Episode 92: Death or Taxes, aka Don’t Piss Off Umako

August 16, 2023 Joshua Badgley

Clay boar, trussed up and headed to the dinner table, most likely. Originally from the 5th century, but relevant to our current narrative. Photo by author, taken at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.

This episode we continue wit hthe story of the late 6th century as Prince Hasebe takes the throne after the turbulent events of the previous episode, but will he stay there? Is everything really settled now that the Mononobe have been defeated?

Soga no Umako

Son of Soga no Iname. He is mentioned as Ōmi and Sukune, like his father, although when, exactly, he inherited both is not entirely clear. The Nihon Shoki claims he received the title shortly after the death of his father, in the following reign, but we’ve seen how those first appointments are always accurate reflections of history, as sometimes they mention appointments to Ōmi or Ōmuraji that clearly happened later in the reign.

Soga no Umako also tried to bring Buddhism to Japan. He found images and experts and had nuns ordained to worship at a temple, with a pagoda, which he once again had built on his family’s property. Once again, the Mononobe and Nakatomi opposed it and had the temple destroyed and the nuns punished. In the chaos of the late 6th century, Soga no Umako was the uncle to several powerful royal princes, as well as the Queen, Kashikiya Hime. This put him in a unique position during everything that would happen.

Kashikiya Hime

A royal princess, daughter of Kitashi Hime and graddaughter of Soga no Iname, she was the wife of Nunakura Futodamashiki, made his second Queen after Hiro Hime passed away, and she succeeded him. According to the Nihon Shoki, she was likely born about 553, which would have made her about 32 when Nunakura died, though another source suggests she was 34. Another record suggests she was 18 when she was made the Queen of Nunakura, although that may have just been when they got married, and not when she was formally made Queen.

She had a country home in Iware, between modern Kashihara and Sakurai, in the southeastern corner of the Nara basin.

Prince Umayado

Aka Shōtoku Taishi, also known as Prince Kamitsumiya, based on his early residence. There are many stories about this legendary figure, and it is often assumed that as Shōtoku Taishi he is more of a conflation of several individuals. Still, there may have been an actual Prince Umayado, and if we can, we will attempt to see what might be fact, and what is likely fiction, as the cult of Shōtoku would go on to become one of the largest in Buddhist Japan, with many temples claiming some connection to him. We already saw in the last episode how he was portrayed as a sage from an early age—some stories even claim that he was born with a relic of the Buddha in his hands. He will play a much larger part in our later stories.

Prince Hasebe no Miko

Hasebe (or Hatsusebe) is initially something of a background character, though there is some evidence he supported his brother in his dealings, at least initially. However, he’s now been raised up as the next sovereign so what will his reign look like?

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is Episode 92: Death or Taxes, aka Don’t Piss Off Umako.
Before we get going, a quick recap: we are still in the late 6th century, and since the death of Nunakura Futodamashiki, aka Bidatsu Tennou, things have been a bit crazy. The number of apparently legitimate heirs was rather impressive. There were the various siblings of Nunakura, both full and half-siblings, and there were his children and his siblings’ children. On top of that, there were some truly tense politics amongst some of the most powerful families in the realm, particularly the ancient Mononobe and the more recent Soga family, who had tied themselves so closely with the royal family through marriage that at this point just about every possible heir to the throne was in some way a Soga descendant. The stories of this era have been filled with stories of death, war, and struggles for the throne. Finally, there is the tension between Buddhism, which was first introduced in the early 6th century, and the established worship of the various kami, which also speaks to the tensions between various sources of spiritual political authority.
As we discussed int the last two episodes, when Nunakura passed away, Prince Anahobe tried to take the throne, and he was initially thwarted by Miwa no Kimi no Sakahe, aka Sakahe no Kimi. Anahobe, possibly with the assistance of his brother, Prince Hasebe, as well as Mononobe no Ohomuraji no Moriya, killed Sakahe no Kimi, pissing off Nunakura’s former Queen, Kashikiya Hime. Next, Nakatomi no Muraji no Katsumi, in support of Mononobe no Moriya, attempted to curse several of the candidates with stronger claims on the throne, and when that didn’t work, he just out and out killed Crown Prince Hikobito, getting offed himself in the process. Throughout all of this, another prince, Tachibana no Toyohi, apparently ascended, briefly, but seems to have died of natural causes. In the process, however, he provided legitimacy for his own children as Royal Princes and Princesses to also contest for the throne.
Moriya’s support of Anahobe led to the death of Prince Anahobe, Prince Yakabe, and Moriya and his family—and many of his supporters, as well. And yet, despite the loss of the Mononobe and Prince Anahobe, the next heir to the throne, with the approval of Queen Kashikiya Hime, was none other than Prince Hatsusebe, aka Hasebe, a full brother to the rebel Prince Anahobe and the focus of this episode. If this all seems a bit confusing regarding the individuals and different factions, then congratulations, you’ve been paying attention. The narrative certainly seems to be missing some key information, likely lost in the attempt to either whitewash some of the more contentious historical records, or simply due to the Chroniclers’ attempts to create a more straightforward narrative out of a complex era which probably saw various courts competing to be recognized as the court that was actually making the decisions—something that doesn’t exactly fit in with the attempt to tell the story of a relatively unbroken royal line.
And yet, despite the chaos, we do see a solidification of power and control in general, as evidenced by the shift in late 6th century tomb structures. As I may have mentioned in previous episodes, the Yamato area continued to build monumental round keyhole shaped tombs, but that shape of tomb simultaneously declined in nearby regions, which saw more round or square shaped—or even square keyhole shaped—tombs instead. On the other hand, at the periphery, at the farthest reaches of the archipelago, we continue to see round keyhole shaped tombs in the Yamato style.
This is all likely due to a consolidation of Yamato’s power and authority. Previously we had seen that start with the proliferation of the Yamato style tomb, but even from early times those round keyhole tombs were interspersed with other, typically smaller tombs. The general assumption, based on the size, grave goods, and other archaeological features, is that the round keyhole tomb, at least in a Yamato context, was reserved for the Yamato royal family and only those of the most elite status. In the Yamato and Kawachi regions, this seems to have held true, but further afield, local magnates adopted the round keyhole tombs for themselves, perhaps even appropriating some of the prestige of that tomb shape for themselves. Similarly, it is very likely that Yamato did not have the power to stop local rulers from building whatever the heck they wanted, despite the impression given by the Chroniclers that all was hunky-dory as soon as Mimaki Iribiko and Ikume Iribiko sent out people to subdue the four corners of the archipelago.
Whether because of an increased military might, or because of a cultural change in accepting Yamato’s leadership, more and more lands seem to have been more directly under Yamato’s sway, following their customs and accepting their position in the Yamato hierarchy. To put it another way: in many parts of the archipelago, particularly those closer to Yamato, we do not see continued claims of “kingship” by the local elite. They have accepted a lower status in the evolving hierarchy, presumably gaining some security and access to resources of the entire Yamato polity in the process, though that isn’t entirely clear to me based purely on the archaeological evidence. But according to our tomb theory, those on the periphery, where Yamato’s control remained the weakest, continued to build their own round keyhole tombs, indicating they still considered themselves somewhat independent, even as they remained influenced by Yamato’s overall cultural affectations.
Into this world, Prince Hasebe ascended the throne. Prince Hasebe was another half-brother to Nunakura Futodamashiki. Like his full brother, Prince Anahobe Hasetsukabe, he was a Soga descendant through the maternal line. We are told that his ascension was endorsed by Kashikiya Hime, his half-sister, and another Soga-descended royal. He assumed the throne almost immediately following the turmoil that resulted in Anahobe’s death and the destruction of Mononobe no Moriya. This was in 587, and for the next five years, the reign appeared to be similar to any other, but I suspect that things hadn’t quite settled, yet. How could they? It seems clear that it was way too easy for political violence to break out, and despite the Chronicles’ insistence that everything was fine, many of the systemic issues that led to the violence in the first place were still there.
To start with, you still had all of those potential heirs to the throne, and no clear succession tradition or precedence. On top of that, each household, while created to serve the Court, had grown into its own political entity, vying for their own level of power and control. No doubt some of this was exacerbated as Yamato’s influence grew, bringing more people directly under Yamato’s authority.
I also can’t help but notice that there appears to be a lack of any kind of clear justice system. In fact, laws in general at this time appear to be based on precedent and tradition, likely oral tradition: although we have writing, we don’t have a written system of laws just yet. We have artifacts with writing on them. We also have records of books coming over from the continent, which presumably people were able to read. However, what was writing being used for? It appears to have been used for communication—for example, diplomatic missions, or to send instructions and receive information back from the various lands under Yamato’s rule. David Lurie notes that this was a kind of practical writing, and it wasn’t the same as the kind of extensive journaling that we would see later.
It makes sense that much of the laws and traditions at this time were probably based on memorized precedent. Groups like the Kataribe were organized around an oral tradition, and even the Kojiki was based on a tradition of oral recitation that was still in place by the late 7th century. I suspect that different families maintained their own memories of precedence and tradition, collectively advising on what should be done in any given situation.
This isn’t exactly the kind of legal system with firm and fast rules, with everyone equal under the law, and some sort of immutable code. That wasn’t solely because it wasn’t written down, mind you—there are plenty of cultures with oral traditions that maintain very clear sets of laws. However, in this case it was not written down and given what we see and what we know about later court, legal precedent was kept in the memories of various individuals in different families, all of whom were competing for their place in the hierarchical structure that had been created. Therefore, as long as you could get enough people on your side, then you determined what was just and what was not. And of course it was the winners who wrote—or at least remembered—the history. Strong leadership may have been able to keep things stable, but during any change things could get messy, as we’ve seen time and again. And had Anahobe and the Mononobe been triumphant we’d likely be reading a very different telling of events.
Hasebe’s ascension didn’t really change any of that, other than the person at the head of the system. Still, things seemed to hold together alright, and with the recent purges, hopefully things would settle out after a while.
The reign started with the standard ceremonies. Soga no Umako was confirmed as Oho-omi, and though other “Ministers and Daibu”, or high officials, were confirmed, nobody else is named. Hasebe’s palace was set up at Kurahashi, presumably in the hills south of modern Sakurai. His wife was Koteko, daughter of Ohotomo no Nukade.
In his first year, Baekje sent envoys that included Buddhist priests and relics, along with various Buddhist artisans. We’ll probably touch on them more at a later date, but for now I’ll note that with their coming, Soga no Umako consulted with them on several matters regarding Buddhism, and then he went ahead and pulled down the house of a man named Konoha and started work on another temple. This one was known as Hokoji, though it is more popularly known to us by its common name: Asukadera.
Asukadera is perhaps the oldest purpose-built Buddhist temple commissioned by the state, and I think we can do an entire episode just on that temple alone. The Chronicles make out that it was built to commemorate the supernatural support granted to Umako in his battle against Mononobe no Moriya, though it is impossible to know for certain how much of that is true. What we can say is that this time there were no dissenting voices from the Mononobe nor the Nakatomi, and Asukadera would become one of the major temples of the Asuka period. Later, when the capital was built up at Heijo-kyo, in modern Nara, the temple was moved to the new capital, and the complex in Asuka dwindled in importance. Today you can still visit a temple at the site of Asukadera, but it is a shell of its former self, having been rebuilt on a much smaller footprint than before. You can, however, go and see the original Buddha statue—or at least the reconstructed form of it, as the original icon was severely damaged in a fire at one point.
But building up a proper temple and pagoda in the continental fashion would all take time—for now it appears that they were just breaking ground on a new construction, rather than just repurposing a part of an existing house into the temple, as they had seemingly done in the past. This was going to take some time.
At the same time, it wasn’t just buildings that were needed, and we are told that several Buddhists returned to Baekje along with the envoys. We are told that they were going to Baekje to gain further instruction in Buddhist teachings. This was the nun Zenshin, daughter of Shiba Tattou, and her companions, who had been ordained at the order of Soga no Umako to help staff his first attempt at building a worship site at his house.
The following year, in 589, we are told that there were three “inspections” that were sent out along the various circuits, or roadways, of eastern Honshu. These circuits were regions of Japan, and come from a continental tradition that would be formalized in the law codes of the early 7th century. Generally speaking there are usually 7 circuits—8 once Hokkaidou comes into the picture—and then the capital region, often known as the home territories around Yamato and the Nara basin. Kyushu and Shikoku were each covered by their own circuits: The Saikaidou, or Western Sea Circuit, covered all of Kyushu, and eventually the Ryukyu islands as well, while the Nankaidou, or Southern Sea circuit covered from the south of the Kii peninsula and the island of Shikoku. Western Honshu was covered by another two circuits—there was the San’indou, the Mountain Yin Circuit, and the San’yodou, the Mountain Yang Circuit. Yin being related to the dark and the north, the San’indou covered the areas to the north of the Western mountain range along the Japan Sea coast, from the land of Tanba west to Iwami, including the lands of Inaba and Izumo. In contrast, Yang was related to the south, and so the San’yodou covered the regions from Harima, next to the land of Settsu, part of modern Ohosaka, and stretched along the southern side of the mountains to the Seto Inland sea to the western land of Nagato, part of modern Yamaguchi Prefecture, and included the ancient land of Kibi.
Finally, there were the three circuits of Eastern Honshu, which were the subject of the Chronicles entry in 589. First off was the Tousando, or the Eastern Mountain Circuit. Whereas western Honshu can be largely divided by the mountains into a northern and southern region, eastern Honshu was a little different, as the Japanese alps created difficulties that meant that the Tousandou covered the inland regions, starting at Afumi, around lake Biwa, out to Kenu—modern Gunma and Tochigi prefectures, north of Tokyo. It would eventually include the distant regions of Dewa and Mutsu, which covered much of the Tohoku region up to Hokkaido, although those were still largely outside of the area of Yamato influence, and home to those that the Yamato court called Emishi. The man sent to inspect this region was named Afumi no Omi no Kamafu—fitting given that Afumi was at the western end of the circuit.
Next they sent Shishibito no Omi no Kari to inspect the Toukaidou, or Eastern Sea circuit. This circuit proceeded from Iga, Ise, and Owari, eastward along the Pacific coast to Hitachi, in modern Ibaraki prefecture. It includes much of modern Tokyo, and is likely one of the more well known, if only for things like the JR Tokaido line. This route became well traveled in the Edo period both for the daimyo processions of the sankin-kotai as well as the pilgrimages from Edo to Ise, and onward to points even further west.
Finally, we have a member of the Abe no Omi heading out to inspect the Hokurikudou, the Northern Land Circuit. This was largely the area known in the Chronicles as Koshi, along the Japan Sea Coast. The Abe family may have had some influence in that region, though it is said that they originally came from the land of Iga, just east of Yamato. However, we aren’t given a specific individual’s name—Abe no Omi is just the family name and their kabane rank, and could indicate any member of the Abe family. This may have to do with the actions of Abe no Hirafu in the late 7th century, but at this point in the story it is unclear. We are provided the given names of the other inspectors, however—Kamafu and Kari—so it stands out that we have nothing for the inspector of the Hokurikudou other than their family name.
Other than the mention of the circuits, and the inspections that the court was conducting, this seems to be a fairly mundane entry—though it does link to some later events. Still, it provides a little more evidence for the expansion of Yamato’s direct control. The idea that there were court inspectors checking up on these territorial circuits suggests that they were a somewhat active part of the bureaucracy of the court. Previously the court had set up the Miyake, or royal granaries, which were extensions of royal authority in various areas. Now we see an additional layer of government that would have been going through the areas and making sure that things were being administered as Yamato believed. It also suggests that there were those in these circuits who were beholden to Yamato in that they were required to produce some kind of evidence for what they were up to.
The year after, in 590, the big news was apparently the return to Japan of Zenshin and others, and we are told that they took up residence at a temple in Sakurai – very possibly a reference to Hokoji or Asukadera, the newly-founded temple we just discussed. Asuka is outside of the modern bounds of Sakurai city, but at this time the name Sakurai may have referred to a slightly larger and more nebulous area. On the other hand, they could have settled at another temple in the area that just wasn’t part of the state funded program. In that same vein, later in 590 we are told that people went up into the hills to get timber for building Buddhist temples, and many more people, most of them with connections to the mainland, and especially the Korean peninsula, were ordained. Buddhism was starting to grow more popular and it was being better patronized by the elites, and soon we will start to see more and more temples popping up.
In 591, we see the final burial of Nunakura Futodamashiki, aka Bidatsu Tennou. This was now many years since his death, but that isn’t entirely surprising given the fighting and general turmoil that followed his death. Building a tomb mound was not exactly a simple feat, and if one wasn’t already prepared by the time he passed away, then it would have taken a while to prepare it—and even more time if much of your labor force was being split and repurposed in the fights for the throne. As you may recall, Nunakura died of a disease, so it is unlikely that there had been a lot of preparation for his death, so we can assume that his body, after resting in the palace of temporary interment for a while, was eventually given a temporary burial and then they likely were reburying the bones several years later. This isn’t exactly unheard of, but it does seem that this was an exceptionally long period between death and final burial.
The location of his tomb is said to be on the western side of the mountains, outside of the Nara Basin, in the area of modern Taishi, in the south of Ohosaka. This seems to have been a new region for royal burials, from what I can tell, but there would be several important Asuka era burials located in this region.
Later in that same year, Hasebe and the court indulged themselves in something that was becoming almost a tradition: Wondering aloud if they should go marching over to the peninsula and re-establish Nimna. There’s apparently no thought the fact that Nimna had not been a going concern for quite some time now, and this may have just been the popular casus belli of the Yamato court. Of course, all of the ministers were for it, agreeing that it would be just the best if they could go over there and get Nimna started again.
And so they set in motion the necessary work of gathering an army. This wasn’t a simple task and would take quite some time to get the word out, gather men together, and then have them all meet down in Tsukushi at the court’s outpost down there. Not only that, but there would need to be boats made, and armor and weapons would have to be ready. This was quite the undertaking. We are told that they eventually gathered over 20,000 men, though that could easily be an exaggeration.
They named five generals, or Taishogun. This is different from the “Shogun” of later years—the Sei-I Taishogun, or General for Subduing Barbarians. This is just the title of general, Taishogun, and there were apparently five people who were running things—possibly referring to five different forces that were going to go over, or it may have been a political thing to ensure that people of rank were given opportunities. It is interesting to see the names, as we have heard some of the family names, at least, before.
The five generals were: Ki no Womaro no Sukune, Kose no Omi no Hirafu, Kashiwade no Omi no Katafu, Ohotomo no Kuhi no Muraji, and Katsuraki no Wonara no Omi. Then various other Omi and Muraji level individuals were placed in charge below them. They were all stationed in Tsukushi and two men, Kishi no Kana and Kishi no Itahiko were sent to Silla and Nimna respectively, presumably to try to work something out before things got ugly.
That was all listed in the 11th month of 591, and preparations were still ongoing by the time of the next entry, in the 10th month of 592.
So remember how I mentioned at the top of the episode about how many of the systemic issues that had led to so much war and bloodshed were still a thing? Yeah—despite the seemingly rosy and downright mundane picture of the last five years, things were apparently not quite as stable as they may have appeared. And I say that because of what happened in the 10th month of 592.
We are told that this was the winter, possibly around late November or December according to our modern calendar—trying to map ancient lunar calendar dates to modern solar dates are a whole thing, trust me. Anyway, it was during this season that someone brought in a wild boar and presented it to the sovereign. And there was nothing too sus going on there—it wasn’t a white boar or some kind of unusually large animal. No, what was remarkable wasn’t the presentation at all, but what it kicked off, because apparently Hasebe looked at the boar and made an off-hand comment, which Aston translates as: “When shall those to whom We have an aversion be cut off as this wild boar’s throat has been cut.”
Just in case you didn’t get the allusion, he was basically wondering when those people whom he didn’t like would be killed—though possibly he meant cut off in another sense, I think it is pretty clear that he wanted some people taken care of, if you know what I mean.
I would liken it to a phrase attributed to King Henry II of England, who is said to have wondered aloud, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest”, which led to several men heading out and eventually killing Thomas Becket, the then Archbishop of Canterbury. While Henry may not have actually ordered the killing of Thomas Becket, with whom he’d been in something of a power struggle, his words certainly ended up being the catalyst that led to the archbishop’s eventual demise.
Similarly here, that certainly seems to have been the intent, or at least that is how it was taken. Word of the sovereign’s outburst made it back to none other than Soga no Umako, the Oho-omi himself, who grew more than a little bit worried. It didn’t help that word was also coming that the royal household was apparently stockpiling weapons—more than usual.
Soga no Umako came to believe that Hasebe was talking about him, and though there wasn’t a particular reason given, it suggests that there were some things going on below the surface detailed by the Chronicles, and we can speculate on a few of them.
First off, Hasebe had not been the first choice for sovereign, and he didn’t really enter the picture until after the death of his brother, Prince Anahobe. Anahobe had, of course, believed that he should take the throne himself, but then he was killed. It is possible that Hasebe was appointed sovereign to appease some of Anahobe’s supporters against the wishes of those such as Soga no Umako.
Second, it is clear that Umako was immensely influential and powerful, and he probably had more influence than the sovereign himself. Always remember that if someone raises an army and helps put you on the throne, rather than themselves, they usually have the ability to do the same thing in reverse. Or, as so many parents are fond of saying: I brought you into this world, I can take you out! So it may be that Hasebe felt threatened by Umako’s own power and felt he needed to be dealt with before Soga no Umako decided that he’d rather have someone more pliable on the throne. Of course, in another time it might have been enough to just demote him, but it is unclear if Hasebe actually had the power to do that—and if he did, would it stick.
There is also another option as well—Hasebe may not have said anything at all, and it is possible that this was a story concocted to explain Umako’s own reaction. This is hinted at, somewhat, in another account that basically comes in once again with the tired “blame the woman” trope. It suggests that Ohotomo no Koteko, Hasebe’s consort and the mother to his two children, started the whole thing as a rumor. According to this account, she was “declining in favor”—although it is unclear just whom else she was competing against. If that record is correct, she was the one who told Umako about what Hasebe was purportedly saying, knowing that it would cause problems for her husband because she was unhappy with him. Even if that were true, we don’t know whether or not Hasebe actually said what is attributed to him.
Again, regardless of what Hasebe actually said, all of this suggests that things were not as solid and stable as they might otherwise appear to be, and suggests just how literally cut-throat the politics of the Yamato court could get.
And so, Soga no Umako took this threat quite seriously, and he engaged the services of one Yamato no Aya no Atahe no Koma.
We don’t know much about Koma. The Yamato no Aya were one of several Aya families, and their name suggests that they were descended, at least in part, from ethnic Han Chinese weavers—or at least traced their lineage back to the continent with claims to the Han dynasty, just as the Hata family claimed ties back to the Qin dynasty. They had been in Japan for generations, but are still often associated with various technologies that came over from the continent.
There is also a record, we are told, that says Koma’s father was Yamato no Aya no Iwai—whose name is suspiciously similar to that of the Iwai in Tsukushi, or Kyushu, who had allied with Silla and tried to block trade and military support between Yamato and Baekje. It is possible, and even probable, that this was just a coincidence—after all, why would the son of a rebel who had so aggravated Yamato be in the court at all? But it was considered significant enough for the Chroniclers to mention it at the same time, and that may be because of the relationship back to that other rebel.
Now, for Koma to take action, he and Umako would need to act quickly. Soga no Umako sent a message to the court ministers and claimed that he was sending someone to present the taxes of the Eastern provinces. As you may recall from earlier in this episode, a few years earlier inspectors had been sent out along the three eastern circuits. It would have taken them time to survey, compile their information, and collect any taxes owed, and bring that back to the court. Umako lied to the other ministers and said that the taxes were ready, and he was sending someone to the sovereign to present the taxes.
Of course, he was really sending Yamato no Aya no Koma, and in lieu of taxes he brought death—somewhat fitting if you think about it. Koma killed the sovereign and then, somehow, made his escape. Unlike some of the other killings we aren’t given too many details of the deed itself.
What we are given is the aftermath. For later in that same month, Soga no Umako had Koma himself killed. And this is where I find it really weird, or perhaps the Chroniclers were just in denial. They claimed that Soga no Umako had learned that Koma had been having a clandestine relationship with Kawakami no Iratsume, herself a consort of the sovereign and Soga no Umako’s own daughter. Koma had apparently taken her back to his place to live and made her his wife in secret—basically saying that they had carnal relations together as man and wife, though it is not clear whether or not they were consensual. Umako thought that his daughter was dead, but when he learned that Yamato no Aya no Koma had taken her, he had Koma killed.
And that just all seems so very convenient. So Soga no Umako has enough influence over Koma to get him to assassinate the sovereign, but somehow misses that his co-conspirator in this has eloped with his daughter, and then kills him out of apparently justified rage? Uh-huh. Nothing fishy about that at all.
I suspect that what happened at the time versus what was later recorded differed slightly. Assuming that most of it was accurate, I wouldn’t be surprised if Umako got Koma to do the dirty deed, and then offed him, possibly so that he would not be immediately implicated. Even so, what were the laws around such events? With Hasebe gone, and nobody else in power to challenge him, Soga no Umako was one of the most powerful people around. He just didn’t have the parental qualifications to take the throne himself.
And that is probably what saved him from being labeled a rebel, himself. After all, you don’t get much more rebellious than killing the king. But is it rebellion when it is self-defense? Here is where the lack of a strict law code likely came down on the side of Soga no Umako, because despite his involvement, nobody seems to have gone after him or taken him to task. In fact, he would remain a powerful figure in the Yamato court for years to come.
There are also several figures who seem to have remained absent from all of this, but it would be interesting to know where they came down. The first was Prince Umayado, aka Shotoku Taishi. Did he sanction or even take part in this plot? Umayado was still somewhat young, so he may not have had much to say at this point.
Then there was Kashikiya Hime, Nunakura’s queen. Presumably, she had been the one to recommend Hasebe to the throne, but we also see her hand in the decision to punish Anahobe and the Mononobe, which we discussed over the last couple of episodes. She is often kept at arms length in the narrative, however, which may be because of what the Chroniclers already knew. With the court once more in need of an heir they searched high and low, and the assembled ministers finally settled on the candidate they thought would be the best of all of them: Kashikiya Hime herself. It makes sense: Kashikiya Hime, who is known today as Suiko Tennou, clearly knew how the court operated. She had sanctioned, if not outright directed, the deaths of Anahobe and Mononobe no Moriya.
On the other hand, the patriarchal society of the day—and even that of modern day scholars—questioned her fitness for the job. Many have pointed to the strongman tactics of Soga no Umako, as well as the focus on Prince Umayado, whom she made her Crown Prince and whom, we are told, assisted in all areas of government. In fact, it often seems as though Umayado and Umako are the ones actually running things, with Kashikiya Hime as a puppet. On the other hand, perhaps there was something even more complex—a conspiracy between Umako, Umayado, and Kashikiya Hime. She may have also been something of a compromise candidate, someone that all of the different factions could get behind.
We’ll explore all of that and more as we get into her reign in the coming episodes, along with the role played by Prince Umayado. We’ll also look more in depth at the spread of Buddhism, and the temple building that would pick up shortly after Kashikiya Hime came to power.
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

Hirabayashi, Akihito. (2022). 蘇我氏の研究普及版. 日本古代氏族研究叢書⑤. 雄山閣. ISBN978-4-639-02863-5.
Shinokawa, Ken. (2022). 物部氏: 古代氏族の起源と盛衰. 吉川弘文館. ISBN978-4-642-05945-9.
Lurie, D. B. (17 Mar. 2020). Realms of Literacy. Leiden, The Netherlands: Harvard University Asia Center. https://doi.org/10.1163/9781684175086
Como, Michael (2008). Shōtoku: Ethnicity, Ritual, and Violence in the Japanese Buddhist Tradition, ISBN 978-0-19-518861-5
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253.
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4

Episode 91: Things Kick Off

August 1, 2023 Joshua Badgley

Museum display of a faceless mannequin in black lacquered lamellar armor with a drawn bow.. — Reconstruction of the armor and weapons of an Asuka era warrior. The bow and arrow were a primary weapon, and we find the more elite warriors appear to be in a kind of lamellar armor similar to the continent. Photo by author, taken at the Asuka Historical Museum, in Asuka, Japan

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This episode we continue to push forward as the tensions in the court grow and burst into full on physical conflict.

Before we get into the discussion of the dramatis personae in this episode, I want to talk about something mentioned in the Nihon Shoki: leather shields.

The warriors known as the samurai rarely used shields—and when they did, these tate were often more like a pavise; a self-standing shield that an archer could stand behind and shoot from.

Who’s Who - Royal Family

Nunakura Futodamashiki no Mikoto, aka Bidatsu Tennō

The son of Ame Kunioshi—we are told he was not a Buddhist, but he did enjoy continental literature. There is some evidence that he may have even been against Buddhism’s influence, but this is speculation. Nunakura was twice descended from previous sovereigns, meaning both his mother and father were either sovereign or the immediate offspring of a previous ruler. He died of a plague in about 585.

Hiro Hime

First queen of Nunakura Futodamashiki, and daughter of Prince Okinaga no Mate—the Okinaga line seems somewhat obscure, but the name regularly shows up in relationship to the royal family, and Okinaga no Mate had also apparently provided a daughter to Nunakura’s grandfather, Wohodo, aka Keitai Tennō, although whether that could be another Okinaga no Mate. The name “Okinaga” goes back to even before Okinaga Tarashi Hime, aka Jingō Tennō, but certainly had some pull. Hiro Hime had a son named Hikobito no Ohine, the heir presumptive, but she died part way into Nunakura Futodamashiki’s reign, and never saw him come to power.

Hikobito no Ohine

A “traditional” heir, in that he was the son of his father and of a woman who was, herself, descended from a royal prince. It is unclear how old he was at the time of the events in the podcast, but we are told he was old enough to basically have his own household.

Tomi no Obito no Ichihi

Ichihi was an attendant at the residence of Hikobito no Ohine. He would go on to become a surprisingly pivotal figure in the upcoming conflict.

Who’s Who - Soga Family

The Soga family were based out of the Asuka region, south of Kashihara. They are mentioned earlier, but rose to prominence in the 6th century.

Soga no Iname

He achieved the position of Ōmi, the head of his house, and also used the personal honorific of “Sukune”. He married two of his daughters into the royal line, and is credited with building the first Buddhist temple at his house, even though it was later burned down and the image discarded.

Soga no Umako

Kashikiya Hime

She had a country home in Iware, between modern Kashihara and Sakurai, in the southeastern corner of the Nara basin.

She would eventually come to the throne herself as Suiko Tennō, and rule with the help of Umako and Prince Umayado

Prince Takeda no Miko

Son of Kashikiya Hime and Nunakura no Ohokimi, Takeda no Miko seems to have been on the short list for contenders to the throne early on.

