Episode 84: The Middle Way Through the Middle Kingdom

April 16, 2023 Joshua Badgley

Ruins of a stupa at the Ancient city of Subashi, once a thriving city in the land of Kucha, home of Kumarajiva, on the northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin. Kucha was a major stop on the Silk Road. Photo by author.

This episode looks at the trip that the Buddha’s teachings took from the Indian subcontinent through the Kushan empireand the land of Gandhara, and over to East Asia—to the Yellow River and Yangzi River regions as well as the Korean peninsula.

Buddhist Art and Architecture

Ruwanweli Maha Saya, aka Mahathupa, or “Great Stupa” in Anuradapura, Sri Lanka. Photo by author.

Some of the oldest evidence we have for Buddhism are monuments. The Ruwanweli Maha Saya is believed to have been built in about 140 BCE in Sri Lanka, where the Pali Canon was put together and eventually disseminated. It claims to have the largest collection of the Buddha’s relics anywhere in the world, and rises up 103 meters high. It was built at the heart of the ancient capital of Sri Lanka.

This is a very classic stupa shape, and the shape most commonly found in South and Southeast Asia.

Early Buddhist art and artifacts can be hard to find. There are the Ashoka Pillars, which have references to Buddhist theology, and stupas, but most of the written documents have turned to dust, as they were written on leaves or paper, which typically don’t do well outside of very specific conditions.

The historical Buddha represented as a wheel wrapped with a garland, from Madhya Pradesh, in Central India, 2nd Century CE. In the Freer-Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. Photo by author.

Where we do find art, it may not always be obvious. Take this early depiction of the Buddha as a wheel, with a garland. The idea of existence as a wheel that kept turning and turning, and therefore kept bringing people back to an existence of suffering again and again, is at the center of a lot of Buddhist teaching, and so wheels are often used as symbols. Sometimes they will have eight spokes, representing the eightfold path, but here we see it is just a wheel.

Gandhara and the Kushan Empire

Gandhara Stupa

An image of people worshiping at a stupa. You can see the form is fairly standard for the time. 2-3 Century CE, from the British Museum in London, UK. Photo by author.

The Buddha's Enlightenment

Images indicating the story of the Buddha’s enlightenment, and the suppression of the demon, Mara, who tried to disrupt him. 2-3 Century CE, at the British Museum, London, UK. Photo by author.

Image of the Buddha

This image of the Buddha shows many of the western features common in Gandharan art. The hair is more naturalistic than later depictions, and the loose folds of his robe recall some of the Greek and Roman influence in the region’s art. 2-3 Century CE, from the Seoul National Museum. Photo by author.

Death of the Buddha

Here we see the Buddha lying down, entering nirvana, while those of his followers still here in this existence lament their loss. Notice the facial features of the Buddha, including his mustache, which was prominent in a lot of early art. Also the clothing and depictions of his followers. From ca. 200, at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK. Photo by author.

Boddhisatva

An image of a Boddhisatva—one who has attained buddhahood but delayed nirvana so that they could stay in this existence and help others. From the Prince Albert Museum in Jaipur, India. Photo by author.

Head of the Buddha

From about the 3rd century. Once again, see the features, which were common to the Gandharan style, and which made an impact on early Buddhist images along the Silk Road and all the way to East Asia. In each place he would be depicted with features that were familiar to the people there, while retaining certain distinctive marks, such as the chignon, or ushnisha, at the top of his head. From the Freer-Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC. Photo by author.

Scene from the Buddha's Life

Many reliefs are scenes like this. Much as a church in the west might put scenes from the Bible in a stained glass window, scenes from the Buddha’s life or teachings are often found, usually with depictions of people in local dress and architecture around him. From the New Delhi National Museum. Photo by author.

Seated Boddhisatva

Here is an example of a Boddhisatva, with many of the features of the Buddha, but also with indications of their status as beings who stayed in the world to help others. From the Tokyo National Museum. Photo by author.

The Buddha's Enlightenment

Another scene of Buddha’s enlightenment, with the leaves of the tree above him, and soldiers below and around him—the forces of Mara. His right hand is down, towards the earth, and this gesture is commonly used to reference subduing Mara. Specific gestures and poses became common ways to depict different scenes such that an entire lexicon of how to depict the Buddha was developed. 2-3 Century, Freer-Sackler Gallery. Photo by author.

Seated Buddha

The seated Buddha, holding the fingers of his left hand in his right, forming a common mudra, or hand posture. Here we see a very prominent mustache on the Buddha, common to this period (2-3C) and region. Where we don’t see one, it was probably painted on—most of these would have been elaborately painted in their day, but now only the stone itself remains. From the Tokyo National Museum, photo by author.

Buddha's Disciples

In this scene, the Buddha’s disciples lament their loss at the foot of his deathbed. While most are wailing or comforting each other, we also see one in meditation, not giving in to the feelings of loss. Ca. 100-300, from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, UK. Photo by author.

I’ve collected a series of images and encourage you to look through at the art style in Gandhara that was so influential on later Buddhist imagery. Much of this comes from the 2nd to 3rd centuries, which was the height of the Kushan Empire’s power.

Tarim Basin

A ruined building with no roof. Wooden and straw supports of some sort of floor can be seen beneath the dirt.In the distance are more ruins and a range of mountains. — Ruins at the ancient Kuchean city of Subashi, looking towards part of the Tianshan mountain range. Photo by author.

One of the main routes of the overland silk road was through the Tarim Basin. To the south it are the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau. To the north are the Tianshan mountains, and beyond that the region of Dzungaria, part of the Eurasian steppe. In the center of the Tarim Basin is the Taklamakan desert. Eons ago, it was a fertile inland sea, but over time it has dried up, so that the only remnants are in the eastern extremity—the swampy, stagnant former salt lake of Lop Nor. Despite this seemingly inhospitable land, settlements arose along the edges, where meltwater runoff from the mountains kept rivers flowing. Water could be found there to grow crops and even support thriving cities and kingdoms.

A large mudstone brick wall--possibly part of an ancient building--in the desert. — Ancient city walls at Subashi. Photo by author.

Thanks to the dry conditions of the Tarim Basin, many arts were preserved, including paintings and even documents, giving us keen insights into just what went on along the silk road in ancient times.

One of the larger polities around the time that Buddhism was spreading was the land of Kucha.

Kuchean history is not fully understood. We have mention of it in other documents, but it is known mostly through other sources and the archaeological traces left behind. We do have documents in a language that we believe was the language of Kucha, known as Kuchean or, likely erroneously, as Tocharian B, one of two—or possibly three—related Indo-European languages found in the Tarim Basin. It was once thought that Kucha was related to Kushan and the Yuezhi, though the language of Kushan appears to have been Bactrian, an Indo-Iranian language, instead.

A detailed but eroded painting of the Buddha, with individuals on either side. — The Buddha and disciples from the Qizil cave grotto paintings, 4th-5th Century, on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Photo by Author.

Kucha (or Kuqa or Kuche) likely started further east and then people moved west along the edge of the Tianshan mountains, likely pushed along by the Xiongnu and others who were fighting for dominance in the Gansu region. As such it is part of the northern route through the Tarim basin. While the majority of Kucha has since been lost, there are many sites, such as the ancient city of Subashi and the Qizil caves, which remain. In the Qizil caves, you can see ancient Buddhist statues and paintings by believers. The caves were dug out of the side of a cliff face, and would have provided shelter and shade, which kept the caves, and the art in them, well protected.

A painting of the Buddha is shown on the left, with a dark mustache and hair in the classic chignon style. To his right are paintings of six bald figures, one of whom is holding a feathered fan. — Image of the Buddha and disciples from a fresco in Miran, along the southern edge of the Tarim Basin. 3rd-4th Century, currently in the New Delhi National Museum. Photo by author.

This is where the monk Kumarajiva was from, making his way west towards Chang’an (modern Xian) and helping to spread Buddhism there.

There was another route along the south, where traces of loanwords show up that appear linked to the language of Kucha. Whether there were more speakers in that area or they came from other influences, there were definitely links across the region in terms of art and religion.

Dunhuang

A low wall, maybe 2 to 3 meters tall, with clear striations. The base is covered in sand and dirt, and a modern fence can be seen in the foreground. — Western edge of the Han era “Great Wall” in Dunhuang, near Yumenguan, the Jade Gate. Photo by author.

At the edge of the Han sphere of influence was the city of Dunhuang, where the northern and southern routes around the Tarim basin came together, leading towards the Gansu corridor and into the Yellow River region. Otherwise you were traveling over treacherous mountain paths towards the Yangzi or the Sichuan basin. When the Han dynasty pushed back against the Xiongnu, they established an outpost here, including an extension of their original “Great Wall”.

An imposing mudstone construction with a square base that tapers towards the top. One side shows a large opening, and the outside has clearly been worn away by the elements. — Yumenguan (玉門關) - this is actually a fortress built to house the soldiers who monitored people traveling from the Tarim Basin towards the Gansu region, and vice versa. Photo by author.

“Yumenguan”, the Jade Gate Pass, is mentioned in many of the stories of people passing through the region. A garrison here was supposed to keep track of who was coming and going, and provide protection against incursions by outside foes, such as the Xiongnu. This was the edge of empire, but it was also where many of the merchants and people who traveled back and forth along these desert highways would meet and come together.

A rocky cliffside, worn away by erosion, with numerous manmade caves and rooms that have been exposed over time. — Just a few of the Mogao caves that have not been built up in the way that others have, giving an impression of what people would have seen as they approached.

One of the famous sites of Dunhuang, today, are the Mogao caves. These are some of the most striking caves and examples of Buddhist artwork anywhere. While some of been damaged by erosion, many of the caves remain intact, and there are ongoing conservation efforts to try to minimize damage to and catalog the artwork that is inside.

The caves were first dug out in about the 4th century as a place to practice Buddhist meditation, but eventually it evolved into a system of over five hundred caves where people could worship. Elaborate carvings and paintings can be found throughout the cave system, which was actively being used and improved for roughly a thousand years. Today it is a UNESCO world heritage site.

Image of a wall and ceiling painted with various scenes, including the life of the Buddha. In areas the plaster is missing. The colors are faded to mostly blue and white, though there is faint evidence of other colors visible. — Example of some of the paintings at Dunhuang. These have been exposed to the outside, and thus exposed to the elements over time, but there are many even more impressive paintings inside. Photo by author

Unfortunately, the popularity of the paintings has actually put them under threat. First there are those that were taken out and moved when early explorers like Aurel Stein came through, with expeditions sending samples off to London, Berlin, and elsewhere. But even today, as more people come to study or just to see the paintings, it has changed the humidity and pH levels in the caves, such that many are deteriorating at a much faster rate, and so access has been limited, but there are efforts to digitize many of them so that they can be safely viewed for generations to come.

Image of the Buddha, flanked by two attendants, in clay. The Buddha's right hand is up, palm out, while his left hand is down, also palm out. In his chest is drawn a Buddhist swastika, arms facing counter-clockwise. — Buddhist image of Shakyamuni from the Northern Wei dynasty. H has an ancient Buddhist swastika on his chest, a common symbol at this time, well before it was appropriated by the Nazis in the 20th century. From the Shanxi Museum of History. Photo by author.

China

When Buddhism came in the Han dynasty it was simply one of many religions. While we have examples and mentions of it, it was not as influential, and the Buddhist heartland remained in the West—in India, Kushan, etc. However, in the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, Buddhism gained immense patronage and saw much growth. From the third to 6th centuries there was even a reversal, as the Kushan Empire declined, and Central India saw a rise in Brahmanic traditions. Monasteries in the Yangzi and Yellow River region would become the geographic center of much of the Mahayana Buddhist practices, which themselves spread out to the rest of east and northeast Asia.

Image of the Buddha from the Northern Wei dynasty in 499 CE. From the Beijing Capital City Museum. Photo by author.

Converts during this period often went out in search of documents and manuscripts in an attempt to try to get at a more authentic version of the Buddha’s teachings. This was no doubt hampered by the fact that there were so many different writings by this time, particularly in the Mahayana tradition. The Buddhist canon is vast, and could fill up entire libraries. Debates over which sutras and which practices were more effective would continue throughout the historical period, and even today there are numerous schools that emphasize different things.

Through it all, there are some common threads as to the core nature of the historical Buddha, Siddharta Gautama, aka Shakyamuni, and his core principles. The Three Jewels, the Four Noble Truths, and the Eightfold Path remain at the heart of Buddhist teaching. This would prove both helpful and troubling to various states as they looked at how to use Buddhist teachings and thoughts to support their own aims at political power and stability.

A green-glazed pottery version of a two story watchtower. At each level are crude figures with crossbows pointed outwards. At the very top is a depiction of a tiled roof. — Example of a Han dynasty watchtower from a funerary arrangement. There seem to be obvious similarities between these and the later pagoda towers, although many of the latter were not necessarily made for actual human use.

Temple design and practices were, in turn, influenced by the cultures of these areas just as much as Buddhism influenced them. Buddhist images, originally in the Gandharan style, began to take on their own characteristics. As with other regions, the face of the Buddha often reflected the people who were building the images, and we can see a change in the look of the Buddha as time progressed.

Furthermore, the temples changed. The stupa became more of a tower, and eventually transformed into wooden or stone pagodas. These then became standard for most East Asian Buddhist temples, and even became iconic images of various locations, such as the pagoda of Tōji, in Kyōto, which for centuries towered over the city, and was as iconic as the Eifel tower in Paris, or the Capitol Building in DC. Even today, these iconic buildings evoke the places where they reside.

A multi-tiered tower with a slightly domed top and an octagonal base with trees surrounding it and mountains in the background.. Small holes can be seen at some levels and there are faint decorations along the edge, but the tower is largely plain. — Songyue pagoda, 523 CE. Photo by Siyuwj, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The oldest tower style structure that we have today is the Songyue pagoda in modern China. It was built on Mt. Song in modern Henan province in 523 CE, the Northern Wei period, and is one of the few remaining from this era. Many others were made of wood, a tradition that would pass on to the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago, where we have an example in the oldest wooden buildings in the world at Hōryūji, built in the 7th century, about one hundred years after Buddhism first arrived in Japan.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 84: The Middle Way through the Middle Kingdom.
First things first, thank you to Bodil, Gabe, and Lauren for donating to support the show on Ko-Fi and Patreon. If you’d like to join them, will have information at the end of the episode.
Also an apology—if my voice isn’t in tip-top shape, well, it seems that COVID finally found us after 3 years or so, and I’m on the tail end of it. So thank you for your understanding.
Last episode we talked about Siddhartha Gautama, aka Shakyamuni, the Historical Buddha, and his teachings, and how they spread, at least through the Indian subcontinent, with the patronage of rulers like Ashoka the Great. The original teachings, initially taught as an oral tradition, was eventually turned into a series of writings, called the Tripitaka.
As for how those writings came about, it’s worth talking about the languages involved. The native language of Shakyamuni was probably a language known as Maghadi, or something similar. But the Indian subcontinent, including the modern countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, and Afghanistan, is over three times the size of western Europe. There are at eight south Asian language families, with hundreds of different languages, depending on how you count them. The modern state of India counts 22 official languages, not including English. I mention this to point out that as the Buddha’s disciples spread his teachings, they were, by necessity, translating it into different languages.
There is a story that a student suggested to the Buddha that they make Sanskrit the official language of Buddhism. Even then, Sanskrit was considered a language of learning and education, much as Greek or Latin was in medieval Europe, but the Buddha rejected this and insisted that his teachings be taught in people’s own tongue. This proved great for reaching people, but over time there was a fear that the oral teachings might be lost, and so they were written down.
The oldest written Buddhist canon is generally agreed to be texts in Pali, commissioned in Sri Lanka. These are sometimes called the southern Tripitaka—or Tipitaka in Pali—and it is the primary canon for Theravada Buddhists. In the north, however, Sanskrit remained the prominent language of learning, and texts written down and transmitted in the north—particularly those that made it to China and on to Japan—were typically Sanskrit or translations of Sanskrit texts. This is what some refer to as the Northern Tripitaka. Both of these were transcriptions of the oral teachings that Buddhist monks were otherwise memorizing and presenting to the Buddhist community. That oral tradition, in fact, never really went away, and these early texts were more like a reference so that monks could check their memory. Chanting the sutras—and especially chanting from memory—remained a highly prized skill of Buddhist orators.
Now, the split between northern and southern texts is convenient, but it isn’t necessarily as simple as all that. We have plenty of examples of texts, particularly in the northern traditions, that don’t necessarily have an extant Sanskrit counterpart. In fact, the oldest extant sutras of any tradition that we have today are known as the Gandharan sutras, and written in the Ghandari language using a Karosthi script. Gandhara refers to a region centered north and west of the Indus river, in modern Pakistan, stretching to the Kabul river valley in modern Afghanistan and north to the Karakoram mountains, which is one of the interlocking ranges that form the boundary between modern Pakistan and India and modern China and the Tibetan plateau. It is believed to be the namesake of the city of Kandahar, in modern Afghanistan.
This area was important, and not just to Buddhism. For thousands of years it has been a crossroads between the Indian subcontinent, the area known as the Middle East, and the inner trade routes of central Eurasia. It was part of the conquest by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE, becoming part of his kingdom, but then it was lost in battle to the Mauryan empire, which Ashoka the Great ruled in the 3rd century BCE. The area later fell to Indo-Greek rule from members of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom to the north. The most famous ruler during this period was probably Menander I, who is also remembered as a patron of Buddhism, building more stupas and monasteries in the region.
The Hellenic Greco-Bactrians were eventually displaced by tribes of the Yuezhi, who themselves were being displaced by the Xiongnu, in central Eurasia. In this epic game of musical chairs, a branch of the Yuezhi eventually settled in the area, ruling a large territory, including Gandhara, under what is known as the Kushan empire. They had first moved into the area of Bactria and Sogdiana probably around the 1st or 2nd century BCE, and by the 1st century CE they were exerting authority over Gandhara. Around the time the Gandharan sutras were written down, in the 1st or 2nd centuries, Buddhism—especially Mahayana Buddhism—was flourishing in the region, and Kanishka the Great—don’t you love how all of these rulers are known as “the Great”, by the way?—ruled the Kushan empire, and hence Gandhara, in the early 2nd century. He is said to have been a great patron of Buddhism, although it was one of several religions, including Zoroastrianism, that flourished in the region at this time.
The Kushan empire is believed to be the same Yuezhi that we mentioned in episode 79, when we talked about the Han diplomat Zhang Qian, who had trekked through hostile Xiongnu, or Hunna, territory across much of what is now western China in the 2nd century BCE, seeking allies against the Hunna. At that point, the Yuezhi had had enough of war, however, and they declined to fight, preferring to settle where they were and eventually growing into the Kushan empire. That connection with the Han dynasty, however, likely was maintained through trade routes that continued to operate across the vast expanse of central Eurasia. The Han dynasty itself continued to send out diplomatic missions to the various states of central Eurasia, and of course there were trade routes.
As the Kushan empire expanded into the Tarim basin, it met once again with the Han, who had defeated the Hunna, and then claimed routes across the oasis towns of the desert regions. While the routes would have high and low periods, often depending on the state of various conflicts, in general it seems that Buddhist missionaries probably made it to the Han dynasty and the Yellow River region, and founded monasteries, as early as the first century CE and certainly by the second century. And, by our best understanding, the folks in these monasteries were already doing a lot of copying and translation of texts – both as a meritorious act, and to spread the word. Since this is around the time the Gandharan texts were written, they were likely a part of this larger tradition of copying and translating that was going on, although many of those early documents did not survive intact to the modern day.
One of the earliest records of Buddhism in the Han dynasty is a record dated to 65 CE. Liu Ying, Prince of Chu and son of Emperor Guangwu of Han, sponsored Buddhism—as well as a school of Daoism—in attempts to better understand longevity and immortality. While he was eventually accused of treason, putting something of a damper on his patronage of the religion, it is the first mention we have in the histories of Buddhism, and in some ways it speaks to something else about the initial acceptance of Buddhism.
While there were likely those well-versed in Buddhism, particularly in the community of foreigners from the Western Regions, evidence suggests that for many lay people it was just as likely about what people thought that the religion could do for them in this life as anything else. After all, there are many stories of miraculous events, and there was the concept of reincarnation and karma—the idea that by building merit, one could improve their lot in the next life. There was even a belief that by building merit, one could improve their lot in the current life—and apparently extend their life or even, possibly, gain immortality.
Sure, there were the more intellectual and philosophical endeavors, but for many people Buddhism was just as much about what it could do for them in the here and now. Stories of monks and other holy men fit in right alongside stories of Daoist immortals. In Han tombs, where Buddhist imagery is found, it is often found with or in place of the Queen Mother of the West—the same image that is found on many of the bronze mirrors that traveled across to the Japanese archipelago around this time. It was likely that many of the early stories that the laypeople heard were probably fragments as much as anything. Even with the Tripitaka written down, much of the transmission was still done orally. Furthermore, it was in translation—and probably a translation of a translation.
The earliest stories of Buddhism’s transmission—particularly the translation of texts into Sinitic characters, the lingua franca of East Asia—claim that first the Theravada canon, and then later Mahayana texts, were translated in the second century, with foreigners from Parthia and Kushan credited with the early translations. Others would continue the work, and at first it was mostly people from the Western Regions doing the translating.
One of the earliest stories of sutras making their way to the Han dynasty comes from the time of Liu Ying, when his brother, Emperor Ming, sat on the throne. The stories claim that the emperor saw an image of a golden Buddha, and that he requested either a statue or temple be erected. So he sent people off to Kushan, where they found two monks who would come back with them in 68 CE, bringing portraits and scripture—specifically the “Sutra of Forty-Two Chapters”, which the two monks helped translate into a Sinitic version at Baimasi, or White Horse Temple. As such, this “Sutra of Forty-Two Chapters” has been accorded a status as the first such Buddhist work to be brought to the area that is, today, modern China, and the White Horse Temple, located in Luoyang, is counted as one of the earliest temples in the Yellow River region. That said, there are a lot of questions as to the authenticity of this tale, though it does mirror others about the arrival of Buddhism in the East, even if we cannot verify the actual first temple or work.
Although Buddhism arrived during the Han dynasty, it wouldn’t really begin to fully develop until after the dynasty’s fall in the 3rd century. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, the metaphysical and doctrinal beliefs of Buddhism began to penetrate the elite circles in a more tangible way. Much of the philosophical underpinnings blended well with the interest at the time in “Dark Studies” and the school of “Pure Conversation”, which we discussed back in episode 72. While Buddhist temples, much like their Daoist brethren, found some sanctuary from the chaos that created this period in the mountains and hills—not to mention a bit of added spiritual cachet—it was really the opportunity to gain greater state patronage that also helped.
Monks like Zhi Dun began to reconcile Buddhist thought and doctrine with local beliefs. In some cases, local religious figures—including gods and other spirits—were incorporated into the Buddhist framework, often by their “conversion” to the Buddha’s teachings. This was one of the strengths of Buddhism—although it carried with it a framework of Indian religious teachings and thoughts, it was not exclusive in its cosmological outlook. Buddhism was more focused on helping one escape the suffering of this world, which would take you beyond all such things. As the doctrines were meant for all beings—not just humans, but for animals, spirits, gods, and even demons—there was nothing to necessarily exclude other beliefs. This helped some of the ethnic Han dynasties to accept and even promote Buddhism.
Meanwhile, some of the non-ethnic Han dynasties patronized Buddhism for either its miraculous powers or just because it was a foreign religion, much like they were foreigners in the Yellow River Basin. In many cases, state-sponsorship was a two way street. Dynasts would set themselves up as holy men, claiming to be Boddhisatvas. They would even appropriate the concept of the Cakravartin, a Buddhist “Golden-Wheel-Turning-King”, which had overtones of cosmic overlordship. I can see how that would fit in quite well with local concepts that a sovereign might lay claim to ruling “all under heaven” and be carrying out a “Heavenly mandate”.
Along the Yangzi River, Buddhist monks gained a certain amount of independence. They were not expected to bow to the sovereign, for example; an acknowledgment of their holy nature. In the northern Wei dynasty, however, it was a different story. There, the ruler was said to be no less than an incarnation of the Buddha, and a Chief Monk was selected to oversee the Sangha and no doubt ensure that the various Buddhist communities were in line with official dogma. At the same time, the government provided captured men and women to work fields to help pay for Buddhist temples and their work. Likewise, people would make merit by donating wealth and land to temples, in hopes of blessings either in this current life or in the next life. For their part, the temples were expected to act as storehouses or granaries—the wealth that poured into them would be used to help alleviate suffering, especially in the case of droughts or floods.
It soon became clear, however, that more wealth was going into the temples than was necessarily coming out. There were attempts to reign in this Buddhist establishment, often by limiting the number of temples or even the number of monks, as well as limiting what people could donate. These same edicts were undercut by the elites of the country, however, and often proved less than effectual.
Along with sutras and Buddhist teachings, Buddhist images and architecture spread widely. In India and the Western Regions, a key aspect of many temples was the stupa. This was a mound containing a relic of some sort. Originally these relics were said to be remnants of the Buddha, after he had been cremated. Later, it was said that the remnants of the Buddha turned hard, like crystal, and that the original remains were gathered up and distributed to even more stupas. Later they may contain other relics, as well.
The stupa was an important part of the Buddhist temple, but over time, its character changed. Instead of a mound like we still see in Southeast Asia, we start to see a building—a tower—which became a ubiquitous symbol of Buddhist temples in East Asia. This multi-level pagoda originally started off with simply three levels, often made of brick and stone, but over time it grew with five or seven levels. These towers were inspired by a description in the Lotus Sutra, a Mahayana text, that described a bejeweled seven-storey tower.
Speaking of the Lotus Sutra, this was one of the many teachings that made its way to East Asia, and a hugely influential one. It purports to tell the story of a sermon by the Buddha outside of those mentioned in the Theravada texts. The teachings expounded upon in the Lotus Sutra had a great impact on Mahayana Buddhism and how people viewed the teachings of the Buddha. For one, it also proposed the idea that the Buddha did not actually cease to exist when he attained nirvana, but is simply no longer visible. He still remains in the world to help all life find salvation from suffering. That goes along with the concept of the Bodhisattva, a being who attains a Buddha-like understanding but out of compassion remains in the world to assist others.
The Lotus Sutra also made claims such as the idea that anyone could attain Buddhahood, if they followed the teachings—and not just one particular set of teachings. It opened the idea that there were multiple vehicles—that is to say different practices—that would all get you to the truth, to Englightenment. Even the term “Mahayana” means the “Great Vehicle”, while Mahayana sees Theravada as “Hinayana”, the “Lesser Vehicle”. Both will get you where you need to be, but Mahayana offers an exapansion of teachings and texts that Theravada Buddhism does not necessarily accept as authentic. Indeed in Mahayana belief we also see a focus on multiple Buddhas with different specialties – not only the historical Buddha, but Vairocana, aka Dainichi Nyorai, the Great Solar Buddha, Amitabha, aka Amida Nyorai or Amida Butsu, and so on.
In comparison, the Theravada school tend to be more dogmatic on various points of practice and belief, claiming that they focus on the actual teachings of the Historical Buddha and not necessarily looking for extra texts and practices. There may have been Buddhas in previous ages that attained nirvana and departed this existence, but the Buddha of the current age is the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni. Another Buddha, Maitreya, is not expected for another five to ten thousand years—not until the teachings of the Buddha have been forgotten and are once again required. Acquiring freedom from this existence through nirvana is not necessarily one and the same with obtaining Buddhahood—the enlightened understanding required to save all beings.
There is another school, “Vajrayana”, the “Lightning” or “Diamond” vehicle. It focuses on tantric, or esoteric teachings, which practitioners believe provide a more direct, and faster method to enlightenment. Many secret teachings, or mikkyo in Japanese, can trace themselves in some way to these practices, though it likely didn’t make it to East Asia until the Tang dynasty or so in the 8th century, so we’ll come back to it when we get to things like Kuukai and Saichou, who brought Shingon and Tendai, respectively, to Japan in the early 9th century—about four centuries from our current chronological position.
Both the Mahayana and Vajrayana schools included the teachings from the Lotus Sutra, which would become one of the most important sutras, certainly by the Tang dynasty, as well as in the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago. Its widespread dissemination is often attributed to the famous monk Kumarajiva. Kumarajiva was a citizen of Kucha, one of the oasis towns along the northern edge of the Tarim Basin, and site of a bustling metropolis and capital of one of the largest oasis kingdoms in the Tarim basin. Even today, you can see remnants of the ancient city in the desert, and the dry conditions have preserved a number of artifacts, including plenty of texts referencing Buddhist and other beliefs.
Kumarajiva traveled from the peripheral city of Dunhuang, another site renowned for its Buddhist roots, especially the famous Mogao caves—a series of Buddhist grottoes built into a cliff face which, along with the dry conditions, have exquisitely preserved the early sculpture and painting, as well as, again, numerous documents. He came to Chang’an around 401, and he helped translated numerous Buddhist scriptures into Sinitic characters, which could then be shared and read by people across East Asia—everywhere in the ancient Sinic sphere of influence.
Besides the Lotus Sutra, another famous text told of the Buddha Amithabha, aka Amida Butsu in Japan. Amithabha’s teachings claimed that any who would call on the name of Amithabha, or just picture them in their mind with a sincere heart, would, on their death, find themselves reborn in a Western Paradise—a “Pure Land” where there were no distractions other than to meditate on the Buddha’s teachings and eventually attain freedom from this existence. Whereas many of the teachings and theological discussions of the various Buddhist schools could get quite complex—thus almost requiring any serious student to join a monastery if they wanted to truly study a particular flavor—the teachings of Amithabha were appealing to those without necessarily a lot of time or resources. It boiled down to a few practices that just about anyone could do. It didn’t require that you donate huge sums of money or land, or that you spend all your day copying scriptures. One could chant the name of Amithabha in the fields as you were working, or picture them in your mind as you prepared for bed.
These kinds of practices—the chanting of particular mantras or other such things—became a kind of thing people could do to help protect themselves or ward off evil. A particular example of this practice is preserved in a text from Dunhuang, which has a colophon explaining its purpose. According to Patricia Ebrey’s translation, the text, which was copied by someone named Sun Sizhong, was an incantation that, if said 7, 14, or 21 times a day, with various somatic and material components (willow twig to cleanse the mouth, scattering flowers and incense before the image of the Buddha, and kneeling and joining the palms of the hands) it would clear away the four grave sins, the five wicked acts, and other transgressions. “The current body would not be afflicted by “untimely” calamities, and one will be reborn into the realm of immeasurably long life. Plus, reincarnation in the female form would be escaped forever.”
On that last piece—yeah, Buddhism came with a little bit of baggage. In ordering all of life, men were seen as inherently higher on the ladder than women. This discrimination has been walked back or even abolished in some modern interpretations, but it was definitely present in older beliefs.
Besides the power of the incantation if said 7, 13, or 21 times a day, Sun Sizhong went on to explain that if someone recited it 100 times in the evening and then at noon and it will ensure rebirth in the “Western Regions”, while 200,000 recitations gets you perfect intelligence, and 300,000 recitations, one will see Amitabha Buddha face to face and be reborn in the Pure Land.
As you can probably start to see, there were many different beliefs and teachings that fell under the Mahayana teachings, and many of the texts were translations. Even those that had been translated into Sinitic, it was often done by foreigners for whom the local Sinic language was not their native tongue, so there was always a kind of awareness that important pieces might have been lost in translation along the way. In the 5th century, this led some monks to make the particularly long and dangerous journey all the way to Kushan and on to India, to access the original primary sources for themselves. One of these was a monk by the name of Faxian.
At the age of 62, Faxian decided to go to India to try to get to the heart of what the Buddha really taught. He set out in 399, traveled across the Tarim Basin and into the Kashmir region and the Indus Valley—Gandhara, in modern Pakistan. From there he traveled to central India and arrived at Patna, where he stayed and studied for three years. He traveled around, seeking out works in Sanskrit on Buddhsit ethics and teachings, studying the local languages as well. In 410 he made his way to the mouth of the Ganges and down to Sri Lanka, where he stayed for almost two years before boarding a ship and traveling home—traveling through the straits of Malacca and around Southeast Asia to take the sea route back to his home.
The journey was perilous, and at least twice the boat lost its way. According to the stories, some of his fellow travelers, who followed more Brahmanic teachings rather than Buddhist, believed that Faxian and his quote-unquote “heretical” teachings were what were leading them astray. Faxian was able to maintain order and he and his books eventually made it safely to the Shandong peninsula in or around 412.
He made his way down to Jiankang, aka modern Nanjing on the Yangzi river. There he spent the rest of his life translating the scriptures he had brought back. Others would make similar journeys, all to try to find more authentic versions of the texts—which usually meant finding the Sanskrit version—and then creating translations from those.
With the growth in popularity in Buddhism, it is probably little wonder that it eventually made its way over to the Korean peninsula. It is hard to say exactly when Buddhism arrived, but the Baekje annals in the Samguk Sagi claim that it was brought there by a monk of Central Asia descent in about 384. One year later, we are told the king of Baekje erected a temple and caused ten men to become monks.
The timing of this generally accords with some of the information in the Nihon Shoki, which claims that Buddhism first came from the Western Regions to the Han dynasty, and then to Baekje 300 years later, and then to Yamato about 100 years after that. While the dates aren’t exact, this generally accords with what we know of the way that Buddhism traveled to East Asia and to Baekje, at least.
Although we have textual evidence, there isn’t much archaeological evidence for Buddhism on the Korean peninsula in this time outside of urban centers. That is where we find temple rooftiles and other indications that Buddhism was practiced, but at the time it was probably something more common amongst elites than the common people, at least in the 4th and early 5th centuries. With the invasions by Goguryeo and the loss of northern territory in about 475, it did gain increased patronage. Still, it wasn’t until the 6th century that it really left the urban centers, which is roughly the time we are talking about with the Yamato sovereign Ame Kunioshi, aka Kimmei Tennou.
Next episode we’ll get into just how Buddhism came over to the islands—or at least what is recorded and what we have evidence for—in the sixth century. We’ll also talk about its reception and its patronage by the famous Soga clan.
Until then, thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, 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 Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Lewis M. E. (2009). China between empires : the northern and southern dynasties (First Harvard University Press paperback). Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Best, J. (2006). A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk sagi. Cambridge (Massachusetts); London: Harvard University Asia Center. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1tg5q8p
沈福伟 (1996). Cultural flow between china and outside world throughout history (1st ed.). Foreign Languages Press.
Skilton, Andrew (1994). A Concise History of Buddhism. Barnes & Nobles Books, by arrangement with Windhorse Publications. ISBN 0-7607-4829-2.
Ebrey P. B. (1993). Chinese civilization : a sourcebook (Second edition revised and expanded). Free Press.

