RECOVERY OF ADMINISTRATIVE AUTHORITY BY THE THRONE
The 69th Sovereign, the Emperor Go-Shujaku A.D. 1037-1045
70th " " Go-Reizei 1046-1068
71st " " Go-Sanjo 1069-1072
72nd " " Shirakawa 1073-1086
73rd " " Horikawa 1087-1107
74th " " Toba 1108-1123
75th " " Sutoku 1124-1141
76th " " Konoe 1142-1155
77th " " Go-Shirakawa 1156-1158
DECADENCE OF FUJIWARA AUTOCRACY
During two centuries the administrative power remained in the hands
of the Fujiwara. They lost it by their own timidity rather than
through the machinations of their enemies. When the Emperor
Go-Shujaku was mortally ill, he appointed his eldest son, Go-Reizei,
to be his successor, and signified his desire that the latter's
half-brother, Takahito, should be nominated Crown Prince. Fujiwara
Yorimichi was then regent (kwampaku). To him, also, the dying
sovereign made known his wishes. Now Takahito had not been born of a
Fujiwara mother. The regent, therefore, while complying at once in
Go-Reizei's case, said that the matter of the Crown Prince might be
deferred, his purpose being to wait until a Fujiwara lady should bear
a son to Go-Reizei.
In thus acting, Yorimichi obeyed the policy from which his family had
never swerved through many generations, and which had now become an
unwritten law of the State. But his brother, Yoshinobu, read the
signs of the times in a sinister light. He argued that the real power
had passed to the military magnates, and that by attempting to stem
the current the Fujiwara might be swept away altogether. He therefore
repaired to the palace, and simulating ignorance of what had passed
between the late sovereign and the kwampaku, inquired whether it was
intended that Prince Takahito should enter a monastery. Go-Reizei
replied emphatically in the negative and related the facts, whereupon
Yoshinobu declared that the prince should be nominated forthwith. It
was done, and thus for the first time in a long series of years a
successor to the throne was proclaimed who had not the qualification
of a Fujiwara mother.
There remained to the kwampaku only one way of expressing his
dissent. During many years it had been customary that the Prince
Imperial, on his nomination, should receive from the Fujiwara regent
a famous sword called Tsubo-kiri (Jar-cutter). Yorimichi declined to
make the presentation in the case of Prince Takahito on the ground
that he was not of Fujiwara lineage. The prince--afterwards
Go-Sanjo--had the courage to deride this omission. "Of what service
is the sword to me?" he said. "I have no need of it."
Such an attitude was very significant of the changing times. During
more than twenty years of probation as Crown Prince, this sovereign,
Go-Sanjo, had ample opportunity of observing the arbitrary conduct of
the Fujiwara, and when he held the sceptre he neglected no means of
asserting the authority of the Crown, one conspicuous step being to
take a daughter of Go-Ichijo into the palace as chugu, a position
created for a Fujiwara and never previously occupied by any save a
Fujiwara.
Altogether, Go-Sanjo stands an imposing figure in the annals of his
country. Erudition he possessed in no small degree, and it was
supplemented by diligence, high moral courage and a sincere love of
justice. He also set to his people an example of frugality. It is
related that, observing as he passed through the streets one day, an
ox-carriage with gold mountings, he stopped his cortege and caused
the gold to be stripped off. Side by side with this record may be
placed his solicitude about the system of measures, which had fallen
into disorder. With his own hands he fashioned a standard which was
known to later generations as the senshi-masu of the Enkyu era
(1069-1074). The question of tax-free manors (shoen) also received
much attention. During the reign of Go-Shujaku, decrees were
frequently issued forbidding the creation of these estates. The
Fujiwara shoen were conspicuous. Michinaga possessed wide manors
everywhere, and Yorimichi, his son, was not less insatiable. Neither
Go-Shujaku nor Go-Reizei could check the abuse. But Go-Sanjo resorted
to a really practical measure. He established a legislative office
where all titles to shoen had to be examined and recorded, the Daiho
system of State ownership being restored, so that all rights of
private property required official sanction, the Court also becoming
the judge in all disputes as to validity of tenure.
These orders came like a clap of thunder in a blue sky. Many great
personages had acquired vast manorial tracts by processes that could
not endure the scrutiny of the Kiroku-jo (registrar's office).
Yorimichi, the kwampaku, was a conspicuous example. On receipt of the
order to register, he could only reply that he had succeeded to his
estates as they stood and that no documentary evidence was available.
Nevertheless, he frankly added that, if his titles were found
invalid, he was prepared to surrender his estates, since the position
he occupied required him to be an administrator of law, not an
obstacle to its administration. This was the same noble who had
refused to present the sword, Tsubo-kiri, to Go-Sanjo when the latter
was nominated Crown Prince. The Emperor might now have exacted heavy
reparation. But his Majesty shrank from anything like spoliation. A
special decree was issued exempting from proof of title all manors
held by chancellors, regents, or their descendants.
