the court. Those who had been loyal to Ohoama during the Jinshin conflict of 672 received various rewards—increased rank and stipend, for one thing. As famous individuals passed away, they were also granted posthumous rank, which might not seem like much, but it increased the family’s prestige and that of the individual’s descendants without actually handing out a higher level stipend that would be a drain on the coffers. All of this also continued to build up the elites’ reliance on not just the court, but on the throne itself for their status, wealth, and position. Thus they had a vested interest in seeing that the project succeeded.
And that is the world that we are about to dive into. Thank you, I know we didn’t get into too much of the immediate history, and some of this is spoilers—after all, this took time and in the moment it could have turned out quite differently. What if Ohoama had gotten sick and died? What if there had been a rebellion? What if Silla or Tang had attacked? While we know what happened from the safety of our vantage point, far in the future, it is important to remember that at the time the people in the court didn’t know what would happen next, so please keep that in mind.
Next episode, we’ll start to get into the actual events of the reign, starting with Ohoama’s ascension to the throne at the newly built Kiyomihara palace in Asuka.
Until then, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.
Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.
Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Duthie, T. (09 Jan. 2014). Man’yōshū and the Imperial Imagination in Early Japan. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004264540
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253
Piggott, Joan R. (1997). The Emergence of Japanese Kingship. Stanford, Calif : Stanford University Press. ISBN9780804728324
Chamberlain, B. H. (1981). The Kojiki: Records of ancient matters. Rutland, Vt: C.E. Tuttle Co. ISBN4-8053-0794-3
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4.
Philippi, D. L. (1968). Kojiki. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN4-13-087004-1.

Ranks of 664

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(Former) Okamoto (岡本宮) and Itabuki (板蓋宮) Palaces

Naniwa Nagara Toyosaki Palace (難波長柄豊碕宮)

Suzaku-mon (朱雀門)

Chōshūden (朝集殿)

Chōdōin (朝堂院)

Dairi (内裏)

Ōtsu Palace

Later Okamoto (後岡本宮) and Kiyomihara (浄御原宮) Palace

Uchi no Andono (内安殿)

To no Andono (外安殿)

Ōandono (大安殿)

Ebinoko enclosure (エビノコ郭)

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