Episode 83: Shakyamuni, aka the Historical Buddha

April 1, 2023 Joshua Badgley

Image of the Buddha at Asukadera, one of the earliest temples in Japan (though the original is no longer extant). Buddhism would bring major changes to the archipelago. Photo by author

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This episode we are talking about Shakyamuni, the Historical Buddha, as we start a multi-episode look at Buddhism and how it came to the Japanese archipelago, as well as what it changed.

Who’s Who

SiddhartHa Gautama

The “Historical Buddha”. Believed to have been born around the 6th century CE, Siddhartha Gautama was born to the Shakya clan and became known as Shakymuni (sage of the Shakyas) and given the title of “Buddha”, or “Awakened One”. Buddhists believe that Siddhartha became awakened to the truths of existence and helped define a way to escape the suffering that exists in the mortal plane.

Ashoka the Great

A ruler on the Indian subcontinent around the 3rd century BCE who helped patronize Buddhism. While some histories claim that he completely converted to Buddhism to the exclusion of all else, there is evidence that he patronized multiple religions, though it is clear that Buddhist concepts entered into his lexicon in the form of his various edicts, which are found in inscriptions across his empire.

Buddhist Concepts

Tripitaka

Tri = Three and Pitaka = Basket, so this is literally “three baskets”. This describes the three groups of canonical Buddhist texts. There are the Sutras (Sutta Pitaka), the Vinaya (Vinaya Pitaka), and the Abhidharma (Abhidharma Pitaka).

Sutra

A document that describes the teachings of the historical Buddha, aka Shakyamuni. It includes recollections of his sermons and what he taught. Later there would be other Sutras that likewise claim to be canonical, but would not all be accepted as truth.

Vinaya

The written precepts for laypersons and monks. There are different lists, but they tend to have similar admonitions.

Abhidharma

Other writings about the teachings of the Buddha. These are not necessarily the actual teachings so much as scholarly discussion

Jataka Tales

While not necessarily canonical, these are stories about the previous lives of the Buddha.

The Three Jewels

The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha

Buddha

“Awakened One”. Technically it can describe anyone who has achieved an enlightened state, but it often refers to the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni.

Dharma

The teachings of the Buddha.

Sangha

The community of believers.

The Four Sights

Four encounters that Siddhartha Gautama had that led him to seek a solution to human suffering. These were encounters with a person experiencing old age, disease, and even a dead body, along with encountering a wandering ascetic.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 83: Shakyamuni, aka the Historical Buddha.
First a quick note—it has been brought to my attention that some of the episodes are out of order, particularly the older episodes. I’m going to try to fix that. It probably has to do with a decision I made about a year or so in to not worry about the “season” number, since this isn’t exactly a “seasonal” show. But if some episodes are marked as “Season 1” then they likely show up differently. I’ll probably see if I can’t just remove the “Season” number from all of the episodes and hopefully that will fix it.
Last episode we talked about the happenings over on the Korean Peninsula during the reign of Ame Kunioshi, aka Kimmei Tennou, and it wasn’t looking very good for Yamato and their allies. Over the course of the last several decades in our story the kingdom of Silla rose to power, brokered a deal with Baekje, and then ended up eating up all of the smaller polities that sat between them, including Nimna, Kara, and whatever else was there.
A Baekje-Yamato alliance attempted to put the brakes on Silla’s ambitions, but despite some major offensives they were thwarted time and again. Overall, it seems rather a bleak outlook for Yamato, but there were several things going for it. For one thing, with their close relationship with Baekje, Yamato was getting a plethora of new ideas—from how to govern to the subject of our current episode: religion.
That’s right, if you didn’t figure it out from the title, we are finally going to talk about Buddhism.
The Buddhist religion and its accompanying institutions have played a huge role in the development of Japan and Japanese culture, and so we are going to want to understand something about this and where it came from, and the journey it took to get to the islands.
And to start with, let’s go back to the very beginning, of what Buddhism actually is.
Now this isn’t going to be an in depth history of Buddhism, but I am going to try to hit the high points so that we have some context for things we’ll see later on. It should also be noted that, while the core of the religion remained the same, specific beliefs and practices were not always universal across all people and at all times. Also, not everyone believes in exactly the same things, and as an outsider I’m going to do my best, but this will probably be more at the level of a Wiki article than a scholarly treatise. If you are interested in more, I highly recommend looking into what various scholars have written.
Also, a lot of what I’m pulling from is Andrew Skilton’s book, “A Concise History of Buddhism”, mainly because I think it fits what we are trying to outline here, but I recognize that there other teachings and scholarly discussions. Still, I think most of what we talk about will probably be at an even higher level than that book gets into.
And that brings me to another thing that's important to say up front: when I say Buddhism, I'm not necessarily talking about Zen, or any particular sect, at least not right now - though Zen is Buddhism, or a school of Buddhism. Likewise you might also hear about Tendai, Shingon, or even Jodo, or Pure Land, Buddhism— those are all sects within Buddhism, and just some of the schools that made it to Japan, although a lot of them don't appear until after the time we’re currently in. The differences between these sects could be likened to the differences between Roman Catholicism and various Protestant groups—or even with the Orthodox church. While they have differences, they also have their similarities, and the core beliefs that make them all Buddhist.
As to why this is so important—Buddhism had a huge impact on the development of Japan. As we’ll talk about in a later episode, the adoption of Buddhism affected not just the philosophical thinking of the Japanese court, but had direct impacts that would bring about the end of what we consider the Kofun era. Furthermore, having at least a cursory understanding of Buddhism is going to be useful in understanding some of the ways people thought about the world they inhabited.
Finally: I am probably going to butcher the pronunciation on a lot of Buddhist terms, but I will do my best. Where possible I may preference the Japanese terms, both because they are more familiar to me, but also because that is how most of us will encounter them in the context of Japanese history.
Buddhism gets its name from the fact that it promulgates the teachings of the Buddha, the Enlightened One, and while various people are believed to have attained this enlightened state over the course of human history, we usually are referring to the individual known to us as the Historical Buddha, also known to us as Siddartha Gautama.
Tradition holds that Siddartha was the son of one of the elites of the Shakya clan—later this would translate into the term “Prince”, though some think that term may not be quite accurate. Still he was born into power and privilege, at the height of his society; later this would translate into him being considered a member of the Kshatriya warrior class. His birthplace is thought to be located in “Lumbini”, at the foothills of the Himalayan mountains, in modern Tibet, in the 6th century BCE. Some traditions put the year of his birth at about 566 BCE, though there are those that suggest a later date, even into the 5th century.
From a young age, we are told that Siddartha was protected from much of the outside world, living a life of luxury, and unaware of the poverty and suffering that went on outside of the palace walls. You see, a seer had predicted that he would be destined to lead an empire—either political or spiritual. And so his father did everything he could to ensure that Siddartha would aspire to the political. Even though his mother had died when he was young, Siddartha was largely insulated from any suffering until his teenage years, and he was even provided a young wife, Yashodhara, by the time he was sixteen years old—which probably wasn’t that young, back in those days.
It was as a young man, in his late twenties, traveling about the land in a carriage, that Siddhartha saw four sights that suddenly set his mind on a different path. First, he saw an old man, and in asking about him, it occurred to him that old age and infirmity were the inevitable outcome of life; there is no escaping it. Likewise he encountered people suffering from disease and even death, in the form of a dead body. All of this forced him to confront the fact that suffering is a part of life here on the mortal plane. Finally, he encountered a wandering ascetic, which got him to thinking about spiritual matters, and that perhaps there must be a better way—a solution to all of this suffering.
As he contemplated what to do, he was suddenly graced with what should have been wonderful news: his wife had just given birth to a son. However, to Siddhartha, he saw this child as simply one more thing that was keeping him from going out and seeking answers to the problems he saw. The comfort of his life, the social obligations, the privileges he had were all metaphorical chains, keeping him from going out really trying to answer the questions he had.
And so, at the age of 29, he absconded himself. He left his wife and child. He left the power and prestige and worldly possessions he had inherited from his family, and he went out to seek answers and to find out how to put an end to suffering.
To do this, he sought out teachers, one after the other, learned what they had to teach, found himself at the end of what they could give him, and moved on. These teachers provided various meditation techniques, which helped, perhaps, to ease or even forget the pain and suffering of existence, but the pain and suffering were still there, nonetheless.
It should be noted that a core belief at this time was in the concept of reincarnation. The idea that, based on your karmic balance, that is the difference between the good and evil that you did, here in the world, you would be reborn after death into a new body and a new life. If you did well, then you would be born higher up the ladder of existence, perhaps into a better caste or more. But if you committed sins and evil acts then you would find yourself born further down the ladder of existence, perhaps even as an animal or an insect.
The problem, as Siddartha saw it, was that all of this just meant you kept going back through the same things over and over again, coming back into the world, and once more experiencing suffering. Even stories of the gods themselves tell of their wants and needs, and of their fighting, suffering, and even dying. As long as one stayed on the wheel of life and death, suffering would be inevitable, and you’d always come back around to it.
He sought out answers in some of the extreme forms of asceticism. Holding his breath for long periods. Starving himself. These were meant to bring on a state wherein he hoped he would find the answers. Eventually, though, he spurned these techniques as well, claiming they were dangerous and unnecessary.
He instead ate food in reasonable quantities, and found a form of meditation that felt natural. In other words, he sought out a path between the extremes of hedonistic overindulgence and severe deprivation—a Middle Way, one might say. Practicing this tempered form of existence, he meditated under a tree, and it was there that Siddartha Gautama achieved an awakening, or enlightenment.
He could see the world for what it truly was, and gained profound insight into our condition. This is how he became known as Buddha, or “the one who has awoken”, to quote Andrew Skilton. He was only 35 years old—he had been studying for 6 years to this point, when he finally found the answers he was looking for.
Quick side note right here: For many, “Buddha” is not a single person or individual. People may talk about the historical Buddha to refer to Siddhartha Gautama, but technically “Buddha” is a title for anyone who has awakened to the truths of the universe. Buddhist traditions would come to define various people who had attained this enlightened state, though Siddhartha Gautama is generally considered the most important for the current era.
Siddhartha Gautama spent the next forty-five years or so of his life wandering the land and teaching his Middle Way to anyone who would listen. He initially spent time teaching in the area of the Bodhi Tree, where he had first experienced his revelation, and this area is known to us as Bodh Gaya. He later went to a deer park in the area of Rshipatana, where five of the ascetics whom he used to hang out with were gathered.
These ascetics had known Siddhartha when they were all practicing extreme deprivation together. They had come to see him as a teacher, but turned from him when he spurned his own attainments and started on his Middle Path. It took some initial convincing, but Siddhartha was eventually able to convince them and bring them around.
From five, Siddhartha’s disciples soon grew to 60, and he sent them out across the land to share his teachings with the people. His community of followers—known as his Sangha—continued to grow. As for Siddhartha himself, he seems to have focused much of his time on urban centers, with much of the last 20 to 25 years spent weathering the rainy monsoon seasons in the city of Sravasti.
When he was 80 years old, Siddhartha grew seriously ill, possibly from something he ate. Realizing his own state, it is said that he predicted his death in three days, and he passed away among a grove of trees. Seven days later, his remains were cremated, and, much as with holy men everywhere, bone and teeth left over from the cremation were distributed as relics. Tradition holds that ten relics went to ten rulers for burial under stupas, or memorial mounds, as a tribute to Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.
After his death, his disciples continued to grow the community, or Sangha, and spread the word. The life and teachings of the Buddha were written down in various documents and these were copied into different languages.
In about the 3rd century BCE, Buddhism gained a powerful patron in the form of Ashoka. No, not the Togruta jedi, Ahsoka Tano, but the Mauryan king, Ashoka the Great. Much of what comes down to us about Ashoka is as likely legend as fact, but we do know some things for certain because Ashoka left his own words carved in stone across his kingdom. Many of these mention Buddhist ideas and concepts and even identify key sites, such as the site of Lumbini, where Siddhartha Gautama was born.
At the same time, I would be remiss in not pointing out that it can be difficult to suss out just what Ashoka believed. He certainly patronized Buddhism, much as Constantine patronized Christianity, including calling councils together to help ensure Buddhist orthodoxy, but it also can be read as a form of propaganda, utilizing Buddhist concepts to strengthen his own rule. We’ll see how later sovereigns would use similar tactics to lay claim to being a Buddhist sovereign, as well.
Whatever his motivations, the pillars and inscriptions left from the 3rd century BCE provide us some of the first instances of the term “Buddha”, as well as another name, “Shakyamuni”, the “Sage of the Shakyas”; the “Shakyas” being Siddhartha’s own people.
So with the patronage of Ashoka the Great, the influence of Buddhism spread. But what was it?
Well, what we know is what was passed down, first as oral tradition, and later written down.
First of all, all things in existence are impermanent. That is they come and go. People live and they die. Even we change, moment from moment, nothing is truly static in this world—even if it were to last for thousands and thousands of years.
Then there is suffering—the bane of humankind’s existence. However, it is also inescapable, at least in this life. Describing suffering, and his solution to it, Siddhartha, aka Shakyamuni, revealed the Four Noble Truths, which are at the heart of Buddhist teaching. They are, roughly:
· Suffering is an innate characteristic of existence. Even the greatest pleasure eventually fades, leaving longing in its wake. No matter how many times you go round the wheel of life and death, you cannot escape it.
· Suffering arises because of our desires. From our material wants and needs to simply our desire to not be hungry or cold.
· Ending our attachment can help us put an end to suffering.
· To put an end to desire, and thus to suffering, one should follow the Eightfold Path.
So the four noble truths are something like a diagnosis of the human condition and then a potential solution. By the way, notice the numbers four and eight—just as Christianity tends to find particular value in the number seven (seven deadly sins, seven heavenly virtues, etc.) and 12 (Jesus and the 12 Apostles), Buddhism finds particular significant in the number eight, and, to some degree, the number four, although that would clash in some areas of East Asia, where the word for “four” sounded like the word for death.
And that eight is found in Shakyamuni’s recipe for how to end suffering:
Right understanding
Right resolve
Right speech
Right action
Right livelihood
Right effort
Right mindfulness
Right concentration
These are all individual actions for someone to strive to achieve, but they are also pretty vague. After all, what is “Right Understanding” or “Right Resolve”? That feels kind of like giving someone directions by saying “take the right road and you’ll get to where you want to go”.
Indeed, Buddhism therefore offers various precepts for how to live your life in accordance with the eightfold path. There are precepts for the lay person and precepts for monks and nuns. These include the requirement to avoid taking a life, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and even harsh, frivolous, or senseless speech. There are also positive admonitions, such as to cultivate loving kindness and speech that is truthful, kindly, helpful, etc. There are different lists of these precepts, but they generally include the same things.
On top of this were the rules for monks, including such things as fasting after midday; no singing or dancing; no garlands, scent, or adornments; no luxurious beds; and a vow of poverty—no accepting gold or silver, the coin of the day.
Besides following the precepts, there were various teachings and practices that monks and lay persons can follow. Most common are various techniques of meditation, meant to help open the mind to see beyond the surface of what we can perceive with our eyes and our ears and to transform one’s consciousness.
All of this was geared towards the eventual attainment of a state of enlightenment, and eventually, nirvana. Contrary to many popular portrayals, though, nirvana is not some kind of heavenly existence. After all, any existence in this plane, at least as we know it, was still suffering. Instead, to attain nirvana meant to escape the cycle of death and rebirth entirely. How and what that looks like may vary depending on your interpretation, but that is generally agreed upon as the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice.
This does not mean that there was not a concept of a heaven or a hell in Buddhism. While some have suggested that much of Buddhism and Buddhist practice is philosophical in nature, or geared more towards mindful practice, it is also steeped in certain cosmological views of the universe, and greatly influenced by the beliefs in the Indian subcontinent. Gods and demons, however, were simply different orders of existence, and even gods and demons could seek their own escape from suffering if they chose to do so.
It appears as though Buddhism was originally passed down as an oral tradition amongst the community of Shakyamuni’s followers. Eventually this was written down in texts, describing Buddhism for those who came later. The canonical texts that outline the Dharma, that is to say the teachings of the historical Buddha, are known as sutras. They contain the actual words of the historical Buddha, or so it is believed, and the core of his teachings.
Then there are the Vinaya, which are those writings about the community, or Sangha, and the rules for the community and for various monks. These came about as the community grew, and various Buddhists in different areas, without access to the direct disciples of the Buddha themselves, started to vary in their practices. As such, the Vinaya texts were written to try to give some shared reference material.
Finally, there are the Abhidharma texts, which are further writings about the teachings, generally with a more scholarly bent. They elaborate upon what is found in the sutras, but are not considered the actual teachings of the historical Buddha.
Together, these three classes of texts are known in the Buddhist tradition as the Tripitaka, or three baskets, with any canonical text generally falling into one of the three descriptions.
I’ll note that it is unclear to me just when these texts were written down. The oldest extant sutra fragments are from sometime between the 1st century BCE and the 3rd century CE, but some of the texts—particularly sutras and Abhidharma texts, were likely around much earlier. Various traditions make claims to when different texts were written, but it can be hard, sometimes, to discern fact from fiction.
There is also at least one other form of Buddhist literature which would be important in its spread, and that is the jataka tales. These are stories about the previous lives of the Buddha. Much like Aesop’s fables or the parables found in the Bible, these are stories that contain lessons and often help to break down or explain a particular point, but they are not necessarily the direct teachings of the Buddha himself.
The focus of the canon was to help define and preserve the Three Jewels of Buddhism: Memory of the Historical Buddha, Siddartha Gautama, aka the Shakyamuni Buddha; the Dharma, which is to say, his teachings, and the Sangha, or the community of followers.
Over time, things changed. Early on, Buddhist monks would wander much of the year, coming back together during the rainy seasons and then dispersing again. At various times they would call a council and come together and ensure they still held the same doctrines, though even with that, differences began to form. At first it was just over things like the rules of conduct, which might differ in one place or another. Eventually, though, different sutras began to appear here and there, claiming to describe different teachings of the Buddha. One such sutra is the Lotus Sutra, which claims to tell the story of what the Buddha taught after his last sermon. It claims that after most of the people had left, the Buddha began another discourse just for those who remained, and that became known as the Lotus sutra, one that many will likely have heard of. Other texts include the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra.
Not everyone accepted these texts as factual and canonical scriptures, however. Particularly in the south, down to Sri Lanka, many of the Buddhist communities continued to focus on what they considered the orthodox canonical texts, while others began to incorporate these new sutras into their practice. Those sects that accepted the new sutras, which often focused on the concept of Boddhisatvas—individuals who had done all they needed to attain Buddhahood, but who had “remained” in this world to help shepherd and guide others—or on various tantric and spiritual techniques to attain Buddhahood for themselves, became known as the Mahayana, or Great Vehicle, sects. On the other hand, those sects that denied the authenticity of such sutras and which tried to keep to what they believed was the original tripitaka became known as Theravada Buddhism. Today, Theravada Buddhism tends to be more popular in Southeast Asia, in places like Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos, while Mahayana Buddhism tends to define many of the practices in Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan.
In addition to changes in what people considered doctrine, the nature of the Sangha and Buddhist worship changed as well. Over time, monasteries were set up as specific places where monks could settle down. This may have originally arisen from the places where they would gather during the monsoons, but they eventually became places where the monks themselves stayed, and where individuals might come to learn. In addition, there was a rise in the worship of holy relics, and many such settlements would have one or more stupas containing some form of holy relic that the people could pray to.
People also built statues depicting the Buddha and other figures from the stories. An entire school of how to depict various Buddhas and other figures came about, with specific hand gestures and postures imparting specific meaning to what was built. Traditions arose around how to build these temples and monasteries as well as to how to build the various statues and even to specific identifying features that would call out the Buddha, such as long fingers, drooping earlobes that had once held heavy and elaborate earrings, toes that were all the same length, et cetera. The features of Buddha images—especially the faces—would change in different areas. Much as Jesus is often depicted as a white man, Buddha would typically be depicted with features similar to the people who were making the image. Still, certain aspects remain the same from one tradition to another such that they are all recognizable as the Buddha.
From Shakyamuni’s home south of the Himalayas, Buddhism would eventually spread, following the trade routes of the so-called Silk Road. Buddhist missionaries appear to have made contact with the Han dynasty, but it wasn’t until the Northern and Southern states period that it really took off. Likewise, it made its way to the Korean peninsula, and from there to Japan.
But those are all things to save for our next episode, when we take a look at just how this new religion grew and expanded and became so influential in the continent and eventually in the peninsula and the archipelago itself.
Until then, thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, 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.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Best, J. (2006). A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk sagi. Cambridge (Massachusetts); London: Harvard University Asia Center. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1tg5q8p
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4
Skilton, Andrew (1994). A Concise HIstory of Buddhism. Barnes & Nobles Books, by arrangement with Windhorse Publications. ISBN 0-7607-4829-2.

Episode 82: The Fate of Nimna

March 16, 2023 Joshua Badgley

6th century iron armor from Haman, South Korea, the area associated with the Ara kingdom of the Kara (or Gaya) confederacy. This style of armor goes back to at least the 4th century and can be found in the archipelago as well as on the peninsula. Armor at the Seoul National Museum, photo by author.

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This episode focuses on the struggle that was happening on the peninsula. Below is a rough timeline, and some of the people involved. There is also an excerpt at the bottom on the fate of Kawabe no Nihe and his wife, which I wanted to acknowledge, but given the subject matter thought it best not to include in the main podcast.

Timeline

502 - Silla officially becomes "Silla" (or "Sinra") (SS)

514 - Ara conference (NS)

525 - Baekje exchanges gifts with Silla (SS) [Note: This may be anachronistic and misplaced by about 60 years...]

527 - King of Kara initiates closer ties with Silla (SS)

529 - Baekje gets a port closer to Yamato--possibly taken from Kara's territory (NS)

530 - Baekje and Silla team up against a Kena no Omi (NS)

532 - Nimna and Ara are incorporated into Silla's territory (NS)

532 - Keumgwan Gaya (Kara) submits to Silla (NS, SS)

537 - Yamato supports Baekje against Silla and possibly Goguryeo (NS)

539 - Ame Kunioshi takes the throne (NS)

546 - Succession dispute in Goguryeo (NS) / King Yangweon of Gogureyo takes the throne (SS)

550 - Goguryeo attacks Baekje (SS)

551 - Baekje and Sill push back on Goguryeo taking Hansyeong (modern Seoul) and Pyongyang (NS) / Silla takes territory from Goguryeo (SS)

552 - Baekje abandons Hansyeong to Silla. (NS)

553 - Baekje requests further troops from Yamato (NS) / Silla seized Baekje's northeastern border region and calls it Sin province (Sin-ju) (SS) / Yeochyang leads a force against Goguryeo (NS)

554 - King Seong of Baekje dies in an attack on Silla (NS, SS)

561 - Baekje dispatches troops to raid Silla (SS)

562 - Silla stops the troops from Baekje (SS) / Kara rebels and the rebellion is put down (SS) / Yamato and Baekje attack Silla on behalf of Nimna, with Ki no Womaro and Kawabe no Nihe leading the charge; they suffer defeat at Silla's hands (NS) / Ohotomo no Sadehiko successfully raids a city in Goguryeo

571 - Ame Kunioshi dies and urges his successor to continue to try to resist Silla and reinstate Nimna (NS)

Dramatis Personae

Ame Kunioshi Hiraki Niha, aka Kinmei Tennō - Son of Wohodo no Ōkimi and his queen, Tashiraga—or at least that is what the Chronicles tell us. He was one of the youngest sons of Wohodo, and probably came to the throne in his 20s or 30s. He is our current sovereign this episode—and for a few episodes to come.

Ōtomo no Muraji no Sadehiko - Son of the famous Kanamura, he had previously been sent on expeditions to the continent to support Nimna. Now we find him at the head of a raiding party against Goguryeo.

Soga no Iname no Sukune no Ōmi - For anyone reading ahead, you know where this is going. Soga no Iname is the first Soga to achieve the rank of Ōmi. The fact that he has a personal rank of Sukune is not insignificant, either, though it is unclear when he actually achieved that—there is a tendancy in the Chronicles to use the last title a person had when talking about them. Still, there is little doubt that he will feature prominently in stories to come.

King Seong of Baekje - King of Baekje during much of this episode until his death. Reigned 523-554.

Prince Yeochyang aka King Witeok of Baekje - Crown Prince and eventually king of Baekje, he was heavily involved in leading expeditions against both Goguryeo and Silla, if the Nihon Shoki is to be believed. Reigned 554-598.

Prince Kye of Baekje - Later King Hye [r. 598-599], he was the brother to Yeochyang and son to King Seong.

Charo Mato - Possibly just “Mato” as well. They were apparently of Wa and peninsular descent with titles in both the Yamato court and Silla. “Mato” is the name given of a Wa subject who is causing Ara and Nimna to trust Silla.

Ki no Womaro - Yamato general who had some successes against Silla.