Tachibana no Toyohi, aka Yōmei Tennō

Toyohi was another child of Ame Kunioshi and Kitashi Hime, and therefore a full brother to Kashikiya Hime. His reign, however, is short, and the events during his reign are chaotic, and make it seem like there isn’t actually a sovereign on the throne at all. That may be true. While it is very likely that Kashikiya Hime might have lent her full brother her political support in ascending to the throne, it also would make sense that he was only recognized by the Chroniclers because of his offspring.

He was married to his half-sister, Princess Hasetsukabe Anahobe no Himemiko, and they had several children, including Nukade Hime and Prince Umayado.

Prince Umayado

Prince Hasetsukabe Anahobe no Miko

A royal prince, he was ambitious, and wanted to assume the throne himself. Little more is said of him, and perhaps little more need be said, although he did seem to care for his family and to favor Buddhism.

Prince Yakabe no Miko

Possibly the son of Takewo Hirokunioshi, it is unclear as he isn’t listed in the genealogical accounts that I could see, and he may be yet another royal line, but our main concern is his support for Prince Anahobe no Miko.

Prince Hasebe no Miko

Hasebe (or Hatsusebe) is currently something of a background character, though there is some evidence he supported his brother in his dealings, at least initially.

Ōtomo no Hirafu no Muraj

A member of the Ōtomo family, the previously preeminent family of the court. Although their family seems to have fallen out of favor, Hirafu supported Soga no Umako and would come when asked to help.

Shiba Tattō

Who’s Who - Mononobe Family

The Mononobe trace their line back to the Heavenly Grandchild, Nigi Hayahi, as well as to numerous sovereigns. They were a “Be”, a created family, probably brought together in the 5th century, and they are one of the older families listed as a chief minister. They held the title of Muraji, which is often depicted as a rank below that of Omi, although there is plenty of evidence that these were effectively equivalent ranks, similar to how later there would be a Minister of the Left and a Minister of the Right. The head of the family was the Ōmuraji.

The traditional role of the Mononobe were as police and military enforcers for the Court.

Mononobe no Moriya

Mononobe no Moriya is depicted in the Nihon Shoki as the Ōmuraji, or head of the family, since the time of Nunakura, at least. However, there is some doubt about this, as he only as a few actual lines during Nunakura’s reign, and there is another Mononobe, Mononob no Ōichi, who may have actually beenthe Ōmuraji. However, Moriya gets all the press, good or bad, for the things that happened in the late 6th century, so the Chroniclers likely assumed that he was the Ōmuraji from much earlier.

Moriya had control of the Mononobe forces, which were not insubstantial, and helped carry out the duties of the Mononobe.

Nakatomi no Muraji no Katsumi

Katsumi is talked about largely in conjunction with Mononobe no Moriya, an apparent ally. The Nakatomi were court ritualists, so thereofere opposed Buddhism, or so we are told. Much like other things, the role of the Nakatomi may be over-emphasized due to later considerations by the Chroniclers, as one of the houses that eventually came out of the Nakatomi were the famous Fujiwara house.

Tottoribe no Yorodzu

Yorodzu was a soldier, and an expert archer, employed by Mononobe no Moriya to head up about one hundred men guarding Moriya’s Naniwa residence. He had family in Arimaka, in the Chinu district, and we know that he kept a white dog as a pet.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 91: Things Kick Off
Before we get into the episode, a shout out to our most recent supporters—Parp on Patreon, and Khonri on Ko-Fi. We really appreciate anything people can give and it helps us pay for the incidentals in hosting and keeping this going, so thank you so much. More on how you can donate at the end of this episode.
Also, quick content warning: we are talking about ancient war and violence, and that includes harm to others and self-harm. Unfortunately, the past was often a violent place.
In this episode, we are dealing with events that are happening in the late 6th century—in fact, we are dealing with a narrow, but important slice of the 6th century that is happening largely in the period after the death of Nunakura Futodamashiki, aka Bidatsu Tennou, in 585. Tensions were high, and to say that there are some scores to be settled amongst the Yamato elite is putting it lightly. The Soga family themselves were ascendant, with two branches of the royal family descended from daughters of Soga no Iname, and Soga no Umako running the family as Ohomi, one of the top court officials in Yamato.
On the outs were the Mononobe, especially Mononobe no Moriya. As we discussed last episode, Moriya had been having a fairly successful time of it. He had defended the worship of the kami against the encroaching religion of Buddhism, and he had recently taken down Miwa no Kimi no Sakahe for insulting Prince Hasetsukabe Anahobe at the Palace of Interment. But then, when Tachibana no Toyohi, aka Youmei Tennou, asked to worship the Three Precious Things of Buddhism, himself, Moriya suddenly found himself in the minority. Moriya continued to push that same line: to avoid angering the kami by worshipping this new religion. This time, however, even Prince Anahobe was against him, bringing his half-brother a Buddhist priest so that he could pray in the Buddhist fashion.
Moriya had become a political outsider, and he retired to his home base in Ato, on the Kawachi Plain, before someone decided that he, himself, was an enemy of the state. He was egged on in this by those like Oshisakabe no Kekuso, who whispered in his ear that all of the rest of the court was against Moriya. As such, Moriya didn’t just retire—he built up an army around himself, to keep him safe should his political rivals come for him.
And it wasn’t just the Mononobe forces that came to support him—his good friend, Nakatomi no Katsumi, was there as well, bringing his own forces to help support those that Moriya had already assembled. Katsumi also brought all of the spiritual power that he apparently possessed.
Wait, what – spiritual power? Just who was Nakatomi no Katsumi, and why does he even matter for any of this? Was he really the only one who came to Moriya’s side? Or is he included because the Chroniclers knew that his family were important in the 8th century, and so they were making sure to mention Nakatomi even when they may have overlooked others? It is hard to say.
So let’s start with looking at the Nakatomi, and their relationship with the Mononobe in general.
We know that the Nakatomi were a courtly family, and they held a position as court ritualists. In later years they would be known for conducting the Ohoharae, or Great Cleansing, ritual for the court, among other things. Their name would seem to come from their courtly position—something like “Naka Tsu Omi”, or the Minister of the Middle. That said, none of the Nakatomi so far have been mentioned on the same level as the Oho-omi or the Oho-muraji. They do have the kabane of “muraji”, putting them on equal footing with the Mononobe, although that may have been picked up some time after this period, it is hard to say.
We know why the Nakatomi were so important to the Chroniclers. After all, they would go on to become a powerful court family. Later, they would go on to give birth to Nakatomi Kamatari, the progenitor of the Fujiwara family, who would go on to dominate court politics. So the Chroniclers were very invested in the Nakatomi-slash-Fujiwara story. Heck, early on, in the age of the gods, we already had figures like Ame no Koyane, the purported kami ancestor of the Nakatomi clan, who was closely involved with the Amaterasu myth cycle, particularly with the story of the Heavenly Rock Cave. That story may have been added later, of course: there are other versions in the Nihon Shoki where Koyane is not as prevalent. Also, it is possible that the ancestral connection was made at a much later date as well. Still, by the eighth century there was no real dispute about how closely the Nakatomi were tied to the court and the sovereigns.
Despite that, the current dynasty is really the first we see very much of them, as far as I can tell. There is mention of a “Naka-Omi”, earlier in the text, but the way they are described, with a separate family name, suggests that they were actually just a “Middle Minister”, possible reflecting something of the later positions of Minister of the Left, Minister of the Right, and a Minister of the Middle. Or perhaps this was the position from which the name “Nakatomi” was originally derived. It isn’t entirely clear, and there is no definitive line we can draw from that early use of the term to the present.
So, the first real appearance of the Nakatomi seems to be at this moment, in the courtly political fights over Buddhism, with the Nakatomi siding with the Mononobe against the arrival of Buddhism. Once again, this would make sense as court ritualists invested in the existing order and belief system, but also would make sense in terms of later conflicts the Nakatomi had with the Soga clan, as well. All of which leads me to wonder about just how much the Nakatomi were involved in assisting the Mononobe at all, but based purely on the narrative left to us in the Nihon Shoki, they did seem to have a significant, if somewhat minor role.
You see, as Moriya had retired and withdrawn into his familial stronghold in the Kawachi area, outside of the Nara Basin, Nakatomi no Katsumi raised forces of his own and went to support his ally. However, the aid that Katsumi offered was more than just physical: he intended to make use of his family’s role as ritual specialists, since the ability to have the kami lend aid and support apparently could work for both good or ill. And so he prepared images of Hikobito no Miko, the heir apparent, as well as Takeda no Miko, and tried to place a curse on the two of them.
And while this all feels like something out of an Onmyoji movie—something with fire, chanting, and not a few nails driven into some kind of image or effigy—the details on the ground are thin. Still, it is extremely interesting just whom Katsumi was going after, and their relationship to everything, especially given the rest of the narrative.
First, targeting Prince Takeda seems somewhat obvious. He was one of two sons of Toyomike no Kashikiya Hime and Nunakura no Ohokimi, aka Bidatsu Tennou, the last clear sovereign, based on the way succession had been seemingly working so far. With Kashikiya Hime a Soga descendant, and a niece of Soga no Umako, I can easily see why Takeda might make the hit list. It is interesting that Wohari no Miko, her other son by Nunakura, isn’t also mentioned—perhaps he had already passed away or was not considered a contender for the throne.
On the other hand Hikobito, aka Hikobito no Ohine, was the son of Nunakura and his first queen, Hirohime. That made him only the stepson of Kashikiya hime, Nunakura’s second wife. This all means that Hikobito was perhaps the last royal prince with a reasonable claim to the throne that was not actually connected by blood to the Soga family. If anything, with the Mononobe and Soga feuding, one would think that a non-Soga heir like Hikobito would actually be a good thing for Mononobe and their allies, so why was he targeted? It is possible that he was considered too close to his stepmother, given that the rest of his family had passed away. However, the most likely answer was that, as the heir apparent, he stood in the way of the Mononobe’s own personal choice to the throne—none other than Hasetsukabe Anahobe no Miko. Yes, despite the fact that he had supported his step brother’s request and brought in a Buddhist monk to pray for him, Anahobe still appears to have been quite close to the Mononobe, and as such they likely preferred someone like him to the unknown element of Hikobito, on whom the Chronicles have been relatively silent.
Unfortunately for Nakatomi no Katsumi, all of his chanting and ritual power appears to have been for naught. Apparently people don’t just drop dead because you ask the spirits nicely to take care of some troublesome priest. And so Katsumi decided there was nothing else for it—he would have to carry out the deed himself. And so he made his way to Hikobito’s residence in Mimata, and there he presumably slew the prince, once again opening the line of succession.
Katsumi’s heinous deed would not go unanswered, however. No doubt he was planning to hit the residence of Takeda no Miko, next, but he wouldn’t get that far. As he was exiting the mansion of Hikobito no Ohine, Katsumi was seen by one of the attendants, or Toneri, named Tomi no Obito no Ichihi, who drew out his own sword and slew Katsumi on the spot.
No doubt this threw things into chaos. Katsumi, a known ally of Mononobe no Moriya, had killed the Crown Prince, and appeared prepared to do more, had he not met his own end in the process. We are told that Moriya quickly sent a message by several trusted individuals to Soga no Umako, claiming that, as he still believed that people were out to get him, he was just staying out of everything for the time being. This promise rang hollow, however, and we are told that Soga no Umako sent his own messenger to Ohotomo no Hirafu no Muraji, letting him know everything that was going on, and apparently requesting the Ohotomo’s assistance. Next thing you know, Hirafu is showing up Umako’s place with a bow and arrows and a leather shield, and apparently setting up his role as one of the first Yojimbo, or bodyguard, sticking to Umako like Kevin Costner to Whitney Houston, though perhaps with slightly less romantic context—though you never know, and if there are people out there writing Asuka era political fanfic, well there you go, have fun with that.
Quick side note, just because it is a neat detail—this mention of a leather shield corresponds with some actual finds in tombs from around this era. While metal and even wooden shields have survived, the leather shields were not as durable, but archaeologists have found frames with remnants of paint indicating something similar. I’ll have some links on the podcast blog page for those who are interested.
All of this was happening, as Tachibana Toyohi, aka Youmei Tennou, was getting worse and worse. Despite worshipping the Three Treasures of Buddhism, his disease continued to take its toll. Eventually, Kuratsukuri Be no Tasuna, a son of Shiba Tattou, who had helped Umako to build a temple during Nunakura’s reign, and even had his own daughter ordained as the first nun, offered to build a sixteen foot tall Buddha statue and a temple, and even to become a monk on Toyohi’s behalf. Alas, it was to no avail, and Toyohi found his life cancelled all too soon, like a space cowboy epic on Fox. The statue, though, along with its attendant Bodhisattvas, was still around in the 8th century at the temple of Sakata in Minabuchi, which was likely situated in the Asuka area at the time.
Whether or not Toyohi was actually a sovereign or if this is a polite fiction designed to further bolster the claims of his son, Prince Umayado, eventually known as the Crown Prince Shotoku , isn’t really clear – we discussed this possibility last episode – but according to the narrative we have, this meant that there was now a clear path to a vacant throne. Not only was Toyohi no longer occupying it, but Nakatomi no Katsumi had taken out the prince with perhaps the strongest claim to it of all of the remaining princes. Prince Takeda was still out there, as were the previous generation, including Anahobe and Hasebe. All of them were Soga descendants, but politics often makes strange bedfellows. Mononobe no Moriya, for all of his beef with Soga no Umako, was apparently close with prince Anahobe, and with the throne empty, Moriya seems to have decided that it would be nice to have a friendly face there.
As you may recall from last episode, Anahobe had already demonstrated himself to be ambitious. He had tried to take Kashikiyahime and make her his wife, no doubt to cement his own place as a contender to the throne. When Sakahe no Kimi resisted Anahobe’s attempts to force himself on her and on the court, Anahobe enlisted Moriya in having Sakahe no Kimi killed. Now, after the death of Toyohi, we are told that Moriya’s personal army was quote-unquote “making disturbances”, a polite euphemism likely meaning he was taking out potential rivals, although apparently not in a way that unified the rest of the court against him, probably meaning that he concocted some excuse or another for whatever happened. But he was going to need more to feel safe again, and that safety lay in getting Hasetsube Anahobe onto the throne. To do that, though, they needed to coordinate.
And so, Mononobe no Moriya crafted a secret message to Anahobe, suggesting that they go hunting together over on Awaji Island. Hunting was a common enough activity for the court nobles of this era, and Awaji island was across the water, well away from prying ears. There, Moriya and Anahobe could craft their plans to put Anahobe on the throne.
As they say, however, “Loose Lips Sink Ships”, and in this case the ship that was sunk was the one forming between Moriya and Anahobe. Word got to Soga no Umako about just what Moriya was attempting to do, and he immediately took it up with Kashikiya Hime. Word of the attempted collaboration was as good as proof, and together the Queen and her uncle commissioned three men and their forces to go and unalive prince Anahobe as well as another Prince known to be sympathetic to his cause, Yakabe no Miko.
The takedown of Anahobe reads like something that would fit in well in a Hollywood blockbuster. The three men gathered their forces and headed to Anahobe’s residence, which was apparently at least two stories tall, as they chased Anahobe through the house until they cornered him on the second story balcony. There, one of the attackers lashed out at Anahobe, catching him on the shoulder. With what I can only imagine as a Wilhelm Scream <insert Wilhelm Scream> Anahobe went over the railing and fell to the ground. As his assailants headed back to the ground floor, Anahobe dragged himself over to the outhouse and hid himself in the dark, inside. His assailants were thorough, however, and holding up their torches they were able to find Anahobe’s hiding place. And so instead of sitting on one throne, he died in another.
Either way, Moriya was now in a real pickle. If the ministers weren’t out to get him before, they definitely were, now, and his presumed royal patrons were both permanently unavailable. And so Mononobe no Moriya gathered his men to his house in Shibukawa, where they fortified themselves against outside attack.
Here we can really see the bias of the Chroniclers coming through. On the side of the pro-Soga forces, led by Kashikiya Hime and Soga no Umako, you have numerous named individuals, including five royal princes, and numerous noble families, many of which we’ve heard about previously. There were the Ki, the Kose, the Kashiwade, and the Katsuragi. Later we are told of the Kasuga, the Sakamoto, the Heguri, the Abe, and even the Ohotomo. They were all of Omi or Muraji rank. Meanwhile, on the other side were the Mononobe, defending with the men of his house—that is to say the warriors that made the Mononobe family what it was—and what the Chronicles call a “slave army”.
Of course, the Chroniclers’ own biases are likely dripping through the pages, here, based on the way things were going. Only Nakatomi Katsumi was mentioned helping Mononobe no Moriya, and after he exits the stage the Nakatomi seem mysteriously absent from the rolls on either side, especially as a later note makes reference to “men of rank” amongst Moriya’s troops. Then there is the note that the Mononobe forces were buoyed by enslaved soldiers, though for some reason I highly doubt that they were the only ones using such forces, and that may have just been a dig at Moriya and his army.
Whatever the Chroniclers thought of them, they were still quite formidable soldiers. It wasn’t for nothing that the Mononobe were the court’s goons whenever they needed a little bit of that ultraviolence enacted on someone. On top of that, they had had time to fortify their position, creating their own Inaki, or Rice Fort, from which to fight. Even Moriya himself joined in the fighting, climbing into the fork of a tree where he rained down arrows like Legolas at Helm’s Deep.
The Mononobe repulsed the pro-Soga forces at least three times, and it wasn’t looking great for Umako and his forces. In the rear of the train was the young Prince Umayado, and even he could tell that things weren’t going well.
We know that Umayado was considered particularly precocious, and the Chroniclers also tell us that he had his hair “tied up on the temples”, as was the custom for boys of about 15 to 16 years of age. At 17 it would be divided and made into tufts, a tradition that was at least present in the 8th century, and it is not uncommon to see later imagery of Prince Umayado when he was younger, with this kind of a boy’s hairstyle.
Umayado was certain that the pro-Soga forces would be beaten, and suggested that their only option was prayer. But not prayer to the kami, as might have been the case in earlier centuries. Rather, he suggested that they employ a strategy that I’ll call “Buddha take the wheel!” He found a small tree nearby and cut it down to fashion images of the four Heavenly Kings, or the Shitennou. He then placed the images in his own hair, for reasons I can’t entirely understand, and uttered a vow: If the Soga forces won the day, then Prince Umayado would erect a temple with a pagoda to give thanks for the Buddha’s assistance.
Interestingly enough, it seems that Umayado was not the only member of the Soga family who thought that they could do with a little divine assistance. Umako also made his own prayer to the “Heavenly Kings” as well as to the “Great Spirit King”, who is also identified with Daikoku. He asked for their protection and, much as Umayado had done, Umako said that if they won then he, too, would erect a temple with a pagoda in their honor. Additionally, he offered to propagate the Three Precious Things everywhere—or at least in the archipelago.
With both of these vows made, and the Heavenly figures of Buddhism properly assuaged, the pro-Soga forces once again engaged the entrenched Mononobe. This time, as they were fighting, an arrow flew out from the bow of none other than Tomi no Obito no Ichihi, the toneri who caught and slew Nakatomi no Katsumi after he killed prince Hikobito. Ichihi’s arrow knocked Mononobe no Moriya off of his branch, and Moriya and his children were soon slain.
With their leader dead, Moriya’s troops finally broke. They ran off and hid wherever they could. Men of rank who had fought for Moriya dressed themselves as though they were only servants, and they claimed that they were just out hunting on the Magari plain, in Hirose. Other children of Moriya’s relatives escaped and hid on the plains of Ashihara, where they enacted their own crude witness protection program, changing their personal names as well as their surnames. Others fled and were never found, making a clean escape.
And with that, the power of the Mononobe was broken, and it would never fully recover. Don’t get me wrong—they were still a powerful court family, and the name Mononobe continues to show up in the records, but the Nihon Shoki no longer records a Mononobe as Ohomuraji, it would seem. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be anyone made “Ohomuraji” in the Nihon Shoki after this incident. However, the Sendai Kuji Hongi does seem to indicate there were Mononobe no Ohomuraji after this point. That suggests that either “Ohomuraji” was more of just the head of any “Muraji” level family, or that perhaps that the Mononobe maintained a little more power than is otherwise thought. Either way, their influence in court was greatly diminished from their previous position.
In the aftermath of all of this, there were several things that happened. Of perhaps least significance, though still an interesting sign that the patriarchy loves to find a woman to blame, the Nihon Shoki regurgitates rumors that some people were claiming this whole episode was orchestrated by Soga no Umako’s wife, the younger sister of Mononobe no Moriya. She urged Umako into all of this, they said, claiming that Moriya’s death was unjust and unnecessary. While they very well could be correct about that latter bit—after all, there is very little hard evidence and it was the victors writing the history—blaming it all on Moriya’s younger sister seems to be stretching things. There were far too many reasons for Umako and Kashikiya Hime to be acting on their own, and no evidence that Umako’s wife was very much involved in any of it.
More significant, perhaps, was the entry saying that there was a temple built dedicated to the Four Heavenly Kings, or Shitennou, in the land of Settsu, which sat between Kawachi and Harima, and includes modern Osaka. Half of Moriya’s enslaved people, as well as all of his household were given to the temple. His own house became a farmhouse, and was also given, likely indicating that the revenues off the old Mononobe lands were now dedicated to the temple’s upkeep.
I would suppose that this is likely the famous Shintennouji, believed to have been built in 593, although there is reason to doubt the whole story. After all, this is too early for the founding of *that* Shitennouji—which we will cover at a later time. There is also the problem that this story sounds suspiciously like one from the continent. There the story happened much later—in the late 7th century, according to the Samguk Yusa—and it was Silla against the Tang dynasty. Supposedly worshipping the Four Heavenly Kings, the Shitennou, helped defend Silla against the Tang, and it may be that story was repurposed here, possibly even making it into temple records. After all, there was a lot of Silla influence in the Naniwa region, and it would be understandable if a temple like Shitennouji claimed a connection with the famous Prince Shotoku using a Silla story retold in the context of a Japanese victory. Besides, Umayado was little more than 15 or 16 at the time all of this went down, so I truly wonder at how miraculously precocious he seems to be.
There’s also the matter that there is another story there, about Soga no Umako making his Buddhist vows, and eventually building Houkoji, aka Asukadera, which seems much more plausible. Como points out, however, that later divisions seemed to form around the Baekje and Silla immigrant lineage groups, and the Soga, for the most part, appeared to be allied with the Baekje moreso than the Silla, but it was the Silla immigrant groups who later dominated—driven in part by activity on the mainland. If Como’s theory bears out, then it would be understandable for there to be a Shotoku story linked to a temple for Silla immigrants, while the Soga no Umako story might be more linked with the Baekje related immigrant families. But we can go over that in more detail, later.
Another outcome of this whole thing was that Tomi no Obito no Ichihi—the toneri that ended up killing both Nakatomi no Katsumi AND Mononobe no Moriya—was granted some 10,000 shiro of rice-land. This probably just meant that he was given a lot, as 10,000 is often just a euphemism for a metric boat-load of something, but if it was real, it might have been something like 15 million acres of land—that would be roughly the size of West Virginia. I suspect it was either an exaggeration, or else the unit of land they used wasn’t a “Shiro” per modern measurements. Indeed, it was not uncommon for ancient measurements to be slightly off from what we know them to be, today.
With Moriya dead and his lands and wealth parceled out, one might think that everything was hunky dory, but there is one more story to all of this—the story of Tottoribe no Yorodzu.
Yorodzu was a dependent of Moriya, and when everything went down, he and about 100 men were standing guard at Moriya’s residence in Naniwa. When he heard about Moriya’s death, he decided to leg it, and he hopped on a horse and rode as quickly as he good down to Arimaka, in the district of Chinu, where he then hid out in the hills. The Court immediately assumed that Yorodzu must be planning something, and accused him of having traitorous feelings. And on that assumption, they ordered Yorodzu’s entire family be put to death.
With his family in mortal danger, Yorodzu came out of the hills to face the Court appointed troops. His clothes were tattered and he had a sword, a bow, and a quiver full of arrows. If they remade this into a movie, today, he’d probably wear camouflage face paint and a red bandana. The court officials had soldiers surround him, but he was afraid, and hid from them in a thicket of bamboo. And here’s where things get really interesting.
Yorodzu knew the hills, and he had prepared for the officials. The thicket he had escaped to wasn’t just any grove. He had rigged it, tying various bamboo together so that he could shake it and make people on the outside think he was in one place or another, disguising his position. From there, he shot his arrows at the soldiers, and not a single one missed. Confused and unsure of where he was, the soldiers hesitated to approach the grove, which gave Yorodzu time to unstring his bow and run off further into the hills.
The soldiers tried to pursue, shooting their own arrows at the fleeing man, but they inevitably missed. However, some of them were rather spry, and one was even able to get ahead of Yorodzu. This Barry Allen of the Yamato Court went prone in a river bank and took careful aim, shooting at Yorodzu as he approached, wounding him in the knee.
Wounded, Yorodzu reached down and pulled out his knee-arrow, restrung his bow, and started firing again. I like to think that his first shot was to fire the knee-arrow back at Barry Allen, but that’s just my own head canon. Taking a break from his sharpshooting, Yorodzu yelled out loudly that he had been accused without examination—he had never had any kind of a trial. He would have defended the sovereign, he claimed, and devoted himself to service, but instead the court had come after him. All he wanted to know was whether or not they would take him in as a prisoner, so he could speak his piece, or were they here just to kill him.
His answer came in a hailstorm of arrows, all of which Yorodzu deflected or avoided. He then ended up killing more than thirty of his assailants with his own shots.
At last, he realized he couldn’t go on any longer. He took out his sword and he chopped up his bow so that nobody would capture it, then he bent his sword and threw it into the river. Finally, he took out his own dagger and stabbed himself in the throat, taking his own life.
This wasn’t enough for the court, however—no honorable way out for him. And so when they heard what had happened, they ordered that Yorodzu’s own body be chopped up and each piece taken to one of the eight provinces. However, as the local governor prepared to carry out this order, suddenly the heavens opened with a thunderous crack and rain started to fall. This suggested that maybe something was up. When the rain cleared, people saw the strangest thing. Apparently Yorodzu had kept a white dog with him, even in the hills. And the dog had been hanging out near Yorodzu’s corpse ever since he had died. It would look up, occasionally howling by the corpse. Finally, the dog took Yorodzu’s head and carried it to an existing kofun, where it placed the head and then stood watch at the entrance. The loyal dog lay down nearby and refused to eat, eventually starving to death in front of the tomb.
When word of this reached the court, it touched even the hardest of hearts, and so a new order was issued: They would allow Yorodzu’s family to construct a tomb and bury his remains. And so they built a tomb in the village of Arimaka and buried Yorodzu along with his loyal dog.
And with that, we can close this chapter on the conflict of the Mononobe and the Soga. It had been born out of the succession disputes, fueled by the conflicts between Buddhism and local religious practice, and eventually broke out into all out war between various factions. There was probably a lot more that just never made it into the history books, and so we may never know the full extent of it. At the same time, it was fertile ground for the Chroniclers to build up the myths around some of the most legendary figures of the day, including the famous Prince Umayado, or Shotoku Taishi. Fact and fiction intermingle, but even through all of that I think we can still see the scale of the conflict that occurred here. Next episode we can look at just who did come to the throne, and what happened next.
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

Hirabayashi, Akihito. (2022). 蘇我氏の研究普及版. 日本古代氏族研究叢書⑤. 雄山閣. ISBN978-4-639-02863-5.
Shinokawa, Ken. (2022). 物部氏: 古代氏族の起源と盛衰. 吉川弘文館. ISBN978-4-642-05945-9.
Dykstra, Yoshiko Kurata (tr.) (2014). Buddhist Tales of India, China, and Japan: A Complete Translation of the Konjaku Monogatarishū. Japanese section. United States: Kanji Press. ISBN-978-0-91-788008-7
Como, Michael (2008). Shōtoku: Ethnicity, Ritual, and Violence in the Japanese Buddhist Tradition, ISBN 978-0-19-518861-5
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253.
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4

Episode 90: Setting the Stage

July 16, 2023 Joshua Badgley

Ishibutai kofun, thought to be the eventual resting place of Soga no Umako. The kofun, in the Asuka region, demonstrates the large boulders that were used to create the kind of stone chamber that would house the actual coffin and any grave goods. For some reason, this kofun has lost the earthen mound piled up around it, exposing the inner “skeleton” of the kofun itself. Unfortunately, that also means that the kofun has been easily accessible, and we have no clear grave goods. The kofun is massive in size, and the stones would have required immense labor to put in place, but it seems to be of a square nature, which would go along with the idea that it was the tomb of a powerful individual, but not necessarily a member of the royal family. Photo by author.

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We are getting into some real murky waters, though in this case it isn’t that there isn’t enough information, but there is almost too much. Okay, well, there is definitely still too little about information on things we really want to know, but at this point in the story we are going to get into a lot of names and a lot of relations, so let’s try to boil it down.

First off, let’s set up some of the different alliances and family groups that we are dealing with. To begin with, we have the royal family—Ame Kunioshi, aka Kimmei Tennō, and his direct descendants. In particular, Nunakura Futodamashiki, aka Bidatsu Tennō, and his son, prince Hikobito no Miko.

Then there are the descendants of Soga no Iname, but even they are split into several factions.

First there is the direct Soga line, headed up by Soga no Umako.

Then there is his sister, Kitashi Hime, and her children. That includes Kashikiya Hime, who was also the wife and, eventually, queen to Nunakura Futodamashiki. And also Tachibana no Toyohi, known as Yōmei Tennō. He was married to his cousin, Hasetsukabe Anahobe, and they had a son, Prince Umayado, aka Shōtoku Taishi. One of Kashikiya Hime’s allies was Miwa no Kimi no Sakahe.

Then there is Umako and Kitashi Hime's other sister, Wonane Gimi. Besides given birth to Princess Hasetsukabe Anahobe, she also gave birth to several brothers, including Prince Hasetsukabe Anahobe and Prince Hasebe.

On top of this, there is the Mononobe faction. They were headed up by Mononobe no Moriya, and they appeared to be allies with Prince Anahobe, though that relationship wasn’t without its turmoil. Then there were their allies the Nakatomi, including Nakatomi no Katsumi.

Who’s Who - Royal Family

Nunakura Futodamashiki no Mikoto, aka Bidatsu Tennō

Hiro Hime

Hikobito no Ohine

Who’s Who - Soga Family

The Soga family were based out of the Asuka region, south of Kashihara. They are mentioned earlier, but rose to prominence in the 6th century.

Soga no Iname

Soga no Umako

Kitashi Hime

Little is known of Kitashi Hime, other than that she was the daughter of Soga no Iname, and therefore a sister of Umako. She was married to Ame Kunioshi, and gave birth to several prominent individuals in the court, including Kashikiya Hime and Tachibana no Toyohi.