Kawabe no Omi no Nihe - A noble who was made deputy general in the war against Silla. Due to his lack of military expertise he is credited with snatching defeat from the jaws of victory against Silla. See below for what happened when he was captured.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 82: The Fate of Nimna.
Before we get into this episode a few notes. First off, this episode deals with war and with the trauma that brings, to include issues of death, sexual assault, and enslavement. I’ll try to be delicate, especially where we don’t need it to get the larger story, and perhaps reference some of it more fully in the show notes at SengokuDaimyo.com/podcast, so go there for more information. That said, I don’t want to just gloss over it, either—these were violent times and history often deals with subjects we’d rather not talk about. We just don’t have to sensationalize it, either.
As we discussed last episode, we are into the reign of Ame Kunioshi, aka Kimmei Tennou. According to the dates given in the Nihon Shoki, Ame Kunioshi, the youngest son of Ohohodo no Ohokimi, aka Keitai Tennou, reigned from 539 to his death in 571. Thirty two years is a respectable reign for any sovereign, especially considering that two of his half brothers had taken the throne ahead of him. Add to this the thought that he may have been co-ruling in some capacity even before then and it is little wonder that he has quite the entry in the Chronicles.
And yet, most of his entry is taken up with an almost singular focus on one thing: Nimna, the polity on the Korean peninsula that is also known as Mimana in Japanese or Imna in modern Korean.
We’ve talked about Nimna in the past, and it is more than a little controversial. Sometimes it is ignored as a complete fabrication of the Japanese chroniclers, and other times it is equated with the larger Kara confederation. I suspect the truth lies in a complicated middle ground that cannot be fully explained as we only have external accounts regarding its existence.
For my part, I think there is enough evidence to suggest that Nimna was a real place, and a place of some import, as it shows up in things like the Gwangaetto Stele, as well as in some of the Sinitic records as well, so it isn’t something that the writers completely made up. At the same time, any talk of “Mimana Nihonfu” suggesting direct control by Japan or Yamato is just as likely made up to support Yamato’s own causus belli, and may have even been included in some of the earlier documents that the Chroniclers themselves were drawing from. There is also the possibility that the term “Nimna” was no longer in use, but still referenced by Yamato, much as they tended to refer to anything in the Yangtze river basin as Kure, or Wu, referencing an old dynasty that had long since been supplanted by others.
A lot of what we read about Nimna comes from the Baekje records that the Chroniclers frequently quoted. Unfortunately, there is no extant copy of this record, and all that we have is the fragments quoted in the Nihon Shoki, where the Chroniclers frequently embellished the accounts. They would often equate, for instance the Wa ethnonym—that is the term “Wa” used to refer to people of ethnic Wa descent—as an automatic reference to actual subjects of Yamato. It is much more likely that there were a variety of ethnic Wa polities—or at least multi-ethnic states with a sizeable Wa population—on the peninsula and the archipelago, outside of those territories directly controlled by Yamato, though by the time the Chroniclers were writing Yamato really was the only “Wa” polity around, at least of any major consequence. At the time, though, Yamato likely held a place of prominence and even immense influence across the various Wa polities on the archipelago and, possibly, on the peninsula, but things weren’t as cut and dried as we tend to think of it regarding states and countries today.
It is quite possible—even likely—that Nimna was important to Yamato, and most especially to the trade that occurred between Yamato and the rest of the continent. Based on various descriptions, Nimna, or the territory defined as such, bordered both Baekje and Silla, and it may have been made up of smaller polities, possibly with a core polity of Nimna at its head. I could even conceive that there may have been a semi-permanent Yamato embassy set up in Nimna—and possibly with the various other polities as well, though the idea that Yamato was actually controlling these states seems to be too much overreach, to me.
Prior to 539, we are told that Nimna had been incorporated into Silla’s territory, around 532, and Aston notes that in the Tongkam the name “Nimna” doesn’t show up after that date. This is also one of the dates generally accepted for the end of any independence of the Kara confederacy as a whole, and when Geumgwan Kara is said to have submitted to Silla.
As for the presence of ethnic Wa people on the peninsula, that does seem fairly well-established, assuming some accuracy to the Baekje record being quoted in the Nihon Shoki. There are several members of various families listed in the accounts that feel as if they are clear references to people of ethnic Wa descent. These are listed alongside other family names—likely of Baekje, Silla, or similar backgrounds. People like Mononobe no Makamu, who is listed as having the Baekje court rank of “Siteok” and who is being sent by Baekje with another envoy, whose name is something like Chinmu Kwimun. There is also a “Ki no Omi” who is listed as a Baekje envoy with the Baekje court rank of “Nasol”, who was also sent with other Baekje envoys to the country of Ara, or Alla. There is speculation by a later commentator that Ki no Omi may have been the son of a courtier who had been sent on one of the expeditions from the archipelago, and a Baekje woman. Then there is “Charomato”, who apparently was born of a “Korean” mother—likely meaning ethnically from the peninsula, but not of Wa descent. Charo Mato held the title of Ohomuraji, meaning the head of a prestigious family, but also held the rank of Namanye in Silla and went around wearing quote-unquote “foreign dress”, and yet the records still identify him as being of Wa descent.
While we’ve discussed the possibility that there were enclaves of Wa in the peninsula since ancient times it is also possible that members of families from the archipelago emigrated to the peninsula for one reason or another. For example, we have Kawachi no Atahe. This individual is noted in the Chronicles as the “Japanese authority” in the country of Ara, sometimes called Alla, which was one of the polities that was apparently lumped into the larger Kara confederacy. At the same time, it looks like Kawachi no Atahe may have been someone who had been exiled from Yamato—or somewhere in the archipelago—suggesting that he wasn’t actually a “Japanese authority” but rather that he was probably a local official who happens to be of Wa descent. In the case of a name like “Kawachi no Atahe”, that certainly appears to be a locative in the Yamato area, of course, but the whole story leaves me with questions.
Now, as I stated, much of this information comes from the Baekje records that the Chroniclers then embellished. For example, the Chroniclers couch almost all of Baekje’s interactions as being subservient to Yamato, rather than as those of an independent ally, and so as we look at this account, I’m going to try my best to address what is going on without too much of the Chroniclers’ biases coming through. But without independent confirmation from another source, that can be somewhat difficult, as many of the stories here are not found in the remaining records in the Samguk Sagi or Samguk Yusa, for example.
Now I’d like to start with something out of the Samguk Sagi, which tells us that in 502 the country of Silla finally came to be known by that name. Up to that point it had been known as Sara or Saro, evolving as it had from a coalition of about six city-states on the eastern edge of the Korean peninsula.
As you may recall, during the reign of Ohodo, aka Keitai Tennou, there was discussion of Yamato hosting talks in Ara around 514. In reality, those were probably talks hosted by Ara itself, which seems to have risen to some prominence at this point. We talked about that back in episodes 76 and 77.
Later, in 529, Baekje gained access to a port to better facilitate communication with their ally, Yamato. This is presented as a gift by Yamato to Baekje, but apparently the King of Kara had other ideas. They had already been on friendly terms with Silla since at least 527, and it seems that after this they turned even more towards Silla’s embrace. Indeed, the Silla annals in the Samguk Sagi tell us that Geumgwan Kara requested a Silla princess around this time, an event that is also recorded in the Nihon Shoki, and would suggest that they were looking for a marriage alliance to cement their position with their powerful Silla neighbor. What began as a marriage alliance, however, quickly turned into outright subjugation by 532. Ara, likewise, seems to have been in Silla’s sphere of influence, if not outright subjugated, by that point, at least if the Nihon Shoki is to be believed. Many considered this the point at which the Kara confederacy had been dissolved, though some histories consider that the individual polities retained some level of independence, resisting complete absorption for another generation or two, until about the early 560s.
In the current reign, things start out in 540, one year into Ame Kunioshi’s rule. King Seong of Baekje brought together a bunch of representatives of the smaller polities, ostensibly to talk about re-establishing Nimna. This is sometimes known as the Sabi conferences, named for the Baekje capital where they likely occurred. Against the backdrop of Silla expansion, Baekje wanted to prop up some of the buffer states in between the two kingdoms. They urged on Nimna at multiple times to re-establish themselves, promising aid, but Ara seems to have balked and suggested a more diplomatic route. This may have been because they were already on the side of Silla—Baekje certainly makes that accusation of Kawachi no Atahe, who held some influence in Ara.
The Chronicles claim Baekje did this to carry out the whim of the Yamato court. In fact, however, it is much more likely that they were playing their own chess game with Silla. The extent to which their ally, Yamato, was actually involved is hard to say. Certainly we have examples of Baekje and Silla making their own alliances. For example, in 525, Baekje records that they exchanged gifts of friendship with Silla, though Best, who translated the records, suggests that this may be misplaced, chronologically, as there is no corresponding record in the Silla annals of the Samguk Sagi. Then of course in 530, the Nihon Shoki notes that Silla and Baekje teamed up against a rogue Wa commander, Kena no Omi, but then in 537, we have Yamato supporting Baekje against a supposed Silla-Goguryeo alliance.
All of these shifting alliances make the accounts read like two very different stories that have been intertwined. On the one hand is the story of Baekje, trying to help the mighty Yamato restore the innocent country of Nimna, despite the pernicious interference of the irreverent Silla. On the other hand we see friendly—or at least tolerable—relations between Silla, Baekje, and Yamato, each agreeing to meet with each other and even ally with the other as the need arose. Unfortunately, we aren’t given many of the deeper thoughts or reasonings, but I lean towards discounting many of the stories that make Silla out to be the bad guy for everything. In fact, it is much more believable that, rather than overarching themes it was a much more complicated and even local situation, where alliances were more matters of convenience and where even during war the various states kept up some kind of dialogue. In addition, we have to remember the biases of Chroniclers who knew what was coming—in the 7th and 8th century it was Silla who was Yamato’s rival, and so here we see them, with the benefit of hindsight, building up to that conflict, which may mean an overemphasis on the threat Silla posed at the time.
As for ethnic Wa involvement in events on the peninsula, while they were not all the responsibility of Yamato, there may be more than a few that were. After all, there were those from Yamato who had been sent on raiding parties and in warbands for one reason or another over the past couple centuries. Then there were various envoys, who could spend considerable amounts of time in a foreign land and even settle down and have kids.
There was also likely another reason for people to move from the archipelago, which was the expansion of Yamato’s own power. As Yamato exerted greater and greater centralized control, anyone on the outs with the ruling authorities may have wanted to seek refuge elsewhere, and given the fluid nature of things at this point in time, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that they may have moved to Baekje, Silla, or even to some of these states in between. Once there, if they had administrative experience, perhaps they were able to find a place for themselves in their new home’s own government structure. The Nihon Shoki records plenty of examples of Baekje, Silla, and even Goguryeo people coming to live in the island chain, so why wouldn’t some people go in the other direction?
This could also explain Yamato’s own somewhat laissez-faire attitude towards Baekje’s considerable entreaties to get a handle on the various Wa people on the mainland, given that they probably had no way to actually compel them to return, let alone listen to what they said. This was likely a source of consternation for the peninsula, much as various pirates and similar independent adventurers would be in later centuries, when the central government often could not, or simply would not, rein in the excesses of those on the periphery.
The Yamato court may have also endorsed the behavior of these various Wa folks to some extent. There are hints that they were in close contact with Silla as well as Baekje, though the relationship does feel more tense, in general. We have to remember that our Chronicles are largely from either early Japanese sources or from Baekje sources viewed through an early Japanese lens. Meanwhile the Samguk Sagi tends to take a very pro-Silla point of view, while the other entities involved don’t get much of a voice at all.
Speaking of which, there are three other polities mentioned in the attempt to reestablish Nimna and to allow the various members of the Kara confederation to have their independence back. One of these we know as “Teokkwithan”, which we are told lay between Kara and Silla, and so without aid from a powerful neighbor, like Nimna, it was constantly harassed. Then there is South Kara, which was small and weak, and without any real allies that it could call on. While we don’t know the exact situation, one assumes it was probably on the coast, again near Kara and Silla. Then there was the state of Chaksyun, which is frankly depicted as evil and double dealing, and thus basically deserving of their eventual fate.
I can’t help but wonder if, in a way, these aren’t just general stand ins for the stories that happened again and again, both in the peninsula but also in the archipelago. Smaller polities ended up as pawns, and often became the ground on which the more powerful states would fight. That meant that most of the damages would accrue to the local lands, and whatever the motives might have been of Silla, Yamato, or Baekje, that was likely disastrous for the local population, and only further hindered their own growth.
Now Baekje regularly tried to entreat Nimna to side with them and to effectively break away from Silla control, but there is plenty of evidence that at least some in Nimna were willing partners with Silla. Baekje complains, for example, about one individual, named Isumi, whom we are told is the Omi in Nimna—possibly referring to his role as a minister, or else a mistranslation of the name Isumi no Omi, I’m not quite sure. He is accused, by Baekje, of conspiring with Silla to attack.
At the same time, recall that Baekje had annexed territory from Nimna, and refused to give it back, claiming that it was necessary as a buffer in case Silla decided to attack them. Really, I don’t see any shining examples of virtue in any of this.
Baekje eventually decided to set up its own fortresses along the river between Ara and Silla—presumably with Ara’s support. Tensions were certainly ramping up, and Baekje’s own reasoning for setting up the fortresses was to make it impossible for the Silla farmers on the other side of the river—presumably the Nakdong river at this point—to be able to tend to their fields. The reasoning given is that if Silla found it too difficult they would just give up the fortresses they themselves had erected and the independent buffer state of Chaksyun, which Silla had also swallowed up, could be restored.
Here I’d like to give a blow by blow of what happened, but we have too much happening too quickly. Besides the confrontation between Baekje and Silla over control of the various territories between them, there was still a threat from Goguryeo at the head of the peninsula. In about 546 a succession dispute in Goguryeo led to fighting between some of the elite factions in the court over their preferred candidates to the throne, leading to massive conflict. Several years later, Goguryeo was again threatening areas to the south, possibly with the support of some of the smaller polities, such as Ara, who may have been looking to break out from both Baekje and Silla control. In response, Baekje appears to have requested assistance from Yamato, but the nature of travel across the straits meant that any troops were slow in coming. This may be why Korean sources like the Tongkam note that Baekje allied with Silla to help stop the Goguryeo threat. This appears to go back to a long standing agreement between Baekje and Silla, to at least 493, where they mutually agreed to push back against Goguryeo, even as they continued to bicker with each other over the territories in their own regions.
During this latest Goguryeo incursion, Baekje even laid some blame on the quote-unquote “Wa authorities” in Ara, whom they blamed for calling Goguryeo to come in the first place. Yamato, for their part had to deny any complicity—they certainly hadn’t egged on Ara to call for Goguryeo to come help. In fact, Yamato was intending to send their own people to Ara to help repopulate the country.
If this all feels like a mess, that really is the sense I’m getting. There was a lot happening, and things could change at a moments notice. Through it all, though, Yamato and Baekje maintained good relations, even if they didn’t always agree.
By 551, it appears as though Baekje and Silla had pushed back on Goguryeo, forcing them to abandon Hansyeong, aka Seoul and later the area known today as Pyongyang. In 552, Baekje abandoned Hansyeong and Silla occupied it, and possibly the Pyongyang area as well, setting up two towns known as Utopang and Nimipang.
In 553, Baekje was requesting more troops from Yamato, and five months later an emissary was on his way back to Baekje with equipment and promises of troops. In the meantime it seems that Silla had been busy allying themselves with Goguryeo, and it looked like they were planning to attack Baekje. And so Prince Yeochyang, son of King Seong of Baekje led troops against Goguryeo.
This is one of the first in depths accounts we actually get of the fighting, although it still remains focused on the personal. In this case the focus is on the prince, who led his troops out to a large plain and set up entrenchments, presumably to await the arrival of their Goguryeo opponents.
They were not disappointed. Local boys, possibly overseeing their herds or tending the fields, had seen the arrival of the Baekje troops and sent word, and overnight an army had appeared. Prince Yeochyang had heard the sound of instruments in the night, but could see nothing. He had his own men beat their drums in response and they kept a strict watch.
The next morning they saw the Goguryeo troops arrayed around them, with banners covering the fields as a hill is covered with green foliage—or so the Chronicles tell us. A man approached on horseback, and we are told that he wore a gorget, or neckguard, and was accompanied by two others who carried instruments, like cymbals, and two more that were adorned with leopards tails in some fashion. This Goguryeo honor guard indicated someone of rank and status who had come for initial parlay.
The Goguryeo prince asked whom they were fighting. Yeochyang answered that he was of the “same name” as they were—that is, he called on his claim to a common Buyeo ancestry with Goguryeo—and mentioned that his rank was that of Hansol, and he was 29 years old. Likewise the Goguryeo prince responded with his own details, which are not recorded, and then they got things started.
First, before the battle, they set up a marked area of the field. Here the two princes would do single combat before the rest of the battle would commence. And so the Baekje and Goguryeo princes fought. Eventually, the Baekje prince knocked his opponent from his horse with his spear, killed him, and cut off his head, raising it on his spearpoint and showing it off to his troops. This gruesome display was met with joy by his own troops, but I daresay not so well on the other side. After that, the rest of the forces engaged, and Baekje eventually pushed back the Goguryeo forces.
So why tell you all of that? There isn’t a single mention of Yamato, and this is all happening in the north. Okay, it is in the Chronicles, but why does that matter to us? Heck, why did it matter to the Chroniclers?
Well, we could point to how Yamato used the Baekje records as if they were an extension of their own power and hegemony, and therefore a Baekje victory was a Yamato victory in their eyes.
This may also be taken out of context as an effort to support the view that Silla and Goguryeo were allying. In his translation of the Baekje annals in the Samguk Sagi, Jonathan Best points out that Silla had been attacking Goguryeo only a year or two earlier—would they really be allying against Baekje at this point? They don’t appear to have given up the territory they gained from Goguryeo, and so I have to wonder if this doesn’t come from earlier, when a Baekje-Silla alliance took Hansyeong and then the area of modern Pyongyang from Goguryeo control.
Regardless, what interests me, besides the fact that it is one of the few accounts of an actual battle, sparse and biased as it may be, is that the form of battle shown here is remarkably similar to something we see later, in the Heian and Kamakura periods, with the rise of the samurai warriors. It is the concept of single combat, and even the announcing of names. This was key, particularly in times when you didn’t always know who was who on the battlefield. First things first—is this an enemy in front of you, or an ally? And where did they come from and what was this all about? These are not questions easily answered by the dead, and where is the prestige in defeating an unknown enemy?
All that said, did it really happen like this? Did they honestly have these kinds of norms around fighting, at least on the peninsula? Quite possibly they did, at times, though it is also just as possible that this was more of a literary device than anything else—something to let the reader know what was going on and who was involved.
This also seems to kick off the wars in earnest. Up to this point, a lot of the fighting, assuming it happened, was largely off-screen, so to speak, with a focus on more diplomatic efforts, or simply the building of fortresses. It is not dissimilar to the early setup in a game, though this was no laughing matter. Outside of the glory or derision given to individuals in the pages of these historical records, we can’t forget that there was a very real and human cost in what was happening. Fighting meant death and destruction, and displaced people across the peninsula. We see them coming to the archipelago and being settled in various areas, but we also see people enslaved and offered as diplomatic gifts. These are people who were forced from their homes and their lives all because of aspirations of the powerful elites who directed soldiers to fight and die at their behest. We may not always see it, but as we listen to what was happening, let’s not forget the human toll around all of this.
Coming back off of his victory in late 553, Prince Yeochyang continued his offensive against the Silla, this time taking the fight to them, directly. They sent for the Wa troops that had been gathered in Tsukushi and Baekje sent a general with Mononobe no O to ask for even more. In early winter, they were ready to begin their assault. Baekje and Yamato troops assaulted Silla, but it wasn’t enough. This may account for a record in the Samguk Sagi which claims that Silla seized the northeastern border region of Baekje in that year, incorporating it into its own domain.
The records say Baekje sent 10,000 men in their fight to quote-unquote “assist” Nimna, but they needed more, and Baekje sent a request along with gifts to Yamato to presumably help offset the costs.
Yeochyang then headed back to the front with Silla and there he built a fortification at a place the records called Kutamura. King Seong, worried for his eldest son, decided to go to the front to see him there. The Samguk Sagi says that he assumed personal command of a force of about fifty thousand foot and mounted soldiers, and attacked the fortress of Mt. Kwanson along with “Karyang”, which some have identified as Kara troops, though it could be a reference to any number of troops from the areas in between Bakeje and Silla, I would think. The Silla military governor of the recently annexed Baekje territories came down to assist. During the combat, which seemed to be leaning in Baekje’s favor, a Silla leader named Todo made a sudden attack which ended up killing King Seong. This caused the army to break and the Silla troops pursued them. The records say they beheaded around 30,000 Baekje soldiers and four of the highest ranking nobles.
In the Nihon Shoki, they note this battle as well, though not quite in the same detail, simply stating that Silla brought all of their forces to bear on the king. They also mention that he was captured and beheaded, with Silla keeping his head, but eventually sending his bones back to be buried.
Prince Yeochyang, meanwhile, found himself surrounded, and according to the Nihon Shoki it was a man—or perhaps several men—from Tsukushi, aka Kyuushuu, who began to fire arrows so fast that they were able to open a hole in the opposing lines, allowing Yeochyang to escape. Here, instead of pursuing the fleeing troops, the Nihon Shoki claims they held off because of fear of Yamato, which sounds more like embellishment by the Chroniclers.
Following that defeat, Prince Yeochyang sent his younger brother, Prince Kye, to the Yamato court to inform them that their father had been killed and request more troops to avenge him. Soga no Iname, the Ohomi, consoled Prince Kye. He then hearkened back to the time of Wakatakeru no Ohokimi, aka Yuuryaku Tennou, and suggested that they should build a shrine to Ohonamuchi no Kami and worship him once more.
This last part probably seems a bit odd. As we’ll discuss later, Soga no Iname by this point had been selected to help experiment with Buddhism and Buddhist practices, but a lot of Yamato decisions still balanced elements of practical and strategic thinking with elements of kami worship. Without the kami on your side, there was very little that you could accomplish.
This also would seem to be further evidence of links between the kami worshipped in Japan and peninsular practices. Aston suggests there is a link here with the peninsular worship of Tankun, the legendary heavenly progenitor of Gojoseon. Ohonamuchi, as you may recall, had ties with Izumo, but worship of Ohonamuchi may have either come from or spread to the peninsula as well. The idea of a “Great Land Holder” seems to be a fairly nebulous and not particularly location-specific concept. Whether or not there is a link with Tankun is, perhaps though, a tenuous assumption to make.
It seems that there was some urging by Soga no Iname to join common worship to help bring about victory, though it is unclear if Prince Kye actually took him up on this suggestion. By this point, Baekje was fairly well immersed in Buddhism and the ruling elite were practicing Buddhists, though as we will talk about in later episodes, Buddhism doesn’t necessarily require that people abandon the worship of local gods, though there often is some amount of conflict between the two.
Later that year, back in Baekje, with the mourning ceremonies for the late King Seong concluded, Prince Yeochyang announced a desire to retire from the world and practice religion for the sake of his father. This practice of taking the robes of a monk and making merit for one’s father is not uncommon in some Buddhist traditions. Certainly in Japan it became the norm for sovereigns to retire and to take Buddhist vows, but that was typically after they had reigned for some period of time—and it was rarely a full withdrawal from the world. As it was, Yeochyang’s own court protested that while it might be the filial and Buddhist thing to do, he had to also think about the state of the nation as a whole. Instead, they suggested that he have 100 people quote unquote “enter religion”—which would seem to mean that they were forcibly tonsured—on his behalf, presumably to make merit for him and his father while he ran the country.
Both the Nihon Shoki and the Samguk Sagi have something of a pause here, at least for a few years. Baekje had received a pretty terrible defeat at the hands of Silla, and along with internal issues of getting everything back under control, it may have been a period of rebuilding. In Yamato, they note the arrival of several succeeding envoys from Silla who were basically given the cold shoulder. Silla seems to have then given up diplomatic relations for a while and worked, itself, to fortify its borders. The Chroniclers of course note that this was because they feared a Yamato invasion, and there may be something to that—not so much that they feared being overrun, but historically raids by Wa sailors against the Silla coast were not uncommon occurrences.
In 561 the Samguk Sagi once again notes Baekje dispatching troops to raid and plunder Silla’s territory. The Silla annals note this in 562, which may simply be the difference between when Baekje began to gather troops and when they actually attacked. Baekje lost 1,000 soldiers in that debacle.
That same year, the Samguk Sagi notes that Kara rebelled and that a Silla force was sent to put down the rebellion. In the Nihon Shoki, it is said that Nimna was destroyed by Silla this year, and a comment included in the Nihon Shoki states that this included Kara, Ara, Saiki, Tara, Cholma, Kocchi, Chatha, Sanpanha, Kwison, and Imnye—10 states, in total. Quoting the Tongkam, Aston says that the sources only mention Great Kara, or Daegaya.
Here, again, we see confusion in the sources, but it does seem that there was some rebellion, perhaps, in the area that Silla had conquered. According to the Nihon Shoki, Yamato sent troops to the front lines to help support Nimna against Silla, working with their ally, Baekje, who was just off their own defeat. To compound matters, an envoy from Yamato to Baekje ended up losing a letter as well as some of the bows and arrows he was transporting along the way, and these fell into the hands of Silla, which gave them crucial intelligence on what was being planned.
The Yamato generals for this endeavor were Ki no Womaro no Sukune and Kawabe no Omi no Nihe. Ki no Womaro appears to have had some early successes, and he encouraged the troops. Kawabe no Nihe, however, was inexperienced—apparently he was appointed because of his position in the court, rather than his military expertise.
During one of the encounters with the Silla troops, he had them pinned down, and they raised a white flag, a symbol—even back then—of a desire for a ceasefire to talk terms and possibly surrender. Nihe, however, was unaccustomed to warfare, and when he saw them wave the white flag he raised his own white flag in response, apparently thinking that it would stop the fighting. To the Silla troops, however, it looked like he was giving up as well, and so they lowered their flag and redoubled their efforts. Silla eventually routed the Yamato vanguard and many were injured. Some commanders even abandoned their troops, rushing back to the safety of their own fortifications.
Nihe survived, withdrawing to a nearby plain, but his troops’ confidence in him as a leader was shot, and they stopped listening to him. With little to no unit cohesion, they became easy prey for Silla forces, who rounded them all up, including the camp followers and Nihe’s own wife, who was there with him. Her name was Mumashi Hime, daughter of Sakamoto no Omi.
Here I’m going to take a pause on what happened next. Let’s just say that Nihe continued his less than heroic streak and that his wife paid the price. I’ll have more in the show notes at SengokuDaimyo.com/podcast, but we really don’t need to go into the gory details of it all here to get the bigger picture, as I really just want to set up what comes next.
You see, in contrast to Nihe’s behavior is the story of another man named Mitsugi no Kishi no Ikina. Ikina refused to submit to Silla. Threatening him with death the Silla commander made him remove his trousers. He then tried to force him to humiliate himself by pointing his posterior towards Yamato and crying out, and I quote: “Yamato Generals, Bite my A**!”. And yes, that is what the Chronicles say happened. Apparently that phrase is more universal than one might have suspected. Aston even makes the comment that there wasn’t really a good word for “Kiss” in Old Japanese and that “Bite” was probably the equivalent for the times. Either way, I think you get the meaning. Anyway, even threatened with death Ikina refused to submit, and instead he cried out “Let the King of Silla Bite my A**!”
Well things went downhill from there, and the Silla forces put him to death, along with his son, who had run out to comfort him. There is a song given for his wife, Ohobako, who had also been captured with him, which comes down to us as:
“Karakuni no / Kinoe ni tatashi / Ohobako wa / Hire Furasu miyu / Naniwa ni mukite”
“Standing on the walls of the country of Kara, Ohobako is seen to wave her scarf, turning towards Naniwa”
In the end, the sources agree that Silla was victorious. The rebellious regions submitted and Yamato troops withdrew.
There were no more major conflicts noted with Silla after that, at least not during Ame Kunioshi’s reign.
There is one more martial account, however, and it immediately follows on the footsteps of the disastrous raid of 562. Thousands of Yamato troops, working with help from Baekje and under the command of Ohotomo no Sadehiko, son of Ohotomo no Kanamura, attacked a city in Goguryeo territory where the King himself was staying. The king fled, and Sadehiko returned with numerous items of loot. These included a rich brocaded curtain that had been found in the king’s chambers, which was gifted to the sovereign. In addition, he gifted to Soga no Iname, the Oho-omi, and apparently the most powerful person at court at this point, two suits of armor, two swords mounted in gold, three copper bells with chasings, two flags of various colors, and a beautiful woman and her attendant, who had been captured and enslaved in the fighting. There was also an iron building—possibly like a shrine—that had been taken from a tower in the city and which was for a while kept in Chouanji temple, but by the time that the Chroniclers were recording the Nihon Shoki nobody was quite sure where that was or what had happened to it.
This seems odd to follow on to the disaster of the raid on Silla and the utter subjugation of the various states between Silla and Baekje, and it isn’t referenced in the Samguk Sagi at all. Then again, there is a general lack of any references at this point, so that may not mean as much as it seems. It could be that this was placed here just to provide some kind of victory in the face of such a crushing defeat by Silla. Then again, it is quite possible that Yamato and Baekje troops did use the opportunity to attack a Goguryeo that was still weakened and reeling from its losses to the Baekje Silla alliance years earlier.
Speaking of which, whatever alliance Baekje and Silla may have had, the annexation of all of the Kara states by Silla had put an end to it. Now Baekje and Silla shared a common border, with no buffer states between them. It was clear that Silla was now Baekje’s number one rival, as opposed to the weakened Goguryeo. From the beginning of Ame Kunioshi’s reign to now, whether or not Yamato had actually played a significant part in it, it was clear that the balance of power had shifted, and Silla was a rising threat.
Still, Yamato had big dreams—perhaps bigger than they could accomplish on their own. In 571, Ame Kunioshi passed away. As he lay dying, he urged his successor, Crown Prince Nunakura Futotamashiki, aka Bidatsu Tennou, to continue to fight to re-establish Nimna, which would become something of a causus belli through at least the reign of Toyomike Kashikiyahime, aka Suiko Tennou, with the last reference being made in the second year of Taika, or about 646, a good 75 years later. Notably, this deathbed request is the only real mention of Nimna in the Sendai Kuji Hongi, and some of have suggested that many of the more florid embellishments may have come from about the time of Kashikiyahime, to help justify her court’s own military campaigns.
Based purely on the conflict over Nimna and the other states collectively known as the Kara or Gaya Confederation, it would seem like this period was a huge loss for Yamato. And yet the close cooperation and dialogue with Baekje brought numerous gifts to the islands. This included further teachings from the continent that would help continue to shape the Yamato court with greater and more effective technologies that would strengthen the central government. And then there was the introduction of Buddhism, which also had come around this time, and which will be the subject of our next episode.
Until then, thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, 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.

Below is the story of Kawabe no Nihe. I’ve attempted to “hide” the text as it contains discussions of sexual assault.

Realizing that he had his rival’s wife in custody, the Silla commander—likely either Isabu or his deputy, Sadaham, assuming this is the same event recorded in the Silla annals—asked Nihe what was more important to him, his own life or his wife. Nihe scoffed at this, asking why should he come to disaster just because of a woman. Mind you, it was his inexperience that had them all captured in the first place.
Given Nihe’s answer, the Silla commander took Nihe’s wife and publicly ravished her.
Following this, the commander let the self-serving Nihe go, and Nihe went and tried to speak with his wife. But really, what do you say to someone who was basically handed over and punished on your behalf. We aren’t told how it ended, but Nihe’s name doesn’t exactly come up again, and he clearly has been blamed for this entire episode and huge red flag warning of what not to do.

References

Kim, P., & Shultz, E. J. (2013). The 'Silla annals' of the 'Samguk Sagi'. Gyeonggi-do: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Kim, P., & Shultz, E. J. (2011). The 'Koguryo annals' of the 'Samguk Sagi'. Gyeonggi-do: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253.
Best, J. (2006). A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk sagi. Cambridge (Massachusetts); London: Harvard University Asia Center. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1tg5q8p
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

Episode 81: The Politics of the Early Yamato Court

March 1, 2023 Joshua Badgley

Artist’s speculative image of Kinmei Tennō in the 19th century. Image in the public domain. File from Wikimedia Commons.

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This episode we start our look at the reign of Ame Kunioshi Hiraki Niha, aka Kinmei Tennō. We’ll start off with a look at his ascension to the throne and some of the politics that we can see going on in the court. We’ll also discuss some of the theories regarding this reign, particularly its chronological placement in the Chronicles, which may not be exactly as it seems. Still, we are in what many consider to be the historical period, meaning that the records the Chroniclers were working from are assumed to be more accurate—they were likely using more written material, including books we no longer have extant. However, that doesn’t mean everything is factual, and it is clear there are still some lacunae in the texts and some additional massaging by the Chroniclers themselves.

Dramatis Personae

Magari no Ohine, aka Ankan Tennō - Eldest son of their father, Wohodo no Ōkimi, aka Keitai Tennō. His rule was short, but there were still a few things to note.

Takewo Hiro Kunioshi Tate, aka Senka Tennō - Full brother to Magari no Ohine, he was their father’s second eldest, and he succeeded his brother to the throne.

Kasuga no Yamada no Himemiko - Wife to Magari no Ohine, she could have possibly taken the throne, but she deferred to Ame Kunioshi—or so we are told. She appears to be part of the Kasuga family.

Ōtomo no Kanamura no Ōmuraji - Long time minister of Yamato, Kanamura has built a successful career through two dynasties, often with a focus on his exploits on the continent. However, by this reign he is old, and it is unclear that his sons will be able to maintain the family’s position of prominence.

Mononobe no Okoshi no Ōmuraji - Successor to Arakahi, the Mononobe have an illustrious history, going back to the earliest sovereigns. They are quite involved both in the archipelago and on the peninsula at this point. There are numerous individuals using the Mononobe family name on the continent who end up with Baekje titles, rather than Yamato ones.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 81, the Politics of the Early Yamato Court.
Last episode, before our Nara tour interlude, we covered the life of Takewo Hiro Kunioshi Tate, aka Senka Tennō. He picked up where his brother, Magari no Ohine, aka Ankan Tennō, had[EB1] left off, and is said to have reigned for about two and a half years, from 536 to 539. During that time we see more of the rise of the family of Soga no Omi but we also see the Ōtomo no Muraji and the Mononobe going quite strong. The sons of Ōtomo no Kanamura ended up involved with the government in Tsukushi, aka Kyuushuu, as well as the war efforts across the straits, mainly focused on Nimna and the surrounding areas. Indeed, as we talked about last episode—episode 80—it is said that Ohtomo no Sadehiko went to Nimna and restored peace there, before lending aid to Baekje[EB2] .
This preoccupation with Nimna and events on the Korean peninsula are going to dominate our narrative moving forward, at least initially. Much of the next reign focuses on events on the peninsula, rather than on the archipelago. Oddly, this preoccupation isn’t d everywhere. In the Sendai Kuji Hongi—and other copies of the same work—there appears only a brief mention of Nimna, aka Mimana, in the record, which otherwise simply talks about inheritance and similar issues.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Before we dive into all of that, to include all of the peninsular goodness that we have coming our way, let’s briefly talk about some of the things a little closer to home. Mainly, let’s talk about the succession and who our next sovereign appears to be.
So first off, his name is given as Ame Kunioshi Hiraki Hiro Niha, and he is posthumously known to us as Kimmei Tennō. For my part, rather than repeating the whole thing, I’m going to refer to him simply as Ame Kunioshi, though I’m honestly not sure if the best way to parse his name, assuming it isn't just another type of royal title. He is said to have been the son of Wohodo no Ōkimi, aka Keitai Tennō, and his queen, Tashiraga, a sister to Wohatsuse Wakasazaki, aka Buretsu Tennō. This would all seem pretty straightforward if it weren’t for the fact that two of his half-brothers had taken the throne before him. Prince Magari and his brother, Takewo, were descended through another line, that of Menoko, daughter of Owari no Muraji no Kusaka. Menoko did not appear to meet the Nihon Shoki’s Chroniclers’ strict requirements for being named queen—namely, they don’t bother to trace her lineage back to the royal line in some way, shape, or form. As such, the Nihon Shoki tries to pass off the reigns of the two brothers as though they were just keeping the seat warm while Ame Kunioshi himself came of age.
None of the language used, however, really suggests that they were not considered legitimate in the eyes of their respective courts, and in all aspects they played the part of sovereign, and it is quite likely that if they had reigned long enough, or had valid heirs, themselves, we may be reading a slightly different story. As it is, the Chroniclers likely manipulated the narrative just enough to ensure that things made sense in terms of a linear progression.
And that manipulation hardly stopped at his ascension. The account of Ame Kunioshi on the throne is filled with questionable narration. Beyond just the fantastical—accounts of kami and of evil spirits—much of the reign is focused on events on the Korean peninsula, and these are almost always portrayed as actions by the Kingdom of Baekje, one of the three largest kingdoms across the straits, along with Silla and Goguryeo. Baekje, in turn, is portrayed in the Nihon Shoki as a loyal vassal state, constantly looking to the sovereign of Yamato as their liege and attempting to carry out their will.
For the most part, this is a blatant attempt by the Chroniclers to place Yamato front and center, and in control of events on the mainland. Taken at face value, it has for a long time fueled nationalist claims to the Korean peninsula, and may have even been designed for that very purpose. Remember, a history like this was written as much for a political purpose as it was record for posterity, and the narration is about as trustworthy as that of a certain fictional radio host in a sleepy desert community.
And yet, we want to be careful about throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, here. The Nihon Shoki is a treasure trove of stories about this period and what was happening on the mainland, even if we have to be careful of taking everything at face value. The details given in the text are sometimes more than any other sources we have for this period, and they are certainly closer to the source. Korean sources, such as the Samguk Sagi, the Samguk Yusa, and the Tongkam all have their own gaps in the literature of the time, as well as their own political aims and goals, such that even they are suspect. Sure, the flowery speechification is probably a little too much, but much of the back and forth seems reasonable, and there are numerous times where the Nihon Shoki directly quotes the copy of the Baekje annals that they had at the time—a text that is no longer extant, and which seems to have items that did not make it into later collections. By following the back and forth and the flow of allegiances and deceptions, and looking at who was said to have been involved—both the individuals and the countries—we might be able to draw a picture of this era.
And what a picture it will be. I probably won’t get to it all today, but there is conflict over Nimna, with Baekje and Yamato typically teaming up against Silla and Goguryeo, but there are other things as well. For one thing, nothing in this era is cut and dried, and while there are overarching themes, alliances were clearly fluid, and could quickly change. Furthermore, all this activity spawned a new level of interaction, particularly between Baekje and Yamato, and we see a new era of Baekje sharing their knowledge with Yamato. For instance, this reign we see the first mention of Yin-Yang Divination studies—the famous Onmyouji—as well as calendrical studies in the archipelago. We also see the arrival of Buddhism to the islands. Well, at least we see the formal introduction of Buddhism; given all of the people in the archipelago who came over from the continent, there were likely more than a few Buddhists already living in the archipelago, but it hadn’t grown, yet, to be a State religion, as it would be in later centuries.
To try to do this period justice, I’m going to try to break things down a bit so that we can focus on various themes as we move through the stories here. It will probably take us a few episodes to get through. Furthermore, at some point here I want to talk about this new religion, Buddhism, and how it traveled all the way from India to the islands of Japan. But for now, let’s focus on the Chronicles.
Not all of what is talked about in this reign is focused on the mainland, so I’m going to start us off talking about the stories about this period that are taking place in the islands themselves, starting with how Ame Kunioshi came to the throne. Or rather, with some events just before he came to the throne.
The first story about Ame Kunioshi comes when he is simply a prince—it is unclear during which reign this is supposed to have happened, only that it happened before he came to the throne. The Chronicles say that Ame Kunioshi had a dream in which he was told to seek out a man named Hata no Ōtsuchi.
We’ve seen in the past these kinds of oracular dreams, where the gods, or kami, will speak directly to a person—often to the sovereign or someone close to the sovereign. By all accounts, the ability to act as a conduit for the kami was an important aspect of rulership and political power at this time, and we’ve seen the supposed consequences of not listening to such an oracle as well. And so he sent people out to find this man, who was eventually found in the Kii district of the land of Yamashiro.
Now this area is not surprising. It is identified as the area, today, in the modern Fushimi district of Kyoto. In fact, it includes the area of the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha—the Fushimi Inari shrine. That shrine is also connected to the Hata family.
For those who don’t recall, the Hata family appear to have been descended from weavers who were brought over from the continent. The kanji used for their name is the same as that of the Qin dynasty, from which we get the modern name of China, though the pronunciation is taken from the word “Hata”, which appears to refer to a type of cloth, and also resembles the word for banners or flags. We mentioned them some time back in episode 63, when we talked about one of the early heads of the Hata, who was given the name Uzumasa. That name is still used to identify a district in Kyoto to this day.
And so here we are, back in the Kyoto area, near Fushimi shrine, which is also, as it happens, connected to the Hata family. That story is found not in the Nihon Shoki, but rather it is attributed to fragments of the Yamashiro no Fudoki. In that account we hear tell of a wealthy man named Irogu, whom we are told is a distant relative of Hata no Nakatsu no Imiki—no doubt a contemporary to the Yamashiro Fudoki, and the reason the story made the cut. Irogu, it seems, had made himself wealthy through rice cultivation. In fact, he had so much rice that he was using mochi—pounded glutinous rice cakes—as targets for his archery practice. As he was shooting at the mochi, suddenly one of them turned into a swan and flew up into the sky, up to the top of a nearby mountain. Where it landed rice, or “ine”, began to grow.
That mountain is none other than the site of Fushimi Inari Shrine, a shrine that will show up again and again in various stories, as it was quite prominent. Though the shrine was only founded in the 8th century, the story may indicate that there were older rituals, or perhaps that it was a focus of worship much like Mt. Miwa, down in the land of Yamato, to the south, and that shrine buildings were simply added to the mountain at a later date. Fushimi is, of course, the place, and Inari is the name of the god, or kami, worshipped at the shrine. Inari is a god of farming—specifically of rice cultivation—and today small Inari shrines can be found throughout Japan. They are typified by red gates—usually multiple gates, one after the other, often donated by various individuals. In addition, one might see Inari’s servants and messengers, foxes, which take the place of the lion-dogs that often guard shrine precincts. Importantly, these foxes are not the kami themselves, but simply the kami’s messengers. Still people will often bring gifts of oily, deep fried tofu—abura-age—said to be a favorite of foxes, to help ensure that their prayers—their messages to the kami—are swiftly and properly delivered.
I could probably do an entire episode on Fushimi Inari and Inari worship in Japan. There is so much material on the phenomenon on foxes, or kitsune, and fox-spirits, especially with the co-mingling of both continental and insular belief, which is sometimes at odds. For now, however, we can confine ourselves to the fact that Fushimi clearly had connections to the Hata family, who have shown up a few times in the past, but are still largely taking bit roles in things at the moment. Nonetheless, since the Chroniclers were writing from the 8th century, things like this, which were no doubt important to the powerful families of their day, were often included.
Getting back to our main story, when Hata no Ōtsuchi came before the prince, Ame Kunioshi, he told a story of how he had been traveling the land, coming back from trading in Ise, when he came upon two wolves, fighting each other on a mountain. The wolves were each covered in blood from their hostilities, and yet, through all of that, Hata no Ōtsuchi recognized them as visible incarnations of kami. Immediately he got off his horse, rinsed his hands and mouth to purify himself, and then made a prayer to the kami. In his prayer he admonished them for delighting in violence. After all, while they were there, attacking each other, what if a hunter came along and, not recognizing their divine nature, took both of them? With his earnest prayer he got them to stop fighting and he then cleaned off the blood and let them both go, thus saving their lives.
Hearing such a story, Ame Kunioshi determined that his dream was likely sent by the same kami saved by Ōtsuchi, or perhaps another spirit who had seen his good deed, who was recommending this good Samaritan to the prince. And who was he to deny the kami? So when he came to the throne, Ame Kunioshi put Hata no Ōtsuchi in charge of the Treasury.
That would have to wait until he actually ascended the throne, however; an opportunity that preserved itself with the death of his half brother, Takewo no Ōkimi. When Takewo passed away in 539, we are told that the ministers all requested that Ane Kunioshi take the throne, but at first he deferred, suggesting that the wife of his eldest half brother, Magari no Ohine, aka Ankan Tennō, take the throne, instead.
This was the former queen, Yamada, daughter of Ōke no Ōkimi, aka Ninken Tennō, so no doubt she had a good sense of how the government should work. Yet she, too, waved off the honor. Her reasoning, though, is a very patriarchal and misogynistic diatribe about how women aren't fit four the duties of running the country. Clearly it is drawn from continental sources, and it always makes me wonder. After all, the Nihon Shoki was being written in the time of rather powerful women controlling the Yamato court – which, I imagine irked some people to no end, especially those learned in classic literature, such as the works of Confucius.
So I wonder why this was put in. Did he truly defer to her? Or was this just to demonstrate his magnanimous nature? Was she pushed aside by the politics of the court? I also wonder why they went to her, and not Takewo’s wife. It is also interesting to me that the Chroniclers only note her own objections to her rule, and there isn't a peep out of the assembled ministers.
There appears to be another possible angle. Some scholars have pointed out inconsistencies with the timeline and events in the reign of Ame Kunioshi that may have actually happened much earlier, including the arrival of Buddhism. They suggest that perhaps there was a period of multiple rulers, possibly rival dynasties, with Magari no Ohine and his brother, Takewo, handling one court and Ame Kunioshi ruling another. If that were the case, then was Yamada the senior person in the other line? At the very least she represents the transfer of power and authority over to Tashiraga’s lineage.
Moving forward, we’re going to want to pay close attention to these kinds of political details. Often we’ll see how how princes of different mothers will end up as pawns in the factional infighting that will become de rigeur in the Yamato court, with different families providing wives in the hopes that they might eventually be family members to the next sovereign.
So, however it really happened, Ame Kunioshi took the throne. He reappointed Ōtomo no Kanamura and Mononobe no Okoshi Ōmuraji and named Soga no Iname no Sukune back to his position as Ō-omi. He set up his palace at a place called Shikishima, in the district of Shiki in the middle of the Nara Basin in the ancient country of Nara—still within sight of Mt. Miwa and, by now, numerous kofun built for previous kings, queens, and various nobles. Both the Emishi and the Hayato are said to have come and paid tribute—apparently part of the enthronement rituals—and even envoys from Baekje, Silla, Goguryeo and Nimna are said to have stopped in with congratulatory messages. These were probably fairly pro forma messages to maintain good—or at least tolerable—relations between the various states of the day, not unlike today when various people call a newly elected president or prime minister to congratulate them on their own entry to office.
He also took as his Queen his own niece, daughter of his half-brother, the previous sovereign, Takewo Hiro Kunioshi Tate, aka Senka Tennō. Her name was Ishihime, and she would provide Ame Kunioshi with several children, including the Crown Prince, Wosada Nunakara Futodamashiki no Mikoto, aka the eventual Bidatsu Tennō.
By the way, for anyone concerned that Ame Kunioshi was” robbing the cradle”, so to speak, remember that he was already 33 years younger than his brother. It is quite possible, assuming the dates are correct, that he and Ishihime were roughly the same age. To put it another way, if Ame Kunioshi was a Millennial, his brother Takewo had been a Boomer, meaning that Ishihime was likely either Gen X or a Millennial herself, to extend the analogy.
Of course, they were still uncle and niece, so… yeah, there’s that. I could point out again that at this time it was the maternal lineage that determined whether people were considered closely related or not. Children of different mothers, even with the same fathers, were considered distant enough that it was not at all scandalous for them to be married, and that we probably should be careful about placing our own cultural biases on a foreign culture—and at this point in history many aspects of the culture would be foreign even to modern Japanese, just as a modern person from London would likely find conditions in the Anglo Saxon era Lundenwic perhaps a bit off-putting. Still, I don’t think I can actually recommend the practice.
Now it is true he was coming to the throne at relatively young age. He was probably about 30 years old when he took charge of the state, while his brothers, their father’s eldest sons, had come to the throne much later in life, in their 50s or 60s. And if Ame Kunioshi was actually ruling earlier then he might have been younger, running the state of Yamato—or at least some part of it—when he was still in his early 20s.
Along with Ishihime, Ame Kunioshi took several other wives. The first two were Ishihime’s younger sisters, Kurawakaya Hime and Hikage. Then there were two daughters of Soga no Iname—and yes, *that* Soga no Iname, the re-appointed Ō-omi. At least three of the next four sovereigns would come from those two unions, and I’ll let you take a guess at how the Soga family’s fortunes fared during that time.
Finally, the last wife was was named Nukako, and she was the daughter of Kasuga no Hifuri no Omi.
Kasuga was also the family name of Kasuga no Yamada no Himemiko, who had turned down the throne to allow Ame Kunioshi to ascend, though we don’t hear too much else from the Kasuga family. This could be connected to that, although it is hard to be certain. For the most part the Kasuga family seems to stay behind the scenes, but the fact that they are inserting themselves into the royal line at different points would seem to be significant.
The Soga, on the other hand, are going to feature quite prominently in matters of state moving forward.
While it is unclear just when the various marriages occurred—they may have happened before or after his ascension to the throne—it is interesting to see how much influence the Soga family may have had in the royal bedchamber, something we would do well to remember as we look into this period.
And while the Soga family was on the rise, other families were not doing so well. In particular, it seems that something happened to the Ōtomo family.
Now don’t get me wrong, Ōtomo Kanamura, that veteran courtier, was reappointed as Ōmuraji at the start of the reign, and given all of his influence up to this point, he clearly had been doing something right. But then we have a single incident at the start of Ame Kunioshi’s reign that makes me wonder.
It took place during a court visit to Hafuri-tsu-no-miya over at Naniwa—modern Ōsaka. Hafuri would appear to refer to a Shinto priest, so apparently they were at the palace—or possibly shrine—of the Priest, at least as far as I can make out. When Ame Kunioshi went out, much of the court came with, including Ōtomo no Kanamura, Kose no Omi no Inamochi, and Mononobe no Okoshi. Of those three, Kose no Inamochi seems a bit of an odd choice, but we’ll go with it, for now.
While they were there, away from the palace, talking over various subjects, the conversation turned towards talk about invading Silla. At this, Mononobe no Okoshi related the story of how Kanamura had basically orchestrated giving up four districts of Nimna over to Baekje. Those were the Upper and Lower Tari, Syata, and Muro. This had pissed off Silla, who no doubt wanted as much of a buffer state between them and their allies as possible, and who also may have felt that Nimna and other border states were theirs to manipulate. Through all of these talks and deliberations, which apparently went on for some time, Kanamura stayed at home, out of the public eye, feigning illness. Eventually, though Awomi no Ōtoshi no Magariko came to check in on him and see how he was doing, and Kanamura admitted that he had simply been feigning illness to get out of the humiliation of having given up the provinces so many years ago.
Hearing of this, Ame Kunioshi pardoned Ōtomo no Kanamura of any guilt. He could put the past behind him and speak nothing of it.
And he did. Speak nothing of it, that is. Or at least nothing that was recorded in the Chronicles. From here on out, we don’t hear of Kanamura—and barely of Ōtomo. There is a brief mention of Kanamura’s son, Sadehiko, who had gone to the Korean peninsula to fight back in the previous reign. Then, another member of the Ōtomo pops up again in the reign of Bidatsu, but this appears to be the last time we see an “Ōtomo no Ōmuraji”—no other Ōtomo would be recorded as having taken that position, even though others, particularly the Mononobe, would continue to be honored with the title up through at least the 7th century.
Ōtomo no Kanamura’s exit at this point in the narrative seems somewhat appropriate, as the narrative will go on to focus on Nimna, and the violence on the peninsula. That fighting would consume much of the next century, with Silla eventually winding up on top, but that was not always a foregone conclusion. In the meantime there were numerous battles, back and forth. Sometimes it was Silla and Goguryeo against Baekje and Yamato. Other times, Silla and Baekje fought against Goguryeo. Then there were the smaller states of Kara, Ara, Nimna, and more.
With all of that chaos, the Chronicles record numerous people from the peninsula coming to stay in the archipelago, but also there were many ethnic Wa people—possibly from Yamato, especially based on their names—that went to live and fight on the peninsula as well. Family names such as the Mononobe, Ikuba, and even Kibi show up with Baekje or Silla titles, intermingled with other names of unknown, though likely peninsular, origin. This intermingling would appear to indicate that the states of the Korean peninsula were multi-ethnic states, with individuals from all over. Despite—or perhaps even because of—all the fighting, there seems to be an increased intercourse between the various states, as well as with states like the Northern Wei, to the West, in the Yellow River Basin, and Liang, to the South, along the Yangtze.
We’ll dive into all of that chaos and confusion—and try to draw a few more concrete facts and concepts—next time.
Until then, thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, 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 Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Kim, P., & Shultz, E. J. (2013). The 'Silla annals' of the 'Samguk Sagi'. Gyeonggi-do: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253.
Best, J. (2006). A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk sagi. Cambridge (Massachusetts); London: Harvard University Asia Center. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1tg5q8p
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

Traveling Through the Ancient Nara Basin, Part 1

February 16, 2023 Joshua Badgley

Torii gate for Ōmiwa shrine in Sakurai. The modern gates tower over the surrounding buildings.

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Ōmiwa Shrine entrance

The entrance to the main Ōmiwa shrine grounds.