Kashikiya Hime

She had a country home in Iware, between modern Kashihara and Sakurai, in the southeastern corner of the Nara basin.

She would eventually come to the throne herself as Suiko Tennō, and rule with the help of Umako and Prince Umayado

Tachibana no Toyohi, aka Yōmei Tennō

He was married to his half-sister, Princess Hasetsukabe Anahobe no Himemiko, and they had several children, including Nukade Hime and Prince Umayado.

Nukade Hime

Princess Nukade Hime is mentioned being made the “Ise Princess”—that is the princess who was in charge of Ise Shrine. At this point that may not have been quite as prestigious a position as it would later come to be known, but it was important to the Chroniclers

Prince Umayado

Miwa no Kimi no Sakahe

Based on his kabane of “Kimi”, Sakahe was likely a local power in the Miwa region, which included, or at least bordered, Iware, the location of many of the early court figures. Sakahe is portrayed as a true and loyal servant of Nunakura and to Kashikiya Hime—which put him at odds with others, like Prince Hasetsukabe Anahobe. He may have also pissed off Soga no Umako at one point, possibly resisting the advance of Buddhism, which would make sense as Miwa and Mt. Mimoro was, at the time, one of the holiest places in Yamato, and the worship of Miwa appears to have spread throughout the archipelago.

He was also in charge of the Palace of Interment for Nunakura Futodamashiki, which would lead to some conflict with Prince Anahobe.

Wonane Gimi

Wonane Gimi is another daughter of Soga no Iname, and the younger sister to Kitashi Hime. She was also married to Ame Kunioshi, and her offspring, who were likewise grandchildren of Soga no Iname, would also play a large part in the narrative to come. We’ll only mention a few here. First there is her daughter, Princess Hasetsukabe Anahobe no Himemiko, who married her half-brother, Tachibana no Toyohi. Then there is Prince Hasetsukabe Anahobe no Miko, who was hungry for the throne. Finally, there was Prince Hasebe no Miko, who will feature more prominently in future episodes.

Princess Hasetsukabe Anahobe no Himemiko

Wife to Tachibana no Toyohi and mother to Princess Nukade as well as Prince Umayado.

Prince Hasetsukabe Anahobe no Miko

Prince Hasebe no Miko

Hasebe (or Hatsusebe) is currently something of a background character, though there is some evidence he supported his brother in his dealings, at least initially.

Who’s Who - Mononobe Family

The traditional role of the Mononobe were as police and military enforcers for the Court.

Mononobe no Moriya

Moriya had control of the Mononobe forces, which were not insubstantial, and helped carry out the duties of the Mononobe.

Nakatomi no Muraji no Katsumi

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is episode 90: Setting the Stage
So when last we left off, the sovereign Nunakura Futodamashiki, aka Bidatsu Tennou, had passed away, and there had been some early flirting with Buddhism, which largely ended up pitting members of the relatively new Soga family against the powerful forces of the ancient Mononobe, as well as their allies, the Nakatomi. It even got so bad that the heads of the two houses, Soga no Umako and Mononobe no Moriya, were openly mocking each other at the sovereign’s funeral. And unfortunately, things weren’t getting better any time soon.
In fact, I should probably warn you that around this point in the narrative we are really going to get all Game of Thrones on the archipelago. Family against family, sibling against sibling, with deadly political intrigue. And as we get into it, we should talk about a few things up front to help put everything in context.
So let’s come back up to speed on the situation, shall we? In the late 6th century, the royal court was in its third dynasty. The sovereign, Nunakura Futodamashiki, aka Bidatsu Tennou, died from a plague that settled on the land. Across the straits, the once small kingdom of Silla was on the rise, having gobbled up the small polities around it, including Yamato’s apparent ally, Nimna. Now the southern peninsula was largely divided between two kingdoms, Silla and Baekje. Both were in contact with the Yamato court. And then there is the far distant northern power of Goguryeo, pressing southward themselves.
Yamato’s involvement on the peninsula meant there was quite a bit of cross-strait intercourse—in more ways than one. There were Wa on the peninsula, but there were also groups of Baekje, Silla, and Goguryeo men and women who settled in the archipelago. They brought with them various innovations and ways of thinking. One of these things was the concept of corporate “Be” families. Now, don’t get me wrong, there clearly were families in the archipelago and had been for some time, but at some point we see the literal creation of the official families, the Uji: Groups of people who shared a similar job, gathered together under a family head, who in turn was given a place in the Yamato court. The family then regulated the business of its members to the benefit of the court. These created families, usually marked with the suffix of “Be”, became an outgrowth of the court’s power, and they were in turn ranked with a collectivist title, or “kabane”. The highest ranking uji were given the titles of “Muraji” and “Omi”, and the heads of those households were known as the “Ohomuraji” and the “Ohoomi”.
One of the oldest of these families, on one side of this growing interal conflict, was known as the Mononobe. They claimed a likely fictional descent from Nigi Hayahi, a “Heavenly grandchild”, similar to the ancestor of the royal family, Ninigi no Mikoto - an illustrious backstory that no doubt helped justify their position. As for the rest, well, “Mononobe” literally translates to “the be of things” … and in this case, those things were weapons, reflecting a historical role of this important family as the enforcers and the heavyweights of the Yamato court. Of course, they weren’t the only ones with access to troops and weapons, as we’ve seen various families raising troops to go fight on the continent, and one can only assume that most powerful individuals at least had those they could call upon in case things got physical. For all that administrative power was rooted in spiritual authority, physical power was also important, and we see this in the way that armor and swords were important elite grave goods, and not just for a single family.
But few groups were so clearly tied to the exercise of martial power as were the Mononobe. And they wielded that power on the behalf of the sovereign and the State. Whether it was punishing rebels, or just executing the cruel whims of a violent and entitled ruler, the Mononobe were the ones, more often than not, knocking down your door in the middle of the night and dragging off those deemed enemies of the state.
This position was such that you can see evidence of it in the earliest parts of the Chronicles. For example, the Mononobe are connected to their ancestral shrine of Isonokami, one of the oldest shrines mentioned. It was said to be the home of the sword that Susanoo no Mikoto, the wild brother of Amaterasu, used to slay the giant, 8-headed serpent, Yamata no Orochi, generally seen as a metaphor for Yamato conquering parts of Izumo. Then there were the piles of swords made and stored at the shrine, which make it sound less like a place of spiritual worship and more like an armory—though let’s face it, for some people those are basically one and the same.
Add to that all of the times that the Mononobe were called upon to unalive some opponent to the throne, and we get a pretty clear picture of how they had for so long held a place at the very top of the court structure.
On the other side is the Soga family, currently personified with Soga no Umako at their head. While the Soga certainly traced their lineage back a respectable distance, including to Takechi no Sukune and others, at this point they are clearly relatively new, with their earliest mention coming in the reign of Wakatakiru, aka Yuryaku Tenno, in the late 5th century, about 100 years before, and they had no clear spiritual center of note, at least in the Chronicles. One source of their power and authority came through their connections with the continent, primarily with Baekje, and related families.
The other part was through their marriages, especially the daughters of Soga no Iname. Up to this point, the descendants of Wohodo no Ohokimi, aka Keitai Tennō, had been ensuring that their queens were members of the previous dynasty. This gave them and their offspring connections back to those other lineages helping bolster their claims to an unbroken lineage and their right to rule over Yamato. While the sovereigns might marry daughters of other houses, those wouldn’t typically be named as queens, although they might be expected to raise royal princes and maybe future queens. Often these were political marriages that enhanced the court’s connections to various regions. A few particularly influential family names also appear, such as Katsuraki, Okinaga, and the Wani no Omi.
Still, the success of those families pales next to what Soga no Iname enjoyed in a single reign. Soga no Iname had achieved what few others had. He was the head of his family, one of the few of the Omi, or ministerial, kabane; and he had the personal title of Sukune, one of the highest honorifics attainable by an individual. Both of those spoke to his power at court. And when he passed away, he was succeeded in his post by his son, Soga no Umako, who was also made Ohoomi and who also held the honorific of Sukune. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, Soga no Iname married two of his daughters (Umako’s sisters), Kitashi Hime and Wonane Gimi, to Ame Kunioshi, that is, Kimmei Tennou. Both of them had a number of sons who were also royal princes. And one of Kitashi Hime’s daughters, Kashikiya Hime, then went on to marry Ame Kunioshi’s son and successor (and her own half-brother), Nunakura Futodamashiki, aka Bidatsu Tennou – and when Nunakura’s own wife passed on, he elevated Kashikiya Hime to the rank of queen.
Long story short, the immediate children and grandchildren of Soga no Iname were in a great position. Soga no Umako was a powerful person at court, and brother and uncle not just to a number of the royal princes of Ame Kuniyoshi’s line, but to Nunakura’s queen as well, which gave him some powerful sway. We are also told that he had taken as his wife the younger sister of Mononobe no Moriya, likely as an attempt to bring the two families closer together. Spoiler alert: it didn’t.
All of those royal princes of Soga descent would not have been eligible for the throne under normal circumstances. But here’s where things get a little dicey. Nunakura had been the son of Ame Kunioshi and Ishi Hime, who was, herself, the daugther of former sovereign Takewo Hiro Kunioshi. Of course Takewo’s mother had come from the Owari no Muraji, a sister clan to the Mononobe, but the Nihon Shoki glosses over that by claiming Takewo was just holding the throne until his more legitimate brother was ready. Still, long story short, Nunakura was the direct descendant of at least two previous sovereigns, so one would imagine that he would be succeeded by his son, Hikobito no Ohine, son of Nunakura and his previous Queen, Hiro Hime.
And yet, Hikobito was probably relatively young, and besides Nunakura there were numerous other sons of Ame Kunioshi – conveniently, for the Soga, through his Soga descended wives. One was Kashikiya Hime’s brother, Tachibana no Toyohi, and there were also her half-brothers from her aunt, Wonane Gimi, including Princes Hasetsukabe Anahobe no Miko and Hatsusebe—or just Hasebe—no Miko. Remember that there is no such thing at this point as primogeniture—it doesn’t matter if you are the oldest son of the previous sovereign, and the throne commonly passed to brothers before it went to sons and nephews.
Finally, there is Kashikiya Hime herself, niece of Soga no Umako and newly elevated queen of Nunakura. While some women may have been content to simply raise the future generation of sovereigns, there is plenty to indicate that Kashikiya Hime was a highly political animal in her own right. On top of that, although her grandfather had passed away, her uncle, Soga no Umako, had taken his place at one of the top spots in court. She knew the ins and outs of the court, and she seems to have favored her uncle and her Soga family.
And so, when Nunakura, aka Bidatsu Tennou, died of plague, the stage was set for a political challenge – to determine just who will be the next sovereign, and more than that, which family – and even which branch of which family – will take the reins in directing matters on the archipelago going forward.
Now, before we get much further, I have to warn you, the sources we have are clearly biased when it comes to the events they were recording. I mention this because many of the stories in this highly dynamic period and I don’t want to keep caveating everything all the time. So let me get a lot of it out of the way now, before we get into the really juicy bits. This also goes for some of the stuff in the last few episodes as well. While the Chronicles were built from records that survived into the 8th century it is clear that not every family is equally represented, and it is also clear that the Chroniclers, who knew the outcome, were massaging the narrative in certain ways. And so we get a narrative of how the Mononobe were enemies of Buddhism, attempting to stop it from spreading and trying to protect the indigenous worship of the kami. They were assisted in this by the Nakatomi, a family of court ritualists, who no doubt were also out to stop Buddhism’s progress. As for the sovereigns, Ame Kunioshi, and Nunakura, while they weren’t necessarily Buddhist, they are portrayed as essentially neutral, going back and forth between the advice of their ministers as they fought, internally.
Most of this comes from the Nihon Shoki. The Sendai Kuji Hongi gives a much more abbreviated version of the actual history, and the Kojiki is pretty much focused just on the lineages at this point. By that point, a lot had happened, and neither the Soga nor the Mononobe were necessarily running things anymore.
Michael Como, in his book, “Shotoku”, suggests that, in all probability, Ame Kunioshi and Nunakura were likewise hostile to this new religion, and I think I can see that. After all, they had to realize it was a threat to their own authority as the dedicated interpreters of the will of their ancestral kami. It may be that the positions put forth by the Mononobe and the Nakatomi were, indeed, their actual thoughts on the matter, but it isn’t as if the Mononobe just went ahead and destroyed the Soga temples—twice!—on their own. They first made sure to get an order from the sovereign, an order that may not have taken much arm twisting to issue.
Como and others also point out that there is a problem with another often overlooked aspect of the struggles as they are portrayed. The typical narrative pits the “foreign” religion of Buddhism against the “indigenous” religion of the way of the kami—what would eventually be known as Shinto, but at this point really didn’t have any particular name. The usual way of telling this story is that native religionists were simply pushing back against a foreign incursion, and even though Buddhism would thrive in the Japanese archipelago, and even come to be another tool of the state, there was a certain conflict that always remained, due in large part to the ceremonial role that the sovereign was supposed to inhabit.
The problem is that there is nothing that clearly indicates that the so-called indigenous religions were appreciably less foreign to the islands. Even the earliest stories that were recorded in the Nihon Shoki, which depicts Japan as a special place, formed by the kami themselves, there are clear connections to the continent. In some cases, like with Ame no Hiboko and Himegoso, we have deities coming over directly from the continent as princes and princesses of foreign lands. In others, like with some of the stories of Susano’o, we see the kami coming down from Heaven and first setting foot in the world on the Korean peninsula. Combined with a plethora of other clues, at the very least we can assume that the ways of the kami, including stories and rituals, were heavily influenced by continental thoughts and ideas, some of which may have arrived more than a century earlier.
On the other hand, the use of horizontal tomb chambers is a pretty clear archaeological change that we can see happening. We first saw this tomb design back in the 5th century in Kyūshū, and in the 6th century it had spread across the archipelago, becoming the dominant form. But how does that connect to continental influence on indigenous spiritual and religious practice?
I think we can generally agree that tombs, beyond the practical idea of not allowing corpses to just sit around above ground, rotting and breeding disease, were largely concerned with what we consider religious concepts about the afterlife. Sure, there is the political capital achieved by reminding everyone just who’s in charge, but it is designed around the needs of the rituals surrounding the treatment of the deceased. Hence the grave goods, as well as the clay, stone, or even wood pillars and statues erected around them. So when the burials go from relatively simple pits, dug in the top of these massive burial mounds to more complex chambers of giant stone blocks, which show evidence of people using multiple times, then we can gather that something changed in the rituals surrounding death and the afterlife. Those changes are reflected in the stories about the kami, including stories about Izanagi and Izanami, about Susano’o, and even about Amaterasu in the Heavenly Rock Cave, which all have imagery associated with this new kind of burial practice. That suggests that these stories either originated in a time when the horizontal burial chambers were prevalent, or at least they were changed and updated as ritual life also changed.
And most of these changes can be traced back to the continent. We can see evidence, there, of horizontal stone chambers, and then trace that influence as it makes its way to Kyūshū and then the rest of the archipelago.
This isn’t to say that there weren’t elements that were conceived of on the archipelago itself. Certainly local traditions evolved to meet the needs of the people, but not without outside influence. Even today, modern Shintō includes concepts from Daoism, geomancy, and general Yin-Yang theory, among other things, while retaining its own character.
The point is that the argument that the resistance to Buddhism was purely because of is foreign nature seems laughably false, and yet that has been the view reinforced within the cultural imaginary of the Japanese for centuries, and it would go on to define the separate roles of Shintō and Buddhism in relation to the State for most of that time.
As we look at what takes place, however, just keep in mind that this was much more about sheer, naked, political power, regardless of how later generations tried to make it look. Also, it is unlikely that were any clear villains or heroes, either. Real people are complex, and motivations are rarely straight forward.
And with that, let’s get back to the funeral of Nunakura. The throne was empty, except for the presence of the Queen, Kashikiya Hime, who continued to reside in the palace presumably receiving guests and whatever the Yamato version of funeral potatoes was—probably some kind of dried fish.
The succession at this point wasn’t exactly clear. Nunakura had a son, Hikobito, who was no doubt the heir presumptive, but there is nothing explicitly stating as much. Ame Kunioshi had been quite prolific, and many of Nunakura’s brothers or half brothers were still running around. In addition, though unstated in the Chronicles, Hikobito was not the son of Kashikiya Hime, and so it remains unclear just how motivated she was to help him ascend the throne.
The first to act to resolve this uncertainty was a Prince that was neither a direct sibling of Nunakura nor of Kashikiya Hime. It was Hatsusekabe Anahobe no Miko. Like Kashikiya Hime, he was a grandchild of the illustrious Soga no Iname, except that he descended through Iname’s younger daughter, Wonane Gimi.
Anahobe seemed to have clear designs on the throne. He marched straight up to the Palace of interment, and demanded entry to see his half sister. This was the location, it would seem, where Nunakura’s body was lying in state, prior to burial. However, given some of the accompanying statements, I suspect they may have been using Nunakura’s own Palace for this purpose, and his queen, Kashikiya Hime, was likewise residing there, possibly out of loyalty and expectations, but also because where else was she to go on short notice?
The steward in charge of the Palace at that time was a man by the name of Miwa no Kimi no Sakahe, also just known as Sakahe no Kimi. He was suspicious of Anahobe, and his intentions. After all, it wouldn’t take much for Anahobe to force his way in, force himself on Nunakura’s queen, claim they were married and therefore he deserved to rule. It wouldn’t be the first time that a sovereign had married the queen, out at least a consort or daughter, of the former ruler to strengthen their own claim. Kashikiya was double prized as she was born the daughter of Ame Kunioshi and the Queen of Nunakura.
Sakahe no Kimi want about to let that happen, however. We are told that he had faithfully served the royal family up to that point, and it didn’t look like he was about to just lay down now, not even for a prince of the blood.
This pissed off Anahobe to no end. He left, incensed, and started talking smack about Sakahe no Kimi to anyone who would listen. In particular, he complained to the two Great Ministers, which I can only assume to mean Soga no Umako and Mononobe no Moriya, the Ohomi and Ohomuraji of the court. He mentioned how, at the eulogy, Sakahe had said that the court of Nunakura would not be left desolate, and that he, Sakahe, would keep it pure as the surface of a mirror. Who was he to make such a bold claim to be the defender of Nunakura’s virtue, especially when there were so many total princes and the court Ministers themselves? And on top of that, he had the temerity to deny Anahobe access to the Palace of interment seven times. For such insolence, he demanded the authority to put Sakahe no Kimi to death. They both agreed, and next thing you know, prince Anahobe grabbed a bunch of troops, along with Mononobe no Moriya, the King’s Hand of the ancient Yamato Court, and put together a posse to go bring justice, in the form of a quick sword to the back of the neck, to Sakahe no Kimi.
This was not exactly a quiet affair, however, and when the assembled forces of the aggrieved princes rolled up on the home of Sakahe no Kimi, in Ikenobe, in Iware, he had already split, hightailing it up Mt. Miwa. He then climbed down in the night and made straightaway for Kashikiya Hime’s country house in Tsubaki-ichi. There he went to hide out and lay low, as Kashikiya Hime still had his back.
However, it wasn’t only the royal family that had some people with divided loyalties, and two of Sakahe’s own relatives, Shiratsutsumi and Yokoyama, decided to turn him in, apparently trying to cozy up with Anahobe, whose star appeared to be on the rise.
Knowing where Sakahe was hiding out, Anahobe and his brother, Hasebe, ordered Mononobe no Moriya to head out and treat Sakahe as though he were being played by none other than Sean Bean himself. Not only that, they were to kill his sons as well, ending his direct line. Moriya accepted this duty without hesitation, once again gathering a large force and setting out.
I would point out at this point that Sakahe was clearly a close confidant of the previous sovereign, Nunakura, and he was seeking refuge at Queen Kashikiya Hime’s summer cottage—we aren’t told if she was there, or still at the palace of interment, but either way, Moriya’s forces were moving against her property.
As Soga no Umako heard about this, he quickly came to the conclusion that going after Sakahe, and invading the Queen’s residence to do so, was one of those Really Bad Ideas. Sure, he may have initially agreed to Sakahe being punished, because there was an order to things, and no doubt Sakahe’s actions threatened that order—though it is also possible that the two “Chief Ministers” mentioned in the text were others, as nobody is specifically named, so it is possible he was just learning about this for the first time, but doubtful. Still, he was now against it. Perhaps it was the clear involvement of Kashikiya Hime, or maybe it was the thought of killing the innocent kids. Or possibly Umako had come to realize the truth—that this was simply an excuse for Anahobe to take the throne for himself.
Whatever the reason, Umako went to his nephew Anahobe and pleaded with him not to go out with Moriya. He suggested that, at the very least, it would be unseemly for him to go himself. Anahobe was determined, however, and so he headed out to meet Mononobe no Moriya and to see to Sakahe’s end, personally.
Here the Chronicles diverge, giving us two slightly different accounts. In one story, Umako tagged along, and eventually he was able to persuade Anahobe not to go himself, and Anahobe finally relented. However, shortly thereafter, Moriya returned with news that he had executed Sakahe no Kimi and the others.
In the other account, it is Anahobe himself who ended Sakahe no Kimi and his line, demonstrating that he was not afraid to get his hands dirty.
Either way, Soga no Umako realized that this was not the end of it, and that there would likely be more violence. He was clearly upset that Anahobe hadn’t listened to him to call the whole thing off, and Kashikiya Hime, well, I think we can see why she may not have been happy. The Chronicles say they both conceived enmity against Prince Anahobe, even though he was their nephew and cousin, respectively.
Now this was all happening shortly after Nunakura’s death—Nunakura died in 585, and this is all taking place between then and late 586 – and clearly it’s related to a question of succession. However, the Chronicles try to claim that there was, in fact, a sitting sovereign at that time. That honor went to none other than Kashikiya Hime’s own full brother, Tachibana no Toyohi, aka Youmei Tennou. So given what we’ve discussed about Anahobe’s antics in trying to marry Kashikiya, what’s up with that, and where did Toyohi come from?
Why Toyohi was selected, or even how he was selected, is a bit strange. We are told that he was the fourth child of Ame Kunioshi, and as I mentioned, he was the full brother of Kashikiya Hime, making him a son of Kitashi Hime and a grandson of Soga no Iname. We are also told that he believed in the Law of the Buddha and also Revered the Way of the Kami. Finally, we are told that his capital was set in Iware—specifically at the Ikenobe no Namitsuki no Miya. If that sounds familiar, it is because Ikenobe, in Iware, was also the location of our Sean Bean stand-in, Miwa no Kimi no Sakahe’s, house as well—a strange coincidence in a tumultuous time.
Toyohi wasn’t long on the throne. During the feast of first fruits, the Niinamesai, which was performed on a riverbank in Iware, Toyohi took ill. The Niinamesai is typically observed on or about the 23rd day of the 11th month of the old lunisolar calendar, which could have been as late as December or even early January, meaning that it was likely cold, and possibly even cold and wet, especially along a riverbank. It brings to mind the story of US President William Henry Harrison, who gave his inaugural address on a cold and wet day, and ended up catching pneumonia weeks later, passing away shortly thereafter. In a similar vein, Toyohi’s illness grew worse and worse, and so he requested that he be able to give worship to the Three Precious Things, which is to say Buddhism, likely hoping that worshipping the Buddha would cure him. Obviously, Soga no Umako was in favor of this, having tried to get his own temple started in the previous reign, but both Mononobe no Moriya and Nakatomi no Katsumi both opposed it, claiming he would be turning his back on the kami of the Japanese archipelago. It was déjà vu all over again.
The tie breaker in this case came from what might seem an unusual source. It was Prince Anahobe himself who found a priest and brought him to his elder half-brother’s side. The records simply state that it was Toyohi’s “younger brother”, but a note in the Nihon Shoki explains that Prince Anahobe is assumed to be the one they mean. This is bolstered, somewhat, by the fact that Toyohi is said to have been married to *Princess* Hasetsukabe Anahobe no Himemiko. That’s right, Toyohi had married Anahobe’s sister, which may have also made them closer than even normal bonds of kinship would account for. Thus, whatever designs Anahobe had on the throne seem to have been overcome by his desire to help his half-brother, an apparently touching moment.
Unfortunately, it didn’t help. Toyohi grew worse and worse and eventually it was clear that he wasn’t going to make it. Kuratsukuri Be no Tasuna, a son of Shiba Tattou, offered to become a monk on Toyohi’s behalf and help make merit for him. Shiba Tattou had been the one to help Soga no Umako with his first attempt at setting up a temple, including having his daughter ordained as a nun, so this seems rather on brand for him. It is interesting that Tasuna is mentioned as a member of the Kuratsukuri Be, however—the guild of saddle makers. Once again, related to horses and thus back to Baekje and the continent.
Tasuna offered to make a Buddha image that was about 16 feet high, and to build a temple. The Chronicles say that this temple, along with its attendant Boddhisatvas, was still around several centuries later at the temple of Sakata in Minabuchi, which would appear to place it in the region of Asuka, the Soga family stronghold.
Toyohi’s reign was extremely short—assuming, of course, that he reigned at all. As we’ve already discussed with Anahobe’s Game of Thrones antics, it seems like things were generally still up in the air, though it is quite possible that since Toyohi was Kashikiya Hime’s full brother, she deferred to him and helped him take the throne as everything else was going on.
It is just as likely, though, that the Chroniclers needed someone to fill the space, and he fit the bill. There are a couple of things that suggest this interpretation. First off are his offspring, specifically two. One was Nukade Hime, who he made the Ise Princess, which is to say the Royal Princess, or Himemiko, who was assigned to the shrine of Amaterasu in Ise. There is some question about the actual importance of Ise at this point, but there wouldn’t be by the 8th century, and so to the Chroniclers this would have been an important point to make, even though there is some scholarly thought that Ise really wasn’t that big of a deal until around the time of the Temmu dynasty.
The other child of Tachibana no Toyohi is very important – someone we’ve touched on briefly, and I’ll probably go into a whole episode on in not too much longer: Prince Umayado. Aka the Prince of the Kamitsu Palace, or Kamitsumiya. He’s better known as Shotoku Taishi, and he holds a special place in Japan’s cultural identity about itself and Buddhism.
For anyone who hasn’t heard of Shotoku Taishi, I’ll try to break it down quickly. As I said, we need to do at least one episode on him at some point. “Shotoku Taishi” is the single individual most credited with spreading Buddhism in Japan – the most mentioned, though he wasn’t the first. The problem is that this means there are a lot of stories around him and his accomplishments, such that it is hard to pull out fact from fiction. Much like Yamato Takeru, Shotoku Taishi’s legend had already grown by the time the Nihon Shoki was being written, to the point that different temples were almost fighting over who got to write the narratives about him and whose stories were taken as factual. Think about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and you get the picture of the kinds of cultural imaginaries that get attached to Prince Shotoku.
And so it is little wonder that this very important figure’s father, Tachibana no Toyohi, gets credited with at least a few years on the throne, whether or not he ever actually sat as the ruler. It provides even that much more legitimacy to Prince Umayado’s later accomplishments—or at least the accomplishments that were attributed to him. It also might explain why Toyohi’s own story centers so much on his belief in Buddhism as well. There is a point made of talking about the fact that Toyohi believed in Buddhism, and he is the first sovereign we have to actively seek out the worship of Buddhism. Once again, it is hard to know if he was truly sovereign—I tend to feel like this whole period was one of the periods where the court couldn’t initially get united behind a single person, and what we are seeing is more after-the-fact ascensions to boost the lineage. But the dispute over Buddhism is clearly the centerpiece here for something much greater.
But we haven’t gone full family-on-family war yet, which brings us back to Mononobe no Moriya. He was clearly not happy about the whole situation with the sovereign ignoring his advice and performing more Buddhist worship, and it didn’t help that the powerful prince Anahobe had stepped in on the side of the pro-Buddhist faction. They had just been out murdering people together, and now Anahobe turned his back on him. Moriya likely felt tossed aside.
I’ve seen some suggestion that the Mononobe house and the Soga house at this time were equals. Sure, the Nihon Shoki uses the “Omi” and “Muraji” kabane, with “Omi” having a distinctly more prominent feel, but it is possible that the two families were actually of equal rank. There’s the fact that the text at one time references “The Two Oho-omi”, which is generally taken to just mean the two “Chief Ministers”, Umako and Moriya, but which could also be seen as acknowledging that Moriya stood on equal footing with Umako. There is also a note in the Sendai Kuji Hongi that suggests that Moriya was made both Ohomuraji—that is, head of the house—and also a high Minister, or Omi. It is unclear what this means, but probably similarly placed him on equal footing with Umako. Certainly in the discussions up to this point, the Mononobe often had the favor of the court over the wishes of the Soga, especially when it came to burning down their Buddhist establishments.
Now, however, the Soga were clearly ascendant. The grandsons of Soga no Iname were Royal Princes, and that shifted the power dynamics. Even Anahobe was a Soga descendant. It is easy to see how Moriya was likely feeling isolated and even belittled by the court. Enter Iago… I mean Oshisakabe no Kekuso, who bent Moriya’s ear and convinced him that all of the other ministers were now plotting against him. More than that, they were about to ambush him and take him out of the picture altogether.
And was that so strange? Hadn’t something similar just happened with Sakahe no Kimi when the powerful people of the court found him too troublesome? Moriya himself had helped carry that out and bring it about. This was not exactly a time where one was innocent until proven guilty, and if you wanted someone out of the picture, well, it was hard for them to tell their story from inside a massive burial mound. This was a dangerous time to be on the political outs.
And so we are told that Mononobe no Moriya retired. He left the court and went to Ato, where he had his own country-house. This would have been in a Mononobe stronghold. It is often thought to have meant somewhere on the Kawachi plain, around Yao, on southeastern edge of the modern metropolis of Ohosaka, and outside of the Nara Basin. There he gathered a force of troops around him, presumably for his own protection. Allies, such as Nakatomi no Katsumi, came to his aid.
As Umako had predicted, this whole thing was not going to end well. The two most powerful ministers at court had been feuding since the death of the previous sovereign. They had broken on policy, on religion, and even on threats to the throne. And now one of them had holed up in their own stronghold and was building an army. Meanwhile you still had a bunch of princes running around, all of them possibly eligible to ascend and take the throne of Yamato for themselves. The storm clouds of war had gathered, and people were taking sides. Whatever happened, its clear that it would have momentous consequences for everyone involved—at least, if they lived to see it through.
Until next time, 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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And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Hirabayashi, Akihito. (2022). 蘇我氏の研究普及版. 日本古代氏族研究叢書⑤. 雄山閣. ISBN978-4-639-02863-5.
Shinokawa, Ken. (2022). 物部氏: 古代氏族の起源と盛衰. 吉川弘文館. ISBN978-4-642-05945-9.
Dykstra, Yoshiko Kurata (tr.) (2014). Buddhist Tales of India, China, and Japan: A Complete Translation of the Konjaku Monogatarishū. Japanese section. United States: Kanji Press. ISBN-978-0-91-788008-7
Como, Michael (2008). Shōtoku: Ethnicity, Ritual, and Violence in the Japanese Buddhist Tradition, ISBN 978-0-19-518861-5
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253.
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4

Episode 89: Baekje and Yamato on the Rocks

July 1, 2023 Joshua Badgley

A golden animal head umbrella finial, found on Okinoshima island, and dated to the 6th century. These kinds of things were coming across the straits, and there was clearly a robust trade network, even if every mission wasn’t mentioned in the Chronicles somewhere. Photo by author, at the Munakata Taisha Shinpokan; the museum of their holy treasures, including those found on the islands at the other connected shrines.