Ōmiwa shrine torii

A view of the giant torii of Ōmiwa shrine, looking down the Omote-sando

Hebi no Sugi

A sacred cedar connected to stories of the spirit of Mt. Miwa appearing as a snake. Snakes were common forms of kami in early stories.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is a special episode: Traveling through the ancient Nara Basin, part 1
First things first, apologies as I had fully intended to jump into the story of Ame Kunioshi Hiraki Hiro Niha, aka Kimmei Tennō. However, I’ve been recently overcome with a bout of Real Life, which has prevented me from doing the full prep work that such an episode deserves. The entry for Kimmei Tennō in the Nihon Shoki is easily one of the longer entries, and there is a lot to digest, and I don't want to jump in until I've been able to do a bit more research.
Instead, I figured I would do something different and introduce you to a little tour of the Nara Basin and all of the wonderful sites that one can go and check out, many of which are still there and quiet accessible. In fact, I recently spent some time there doing *cough* “research”, by which I mean traveling around and walking through the ancient landscape to see what remained.
Now many people may be familiar with Nara, the city which gave the basin its name. Founded in 710, it was the site of the first long term, permanent continental style capital on the archipelago. Today it is a beautiful city, nestled against the mountains, with ancient temples, shrines, and the occasional kofun, which predate the founding of the ancient capital.
It is also home to what we’ve come to call the Nara attack deer. Within the main historical park area, between Kōfukuji Temple, Tōdaiji Temple, and Kasuga Shrine, hunting is strictly outlawed, and the deer wander boldly throughout the streets. Unafraid of humans, they are generally polite, until they find an easy mark: typically a timid soul who has foolishly purchased a set of Shika Senbei, or deer crackers, hoping to gently feed the deer in an Instagram-worthy video post. The deer, however, often have other ideas, especially the young bucks, who might even use their antlers to prod such people, hoping to startle them into dropping all of the crackers.
All joking aside, the deer in Nara are just as much a draw as the rest of the city, which draws thousands of tourists every year, but it is only a small part of a larger area. Today we are going to explore a little bit outside the standard tourist route, in the southeast corner of the basin, between the cities of Tenri and Sakurai.
This is the area mentioned in the oldest stories in the Chronicles, from the time of the “first sovereign”, Mimaki Iribiko, and his successor, Ikume Iribiko. Archaeological excavations have turned up evidence of people from across the archipelago living here—or at least interacting—since the third century, which we talked about in Episode 28. That's right around the time of Queen Himiko and the emergence of the giant round keyhole shaped tumuli, or Zenpō-kōen Kofun, thought to contain the remains of the kings of ancient Yamato.
Today, this area remains relatively rural. Between the cities of Tenri and Sakurai, they still have less than half the population of Nara, their northern neighbor. Urban areas around the train stations quickly give way to rice fields and fruit orchards. The lack of urban development is often a good thing for archaeologists, suggesting that there remain many potential sites under the soil. It can be a bit of a challenge, however, for the modern traveler. While there are trains and local b uses, expect to experience much of the area as the ancient people of Yamato would have: by walking.
To start us off, then, let's imagine ourselves traveling down, by train, to Sakurai, and to the ancient shrine of Ōmiwa. As you approach, keep an eye out for the massive Shintō torii gate that towers over the buildings around it, marking the entrance to the omote-sandō, the outer approach, to Ōmiwa and the sacred Mt. Miwa that is the focus of worship, there.
Even today, Miwa dominates the landscape. While the large torii are clearly modern—and even the famous triple torii gates at the foot of the mountain are probably a later addition—it nonetheless demonstrates the continued importance of the shrine and the sacred mountain in this region.
Fortunately, today, you need not walk the entire approach, as the train station drops you off much closer to the shrine, along the latter part of the omote-sandō.
Speaking of which, I should perhaps describe this common feature at many famous shrines and temples.
The omote-sandō, or outer approach, is both a part of the shrine and yet not at the same time. It is typically the main road to the shrine, or at least the traditional approach. Unlike the main ground of the shrine, these are public roads with numerous shops lining the sides, typically geared towards those making a pilgrimage to the shrine itself. You can usually find various souvenirs, restaurants, as well as local sweets and delicacies to take back as gifts.
These paths may have one belonged to the shrine, especially if it used to be a larger institution that could then use the land rents to help pay for their own upkeep, and you may find auxiliary shrines or temples along the way, but there seems to have always been a kind of symbiotic relationship with places of worship and the merchants catering to the pilgrims visiting them. It is not dissimilar to how restaurants, motels, and gift shops spring up around various attractions anywhere else in the world.
Fortunately, at Ōmiwa shrine, as I said the train station is actually well along the outer approach, meaning you don't have to walk the entire thing if you do not wish.
As you approach the main shrine, you'll come to a second torii gate, leading you into the forested area of the main shrine grounds, which leads you to the Edo period haiden, or prayer hall.
One of the unique things about Ōmiwa shrine is that they never built an actual building to contain the spirit of the kami of the shrine, which in this case is Ōmononushi. Instead, the kami lives on the mountain itself. This is thought to be the older style of worship, where the kami were thought to live in the mountains, close to the sun and the sky. Many stories talk about the kami alighting from the heavens onto mountains, and early depictions of them taking corporal, or visible, form are often as animals—snakes and other such things—living on or near the mountain.
There is a teaching, in fact, that as rice cultivation grew in Japan, many communities would create a sacred space in or near the rice fields, designating a pillar and setting up a sacred fence, and call the kami down from the mountain to reside close to the workers, who were growing there rice. At harvest time, the village would celebrate, offering a part of the harvest to the kami, who had helped it grow, and sending the kami back to the mountain.
Over time, the pillar was covered with a roof, to avoid the rot and deterioration that comes with being outside throughout most of the year, and eventually that grew into a building, where ceremonies could be conducted. This is one story for how the modern shrine came to be.
In most places, even at sacred mountains, they will have an actual shrine building for the key focus of worship, but, as I said, at Ōmiwa they have maintained an older style of worship. Therefore, where most prayer halls are simply placed in front of the main building, where the spirit is enshrined, the haiden of Ōmiwa sits in front of the entrance to the mountain itself. If you find yourself with the time and the inclination, you can hike the trails up Mt. Miwa, though they are clear to indicate that this is a religious place, and not just a hike through the wilderness, and people are expected to treat it appropriately.
Regrettably, when I was there I had limited time, and so I didn't get a chance to hike up, but maybe that will be a trip for another day.
From Ohomiwa shrine, you have several options. The most scenic is to travel north along the Yamanobe no Michi, the ancient mountain road.
This road—though mostly more a walking path—is touted as the oldest road in all of Japan. This designation comes from the fact that it is the first road mentioned in the Nihon Shoki, with various kofun and ancient palaces sited in relation to it over the years. It travels up along the foot of the mountains all the way to Nara city, and takes you through some absolutely beautiful countryside. I was last there in the fall, and people were walking the trail looking for pictures of fall foliage there and in the mountains.
It is unclear to me just how stable the route of this Yamanobe no Michi actually has been over the years. Certainly there have been paths along the foothills, but the designation of this particular path seems, perhaps, arbitrary. What I will not dispute is that this path winds through countryside that has a long history, which you can see all around you. Aside from the larger, more obvious kofun of the ancient kings, the landscape is dotted with smaller examples as well. As I walked along the trail, I made something of a sport of “kofun hunting”—looking for mounds in fields and then checking to see if it was a kofun or a natural feature. Of course, more often then not, it was a kofun—even if it is now in the middle of some farmer’s persimmon orchard. It was fascinating to see just how many were there—especially when you consider that many mounds may have collapsed or been worn away over the years.
Not all of the kofun I wanted to see were along the ancient path ways, however. Specifically, I was on the lookout for one of the oldest of the giant keyhole tomb mounds: Hashihaka kofun.
Hashihaka is a bit of a detour from the old Yamanobe no Michi—if you take the train it is about halfway between Miwa and Makimuku JR train stations. Coming up on it, and not knowing anything else, you might dismiss it as little more than a large, tree-covered hill, though the water-filled moat might alert you that something is up. Of course, from up above, or looking at a map, one can clearly make out the keyhole shaped features of the kofun mound.
As I said, this is thought to be one of the oldest of the keyhole shaped mounds. It has been dated to the mid to late 3rd century, and many people believe that this must be the resting place of the famous Queen Himiko, or at least someone from around her time. The fact that the Chronicles say that there is a woman buried there who demonstrated shaman-like powers in her interactions with the kami lend a lot of credence to that—something we first discussed back in episode 13, when we talked about the evidence for Queen Himiko.
When it was new, of course, the mound would not have been covered in trees. The various levels would have been carefully graded, with clear steps showing the levels up to the top of the mound. It may have started out at its core as a small hill that was then reshaped, or it may have been built from the ground up—I’m not sure if we can tell without more intrusive investigations. The surface would have been covered with small stones, which likely inhibited too much growth, although it still would have required maintenance, and likely some number of households were identified to regularly provide labor and rice for the mound’s upkeep.
An early kofun like this would not have had the elaborate haniwa of later evolutions. There have been found some haji-ware style pots that have holes drilled into the bottom, thus indicating that they were not likely being used to store anything—or at least not in the way a normal pot would. These were along the squarish front shape of the kofun. Later, we find cylindrical stands, which become the basis for the actual haniwa that cover so many other kofun. Still, even without this, the shape and the material and other such aspects would have called out that this was a special place.
Hashihaka kofun sits in the shadow of Mt. Miwa, though it isn’t directly oriented towards it. Possibly there is religious significance in its direction, but some of that may have been dictated by other local features at the time, some of which may no longer be evident, including the shape of any original hill or mound used in the kofun’s creation. It is clear, however, that it would have been visible for quite some distance, and even today it towers over most of the one-to-two storey buildings that surround it.
It would also have been clearly visible from the site of our next stop, at Makimuku JR train station.
Makimuku is a small station, and mostly just a stop in the region for those living in the area. Still, when you are in a land as steeped in history as the Nara basin, there is always something around, and at Makimuku it is the remains of an ancient third century palace.
Uncovered near the JR train lines and the station, the Makimuku palace is largely indicated by postholes, indicating at least three distinct raised buildings on the site. Numerous excavations have been carried out in the area, indicating habitation through the 3rd and 4th centuries, with a shift closer to the mountains in the latter part of the area’s focus. There is indication of trade with people on Korean peninsula, and indication of goods from as far away as Southeast Asia, at least. Many of these excavations are now beneath homes and other buildings that have sprung up over time, but you can still see where the Makimuku palace was, though access is a little strange. From the station, one walks around and through the nearby streets—you actually walk away from the ruins and then eventually back towards them. The actual entrance to the site is more like an empty lot between two buildings, providing access to an area with the location of the main postholes indicated in concrete. There is a small board where someone is ensuring that information about the site is being kept up for any interested travelers.
This is definitely a site for someone with a keen interest in history and not necessarily a site that most tourists would likely come to visit. There are no reconstructed buildings—anything that someone did build would simply be conjecture, as it is merely the postholes and some various fragments of pottery and other trade goods that have been found. And yet from there you can get a sense of the size of how large the Makimuku area, at the foot of Mt. Miwa, might have been. From there to Hashihaka kofun is a comfortable walk, and both Hashihaka and the sacred Mt. Miwa would have been clearly visible at the time. Nearby is the Yamato River, to provide another form of early transportation. And all around is flat land that makes for excellent rice farming, which would have spurred on the ancient economy and may explain how Yamato was able to grow so large so quickly.
Around the countryside, we have plenty of reminders of this period. Besides Hashihaka kofun, there are numerous others, many of them from the late 3rd to 4th centuries and attributed to some of the figures from the Nihon Shoki, including Mimaki and Ikume Iribiko. Of course, there are also various signposts that detail where tradition states this or that palace was or some other event. Given the lack of detail in the chronicles, it is hard to know how accurate any of this is, but walking around at least gives you some idea of the area and where all of this was taking place.
Many of these are just north of Sakurai proper, and in the area of Tenri city, in Nara, but I’m going to hold off on talking about that at this point, as we’ll probably make that the focus of a second part of this little travelogue.
I do want to point out, though, a few more things in the area. For instance, there is a shrine to sumou, recounting the supposed first sumou match mentioned in the Chronicles. There are also several supposed palace sites closer to the mountains themselves.
Looking away from the mountains, across the Yamato River, we can see the flat plain of the Shiki district. “Shiki” is an area that pops up time and again in the Chronicles, and the area of Tawaramoto is well built up, today. Across the flat plain you can see the mountain ridge that would separate the Nara basin and the land of Yamato from the area of Kawachi and modern Ohosaka proper. Beyond them both is the Seto Inland Sea.
I’ll have some photos from this trip up on the podcast website for those who want to get an idea of what it is like on the ground, but it is a fairly easy area to reach from a variety of different locations. North is Tenri and Nara, each with their own areas of historical interest, and west and south you have the areas of Kashihara and Asuka, which both feature prominently in the chronicles, especially in some of the later sections. I’ll try to do a little bit of each of them as I can, interspersing these geographical descriptions in between other episodes to help give a better sense of the area and perhaps give you a bit of guidance for your own travels.
And that is going to do it for this episode. Thanks for taking this detour with me - I’m going to keep looking into the reign of Ame Kunioshi, and hopefully we can get to him next time.
Until then, thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, 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 Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

Episode 80: The Asuka Period

February 1, 2023 Joshua Badgley

Marker indicating the spot tradition holds was the site of Senka Tenno’s palace at Ihorino in Hinokuma. Photo by Takanuka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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This episode we take a look at the reign of Takewo Hiro Oshikuni Tate, aka Senka Tenno, and we take our first steps into what is referred to as the Asuka Period, due to the large number of rulers who had courts in the region of Asuka in the southern Nara Basin.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is Episode 80: The Asuka Period Begins!
When last we looked at the Chronicles, we were in the reign of Magari no Ohine, aka Ohoye—though we’ve gone with Ohine so I’m going to stick with that—aka Ankan Tennou. Assuming the dating in the Chronicles is correct, he was born about 465, and would have come of age in the era of Wakatakiru no Ohokimi, aka Yuuryaku Tennou. When his father, Wohodo no Ohokimi, first took the throne in 507, Ohine would would have been in his early forties—his father only in his mid to late 50s. And so when his father passed away about 25 years later, Ohine was already into his late 60s, himself. It is unclear whether his father reigned for 25 or 28 years; the Chronicles say 25, officially, but then note that there is another source that claims it was 28. It goes on to skip over about three years, during which Ohine himself didn’t take the throne, allowing for 28 years to have passed. That discrepancy of three years may not seem like much, but it is still curious.
Realistically, though, he had his hand on the tiller of the ship of state for much longer. We see his hand in stories dated to about 513, when he is shown politicking on national issues, taking a royal princess as his wife, and being established as the heir apparent. So he is actively participating in the government, and while it does appear that the long tradition of co-rulership, which we’ve discussed a few times, may have died out around this period, there seems little doubt as to his influence in the court.
And yet, Ohine’s reign only lasted two years. He was perhaps 68 or 69 years old when he took the throne, and he would die in the following year. Despite his influence, his father’s long reign had kept him off the throne for much of that time, and he was likely considered venerable even as he took the throne. He was succeeded by his maternal brother, the second eldest son of Wohodo no Ohokimi, who full name was Take-wo Hiro Kunioshi Tate. Based on his age and the dating in the Chronicles, he was only about one year younger than his older brother. So everything I said above about Ohine coming to the throne at a late age applies to Takewo as well - he would have also been through almost 7 decades by that point, so he was no spring chicken.
It is unclear what Takewo’s role was, growing up. He was the second son. His older brother was the heir apparent, and had his elder brother had children, no doubt those children would have been expected to inherit. However, such as not meant to be, as Magari no Ohine died childless.
Here I should point out that there were other brothers, since in the stories we’ve seen so far there has not necessarily been an insistence on the eldest brother taking the throne. One of these brothers was the young Ame Kunioshi Hiraki Hiro Niwa no Mikoto. Born to Wohodo and his formal queen, Tashiraga, he would have been 26 at the time of Magari no Ohine’s death. Young, in comparison to Takewo, but not impossibly so, and certainly old enough to have taken the throne. In fact the Chronicles treat it as a forgone conclusion, though that is likely more twenty-twenty hindsight than anything else. Besides, although his mother was queen, that appears to have been a blatantly political marriage, designed to join Wohodo’s line with that of the previous sovereigns. Even Ohine had married a royal princess from the previous ruling line, and Takewo would be little different.
Still, it seems likely that Takewo and Ohine were likely from the more favored line, at least at the time, and as they took the throne, had they had heirs who could follow after them those heirs would have likely been the new royal lineage.
So: both Ohine and his brother came to the throne quite late in their lives, and neither would hold it for very long. That doesn’t mean, though, that there aren’t some important tidbits for us in their stories. As we’ve discussed in the last few episodes, a lot happened during Ohine’s reign, particularly with the establishment of various royal granaries. His entry in the Nihon Shoki is over twice the length of Takewo’s, even though the latter’s reign was longer, though not by much—lasting from the twelfth month of 535 to the spring of 539—a little more than three years, all told.
Still, Takewo’s reign has a few notable events. First such thing is the enthronement ceremony in the twelfth month of 535, as the Ministers of the court delivered up to Takewo the regalia—the sword and the mirror. Notice that there is no mention of the jewel, and neither is their mention of the seal, which was the item given to Takewo’s father, Wohodo, on *his* ascension, which we discussed back in Episode 75. This continues something of a trend, where the sword and the mirror are the truly public regalia.
Then, they moved the palace, as was customary. The Chronicles say that they set it up in Ihorino, in Hinokuma. This has traditionally been identified as being in the Hinokuma district of Asuka, near Omiashi jinja. Omiashi jinja claims to be the family shrine of the Aya, one of the families that trace their lineage back to the weavers brought over from the Korean peninsula. That family, much like the current dynasty, traced their own lineage back to the time of Homuda Wake, and I wonder if there wasn’t some kind of connection that would have made Hinokuma important to the sovereign and the court back in the early 6th century.
It is also near the site of the ruins of Hinokuma temple, said to have been established over a century later, in 686. Temples often were their own kind of symbol, and likely spoke to some importance for this area at the time it was founded, though it is likely that was coincidental to the site’s use by Takewo and his court, assuming the Chronicles can be trusted on that point.
Now some of you, like me, may have picked up on the location of this palace; that is to say, Asuka. As in the Asuka period. This is the period, between the 6th and 7th centuries, when many of the sovereigns based their capitals out of this region south of Kashihara in the Nara Basin, and hence the name. We’ll talk more on this periodization—as well as the various dates and what they mean—later on in the episode. For now, just know that this area, which is rich in archaeological evidence for this period, is going to be of particular importance to us—so much so that scholars have named an era after this region.
After setting up the palace, we are told that Takewo appointed his ministers. Two of the names are no surprise—Ohotomo no Kanamura and Mononobe no Arakahi were still around, and had continued in positions of power. Two new names join the list, however: Soga no Iname no Sukune was made Oho-omi, and Abe no Ohomaro no Omi was made Daibu.
Soga no Iname comes from the famous Soga clan. They claimed descent through none other than the famous Katsuragi no Sotsuhiko, and have popped up now and again. For more on Sotsuhiko, check out episode 47. The last mention appears to be during the reign of Wakatakiru no Ohokimi, when they mentioned Soga no Karako—which looks like it may be talking about someone born on the Korean peninsula. Given their connections to the continent and their eventual connection with Buddhism—as we’ll see in later episodes they played a large role in bringing it over and popularizing it in Japan—it seems quite likely that they had ties to the Korean peninsula. Here, we see Soga no Iname being made Ohoomi, the head of the Soga no Omi family, and what appears to be a rank of prime minister, although so far the actual authority of the Oho-omi in State affairs seems a bit hit or miss.
Abe no Ohomaro, on the other hand, is being made Daibu. This term is interesting—they are not making Ohomaro the head of the Abe clan, which would also be Ohoomi, one assumes, just like the Ohomuraji of the Ohotomo and Mononobe, though there are a lot of “Omi” ranked families that have been mentioned, but only a handful who have been mentioned as Oho-omi. The term “daibu” has shown up a few times in the Chronicles before, and generally just seems to refer to high ranking court officials, generally, though here it seems to be a specific court title. It would certainly be used that way, later, but it is also possible that, like Omi, it was originally just a more general term for high ranking ministers.
The Abe family has shown up here and there. Much like the Mononobe, their family name appears to suggest that they were originally formed as one of the “-Be” corporate family groups, though of course they show up in the Chronicles well before that would seem to have been the case, and have been prominent enough to marry daughters off to various sovereigns, so they at least claim something of a pedigree. They would continue to be important at court, and appear to have been close allies with the Soga clan, at least in this period.
There are a host of famous Abe throughout history. From the poet, Abe no Nakamaro, to the famous Onmyoji, or Yin-yang diviner, Abe no Seimei. There was a branch of Abe in the Tohoku region that regularly caused problems for later courts. And of course there is the modern political dynasty, as well, including the late Prime Minister, Abe Shinzo. However, it is somewhat difficult to know just who is actually related. The poet Nakamaro may be named for a village, rather than for his relationship to the court family. There are even different ways of spelling and pronouncing the Abe name, even in the Nihon Shoki itself. The Abe family was large enough that it would not have been difficult for someone to claim a relationship that didn’t exist, particularly in some of the more chaotic times. Still, we’ll try to keep track of them as best we can, at least as they interact with our narrative. In this case, that means keeping an eye on Abe no Ohomaro and his position at court.
Besides affirming the ministers, there was also the appointment of a queen. Here we again see the trend to connect this dynasty with the previous, as Takewo’s primary wife was none other than Tachibana no Nakatsu, a daughter of Ohoke no Ohokimi, aka Ninken Tennou. Together they had one son and three daughters, so technically it would appear that he did have an heir when he passed, but as we’ll see, that isn’t quite how the succession ended up working out.
One of the major events of this reign seems rather substantial. That’s the creation of a government house—basically an administrative center—in northern Kyushu, specifically in Nanotsu no Kuchi. Ostensibly it was to organize granaries to consolidate and distribute food as necessary. Of course, it can’t be forgotten that rice was not just food, but also the basis of the economy. So granaries were just as much a place that taxes could be collected, and that would have given officials there a tidy sum, some of which was no doubt destined for Yamato, but which I imagine was also used to help grease the wheels of local government.
We’ve seen this coming for some time. We see the military subdual of Kyushu in the old stories, and we see various people sent out to bring it to heel or otherwise administer at least the northern areas, which would have been part of the critical trade routes between Yamato and the mainland. Mononobe no Arakahi had been sent down with what we are told was a “battleax” of office to put down the Iwai Rebellion. That was about ten years ago, and we see Arakahi still in the government. Now, however, Yamato seems to be consolidating its hold over the area, instituting economic controls, beyond just the threat of military force.
There are also the various areas and families that they drew upon to fund and kickstart this venture. Most of it is from the Yamato region—Mamuta, in Kawachi; Owari, near modern Nagoya; Nihinomi, likely near Ohosaka; and Iga. The families in charge of this include Aso no Kimi, who must have had some leverage in Mamuta; Soga no Iname, who held influence of the Owari no Muraji; Mononobe no Arakahi, who apparently was in charge of the Nihinomi no Muraji; and then the Abe family, who directed the Iga no Omi. Of these, I find the Aso no Kimi most intriguing, as the others are all related to the great ministers of state. Aso no Kimi feels out of place, to me. It may be a reference to Mt. Aso or similar. But I also can’t help but notice that we have one Great Minister missing: Ohotomo no Kanamura, though not for long.
The rest of the setup of this government house—what sounds suspiciously like the area we’ll later come to know as the Dazaifu—included commandments that the local regions of the island of Kyuushuu also provide funds, which is to say rice. They consolidated reserves from Tsukushi, Hi, and Toyo, which is mostly northern Kyushu.
This was all in the year 536. Whether that is when it was commanded or that is when it was setup is not quite clear to me. One suspects that it would have fallen to Mononobe no Arakahi to administer things from this new government center, if it weren’t for that fact that Arakahi passed away only about a month later.
It is unclear who administered this new government house immediately, but in the year following, 537, and with Silla breathing down Nimna’s neck, Takewo’s government assigned Ohotomo no Kanamura’s sons, Iwa and Sadehiko, to assist Nimna. Iwa took charge of the government in Tsukushi, which would have been supplying any adventures on the peninsula, including raising troops and making preparations. Meanwhile his brother, Sadehiko went to Nimna and, we are told, “restored the peace” there, as well as lending aid to Yamato’s ally, Baekje.
This is rather vague. I don’t see anything in the Samguk Sagi that clearly equates to this. In 532, the Silla Annals talk about the King of Keumgwan Kara surrendering to Silla, though Kara would continue to be a going concern for at least another sixty years or so. It is possible that this had something to do with this new expedition around 537, but it isn’t clear.
Takewo would pass away in 539. His kofun near Mt. Unebi, just a little ways north of his palace at Hinokuma. It is identified as one in modern Toriyacho. It is said that he was buried together with his wife, Tachibana, and one of their children, who died while still quite young.
And that’s where we might end things, but there are a few other points to note for this period. For one thing, this is a great time to discuss periodization in Japanese history, since some people claim that the Asuka period started during this reign—specifically referencing the date of 538.
Periodization of historical eras often seems straightforward, but more often than not it is anything but. Periods may be designated for political reasons or even cultural. Political reasons may include things like a change in government, or even a change in the location of government. Certainly the Nara period, starting in 710, is based quite squarely on the foundation of Heijo-kyo, the continental style capital in modern Nara city. Likewise the Heian and Kamakura eras are often dated from the founding of the governments in those areas.
However, just because the government moved does not necessarily mean that things changed overnight, or even much at all. Likewise there were smaller changes that often happened within these periods, so within the Heian and Kamakura periods, you get terms like the Fujiwara and Insei periods to denote specific aspects of who was controlling the government at any given time.
For some, that means that the Asuka period doesn’t start until the reign of Toyomike Kashikiya-hime, aka Suiko Tenno, in 593, and by the narrowest definition only continues until the Taika reforms in 645, which are easily defined political dates with broad agreement across the scholarship for when they occurred.
And yet, we know that there were governments based out of the Asuka period before that, if the Nihon Shoki is to be at all believed. So if this is about the location of the capital, why not start it with Takewo and his palace? Shouldn’t that be the start of the so-called “Asuka Period”? After all, during this period the sovereigns continued the practice of building new palaces upon their ascension, with most, though not all, being in the Asuka area. And yet, that probably wouldn’t really help break up the period in the most meaningful ways. After all, if we go with that idea, why not start when Wohodo no Ohokimi built his palace in Iware, just a little to the north? What was so different from one to the other?
On the other hand, cultural periods tend to focus on changes in things like art or even thought. These often overlap well, but not exactly, with political periods. For instance, you may hear about the Higashiyama period, a time in the Muromachi when the Higashiyama era of Kyoto was ascendant, and it was influencing artistic growth and evolution across the country. But even that is a hard thing to tack down.
For the Asuka period, perhaps the biggest change – and one we will spend a lot of time discussing – was the introduction of Buddhism, that foreign religion from India, transported across Eurasia to the Korean peninsula and then over to Japan. The primary figure to whom the spread of Buddhism in Japan is attributed is the enigmatic Shotoku Taishi, who served as a regent for Toyomike Kashikiya hime, and instituted myriad reforms, often along continental models. And yet, if we want to look at the start of Buddhism, that actually goes further back—and for many it goes back all the way to the years included in this reign—specifically the year 538.
Now the year 538 in the Nihon Shoki contains no mention of Buddhism. In fact, the Nihon Shoki wouldn’t have a record of anything related to Buddhist teachings coming to Japan until about 13 or 14 years later, in the reign of the following sovereign, known as Kimmei Tenno, whom we will be getting to shortly. This chronicle states that it was in about 552 when an envoy from Baekje brough an image of the Buddha as well as Buddhist scriptures to the court.
However, these days it seems that many scholars prefer a date of 538 for this particular event. The 538 date comes from the records of Gangoji Temple—the Gangouji Garan Engi—as well as the Jouguu Shoutoku Houou Teisetsu, aka the Jouguu-ki. This latter is purported to be a biography of Shotoku Taishi, and comes from the 8th century, so contemporary with the Nihon Shoki, the Kojiki, and the Sendai Kuji Hongi. Both of these sources lend credence to the idea of 538 being when these Buddhist icons first came over, and so many people will start the Asuka period at this date.
To be clear, it isn’t as if Buddhism came over once and that was the end of it and everybody became Buddhist. This is just the first recorded instance of Buddhist items and ideas entering Japan—it wasn’t until later, as the court was adopting more and more continental ways, that Buddhism really gained acceptance and spread. Eventually it seems that state sponsorship of temples would override the construction of large kofun, as economic resources and labor were shifted to these new institutions of the state, bringing the Kofun era to its eventual end. But that is still down the road for us. Right now we are just at the beginning of the introduction of Buddhism, and while things are changing and the state is definitely growing, life didn’t suddenly take a turn one way or the other.
As for the date of 538—why was this, in hindsight, incredibly important religious and cultural event not mentioned in the reign of Takewo? Why was it instead mentioned in the reign of his successor? I’ve seen a few theories, but nothing that can concretely answer this question. Of course, there is the possibility that Takewo just wasn’t as impressive. The Chronicles seem to take issue with both his lineage and his elder brother’s, suggesting they weren’t true heirs because they did not have the full pedigree that someone like their brother, Ame Kunioshi, had. Of course, that could also have something to do with the path history took—to the Chroniclers it only made sense, but I think we can all see how that could have turned out differently.
There is also a theory that Ame Kunioshi, aka Kimmei Tenno, was actually co-ruling. Some have even suggested that Takewo and his brother, Magari no Ohine, were fictional, though why they would need to pad things out is anybody’s guess. It certainly does not seem unreasonable to think that some tradition of co-rulership had briefly continued in some form. As such, it may be that it did happen during Ame Kunioshi’s reign, but that said reign overlapped with his brother. If that were the case, the Chroniclers may have been teasing the two apart to provide a more direct narrative.
In the end, it is hard to know exactly why the dates don’t correspond between the different documents, but for our part I think we can say that we have now at least dipped our toes into the Asuka Period, especially as we get into the reign of Takewo’s younger step-brother, the youngest son of Wohodo no Ohokimi, or so we are told: Ame Kunioshi Hiraki Hiro Niwa, aka Kimmei Tennou
But that will be for another episode, and there is so much to talk about: More contact with the continent, further discussion of the coming of Buddhism, and perhaps a look at some of the archaeology, including some volcanic events that don’t seem to have made it into the Chronicles themselves. All of that, coming up.
Until then, thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, 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 Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Kim, P., & Shultz, E. J. (2013). The 'Silla annals' of the 'Samguk Sagi'. Gyeonggi-do: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253.
Best, J. (2006). A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk sagi. Cambridge (Massachusetts); London: Harvard University Asia Center. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1tg5q8p
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

Episode 79: Ankan's Glass Bowl

January 16, 2023 Joshua Badgley

Glass bowl from central Asia, said to be from the tomb of Ankan Tennō. Photo by author.

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This episode we talk about the bowl (above) said to be from the tomb of Ankan Tennō, but we also talk about more than that. The above bowl is said to be from an early 6th century tomb, and appears consistent with at least 5th century Sassanid glassware.

Similar glassware is found elsewhere and in a Sassanian context

Sassanid glass bowl fragment found on Okinoshima island

Glass fragment found on Okinoshima island, forming part of a Sassanid glass bowl. From the National Museum of Japanese History in Sakura. Photo by author.

Glass plate and bowl

Glass plate and bowl, with origins in Central Asia (likely Sassanid Persia), excavated from Niizawa Senzuka Kofun and on display at the Tokyo National Museum. Photo by author.

Sassanid Glass Bowl

From the British Museum. Photo by Geni, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sassanid Glass Bolws