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This episode we look at some of the other goings-on during the reign of Nunakura Futodamashiki no Mikoto—especially as regards some of the cross-strait relations with Silla and Baekje, largely revolving around the status of the state of Nimna.

Who’s Who

Nunakura Futodamashiki no Mikoto, aka Bidatsu Tennō

The current sovereign, son of Ame Kunioshi—we are told he was not a Buddhist, but he did enjoy continental literature.

Nichira

Aka Nila or Illa (日羅), a name made up of the first character from “Nihon” (日本) and the last character of Silla (新羅). Later stories claim he was a holy Buddhist monk, although I don’t know if I’m aware of many monks at this point donning armor to visit royalty or suggesting that countries wipe out boats filled with men, women, and children.

(More as we get a chance to update)

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is Episode 89: Baekje and Yamato on the Rocks
Last episode we covered the continued rise of Buddhism. From the enigmatic Prince Ohowake, and his importation of experts and texts to found a temple in the Naniwa region, to the more well-documented case of Soga no Umako, who continued his father’s efforts to establish a temple at their home in the Asuka area, going so far as to have three women inducted as nuns—the first clergy we know of to have been ordained in the archipelago, even though it may have been less than perfectly orthodox in the manner of ceremony. We also talked about how a coalition of other court nobles, led by the Mononobe family, were undermining the Soga and accused their new-fangled religious ideas of bringing plague to the people—plague that, even though the Soga’s temple was destroyed to prevent it, nonetheless took the life of the sovereign, Nunakura Fotadamashiki, aka Bidatsu Tennou.
And for many, that’s probably the highlight of this reign, which was deeply involved in the spread of Buddhism, as well as providing the roots of the conflict between the old guard of the Mononobe and the newly risen Soga family. However, it isn’t as if that is all that was happening. There were continued international developments, among other things, and these were intertwined with everything else—nothing was happening in a vacuum. For example, the country of Baekje was the source of many of the early Buddhist texts and professionals, with Buddhist gifts becoming a part of the “tributary diplomacy” that is depicted in the Chronicles at this time. Whereas earlier diplomatic gifts may have included bronze mirrors, many embossed with figures such as the Queen Mother of the West, in the 6th century Buddhist icons and imagery seem to hold a similar currency.
I’d also note that giving Buddhist images and texts as gifts or tribute held an added layer of meaning, at least from a Buddhist interpretation. After all, not only were you providing prestige goods, which then helped boost the status of one’s diplomatic partners, but it also earned merit for the person gifting such things, as they were then able to make the claim that they were helping to spread the teachings of the Buddha. This provided an appeal to such gifts on multiple levels, both within and without the growing Buddhist world.
At the same time that Baekje and Yamato continued to advance their ties, Silla continued to grow. Since absorbing the states of Kara, or Gaya, including the Yamato-allied state of Nimna, Silla had grown and was consolidating its power. Silla itself had started out as a coalition of six city-state-like polities that came together in a union. They were one of the main targets of early Yamato aggressions on the Korean peninsula, with numerous discussions of raids by “Wa” sailors, though little is typically seen of the reverse. The Chronicles make the claim that early Silla was a subordinate tributary state of Yamato, which modern historians regard as little more than fiction—likely part of the propaganda campaign of the Yamato court attempting to place themselves in the superior position. Still, it does seem reasonable that prior to the 6th century Silla had remained a relatively minor state, occasionally allying with—or against—the states of Baekje and Goguryeo, as well as the other independent polities that were once present but have largely been obscured by the uncertain mists of the past. The fact that they survived as long as they did, and thus had so much written material, speaks to why they loom so much larger in the early histories, but such things are always hard to judge when all of your material basically comes from the quote-unquote “winners”, historically speaking. Just think how, if Kibi or Tsukushi, or even Izumo had become the dominant polity in Japan, our Chronicles would focus much more on what happened there rather than just covering what was happening in the Nara basin and adjacent Kawachi plain all the time.
And then there is the state of Goryeo, known to us today as Goguryeo, or Old Goreyo—in many ways the granddame of the Three Kingdoms of ancient Korea, with the greatest claim to the territory of ancient Gojoseon and Buyeo culture. Back in Episode 86 we saw a few of their attempts at diplomatic relations with Yamato landing along the Japan Sea side of Honshu—possibly a side effect of the path they were taking, sailing down along the eastern coast of the Korean peninsula, rather than via the Bohai Sea in the west. This may also have been indicative of the relatively friendly relations between Goguryeo and the expanding state of Silla.
Silla also offered up a normalization of relations, though it was met with mixed results—and even those mixed results are, well, mixed in terms of just what was really happening versus what was being projected back by Chroniclers writing a century or two later. Back in the previous reign, that of Ame Kunioshi, aka Kimmei Tennou, Silla envoys had also been received some time after their conquest of Nimna, and the Chronicles, at least, indicate that Yamato was less than enthusiastic to receive them, indicating that tensions remained high, and Ame Kunioshi took every opportunity to admonish Silla and to request that Nimna be reestablished as an independent entity, or so we are told.
Similarly, in the 11th month of 574, Silla sent another embassy, but we have very little information on it—given the timing it may have been intended to express their condolences on the death of Ame Kunioshi and their congratulations to Nunakura for ascending to the throne. About four months later, in 575, Baekje also sent an embassy, and we are told that this one sent more “tribute” than normal, possibly as a congratulations to Nunakura and an attempt to strengthen the Baekje-Yamato alliance. There may have also been a request for more specific assistance, since Nunakura apparently took the time to remind the Imperial Princes, as well as the new Oho-omi, Soga no Umako, to remain diligent regarding the matter of Nimna. As Aston translates it, he specifically said “Be not remiss in the matter of Imna”. Yamato was still apparently displeased with the fact that Nimna, which was once an ally, was now under Silla control.
Following that, the Yamato court sent their own envoys to Baekje and then Silla—though specifically they sent the embassy to Silla controlled Nimna, according to the Chronicles. A couple of months later, Silla sent an embassy back, including more tribute than normal, though the only hint of why, beyond the previous mention of Nimna, is that Silla was including tribute for four more townships, which seems kind of a weird flex, but may have been an indication of their growth, as well as a diplomatic notification that these four areas were part of what Silla now considered their territory.
The full reasons Baekje and Silla sent more tribute than normal are unclear; it could have been part of a recognition of Nunakura’s coronation and an attempt to butter up the new administration. It is possible that both Baekje and Silla were vying for Yamato favoritism, as well. Silla may also have been trying to basically pay off Yamato and get them to forget the whole thing with Nimna—something that, as we shall see, was not going to happen quickly.
Yamato sent another mission to Baekje in 577, two years later. This was the mission of Ohowake no Miko and Woguro no Kishi to Baekje, from which Ohowake brought back various accoutrements and set up a temple in Naniwa—modern Ohosaka. We discussed this, as well as our ignorance over the actual person of Ohowake no Miko, in our last episode, episode 88. It is interesting, however, if Ohowake no Miko was the actual individual who went to Baekje—mostly we see lower ranking men; those from Kishi level families, or similar. Occasionally a “muraji” or “omi” level family sends someone, particularly at the head of a military force, but not so often do we see a prince of the blood making the dangerous journey across the seas. I have to assume that this was an important mission, and that seems to have been borne out when you consider just what was brought back. Despite all of that, the details are frustratingly vague—worse than trying to find and put together the oldest episodes of Dr. Who and the First Doctor.
We do know that the whole trip took about six months, which gives a sense of what it meant to undertake one of these journeys. Most of that would have been living at the distant court. They didn’t have phones, let alone email, so they couldn’t really send word ahead with exact details—although there may have been informal communication networks via the many fishermen who regularly worked the straits. More likely, an embassy would simply show up in a boat one day and start asking the locals to “take me to your leader”.
Once you got there, they hopefully had room for you—they might even have a special location for you and your entourage to stay while they went through the formalities. After all, someone had to get you on the schedule, and any diplomatic gifts… ahem, “tribute”… should be catalogued and written down before the meeting. That way the host country could figure out just what they were going to reciprocate with. There is also possible training in any local ceremony and customs as you couldn’t assume that foreign dignitaries necessarily know what is expected. And then there would be the translating, likely through a shared language, possibly Sinic characters if everyone is literate.
Also, during that time, the mission would probably have been hosting guests or being invited out by some of the local elites. They were both guests and curiosities. And there might have been some personal trading and bartering going on off to the side—after all, you have to pay the bills somehow, and as long as nothing eclipsed the diplomatic mission, then I suspect there were some other “trade goods” that these ambassadors brought to help barter with locals and ensure they could bring back various goods and souvenirs.
In some cases, and it is unclear if it was by choice or not, ambassadors might be invited to stay longer, even settle down with a local wife and family. There are several examples of this that we see in the Chronicles, so it wasn’t all that rare.
So that was the mission from Yamato to Baekje. The next mission from Silla came in 579, some four years later, and we are told they brought “tribute” that included a Buddhist image. And then, only a year after that we have another mission, but it was dismissed before it could ever be received.
And that is a bit odd. Why would Yamato not receive the embassy? We aren’t given a reason, and it is pretty short, all things considered. We do know the names of the envoys. Indeed, the same two envoys: Ato Nama and Chilsyo Nama tried again two years later, but they were again dismissed, without accepting the tribute. This is all quite odd, but it does go to show the fickle nature of foreign relations.
One possibility may have to do with the way that “tribute diplomacy” appears to have worked. We know that in the case of the Han, Wei, and even the Tang and later dynasties, states were encouraged to come as tributaries, bringing goods as part of their diplomatic embassy, and then the receiving state was expected to provide items of even greater value in return. In the 16th century, various daimyo, or Japanese warlords, would use this to their advantage, representing themselves as legitimate emissaries in order to get the Ming dynasty court to give them even greater gifts in return. As multiple embassies showed up, all claiming to be the Japanese representatives, the Ming court started a policy of only accepting the first one that came, as they had no way to tell who was the legitimate ruler during the chaos of the Warring States period.
I bring that up because I notice that the first mission by Ato Nama and Chilsyo Nama took place only 8 months or so after the one in 579, which brought the Buddhist image. Given the typical time between embassies, that seems very short, and it seems quite possible that the Yamato court didn’t believe that the embassy was real, and that it was too soon after the previous one. Or it could even have been even more mundane—it is possible the court didn’t have the stores to pay out against the tribute, though that isn’t the reason that they would have given for turning them away. After all, it was not exactly a safe journey to cross the ocean and make your way to Japan. Whether you hopped down the island chain or took a more direct route, using the island of Okinoshima as a guide post in the middle of the strait, it was not particularly easy and many embassies never made it across or back.
I suspect, however, that there was something else going on, and that is in part because it seems to be the same two individuals coming back two years later, and they were once again turned away. It is possible that Nunakura and the Yamato court had a specific beef with these two individuals, but in that case they probably would have sent word to Silla to tell them to send someone else. This probably is indicative of the growing tensions between Yamato and Silla. From a narrative sense, it would make sense for Yamato to accept envoys just after a new sovereign came to power. It would help legitimize the sovereign, and it also offers a chance to reset and reestablish the relationship. The second envoy, bringing a Buddhist image, would certainly be something that the Chroniclers would find historically interesting and would bolster their own thoughts about the rising importance of Buddhism in the period. However, as we see in an episode from 583, Nunakura was still concerned about trying to re-establish Nimna. I suspect that this may have been a condition the Yamato court placed on Silla and the envoys, and it is possible that they weren’t willing to discuss anything without at least discussing that.
Or perhaps that is at least the impression the Chroniclers wish to give. They are still referring to it as “Mimana” or “Mimana no Nihonfu”, making claims that it was the Yamato government’s outpost on the peninsula, and therefore something of a personal blow to the Yamato court for it to have been overrun. Trying to re-establish Nimna would become something of a rallying cry; think of it like “Remember the Alamo” or “Remember the Maine”; regardless of the truth behind either incident, they were both used as justifications for war at the time. The case of Mimana was used to justify Yamato actions on the peninsula, and it would continue to be brought back up until modern times, including helping to justify Japan’s invasion of Korea in the early 20th century.
Here I’ll interject with the possibility that there could also have been some internal issues that the court was dealing with. Specifically, in between these two missions by Ato Nama and Chilsyo Nama, there was a bit of a disruption on the northeastern frontier, as the people known to the court as the Emishi rose up in rebellion. We aren’t given the details, but we are told that several thousand Emishi “showed hostility”. The Chronicle then claims that the sovereign simply summoned the leaders, including a chief named Ayakasu, who may have been a chief of chiefs, and then reamed them out, suggesting that he would put the leaders—i.e. Ayakasu and the other chieftains—to death. Of course, the rebellious chieftains immediately had a change of heart and pledged an oath to support Yamato.
Much more likely, I suspect, there was rising tension and hostility in the frontier regions, and Yamato likely had to raise a force to go face them. Assuming that was the case, it would have taken time to travel out there, subdue any uprising, and then drag the leaders back to the court to make of them an example to others. If that was the case, then it may have been that Yamato simply did not feel they had the time to deal with Ato Nama and his crew.
For a bit clearer reference, from the 8th through 11th years of the reign, there are simply relatively short entries. So in 579 there is the mission of ChilCheulchong Nama, who brought the Buddhist image. Then, in 580, we have Ato Nama and Chilsyo Nama attempt to offer tribute. Then, in 581, there is a rebellion of the Emishi, followed, in 582, by another attempt by Ato Nama and Chilsyo Nama to offer tribute. That’s about all that we have to go on.
In any case, though, we have a very clear indication in 583, only 9 months after again refusing the tribute from Ato Nama and crew, that Nimna was once again on the Court’s mind. Nunakura apparently went on a rant about how Silla had destroyed Nimna back in the days of his father, Ame Kunioshi. Nunakura claimed he wanted to continue his father’s work, but it was unclear just where to get started.
And so they decided to consult an expert. His name appears to have been something like Nichira—possibly something like Nila, depending on the pronunciation of the Sinic characters, or Illa in modern Korean, which is Aston’s preferred reading. It is said that he is the son of “Arishito” or “Arisateung”, the “Kuni no Miyatsuko”, or local ruler, of Ashikita, in the land of Hi, in Kyushu, and that he lived in Baekje, holding the rank of “Talsol”, the second official rank in the Baekje court. Ashikita was mentioned as far back as Episode 33, during the reign of Oho Tarashi Hiko, aka Keikou Tennou, as he was trying to subdue the Kumaso, and was likely a later addition to Yamato’s sphere of influence.
Nichira only makes a brief appearance here in the Nihon Shoki, but he is something of an enigma. He is presented as a citizen of Yamato, but his name appears to be from the Korean peninsula and even his father’s name hearkens back to another Arishito, who may have been the king of Kara or one of the associated polities. And yet here, this Arishito is the local ruler in Ashikita, in the land of Hi—later divided into Hizen and Higo. Given that he is referenced as “Hi no Ashikita no Kuni no Miyatsuko” this has been suggested as indicating that he was a member of the “Hi no Kimi”, the family that descended from the Lords of Hi. And this may connect to something later in the story.
There do appear to be some later documents that reference Nichira. Some claim that he was a Buddhist priest, and he’s even connected with the famous Shotoku Taishi in some stories, where he is depicted as a wise priest who recognizes Shotoku Taishi’s own Buddha nature. Of course, at this point, the prince would only have been about 10 years old, assuming the dates around his birth are at all accurate—a subject we’ll save for a later podcast, as there is just so much around Shotoku Taishi to cover.
As for the current story, however: Nichira was over in Baekje, at the court of the Baekje king, and so it wasn’t just a small matter of asking him to come to court. Ki no Kuni no Miyatsuko no Oshikatsu and Kibi no Amabe no Atahe no Hashima were sent on the dangerous mission of crossing the straits and bringing him back from Baekje. Their mission was for naught, however. Three months later they returned, empty-handed, with the unfortunate news that the king of Baekje had refused to let Nichira leave. Apparently his presence in Baekje was highly prized, and the Baekje king wasn’t willing to part with him so easily.
Yamato wasn’t deterred, however, and Nunakura sent Hashima back to Baekje. This time, Hashima went straight to Nichira’s house before any audiences at court. When he arrived, he heard a woman calling out in the local language a phrase which Aston found salty enough to throw into Latin: “Let your root enter my root!” Despite the implied sexual innuendo of such a statement, Hashima quickly understood what she meant and he followed her inside. She led him to Nichira, and there Hashima was asked to take a seat.
Nichira acknowledged that the Baekje king was not likely to let him go if he had a choice. The King was likely afraid that if Nichira went to Yamato then he’d never be allowed to return back to Baekje. Therefore, Hashima had to summon all of the authority vested in him by the sovereign of Yamato to demand Nichira’s release in no uncertain terms.
Sure enough, Hashima took the bold approach and demanded Nichira’s release, and the King of Baekje finally relented and allowed him to return. He wouldn’t go alone, however. Nichira was accompanied by other high officials from Baekje, including several men of the 3rd and 4th ranks, and a number of sailors to transport them.
They first arrived in the land of Kibi, Hashima’s own home base, and then headed on to Naniwa, where Nichira was greated by Ohotomo no Nukadeko no Muraji, likely a descendent of Ohotomo no Kanamura, the former top dog in the Yamato court. He offered Nichira condolences for the long trip he’d had to endure, and set him up in an official residence there in the port city.
Later there were daibu—high officials—who were sent to the residence to attend on Nichira.
After he’d had time to freshen up, Nichira headed off to the court. When he drew near, he donned a suit of armor and mounted a horse, and in such a fashion he rode right up to the Audience Hall of the sovereign. There he bowed before kneeling down. He then recounted how his forefathers had been sent to the Korean Peninsula up in the first place back in the reign of Senka Tennou, aka Takewo Hiro Kunioshi Tate, in the early part of the 6th century. After explaining who he was and where he came from, he took off the armor and offered it as a gift to the sovereign himself.
Off to such a great start, the sovereign had a residence constructed for Nichira in the area of Kuwanoichi, in Ato—likely meaning an area of modern Ohosaka, near Naniwa. Later, with all of the ritual pleasantries out of the way, a war council was sent to ask Nichira just how they could move forward on the question of Nimna. This war council included Abe no Me no Omi, Mononobe no Niheko no Muraji, and Ohotomo no Nukadeko no Muraji.
Nichira provided them a plan to go to war, but it wasn’t simple nor was it quick. First he suggested that they spend the first three years building up the prosperity of Yamato, and getting all of the people behind the government. Next, he suggested building up a massive number of ships, such at that any visitors would be impressed to see them all in the harbor, and thus word would get out and it would project Yamato’s military power.
Finally, once that was done, Nichira suggested inviting the King of Baekje—or at least a royal representative in the form of a high prince or similar—be invited to Yamato, where they would see all of the power and good governance. They could then be taken to task for why Nimna had not yet been reestablished.
After the war council, Nichira sent a letter to the sovereign, Nunakura. In it he let Nunakura know that Baekje was going to send a request to relocate 300 ships worth of people to Tsukushi to settle there. Here things turned rather dark as Nichira suggested that they would see the ships filled with men, women, and children hoping to establish a Baekje colony in the archipelago. Nichira suggested setting up an ambush around Iki and Tsushima and that they should slaughter everyone. Then Yamato should build up fortifications of their own—probably as coastal defenses in case Baekje decided to retaliate.
And here I’m going to interject that this seems just really odd and strange. First, Nichira and Nunakura were talking about trying to reestablish Nimna with their ally, Baekje, and suddenly Nichira is suggesting that Baekje might try to establish a colony in their territory, and therefore it should be wiped out. That all feels very extreme, and this whole passage has puzzled commenters, especially when you consider the reputation Nichira later has as some kind of holy priest or monk.
Apparently this was the kind of advice, though, that may have been why Baekje did not want Nichira to come back in the first place. In fact, as the Baekje envoys themselves began to head out to return to Baekje, they left a couple of people in Yamato with a sinister plot of their own: as soon as the ships had sailed off and made considerable distance on the way back home, those left behind were to assassinate Nichira. In return, they were told that they would be given a higher rank and that their families would be looked after, in the very real possibility that they found out and killed themselves. A not insubstantial promise at the time.
With the official residence in Naniwa vacated after the departure of the rest of the Baekje delegation, Nichira decided to move back in, rather than staying in the home made for him in Kuwanoichi. The would-be assassins tried to approach him, and hatched plot after plot. However, they were stopped because apparently Nichira had some ancient superpowers. Indeed, his body apparently glowed brightly, like a flame of fire, and so the assassins could not get anywhere near him. They had to wait until the end of the 12th month, when Nichira’s own radiance faded, and they were then able to slay him.
This whole thing about radiance is intriguing, and may have several origins such that even if it isn’t factually accurate, it may have something more to say about just who Nichira was or might have been.
First off, there is the obvious. “Nichi”, in “Nichira”, means the “sun”, and so it could have been a direct allusion to Nichira’s name. This strikes me as also intriguing because the 12th month indicates the end of the year, usually meaning that it is darker. While the Winter Solstice would not have necessarily been in the old twelfth lunar month, those would have been the days when the suns light was least seen. Add to this that it was at the end of the month, and based on a lunar calendar, the end and beginning of the month would have been the times of the new moon, when it was not visible in the sky. And so we come to what most likely was the darkest night of the entire year.
There is also the fact that he is from Hi no Kuni—he is even considered a member of the ruling family of the land of Hi. The character of “Hi” in this instance is fire. Michaeol Como notes that the Hi no Kimi appear to have been associated with fire cults, as well as with rites of resurrection. “Hi no Kimi” could also be translated as “fire lord”. There may be some connection there with the story.
Finally, we can’t ignore the Buddhist context. Holy individuals are often said to radiate light from their bodies. For example, we have the story about Nichira meeting the young child that would be known as Shotoku Taishi, found in the Konjaku Monogatari, or “Tales of Now and Then”, a 12th century collection of various stories, many focused on Buddhist stories. In that story, Nichira radiates a light and the Shotoku radiates a light of his own in response. In fact, Buddhist images often depict holy figures with halos, or even wreathes of flames around them, likely a depiction or literal interpretation of what we find in the Buddhist texts, which may have originally been meant more metaphorically.
Oh, and notice how I talked about resurrection? Maybe you thought we’d just let that one slide. Well, apparently there was a brief zombie moment, as Nichira suddenly came back to life after he had been killed just to implicate the men from Baekje who had stayed back, and then he died again. Supposedly this is because there was a Silla envoy in port, and he didn’t want them to take the blame.
That resurrection piece, well, it isn’t the first time we’ve seen that, and it isn’t entirely uncommon to hear about something along those lines. In the Harima Fudoki there is another story of resurrection, and it involves a member of the “Hi no Kimi”, or lords of Hi. In that story, a member of the Hi no Kimi came to a center of Silla immigrants and married a young woman whom he had brought back from the dead. Another connection between the country of Hi and some of what we see attributed to Nichira.
At the same time, Saints in ancient England would occasionally rise from their deathbeds for one last piece of wisdom or to admonish someone before laying back down into that sleep of death. At the same time, it is possible that diagnosing death, versus, say, a coma or other unconscious state with very shallow breathing, wasn’t always a clear thing. In the west, as recently as at least Victorian times people were so afraid of being buried alive that there were tombstones created with bells that went to a pull down in the coffin, just in case. There have also been practices of pricking a corpse with a needle or similar to try to get a response. So I could believe that every once in a while a person who was declared deceased wasn’t quite ready to start pushing up daisies, and it is possible that this is more of a deathbed accusation than any kind of resurrection.
Still, the story clearly depicts it as a brief, but true resurrection. From his words, the court arrested the envoys who had remained behind and threw them into some kind of confinement while they figured out what to do with them. Nichira’s wife and children were moved to Kudaramura, or “Baekje Village”, in the area of Ishikawa, while the sailors who had been part of Nichira’s household were settled in nearby Ohotomo no mura. It is unclear if they were given leave to return to Baekje if they wanted, or if that was even on the table.
As for the murderers themselves, they weren’t punished by the Court. Rather the court handed them over to Nichira’s family, the Ashikita, for them to deliver justice. I believe this is the first time we’ve really seen this kind of justice in the Chronicles, with the familial groups taking such a direct role.
Now why is this story important, and what does it tell us?
Well, nominally, this says something about the continuing struggle by Yamato to reestablish Nimna, but I’m not sure how much of that is accurate. Though the story starts out about consulting Nichira about Nimna, there is nothing more to say on that topic, and it quickly becomes something that is almost more about the seemingly fragile Baekje-Yamato alliance.
There is also an interesting side note that through all of this there were apparently Silla emissaries there in Yamato, even though the Chronicle claims that the last two were sent away, so what’s up with that? It could be that the story is anachronistic—that is, it isn’t recorded in the right year. Or there was a mission that just didn’t rise to the level of being noticed by the Chroniclers. One other thought is that the formal diplomatic ties were only some of the traffic flowing back and forth. This seems the most likely, to me. By this point there was no doubt a desire for trade goods on both sides of the strait, and no matter where people came from, the merchant ships were likely plying the waters back and forth. So it is quite possible that the men of Silla who were in port were part of a trade mission, not necessarily diplomats.
Michael Como suggests some other reasons why this whole thing was considered important. He notes that there are several things here that connect this to the Abe family. It is unclear where this family comes from, but they have been mentioned here or there throughout the Chronicles, and by this point are at least are fairly high up in the court. Their name is a bit of an enigma for me, and I’ll have to do more research. I just want to note that they use a different “Be” than the Mononobe or similarly created corporate families. It is unclear to me why this would be the case, unless this is just where the two seem similar.
It should be noted that we should be careful not to assume too much about this early Abe family from one of its most famous Heian era descendants, Abe no Seimei, known as a famous Onmyoji, or master of Yin-Yang divination. I’m not entirely sure that the Abe were any more or less court ritualists than any other family, especially this early. Rather, it is their influence over certain geographic regions that is more immediately of interest.
We noted that as the son of a “Hi no Ashikita no Kuni no Miyatsuko”, Nichira was likely a member of the Hi no Kimi clan. They were originally based in southern Kyushu, and Como notes that they may have been under the sway of the Abe clan, at least by the 7th century, along with other notable families of Tsukushi, which is to say, modern Kyushu.
There are a lot of connections between Ashikita, Hi, and Silla that are telling. In the Harima story, it is a Silla wife that the Hi no Kimi marries. When Nichira resurrects, it is specifically to ensure that the Silla envoys who were present would not take the blame. Then there is his father’s name—or more likely title—of Arishito. A term seen used for the King of Nimna at one point, but also for the ancient Tsunoga, who is said to have been an ancient prince from the continent. Como suggests that Hi no Kuni—and thus their lords, the Hi no Kimi, may have played a part in the rebellion of Iwai, when Iwai attempted to ally Kyushu with Silla to break off contact between Yamato and Baekje. It is even possible that this was one of the reasons that Nichira was basically being held hostage in Baekje—perhaps he and his family had been exiled after the rebellion, or else left before any harm could come to them.
It would make some sense as to why the court sought him out in the first place. If he and his family were familiar with Silla, perhaps the court thought he would have particular insights. It might also suggest some of his motives regarding Baekje as well. Still, the picture is far from clear.
Although the Chronicle says that Nichira was taken back to Ashikita and buried, other sources suggest that he was entombed in Naniwa at Himejima, near Himegoso shrine. This, in turn, was the home of a sub-lineage of the Abe family, known as the Himegoso Abe. Como suggests that by the 7th century, the Abe were appropriating various Hi no Kimi cultic centers, to the point that by the time the Chronicles were written, the Abe no Omi and the Hi no Kimi were claiming common ancestry and jointly participating in various rites.
Como then links the timing of the death of Nichira to certain court rituals of fire pacification and purification. And so there may have been much more at play here than simply the story of Nimna and the attempts to reestablish that country.
As for the envoys who sailed off and left their lackeys to do their bidding? Apparently they were struck with a bout of karma on the way back, and their boat foundered and sank. This was likely seen as proof that their deeds had been committed with evil intent, at least by later readers, interpreting everything through a Buddhist lens that likely saw Nichira as more saintly than it seems he truly was.
After all of that, though, there is no evidence that the court really pulled it off. Instead, in 584, the year after everything had gone down with Nichira, the court sent Naniwa no Kishi no Kitahiko off to Nimna, now controlled by Silla, presumably to negotiate for some kind of reinstatement. That doesn’t appear to have happened, however, and the year after that, in 585, there was one more attempt, this time by Sakata no Mimiko no Miko. Sakata had previously been sent on a mission to request Silla reestablish Nimna in 571, only months before the sovereign, Ame Kunioshi, died. Now, as he was about to set out, the sovereign and the powerful Mononobe no Moriya came down with a pestilence, and were ridden with sores, such that they called off preparations for the mission. And sure enough, later that year, Ame Kunioshi’s successor, Nunakura Futadamashiki, likewise passed away.
I guess the rule here is don’t send Sakada no Mimiko to try to demand anything about Silla.
Of course, I have to also wonder if there wasn’t something else going on. It’s suspicious that the Chroniclers recorded two missions to Silla, both led by the same guy, both about reestablishing Nimna, and both happening just before the Sovereign passed away. Maybe history really repeated itself like this, or maybe the Chroniclers just knew that such a mission was sent in the last year of one of these reigns, and then put it in bothAnd we don’t hear anything more about Mimiko after that, either.
We also don’t hear anything else about the unfortunate envoy, Sakada no Mimiko, either. The other interesting thing to note is that, like Ohowake no Miko, Mimiko is a certified royal prince, though I don’t see any immediate name to connect him with, at least in the immediate lineage. It has been suggested that this is one of the sons of Wohodo no Ohokimi, aka Keitai Tennou, though even that feels tenuous to me.
Either way, both he and Nunakura, as we noted last episode, passed away from the disease sweeping the land.
And that concludes the reign of Nunakura. Next, we’ll get into what happened after his death as we start to see the Soga influence become pre-eminent. There is more to say about the growth of Buddhism and about the clash between the Soga and the Mononobe, one of the formative conflicts from this early period. And of course, we’ve already caught glimpses of Prince Umayado, aka Shotoku Taishi, who had quite the impact on the court—assuming he even existed. But that’s a discussion for another 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.
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

Dykstra, Yoshiko Kurata (tr.) (2014). Buddhist Tales of India, China, and Japan: A Complete Translation of the Konjaku Monogatarishū. Japanese section. United States: Kanji Press. ISBN-978-0-91-788008-7
Como, Michael (2008). Shōtoku: Ethnicity, Ritual, and Violence in the Japanese Buddhist Tradition, ISBN 978-0-19-518861-5
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253.
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4

Episode 88: Let’s Give This Buddhism Thing Another Try

June 16, 2023 Joshua Badgley

Drawing by Kikuchi Yosai (1788-1878) of Mononobe no Yuge no Moriya, here shown with a mino, or straw raincoat, over his court finery. While the depiction is somewhat fanciful, it hearkens to the story in the Nihon Shoki from this reign of Moriya’s confrontation with Soga no Umako. Image is in the public domain, found on Wikimedia Commons.

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This episode we look at the continued spread of Buddhism in the archipelago.

Who’s Who

Nunakura Futodamashiki no Mikoto, aka Bidatsu Tennō

The current sovereign, son of Ame Kunioshi—we are told he was not a Buddhist, but he did enjoy continental literature.

Ōwake no Miko

An enigmatic figure—possibly one of the later sovereigns, but it isn’t clear. The name (大別王) doesn’t provide a lot of clues to go on, and yet he appears to be one of the early importers of Buddhism, bringing books and specialists. Some later sources claim that he brought over 2,000 books back from Baekje.

Soga no Umako no Sukune no Ōmi

The son of Soga no Iname, who took his father’s place at the head of the Soga clan and as the Ōmi in the court. He would push for Buddhism when nobody else would, and he was not as easily deterred as his father had been.

Mononobe no Yuge no Moriya no Ōmuraji

Son of Mononobe no Okoshi, the previous Ōmuraji of the Mononobe, the Nihon Shoki claims he was made Ōmuraji during this reign, though other sources claim it was his brother. It is likely that either way he was one of the main foils for Soga no Umako and his attempts to bring in Buddhism, and thus gets top billing in the Chronicles.

Hirohime

Nunakura’s first queen, with a royal lineage through the Okinaga family. At this time, we can see a kind of political competition between the Okinaga and Soga lineages in the royal family.

Toyomike Kashikiya Hime

A granddaughter of Soga no Iname, she would be Nunakura’s queen at the end of his reign. Her ties to the Soga family would be important as she provided some cover from the court, and later she would really take the reins for herself to help drive things forward. For now, though, it is simply an indication that the politics were leaning in favor of the Soga family.

Kurabe no Sukushi no Shiba Tattō

An immigrant from the mainland, possibly of ethnic Han extraction, though it isn’t explicitly stated. He is enlisted by Umako to help find people who can instruct others about Buddhism.

Shima, aka Shimane, aka Zenshin-ni

The nun Zenshin-ni was originally named “Shima” or “Shimane” and was the daughter of Tattō. A later note in the Nihon Shoki suggests that she was only twelve years old when she took Buddhist orders. She was later beaten and flogged for it, when she was only thirteen or fourteen years old.

Toyome, aka Zenzō-ni, and Ishime, aka Ezen-ni

Two other women who were also inducted as nuns along with Zenshin-ni. It is implied that they were subordinate, and possibly subservient, to Zenshin-ni.

Eben

The Japanese on’yomi reading of the name of a former monk from Goguryeo, living in Harima. We are not told why he was no longer a monk, but it isn’t uncommon, even today, for people in some Buddhist traditions to become a monk for only a short time, often to help make merit, but then going back to the life of a layperson. On the Korean peninsula, it seems that it was often the case that people did not always have a say in whether they would become a monk or not, as the State often had people inducted on the behalf of kings and princes, so that the latter could focus on governing rather than on merit making.

Nakatomi no Iware no Muraji

The Nakatomi family were court ritualists, and would eventually become quite powerful in their own right. It is unclear how big a role they actually played at this point. There is also mention of a Nakatomi no Muraji no Katsumi no Daibu, but it is unclear of the relationship other than they were in the same famliy. Previously it was Nakatomi no Muraji no Kamako who had sided with Mononobe no Okoshi, so clearly the families were closely aligned.

Ōmiwa no Sakahe no Kimi

The Ōmiwa family would have been from the area of Mt. Miwa, one of the oldest sacred sites in Japan, and from which the early sovereigns seem to have derived their spiritual efficacy. In fact, early on it is the rituals associated with the kami of Mt. Miwa that appear to accompany the spread of royal authority throughout the islands. As such, we can assume this was another individual invested in the way the kami were currently worhsipped.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 88: Let’s Give This Buddhism Thing Another Try.
This episode we are going to return to the story of Buddhism in the archipelago—specifically what was going on into the next reign. And what a fortuitous episode to do it on as well. For those who aren’t aware, “8” is an auspicious number in Buddhism, so I figure for episode 88, this makes for a decent topic.
Now back in Episode 86, we saw the death of Ame Kunioshi, aka Kimmei Tennou, in 576 CE, just as a delegation of envoys arrived from Goguryeo. As we noted at the time, Nunakura Futodamashiki no Mikoto, aka Bidatsu Tennou, succeeded him to the throne. You may recall that Nunakura was the second son of Ame Kunioshi and his Queen, Ishihime. His older brother, Yata no Tamakatsu no Ohoye appears to have been the Crown Prince, but then he passed away, and so Nunakura was raised up in his stead.
In many ways, Nunakura represents the Old Guard at this time. The Chronicles make it clear that he is a classical heir, descended through multiple royal lineages. His father, Ame Kunioshi, was of course the latest in the lineage descending from Wohodo no Ohokimi, aka Keitai Tennou, while his mother, Ishihime, was the daughter of Takewo Hiro Kunioshi Tate, aka Senka Tennou, Ame Kunioshi’s brother by another mother—quite literally. In fact, one wonders if the reason for Magari no Ohine and Takewo, aka Ankan and Senka Tennou, even being mentioned as sovereigns in the Chronicles may have been because of the way that they therefore legitimized Nunakura’s own reign, as some scholars have suggested that they really may not have ruled at all, and that really it was all Ame Kunioshi during that entire period that their reigns covered. After all, most of the sovereigns up to this point have been descended through multiple royal lineages, and even Magari no Ohine and Takewo’s reigns were depicted as though they were simply regents, holding the seat for their younger and more legitimate brother.
Nunakura held fast to the old traditions in another way, too: We are pointedly told in the Nihon Shoki that, though he was of good character, he was not a Buddhist. This is perhaps a curious statement to make—after all, none of the previous sovereigns have really been Buddhist, either—but then this is the first sovereign to take the throne since the archipelago had been exposed to Buddhist teachings, at least according to the narrative.
From our perspective today, that doesn’t seem all that strange. Buddhism had just come to the archipelago and, honestly, it hadn’t made that much of a splash from what we can tell. Back in Episode 85, Soga no Iname had set up a temple and started worshipping an image that had come from the continent, but that initial attempt was sabotaged by others, including Mononobe no Okoshi. The old families were, of course, rather invested in the system of rituals around their local kami and the socio-political power they derived from being in charge of those same rituals.
Soga no Iname had passed away towards the end of the previous reign, and his son, Umako, took up the mantle as head of the Soga family, and his father’s position as Oho-omi. Meanwhile, Mononobe no Okoshi had also passed away, and it seems that at the head of the Mononobe family as a man by the name of Yuge no Moriya, who was confirmed in his position as Ohomuraji by the new sovereign—or at least that is what the Nihon Shoki tells us, and it may be because of his prominence in the story to come. The Sendai Kuji Hongi claims that it was Moriya’s brother, Ohoichi no Mikari, who was made Ohomuraji, but there is little else. Regardless of whether it was Moriya or Mikari, the power dynamics between the Soga and Mononobe families were still in a similar to the previous reign, just in new hands.
Now, for all that the Chronicles stress how much Nunakura was not a Buddhist, neither was he particularly nativist. He enjoyed the Classics that were being imported from the mainland, and presumably was able to read in the continental fashion. He was also interested in ensuring good relations with the Korean peninsula—with both Yamato’s traditional ally of Baekje, but also with the growing kingdom of Silla. Still, Buddhism was off the table for him.
For the most part his reign started similar to any other. After coming to the throne, in 572, he confirmed his wife as Queen, with his mother being hailed as the Queen Mother. He also set up his own palace site at Ohowi in Kudara, in the land of Kawachi. Interestingly this appears to place him outside of the Nara basin—certainly outside of the lands of the Soga. However, the area that he settled in, Kudara, is interesting because that is the same reading given to the characters for “Baekje”. In fact the kanji, or Sinitic characters, that they use are the same as “Baekje”, and if you didn’t know otherwise you would likely read them as something like “Byakuzai”. However, just as many characters for the Han and Tang dynasties are read as “Kara”, likely referencing the fact that things came to the archipelago through the Kara states, the name for Baekje was rendered as “Kudara”.
And to be honest, I’ve never seen a good reason why the characters came to be read this way, or even whether or not that was the reading when the Chronicles were compiled. Certainly it was the authoritative reading later on, and there are plenty of placenames that use that reading as “Kudara”. Still, I’m not absolutely certain when that reading became common, but that is how these kanji are often pronounced, today, for whatever reason.
Now just because Nunakura wasn’t a Buddhist didn't mean that Buddhism wasn’t still making inroads into the islands. And while the Soga family would stand at the forefront of Buddhist proselytization, our first actor is actually a little different, and largely forgotten, from what I can tell. His name was Ohowake no Miko, or the royal prince Ohowake.
This name doesn't do a lot to help us identify him. He's a royal prince, meaning he had a direct claim to the royal lineage, born to one of the sovereigns or their progeny. “Oho” means “Big”, or “Elder”, and “Wake”, well, that’s a bit more complicated. Based on the way it is used in older names it would appear to be a title or honorific of some kind. Traditional Japanese etymology claims that it comes from the fact that “Wake” comes from “Wakeru”, to break, cut off, or separate. So basically they come from a line that has been “cut off” from the royal lineage, but they still have royal blood. This seems a little suspect to me, personally. I do wonder if it could be related to the term “Waka”, which also shows up a lot in names, but that is a stretch. Instead, I think it may be an old title, or kabane, for a person of not insignificant rank.
Still, it isn’t clear what is meant, and even then, this is a pretty generic name that doesn’t tell us much about who this guy actually was. One theory is that this is another name for someone mentioned elsewhere in the Chronicles, perhaps even one on the later sovereigns. People at the time that the Chronicles were written knew who it referred to, but it is much harder to piece together, today. Another suggestion is that this “Ohowake” was someone who was otherwise written out of the history for some reason—all except for here. Of course, why they were written out one could only fathom a guess. Finally, there is the thought that the name could be misspelled. Back in the time of hand copying, over thousands of copies it would be easy to slip up once or twice in the thousands of characters they had written, already. Later scribes then faithfully copied the mistake, and suddenly a new name is born. Even then, though, I’m not sure we could make a good guess as to who this really was.
What we do know is that in 577, this royal prince known only as “Ohowake” in the Chronicles went to Baekje, presumably as an ambassador for Yamato, and returned with religious books and six individuals, including monks, a nun, an architect, and a Buddhist image maker.
It is significant, that what this royal prince brought back was more than just books this time. Now, there were artisans being imported who could actually make Buddhist statues and temples here in the islands. They would have known how those temples were built, the significance of the layout, how the wooden beams were carved, and even how the distinctive rooftiles were made. And this wasn’t just different craft techniques - there were rules for how a temple was supposed to be constructed, the different buildings, even the relics to be buried underneath a building to help make it sacred. Likewise the images also followed particular rules. Whether it was the image of the Buddha, or of one of the many accompanying deities, it wasn’t enough to be a stone carver or a woodworker—Buddhist imagery was its own thing. All of this was very different from other artforms and architecture in the archipelago at the time.
It is also telling that Ohowake brought back monks and a nun. Specifically they had brought monks who specialized in various practices, including meditation and mantra recitation. You may recall that earlier the people of the archipelago had received images and texts, and it seems that Soga no Iname was trying to piece together what to do based on the texts—likely interpreting all of it through the eyes of the local religious practices of the time. An ordained monk and an ordained nun, however, would have known the proper rituals and how they were to be conducted. But almost more importantly, you needed Buddhist monks and nuns to make other Buddhist monks and nuns —although technically you typically need more than that, you should have a Sangha, a Buddhist community. While traditions vary, it would seem that you need at least four monks to make a Sangha, and some traditions require at least ten —and I presume the same or more for women. Whether or not they could authoritatively conduct all of the rites, the monk and the nun could, one assumes, teach how they were supposed to be done.
These newcomers appear to have been ensconced at a place called Ohowake-ji, or Ohowake temple, in Naniwa. Some suggest that this may be in error and that “Ohowake” was a typo for “Ohogori”, an official residence for envoys traveling to and from Japan. If this latter is true, then much like Soga no Iname had turned his house into a temple, these Buddhist teachers may have been staying at the Ohogoori-ji, and there was a scribal error of “Wake” for “Goori”. This theory also notes that the word “Ji”, or “Tera” in the kun’yomi reading, originally meant an official government building, but gradually shifted to referring to Buddhist temples as Buddhism made its way across the desert, through Yellow River and Yangzi river valleys. By the time it made it to the Korean peninsula and across the strait to the Japanese archipelago, Buddhist temples were all using the suffix “-Ji”. The problem with this theory is that we don’t really see the character “ji” or “tera” used in the government building sense in other instances from this time, and so it seems a bit of a stretch to suggest that is what is going on here. Personally, I envision that they did stand up a temple, though the actual location and design—let alone the artifacts within—have been lost to time.
Ohowake’s import of Buddhist expertise wasn’t it for Buddhism during Nunakura’s reign, however, as things continued to trickle in. In 579, for example, Silla envoys brought a Buddhist image, indicating that they, too, had taken an interest in this foreign religion, and they were using it as part of their diplomacy. This may have been a further reason to pressure Yamato to at least look into the religion and join the larger world of Buddhist countries, but it doesn’t seem to have swayed the sovereign—at least not in any obvious way.
Five years after the gift from Silla, in 584, Soga no Iname’s son and heir, Soga no Umako, decided to give this interesting new religion another go. The atmosphere by this point was a little different: still not entirely hospitable, but there had clearly been more and more interest in Buddhism since its first arrival fifty years before. In addition to the growing acceptance of this foreign religion, however, there were some key political aspects as well that may point to why Soga no Umako decided to act.
You see, Nunakura, at the start of his reign, had been married to a woman named Hirohime, who was the daughter of Okinaga no Mate no Miko. The Okinaga family doesn’t get quite as much press as others, but seems to have been relatively powerful; and let’s not forget that there was a sovereign, Okinaga Tarashi Hime, aka Jinguu Tennou. They had not only supplied Hirohime as a daughter to the current sovereign, but their name is found in the lists of people who had produced wives of the sovereign going back for several generations. Hirohime was the queen, and no doubt one of her progeny was expected to eventually come to the throne and rule as sovereign. However, in 576, just five years into Nunakura’s reign, Hirohime passed away. This tragic event nonetheless left a bit of a political void in the form of the Queen, whose offspring would no doubt possess some serious political chops, whether or not they actually ruled.
Fortunately for the Soga, they had an answer: Toyomike Kashikiya Hime, the daughter of Amekunioshi and Kitashi Hime, which made her half-sister to Nunakura, but more than that, it made her the niece of none other than Soga no Umako, since her mother was also a child of Soga no Iname. And without spoiling too much, put a pin in her name—we will definitely be coming back to her in later episodes. It is unclear whether Kashikiya Hime was already one of Nunakura’s consorts or if she was instead promoted directly to queen, based on the way the Chronicle talks about it, but Queen she did become. We are told that she was taken up at the “urging of the court”, and probably by certain prominent figures therein, and so the Soga’s plan to marry their daughters into the royal lineage and thus use blood ties to more closely bind themselves to the central authority appears to have been working.
This also meant that as Umako tried once again to get Buddhism off the ground, he now had a supposedly friendly figure in the royal bedchamber, who could help whisper in the sovereign’s ear. So he had, presumably, a little more clout than his father had when he had tried to set up a temple.
To start things off, Soga no Umako had heard about two Buddha images in the archipelago, and he went about acquiring them. The first was a stone image of Miroku, aka Maitreya, the future Buddha who was said to come in another four to nine thousand years to remind people of the Dharma once again. This had been brought from Baekje by an immigrant known to us as Kafuka no Omi. The other was an image of the Buddha, presumably Gautama, the historical Buddha, in the possession of one Saheki no Muraji.
With these images in his possession, Soga no Umako went looking for someone with previous knowledge of Buddhist practices to assist. To do this he enlisted the help of Kurabe no Sukuri no Shiba Tattou, along with others. Tattou is traditionally thought to have come from the continent, possibly as early as 522 CE, about 63 years earlier. The Fuso Ryakki, compiled in the eleventh century, claims he came from the “Great Tang”, even though that dynasty had yet to have been established, and that he had immigrated to the country of Yamato, where he built a grass hut and installed an image of the Buddha. While this is likely a bit of exaggeration on the part of the ancient chroniclers, to make Tattou seem like the perfect Buddhist resource, it is likely that Tattou did come from the continent or was a descendant in the first or second generation, and that he had some knowledge about the religion. This made him perfect for Soga no Umako, who needed someone who knew what to look for in others who might be able to assist him in once again setting up a temple of his own.
Sure enough, Tattou found someone: a former monk from Goguryeo, named Ebin in Japan, now living in Harima, who had gone back to being a layperson. This is not as unusual as it may seem, as there are many reasons that someone might leave the monkhood, and even later return back to it. Whether or not he was currently an ordained and practicing monk, Ebin would have known the rites and how to proceed.
Here I would note that it seems a bit odd that Umako would have searched high and low throughout the immigrant community if the temple of Ohowake was still there in Naniwa. Why didn’t they just ask someone from that temple to come and get things kickstarted for them? Unfortunately, we don’t know, though it is possible that the temple of Ohowake had already failed for some reason.
And so the former monk, Ebin, was brought on board Umako’s little project, and there are some sources that suggest there was a nun as well, known as Houmei, but I didn’t notice her name in the Nihon Shoki. Ebin—and possibly Houmei—were first told to instruct none other than Tattou’s own daughter, Shima, or possibly Shimane, to become a Buddhist nun. This may have been at least in part because Tattou’s family clearly already had some familiarity with Buddhism, and there may have also been some linguistic advantages depending on the languages they knew and spoke—especially as much of what had come over was probably written in Sinic characters.
Shima was given the Buddhist name of Zenshin, or more appropriately Zenshin-ni. This was another common practice, at least in East Asia, where new initiates would take a Buddhist—or more appropriately a Dharma—name when they were ordained. We’ll see this a lot, and you have no doubt encountered such names elsewhere. They are typically made up of two kanji, or Sinitic characters, and pronounced with the On’yomi reading. The name is often given by a teacher and emphasizes some Buddhist virtue or teaching that is considered particularly apt. In this case “Zenshin” would appear to mean something like “Auspicious Belief”.
Two other women were taken on as students—or possibly as servants, or just junior nuns—along with Zenshin. They were Toyome, daughter of Ayabito no Hoshi, who became Zenzou, which would seem to indicate “Meditative Storehouse”; and Ishime, daughter of Nishigori no Tsubo, who became Ezen, or something like “Blessed Fortune”.
With three nuns, Soga no Umako built a Buddhist Temple onto the east side of his home where he enshrined the stone image of Miroku, or Maitreya, the future Buddha, and he had the three newly minted nuns worship there while Shiba Tattou and Hida no Atahe provided them support and sustenance.
Although they were ordained and worshipping a Buddhist image, it is interesting that Umako chose women to become nuns, rather than monks. There is some thought that, for all of the Buddhist instruction, Umako was still following a popular indigenous model of worship, where the three women were essentially acting in place of female shamans, a tradition that would appear to have been common on the archipelago all the way back to Queen Himiko, and hinted at in various places within the Chronicles, including the very stories of the kami themselves. One also questions just how much the women knew regarding Buddhist practice, despite having a teacher who was formerly a monk. There are some suggestions that the women themselves were rather young, with one note claiming that Zenshin was only twelve years old when she was ordained—hardly an age where one expects her to be leading, let alone teaching, about a foreign religion from another country.
Furthermore, the terms used surrounding the nuns’ “worship” also leads one to wonder. The word used is “sai” or “matsuri”, which is sometimes translated as “maigre faire”, or abstinence, but here likely refers to some kind of meal or feast. This was possibly a Buddhist vegetarian feast, though the idea of a feast as worship seems to dovetail nicely once again into the local practices surrounding kami worship as well.
From this first meal, Tattou supposedly found a “relic”, by which would seem to be meant a relic of the Buddha. Now what a relic of the Buddha was doing in the Japanese islands, so far away from the Indian subcontinent, might seem to be a pertinent question, but that is where you would be wrong. You see, according to some traditions, the body of the Buddha had transformed through miraculous processes into hard crystal or glass stones, which themselves had made their way across the world. This was fortunate for Buddhists, who therefore didn’t need to send away for fresh relics from India every time they needed to found a new temple, they just had to find appropriate relics where they were.
To test the relics—we aren’t given much more of a description of what they were—Soga no Umako took a giant iron maul and brought that hammer down on the relic Tattou had found. However, rather than the relic shattering, the iron maul broke, instead, along with the block of iron they had put underneath of it. After testing its strength, the relic was placed in water, where it would float or sink depending on what was desired. These supposedly proved that the relic was holy, and so it was used to inaugurate a new pagoda. The pagoda was built on top of the Hill of Ohono, or large field, and we are told that they had the nuns conduct another ritual feast prior to placing the relic in the top of the pagoda, recalling the purpose of the pagoda as the replacement for the stupa, the repository for relics of the Buddha at a temple complex.
In the background of all of this, Yamato was apparently experiencing their own epidemic. We are told that pestilence was in the land, and Soga no Umako himself became ill. Trying to ascertain the cause of his own illness, Umako enlisted a diviner, who told him that the pestilence was a curse sent by the Buddha worshipped by Soga no Umako’s father, Soga no Iname. Once again we see the Buddha being treated more like a kami. After all, why would the one who came to save all sentient beings curse someone? And yet they did seem to believe that this curse was due to the way that the previous temple that Iname had set up had been torn down and the image tossed, unceremoniously, into the Yodo river.
And since the cause of the pestilence had been determined by a diviner, apparently that was enough to get Nunakura on board. Whether or not he personally worshipped the Buddha, he allowed Umako to worship the image so that he could appease his father’s gods and hopefully recover.
Shortly thereafter—less than a week later, if the dates are to be believed—we start to really get a sense of déjà vu, as Mononobe no Yugehi no Moriya, son of Mononobe no Okoshi and the current Ohomuraji of the Mononobe family, remonstrated Nunakura over this whole Buddhism thing. Just as Okoshi had done decades previously, Moriya claimed that the whole reason that there was an epidemic in the first place was because they had once again welcomed Buddhism into the land, and that they needed to put a stop to it. Nunakura was swayed by his arguments, and he took back what he had said and issued an edict that demanded that the worship of Buddhism cease.
Here we see, once again, the destruction of the Buddhist temple, but this time around we are given much greater detail. For one thing, Moirya seems to have taken rather a lot of pride in this. He went to the temple with his men, sat down in a chair, and from there he oversaw the destruction of the pagoda, the temple, and even the stone image. Whatever couldn’t be destroyed was taken to the Naniwa canal and thrown into the waters.
As he did all of this, the Chroniclers record that there was wind and rain, but no clouds, not quite unlike the idea of a fox’s wedding—an interesting phenomenon where you can have the sun, usually in the morning or late afternoon, shining at the same time that rainclouds overhead are opening up the heavens are pouring down.
Moriya simply donned a raincoat, and then he upbraided Soga no Umako and all of his followers, trying to shame them. He then had Sukune call forward the various nuns, who were stripped of their “three garments”, a term for the traditional Buddhist robes, although in East Asia this was eventually replaced with the single kesa over several lower garments, to help fend off the cold. Here it is unclear if just a kesa is meant, or if they were dressed in an attempt at clothing from the Indian continent. The nuns were then imprisoned and flogged at the roadside station of Tsubaki no Ichi, otherwise known as the Tsubaki Market.
Despite thus cleansing the land of Buddhist influence for the second time, the pestilence didn’t stop, and people continued to grow ill and die. In fact, there was an embassy planned to talk about the Nimna situation once again, but both the sovereign, Nunakura, as well as Mononobe no Moriya himself, became ill and were afflicted with sores. Once again, the land was plagued and people were dying.
According to the Chroniclers, who were, of course, writing after the fact in a well-established Buddhist state, the people started to privately complain that clearly Buddhism hadn’t been the problem. In fact, perhaps Soga no Umako’s diviner had been correct all along and the plague was actually because they *hadn’t* accepted Buddhism, rather than a punishment for neglecting the local kami.
A few months later, Soga no Umako sent another message to the sovereign. He was still ill, and hadn’t recovered, even with Moriya “purging” the influences of Buddhism. Umako claimed that the only things that would cure him were the Three Precious Things, which is to say the Sanzou, or the Three Treasures of Buddhism: The Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Based on the severity of the disease, Nunakura authorized him to worship privately, and the nuns were allowed to assist him. He rebuilt the temple and he provided for the nuns, himself. Eventually, Umako recovered, but unfortunately, the sovereign did not. Nunakura Futodamashiki, aka Bidatsu Tennou, died in 585, laid low by the plague that had swept through the land.
At the funeral, the politics were on full display. Soga no Umako had no love lost for Mononobe no Moriya, nor vice versa. As Umako was delivering a speech, Moriya made a comment that with his extremely long sword at his side, Umako looked like a fat little sparrow that had been pierced through by a hunting shaft. Meanwhile, Umako noted that Moriya was shaking as he gave his speech—whether from emotion, nerves, or something else we don’t know—and so Umako suggested hanging bells on him, so that they would jingle as he shook. From this rap battle on out, the feud between the Mononobe and the Soga would only grow.
There is another account of all of this, buried amongst everything else, that claims that Mononobe no Moriya, Ohomiwa no Sakahe no Kimi, and Nakatomi no Iware no Muraji all conspired together to destroy the Buddhist religion. They wanted to burn the temple and pagoda that Soga no Umako had built, but Umako opposed the project and would not allow it, or so we are told. Here it is unclear if we are talking about the previous temple or the rebuilt one, but the names here are interesting. Of course we know that the Soga and the Mononobe were going at it, and the inclusion of Nakatomi no Iware simply picks up the previous alliance between the Mononobe and Nakatomi, both of whom had been active during the assault on Soga Iname’s temple. Lastly, though, there is Ohomiwa no Sakahe no Kimi, which is interesting. This figure would appear to be from the Ohomiwa family and region, likely drawing some amount of respect from their connection with Mt. Miwa itself, and the ancient worship that went on there. So, in this version there really is a triple threat of “the old guard” banding together to resist this newfangled foreign faith.
Incidentally, this same figure, Ohomiwa no Sakahe no Kimi, also appears just after the death of Nunakura, when Prince Anahobe figured he could just waltz in and take the throne on the assumption that he was owed it by birth. He was a half-brother to Nunakura, son of Ame Kunioshi and his mother, Wonanegimi, who was another daughter of Soga no Iname. Anahobe was therefore nephew to Umako, and perhaps that is one of the reasons he thought he could just waltz in and take his seat at the head of government. But Prince Anahobe was foiled by none other than Ohomiwa no Sakahe, who posted a guard around the palace and made sure that nobody defiled it until a new sovereign had been identified by the court. Anahobe voiced his complaint that Ohomiwa was protecting the court of a “dead king”, and that they should instead come to the court of a “living king”—presumably he meant his own.
But that will take us past this point, and there are still some other details of Nunakura or Bidatsu’s reign I want to touch on, such as his dealings on the continent, but here we can see how Buddhism and the feud between the Soga and the Mononobe was in full swing, and that will definitely play a large part in future episodes. In addition, we’ll see how this time, Umako wouldn’t take things lying down. He was going to get this Buddhism thing to stick one way or the other, and we’ll see what happens when he finally founds the first permanent temple in Japan; a temple that, while perhaps not as grand as it once was, continues to operate into the modern day.
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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And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Friday, K.F. (Ed.). (2017). Routledge Handbook of Premodern Japanese History (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315170473
Deal, William E. and Ruppert, Brian. (2015). A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. ISBN: 978-1-405-16700-0.
McCallum, D. F. (2009). The Four Great Temples: Buddhist Art, Archaeology, and Icons of Seventy-Century Japan. University of Hawai’i Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wqtwv
Matsuo, K. (13 Dec. 2007). A History of Japanese Buddhism. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9781905246410.i-280
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253.
Farris, W. (1998). Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures: Issues in the Historical Archaeology of Ancient Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824864224
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4

Episode 87: The Dual Eruptions of Mount Haruna

June 1, 2023 Joshua Badgley

Image of Mt. Haruna’s conical dome in the fall. Public domain photo downloaded from Wikimedia.

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This episode is a little different. We are looking at an event—actually two events—that we only really know through archaeology, because nothing that we've found in the written record references it. I’m talking about the two eruptions of Mount Haruna in the early and mid 6th centuries.

For more, check out some of the links we have below in the References section.

Haniwa collection

A collection of Haniwa at the Tokyo National Museum, showing various different types of haniwa figures.

Haniwa warrior

Here we have a haniwa figure of someone who appears to be a warrior or a hunter. Along with regular clothing, he has on arm protectors, a short sword, and accoutrements for archery. Tokyo National Museum - Photo by author.

Belt and accessories

Here we see the patterned belt and various accessories. In particular we see a wrist guard hanging from the belt, used to protect the wrist when using a bow. Tokyo National Museum - Photo by author.

Warrior in "Tanko"

Here we see a warrior in classic “tanko” style armor. Tokyo National Museum - Photo by author.

Kofun person

Another example of the figures found at various tombs. Tokyo National Museum - Photo by author.

Figure sitting in a chair

Here we see someone sitting in a chair of some kind. Tokyo National Museum - photo by author.

Musician

Here we have someone playing music on what looks to be a zither, like the wagon. Tokyo National Museum - photo by author.

Kofun era horse

Here we have a haniwa figure of a horse, all dressed up in its finery. Tokyo National Museum - photo by author.