From the Tabriz Museum. Photo by Alborz Fallah at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 79: Ankan’s Glass Bowl.
We are currently in the early part of the 6th century. Last episode was our New Year’s wrapup, but just before that we talked about the reign of Magari no Ōye, aka Ohine, aka Ankan Tennō. According to the Chronicles, he was the eldest son of Wohodo, aka Keitai Tennō, coming to the throne in 534. For all of the various Miyake, or Royal Grannaries, that he granted, his reign only lasted about two years, coming to an unfortunate end in the 12th month of 535. The Chronicles claim that Ohine was 70 years old when he died, which would seem to indicate he was born when his father, Wohodo, was only 13 years of age. That seems rather young, but not impossibly so.
It is said that Ankan Tennō was buried on the hill of Takaya, in the area of Furuichi. And that is where my personal interest in him and his short reign might end, if not for a glass bowl that caught my eye in the Tokyo National Museum.
Specifically, it was the Heiseikan, which is where the Tokyo National Museum hosts special exhibitions, but it also hosts a regular exhibition on Japanese archaeology. In fact, if you ever get the chance, I highly recommend checking it out. I mean, let’s be honest, the Tokyo National Museum is one of my favorite places to visit when I’m in Tokyo. I think there is always something new—or at least something old that I find I’m taking a second look at.
The Japanese archaeology section of the Heiseikan covers from the earliest stone tools through the Jomon, Yayoi, Kofun, and up to about the Nara period. They have originals or replicas of many items that we’ve talked about on the podcast, including the gold seal of King Na of Wa, the Suda Hachiman mirror, and the swords from Eta Funayama and Inariyama kofun, which mention Wakatakiru no Ōkimi, generally thought to be the sovereign known as Yuuryaku Tennō. They also have one of the large iron tate, or shields, on loan from Isonokami Shrine, and lots of bronze mirrors and various types of haniwa.
Amongst this treasure trove of archaeological artifacts, one thing caught my eye from early on. It is a small, glass bowl, round in shape, impressed throughout with a series of round indentations, almost like a giant golf ball. Dark brown streaks crisscross the bowl, where it has been broken and put back together at some point in the past. According to the placard, this Juuyo Bunkazai, or Important Cultural Property, is dated to about the 6th century, was produced somewhere in West Asia, and it is said to have come from the tomb of none other than Ankan Tennō himself.
This has always intrigued me. First and foremost there is the question of provenance—while there are plenty of tombs that have been opened over the years, generally speaking the tombs of the imperial family, especially those identified as belonging to reigning sovereigns, have been off limits to most archaeological investigations. So how is it that we have artifacts identified with the tomb of Ankan Tennō, if that is the case?
The second question, which almost trumps the first, is just how did a glass bowl from west Asia make it all the way to Japan in the 6th century? Of course, Japan and northeast Asia in general were not strangers to glassmaking—glass beads have a long history both on the Korean peninsula and in the archipelago, including the molds used to make them. However, it is one thing to melt glass and pour it into molds, similar to working with cast bronze. These bowls, however, appear to be something different. They were definitely foreign, and, as we shall see, they had made quite the journey.
So let’s take a look and see if we can’t answer both of these questions, and maybe learn a little bit more about the world of 6th century Japan along the way.
To start with, let’s look at the provenance of this glass bowl. Provenance is important—there are numerous stories of famous “finds” that turned out to be fakes, or else items planted by someone who wanted to get their name out there. Archaeology—and its close cousin, paleontology—can get extremely competitive, and if you don’t believe me just look up the Bone Wars of the late 19th century. Other names that come to mind: The infamous Piltdown man, the Cardiff Giant, and someone we mentioned in one of our first episodes, Fujimura Shin’ichi, who was accused of salting digs to try to claim human habitation in Japan going back hundreds of thousands of years.
This is further complicated by the fact that, in many cases, the situation behind a given find is not necessarily well documented. There are Edo period examples of Jomon pottery, or haniwa, that were found, but whose actual origins have been lost to time. Then there are things like the seal of King Na of Wa, which is said to have been discovered by a farmer, devoid of the context that would help to otherwise clear the questions that continue to surround such an object. On top of this, there are plenty of tombs that have been worn down over the ages—where wind and water have eroded the soil, leaving only the giant stone bones, or perhaps washing burial goods into nearby fields or otherwise displacing them.
So what is the story with the tomb of Ankan Tennō, and this glass bowl?
To answer this, let’s first look at the tomb attributed to Ankan Tennō. The Nihon Shoki tells us in the 8th century that this tomb was located at Takaya, in the area of Furuichi. This claim is later repeated by the Engi Shiki in the 10th century. Theoretically, the compilers of both of these works had some idea of where this was, but in the hundreds of years since then, a lot has happened. Japan has seen numerous governments, as well as war, famine, natural disaster, and more. At one point, members of the royal household were selling off calligraphy just to pay for the upkeep of the court, and while the giant kofun no doubt continued to be prominent features for locals in the surrounding areas, the civilian and military governments of the intervening centuries had little to no budget to spare for their upkeep. Records were lost, as were many details.
Towards the end of the Edo period, and into the early Meiji, a resurgence in interest in the royal, or Imperial, family and their ancient mausoleums caused people to investigate the texts and attempt to identify mausoleums for each of the sovereigns, as well as other notable figures, in the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki. Given that many of those figures are likely fictional or legendary individuals, one can see how this may be problematic. And yet, the list that eventually emerged has become the current list of kofun protected by the Imperial Household Agency as imperial mausolea.
Based on what we know, today, some of these official associations seem obviously questionable. Some of them, for instance, are not even keyhole shaped tombs—for instance, some are circular, or round tombs, where the claim is often made that the other parts of the tomb were eroded or washed away. Still others engender their own controversy, such as who, exactly, is buried in Daisen-ryō, the largest kofun, claimed to be the resting place of Ōsazaki no Mikoto, aka Nintoku Tennō. Some people, however, claim that it is actually the sovereign Woasatsuma Wakugo, aka Ingyō Tennō, who is buried there, instead. What is the truth? Well, without opening up the main tomb, who is to say, and even then it is possible that any evidence may have already been lost to the acidic soils of the archipelago, which are hardly kind to organic matter.
By the way, quick divergence, here—if you look up information on Daisen-ryō, aka Daisen Kofun, you may notice that there are drawings of a grave, including a coffin, associated with it. That might get you thinking, as I did at one point, that Daisen kofun had already been opened, but it turns out that was a grave on the slopes of the square end of the kofun, and not from the main, circular burial mound. Theoretically this may have been an important consort, or perhaps offspring or close relative of the main individual interred in the kofun, but most likely it is not for the person for whom the giant mound was actually erected. So, yes, Daisen kofun remains unopened, at least as far as we know.
As for the kofun identified for Ankan Tennō, today that is the tomb known as Furuichi Tsukiyama Kofun, aka Takaya Tsukiyama Kofun. While the connection to Ankan Tennō may be somewhat unclear, the kofun has had its own colorful history, in a way. Now most of the reports I could find, from about ’92 up to 2022, place this kofun, which is a keyhole shaped kofun, in the correct time period—about the early to mid-6th century, matching up nicely with a 534 to 535 date for the reign given to Ankan Tennō. But what is fascinating is the history around the 15th to 16th centuries. It was just after the Ounin War, in 1479, when Hatakeyama Yoshihiro decided to build a castle here, placing the honmaru, the main enclosure, around the kofun, apparently incorporating the kofun and its moats into the castle design. The castle, known as Takaya Castle, would eventually fall to Oda Nobunaga’s forces in 1575, and most of the surrounding area was burned down in the fighting, bringing the kofun’s life as a castle to an end.
Some of the old earthworks still exist, however, and excavations in the area have helped determine the shape of the old castle, though there still have not been any fulsome excavations of the mound that I have found. This makes sense as the kofun is designated as belonging to a member of the imperial lineage.
There are, however, other keyhole shaped kofun from around the early 6th century that are also found in the same area, which also could be considered royal mausolea, and would seem to fit the bill just as well as this particular tomb. In addition, there are details in the Chronicles, such as the fact that Magari no Ohine, aka Ankan Tennō, was supposedly buried with his wife and his younger sister. This is, however, contradicted by records like the 10th century Engi Shiki, where two tombs are identified, one for Ankan Tennō and one for his wife, Kasuga no Yamada, so either the Chronicles got it wrong, or there were already problems with tomb identification just two centuries later. So we still aren’t entirely sure that this is Ankan Tennō’s tomb.
But at least we know that the glass bowl came from a 6th century kingly tomb, even if that tomb was only later identified as belonging to Ankan Tennō, right?
Well, not so fast.
The provenance on the bowl is a bit more tricky than that. You see, the bowl itself came to light in 1950, when a private individual in Fuse, Ōsaka invited visiting scholar Ishida Mosaku to take a look. According to his report at the time, the bowl was in a black lacquered box and wrapped in a special cloth, with a written inscription that indicated that the bowl had been donated to a temple in Furuichi named Sairin-ji.
There are documents from the late Edo period indicating that various items were donated to Sairin-ji temple between the 16th to the 18th centuries, including quote-unquote “utensils” said to have been washed out of the tomb believed to be that of Ankan Tennō. Ishida Mosaku and other scholars immediately connected this glass bowl with one or more of those accounts. They were encouraged by the fact that there is a similar bowl found in the Shōsōin, an 8th century repository at Tōdai-ji temple, in Nara, which houses numerous artifacts donated on behalf of Shōmu Tennō. Despite the gulf of time between them—two hundred years between the 6th and 8th centuries—this was explained away in the same way that Han dynasty mirrors, made in about the 3rd century, continued to show up in burials for many hundreds of years afterwards, likewise passed down as familial heirlooms.
Still, the method of its discovery, the paucity of direct evidence, and the lack of any direct connection with where it came from leaves us wondering—did this bowl really come from the tomb of Ankan Tennō? Even moreso, did it come from a 6th century tomb at all? Could it not have come from some other tomb?
We could tie ourselves up in knots around this question, and I would note that if you look carefully at the Tokyo National Museum’s own accounting of the object they do mention that it is quote-unquote “possibly” from the tomb of Ankan Tennō.
What does seem clear, however, is that its manufacture was not in Japan. Indeed, however it came to our small group of islands on the northeastern edge of the Eurasian continent, it had quite the journey, because it does appear to be genuinely from the Middle East—specifically from around the time of the Sassanian or Sassanid empire, the first Iranian empire, centered on the area of modern Iran.
And it isn’t the only one. First off, of course, there is the 8th century bowl in the Shousoin I just mentioned, but there are also examples of broken glass found on Okinoshima, an island deep in the middle of the strait between Kyushu and the Korean peninsula, which has a long history as a sacred site, mentioned in the Nihon Shoki, and attached to the Munakata shrine in modern Fukuoka. Both Okinoshima and the Shōsōin—at least as part of the larger Nara cultural area—are on the UNESCO register of World Heritage sites, along with the Mozu-Furuichi kofun group, of which the Takaya Tsukiyama kofun is one..
Okinoshima is a literal treasure trove for archaeologists. However, its location and status have made it difficult to fully explore. The island is still an active sacred site, and so investigations are balanced with respect for local tradition. The lone occupant of the island is a Shinto priest, one of about two dozen who rotate spending 10 days out at the island, tending the sacred site. Women are still not allowed, and for centuries, one day a year they allowed up to 200 men on the island after they had purified themselves in the ocean around the island. Since then, they have also opened up to researchers, as well as military and media, at least in some instances.
The island is apparently littered with offerings. Investigations have demonstrated that this island has been in use since at least the 4th century. As a sacred site, guarding the strait between Kyushu and the Korean peninsula, fishermen and sailors of all kinds would make journeys to the island and leave offerings of one kind or another, and many of them are still there: clay vessels, swords, iron ingots, bronze mirrors, and more. The island’s location, which really is in the middle of the straits, and not truly convenient to any of the regular trading routes, means that it has never really been much of a strategic site, just a religious one, and one that had various religious taboos, so it hasn’t undergone the centuries of farming and building that have occurred elsewhere.
Offerings are scattered in various places, often scattered around or under boulders and large rocks that were perhaps seen as particularly worthy of devotion. Since researchers have been allowed in, over 80,000 treasures have been found and catalogued. Among those artifacts that have been brought back is glass, including glass from Sassanid Persia. Pieces of broken glass bowls, like the one said to have come from Ankan’s tomb, as well as what appear to be beads made from broken glass pieces, have been recovered over the years, once more indicating their presence in the trade routes to the mainland, although when, exactly, they came over can be a little more difficult to place.
That might be helped by two other glass artifacts, also found in the archaeological exhibit of the Heiseikan in the Tokyo National Museum: a glass bowl and dish discovered at Niizawa Senzuka kofun Number 126, in Kashihara city, in Nara.
This burial is believed to date to the latter half of the 5th century, and included an iron sword, numerous gold fittings and jewelry, and even an ancient clothes iron, which at the time looked like a small frying pan, where you could put hot coals or similar items in the pan and use the flat bottom to help iron out wrinkles in cloth. Alongside all of this were also discovered two glass vessels. One was a dark, cobalt-blue plate, with a stand and very shallow conical shape. The other was a round glass bowl with an outwardly flared lip. Around the smooth sides, the glass has been marked with three rows of circular dots that go all the way around, not dissimilar from the indentations in the Ankan and Shōsōin glass bowls.
All of these, again, are believed to have come from Sassanid Persia, modern Iran, and regardless of the provenance of the Ankan bowl, it seems that we have clear evidence that Sassanian glassworks were making their way to Japan. But how? How did something like glass—hardly known for being the most robust of materials—make it all the way from Sassanid Persia to Yamato between the 5th and 8th centuries?
To start with, let’s look at Sassanid Persia and its glass.
Sassanid Persia—aka Sassanid or Sassanian Iran—is the name given to the empire that replaced the Parthian empire, and is generally agreed to have been founded sometime in the early 3rd century. The name “Sassanid” refers to the legendary dynastic founder, Sassan, though the first historical sovereign appears to be Ardeshir I, who helped put the empire on the map.
Ardeshir I called his empire “Eran sahr”, and it is often known as an Iranian or Persian empire, based on their ties to Pars and the use of the Middle Persian, or Farsi, language. For those not already well aware, Farsi is one of several Iranian languages, though over the years many of the various Iranian speaking peoples would often be classified as “Persian” in English literature. That said, there is quite a diversity of Iranian languages and people who speak them, including Farsi, Pashto, Dari, Tajik, and the ancient Sogdian language, which I’m sure we’ll touch on more given their importance in the ancient silk road trade. Because of the ease with which historical “Iranian” ethnic groups can be conflated with the modern state, I am going to largely stick with the term Persian, here, but just be aware that the two words are often, though not always, interchangeable.
The Sassanid dynasty claimed a link to the older Achaemenid dynasty, and over the subsequent five centuries of their rule they extended their borders, dominating the area between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, eastward to much of modern Afghanistan and Pakistan, running right up to the Hindu Kush and the Pamir mountains. They held sway over much of Central Asia, including the area of Transoxiana. With that they had access to both the sea routes, south of India and the overland routes through the Tianshan mountains and the northern and southern routes around the great Taklamakan desert – so, basically, any trade passing between Central and East Asia would pass through Sassanid territory.
The Persian empire of the Sassanids was pre-Islamic—Islamic Arab armies would not arrive until about the 7th century, eventually bringing an end to the Sassanid dynasty. Until that point, the Persian empire was largely Zoroastrian, an Iranian religion based around fire temples, restored after the defeat of the Parthians, where eternal flames were kept burning day and night as part of their ritual practice.
The Sassanids inherited a Persian culture in an area that had been dominated by the Parthians, and before that the Hellenistic Seleucids, and their western edge bordered with the Roman empire. Rome’s establishment in the first century BCE coincided with the invention of glassblowing techniques, and by the time of the Sassanid Empire these techniques seem to have been well established in the region.
Sassanid glass decorated with patterns of ground, cut, and polished hollow facets—much like what we see in the examples known in the Japanese islands—comes from about the 5th century onward. Prior to that, the Sassanian taste seems to have been for slightly less extravagant vessels, with straight or slightly rounded walls.
Sassanid glass was dispersed in many different directions along their many trade routes across the Eurasian continent, and archaeologists have been able to identify glass from this region not just by its shape, but by the various physical properties based on the formulas and various raw materials used to make the glass.
As for the trip to Japan, this was most likely through the overland routes. And so the glass would have been sold to merchants who would take it up through Transoxiana, through passes between the Pamirs and the Tianshan mountains, and then through a series of oasis towns and city-states until it reached Dunhuang, on the edge of the ethnic Han sphere of influence.
For a majority of this route, the glass was likely carried by Sogdians, another Iranian speaking people from the region of Transoxiana. Often simply lumped in with the rest of the Iranian speaking world as “Persians”, Sogdians had their own cultural identity, and the area of Sogdia is known to have existed since at least the ancient Achaemenid dynasty. From the 4th to the 8th century, Sogdian traders plied the sands of Central Eurasia, setting up a network of communities along what would come to be known as the Silk Road.
It is along this route that the glassware, likely packed in straw or some other protective material, was carried on the backs of horses, camels, and people along a journey of several thousand kilometers, eventually coming to the fractious edge of the ethnic Han sphere. Whether it was these same Sogdian traders that then made their way to the ocean and upon boats out to the Japanese islands is unknown, but it is not hard imagining crates being transferred from merchant to merchant, east, to the Korean Peninsula, and eventually across the sea.
The overland route from Sogdia is one of the more well-known—and well-worn—routes on what we modernly know as the Silk Road, and it’s very much worth taking the time here to give a brief history of how this conduit between Western Asia/Europe and Eastern Asia developed over the centuries.
One of the main crossroads of this area is the Tarim Basin, the area that, today, forms much of Western China, with the Tianshan mountains in the north and the Kunlun Mountains, on the edge of the Tibetan plateau, to the south. In between is a large desert, the Taklamakan desert, which may have once been a vast inland sea. Even by the Han dynasty, a vast saltwater body known as the Puchang Sea existed in its easternmost regions. Comparable to some of the largest of the Great Lakes, and fed by glacial run-off, the lake eventually dwindled to become the salt-marshes around Lop Nur. And yet, researchers still find prominent boat burials out in what otherwise seems to be the middle of the desert.
Around the Tarim basin were various cultures, often centered on oases at the base of the mountains. Runoff from melting ice and snow in the mountains meant a regular supply of water, and by following the mountains one could navigate from watering hole to watering hole, creating a natural roadway through the arid lands. In the middle of the Basin, however, is the great Taklamakan desert, and even during the Han dynasty it was a formidable and almost unpassable wasteland. One could wander the sands for days or weeks with no water and no indication of direction other than the punishing sun overhead. It is hardly a nice place and remains largely unpopulated, even today.
While there were various cultures and city-states around the oasis towns, the first major power that we know held sway, at least over the northern route, were the Xiongnu. Based in the area of modern Mongolia, the Xiongnu swept down during the Qin and early Han dynasties, displacing or conquering various people.
An early exploration of the Tarim basin and its surroundings was conducted by the Han dynasty diplomat, Zhang Qian. Zhang Qian secretly entered Xiongnu territory with the goal of reaching the Yuezhi—a nomadic group that had been one of those displaced by the Xiongnu. The Yuezhi had been kicked out of their lands in the Gansu region and moved all the way to the Ferghana valley, in modern Tajikistan, a part of the region known as Transoxiana. Although Zhang Qian was captured and spent 10 years in service to the Xiongnu, he never forgot his mission and eventually made his way to the Yuezhi. By that time, however, the Yuezhi had settled in to their new life, and they weren’t looking for revenge.
While Zhang Qian’s news may have been somewhat disappointing for the Han court, what was perhaps more important was the intelligence he brought back concerning the routes through the Tarim basin, and the various people there, as well as lands beyond. The Han dynasty continued to assert itself in the area they called the “Western Regions”, and General Ban Chao would eventually be sent to defeat the Xiongnu and loosen their hold in the region, opening up the area all the way to modern Kashgar.
Ban Chao would even send an emissary, Gan Ying, to try to make the journey all the way to the Roman empire, known to the Han court as “Daqin”, using the name of the former Qin dynasty as a sign of respect for what they had heard. However, Gan Ying only made it as far as the land of Anxi—the name given to Parthia—where he was told that to make it to Rome, or Daqin, would require crossing the ocean on a voyage that could take months or even years. Hearing this, Gan Ying decided to turn back and report on what he knew.
Of course if he actually made it to the Persian Gulf—or even to the Black Sea, as some claim—Gan Ying would have been much closer to Rome than the accounts lead us to believe. It is generally thought that he was being deliberately mislead by Parthian merchants who felt they might be cut out if Rome and the Han Dynasty formed more direct relations. Silks from East Asia, along with other products, were already a lucrative opportunity for middlemen across the trade routes, and nobody wanted to be cut out of that position if they could help it.
That said, the Parthians and, following them the Sassanid Persians, continued to maintain relationships with dynasties at the other end of what we know as the Silk Road, at least when they could. The Sassanid Persians, when they came to power, were known to the various northern and southern dynasties as Bosi—possibly pronounced something like Puasie, at the time, no doubt their attempt to render the term “Parsi”. We know of numerous missions in both directions between various dynasties, and Sassanian coins are regularly found the south of modern China.
And so we can see that even in the first and second centuries, Eurasia was much more connected than one might otherwise believe. Goods would travel from oasis town to oasis town, and be sold in markets, where they might just be picked up by another merchant. Starting in the fourth century, the Sogdian merchants began to really make their own presence known along these trade routes. They would set up enclaves in various towns, and merchants would travel from Sogdian enclave to Sogdian enclave with letters of recommendation, as well as personal letters for members of the community, setting up their own early postal service. This allowed the Sogdian traders to coordinate activities and kept them abreast of the latest news.
And so this is how our glass bowls and other goods likely made their way from Sasanid Persia. Most likely they were sold to merchants who took them to Afrasiab, known today as Samarkand, in modern Uzbekistan, a Sogdian city that would become one of the major cosmopolitan centers on the Silk Road. From there they likely traveled through the Ferghana valley, where the Yuezhi had once settled. This area was renowned for its horses, known as “Heavenly Horses”, which fetched high prices in Eastern markets.
To pass from Ferghana into the Tarim Basin, one must cross over the Alai mountains and descend to the city of Kashgar. From there one can take the southern route, through Khotan and the area generally controlled by Tibet or the northern route, hitting the oases of Aksu, Kuqa, and more. Unless one looped further north to pick up some famous hami melons, the merchant caravan would likely find its way to Dunhuang, where the various routes through the Tarim basin converge. From there, it was a matter of taking the roads through the Gansu corridor to the Yellow River and beyond.
I’m not sure we have a clear indication how long this trip would take. Theoretically, one could travel from Kashgar to Xi’an and back in well under a year, if one were properly motivated and provisioned—it is roughly 4,000 kilometers, and travel would have likely been broken up with long stays to rest and refresh at the various towns along the way.
I’ve personally had the opportunity to travel from Kashgar to Turpan, though granted it was in the comfort of an air conditioned bus. Still, having seen the modern conditions, the trip would be grueling, but not impossible back in the day, and if the profits were lucrative enough, then why not do it—it is not dissimilar to the adventurers from Europe in the 16th century who went out to sea to find their own fortunes.
And so the glass bowl likely made its way through the markets of the Tarim basin, to the markets of various capitals in the Yellow River or Yangzi regions—depending on who was in charge in any given year—and eventually made its way to the Korean peninsula and from there to a ship across the Korean strait.
Of course, those ships weren’t simply holding a single glass vessel. Likely they were laden with a wide variety of goods. Some things, such as fabric, incense, and other more biodegradable products would not be as likely to remain, and even glass breaks and oxidizes, and metal rusts away. Furthermore, many of the goods had likely been picked over by the time any shipments arrived in the islands, making things such as these glass bowls even more rare and scarce.
Still, this bowl, whether it belonged to Ankan or not, tells us a story. It is the story of a much larger world, well beyond the Japanese archipelago, and one that will be encroaching more and more as we continue to explore this period. Because it wasn’t just physical goods that were being transported along the Silk Road. The travelers also carried with them news and new ideas. One of these ideas was a series of teachings that came out of India and arrived in China during the Han dynasty, known as Buddhism. It would take until the 6th century, but Buddhism would eventually make its way to Japan, the end of the Silk Road.
But that is for another episode. For now, I think we’ll close out our story of Ankan and his glass bowl. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little diversion, and from here we’ll continue on with our narrative as we edge closer and closer to the formal introduction of Buddhism and the era known as the Asuka Period.
Until then, thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, 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 Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

小寺知津子 (2023)。「カラス来た道:古代ユーラシアをつなぐ輝き。ISBN 978-4-642-05963-3
徳田　誠志 (2020).「伝安閑天皇陵出土ガラス碗」再発見の経緯と東京国立博物館への収蔵について ― 加藤三之雄教授（第二代社会学部長）の関与。「関西大学博物館紀要」。Vol. 26, pp 1-15. http://hdl.handle.net/10112/00020235
劉東波 (2017)。井上靖「玉碗記」論 : 対の器物から生まれた人物。http://hdl.handle.net/10191/5053
井原稔 (2014)。羽曳野市教育委員会 2014 『羽曳野市埋蔵文化財調査報告書73：古市遺跡群35』羽曳野市教育委員会。https://sitereports.nabunken.go.jp/17337
吉澤則男 (1992)。羽曳野市教育委員会 1992 『羽曳野市埋蔵文化財調査報告書27：羽曳野市内遺跡調査報告書平成3年度』羽曳野市教育委員会。 https://sitereports.nabunken.go.jp/en/17369
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

New Year's Recap 2023

January 1, 2023 Joshua Badgley

View of the top of the mound (or the treetops atop the mound) of Daisen kofun, from a pedestrian overpass near the northwest corner of the site. Photo by author.

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Greetings! And welcome to our New Year’s Recap Episode for 2023, where we look back at the past year, and a little at what is to come. We also talk a bit of the behind the scenes

Shinnen akemashite omedetou gozaimasu! Happy New Year!
Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is our New Year’s Recap Episode for 2023.
This year we covered topics from the 5th to the 6th centuries—from the time of Woasatsuma Wakugo no Sukune, aka Ingyou Tennou, back in episode 56, all the way up to Wohodo and his son, Magari no Ohoye, aka Keitai and Ankan Tennou, in episode 78. These are the 19th through 25th and 26th sovereigns, according to the official reckoning, though as we’ve mentioned there are possibly a few missing—and maybe even a few added. Still, in this time, we’ve seen the growth of the Yamato state, as well as various changes involving their relations with those on the other side of the continent. So let’s take a moment to look back at this and pull up from the individual stories to see how the larger narrative is coming along.
Before we get into that, a quick note of thanks for all of our listeners out there. We appreciate you—thank you for staying with us through this journey. It is just so great to know there are others out there who are interested in all of this. Also thanks to those who’ve reached out with assistance or with suggestions. While not everything fits into the format or what we are currently doing, I have a list of things that I’m looking for ways to do or insert into the narrative at some point.
I also thought I’d try to lift the curtain for you all a bit on the production of this little show, to help you understand a bit more about what goes into it.
So first off, for those who haven’t realized already, we aren’t part of a major podcast network and we don’t have a crew of people putting this together. For the most part it is me and my wife, both of whom have other jobs and responsibilities, doing our best to put it out there. Typically I’m looking for downtime to do the research and put a given episode together, and after I write my first draft I give it to her for a sanity check and editing. Once she’s had time to go over it, I record the podcast, which isn’t always smooth, and edit out as many of the mistakes as I can. Then we upload it—we are currently using Libsyn for distribution, and schedule it for release on either the first or the sixteenth of every month.
Once the episode is recorded, that’s usually where we start working on a blog post for the episode; I’m not sure how much people read the blogposts, vice just listen, since this is an audio medium more than anything else, but that is where I’ve tried to put up various names and individuals for people to follow along with what is going on, since we have so many different characters.
One of the things that takes the most time is searching through and finding the images for the podcast blogs. In some cases, I pull from our own extensive library of photos taken at various times and places, and otherwise I usually am looking for images in the public domain or at least using a license that can be used on the website.
Depending on the amount of time all this takes, I try to focus first and foremost on getting the audio out on a consistent and regular basis, and sometimes I have to come back to the blog post later.
I am hoping to add into this the transcripts for the show, to make things more accessible, as well as adding content up on YouTube, though that requires turning things into “video” which is all doable, just time consuming, especially with 78 episodes to update. The transcripts should also allow me to add captions on YouTube, but I’m still figuring that out.
And of course all of this is done as a labor of love at the moment—I still have a day job that pays the bills for hosting, new research material, etc., though Patreon and Ko-Fi donations are always appreciated.
So those are the things that go into making the podcast. If you have thoughts, advice, or questions, please feel free to reach out.
Now, looking at the past year, we’ve spent a lot of time with the family that many scholars know as the Kawachi dynasty. This is a term derived from the fact that early on they are said to have ruled from around the Naniwa area, and the giant keyhole tombs that popped up were largely in the Mozu-Furuichi tumulus group in modern Osaka, in the old land of Kawachi. This includes the largest tumuli ever built, including Daisen-ryou.
Daisen-ryou is the largest kofun in Japan and about the largest mausoleum for a single person in the world—on par with tomb of the Qin Shihuangdi, the first emperor of Qin, in modern Xi’an, for sheer size. It is several stories tall, and really is like a man-made mountain. It is also surrounded by numerous other kofun.
Compare this to the Great Pyramid, in Egypt. The Pyramids are taller, rising over 140 meters in the air compared to Daisen’s 47 meter height, but the pyramid rises from a square base about 53,000 square meters. Daisen’s mound, meanwhile, covers about 100,000 square meters, and with the moats, covers approximately 460,000 square meters in total.
I finally had the opportunity to visit the Mozu tumulus group in November this past year and it really is impressive. One thing about these tombs is the manpower that was clearly required to build them. They are *massive* and it required an enormous engineering effort. Before all the trees grew up on the mound and the surrounding earthworks—not to mention all of the modern buildings—these tombs would have been clearly viewable from miles around. This ability to mobilize individuals in a single effort is one of the key factors that archaeologists look at to assess the strength of the early state in the archipelago.
One other thing about these mounds, and something I’m not quite sure we addressed—recent investigations appear to indicate that most of them were built with solar and lunar considerations. While this might not be entirely obvious when looking at a map—they appear almost to be random at that point—a team out of Italy published an article in the journal, Remote Sensing, in January of this past year, 2022, that used satellite imagery to study the orientation of the major keyhole tombs in the Japanese archipelago. They determined that the orientations were not random, and that there appears to be a connection to both the sun and the moon, so that the main corridor would be illuminated by both throughout the year. Daisen Ryou is even oriented specifically to the summer solstice sunset.
Of course, some of these astronomical alignments may be affected by other factors. For example, those kofun near the eastern edge of the Nara basin won’t see the sunrise until it crests over the mountains, which may affect their orientation. Others may have also been influenced by things like proximity to sacred sites, like Mt. Miwa. And of course, subsidiary tombs, like the others in the Mozu Kofun group, were oriented in relation to the main tomb. None of this was done willy-nilly; there is still a lot to be considered, and it is also possible that the importance of various directions and points on the calendar changed over the centuries of kofun building and even with differences in local practice. There is still a lot of work to be done here, but it is fascinating to see continued work on this topic, including the use of modern technology, especially with the restrictions placed on modern archaeologists when it comes to excavating these kofun that remain so closely tied to the Japanese imperial family.
For all that we don’t know, the Mozu and Furuichi kofun groups do leave their mark on this period, which covered much of the last year. Even the Chronicles, as questionable as they may be in their narrative, describe courts at least attached to the Kawachi area, especially Naniwa, generally identified as modern Ohosaka, where the Yodo river empties into the Seto Inland Sea.
The first tenno we talked about in 2022 was Woasatsuma Wakugo no Sukune, aka Ingyou Tennou—curious for the apparent use of a courtly title, Sukune, in his name. Woasatsuma was supposedly disabled, although then miraculously healed, I guess? Either way, he wasn’t exactly expected to succeed his brothers, and yet he did.
Woasatsuma’s own death led to the kind of violent succession struggle that we’ve come to associate with this period. His own son, Anaho, aka Ankou Tennou, took the reins, but immediately went after the Kusaka line, supposedly because of some dastardly deeds by a rogue courtier, named Ne no Omi. After Anaho’s forces killed Prince Ohokusaka, it was only later that they found out it was all just a big misunderstanding. However, that’s not how Ohokusaka’s son, Mayuwaka, saw it, and he, at an extremely young age, took revenge and killed Anaho. This set off yet another bout of bloodletting that saw Anaho’s brother, Ohohatsuse Wakatakeru, murder his way through the royal family until he was the only surviving viable heir to the throne.
The rise of Wakatakeru, aka Yuuryaku Tennou, would seem to make him out as quite the villain. The Chroniclers certainly spill plenty of ink telling his story, but in hardly the most flattering of terms. And yet, his reign is one of the lengthier and more impactful reigns. He is also the first or second sovereign who appears to be confirmed by contemporary sources. The first might be Woasatsuma Wakugo, though this is questionable – the famous mirror from the Suda Hachiman Shrine has an inscription that can be read in several different ways, but may recall his marriage in one interpretation. For Wakatakeru, however, we have at least two swords from different parts of the archipelago that mention his name. This seems to confirm that there was not only a sovereign named Wakatakeru—or possibly Wakatakiru—around the right time, but they had enough influence that their name was apparently known across the archipelago.
This is also the time of the Five Kings of Wa from the Liu Song chronicles. How exactly these sovereigns line up with the Ohokimi of the Chronicles is still unclear—many assume that Bu must be Wakatakeru, since Bu and Takeru use the same character, at least in modern interpretations. A wrench in this theory is that Wakatakeru’s name on the two swords, mentioned above, use characters in a phonetic, rather than meaningful, way. So it isn’t entirely clear that Wakatakeru used that character during his reign. In fact, it is possible, though seemingly unlikely, that the five kings mentioned could be from another area of the Wa ethnic sphere altogether.
Whosoever the Liu Song were interacting with, the discussion of the Wa and their requests give us some interesting detail about their ambitions on the peninsula and the archipelago. Clearly someone on the Wa side was gathering enough support to not only make a trip to the Liu Song capital, situated as it was on the Yangtze river, but they were apparently credibly powerful enough for the Liu Song to take them seriously. It is interesting that they were willing to also grant them titles over groups like Silla, Nimna, and Kara—titles that, arguably, the Liu Song had no authority to actually enforce, let alone grant—and yet they balked at legitimating titles over Baekje’s territory. Of course they also continue to refer to the territories of Mahan and Jinhan, which may not have actually been a going concern at the time. They also differentiate between Nimna and Kara, which many later scholars would conflate into a single territory. As such, most of this just brings up more questions for the 5th century than it answers.
The archipelago’s relationship with the continent in the fifth century is complicated. Men of famous families are listed as having served in wars and fighting over on the continent, and there was certainly influx in the other direction, as well. There is plenty of evidence for Baekje and other groups moving to the continent and making a name of themselves.
They seem to have brought with them ideas for expanding Yamato’s control over the archipelago. For instance, we see the corporate -Be groups, groups created as a familial unit but geared around production of a specific good or service. Some of these, like the horse keeper’s Be, and the Jewel-maker’s Be, are based around particular professions, but others are groupings of peasant groups, whose agricultural output was designated for a specific function—either the support of a royal individual or the support of an institution, such as the maintenance of a royal kofun.
In particular, those groups created around production of a specific good or service could be made up of individuals throughout the archipelago, who reported, it seems, to a single courtier and their family. This nominally gave the court centralized control over these production groups, and blunted the rights of local lords to make demands of them. It was a truly impressive claim, one that I am hesitant to say was fully enforceable, but which nonetheless spoke to the aspirations of the court to become a central government.
An example of this was the Hata family, whose name seems to reference cloth production, something that was sought after on the continent, but who also use the character for the Qin dynasty, often claiming that they came from there, or possibly from “Jin-han” on the Korean peninsula, where a similar story claims the Qin name as the origin of that “Jin” moniker. Hata no Sake, a courtier who had an in with Wakatakeru, was placed in charge of all members of the Hata lineage—so theoretically all of those weaver families who had come over from the continent. In turn, he ensured that they turned out goods as taxes for the central court. The Hata family themselves would build a power base in the area of modern Kyouto, and a district in Kyouto still carries their name: Uzumasa, the name given to Hata no Sake and spelled out with the characters of “Great Hata”, or “Ohohata”.
This is also the era of numerous stories, including the first instance of the story of Urashima Tarou, Japan’s very own Rip Van Winkle character, although the story here is only in its infancy. Fact and fiction were still quite clearly interwoven, making it difficult to tell what was actually going on and what are just stories of a time long long ago.
Love him or hate him, Wakatakeru’s reign largely defines the 5th century. Before his death he placed the Ohotomo and the Mononobe in positions of great authority. Ohotomo no Muruya, and his descendant, Ohotomo no Kanamura, wielded considerable power—arguably more than the sovereigns that followed after Wakatakeru. Of those we saw Wakatakeru’s son, aka Seinei Tennou, but then he was followed by two sons—and even the daughter—of Prince Ichinobe, who was, perhaps, a sovereign in his own right.
Ihitoyo briefly took the throne—she is remembered as a short-lived regent, but in all honesty was likely a sovereign ruler in her own right—and then her two brothers, Woke and Ohoke—aka Kenzou and Ninken Tennou. They came to the throne through adoption, rather than birth, we are told, having gone into hiding after their father’s murder at the hands of Wakatakeru. Their reigns would not be extremely long, however, and eventually the throne passed to Ohatsuse Wakasazaki, aka Buretsu Tennou, the capstone on the Kawachi dynasty, which, despite its name, had theoretically moved back to the area of modern Sakurai, in the southeast corner of the Nara basin.
With Wakasazaki’s death, the court, under Ohotomo no Kanamura’s apparent leadership, sought out a new candidate, and they had to go pretty far afield to do it. They eventually settled on Wohodo, aka Keitai Tennou, and set him up on the throne. While there are some who doubt even the existence of Keitai Tennou, considering him a potentially legendary founder of yet another dynasty, he is the bridge the Chroniclers use between the Kawachi dynasty and our last line of Yamato sovereigns—ones that would lead us up through to the present day. Not that there weren’t schisms and weird branchings or power-sharing arrangements between various lines after this time, but from about this point on we generally agree that the sovereigns appear to be related back to a common ancestor in at least the 6th century. Beyond that, well, let’s just say that we don’t exactly trust everything that the Chroniclers put to paper.
This new dynasty brought in new traditions, including abandoning the burial mound groups in the Mozu and Furuichi regions, and possibly abandoning, as well, a tradition of co-rulership, which appears to show up in the burials, but is not exactly attested to in the written Chronicles, possibly because it was too messy. Such simplifications can be seen even in the modern day. For instance, in some of the old martial arts, or koryu lineages, where there once were two distinct lineages, they may be conflated when they later came back together, with different generations interspersed amongst each other in an attempt to honor all those who came before. Those without access to the history might look and think that it demonstrates a single, unbroken line, whereas the truth is messier and much more complicated. Given what the Chroniclers had to work with, and the distance they were from the 6th century at that point, one has to wonder just what they actually knew.
Although it may have been new, this dynasty appears to have acted much as the prior one did, possibly thanks to the continued presence of the Ohotomo family—specifically Ohotomo Kanamura. He would continue to guide the ship of state as it entered a new era.
All of this covers a critical period of state formation, as Yamato has gotten larger and more powerful, and exerts more and more influence it is also finding new ways of governing. The key is that none of this happens at once, or in a vacuum. It isn’t like one day a chieftain had an idea: Hey, let’s build giant mounds and then proclaim ourselves rulers of everything on these islands! It was an evolution, and one that didn’t necessarily always trend in a single direction towards a foregone conclusion, though of course that’s how it often appears after the fact.
At many points during this process, something could have happened—and sometimes did. For instance, an unexpected death with no heirs, or military defeats on the continent. Shifting alliances and changes in the balance of power could also destabilize things. And yet, here we are, with court in Yamato sitting as at least primus inter pares, if not more, and with enough prestige to influence most of the archipelago, from the Kantou plain to Kyushu, and even to make an appearance in continental politics.
And that’s where stand, so far. As we look into the New Year, we stare out into a new era of Japanese history. This is still the Kofun era, yes, but in the coming year we can make out shapes of what is to come. Influences from the continent will continue to shape the archipelago, including the influence of foreign thoughts from even beyond the edge of the upcoming Sui and Tang dynasties. We see figures like the illusive, and possibly even fictitious, Shotoku Taishi, and the establishment of courts in the Asuka era. This is the era of the coming of Buddhism, the rise of the Soga, and all of the benefits and strife that would bring to the archipelago and to the court. All of that an more, soon to come.
That’s all for now. I just want to wish all of you, once more, a bright New Year—Shinnen Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu—and thank you again for listening. Episode 79 we’ll continue with this new dynasty, and look at possible connections with the continent, including some rather distant lands, next time on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Baratta, Norma Camilla, Giulio Magli, and Arianna Picotti. 2022. "The Orientation of the Kofun Tombs" Remote Sensing 14, no. 2: 377. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14020377