Kofun bit and stirrups

Here we see a kofun era bit and pair of stirrups. Notice these stirrups are not dissimilar from western stirrups, compared to the later abumi, which were more like curved platforms. Tokyo National Museum - photo by author.

Kofun era stirrups

Another style of stirrup, this one more “pot” shaped, covering the whole of the front of the foot, giving greater purchase, but still covering all sides of the foot. Tokyo National Museum - photo by author.

Belt (reconstruction)

This is a reconstruction of a 6th century belt, quite similar to what was found on the continent. This would have likely been for an elite, with plenty of places to hang pouches and other tools. Tokyo National Museum - photo by author.

Solid "tanko" armor

This relatively solid style, or “tanko” armor was an earlier form, and is more rigid than the lamellar. It is often suggested that the lamellar came in with horse riding culture. Tokyo National Museum - photo by author

Warrior in "tanko" style armor

Here we have a warrior in what appears to be the solid “tanko” style of armor, including the rivets or ties holding it together. Tokyo National Museum - photo by author.

Lamellar armor

Often called “keiko” style armor, this is an example of the lamellar armor found in the archipelago and the peninsula in the 6th century. Tokyo National Museum - photo by author

Warrior in lamellar armor

Here we see a haniwa of a warrior in what appears to be the lamellar, or “keiko”, style of armor. Tokyo National Museum - photo by author.

Peninsular lamellar (reconstruction)

A reconstruction of the kind of lamellar armor found on the peninsula in the Goguryeo region. There are many similarities with armors found in the archipelago at this time. Seoul National Museum - photo by author.

If you want to see more, check out photos I’ve pulled out for the Kofun period in the 6th century, over on Flickr.

The Tone River

A quick note about the Tone River. Although the modern river runs to the Pacific ocean on the coast of modern Chiba prefecture, the original river used to run south, through modern Tokyo and flowing into Tokyo Bay. During the Edo period (1654), to avoid flooding, the river was redirected into a nearby watershed, creating the current geography. This river has long been important in the Kanto plain, as evidenced by the communities that grew up along its banks.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is Episode 87: The Dual Eruptions of Mt. Haruna.
We’ve been going through the Chronicles for some time now, from The Age of the Gods and the legends about how the heavenly grandchild, Ninigi no Mikoto, came down to earth, settling in Kyushu. We read about how the legendary Iwarebiko, aka Jimmu Tenno, came up and conquered the land of Yamato, and how his descendants ruled from there. We’ve also gone over the various dynasties, from Mimaki Iribiko and his descendants to Homuda Wake and his descendants on the Kawachi plain. And recently we had Wohodo no Ohokimi, aka Keitai Tennou, enter the picture, kicking off the latest, and generally agreed to be the current dynasty of rulers.
In the earliest chronicles, it is clear that we were looking at events that had been highly mythologized. Certainly there may have been some truth and memory about how the Miwa cult had become prominent, not to mention references to Izumo indicating its importance in the early archipelago.
The Miwa Cult, of course, refers to religious practices centered around Mt. Miwa, which the Yamato court appears to have used as a political and cultural tool as they expanded their influence across the archipelago. Similarly, the numerous references to Izumo, on the Japan sea side of western Honshu, as a “Land of the Gods” and the eventual submission of those deities to the Yamato court in the record is bolstered by archaeological evidence of competing cultural centers. However, the strict narratives given in the Nihon Shoki can hardly be taken at face value, and there were also plenty of examples of conflicting information.
Most prominently is no doubt the story of Queen Himiko, whom the Wei chroniclers talked about extensively and yet in the Chronicles, excerpts from her life are inserted into the reign of Okinaga no Tarashi Hime, aka Jingu Tennou, leading us to further doubt much of what is written.
Of course, much of the older history was probably passed down as stories and oral teachings, a tradition that appears to have continued right up through the time of the Chronicles. But even as writing came to the archipelago, and the various outposts of the Yamato court started to send in written reports, there are still discrepancies with what we know compared to the records from the peninsula and continent, not to mention the archeological record. Most of this is attributed to the chroniclers themselves and their mission. While ostensibly they were telling the story of “Nihon”, i.e. the story of Japan, more realistically they were focused on the legitimacy of the sovereign and propping up the power and prestige of the court and the important families.
For example, there is a lot on the central areas around Yamato, including Kawachi, Harima, and Yamashiro. Where we do get information outside of these areas, it is typically something regarding the Yamato court - information on the lands of Kibi, Izumo, Koshi, or just about anything in Tsukushi is limited, even though we know these were areas where a lot was going on.
This is particularly intriguing to me as there are some things that you would think might make it in, natural disasters being one of them. Then again, Japan is volcanically active. Earthquakes are not uncommon, and then the occasional volcanic eruption. Then there are the various typhoons and heavy rainstorms that create flooding and other hazardous conditions. However, many of these disasters are localized, and some may just not have been considered that important. If the disaster didn’t affect the court and wasn’t related in some way to a portent or omen about the court, then it may have been overlooked by the Chroniclers. And, with the number of disasters that Japan experiences, many things that we might find shocking or incredible may not have been considered all that special by the Chroniclers.
This episode, I want to start out looking at just such a disaster and what we learn about the period in the aftermath: the 6th century eruptions of the Haruna volcano. Credit where credit is due, this was suggested as a topic by listener Samy who brought it to my attention, so thanks for that.
Mount Haruna is located in modern Gunma prefecture, far to the east of the Nara basin, and thus likely out of sight for most of the Chroniclers. It is in the area of modern Takasaki city, in Gunma Prefecture, just west of Maebashi. This is about 100 kilometers northwest of modern Tokyo, or about an hour and a half by train. Along the eastern edge of Takasaki flows the Tone River, which continues all the way out to its mouth on the Pacific Ocean on the on the eastern coast of Honshu at modern Choushi, in Chiba prefecture. Along the Tone river can be found many kofun, which would appear to indicate a healthy population with elites capable of mobilizing the labor for such monumental constructions.
Volcanoes are notoriously attractive targets for human habitation. Porous rock, such as pumice, with various minerals from the ash deposited in the surrounding areas, can provide extremely fertile soil, which is great for agriculturists. There may also be hot springs, and in this Mount Haruna is no exception, making it a popular place for people to visit, even today. Of course, volcanoes also bring complications. Poisonous gasses can seep out of the ground, often settling, invisible, in depressions and low lying areas. And of course, there are the eruptions. A mountain may be quiet for generations, and then suddenly it erupts. An eruption may mean little more than smoke and ash, or it may mean fiery rocks raining down from the sky and pyroclastic flows—superheated gas and rock that flows like a river, killing all in its path and burying everything in a layer of what is called “tephra”—pumice, ash, and other solid material ejected from the volcano.
For all of their devastating effects, however, these can sometimes be a boon to archaeologists, as they bury a site quickly, preserving it in amazing detail. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Italian city of Pompeii, which was buried so quickly that they found much of the city just as it was in the final moments as the city was buried. A horrendous toll of human life, and yet, centuries later, it gives us an unequaled view into the life that they lived.
At the foot of Mount Haruna, we find what some have dubbed the “Pompeii of Japan”. It is an area around the banks of the Agatsuma River, which flows southeast into the Tone river, in modern Shibukawa. This area was apparently well-populated, with villages on the slopes and around the river. Rather than a single site, there are a collection of sites, including Kanai Higashiura, Kuroimine, and others. No doubt there are more sites, lurking under the soil, still to be discovered in future excavations.
We can never know for certainty what happened in the past, but given the state of preservation, there are a few things that we can know.
The slopes and valleys around Mt. Haruna were dotted with signs of human settlement. One of these were the many kofun in the area. In fact, the 5th century Inariyama kofun, containing one of the swords mentioning Wakatakiru, which we discussed back in episodes 46 and 58, is only about 20km or so southeast of Mt. Haruna, and 4km from the banks of Tone river. So in the mid to late fifth century, someone from the area had been of service to the court at Yamato, as recorded on a precious iron sword. it wasn’t alone. There were kofun throughout the area, including keyhole shaped kofun from the 4th century upward to the current point of our story. They lay mostly to the south, in the flat lands around the various river valleys, such as the Tone River, mentioned before. This was part of the land of Kenu, mentioned in the Chronicles from the time of Yamatodake, later split into Shimozuke and, here, Kozuke.
In addition to the kofun there were, of course, habitats for the living inhabitants of the region as well. We have evidence of pit structures—dug into the ground like the earliest structures on the archipelago—but also we have post holes indicating a raised building and even ground-level structures of some sort. There were also various fences, woven together out of reeds and thin bamboo, set up as well. No doubt the smoke of thousands of fires would have drifted up to the heavens from the valleys as people cooked food, fired pottery, and more.
The flat areas of the valley were likely covered in rice paddy fields, as well as fields for other crops. Men, women, and children would have come together to tend the fields throughout the year, but that wasn’t the only occupation. There were those who raised horses, and others who worked with the earth to create clay vessels. Woodcutters would have climbed the hillside to bring back fuel for the many fires, while hunters sought their quarry in the same, wooded terrain.
There were also special ritual areas. In one instance we know there was a round area designated for some kind of ritual, where various hajiware and other types of pottery were found, stacked layer upon layer, as new dishes were added on top of old. Inside of the clay jars, pots, cups, dishes, etc. there were stone and iron implements, clearly meant for ritual purposes. There were likely special individuals who were tasked to maintain the area and to ensure that the proper rituals—whatever those may have been—were carried out.
Speaking of the people, from the archeological evidence we know that they were rather diverse, at least for the archipelago at this time. Some of them more closely resembled the people who had been in the islands since the Jomon period, but others more closely resembled the people from more recent waves, come over from the peninsula. They lived and worked, side-by-side, and grew up in the same regions and the same villages, such that there was no practical differentiation between them, though likely there were memories of which families had descended from people outside of the community and vice versa.
Along with everyone in civilian dress, you also would see people in iron armor. Lamellar armor, also known as “keiko”, was developed on the continent, and had grown more and more popular. It would eventually replace altogether the rigid, riveted armor, often called “tanko”. The tanko style is made up of rectangular and triangular shaped iron plates, beaten into shape over a wooden form and then riveted into place. Inside it was lined with leather, both for structural integrity and for some level of comfort. Lacquer would have helped keep the iron protected from the elements. The keiko, or lamellar, armors were quite different, being made up of many different small plates, known to us as “san-e”. It could take thousands of iron plates, all laced together, to make a single suit, but it offered a certain amount of flexibility, and was probably the more expensive product given just how labor intensive it would have been to make.
From haniwa figurines from this period, which depict all aspects of daily life, from warriors to dancers and even musicians, we also have some idea of the clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, and even makeup from around this period. A particular style of trousers which ballooned out and were then tied at the knee were not uncommon, and there were also overshirts that flared out at the waist. Many of these were held together with ties, though there were sashes and belts as well. In some instances we even see remnants of paint or some kind of coloration on the clothing and faces of the haniwa, which may have indicated a kind of make-up that was popular, or perhaps even a form of tattoo.
To get a better visual, check out some of the haniwa figures from this period on our website: sengokudaimyo.com/podcast.
So this may give us an idea of what life was like along the slopes and valleys surround Mount Haruna in the early 6th century. It was a relatively diverse community, cultivating the land around the rivers, burying their dead in the mounded tombs that dotted the landscape, but otherwise going about their lives. There were farmers, hunters, and various people making crafts, jewelry, and more. There were differences of class as well, with certain elites having a special place in the community, with finer armor, horses, and other distinguishing characteristics.
One imagines them dealing with the various seasons throughout the year, likely gathering to celebrate major events in the life of the community.
From what we can tell, early in the 6th century, life was proceeding normally, and nobody expected what was to come. The timeline and details are fuzzy, but there is enough research and we’ve encountered similar events often enough that we can get an idea of just what happened. There may have been a few warning rumbles—but earthquakes are hardly anything new in the archipelago, and even if there were more or they were more numerous, likely life continued as normally, albeit perhaps with a few more offerings presented in the ceremonial pit. This continued until sometime in the summer, probably around 539.
The first major indication of a problem was likely an explosion and a plume of smoke rising up from near the top of the mountain, which would have stretched out across the skies, pushed by prevailing winds. Magma had reached the surface and interacted with water, which quickly superheated and exploded. Ash was ejected into the sky, but as it rose the fine ash started to stick to the outside of small water droplets, forming a kind of stony hail that started to pelt the area around Mt. Haruna, particularly to the northeast. Small ash pellets, some as large as an inch and a quarter in diameter, began to fall on the surrounding people and settlements. This was followed by a muddy rain—which is to say a rain that, rather than washing things clean, was so full of ash in the air that it left a film on everything it touched. People likely feared what this could mean—rocks and mud falling from the sky isn’t exactly an every day occurrence.
One man, likely an elite, who used their connection to the local kami as part of the justification of their status, decided to try to do something. He donned his lamellar armor—something not too dissimilar from what was being used on the Korean peninsula, and he went out to plead with the angry mountain to quiet its wrath.
Unfortunately for him, the rain of ash was only the beginning. A mixture of superheated rock and water, had been pushed out over the walls of the caldera, and was already flowing down towards the settlement at Kannai-Higashiura. This pyroclastic flow was the same thing that had both doomed and preserved the ancient city of Pompeii, and in a similar way it quickly covered the low-lying areas. Wood was set alight, and metal softened by the heat, men, women, and children attempted to flee, but this was not something you could outrun. Like an angry torrent, it rushed over the landscape, burning everything it touched, but also covering and preserving things close to the ground.
The elite warrior fell face first, likely overtaken by the wall of heat that the flow exuded. Others tried to shield themselves in ditches or behind walls, but it was no use. A wall, at least three meters high, collapsed and was likewise buried.
After a while, the flow stopped. Scars were burnt across the mountainside, and fires still raged, but the eruption itself had ended. Who knows how many lay dead or wounded in the aftermath. Trees had been cut down by the flow, let alone houses, walls, and other structures. Then there is also the question of what we don’t see. While Pompeii was covered in ash, nearby Herculaneum was suffocated by poisonous gasses. How many others survived the initial onslaught only to be overcome a short time after? It is hard to say since we only have that which was preserved, but we can assume that that what had only a short time before been a thriving community was now mostly gone, covered in ash and pumice. It is hard to believe that anyone who survived was not personally touched by such a tragedy.
And yet, humans are resourceful, and not easily deterred. We would not blame the locals for picking up stakes and moving away, abandoning any settlements on or around the mountain. And yet, some thirty years later, we see that people were still living in and around Mount Haruna. Unfortunately we know this because the mountain wasn’t quite finished, and three decades after that first eruption, the Mount Haruna once more erupted. This time, it threw up so much ash and pumice that there was still a layer three centimeters thick in modern Soma city, about 200 kilometers to the northeast. A little bit closer, at only 10 kilometers away, it buried a settlement at modern Kuroimine, across the Agatsuma river on the slopes of an adjacent mountain, under two meters of pumice, which accumulated in only a matter of hours.

As a result, from all of this, we do have a better idea of just what life was like in the 6th century—at least in this corner of the archipelago. We have rice fields buried under sediment. We have the remains of a woven fence, some three meters high. We have armor, in situ, as it was worn, and we have a ritual site that was apparently in use. Normally, such things are only recognizable from traces. Armor may be found in tombs, but details like how it was worn are often lacking. Grave goods in burials are an excellent insight into a culture, but are also inherently biased. They are items that were staged—whether for reasons of ceremony of sentimentality—often leaving us with questions, including how common they were and whether or not what we have was made for daily use or not. Even items in a rubbish pit were often deliberately placed there, and therefore out of context from the whole of how they were use.
Of course, we don’t have everything. The exceedingly high temperatures associated with pyroclastic flows and, well, anything having to do with a volcanic eruption, meant that much of the organic material burned, and metal melted and warped. Even just the physical pressure could have knocked things over and pushed them about, so it isn’t perfect, but some of what archaeologists have uncovered is pretty amazing.
Today, more than 1400 years later, we look on it as a godsend—a treasure trove of archaeological evidence that was preserved unlike almost any other in the archipelago. We talk in sanitized terms of tephra layers, Plinian eruptions, and pyroclastic flows, but meanwhile this was a real tragedy in the lives of the people who lived on and around the mountain. Lives were cut short, and the entire landscape of the area changed. So much rock fell from the sky that it crushed houses, and worse. In living memory of the first eruption, a second had hit. What kind of thoughts must have gone through the heads of the people of the area? How did they come to understand and grapple with this tragic period in their lives?
Such an event must have made an impression on people, and it was certainly wide ranging, impacting sites over 200 kilometers away. And yet, neither of these eruptions are found anywhere in the chronicles—there isn’t even a hint of them. Sure, some dude’s prized horse is worth mentioning, and even contact with people up in the far reaches of Koshi, on the island of Sado, are mentioned. And then there are various omens, such as the palace spontaneously catching fire. Wouldn’t this have been on par with such an event? A mountain blows its top, and nothing at all is written or said about it?
Sure, I could get that things like earthquakes and even typhoons were common enough that they were simply natural—if unfortunate—phenomenon. They weren’t regular enough to be tied to any kind of annual occurrence, and yet they no doubt happened with enough frequency that they were known events. So unless they were tied in with something directly relating to the story the Chroniclers were telling, why mention it?
Were volcanic eruptions that well known? Was it seen as a terrible, but natural event?
Or perhaps they didn’t know about it. Perhaps nobody sent a record or memorial up to Yamato. This seems unlikely as well. We already have this general area tied to Yamato through someone who served at the court of Wakatakiru no Ohokimi in the fifth century, and the court had clearly established Miyake, or royal granaries, in distant regions, such as Kochi, and no doubt out here as well.
That leaves me with just one thought: the court knew about such things, but it didn’t matter to the chroniclers. Perhaps there was some nefarious reason they wanted it kept out of the Chronicles, but more likely it was just not part of the story they were telling. The eruption would not have been visible from the Kinki region, and based on the layers of ash and pumice that fell, much of the impact of the eruption was felt north and east of Mount Haruna, so falling even further away from the Yamato court, in a mostly mountainous region that would have been relatively sparsely populated, at least compared to the low-lying plains that would have made for the better rice cultivation. Without an impact on the royal court and its families, this becomes a relative non-event.
And if something like this can go unnoticed in the Chronicles, what more was happening that we don’t even know about? Sure, certain areas garner our attention. Koshi, Owari, Harima, and even Kibi and northern Kyushu, or Tsukushi, on occasion. But like I said earlier, most of the stories center on the lands of Yamato and Kawachi. Even Yamashiro comes in only every once in a while, and rarely to we hear much from the areas south, such as the Kii peninsula, and pretty much nothing from the island we know as Shikoku. Truth be told, only a small portion of the Kofun era archipelago is ever truly discussed in any detail, leaving us to wonder just what was happening.
Fortunately, archaeology is helping to fill in some of those gaps, as well as helping us to make sense of what was happening elsewhere in the archipelago. This, in turn, raises more questions, and readjusts our understanding—sometimes supporting theories that we already knew, while at other times challenging what we thought we knew.
Some of what we know about the Mount Haruna eruptions comes from rescue archaeology, commissioned prior to a new construction project. Just like the Jomon era ritual site of Shakado was discovered during the construction of the Chuo Expressway, as mentioned way back in Episode 3, so too was the site of Kanai-Higashiura uncovered during excavations for the Joshin expressway. Fortunately for us, archaeology is rather popular in Japan, right down to the local level, and so the discovery of the site led to relatively extensive research and numerous articles on what was found. Researchers are continuing to review what was found and the context of the site..
Today, a fair amount of information can be found online via groups like the Gunma Arachaeological Research Foundation. While the pages are largely in Japanese, I encourage people to check out the reports on their website, which I’ll link to in the References section of the podcast blog page. There you can see some of the actual finds and even diagrams of reconstructions and the extent of the eruptions. For those who don’t speak Japanese, I’ll just say that machine translation has come a long way and while it often isn’t perfect, machine translation can be really useful to help get the gist of what is being discussed.
There is also literature to be found in various works talking as much about the geologic layers that were laid down during the two eruptions. The two tephra layers—the layers of ash and pumice that were ejected from Haruna and laid down across several hundred kilometers—provides archaeologists with relatively clear temporal markers, even in the absence of other identifying information, such as distinct pottery or other clues. They’ve even been able to use organic material at the sites to provide a fairly narrow range for when the two eruptions happened. The first was clearly in the early 6th century, while the other was about the mid 6th century, and they were likely only about 30 years apart from one another. In fact, the layers have distinct names: The Haruna-Futatsudake eruption and the Haruna-Ikaho eruption.
And, as I said, if you’d like to know more we will have various references up on our podcast blog, and you can do some digging on your own—pun, of course, intended. Or maybe take a trip out to Shibukawa and see the sites for yourself—along with a host of other archaeological and historical sites in the region and nearby.
Next, we will get into the reign of the sovereigns who followed Ame Kunioshi, as well as the court politics, not to mention the continued rise of Buddhism.
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

-. -. 金井遺跡群. Gunma Archaeological Research Foundation. http://www.gunmaibun.org/kanaiura/. Last viewed on 5/31/2023.
-. -. 黒井峰遺跡:Kuroimine Iseki. Cultural Heritage Online. https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/216059. Last viewed on 5/31/2023.
Okuno, Mitsuru, et al. (2019). Eruption age of the Haruna Futatsudake Pumice (Hr-FP), central Japan, by radiocarbon wiggle matching with special reference to a 14C dataset developed from a Japanese tree. Quaternary International, vol 527, 30 August 2019, pp. 29-33
-. -. (2018). Kanai Higashiura. Japanese Journal of Archaeology. https://archaeology.jp/remains/kanai-higashiura/. Last viewed on 5/31/2023.
早田勉. (1989).「 6世紀における榛名火山の2回の噴火とその災害」. 第四紀研究1989 年 27 巻 4 号 p. 297-312. https://doi.org/10.4116/jaqua.27.297

Episode 86: All the Other Stuff

May 16, 2023 Joshua Badgley

Sado Island, off the coast of Niigata prefecture, what was once the land of Koshi. Public domain photo by NASA taken from the ISS in 2021, downloaded from Wikimedia.

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Archives

A lot of random stuff in this one. For the most part I’ll put here some of the people and places we talk about in the episode, for those who want to follow along.

Ame Kunioshi, aka Kimmei Tennō

A familiar name for anyone who has been following us: Ame Kunioshi is our current sovereign. Son of Wohodo no Ōkimi, he was the fourth sovereign in our current line-up, and the second generation of this dynasty. While he was on the throne, Nimna took Silla, and Buddhism was (probably) first introduced to Japan.

Soga no Iname no Sukune no Ōmi

Head of the Soga family, and one of the top three officials in the court of Ame Kunioshi. One thing to note: It is unclear how much that is attributed to him is accurate, as it is possible that some of this was later Soga attempts to prop up their ancestor, but still there seems little reason to doubt that his daughters married into the royal family, at least.

Ishihime

Ame Kunioshi’s primary wife, and daughter of his half-brother, Takewo Hiro Kunioshi no Ōkimi, aka Senka Tennō, and his primary wife, Tachibana Nakatsu, who was, herself, a daughter of Ōke no Ōkimi, aka Ninken Tennō. This made her Ame Kunioshi’s aunt, as well, because he was the daughter of her sister. She was also a sister to Ohatsuse Wakasazaki, aka Buretsu Tennō, the last sovereign of the preivous dynasty.

Yata no Tamakatsu

The eldest son of Ame Kunioshi and Ishihime. We don’t hear much about him other than his death, and that may seem odd unless you consider that he was probably the Crown Prince up until that point. His death would leave room for his brother.

Osada Nunakura Futodamashiki no Mikoto, aka Bidatsu Tennō

Nunakura is the younger son of Ame Kunioshi and Ishihime, and would come to the throne after Ame Kunioshi’s death. He is named Crown Prince after the death of his older brother, Yata no Tamakatsu

Kasanuhi (aka Satake) no Himemiko

Kasanuhi is the daughter of Ishihime and Ame Kunioshi, and the last of their three children.

Kitashi Hime

Daughter of Soga no Iname no Sukune no Ōmi, and one of the wives of Ame Kunioshi.

Wonane Gimi

Another daughter of Soga no Iname no Sukune no Ōmi, and also wife of Ame Kunioshi.

Takechi (or Takeuchi) no Sukune

The first “Prime Minister”, or Ōmi, and a descendant of Ōtarashi Hiko no Ōkimi, aka Keikō Tennō. He was a close confidant and supporter of Okinaga Tarashi Hime (aka Jingū Tennō) as well as her son, Homuda Wake (Ōjin Tennō). Many lineages would trace back to him, including the Heguri and the Soga.

Koshi no Kuni

The land of Koshi (越), which was later split up into various provinces such as Echizen (越前), Etchū (越中), and Echigo (越後), among others. It was along the Japan Sea side of Honshū. It comes up a lot in various records, usually on the periphery of the state.

Sushen / Mishihase (粛慎)

The term “粛慎” shows up in continental records talking about a Tungusic people on the mainland, so it is possible that it is these people that the Chroniclers are talking about. However, it is just as likely that they were some other Tungusic speaking people, or that they were jsut from “up north” just as the Sushen were “up north” from the lands of the Yellow River and Yangzi. There is some thought that they might be from the Okhotsk Culture, which inhabited northern Hokkaidō and the islands to the north. It is also possible they were from the Zoku-Jōmon, or Epi-Jōmon people of northern Tōhoku and Hokkaidō. These are both groups connected with the modern indigenous Ainu population.

The name is often glossed as “Mishihase” in Japanese, and it was used for groups in Tōhoku in later centuries, though it is unclear if they were actually related to the people in the Chronicles.

Sado Island

Sado Island is just off of the coast of modern Niigata prefecture. The island is shaped something like an “S” or a lightning bolt, with two mountain ridges and a valley in between. It has been inhabited for thousands of years, and was later a place of political exile.

Nivkh

A people indigenous to Sakhalin island, along with the Ainu who lived in the southern regions. Their language is a language isolate, meaning that there are no other languages that have been identified as close enough to be considered part of the same family.

Kawahara Tami no Atahe no Miya

We don’t know much but from the name, we can assume Miya was from Kawahara (or Kawara), possibly in Asuka, where Kawara Temple would one day be built. Of course, here he is just seen as a person buying a pretty incredible horse. Later it is said he lived in nearby Hinokuma, which would seem to strengthen that assessment.

Umakai no Omi no Utayori

Utayori was one of the Umakai no Omi (or Mumakahi no Omi, for another reading). This family shows up early on in the Chronicles having been the people in charge of raising the horses for the royal court. They bear the kabane of Omi, putting them, socially, on par with families like the Soga, although I would not say that they were equals at this point. Their position as being in charge of the “horse-keepers” may have something to do with the accusation regarding the queen’s saddle.

Umakai no Omi no Morishi and Umakai no Omi no Nasehi

Two sons of Utayori, who had been killed during torture to try to extract a confession—they were also considered guilty by association, apparently, and only at the last minute were they saved.

Hafuri

A hafuri is actually a job, basically one of the types of priests who handled the indigenous religion of the archipelago.

Michi no Ushi

A local ruler in the land of Koshi. We have seen other instances where it is thought that “no Ushi” became “Nushi”, and so it is likely that he was the ruler of a place called “Michi”.

Shibagaki

An area in Hase (or Hatsuse): a river valley that flows into the southeast Nara Basin, it was probably a place to go and hunt and get away from the day-to-day at the palace.

Yamato no Aya no Atahe no Arako

One of two people sent to meet the Goguryeo envoys in Koshi. “Yamato no Aya no Atahe” is the name of one of the branches of the “Aya” family, which were likely weavers brought over from the continent, originally. In this case it appears to be the Aya of Yamato, though they just use the character for “East”, and they were apparently rather prolific in and around the court. His name, Arako, or “Child of Ara”, makes me wonder if there was a connection to the peninsular state of “Ara”, though I believe they used different characters.

Katsuraki no Atahe no Naniwa

The Katsuraki family has a history of dealing with foreigners, and may have even come from the peninsula themselves, tracing back to one of the few names that may be found in the Korean sources: Katsuraki no Sotsuhiko. The name “Naniwa” is interesting, and I don’t know if that was truly a given name or just where he was from.

Sagaraka (or Saganaka)

An area in Yamashiro, possibly near Saganaka Shrine, which uses the same characters (相樂), though it is hard to know for certain. That is just north of modern Nara city.

Kashiwade no Omi no Katabeko

A member of the Kashiwade no Omi family who was actually the one to retrieve the Goguryeo envoys and to whom Michi no Ushi gave reverence, exposing that he was not the sovereign, because why else would he bow like that to someone else?

Kose no Omi no Saru and Kishi no Akabato

Little is known other than they were apparently taking a barge to fetch the Goguryeo envoys.

Yamato no Aya no Saka no Ue no Atahe no Komaro

This name is a mouthful, but it still breaks down into fairly reasonable chunks. So “Yamato no Aya” is one part, and we addressed this before. “Saka no Uhe” is probably another locative, so they are from the Yamato Aya in Saka no Uhe, or something similar. “Atahe” is the family kabane for Yamato no Aya. And then “Komaro” is his actual name. He is sent to be the one to “entertain” the Goguryeo envoys, so likely he was taking care of everything they needed at their residence.

Nishikori no Obito no Ōshi (or Ōishi)

This is the other person sent with Komaro. Nishikori no Obito is the family name and kabane and then their name is Ōshi or Ōishi (大石).

Wang Jinnie

We talked about him and his family last episode. Sometimes referred to as Ō Chin’ni, or something similar, his name appears to be Sinic from somewhere on the continent. That likely explains how he was able to assist so much with the Goguryeo envoys.

Tsunoga Arashito

Another example of someone coming from the peninsula, a local ruler trying to impersonate the Yamato sovereign, and then arriving after the sovereign passed away, except that he was back in the era of Mimaki and Ikume Iribiko.

Kibi no Atahe no Naniwa

Named similar to Katsuraki no Naniwa, above. He was supposed to return shipwrecked envoys from Goguryeo.

Iwahi and Masa

Two of Kibi no Atahe no Naniwa’s men who accompanied envoys back to Goguryeo.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. This is Episode 86: All the Other Stuff
This episode I want to finish up the events of Ame Kunioshi’s reign. We’ve been following Ame Kunioshi, aka Kimmei Tenno, for a while and covered perhaps the things that he was remembered for most, as well as the two most large-scale disruptive things that happened around the time of his reign. First of these disruptions was everything going on on the continent, and the consensus appears to be that at this point we truly get into a period where the Korean peninsula is under the authority and control of the three main states—Baekje and Silla in the south, and Goguryeo in the north. Silla’s own power was on the rise—whereas it was always counted as something of a local power, it had gained enough might to take over the various statelets in its orbit, and with ambitions for more.
The second disruption, which we’ve covered in the last two episodes, is the arrival of Buddhism to Japan. As we noted, it is likely that Buddhism had come to the islands earlier, but it is in this reign—or slightly earlier—that it shows up in the historical record and is counted as something of interest to the court. We’ll follow up on this over the course of the next several reigns, as Buddhism, and its connection with the Soga family, play a large part in this period.
Speaking of the Soga Family, they once again tie in to what we’re going to focus on in the rest of this episode: the nitty-gritty of the rest of Ame Kunioshi’s reign, when we’re not focused on Buddhism or the continent. As we alluded to previously, the rise of Soga no Iname is another key factor of the politics at the time. The Ohotomo had had their moment at the top, and the Mononobe were still going strong, but Soga no Iname appears more and more in the record. Of course, all of this is based on a narrative compiled by members of the court centuries later, and so we should just keep in mind that we aren’t reading about all the things that happened, but just those things that were considered important to telling the story of Yamato and, perhaps even moreso, those things considered important to telling the story of the royal family.
Some of these entries make perfect sense in that context and others, well, not so much. I’ll do my best to make sense of it, but some of it may require more study and scholarship than I have time and access to, and if you have any thoughts, feel free send them in.
So let’s start with the biographical info. First, we have Ame Kunioshi’s queen, Ishihime. Just as Wohodo had married Tashiraka, a daughter of Ohoke no Ohokimi, aka Ninken Tennou, Ame Kunioshi’s queen, Ishihime, was also the daughter of a previous sovereign. In this case, though, she was technically Ame Kunioshi’s niece, as she was the daughter of his half-brother, Takewo Hiro Kunioshi no Ohokimi, aka Senka Tennou, but that just meant they continued the tradition of keeping it in the family.
Ishihime had two sons and one daughter. The eldest was Yata no Tamakatsu, presumably Ame Kunioshi’s Crown Prince, and then there was his younger brother, Wosada Nunakura Futodamashiki. They also had a sister, Kasanuhi, aka Satake.
Besides Ishihime, Ame Kunioshi is mentioned as having two other consorts. Kitashi Hime and Wonane-gimi, both daughters of Soga no Iname, the Oho-omi. Between them they gave birth to 11 sons and 7 daughters. Significantly, and without getting into too much detail, Kitashi Hime would give birth to three of the next four sovereigns, meaning that the Soga family would have their immediate relatives on the throne for over forty years.
By the way, to make that work out, at least according to the rules of succession that the Nihon Shoki seems to imply, the Soga family itself would need to be of imperial descent – and indeed, it is traced back to Takeuchi no Sukune, and through him to Ohotarashi Hiko no Ohokimi, aka Keikou Tennou. Of course, there is a lot of speculation in that lineage, and it was probably simply made up to help legitimize the Soga family and their royal offspring. On the flip side, Ishihime, Ame Kunioshi’s primary wife and the one recognized as Queen by the Nihongi, who would also produce a future sovereign, was clearly tied in to the royal lineage through maternal links to Ohoke no Ohokimi, aka Ninken Tennou.
There were a few other consorts, but I’m not going to go into every single one other than to say that Ame Kunioshi was clearly prolific—or a lot of lineages wanted to connect themselves back to him. He was quite popular, I guess.
Many of these consorts may have been taken before he was even sovereign. Tradition holds that he was born in 509 and came to the throne in 539, so already thirty years old. Of course some have tried to push that back, and if you recall, the previous sovereigns were supposedly just keeping the throne warm for him, something I don’t quite buy given his age when he finally did ascend. That assumes that the dates are correct, which is a rather big assumption.
So five years after Ame Kunioshi takes the throne, we have the first somewhat oddball event. It was a report from the land of Koshi, which, for those who don’t remember, is the area north of the Japan Alps on the Japan sea side of Honshu, from roughly the area of Ishikawa up to the Tohoku region. So, facing the continent and the peninsula – and apparently, in this year, there were men of Sushen who arrived on Sado Island, at Cape Minabe.
Sado Island is part of modern Niigata prefecture, sitting just a little to the west of modern Niigata city. It had been populated since at least the Jomon period, and in later centuries it would become a place of exile for powerful individuals who were on the political outs. In the Edo period they discovered gold and silver and there was a booming mining industry out there, and you can still go visit some of the old mines today. So that’s the first important thing about this report: it brings Sado into the picture, historically. Sado and the far reaches of Koshi—the influence of Yamato would seem to have grown.
Furthermore, who these unexpected arrivals to Sado were seems to be of some contention. The kanji used are the same that the continental records used for people called Sushen, who are believed to have been a Tungusic people living on the continent of Northeast Asia, possibly up towards modern Siberia. The Japanese, however, gave these characters a different gloss, pronouncing them as “Mishihase”. It is possible that the Mishihase were also Tungusic, or from a similar region of Northeast Asia, and hence the Japanese used the same characters. Or it is possible that they reused a name from the continental records for people living in the north of Japan or in the Okhostk Sea. I’ve seen suggestions that these were related to the Nivkh people or the Okhostk Culture from northern Hokkaido and Sakhalin islands.
The name “Mishihase” is interesting, because at this time, we know that there were a group of people that Yamato referred to as the Emishi living in the far Kanto regions and up into Tohoku. Many of the encounters with the Emishi in the Chronicles, however, appears to take place in regions that had at least transitioned to rice agriculture during the expansion of Yayoi culture, which had once reached up into the northern reaches of Tohoku before settling in the southern parts of Tohoku and down to Kyushu. Above that, archaeological evidence suggests that there was a continuation of Jomon culture, referred to generally as the Epi-Jomon or Zoku-Jomon, which existed in northern Tohoku and Hokkaido until the 7th century, when the cord-marked pottery gave way to a new type of scraped pottery, called Satsumon. Generally speaking the peoples of this area would all be lumped together by Yamato as Emishi, though there is some evidence of the use of the term “Saheki” as well and a few other local ethnonyms that pop up here and there.
The Okhotsk culture appears to have been north even of the Epi-Jomon and eventual Satsumon cultures, and may be related to the modern Nivkh people, who are indigenous to northern Sakhalin. I would note, however, that the Nivkh language is not Tungusic, but rather it is considered a language isolate, so these are not likely the Sushen of the continental records, but ancient people of Sakhalin may have been identified as such by the Yamato court, who simply saw them as being in a similar geographic relationship to Yamato.
Of course, it is also possible that a Tungusic people did take a ship and possibly sail out from the Amur river region, which enters the sea near the northern end of Sakhalin island, or some point north, and that they landed at Sado island, but much more likely it was someone from northern Tohoku, Hokkaido, or even Sakhalin. The Japanese would use the term “Mishihase” for a variety of people through the centuries, much as they would use the term “Emishi”, which makes this hard to pin down.
Wherever these people were from, they apparently arrived during the Spring and Summer and to catch fish for food, and the locals did what humans throughout history have done: They greeted them with open arms and welcomed them to their settlement. Oh, wait, scratch that. Nope, they decided that these people were different enough that they must not be human, called them devils, and refused to go near them. And so began what must have been quite the spring and summer as the locals of Sado kept watch on these strange fishermen, but from a nice, safe distance.
They may have had reason to be wary. At a village called Umu, the people had gathered acorns and covered them with ash. You see, acorns, for all that they seem to be the favorite of squirrels and other such woodland critters, are actually not all that great to eat. Sure, once you remove the cap and outer seed covering, they contain a lot of great nutrients, but many times they are also full of tannic acid. This is the same thing used to tan animal hides, so you can imagine that it might do a number to your insides, and it is rather astringent at that. That bitter taste is normally a clue that you probably shouldn’t eat too much of something.
Thousands of years ago, however, people learned a neat trick, and this seems to have been discovered independently in multiple areas. If the acorns are soaked in ash—often a mixture of ash and water—you can actually leach out the tannins in the acorns. After that, if you wash them and leave them to dry, there is a lot you can do with them, including creating a kind of acorn flour.
This is likely what the people of Umu were doing when the shells of the acorns turned into two men. The images of these men hovered about a foot over the fire and suddenly they started to fight. The villagers broke up the fight and took the shells to a courtyard, where they started to do the same thing. Based on this strange omen, combined with the general human mistrust of outsiders, the people of Umu determined that the strangers meant them harm. Sure enough, the fishermen showed up at the village soon after and plundered it.
Now I can’t say I put much stock in this supernatural fight night, but a lot of this general story seems to be reasonable enough. Fishermen from the Japan Sea or even the Sea of Okhostk could easily have made their way south along the coasts, looking for new and better fishing spots. A local village, particularly one more interested in harvesting the bounty of the land than the bounty of the sea, may have chosen to just ignore the strangers and hope they would go away. And of course, either side could have just as easily raided the other if they felt up to it—no supernatural explanation needed.
Eventually the foreigners apparently settled at Senagawa Bay—probably one of the areas of Sado Island—where it is said that there was a kami that lived there called “Mishihase no Kuma”, or the “Bear of the Mishihase”, or “Sushen”. It is said that anyone who tried to drink the water at Senagawa Bay would immediately drop dead, and that the bones of unfortunate travelers littered the spot.
It isn’t that hard to imagine an area near the shore with an apparently inviting stream or other water source that turned out to be less than ideal, and certainly a story like this could have been a local tradition, handed down to ensure that nobody gave in to temptation. In a place like Japan I suspect that there are all sorts of things that could have gotten into a water source and been largely undetectable.
The name of the kami though is particularly interesting, at least to me. Mishihase no Kuma. As we mentioned, the kanji for “Sushen” is often read in Japanese as “Mishihase”, and “kuma” is bear. Furthermore, we know that the modern Ainu, the indigenous people of Hokkaido and northern Honshu, are known for their close association with bears in their religious worship, including a somewhat controversial bear ritual, known as Iomante, that was once outlawed, but has deep roots in some Ainu cultural practices. Likewise there are also bear connections with the Nivkh people and others in northeast Asia and Siberia, so it doesn’t seem too farfetched that people from Hokkaido or points north would be associated with a bear kami. Then again, it could be coincidence. Bears show up across multiple cultures. But in short: although the Chronicles say that the kami was already present, it’s easy to imagine that an area settled by visitors from a different culture to the north could have left a stamp on the area such that those cultural differences were preserved in the local lore about the area’s kami, and back-dated to time immemorial.
So that covers the goings-on in Sado. Two years later, in 546, the court received another report, but this one was from closer to home, from Imaki, in Yamato. Apparently two years earlier—so around the same year that the report from Cape Minabe came in—there was a man named Kawahara Tami no Atahe no Miya, and he bought a horse. Well, okay, it wasn’t quite that simple. Miya was apparently in the upper story of a building, looking out, when he noticed a horse. Now this horse was bred from the mares which transported food offerings from the fishermen of Kii to the sovereign’s own table. As Miya was watching this young horse, it suddenly saw a shadow, which caused it quite the fright—not entirely surprising, as horses are notoriously skittish. What was surprising, though, was how the horse let out a great neigh and suddenly leapt completely over its mothers back.
Miya immediately knew he had to have that horse, and he went down and bought it right there on the spot. Later people marveled at the horse, which was tame and broken, but a different temperament than most. Anyone who has worked with horses will tell you that they each can have very different personalities, much like people. This horse was special, however, as its leaping days were far from over. In fact, it is said that it once leapt over a ravine at Ouchi that was said to be 180 feet wide. That’s more than half a football field in length—and that’s regardless of if you are talking about soccer or American hand-egg, though maybe not quite Aussie rules.
Alright, so Miya has an awesome horse. Great. Why do we care? In fact, why do we care about any of this? The report from Sado – Koshi – had at least added somewhat to the court’s scope: it mentioned another people, put them in relationship to the Center of Yamato, and demonstrated Yamato’s far-flung reach that they were even getting reports from as far away as Sado Island. But Miya and his horse were close to home, so why this report was noteworthy is less obvious. Okay, so there is the mention of the tribute from Kii, which was a kind of food tax sent in to the Yamato court, which may have been something that the Chroniclers wanted to note for some reason. There may be a few other things going on, though.
For one, Miya is said to have lived in or near Hinokuma. And his name, Kawahara, is also the name of the location of one of the early temples in the Asuka area. The Asuka area, of course, was where the Soga family were dominant, and would play a large role as the location of different palaces and, eventually, Buddhist temples. So it is possible that this was all related geographically to the region, to the Soga, and, through the Soga’s political marriages and influence on the court, to the royal lineage.
This is speculation on my part, however. It is also possible that it had something to do with the horses, and possibly even with the way that they were described on the continent in nearly mythical terms. It wasn’t enough to get a horse, but it had to be a horse of particularly good stock and breeding. Who knows, maybe we’ll see connections that make more sense later in the Chronicles, as sometimes these kinds of Chekovian guns don’t go off until several reigns later—if at all.
Like the story of Miya and his horse, many of the other accounts of this period have to do with various individuals and some of it makes a lot more sense in terms of the Chroniclers’ ambitions. For instance, in 552 we are told that Prince Yata no Tamakatsu no Ohoye no Miko died. It is a short entry, and we really hadn’t encountered Yata no Tamakatsu much before this, other than seeing that he was the eldest son of Ame Kunioshi and his queen, Ishihime. In fact, that appears to be what is meant by “Ohoye” in his name. That likely means he was also the Crown Prince, although he is never named as such. This is par for the course in the narrative up to this point, though—Crown Princes who don’t succeed to the throne are rarely named as such unless there was something else that they did.
Sure enough, two years later, Nunakura Futodamashiki, Yata no Tamakatsu’s younger brother, is named Crown Prince. He would eventually succeed to the throne, and is remembered today as Bidatsu Tennou.
Speaking of death, things were not great in the archipelago during this time. Remember how in 552 they said that Buddhism had come, and then also been rejected, because of a pestilence? Well apparently it wasn’t just disease that hit because flooding came, and that brought with it famine.
Japan is no stranger to heavy rains. In fact, even today the islands experience hurricanes, or “taifuu”, in Japanese, bringing tremendous rain and winds. Even without the winds, though, rains can come that wash out hillsides and flood rivers and valleys. An “Ooyu”, or Big Rain, is nothing to sneeze at in the mountainous islands of Japan, so it is quite believable that a particularly heavy rainy season, coming after years of pestilence, might have brought extensive damage across the land. The Chronicles claim that it got so bad that some people even resorted to cannibalism.
Fortunately the Yamato court officials were learning a phrase that may strike fear into the hearts of anti-establishment types everywhere: “We’re from the government, and we’re here to help.” Except, in this case they absolutely were. All of those taxes that had been acquired in the form of rice payments had been collected and stored in granaries, which not only helped to pay for the various public works that the court wanted to undertake, like setting up their base in Kyushu, but now they could literally just open up the granaries and feed people. And that’s what they did. The royal granaries helped alleviate the hunger so that people could get through the year.
Of course, just because people were able to eat and get on with their lives didn’t mean that death wasn’t still an ever-present threat. Granted, not everyone gets their own obituary in the Chronicles, but those in the elite circles often were considered worth a note. Sure enough, in 570, we are told that Soga no Iname, the Oho-omi, died, just one year before the sovereign, Ame Kunioshi, would also pass away.
Soga no Iname’s death was no doubt a big event; he was the head of a power family and the Oho-omi, or Great Minister. Not only is he connected with the first instance of Buddhism in the archipelago, but, once again, two of his daughters had married Ame Kunioshi, and while it may not have been known at the time, the Chroniclers certainly knew the importance of this figure who would have at least three grandchildren take the throne. On top of that, his own son, Soga no Umako, would succeed him a couple of years later, and he would be close with another Soga relative, the prince Umayado, or the Prince of the Stable Door. But we’ll get to him in a later episode.
Before we finish there are two other entries that I want to touch on. I mentioned this is somewhat random right?
The first event is the Slander of Utayori. So here we are told that in the 6th month of 562, a person—we don’t know who—slandered a man named Umakahi no Omi no Utayori. They claimed that they had seen his wife with a new saddle that looked suspiciously like the Queen’s saddle. I guess that the charge was that he had stolen the queen’s saddle, or possibly made a replica of it. I’m not entirely sure.
Either way, the court was not happy and so they sent someone to investigate. Of course, this was centuries before Sherlock Holmes, or even before the famous Judge Dee, and so investigative methods were more like harsh interrogation, to the point of torture, to get a confession. You may recall back in Episode 60 something similar happened when the envoys from Silla had come to pay their respects upon the death of Woasatsuma Wakugo no Ohokimi, aka Ingyou Tennou, and the then prince Ohohatsuse Wakatake, later known as Yuryaku Tenno, had basically arrested and interrogated them after a misunderstanding, creating a bit of an international incident.
Of course, at this time, there was no concept of “Innocent until proven guilty”. As I believe I’ve mentioned before, there was a general belief that if someone was accusing you of something then even if you weren’t truly guilty of that particular crime you must have done something to upset the social balance, or else why would someone accuse you and risk their own reputation? The fact that many people would confess under such conditions just to get the interrogation to stop is unsurprising—modern studies have shown that information gained through torture as an interrogation technique is highly suspect, despite how much the movies like to use it.
In this case, however, Utayori wouldn’t break. He maintained his innocence throughout the entire interrogation, until he eventually died in custody.
Now when this happened, there were apparently numerous calamities at the Palace, though since there was no Buddhist threat, the Mononobe and Nakatomi seem to have stayed quiet about it all. In fact, they were either seen as not connected at all or that somehow it was just more proof that Utayori was guilty, because Utayori’s sons, Morishi and Nasehi were then arrested. They were sentenced to be “cast into the fire”, which was apparently an ancient form of execution, akin to burning at the stake, though the officer tasked with this duty was apparently reluctant to do so. I guess at least someone had been paying attention.
This concerned officer himself received a reprieve when Utayori’s wife, the two sons’ mother, appeared and she made a kind of curse-prayer promise-threat. She said, “If my children are to be flung into the fire, surely a great calamity will follow. Therefore I beseech thee to hand them over to the Hafuri to be a slave in service to the gods.”
Given her ardent prayer—and perhaps others wondering about the calamities, not to mention how much Utayori had protested his own innocence—the sons of Utayori had their sentences commuted and instead they were forced to work for the hafuri, or priests, likewise toiling for the upkeep of a shrine or similar religious institution.
This whole episode seems rather odd. The accuser is never named. Utayori seems to be clearly innocent from the Chronicle’s point of view—it doesn’t exactly do the ancient justice system any favors. It is fortunate, for us, however, as it gives us another glimpse into how things apparently operated in ancient Yamato.
Finally, we are at our last story from this reign, and it is interesting not just because of some of the implications for foreign relations, but also because it spanned the course of two reigns. The story starts in the fourth month of 570, and it once again it takes place in Koshi of all places. Apparently ships carrying envoys from Goguryeo had gone significantly off-course and landed all the way up there. How exactly they’d gotten there isn’t clear. Had they come down the normal route, and somehow missed the straits and the entrance to the Seto Inland Sea? Or had they sailed off the eastern coast of the Korean peninsula, perhaps in an attempt to find another way to Japan. Seafaring ships were apparently getting better. By 512, Silla had annexed the island of Uleung, which had been inhabited since ancient times, but is still a staggering 120 kilometers, or 75 miles, east of the Korean peninsula. Still, that is not nearly as far as crossing the Korea strait, which is about 200 kilometers, or 120 miles, if you avoid island hopping along the way. Not that such distances can’t be crossed, but it is just rather significant, so when they say that they had lost their way, that seems accurate.
The envoys also didn’t seem to know much about the geography of the archipelago. Certainly, they weren’t the first from Goguryeo in Japan—there had been earlier immigrants, including a group that ended up in Kyushu and were eventually resettled in Yamashiro. But these envoys landed somewhere in Koshi, and there they met with a local ruler, Michi no Ushi, who claimed to be the true sovereign of Yamato, accepting the tribute that the Goguryeo envoys had brought with them.
Of course, this caused a bit of a problem as word of the envoys’ arrival was not exactly kept a state secret, and word quickly spread down to the actual Yamato court of their arrival, though that was delayed a bit as the court was on vacation. Ame Kunioshi and the entire court had gone down to Shibagaki, in Hase, possibly for hunting or some other such excursion, and so it wasn’t until they got back that they sent off Yamato no Aya no Atahe no Arako and Katsuraki no Atahe no Naniwa to go up and meet with the envoys and bring them down. In the meantime, they also began to prepare accommodations for them in Sagaraka in Yamashiro.
By the 5th month, it was Kashiwade no Omi no Katabeko who was the one to first meet the envoys. He came to the mansion of Michi no Ushi, who recognized a representative of the Yamato court and prostrated himself in front of him. At this point the Goguryeo envoys realized that something was up, and that they had apparently made something of a mistake. They demanded that Michi no Ushi return the tribute that they had given him. Katabeko helped arrange all of that and then went back to the court with word of where things stood.
Once the tribute was gathered up, the envoys proceeded on foot down from the Japan Sea coast to Afumi, aka Lake Biwa. With all of the preparations required, they arrived in the 7th month of that year, three months since they had first landed. There they were met by Kose no Omi and Kishi no Akabato, who had come upriver with a decorative barge from the port of Naniwa. They hauled it up to Mount Sasanami, and met the envoys at Kitayama, the North Mountain, in Afumi. From there they traveled downriver, finally arriving at the official residence of Komahi in Yamashiro. From there, they were handed off to Yamato no Aya no Saka-no-Uhe no Atahe no Komaro and Nishikori no Obito no Ohoshi, who took them to the official residence of Sagaraka, which had been prepared for them.
Now I know there are a lot of names in this, but bear with me. For one, there are a lot of Yamato no Aya, one of the groups of Aya, descended from continental weavers, and probably still considered to have continental ties. Then there is the “Nishikori” reference, which is another family that will show up with some ties to mainland traditions.
It is interesting to see how many people were involved in all of this, but also how long it took. It was at least three months from the time they arrived to getting them settled into an official residence. And they sat there for a while, likely until a schedule could be set for their audience with Ame Kunioshi. Unfortunately, before that could happen, tragedy struck. The Nihon Shoki claims that at some point the sovereign took to his bed, sick and ill at ease, and then, in the 4th month of the following year, 571, he passed away.
Nunakura, the Crown Prince, would take on the mantle of sovereign. And after seeing his father buried in Hinokuma, of all places, one of his first orders of business was to greet the Goguryeo envoys and apologize for their long wait—still, the burial of Ame Kunioshi and the ceremonies for enthronement—as well as setting up or confirming court officials, such as the new Oho-omi, Soga no Umako—amust have taken some time, as it was now 572, some two years since the envoys had arrived in the archipelago.
Besides the tribute, the envoys also brought a memorial from Goguryeo—a letter from their sovereign to the sovereign of Yamato, but none of the scribes could read it, not even the envoys, apparently. The memorial wasn’t just a piece of paper, after all—instead, the Goguryeo king had his message inscribed on black crows’ feathers, and then the memorial was brushed on in black ink. Unfortunately—or perhaps deliberately—this made the message a little difficult to read, as it was black on black, and just making out the characters was tough. Here’s where a little continental ingenuity came in to play, for it was none other than Wang Jinnie, whom we talked about last episode, who had a solution.
You may recall that Wang Jinnie was an ally of the Soga family. He had been made the Funa no Fubito, or recorder of ships, by Soga no Iname, and Soga no Iname and his son, Umako, had also played a roll in the advancement of at least two of his sons. Jinnie used a trick where he held the feathers in the steam of boiling rice, and then pressed the feathers to paper to transfer the letters, which could then be read. For this he received high praise from Nunakura no Ohokimi and from the new Oho-omi, Soga no Umako. Jinnie was also able to provide a translation of the memorial, which we assume was the standard diplomatic jargon, as no copy of it is given in the record.
Their message delivered, back at the residence, the Chief Envoy from Goguryeo had apparently berated his assistance. He was pissed at the debacle of the whole thing. Not only had they gone off course, but the tribute had been delivered to the wrong person! Sure, they had eventually sorted things out, but it was no doubt a huge embarrassment.
This left his entourage in a bit of a pickle. As they had delivered the tribute and the memorial, it would soon be time for them to return home, and once they got there, the Chief Envoy’s report would no doubt be the end of their careers—and possibly even their lives if they were held liable for embarrassing their king and country like that. And so they were resolved that the only way they could go home is if the Chief Envoy was not with them, and they decided, then and there, to kill him.
The Chief Envoy got wind of the attack, but it was too late, and he didn’t know what to do. He headed out into the courtyard of the official residence where they were staying. As soon as he was out in the open, one of the assassins ran out, hit him with a club, and then disappeared again. Then someone came from his righthand side and struck him with another club. Then someone rushed in and stabbed him with a sword in the belly and ran off. As the Chief Envoy fell to his knees, prostrating himself and begging for his life, yet another assailant rushed out from the darkness and finished him off.
The body was found the next morning. The official entertainer, Yamato no Aya no Saka-no-uhe no Atahe no Komaro, who had been given the duty back in the reign of Ame Kunioshi, heard about it and asked what had happened. According to the various Associate Envoys, they claimed that the Chief Envoy had been “disobedient”. They said that he had disrespected Nunakura by refusing a wife that the sovereign had presented, and the Associate Envoys were so embarrassed by this that they killed him to make up for the snub.
This seems to have satisfied the Yamato court, who buried the Chief Envoy with full honors and sent the rest of the delegation on its way.
This whole episode is interesting, and seems plausible. There likely were the unfortunate times that diplomatic missions went astray, and they could stay at a foreign court for months or years. After all, it wasn’t like there were regular flights back and forth, and courts had to expect a long lag time between communications.
There is also an interesting parallel here with the story of Tsunoga Arashito, whom we discussed in episode 30. Prince Tsunoga was supposedly descended from the King of Great Kara, rather than Goguryeo, and he is said to have arrived during the time of Mimaki Iribiko, aka Sujin Tennou. Like the Goguryeo envoys, the local ruler of the place where he stopped—in that case Anato—claimed that he was the ruler of Yamato, but rather than stopping, he continued around the northern coast, past Izumo, and eventually down to Yamato that way. By the time he did all of that, though, Mimaki Iribiko had died and his son, Ikume Iribiko, aka Suinin Tennou, had taken the throne and was the one to receive him.
Either this act of impersonating the ruler of Yamato was not exactly a new trick, or the Chroniclers were possibly borrowing some details between stories. It is hard to say for sure, but certainly worth a look.
This was not the last that the archipelago would see of Goguryeo envoys. In the following year, another group of envoys came through Koshi. Unfortunately there was an accident, and their ship was wrecked and many of them drowned—probably along with any tribute. The court itself was starting to get a little suspicious about all of this, as it was the second time they’d had problems and come through the northern ports. Rather than entertaining them—possibly because the tribute and any memorial were lost—the court sent Kibi no Atahe no Naniwa to escort the envoys back home.
Two months later, Naniwa was up in Koshi and had acquired two ships. Two of Naniwa’s men, Iwahi and Masa, were sent aboard the Goguryeo boat, while two of the envoys traveled with Naniwa, a not-uncommon hostage situation for the time. However, several leagues out, the waves started getting rough. Naniwa grew scared, and in order to calm the waves he yeeted his hostages overboard—either to appease the kami or possibly to get rid of bad luck that they had brought with them. At that point there was no way that he could show up in Goguryeo and explain what had happened, and so he turned around. Back in Yamato he gave a whole story of how a Whale and other fish had risen up and were preventing any boat from rowing out, and so that is why they were in Goguryeo at the moment.
However, the problem with lies is that you often have to face the truth, eventually. In this case, retribution came in the form of yet another diplomatic mission. When the envoys arrived at the court, they brought back their guests, Iwahi and Masa, who had been treated as befitted envoys of a foreign land, and they asked about what had happened to the men on the other ship.
Nunakura, who hadn’t quite trusted Naniwa’s account in the first place, was now positive that Naniwa had thrown the envoys over and then lied to cover it up. And so we are told that Naniwa was punished, which probably meant that he was put to death.
And that about wraps up the stories of the Goguryeo envoys. Regardless of anything else, we can see that Yamato is in regular diplomatic contact with various peninsular powers, at the very least. And we are now into the reign of Nunakura no Ohokimi, aka Bidatsu Tennou. And we’ll get to him, but next episode I might try something a little different.
You see, for the most part we are following what we have in various Chronicles, but there is a lot that the Chronicles don’t go into. For one thing, there are day-to-day items that just don’t get mentioned, but even larger events that seem to go unnoticed. We’ll talk about one such event with the two eruptions of Mt. Haruna, and we’ll talk about how some of the picture is being made clearer through the work of archaeology.
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

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

Episode 85: The Buddha Comes to Japan

May 1, 2023 Joshua Badgley

Sun setting over the hills that form part of the valley around Asuka. In the 6th century this was the territory of the Soga family, and the location of some of the earliest known Buddhist temples in Japan.

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This episode we look at the first attempt to establish Buddhism in Japan, and even though it may have had a rough go of it, this is generally considered to be the start of Japanese Buddhism and also, by some accounts, the true start of the Asuka period, which was characterized by the rise of Buddhism and Buddhist institutions, among other things.

Who’s Who

Ame Kunioshi no Ōkimi, aka Kimmei Tennō

The current sovereign in our narrative. It is unclear when, exactly his reign started and even the role he played vice the various other ministers. This is further brought into question due to the clear attempts by the Chroniclers to portray him as more powerful and involved than he may have actually been.

Soga no Iname no Sukune

Soga no Iname is perhaps one of the most active participants in this narrative. He is the head of the Soga family and the current Ōmi. We know that he resided in the area of Oharida and Mukuhara, in modern Asuka area. He was the first Soga no Ōmi mentioned in the Nihon Shoki, and he hits the ground running. While many previous Ōmi are less than prominent figures in the narrative, Soga no Iname is clearly doing the most with his time in office. In addition to his official position, he had also manuevered two of his daughters into marrying Ame Kunioshi, meaning that he had a very good chance to play grandfather to future sovereigns, or at least members of the royal family.

The Soga family is later said to descend from Takeuchi no Sukune and Ishikawa no Sukune, though this is questionable. More reasonable is the lineage from Soga no Machi to Soga no Karako and Soga no Kōma down to Soga no Iname.

Mononobe no Okoshi

At this point in the story, Mononobe no Okoshi was Ōmuraji, the head of the Mononobe house. He had a powerful lineage, being descended from preivous Ōmuraji who had held the position since at least the time of Wakatake no Ōkimi back in the 5th century.

Wang Jinnie and his children

Wang Jinnie (aka “Ō Shinni” or “Ō Chinni”) is something of an enigmatic figure. He shows up a few times, but his surname name (王) would appear to mark him as having come from the continent. He seems to be involved with recording ships and other such administrative tasks. He has a son, Itsu—or possibly something like “Danchin”, if you use the old Chinese reading—also has a role to play.