Episode 78: Eminent Domain in Ancient Japan

December 16, 2022 Joshua Badgley

Conjectural reconstruction of a 5th century storehouse based on posthole finds in Osaka, at the site of the Osaka National Museum, near the later Naniwa Palace site. Photo by author.

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This episode we say goodbye to Wohodo and say hello to his successor, Magari no Ōye, aka Magari no Ohine.

On Succession

We’ve talked in the past about succession and the Chronicles’ conception of what was appropriate. In that formula, only the son of the current sovereign and the designated Queen was considered a viable candidate for the throne, and a Queen wasn’t just the wife of the sovereign. The Queen had to be specifically designated as such and they had to be of royal descent themselves.

There is no evidence that I see which directly suggests that Menoko had those qualifications in the Chroniclers’ eyes. Rather, they clearly see Tashiraga no Iratsume as the One True Queen. Nonetheless, where they could have easily erased Prince Ohine and his brother from the record, they did not. They left them in, albeit with short reigns—possibly an accurate reflection of the time.

Some later sources put Tashiraga’s son, the future sovereign known as Kimmei, aka Ame Kunioshi Hiraki Hiro Niwa, as the direct inheritor from his father, Wohodo, aka Keitai. There are even some clues, hidden though they may be, that Ame Kunioshi had his two elder brothers killed in a struggle that the Chroniclers chose not to report for some reason.

The Nihon Shoki makes the claim, of course, that Ame Kunioshi was simply too young, and that he hadn’t come of age. This seems a bizarre claim given that they count Homuda Wake as sovereign from the time he was about 3 years old. Granted, much of Homuda’s story has more than a little of the fantastical about it, and so the veracity of that claim is questionable, but still it is left in without comment by the Chroniclers. Why would they not have commented on that?

This is a thread we’ll continue to pull on as we move closer to Ame Kunioshi’s assumption of the throne.

Miyake (屯倉) - The Royal Granaries

These are often translated as the Royal (or Imperial) Granaries or something similar, though there is no direct account of just what it was and what they were like. Many assume, however, that they were an early form of local governance set up by Yamato—and possibly others—in more far flung territory.

As seen above, the idea of storehouses appears in the archaeological record from at least the Yayoi period. Early raised structures were likely places to store grain where vermin could not easily get to it and it kept things dry.

Storehouses were a common good for a village. We see don’t see a storehouse attached to every household, so they were likely shared resources. But as states started to form, it wasn’t just villages and surrounding farms. Rice was the currency of the day, and taxes—largely rice, but likely other commodities as well—would be collected in central locations run by the central government. Essentially these would be local tax centers.

This could be what the structures in Osaka, pictured at the top of this post, were for. There were at least 10 of them, and it may be that they were the local center both taking in rice and distributing it when necessary. It is also possible, seeing that this was in Naniwa during the time when the ancient court is said to have been there, that these represent the endpoint of a network of storehouses.

That appears to have been the function of the “miyake”, which oversaw selected acreage of rice-land and the income that the state demanded. Based on later examples, we can make an assumption that local administrators would likely set the amount of rice to be collected and take a cut of the collected rice for operating the miyake itself. This would be some amount over what the court expected to receive.

Furthermore, these miyake didn’t collect generic tax revenue. Rather, the revenue generated by the miyake was designated to specific purposes or even to specific persons. So you might have land for the upkeep of the Queen’s quarters, or even for maintaining a particular kofun. In other cases you might have land that is designated for the use of a given noble or official, so that they could live in a style appropriate to their position.

In the brief reign of Ohine, aka Ankan Tenno, we see the largest number of miyake mentioned—more than during any other reign. They are occasionally mentioned elsewhere, but not nearly so heavily, let alone so many in the course of one or two years. While the language in the Nihon Shoki can make it seem as if the miyake were, in many cases, previously extant and simply repurposed, I suspect that in many, if not most, cases this is the point of their effective creation.

Generally speaking, these are miyake that are being created for the benefit of members of the royal family, which is effectively the court. It demonstrates a way that the court was further expanding its administrative and bureaucratic structures, much as the creation of the Be had similar effects. Later, provincial governance would be further structured and organized.

Another aspect we see here is the assertion of royal prerogative over any and all land. The ability to assign or re-assign land and titles is a key lever of power by which the sovereign and the court could require compliance. Now, how this worked in actual practice vice tentative legal theory is another question altogether. I suspect that such things would have to be reinforced from time to time with actual violence, rather than just threats of removing land or title.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is Episode 78: Imminent Domain in Ancient Japan
First off, a huge shout out to listener, Zach. When I asked everyone about suggestions for transcripts, he went out and found a tool to auto-generate them, tried it out already, and sent me example results. So I’ll be going over the tool and seeing what I can do to get transcripts uploaded for the podcast, hopefully making everything a bit more accessible. Thanks again, Zach!
Second, I want to address the way “Keitai” (as in Keitai Tennou, the first sovereign of this current dynasty) reminds me of “keitai” as in “keitai denwa”, or “cell phone”. This leads to some interesting notes on Japanese language, especially for those of us coming at it from outside. While both of those words sound the same to my English-speaking ear, especially in an English sentence, and are spelled the same in hiragana, they are slightly different, and as a Japanese instructor recently pointed out to me, they don’t sound the same in Japanese. This has to do with a certain tonal quality to Japanese that isn’t typically taught, and it is almost more about the difference between accents than anything else. In fact, there are even regional differences, all having to do with tone.
Or perhaps, more precisely, having to do with pitch. As one listener pointed out, this is more properly referred to as a “pitch accent”, and falls somewhere between a truly tonal language, like Putonghua, aka Mandarin, or the Thai language, and a stress-accented language like English and most European languages.
As an example, take the word “ame”. It can mean “rain” or it can mean “candy”, depending on the tone you use. Back when I was studying in Japan, I knew a couple who were from different parts of Japan, and the wife had a bit of an accent. She would say “ame ga furu”—the rain is falling—and her children would laugh because, as they had been brought up, it sounded like “ame ga furu”—candy is falling from the sky. Now, obviously they knew what she was saying, so if you don’t hear a difference, don’t worry, you will probably still be understood. Nonetheless, I think it is a curious feature of Japanese that often doesn’t get mentioned that these sorts of things exist, and I thought this might be a good time to share.
So, for anyone else who thinks I overreached in seeing Keitai Tennou as the cellphone sovereign, you just might be correct. I’m still going to giggle a little bit when I hear it though.
Anyway, back to history.
The last few episodes have been covering the reign of Wohodo no Ohokimi in the beginning of the 6th century, and today we’ll wrap up his reign and talk about his successors. To recap: Wohodo is said to have come to the throne in 507 and reigned up until his death in either 531 or 534. His ascension is strange—with the death of Wohatsuse, aka Buretsu Tennou, without any heirs the court scoured the land for a suitable candidate. They claim that Wohodo was a descendant of Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tennou, some 5 generations back, and even descended from Ikume Iribiko through his maternal line. However accurate this was, it is clear that the line of Ohosazaki, aka Nintoku Tennou, the sovereigns responsible for the giant keyhole tumuli in the Kawachi region, such as Daisen Ryo, had come to an end with Wohatsuse—at least along the paternal line. So Wohodo had to be brought in from the distant land of Kochi, on the Japan Sea side of central to eastern Honshuu.
This raises some interesting questions about the relationship between Yamato and other Wa polities in Japan. Some scholars have suggested that Wohodo was a part of a separate royal family in Kochi—that many of the regions, including Izumo, Kibi, and Northern Kyushu all had their own independent polities that were only loosely tied to Yamato, which may have been primus inter pares—first among equals. It is also possible by this time that Yamato had some kind of a paramountcy; that is to say that they had become central enough that the other states were not seen as equals. Still, local governance would have more directly revolved around the local chieftains.
An example of this local independence is seen during this reign when Iwai, the lord of Northern Kyushu, flexes his muscles and tries to take control of the shipping routes between the archipelago and the continent. This is ultimately put down by a military expedition, suggesting that Yamato did possess some amount of military coercive power, along with any spiritual or religious cachet they may have had.
It also seems quite likely that another component holding things together among these different polities were the various marriage alliances. We’ve seen this in the ancient stories and so it is quite possibly true that Wohodo did have both paternal and maternal connections to Yamato. It is also possible that these were just two in a web of relationships that could have been called on, and doesn’t necessarily mean that he had the strongest claim to the throne. In fact, the Chronicles even point out that there was another candidate who also was selected before him, but who fled due to the Yamato court’s poor communication tactics.
Overall, it is unclear why Wohodo was chosen as sovereign, and even his hand in things seems relatively light. In the Chronicles, the focus during this reign is much more on those serving the court. This includes individuals like Hodzumi no Omi no Oshiyama, Mononobe no Ohomuraji no Arakahi, Kena no Omi, and, of course, Ohotomo no Ohomuraji no Kanamura. Even then, most of the reign seems to be dealing with the interactions between Yamato and the continent. Tamna, Baekje, Nimna, Kara, Silla, Ara, and other polities are all brought up, some appearing in the narrative for the first time here. Even the rebellion of Iwai, in Northern Kyushu, was focused on its effects with continental relations.
The Sendai Kuji Hongi focuses just on the events in the archipelago and, even then, on the actions of the sovereign and the royal family. Most of it is genealogical, though it does note specifically that Prince Magari Ohoe—also known as Ohine in the Nihon Shoki—was moved in to the palace for the Heir to the Throne.
And this brings up the matter of succession, which we discussed somewhat before. Wohodo had two important wives or consorts. First, when he took the throne, Wohodo was already married to at least one wife, Menoko, the daughter of Owari no Muraji no Kusaka. Owari is the land focused on the modern area of western Aichi prefecture, including Nagoya. She is named in the Kuji Hongi as being raised up to the status of “Royal Consort” when Wohodo took the throne—normally the primary wife of the sovereign is raised up as the queen, but of course, our story took a turn and the court suggested that Wohodo marry a second woman, Tashiraka hime and raise her up as his queen.
This strikes me as an overtly political action. Tashiraka hime was either the daughter of Woke no Ohokimi, aka Ninken Tennou, and thus sister to the previous sovereign, Wohatsuse, or, by inference, the daughter of Shiraga no Ohokimi, aka Seinei Tennou, though this seems less likely to me. Whatever the case, she is presented as a daughter from the previous royal line, so by suggesting that Wohodo marry her, the court may have been trying to help legitimize his rule—either that, or this is a fictional connection inserted by the Chroniclers to try to sort things out later.
Because you see, when Wohodo no Ohokimi died, which happened in either 531 or 534—there is some disagreement—it wasn’t his son by his second wife and full Queen Tashiraka hime who succeeded him. Rather it was Magari no Ohine, his eldest son by his first wife and consort Menoko, who came to the throne and is known as Ankan Tennou. Skipping ahead, we’ll see that both of Menoko’s sons would take the throne, albeit briefly. Prince Ohine took the throne for about 2 years, and his brother, Take Ohiro Kunioshi Tate would reign for three, being named Senka, or Senkwa, Tennou by the Chroniclers. It was only after those five years that the son of Wohodo and his Queen, Ame Kunioshi Hirakihiro Niha, actually took the throne.
The Nihon Shoki claims that this son, aka Kimmei Tennou, was the rightful heir, but that he was too young, and so his brothers took the throne until he was old enough. This seems more than a little suspicious, however. First of all, both of the brothers are counted as full sovereigns—as Ohokimi—and part of the line of succession, as opposed to simply being counted as regents, holding the throne until their little brother came of age. It is said their father died at the age of 82, so it is quite possible they were already in their 60s by the time they took the throne themselves, depending on when they were actually born—though records claim they were in their 70s.
It is also curious that Ohine, the first to succeed his father, was clearly counted as the Crown Prince—he was set up in the palace reserved for the Crown Prince and was clearly involved in governmental affairs, as Crown Princes have been known to do before.
In fact, it seems to me that Ohine and his full brother were legitimate heirs, and that something later happened to put Ame Kunioshi on the throne—and we can talk about that later.
By the way, I mentioned there is some disagreement about the actual dates of Wohodo’s demise. The Nihon Shoki uses 531, which seems drawn from the Baekje Annals and their account, which the compilers found more trustworthy. However, it mentions that other accounts give another year, the 28th year of the reign instead of the 25th, which would have made it 534, instead. This year is the same one given in the Sendai Kuji Hongi, but it is also significant because according to all accounts, Magari no Ohine ascended the throne the same year that his father, Wohodo no Ohokimi, passed away. If this is, indeed, the 28th year then everything appears to work out just fine, but otherwise we end up with a three year gap, at least if the stem and branch system is to be believed.
Now, truth be told, Magari no Ohine’s time on the throne was not long, but there is a fair amount discussed during his reign, nonetheless. We’ve already talked about a couple of things that happened during his father Wohodo’s reign, while Ohine was a prince.
First off, you may recall from last episode that Ohine had courted and wed Princess Kasuga, herself also a daughter of Oke no Ohokimi, aka Ninken Tenou, though only a half-sister to Wohatsuse no Ohokimi and Princess Tashiraga. He did it himself, without any urging by the court, it seems, but it still seems that there is more evidence here of them intertwining the various lineages; two of Wohatsuse’s sisters have now been made queens, greatly increasing the chances that one of their progeny will rule in the future. This speaks, it seems, to the importance of the maternal line itself. The Chronicles take time to note that Wohodo’s mother was descended from Ikume Iribiko, and to be raised up as a “Queen” one had to be able to draw a connection to a royal lineage. Even if those connections are, shall we say, less than accurate, the need for at least the fiction is itself telling in terms of what was valued.
The other thing we notice is that Ohine showed up to intervene when Kanamura gave away part of Yamato’s territory to Baekje. Without getting too much into whether or not it was actually Yamato’s territory to give up, Ohine was certainly protesting any attempt to diminish the power of Yamato and clearly playing an important role in the government. We talked last episode about how he sent someone to stop the ambassadors on their way, but they said that it was “better to be beaten with a smaller stick than a larger one”. While this speaks to the authority of Wohodo no Ohokimi over the then Prince Ohine, it seems to also indicate that Prince Ohine himself held some clout as well, just not enough to overturn Ohokimi’s decision. Note that none of the other princes are mentioned at all, other than for genealogical purposes.
So, Ohine comes to the throne. Magari no Ohine is also given the name Magari no Ohoye Hiro Kunioshi Take. “Ohoye” may just reference his position as the eldest sone of Wohodo no Ohokimi.
As was typical, Ohine—or Ohoye, but for now I’ll stick with the name we first got to know him by—moved the court to a palace in Magari no Kanahashi, which is likely where he gets his name, one possible reading of which could be “the elder son of Magari”. While Kasuga no Yamada was his main squeeze and raised up as queen, he had several other consorts, including two daughters of the late Kose no Obito, who had been Oho-omi during his father’s reign, as well as a daughter of Mononobe no Itahi, who had been made Ohomuraji back in the reign of Woke no Ohokimi—that is to say, Ninken Tennou.
There are several stories from Ohine’s reign that I’m going to talk about, and they all center around the royal granaries, or Miyake. These appear to have been centralized mechanisms for storing and distributing rice, sources of income for the court and its various members that could be granted or transferred as needed. More importantly, they were attached to certain lands and the income from that land. Presumably whoever owned or controlled a given storehouse would benefit from the rice that came to it.
Since Ohine had no children—or at least no heirs—Kanamura suggested that all of the consorts be given grants of Miyake. I presume this was to ensure that they had a means of supporting themselves after he passed away. He also had various familial -Be groups created, including the Magari no Toneri-Be and the Magari no Yuki-Be, presumably to commemorate his name, Magari no Ohine.
He also is credited with creating a group called the Inukahi-be, or the Dog Keeper’s -Be. This is an interesting one, and some ancient explanations suggest it might be tied in with all of the Miyake that were being created. Even back in those days, guard dogs were apparently a thing, and so having a hereditary group of dog keepers who were responsible for ensuring that dogs were guarding the granaries seems to make as much sense as anything else. It also would explain why, in the following line, we are told that Sakuri Tanabe no Muraji, Agata no Inukahi no Muraji, and Naniwa no Kishi were put in charge of the revenues from the Miyake. “Agata no Inukahi” would seem to mean the “district dog keeper”, and if the Inukahi-Be were assisting with the operation of the Miyake, it would make sense that they would also be one of those in charge of the revenues, and likely ensuring that they were properly administered.
Another take on this, though, could be a more standardized and centralized approach to administration of the Miyake and their revenues. After all, centralization has been a continuing theme throughout the formation of the Yamato state.
One of the first granary stories from Ohine’s reign concerns Kashiwade no Omi no Ohomaro. Ohomaro sent a messenger to Ishimi in the land of Fusa, in what would later be Kazusa province, part of modern Chiba prefecture on the Boso peninsula. The messenger asked for local pearls, presumably for the court, but the lord of Ishimi—which is to say the Ishimi Kuni no Miyatsuko—delayed their shipment. Ohomaro was quite upset when he learned what had happened, and ordered that the Kuni no Miyatsuko be bound and interrogated.
Here, according to Aston’s translation, one “Wakugo no Atahe” and other Kuni no Miyatsuko who were at the court fled and hid in the Queen’s private apartments. When the Queen, Kasuga no Yamada saw them, she fell down in shame, or possibly shock. In atonement for their intrusion into the Queen’s quarters they offered her the Miyake, or royal granaries, of Ishimi as her private property.
Looking at the original characters, I have to say I’m a bit perplexed. Reading between the lines, I wonder if Wakugo no Atahe isn’t the Kuni no Miyatsuko of Ishimi that was going to be bound and interrogated for holding back the pearls, or else it could refer to his son—the Kuni no Miyatsuko no Wakugo no Atahe. That would better explain why this person would want to hide, especially given what we’ve seen about the use of ordeals during this time to prove guilt or innocence. It would also explain why he would have any authority to give up the granaries of Ishimi, along with the rice land that fed into them.
This anecdote also notes the severity of entering the Queen’s private quarters, or the Hinter Palace, unannounced.
Later, another grant of a Miyake would be established to help pay for the erection of a “Pepper Court”—a Han dynasty term for royal apartments for the Queen. The term may have originated from the idea of either smearing the walls with pepper, hoping it would help keep the occupants warm, or perhaps it was because pepper flowers were delivered, in the hopes that the Queen would be as fruitful as the plant itself.
Whatever the reason, including the question of why one was needed, as it seems the Queen had perfectly good apartments already, the court selected commissioners to go out and find good rice land to select for this project.
Now let’s be clear, they weren’t looking for land that *might* be good for growing rice so they could open new fields. No, they were looking for land that was already quite profitable. Rice was already one of the main commodities and the basis for the economy. You may as well be looking for a nice big wad of cash that you could just take.
And so you might imagine that not everyone would be exactly pleased to simply give up their own source of income and livelihood. Such was the case with Ohoshi Kawachi no Atahe no Ajihari. The commissioners suggested that Ajihari offer up his own rice land of Kiji, but Ajihari had othe ideas. He lied to the commissioners and told them that the land might look nice, but it was prone to drought and other problems. And so their report recommended against it, and apparently they kept searching.
About 6 months later, during the intercalary 12th month—that is to say an extra twelfth month added in to get the lunar calendar and the solar calendar synched up again—the sovereign himself went to Mishima, accompanied by our old friend, Ohotomo no Kanamura.
There they inquired about the rice-land of Ihibo, the Agatnushi, or district lord. In response he offered them Upper and Lower Mino, Upper and Lower Kuwabara, and Takefu—a total of 40 cho of land, where 1 cho, or “village”, of land is equal to a square, roughly 60 steps by 60 steps to a side. Later on, this would measure out as not quite 10,000 square meters, or about 1 hectare. So we can say that this was roughly 40 hectares or around 90 to 100 acres of land.
The Chronicles then record a speech by Kanamura, though I suspect it is more moralizing on the part of the Chroniclers. In the speech he notes how freely Ihibo offered up his land, and notes that it is established precedent that all land actually belongs to the sovereign. Essentially there is no such thing as private ownership—any appearance of ownership was just a grant by the Crown to use the land. Thus they could also institute imminent domain whenever they wanted and basically take whatever they deemed necessary. Of course, in practice, this was a bit more difficult, but that was the theory that allowed them to do it.
Here Ajihari is called out in contrast to Ihibo, with Kanamura accusing Ajihari that he “didst suddenly entertain a grudging as regards the lands of the Crown”. Because of this, Ajihari was stripped of his position as local governor. He prostrated himself and offered up five hundred labourers every spring and autumn. He also presented six cho worth of rice-land in Sawida to Kanamura, personally.
Meanwhile, Ihibo was overjoyed and offered up his son, Toriki, as a servant to Kanamura.
So what are we to make of all of this? For one thing, it is establishing the precedent of the throne’s ownership of the lands—something that has come up before, but this reinforces it. We also see how rewards and punishments could work within the framework of the court. I actually have to wonder if Ajihari wasn’t originally the Agatanushi, which was then stripped from him and given to Ihibo because of this loyalty. It is hard for me to say for certain, but it does appear that all of this is happening in and around what was then known as the land of Kawachi.
We also see evidence how, to get out of punishment, elites might offer up what are effectively bribes to the court and court officials. Here we see that both Ihibo and Ajihari are outright giving things to Ohotomo no Kanamura, and not just to the Crown. Once again, Kanamura’s own prominence is hard to miss, here.
Miyake being given in exchange for leniency, or as part of some judgment is a continued theme. For instance, we have another story during this reign: during the same month when everything we’ve just been talking about went down with Ajihari and Ihibo, Hata Hime, daughter of Ihoki-Be no Muraji no Kikoyu, stole a necklace belonging to Mononobe no Okoshi. Okoshi would later be made Ohomuraji a few reigns later, so he was someone of note.
This crime was discovered when Hata hime attempted to give the necklace to the Queen, Kasuga. When the deed was made public, Hata-hime’s father Kikoyu gave up his own daughter to be a servant of the Uneme—so a servant to the Queen’s servants. He also gave up the Miyake of Ihokibe over in the land of Aki, in the western part of modern Hiroshima prefecture. This was given to the sovereign.
And even though he technically had not done anything wrong, Okoshi, the owner of the necklace that got stolen, also presented the sovereign with various Be and villages, such as the Towochi Be, as well as the villages of Kusasa and Toi; and also Nihe no Hasebe, in the modern prefecture of Ise.
Then there is the story of the Omi and his relative, Wogi, who both were vying for position as the Kuni no Miyatsuko of the province of Musashi. Their dispute continued for years, until finally Wogi reached out to Wokuna, the Kuni no Miyatsuko of Kamitsukenu, aka Kozuke, and he suggested that they assaniate Omi, making Wogi the new lord. Omi heard about this and fled to the court, where he pled his case. There they decided to make Omi the rightful Kuni no Miyatsuko, and Wogi was put to death.
In thanks for the ruling, Omi offered up four Miyake—those of Yokonu, Tachibana, Ohohi, and Kurasu.
A few other things occurred during this reign. For one, we see an embassy from Baekje, bringing the standard “tribute”. We also see the sovereign installing cattle on the islands of Ohosumi Island and Hime Island, at Naniwa.
The cattle are interesting. Up to this point we haven’t seen too much on cattle. Mostly they required a fair bit of resources. They were needed as oxen for the cart, but there are some beef and even milk recipes that show up—largely medicinal purposes. The royal family themselves would maintain herds of cattle for medicinal use for several centuries before entirely dropping it. Japan wouldn’t really pick up a taste for beef and dairy again until much later.
And that covers the reign of Magari no Ohine, aka Ankan Tennou. He was buried, they say, at Takaya Hill at Furuichi in the land of Kawachi. We are told that his queen, Kasuga no Yamada, and his sister, Kamisaki, were both buried with him.
Next episode we will recap the year, as we are approaching that time. And then we’ll get into Ohine’s brother, also known as either Senka or Senkwa, depending on the romanization. Before we do that, though, I would like to talk a little bit about a piece of glass, attributed to none other than Ankan himself. So expect something on that as well.
Until then, thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, 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 Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com. It is always great to hear from people and ideas for the show.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Barnes, Gina L. (2015). Achaeology of East Asia: The Rise of Civilization in China, Korea and Japan
Kiley, C. J. (1973). State and Dynasty in Archaic Yamato. The Journal of Asian Studies, 33(1), 25–49. https://doi.org/10.2307/2052884
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

Episode 77: Cross-Strait Relations, Part II

December 1, 2022 Joshua Badgley

Image of a boat from the Kofun period. Photo by author from the Sakai City Museum of History.