Immigrants provided the Yamato court an extremely useful population. They were generally skilled in various arts and technologies, including the technology of government. And so they understood how to read and write and what was necessary to administer different parts of the state. At the same time, immigrants would not necessarily have the same local or regional ties in the archipelago. Members of established families would have ties to the land and the people, which made them useful for administering those areas, but also made them potential threats. Despite what the Chronicles would like us to believe, the central authority was not yet that solidified, and succession could still be an issue.

In such a climate, it is relatively easy to see how immigrants could be useful as they would not have the same political baggage attached to them as members of the local elite.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 85: The Buddha Comes to Japan.
Last couple episodes we’ve talked about Buddhism. We talked about its origins in the Indian subcontinent, with the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, aka Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha, and how those teachings spread out from India to Gandhara, and then followed the trade routes across the harsh deserts of the Tarim Basin, through the Gansu corridor, and into the Yellow and Yangzi River Valleys. From there the teachings made it all the way to the Korean peninsula, and to the country of Baekje, Yamato’s chief ally on the peninsula.
This episode we’ll look at how Buddhism came to the archipelago and its initial reception there. For some of this we may need to span several reigns, as we’ll be looking at events from early to late 6th century. This is also about more than just religion, and so we may need to dive back into some of the politics we’ve covered up to this point as well. Hopefully we can bring it all together in the end, but if it is a bit of a bumpy ride, just hang with me for a bit.
So let’s start with the official account in the Nihon Shoki, which we already mentioned two episodes ago: the first mention of Buddhism in the Chronicles. The year was 552, or the 13th year in the reign of Ame Kunioshi, aka Kimmei Tennou. That winter, during the 10th month—which was probably closer to December or January on a modern calendar—King Seongmyeong of Baekje had a special gift for his counterpart, the sovereign of Yamato. By this time there are numerous accounts of gifts to Yamato, generally in conjunction with the Baekje-Yamato alliance and Baekje’s requests for military support in their endeavors on the peninsula, generally framed in the Yamato sources as centering on the situation of the country of Nimna.
In this case, the gift was a gilt-bronze image of Shakyamuni Buddha, several flags and umbrellas, and a number of volumes of Buddhist sutras. King Seongmyeong sent a memorial explaining his intent: “This doctrine” (aka Buddhism) “is amongst all doctrines the most excellent. But it is hard to explain, and hard to comprehend. Even the Duke of Zhou and Confucius had not attained to a knowledge of it. This doctrine can create religious merit and retribution with appreciation of the highest wisdom. Imagine a man in possession of treasures to his heart’s content, so that he might satisfy all his wishes in proportion as he used them. Thus it is with the treasure of this wonderful doctrine. Every prayer is fulfilled and naught is wanting. Moreover, from distant India it has extended hither to the three Han, where there are none who do not receive it with reverence as it is preached to them.
“Thy servant, therefore, Myeong, King of Baekje, has humbly dispatched his retainer, Nuri Sacchi, to transmit it to the Imperial Country, and to diffuse it abroad throughout the home provinces, so as to fulfil the recorded saying of Buddha: ‘My law shall spread to the East.’ “
Upon receiving all of these things and hearing the memorial, we are told that the sovereign, Ame Kunioshi, literally leapt for joy. He thanked the envoys, but then put the question to his ministers as to how they should proceed. Soga no Iname no Sukune, holding the position of Oho-omi, recommended that they should worship the statue of the Buddha. After all, if all of the “Western Frontier lands” were worshipping it, then should Yamato really be left out?
On the other side of the argument were Mononobe no Okoshi as well as Nakatomi no Kamako. They argued against stopping the traditional worship of the 180 kami of Heaven and Earth and replacing it with worship of some foreign religion.
With this split decision, Ame Kunioshi decided to have Soga no Iname experiment, first. He told him to go ahead and worship the image and see what happens. And so Soga set it up at his house in Oharida, purified it, and, per Buddhist tradition, retired from the world. He had another house, in nearby Mukuhara, purified and made into a temple. Here he began to worship the Buddha.
Around that same time, there was a pestilence—a disease—that was in the land. People were getting sick and some were dying. This was likely not unprecedented. Healthcare was not exactly up to our modern standards, and while many good things traveled the trade routes, infection and disease likely used them as pathways as well. So diseases would pop up, on occasion. In this instance, though, Mononobe no Okoshi and Nakatomi no Kamako seized on it as their opportunity. They went to Ame Kunioshi and they blamed Soga no Iname and his worship of the Buddha for the plague.
Accordingly, the court removed the statue of the Buddha and tossed it into the canal at Naniwa, and then they burned down Soga no Iname’s temple—which, as you may recall, was basically his house. As soon as they did that, though, Ame Kunioshi’s own Great Hall burst into flames, seemingly out of nowhere, as it was otherwise a clear day.
Little more is said about these events, but that summer there were reports from Kawachi of Buddhist chants booming out of the sea of Chinu near the area of Idzumi. Unate no Atahe was sent to investigate and found an entire log of camphorwood that was quote-unquote “Shining Brightly”. So he gave it to the court, where we are told they used it to have two Buddha images made, which later were installed in a temple in Yoshino; presumably at a much later date.
And then the Chronicles go quiet for the next couple decades, at least on the subject of Buddhism, but this is the first official account of it coming over, and there is quite a bit to unpack. For one thing, the memorials and speeches once again seem like something that the Chroniclers added because it fit with their understanding of the narrative, including their insistence that Yamato was a fully fledged imperial state, and there is some fairly good evidence that King Seongmyeong’s memorial is clearly anachronistic. But there are a few other things, and conflicting records on things such as dates and similar.
So first off, let’s acknowledge that there are too many things in the main narrative in the Chronicles that are just questionable, such as the sovereign “leaping with joy” at the chance to hear about Buddhism, and the fact that King Seongmyeong’s memorial apparently quotes a part of the sutra of the Sovereign Kings of Golden Light, known in Japanese as the Konkoumyou-saishou-ou-kyou, but that translation wasn’t done until 703, during the Tang dynasty, by the monk Yijing in the city of Chang’an. While it would have been known to knowledgable monks like Doji, who may have been helping put the narrative together in 720, it is unlikely that it was in use during the 6th century, when the memorial is said to have been written.
In addition, there is question about the date that all of this supposedly happened. The Nihon Shoki has this event taking place in 552, well into the reign of Ame Kunioshi. However, there are at least two 8th century sources, roughly contemporary with the writing of the Nihon Shoki, the Gangoji Garan Engi and the Jouguuki, and both of these put the date at 538, a good fourteen years earlier, and in the era of Ame Kunioshi’s predecessor, Takewo Hiro Kunioshi, aka Senka Tenno. The first of these, the Gangoji Garan Engi, is a record of the founding of the first permanent temple in Japan, Gangoji, aka Hokoji or, informally, Asukadera, which was founded by Soga no Iname’s heir, Soga no Umako. More on the temple itself, later, but for now we want to focus on the historical aspects of this account, which mostly corroborate the story, talking about Soga no Iname’s role in receiving the image and enshrining it, as well as the early conflict between the Soga clan and their rivals. The other source, the Joguki, focuses on the life of Shotoku Taishi, aka Prince Umayado, who will become a major subject of our narrative at the end of the 6th and early 7th centuries. Not only is he considered the father of Japanese Buddhism, but he had strong connections to the Soga family. Today, most scholars accept the 538 date over the 552 date when talking about Buddhism’s initial arrival into the islands

If the Chroniclers did move the event from 538 to 552, one has to wonder why. This isn’t a simple matter of being off by 60 years, and thus attributable to a mistake in the calendrical sexagenary zodiac cycle of stems and branches, so there must have been something else. One suggestion is that the date conflicted with the chronology that had already been set for the sovereigns. 538 is during the reign of Takewo no Ohokimi, aka Senka Tenno, but what if succession was not quite as cut and dried as all that? What if Ame Kunioshi no Ohokimi had his own court and was in some way ruling at the same time as his half-brothers, Magari no Ohine and Takewo no Ohokimi? They were from different mothers, and thus different factions at court. Ame Kunioshi was young, so it was possible that there were rival lineages attempting to rule, or even some kind of co-ruler deal hearkening back to more ancient precedent. Some even theorize that Magari no Ohine and Takewo Hiro Kunioshi were simply fictional inserts to help span the period between Wohodo and Ame Kunioshi.
Whatever the reason, this theory suggests that it would not have happened in the 13th year of Ame Kunioshi’s reign, but that his reign started in 526, rather than 540. An intriguing hypothesis, but one that begs the question of whether everything in the reign would then need to be shifted to account for that. Given that there are a few attributable events noted that fit with outside sources as well, that doesn’t seem quite as plausible without some very conscious efforts to change the timeline.
Another thought is that the compilers weren’t sure exactly when this event happened, but given Ame Kunioshi’s reputation and long reign, they chose his reign to place it in because it just fit. I suspect that this happened more than once, with people more likely attributing past events to well-remembered sovereigns. If this is the case, then when searching for a date they may have just chosen one that seemed auspicious. In this case, 552 CE was, in some reckonings, an important year in Buddhist history, as there were those who say it as the beginning of the age of “mappou”, the “End of the Law” or perhaps the “Latter days of the Law”.
This definitely is an intriguing theory, and resonates strongly. For most of Japanese history, the idea that we are in this period of “mappo” has had a strong influence, and to a certain extent it is kind of an apocalyptic view of things. The idea of mappo is that while the Buddha was alive, his teachings were fresh and available to all living things. However, after his death, his teachings had to be remembered and passed on. Even with the advent of writing, the meaning and understanding of his teachings, and thus an understanding of dharma, would also atrophy. Different translations, changes in meaning, and just bits and pieces lost to time would mean that for the first 500 to 1,000 years, the Buddha’s disciples would keep things well and the meaning would be protected, but in the next 500 to 1,000 years things would decline, but still be pretty close to the truth. Then – and this is when the period of “mappo” starts - things would really start to decline, until finally, about 5,000 to 10,000 years later—or about 1,000 to 12,000 years after the time of the historical Buddha—things would break down, factions would be fighting one another, and eventually everyone would have forgotten the dharma entirely. It was only then that there would come a new Buddha, Miroku or Maitreya, who would once again teach about the dharma and how to escape suffering, and the whole cycle would start again.
The year 552 would have coincided, according to some estimates, with 1,000 years since the time of Siddhartha Gautama, and so it would have had particular significance to the people of that time, particularly if you counted each of the first two Ages as 500 years each, meaning that the word of the Buddha, that his teachings would spread to the East, would have been completed just as we entered the latter days of the Law.
Regardless of the time—and, as I said earlier, 538 is the more accepted date—the general events described – the statue, the offer of Soga to experiment, and the resulting events - are usually agreed to, although even here we must pause, slightly and ask a few questions.
First off, was this truly the first time that Buddhism had ever shown up in Japan? The answer to that is probably not. There had been many waves of immigrants that had come over to Japan from the peninsula, and even if only a small handful of them had adopted the new religion before coming over it is likely that there were pockets of worshippers. Later, we will see that there are people in Japan who are said to have had prior experience as a monk, or who had their own Buddhist images. These images were probably used by people in their homes—there is no evidence of any particular temples that had been built, privately or otherwise, and so there is no evidence that we have any active monks or nuns in the archipelago, but who knows what was going on in communities outside of the elite core? There were plenty of things that were never commented on if it wasn’t directly relevant to the court.
Furthermore, with all of the envoys that had been to Baekje, surely some of them had experience with Buddhism. And then there were the envoys *from* Baekje, who no doubt brought Buddhist practices with them. So there was likely some kind of familiarity with the religion’s existence, even if it wasn’t necessarily fully understood.
The second point that many people bring up is the role of the sovereign, Ame Kunioshi, or whomever was in charge at the time that the first image came over. While the Nihon Shoki attempts to portray a strong central government with the sovereign at its head, we’ve already seen how different households had arisen and taken some measure of power for themselves. At the end of the 5th and into the early 6th century, the Ohotomo and Mononobe houses were preeminent, with Ohotomo Kanamura taking on actions such as negotiating dealings with the continent and even manuevering around the Crown Prince. The Mononobe wielded considerable authority through their military resources, and now, the Soga appeared to ascendant. It is quite possible that the idea of the sovereign giving any sort of permission or order to worship Buddhism is simply a political fig leaf added by the Chroniclers. The Soga may have been much more independent in their views and dealings. To better understand this, let’s take a look at the uji family system and the Soga family in particular.
Now the Nihon Shoki paints a picture as though these noble uji families were organic, and simply part of the landscape, descending from the kami in the legendary age, with lineages leading down to the present day, although there is some acknowledgment that the earliest ancestors did not necessarily use the family names until a later date. For much of Japanese history, the concept that these family, or uji, were one of the core building blocks of ancient Japanese political and cultural spheres is taken as a matter of course. However, in more modern studies, this view has been questioned, and now the prevailing view is that these families are somewhat different. In fact, the uji are likely just as much an artificial construct as the corporate -Be family labor groups.
According to this theory, early on people were associated with local groups and places. Outside of the immediate family, groups were likely held together by their regional ties as much as anything else. Names appear to be locatives, with ancient titles indicating the -hiko or -hime of this or that area.
Some time in the 5th century, Yamato—and possibly elsewhere in the peninsula—began to adopt the concept of -Be corporate groups from Baekje. We talked about this back in Episode 63, using the Hata as a prime example of how these groups were brought together. More importantly, though, was that each of these -Be groups reported to someone in the court, sometimes with a different surname. These were the uji, created along with the -Be to help administer the labor and work of running the state. They were essentially arms of the state itself, in many ways. The kabane system of titles emphasizes this, with different families having different ranks depending on what they did, whether locally, regionally, or at the central court. Some of these titles, like -Omi and -Kimi, were likely once actual jobs, but eventually it came to represent something more akin to a social ranking.
There have been some questions and emails asking for a bit more in depth on this, and I’d really like to, but I’m afraid that would be too much for now. At the moment I want to focus more on the uji, particularly on those at the top - the uji with the kabane of either Omi or Muraji, as these are the ones most likely to be helping to directly run the government. They even had their own geographical areas within the Nara basin, and elsewhere, that were uji strongholds. The Hata had areas near modern Kyoto, the Mononobe clearly had claims to land around Isonokami, in modern Tenri, and the Soga clan had their holdings in the area of modern Asuka and Kashihara city. At the very least, that is where Soga no Iname’s house was—in Mukuhara and Oharida, both located in the modern area of Asuka, which will become important in the future.
It wasn’t just the landholdings that were important, though. Each uji had some part to play in the functioning of the government. In many cases it was the production or control of a particular service, such as the Hata and silk weaving, or the Mononobe and their affinity with all things military. For the Soga, they appear to have had a rather interesting portfolio.
Traditionally, the Soga family is said to trace its lineage back to Takechi no Sukune, the first Oho-omi back in the time of Okinaga no Tarashi Hime and Homuda Wake no Ohokimi—see episode 46 for more on him. That lineage is likely fabricated, however, and the earliest actual evidence for the family may be from the Kogoshui, where we are told that Soga no Machi was put in charge of the Three Treasuries. These were the Imikura, or sacred treasury; the Uchikura, or royal household treasury; and the Ohokura, the government treasury. This seems like quite the position of responsibility, and it would fit with some of what we see later as the Soga are involved in helping set up Miyake, the various royal storehouses across the land that acted as Yamato court administrative centers for the purposes of collecting goods and funneling them to the court, as well as keeping an eye on the local regions. Although here I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t also note that the “Three Treasuries”, or “Sanzou” is one way to translate the Tripitaka, and given the Soga’s role, I don’t think I can entirely ignore that point.
So the Soga family had experience with administration, and specifically they were dealing with a variety of different goods produced in different regions. If that is the case, then their authority did not necessarily derive from the standard uji-be constructed familial connections, but rather they were deriving positional authority from the central government itself. This may seem like common sense to us, but in the world of ancient Yamato, where family connections were everything, this may have been something new and innovative—and very in keeping with various continental models of administration. It is quite likely that the Soga were dealing with some of the latest innovations in government and political authority, which would also have opened them up to the possibility of new ideas.
In addition, their position meant they likely had wide-ranging contacts across the archipelago and even onto the peninsula. The Soga themselves have connections to the peninsula in the names of some of their members, such as Soga no Karako, where “Karako” can be translated as a “Son of Kara” or a “Son of Gaya”, possibly referring to their origins, and Soga no Kouma, where “Kouma” is a general term for Goguryeo, and so quite possibly indicates a connection with them as well. On top of that, there is a now-out-of-favor theory that once suggested that Soga no Machi might be the same as Moku Machi, an important Baekje official in the late 5th century. While that has been largely discredited, the fact that “Machi” is possibly of Baekje origin cannot be entirely overlooked.
Then there are a series of notes in the Nihon Shoki, particularly surrounding the area of Shirai, in the land of Kibi. These start in 553, just one year after Soga no Iname’s failed attempt to launch a Buddhist temple, at least according to the Nihon Shoki’s record of events. It is a relatively simple note, but it mentions how Soga no Iname made a man by the name of Wang Jinnie the “Funa no Fubito”, or “Recorder of Ships”, and put him in charge of the shipping tax—all at the behest of the sovereign, of course.
Later, in 555, Soga no Iname went with Hozumi no Iwayumi no Omi to Kibi, where they consolidated five districts, or agata, under the administration of a single administrative Miyake in Shirawi. Later, in 556, he would go back to Kibi and establish a Miyake in Kojima, putting in place Katsuraki no Yamada as the Tazukai, or “rural rice field governor”. That same year he and others went to the Takachi district in Yamato and established the Miyake of Ohomusa, or “Great Musa”, for immigrants from Baekje and then Womusa, or “Small Musa”, for immigrants from Goguryeo.
In 569, the person that Soga no Iname had put in charge of recording the ships, Wang Jinnie, had a nephew, Itsu—or possibly Danchin, depending on how you read it—go out to Shirawi to take a census. This is the same Shirawi that Soga no Iname had helped establish in 555. Itsu becomes the Shirawi no Obito, and in 574 we see Soga no Umako, Iname’s heir, heading out to Shirawi with an updated register for Itsu.
So, in short, the Soga family clearly is doing a lot of government administration, and particularly of the Miyake, which is the extension of the court authority into the rest of the archipelago. On top of that, look at how often the names that are coming up in conjunction with what they are doing are referencing immigrant groups. Even the Hozumi family are known at this point for their work on the peninsula, and we see the Soga heavily involved with the Wang family and their fortunes, not to mention Greater and Lesser Musa and the Baekje and Goguryeo individuals there. Wang Jinnie will have even more of a part to play, but we’ll hold onto that for later.
Given everything we can see about how they are operating, is it any surprise that the Soga would advocate in favor of Buddhism? I’d also note that, while other clans have clear connections to heavenly ancestors and kami whom they worshipped, it is unclear to me if the Soga had anything similar. There is mention in the 7th century of the creation of a shrine to their titular ancestors, Takeuchi no Sukune and Ishikawa no Sukune, and today there is a shrine that is dedicated to Soga tsu Hiko and Soga tsu Hime—Basically just lord and lady Soga. But there isn’t anything like the spirit of Futsunushi or Ohomononushi, let alone an Amaterasu or Susano’o.
Why is that important? Well, prior to the 6th century, a lot of clans claimed authority from the ritual power they were perceived to wield, often related to the prestige of their kami. One of the ways that Yamato influence had spread was through the extension of the Miwa cult across the archipelago, and there were even members of the Himatsuribe and the Hioki-be, basically groups of ritualists focused on sun worship, which upheld the royal house. The Mononobe controlled Isonokami shrine, where they worshipped their Ujigami, Futsu-mitama, the spirit of the sound of the sword. And then there were the Nakatomi, who haven’t had much to do in the narrative so far, but we know that they were court ritualists, responsible for ensuring that proper rituals were carried out by the court for the kami to help keep balance in the land.
The dispute between the Soga and the Mononobe and Nakatomi is presented as a struggle between a foreign religion and the native kami of Japan—leaving aside any discussion, for now, about just how “native” said kami actually were. This is, in fact, the primary story that gets told again and again, that the Mononobe and Nakatomi were simply standing up for their beliefs, sincerely believing that if too many people started worshipping foreign gods then it would supplant the worship already present in the islands.
And that may have been a genuine fear at the time, but I would suggest that it was only a small one. What seems more apparent is that we are really looking at just an old fashioned power struggle. Because what all of the information we have about the Soga distills down to is: they were the new kid on the block. The Soga were the up and coming nobility. They had connections with the continent and various immigrant groups. That gave them access to new ideas and new forms of resources. The Mononobe were built on a more traditionalist line. They had been around, ever since at least Wakatake no Ohokimi, playing a significant role in things, alongside the Ohotomo. The Mononobe were at their apex, claiming descent through their own Heavenly Grandson, and having held sway at court through numerous reigns at this point. They represent, in many ways, the old guard.
Worship of a fancy new religious icon—effectively a new kami—threatened to give the Soga even more power and sway. They already had control of the three treasuries, if the Kogoshui is to be believed, and likely had a rather impressive administrative apparatus. Soga no Iname had also ended up successfully marrying off two of his daughters to Ame Kunioshi, making him father-in-law to the current sovereign. If he added to that a spiritual focus that people came to believe in, that would only enhance the Soga’s power and place in the hierarchy.
And what better way to taint all of that, and neutralize these upstarts, than to blame this new god for the plague and pestilence that was killing people. We see it all too often, even today—when people are scared and when there are problems, the easiest people to scapegoat are the foreigners and the outsiders. Those whom we do not see as “us”. It was probably easy to turn the court against Buddhism, at least initially. They threw the image in the canal and burned down the temple, and no doubt they were pleased with themselves.
But that was merely the opening salvo, and as we’ll see in the coming years, the Soga family were hardly done with Buddhism. One can argue whether they were truly devout or if this was merely for political gain, but the Soga family tied themselves to this new foreign religion, for good or for ill, and they wouldn’t be pushed around forever.
When next we touch base on this topic we’ll look at Soga no Iname’s heir, Soga no Umako, and his attempts to start up where his father left off. He would again clash with the Mononobe, and the outcome of that conflict would set the path for the next half a century. It would also see Buddhism become firmly enmeshed with the apparatus of the state. As this happens , we’ll also see the character of Buddhist worship in the archipelago change. Initially, the Buddha was treated little differently from any other kami, and based on the way it is described, probably worshiped in a very similar manner. However, as more sutras came to light and as more people studied and learned about the religion—and as more immigrants were brought in to help explain how things were supposed to work—Buddhism grew in the islands to be its own distinct entity. In fact the growth of Buddhism would even see the eventual definition of “Shinto”, the “Way of the Gods”, a term that was never really needed until there was another concept for native practices to be compared against.
Before we leave off, there is one other story I’d like to mention. It is tangential to our immediate discussion of Buddhism and the Soga, but I think you may find it of interest, nonetheless. This is the story of just what happened—supposedly—to that first Buddhist icon that was tossed into the Naniwa canal.
Because you see, according to tradition, that gilt-bronze icon did not stay stuck in the mud and muck of the canal, nor did it just disappear. Instead there is a tradition that it was found almost a century later. The person who retrieved it was named Honda no Yoshimitsu, and from Naniwa he traveled all the way to Shinano, to the area of modern Nagano, and there he would found a temple in 642. Another reading of his name, Yoshimitsu, is Zenko, and so the temple is named Zenkoji, and you can still go and visit it today.
In fact, the main hall of Zenkoji is considered a national treasure, and it was featured prominently during the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. It is a popular attraction for tourist both in Japan and from abroad, and if you get a chance I highly recommend going to see it. On the street leading up to the temple entrance are many traditional shops that still sell various foods and traditional arts and crafts, and there are many intriguring features. For example, there is a narrow walkway underneath the main temple that is completely dark, where you are meant to feel along the wall to try to find the key to enlightenment, a kind of physical metaphor of Buddhist teaching.
And of course there is the icon that Honda Yoshimitsu is said to have fished out of the canal.
According to the temple, the icon still exists, and many worshippers believe it to be the oldest extant Buddhist icon in Japan, even older than the icons at Horyuji. However, there is one catch—nobody is allowed to see it. Shortly after it was installed in the temple, the statue was hidden in a special container, or zushi, and it became what is known as a hidden Buddha. This is a tradition particularly prevalent in Japan, where some Buddhas are hidden away and only brought out on very special occasions. Some cynics might note that those occasions are often when the temple needs to raise funds. As for this hidden Buddha, however, it has not been seen more than a handful of times since it was locked away in the 7th century.
Despite that, we know what it looks like—or at least what it is supposed to look like. The image is said to be a triad, and though the Nihon Shoki claims it was an image of Shakyamuni, the central figure of the Zenkoji triad is actually the figure of Amida, aka Amithabha, as in the Pure Land sect of Buddhism. Amida Nyorai is flanked by two attendants. We know all of this because a copy of the Zenkoji image was made in the Kamakura period, and that image, said to be a faithful recreation of the original is also kept at Zenkoji. While the original is kept hidden in the back, the replica, which is thought to have all of the miraculous powers of the original, sits in front, and is therefore called the Maedachi Honzon, basically the image standing in front, vice the original, the Gohonzon, the main image.
Except it gets even better, because the replica is *also* kept hidden away most of the time, and only revealed on special occasions, known as Gokaicho, or “opening of the curtain”, which occurs once every seven years.
The Zenkoji triad became extremely important in later centuries, and copies were made and installed in sub-temples throughout Japan. Even today you may find a Zenkoji-style triad here or there, each one considered to have a spiritual tie back to the original, and some of them even have inscriptions confirming that they are, indeed, Zenkoji style triads
Of course, the big question remains: does the original image actually still exist, and is there any chance that it actually is as old as it claims to be? There really is no good way of knowing. Zenkoji is not offering to open up the zushi any time soon. We do know a few things, however. We know that the temple has burned down at least 11 times over the years, and the Gohonzon was rescued each time, or so they say. There are some who claim that it still exists, but perhaps it is damaged. If that is the case, how did they make the replica, though?
There was an inspection during the Edo period. There was a rumor that it had been stolen, and so an Edo official was sent to check on the status. They reported that it was still there, but crucially they never described actually laying eyes on the statue. In one account where a monk did open the box it is said that their was a blinding light—kind of like the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones but just overwhelming; no faces were melted, at least none that were reported.
The monks of Zenkoji, when asked how they know the image is still there, will point to the weight of the container, which, when lifted, is apparently considerable. They say that is how they know it is still there. Of course, a melted lump of metal might be the same weight as it was when it was full statue, as long as it didn’t lose any actual mass, so it is hard to tell if it is still in good condition.
Even with all of that, there is the question about the veracity of the original objects lineage to begin with. Did Honda Yoshimitsu really just find *the* original statue? And even if he did, how would he have known what it was? Was there an inscription: To Yamato, from Baekje, hugs and kisses?
I’ve yet to see anyone directly compare the purported replica with other statues, but I suspect that would be the route to at least check the age, but nobody seems to be saying that the style of the replica is blatantly wrong for a 6th or 7th century icon from the peninsula or by peninsular craftsmen. Then again, there were plenty of local immigrants in the Naniwa area who could have potentially crafted an image. Indeed, the area around modern Nagano even has traces of Goguryeo style burial cairns, possibly from immigrants settled out there to help with early horse cultivation, and so there is even the possibility that there were locals with the connections and skills to craft something.
If you really want to know more, there is an entire work by Donald McCallum, titled “Zenkoji and Its Icon”, on not just the icon but the entire worship that sprang up around it and caused copies to spread throughout the archipelago.
And that’s where we will leave off for this episode. In the next couple of episodes I want to finish up some of the secular history of this reign, and look a little bit outside of Yamato and the evidence in the Chronicles 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.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Friday, K.F. (Ed.). (2017). Routledge Handbook of Premodern Japanese History (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315170473
Deal, William E. and Ruppert, Brian. (2015). A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. ISBN: 978-1-405-16700-0.
McCallum, D. F. (2009). The Four Great Temples: Buddhist Art, Archaeology, and Icons of Seventy-Century Japan. University of Hawai’i Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wqtwv
Matsuo, K. (13 Dec. 2007). A History of Japanese Buddhism. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9781905246410.i-280
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
Farris, W. (1998). Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures: Issues in the Historical Archaeology of Ancient Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824864224
Piggott, Joan R. (1997). The emergence of Japanese kingship. Stanford, Calif : Stanford University Press
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

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.

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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.

Soga no Umako

Kashikiya Hime

Prince Umayado

Prince Hasebe no Miko

Rough Transcript

References

Who’s Who - Royal Family

Nunakura Futodamashiki no Mikoto, aka Bidatsu Tennō

Hiro Hime

Hikobito no Ohine

Tomi no Obito no Ichihi

Who’s Who - Soga Family

Soga no Iname

Soga no Umako

Kashikiya Hime

Spoiler alert

Prince Takeda no Miko

Tachibana no Toyohi, aka Yōmei Tennō

Prince Umayado

Prince Hasetsukabe Anahobe no Miko

Prince Yakabe no Miko

Prince Hasebe no Miko

Ōtomo no Hirafu no Muraj

Shiba Tattō

Who’s Who - Mononobe Family

Mononobe no Moriya

Nakatomi no Muraji no Katsumi

Tottoribe no Yorodzu

Rough Transcript

References

Who’s Who - Royal Family

Nunakura Futodamashiki no Mikoto, aka Bidatsu Tennō

Hiro Hime

Hikobito no Ohine

Who’s Who - Soga Family

Soga no Iname

Soga no Umako

Kitashi Hime

Kashikiya Hime

Spoiler alert

Tachibana no Toyohi, aka Yōmei Tennō

Nukade Hime

Prince Umayado

Miwa no Kimi no Sakahe

Wonane Gimi

Princess Hasetsukabe Anahobe no Himemiko

Prince Hasetsukabe Anahobe no Miko

Prince Hasebe no Miko

Who’s Who - Mononobe Family

Mononobe no Moriya

Nakatomi no Muraji no Katsumi

Rough Transcript

References

Who’s Who

Nunakura Futodamashiki no Mikoto, aka Bidatsu Tennō

Nichira

Rough Transcript

References

Who’s Who

Nunakura Futodamashiki no Mikoto, aka Bidatsu Tennō

Ōwake no Miko

Soga no Umako no Sukune no Ōmi

Mononobe no Yuge no Moriya no Ōmuraji

Hirohime

Toyomike Kashikiya Hime

Kurabe no Sukushi no Shiba Tattō

Shima, aka Shimane, aka Zenshin-ni

Toyome, aka Zenzō-ni, and Ishime, aka Ezen-ni

Eben

Nakatomi no Iware no Muraji

Ōmiwa no Sakahe no Kimi

Rough Transcript

References

The Tone River

Rough Transcript

References

Ame Kunioshi, aka Kimmei Tennō

Soga no Iname no Sukune no Ōmi

Ishihime

Yata no Tamakatsu