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(Apologies, no blogpost yet, but check back later. In the meantime check out the episode, above)

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 77: Cross-strait Relations, Part II
We are still in the early part of the sixth century, in the nominal reign of Ohodo no Ohokimi, aka Keitai Tennou, and last episode we talked about about the island of T’amna—or Tanimura—aka Jeju, as well as linguistic possibilities and the strange archaeology of South Jeolla, including keyhole shaped tombs, similar to those found in the archipelago, but with distinct Baekje features.
This episode we’ll see what the Japanese Chronicles—specifically the Nihon Shoki—have to say about cross-strait relations during this time. Much of this actually comes from the Baekje Annals quoted by the Chroniclers, which I actually trust a bit more than some of the oral histories, but even then we have to be careful about where the Chroniclers decided to bolster Yamato’s reputation. There is a lot about Nimna, and about some of the individuals who seem to have been working between the various states on and off the peninsula.
The Chronicles kicks this reign off with a note about T’amna, or Tanimura, contacting Baekje for the first time, in 509. (By the way, Korean records suggest this date is wrong—that contact happened much earlier in the 5th century, so it is unclear just why it is of such importance, but it does fit the theme, here of a focus on Baekje and the continent.)
Then, in 511 it is noted that an envoy from the Wa was sent to Baekje. His name is given as something like Kuramachi – the name was translated into the language of Baekje and then coming back to us in annals written in Sinitic characters. Unfortunately, we know little else, other than that someone with an ethnic Wa seeming name was claiming to be an envoy in 511.
Perhaps more importantly in this particular section, there is a mention of Baekje families who had been living in the lands of Nimna for the past three or four generations. These families had, quote-unquote, “fallen off” the Baekje registries, and were all moved back to Baekje and replaced on the registers – so it would seem that Baekje, in a sense, was regathering its own. The importance, for us, would seem to be the resurgence of Baekje’s power, pulling back in those who had left its orbit, and more. We’ll also see that this seems to be connected with other events, later on.
A year after Kuramachi’s embassy, there is another one in about 512. This is the year when Hozumi no Omi no Oshiyama, whom the Nihon Shoki names as the “governor of Tari”, or Tari no Kuni no Kami, aka Tari no Kokushu, goes to Baekje with a tribute of 44 horses. Tari, as we’ll see later, is an area—or polity—associated with Nimna, a connection that we will definitely be exploring in more detail, especially in regards to Oshiyama, who shows up again and again in the record of this reign, and whose loyalty to the Yamato court might be more than a bit questionable.
As for the gift, well, horses, of course, had originally been brought the other way (from Baekje to the islands) in the previous centuries, but by now the islands were breeding plenty of their own. The fact that they were from Kyushu—or Tsukushi—however, is interesting. Was Kyushu a large horse-breeding center at this time? Was there something special about Kyushu horses, compared to others? Certainly T’amna horses were highly prized, but that wasn’t until much later. Was it just the fact that they were able to send so many?
About 8 months after Oshiyama presented the horses, Baekje sent an envoy back to the islands—presumably to Yamato—along with Oshiyama, or so it appears. This embassy requested that four provinces of Nimna—Upper and lower Tari, Syata, and Muro—all be ceded to Baekje. After all, they were close to Baekje, geographically, and the people were already co-mingling. Oshiyama concurred with this assessment, and said as much to Ohotomo no Kanamura, who was clearly acting as something of the prime minister these days, who agreed and told the sovereign, Wohodo, that they should indeed acquiesce and hand them over. Wohodo concurred, and ordered Mononobe no Arakai, another powerful noble of the court, to go and make it happen.
That said, not everyone was pleased with this decision, and Monoboe no Arakai’s own wife urged him to reconsider. After all, hadn’t the kami themselves given that land to Yamato? Who was he to go and give them up? Arakai was swayed by her arguments, but found himself in a pickle. He couldn’t just deny the sovereign’s command. And so Arakai feigned that he was ill, forcing Wohodo to choose someone else to deliver the news.
Now when Prince Ohine, the eldest son of the sovereign, Wohodo, heard about all this, he, too, was rather surprised and taken aback. He immediately sent a messenger to stop the envoys before they left, but when the messenger met with the envoys they listened, but decided to follow through. After all, the plan to give up the four provinces was already approved by the sovereign, and he overruled the prince. As it says in the Nihon Shoki it is “better to be beaten with a smaller stick than a larger one”, meaning they would rather incur the Prince’s ire than the sovereign’s—not to mention the fact that the King of Baekje was unlikely to be pleased, either.
When the circumstances of all this got out, rumors started to spread that Oshiyama and Kanamura had been paid off by Baekje to push this whole thing through. Clearly not everyone was happy with the decision, but it seems that what was done was done.
So let’s talk about who these people are and the context around it. First off, we have Hozumi no Oshiyama, whom I mentioned earlier. He’s supposedly the governor of Tari, in Nimna, and he had apparently been sent to Baekje at some point as an envoy, bringing horses from Kyushu. The Baekje annals even given him a Baekje title. So I have to wonder whether he was even a vassal of Yamato, much as I wonder about the envoy mentioned earlier in the Baekje records, Kuramachi. If we don’t make the assumption that Yamato is the only Wa polity operating on the peninsula, it opens up the possibility that these could be envoys from some other group—perhaps even Nimna or Kara, or one of their smaller political units.
Of course, the Japanese side of the story, coming to us through the Chronicles, is that Nimna at this time was under the control of the “Mimana no Nihonfu”, or the Japanese Government Office of Nimna, aka Mimana. Besides the anachronism—Japan still wasn’t known as “Nihon” and at best this would be the “Wa-fu” or “Yamato-fu”—modern scholars have largely moved away from the notion that Nimna was a Japanese colony. It does appear to have been a close ally, and there may have even been a permanent diplomatic office set up to deal with trade and various cross-strait issues. It is even possible that it was largely made up of ethnic Wa people, or that they played a major role in the state, for all that we know. How tied this was to Yamato is another thing entirely. So Oshiyama may have been from Yamato, but he just as easily could have been from Kyushu or from one of the groups of Wa people in Nimna or other parts of the Korean peninsula. His name does appear to be reflective of a Japonic name, so we assume that he was ethnic Wa, regardless of whom he served, and he very well may have been an independent agent, the actual governor of the areas that were being ceded to Baekje. This makes more than a little sense to me, given his title and everything else. It is also possible that some of these titles came at a later point—perhaps even because of his work to help get them turned over to Baekje.
The second individual in our little drama is Ohotomo no Kanamura. He was the Ohomuraji of the Ohotomo, and appears to have been the one pulling the strings in Yamato. He was the one who put Wohodo on the throne, and he seems to be the one who headed up the negotiations; he simply informed Wohodo of his recommendation and received his guidance. We’ve talked about Kanamura before and he will come up again in the narrative. Despite the rumors of bribery that are mentioned, reading ahead we can see that he was still confirmed as Ohomuraji when Prince Ohine eventually came to power as Ankan Tennou, so clearly this whole episode didn’t ruin their relationship that much—or perhaps it is just that Kanamura was that powerful. It is hard to know for certain.
Then there is Mononobe no Arakai—or possibly Arakahi or even Arakabi back in the day. Like Kanamura, he has also been around since at least the previous sovereign, and he has some influence at court. He is one of the Big Three mentioned in bringing Wohodo to power—Kanamura, Arakai, and Kose no Obito, the apparent Oho-omi, though we don’t hear nearly so much from him. While it isn’t always the case, typically the Mononobe are brought in when there is some expectation of violence or martial activity, which makes Arakai an interesting choice, and a possibly telling one, suggesting that this may not have been a simple transfer, and perhaps the sovereign of Yamato’s word alone would not be enough to enforce this secession of these districts to Baekje. After all, we occasionally also hear of a “King of Nimna”, and if that were the case, well, what did they think about all of this? Still, Arakai appears to have declined, feigning illness, and we aren’t given much on the envoy who actually went.
Later on, Arakai will be taking a greater hand in matters across the straits, so that may have also been part of how he wound up connected with this story—and why he is also quite visibly disconnected from the decision to give up these territories.
The fourth person of interest in this little drama is the Imperial Prince Ohine. He’s the eldest son of Wohodo, born to Menoko, the daughter of Kusaka, of the Owari no Muraji. His full name appears to be Magari no Ohine, or possibly Ohoye, and he would later be known as Oshikuni-Oshitake-Kanahi no Mikoto, aka Ankan Tennou. He and his brother would actually succeed their father, Wohodo, before the ascension of their younger half-brother Amekunioshi Harani Hironiwa, aka Kimmei Tennou. More on that whole complicated situation in a later episode.
Key for us, here is that Ohine appears to be the senior Imperial Prince and, despite the Nihon Shoki’s insistence that his mother was not the Queen, he’s effectively made Crown Prince in the following year, 513. That’s the year he betrothed himself—without a middle man—to Princess Kasuga, daughter of the late 5th century sovereign known to us as Ninken Tennou. This was accomplished by spending the night together in classic aristocratic fashion. Later, he moved into the Spring Palace, and while he is never called the Crown Prince, the Spring Palace was typically reserved as the Crown Prince’s estate. So he was definitely a person of some influence, and it is interesting that he apparently had no knowledge of any of this until it was a fait accompli. Now you might think this would put him and Kanamura at odds, perhaps even political rivals, but they appear to have smoothed things over in the end.
Of course, some of this could be the Chroniclers’ own attempts to explain away how Yamato could have given up claim to territory that was supposedly given to them by the kami. I suspect that plays a not insignificant role in everything that was going on, since it was such a big part of Japan’s claims on the continent, whether factual or not.
Now this whole episode is simply the start of things with Nimna and the continent. In 513, the following year, Bakeje sent over two generals, along with Oshiyama, to bring tribute to Yamato in the form of a scholar of the “five classics”, Tan Yangni. Along with the presentation of an apparently ethnic Han scholar, they also brought news and a request. It seems that the land of Panphi had decided to annex the land of Imun, which Aston places northeast of Nimna—back in the reign of Mimaki Iribiko, Imun had requested assistance against Silla. It seems Baekje wanted Imun back under Nimna control--maybe. This is all a bit interesting, unless we consider that perhaps Oshiyama was working for Nimna—possibly even a Nimna official—and it may have been his request, rather than anything from the Baekje court.
Regardless, this goes to show the kind of disorder in parts of the southern peninsula where there wasn’t a clear power or state. The Kara, or Gaya, confederacy was just reaching the status of what we might term a Kingdom, but there were still a lot of independent districts where local elites held much more sway than any nominal overlords. In that situation, much as in the later Sengoku Period in Japan, it’s natural that there would be fighting and different groups attempting to annex territory and strengthen themselves.
The answer to this, in the Chronicles, was to gather up representatives from Baekje, Silla, Ara, and Panphi, and hold a conference of sorts. The Nihon Shoki paints this as all of them coming to the Yamato court to listen, but I wonder if it wasn’t something more like a meeting between equals. If so, it is interesting that both Ara and Panphi are included with Baekje and Silla, perhaps indicating the state of things at the time.
The decision from this conference was that the lands of Tesa—or Taisya—and Imun were to be given, instead, to Baekje. Note that they aren’t given to Nimna, as one might assume, and Nimna isn’t even mentioned—perhaps because they are the stand-in, here for Yamato, but that seems odd. Also, I’m not entirely sure where Tesa is, but the characters for it are “belt” and “sand” and it is later said to be an estuary, so that may be a hint. It is interesting that it is coming up in this context.
These conferences are intriguing. It is certainly possible, with everything going on, that it was not uncommon for multiple representatives to come together to hash things out, especially if the various states are not quite as powerful as they would like to portray themselves as being. It might also have ensured witnesses to any treaty or decision—third party arbiters, in case anyone went back on what they said, later. Or it could have just been something that Chroniclers inserted to make Yamato sound even more important. We’ve mentioned that the texts are somewhat problematic, right?
Anyway, while this was going on, Panphi tried to slip around behind and offer presents—aka a bribe—to Yamato to see if they would rule in their favor and ensure that Imun was confirmed to them, but Yamato refused. Panphi left, not exactly happy with the decision, and the following year, 514, they built castles—or at least defensive earthworks—at several locations, including the estuary of Tesa. They also built beacon towers to warn them of any possible coastal invasion—probably concerned about the Wa, who I’m sure were still well known for taking shiploads of warriors and quickly striking up river. Since many of these lands appear to have been built around various river basins, this gave the Wa access to a lot of the southern peninsula.
It wasn’t just the Wa that they were pushing against, though, as Panphi was also harassing the borders of Silla. Based on the accounts, it looks like a rising state using a militaristic approach to expand their territory and cement their status as a power player. Of course, given how much we don’t know about them, I think you have an idea of how well that worked out, in the end. Still, for a while it seemed to be a viable strategy.
In 515, a joint Yamato and Baekje force set out. It looks like they may have been going to harass Silla, but as they came to Sato island they heard about what Panphi had been up to. The Yamato general, whom we simply know as Mononobe no Muraji—though his given name may have been something like Tchitchi—turned towards Tesa, while the Baekje forces continued on to Silla. Once at Tesa, though, the Yamato general was taken by surprise. The Panphi soldiers looted their equipment and burnt their tents. The Wa soldiers had to flee to the island of Munmora. Eventually, a Baekje general found him and his men and escorted them to Imun, which I assume had been liberated from Panphi’s control. There they presented him with gifts of axe-iron, clothing, and woven stuff—perhaps to help them replenish the supplies they had lost. After all, I struggle to see why they would have otherwise rewarded him for what had happened.
After all of this campaigning, a Baekje general accompanied Mononobe and his forces back to Yamato and thanked Yamato for their assistance and in granting Imun to Baekje. He also brought another scholar, Ko Anmu of Han, whom they asked to trade for Tan Yangni, who apparently had had enough Island time.
This whole thing is a bit hard to interpret. Despite various attempts to place all of these little states and kingdoms on a map, there really isn’t enough evidence for where any of these things are. The main takeaways are that first, the alliance between Baekje and Yamato seems to be going strong, and second, there is plenty of conflict on the peninsula, and not just between the Big Three, as I noted before.
Additional evidence of the new Baekje-Yamato alliance came later in the year 516, when Baekje sent a general and two Wa envoys—Shinato and Ahita—to escort an embassy from Goguryeo to Yamato to cement amicable relationships. This is pretty big—there was earlier talk about envoys from Goguryeo, but it is hard to tell if it was real or just the Chroniclers putting their spin on things. I don’t know whether they went all the way to Yamato or just met with officials at the offices in Nimna, but I like to assume that they went all the way to talk to Wohodo himself—or possibly to Kanamura. Of course, I say Yamato—this is still in the era when the court was said to be in Yamashiro, towards modern Kyoto, rather than in the Nara basin, the actual land of Yamato. The capital wouldn’t move down there for another 10 years, in 526.
Shortly after the capital did move, which happened the following year, 527, another expedition was on its way back to the continent. This one was led by Afumi no Kena no Omi, and the Chronicles say he had some 60,000 men at his disposal. His goal was to travel to the peninsula and try to unite South Kara and the land of Toksathan to the greater Nimna confederacy, as those lands had been invaded and taken by Silla. However, as the ships tried to sail through the Seto Inland Sea and out to the peninsula, they found themselves thwarted in Tsukushi, aka Northern Kyushu. Apparently the local ruler of Tsukushi, named Iwai, had decided to rebel against Yamato, and was not allowing ships to pass. This put the entire operation on hold while the court decided what to do. It does, however, seem that Kena no Omi was able to make it through, and he set himself up in Nimna, in a place called Kusamura, but his supply lines back to Yamato were cut off.
Iwai, it seems, had allied himself with Silla, who was sending him resources—bribes according to the Nihon Shoki, with its distinctively pro-Yamato outlook. Iwai expanded from Tsukushi—the area around modern Fukuoka—and also took over the areas of Hi and Toyo. This would have given him control of most of the Seto Inland Sea passages around Kyushu, with the possible exceptions of the areas of modern Miyazaki and Kagoshima prefectures, though even those may have been under his sway. This would have meant that Iwai controlled all trade between the court and the continent, as ships of that time likely needed to stay within sight of land, and likely put in to resupply when they could. Doing so in enemy territory could be problematic, however.
Hearing of all this back in Yamato, it was clearly a serious concern. Kanamura recommended that the court send none other than Mononobe no Arakai to deal with the threat. In so doing, Arakai was given a battleaxe, a continental sign of military authority, and he was given authority over all of Kyushu and beyond. In fact, the proclamation states that the Yamato court would govern everything up to Anato, aka modern Yamaguchi prefecture, while Arakai would be responsible for everything beyond, with a fairly free hand to run things as he saw fit.
And so Arakai led his troops to Kyushu, and in 528 there was a large battle in Miwi, which appears to be in modern Kurume, where, after a lengthy and bloody battle, he slew Iwai, putting an end to the rebellion. Iwai’s son, Kuzu, capitulated. He gave up the granary of Kasuya to the court and offered his submission. Today there is a modern district of Kasuya in Fukuoka city, which was the ancient jumping off point for missions to and from the continent.
As we did earlier, let’s look at this whole incident and what it tells us. Well, first off, we have mentioned that Yamato’s control appears tenuous, at best. They are first amongst equals, but especially given the apparent disarray since the death of Wakatakeru and this newcomer now on the throne, it seems reasonable that other polities on the archipelago might want to flex their muscle and see what they can get away with.
In addition, Kyushu itself is in an interesting position, especially northern Kyushu. They had long had relations with the people of the southern Korean peninsula. And in the chaos of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, we have that particular link between Kyushu and South Jeolla. In many ways, it may be fair to see Kyushu—or at least the part known as Tsukushi—as just one more of the various states in this cross-strait cultural sphere. There is no reason for me to doubt that they had their own relationships, and while ties with Yamato may have once been strong, it might make sense for an ambitious Silla to make a pact with groups in Tsukushi to help keep Wa troops bottled up while they solidified their own control on the continent.
Later, the Tsukushi no Fudoki would note the location of Iwai’s tomb, about 2 ri south of the Kamitsuma district. Based on descriptions Aston proposes that it may have been a double mound and it was surmounted by stone statues, in lieu of the terracotta haniwa used in the Kinai region. Stone statues were a particular feature of Kyushu era kofun, so that fits with the local culture of the time as we know it.
With Iwai’s rebellion down, Arakai would now seem to be the person in charge—or at least the court representative—of the western edge of archipelago.
Here’s where it might be useful to go back to some of the early stories about Yamato. For instance, the Generals of the Four Roads, who seem to be used as legendary lineage figures for the most part. Still, I have to wonder if some of what we see in the reigns of the first dynasty pertaining to the subjugation of the archipelago, well, was any of that an anachronism from the activities of this current dynasty? How many of the stories that we see as “history” are actually reflective of the later policies implemented by the current dynasty, or even their immediate successors, that they were using to justify their own authority? Just something to keep in mind.
Following suppression of the Iwai rebellion, communication with Yamato’s allies on the peninsula could resume, and in 529 word came to Yamato from Oshiyama with yet another request from Baekje. You see, things were enough of a mess that between Baekje and Yamato any ships sent from Baekje territory would need to avoid the headlands—in other words they had to avoid areas where pirates and rival ships could be lying in wait to take them. This meant they had to sail further out from land, which put them in rougher waters, leading to problems that could ruin the various trade—or rather tribute—goods that they were carrying back and forth. I imagine that further out you did have taller waves, more rocking of the ships, and a greater chance of waves washing over and saltwater getting into and ruining whatever was being transported. And that is besides the inherent danger of a ship capsizing or sinking.
This all speaks to the idea that Baekje clearly did not have the kind of control of the Southwest peninsula that is typically portrayed if you just look at maps of what is depicted as Baekje “territory”. I suspect that they felt more confident if they could transport goods overland to a port closer to the Tsushima.
And so they proposed that they be allowed to use the port of Tasa in the land of Kara. Yamato agreed, which is rather wild when you think about it. What authority did Yamato have to allow Baekje to use a port in the land of Kara. Sure enough, we are told that the King of Kara opposed this whole enterprise. In a sign that they may have anticipated such a reaction, Yamato sent Mononobe no Ise no Muraji no Kasone, Kishi no Okina, and others to turn the port over to Baekje. Sending the Mononobe suggests to me that they expected a little resistance.
Sure enough, Kara resisted, protesting the idea of giving Baekje—which the Chronicles reference as Buyeo for some reason—free reign over their port. They blocked Kasone and kept him from handing it over. And so, Kasone camped out back on Ohoshima and apparently granted Baekje the rights they had asked for in absentia. It is unclear if this translated into actual action that turned over the port, but I assume that Baekje did wrestle it away from Kara. Kara, for their part, broke off friendly relations with Yamato and allied with their enemy, Silla. Silla even went so far as to send a royal princess to be the King of Kara’s queen, and the two of them had several children, leading to one of the few times where we are getting a look at things going on outside of Yamato itself.
You see, Kara’s alliance with Silla seems short-lived. It appears to have started with the 100 warriors who were sent to accompany the Silla princess. After delivering her to the King, they dispersed throughout Kara. Due to their status, they were allowed to continue to dress in their Silla clothes and style, which started to grate on various people in Kara. An individual named Arasateung—or possibly Arishito—railed against this practice, and at one point their garments were secretly sent home.
Well, that pissed off Silla, who took this treatment of their people as an insult to Silla itself. They attempted to recall the royal princess, but she was either pregnant with or had already given birth to at least one of the king’s children. There was no way that the King of Kara was going to hand over the mother to his children. Kara sent back a message saying as much to Silla, at which point Silla went on the warpath. They captured three castles, named something like Toka, Kophi, and Phonamura, and five unnamed castles on the northern frontier.
While this was going on, Yamato sent out Afumi no Kena no Omi to Ara to hold a conference, much as before, with Panphi, to urge Silla, in the name of Yamato’s sovereign, to re-establish Southern Kara and Toksathan. Afumi no Kena no Omi, you may recall, was the one who was initially traveling to the peninsula at a force 60,000 strong, but whose campaign had been put on hold thanks to Iwai’s rebellion—a rebellion egged on by Silla, or so we are told. A few years later, Afumi no Kena was finally trying to make good on his original mandate.
Now, Baekje sent envoys to these talks, as allies of Yamato, and the local Ara officials were there, but we are told that Silla didn’t send anyone of note—nobody who could represent the King of Silla, anyway. They did have some people to listen to what was said, but the Chronicles say that they were fearful of being forced to given up the land that they had already taken. And that is possible. It may also be a misrepresentation. After all, for all that these conferences seem to have been meant to find peaceful outcomes, in the end, these states had armies for a reason, and if they didn’t want to give it up they probably weren’t going to.
Apparently the elites in Ara had a raised hall—they call it a high hall—set up for the ambassador and the talks. The Ara elites were up there on the platform, and we are told that the Yamato ambassador, Afumi no Kena no Omi, ascended, followed by the King of Ara. This last seems odd, and strikes me as questionable. It is probably, once again, the Chroniclers putting their own spin on events, representing Afumi no Omi as the mouthpiece of the Yamato sovereign. In Japan, even during the period when the shoguns ruled, an envoy from the Tennou would often be treated with exceptional respect, with even the Tokugawa shogun taking a subservient position to them, at lest ceremonially. I don’t see why Ara would offer Yamato such an honor in this case, though, so I tend to wonder about it.
In any case, the main issue seems to be that while the Yamato and Ara elite were allowed up in the building the Baekje and Silla envoys both had to wait on the ground, in the courtyard. This is something that the Japanese courtiers would have recognized fairly quickly, as at their own royal court, only certain courtiers—those of the fifth rank and higher, and the Tenjobito, those with special permission because they were serving the royal household in some way—were allowed up in the raised buildings. The others were considered “jige”, and were expected to wait in the courtyard or on the ground. This created a visual difference in rank between the lesser and greater nobility. Here we see this playing out in a similar way, and no doubt the envoys would have felt more than a little slighted by such treatment.
This was even worse as the talks apparently took months, so the envoys had to endure this situation for that entire time and grew quite angry—and we aren’t even told what the outcome of the summit was.
Later in that same year, we have someone identified as the King of Nimna, but who may actually be the King of Kara, or at least their representative, who came to court and addressed Kanamura, telling him that Silla was up to their old tricks. They had been attacking their territory, and they were requesting assistance.
Once again, the Yamato court employed Kena no Omi to try to suss things out. Kena was staying in a place called either Kumanare or Kusamura, and he called the Kings of Silla and Baekje together to talk about just what was going on. Both kings sent envoys, but apparently Kena no Omi did not consider them appropriately ranked. After all, he was from Yamato, and was speaking with the voice of the sovereign. The other Kings should come themselves, or at least send appropriately ranked envoys. So he sent them home. New envoys did come, but this time they brought troops with them. Kena no Omi still refused to treat with them as they weren’t properly ranked but, at the same time, he retreated into a nearby castle just in case things with the armies got hairy. The armies continued to request the word from Yamato, and meanwhile the troops were growing tired and hungry. Eventually, one of Kena no Omi’s men started harassing the soldiers while they were out begging for food, and that turned into a full on riot. Soon, the Silla army was attacking and had captured four towns.
This is why, in 530, and envoy from Nimna came to Yamato to complain about Kena no Omi. His haughty, prideful attitude was just pissing everybody off, and they needed it to stop, and soon. He had apparently been in residence in Kusamura—or possibly Kumanare—for about three years. During that time he had grown particularly fond of the idea of trial by ordeal—particularly the ordeal of scalding water, where guilty people would be scalded and the innocent people would supposedly go unharmed. There must have been a lot of guilty people, because it seems like just about everyone was scalded, many to death, and the body count was starting to pile up with Kena no Omi’s administration.
Hearing all of this, Yamato tried to recall their wayward officer, but Kena no Omi refused to return. He still needed to complete his purpose, he said. But at the same time, he realized that if someone else got back before he had a chance to tell his side of the story it might not look so good for him. And that is why he had Mitsugi no Kishi, an individual whose name seems to be related to the idea of tribute, delayed by sending him out on an errand far out of his way. Still, it didn’t help. Silla and Baekje actually united against Kena no Omi, invading and taking control of much of Nimna. Kena no Omi held out, but Mitsugi no Kishi was able to get back to Yamato.
When Mitsugi no Kishi laid out to everyone what a half-assed job of it Kena no Omi was doing, it was clear. He was arrogant. He’d pissed off everyone. And he wasn’t fit to govern. And so the court sent a new administrator, Medzurako, and recalled Kena no Omi. This time, Kena no Omi could no longer refuse the summons and he headed back, but he was struck ill at the island of Tsushima, where he died. A very probable and yet extremely convenient end.
And it looks like this is a convenient ending for us. There is more to get into, but Wohodo passed away shortly after this, and further conflict took place outside of this reign. And so next episode we can talk about his death as well as the strange circumstances around his successor.
Until then, thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, 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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Also, as I noted up front, we are starting to put videos up on YouTube. So far these are older episodes, and it does take some labor to convert them—and I have over 70 episodes to go through, so this will likely take some time. Still, if that works for you, you’ll be able to find us and subscribe at Sengoku Daimyo on YouTube—just look for the Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan playlist.
In addition to that, I’m looking for how best to get transcripts out there for you all. I’d like to make sure that our podcasts are accessible, and I know that is an issue without transcriptions available—and some of the original scripts for the first few episodes seem to be missing, so there’s that. If anyone knows of a good Speech-to-Text option (preferably free, but we’ll pay if need be), I’d really appreciate it.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Barnes, Gina L. (2015). Achaeology of East Asia: The Rise of Civilization in China, Korea and Japan
Vovin, Alexander (2013). "From Koguryǒ to T’amna*: Slowly riding to the South with speakers of Proto-Korean." Korean Linguistics 15:2. John Benjamins Publishing Company. doi:10.1075/kl.15.2.03vov
Bentley, John R. (2008). “The Search for the Language of Yamatai”. Japanese Language and Literature (42-1). 1-43. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/30198053
Soumaré, Massimo (2007); Japan in Five Ancient Chinese Chronicles: Wo, the Land of Yamatai, and Queen Himiko. ISBN: 978-4-902075-22-9
Kiley, C. J. (1973). State and Dynasty in Archaic Yamato. The Journal of Asian Studies, 33(1), 25–49. https://doi.org/10.2307/2052884
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

Buddhist Art and Architecture

Gandhara and the Kushan Empire

Tarim Basin

Dunhuang

China

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Who’s Who

SiddhartHa Gautama

Ashoka the Great

Buddhist Concepts

Tripitaka

Sutra

Vinaya

Abhidharma

Jataka Tales

The Three Jewels

Buddha

Dharma

Sangha

The Four Sights

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Kawabe no Nihe's punishment

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Dramatis Personae

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On Succession

Miyake (屯倉) - The Royal Granaries

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Accordion Item 1

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