SALE OF OFFICES AND RANKS
Another abuse with which Go-Sanjo sought to deal drastically was the
sale of offices and ranks. This was an evil of old standing. Whenever
special funds were required for temple building or palace
construction, it had become customary to invite contributions from
local magnates, who, in return, received, or were renewed in their
tenure of, the post of provincial governor. Official ranks were
similarly disposed of. At what time this practice had its origin the
records do not show, but during the reign of Kwammu (782-805,) the
bestowal of rank in return for a money payment was interdicted, and
Miyoshi Kiyotsura, in his celebrated memorial to Daigo (898-930),
urged that the important office of kebiishi should never be conferred
in consideration of money. But in the days of Ichijo, the acquisition
of tax-free manors increased rapidly and the treasury's income
diminished correspondingly, so that it became inevitable, in times of
State need, that recourse should be had to private contributions, the
contributors being held to have shown "merit" entitling them to rank
or office or both.
Go-Sanjo strictly interdicted all such transactions. But this action
brought him into sharp collision with the then kwampaku, Fujiwara
Norimichi. The latter built within the enclosure of Kofuku-ji at Nara
an octagonal edifice containing two colossal images of Kwannon. On
this nanen-do the regent spent a large sum, part of which was
contributed by the governor of the province. Norimichi therefore
applied to the Emperor for an extension of the governor's term of
office. Go-Sanjo refused his assent. But Norimichi insisted. Finally
the Emperor, growing indignant, declared that the kwampaku's sole
title to respect being derived from his maternal relationship to the
sovereign, he deserved no consideration at the hands of an Emperor
whose mother was not a Fujiwara. It was a supreme moment in the
fortunes of the Fujiwara. Norimichi angrily swept out of the
presence, crying aloud: "The divine influence of Kasuga Daimyojin*
ceases from to-day. Let every Fujiwara official follow me." Thereat
all the Fujiwara courtiers flocked out of the palace, and the Emperor
had no choice but to yield. Victory rested with the Fujiwara, but it
was purchased at the loss of some prestige.
*Titulary deity of the Fujiwara-uji.
CAMERA SOVEREIGNTY
Their obviously selfish device of seating a minor on the throne and
replacing him as soon as he reached years of discretion, had been
gradually invested by the Fujiwara with an element of spurious
altruism. They had suggested the principle that the tenure of
sovereign power should not be exercised exclusively. Go-Sanjo held,
however, that such a system not only impaired the Imperial authority
but also was unnatural. No father, he argued, could be content to
divest himself of all practical interest in the affairs of his
family, and to condemn the occupant of the throne to sit with folded
hands was to reduce him to the rank of a puppet. Therefore, even
though a sovereign abdicated, he should continue to take an active
part in the administration of State affairs. This was, in short,
Go-Sanjo's plan for rendering the regent a superfluity. He proposed
to substitute camera government (Insei) for control by a kwampaku.
But fate willed that he should not carry his project into practice.
He abdicated, owing to ill health, in 1073, and died the following
year.
SHIRAKAWA
Go-Sanjo was succeeded by his eldest son, Shirakawa. He had taken for
consort the daughter of Fujiwara Yorimichi. This lady, Kenko, had
been adopted into the family of Fujiwara Morozane, and it is recorded
that Yorimichi and Morozane shed tears of delight when they heard of
her selection by the Crown Prince--so greatly had the influence of
the Fujiwara declined. Shirakawa modelled himself on his father. He
personally administered affairs of State, displaying assiduity and
ability but not justice. Unlike his father he allowed himself to be
swayed by favour and affection, arbitrarily ignored time-honoured
rules, and was guilty of great extravagance in matters of religion.
But he carried into full effect the camera (or cloistered) system of
government, thereafter known as Insei. For, in 1086, after thirteen
years' reign, he resigned the sceptre to an eight-year-old boy,
Horikawa, his son by the chugu, Kenko. The untimely death of the
latter, for whom he entertained a strong affection, was the proximate
cause of Shirakawa's abdication, but there can be little doubt that
he had always contemplated such a step. He took the tonsure and the
religious title of Ho-o (pontiff), but in the Toba palace, his new
residence, he organized an administrative machine on the exact lines
of that of the Court.
ENGRAVING: KO-NO-MA (ROOM) NISHI (WEST) HONGWAN-JI TEMPLE, AT KYOTO
(An example of "Shoinzukuri" building)
Thenceforth the functions of Imperialism were limited to matters of
etiquette and ceremony, all important State business being transacted
by the Ho-o and his camera entourage. If the decrees of the Court
clashed with those of the cloister, as was occasionally inevitable,
the former had to give way. Thus, it can scarcely be said that there
was any division of authority. But neither was there any progress.
The earnest efforts made by Go-Sanjo to check the abuse of sales of
rank and office as well as the alienation of State lands into private
manors, were rendered wholly abortive under the sway of Shirakawa.
The cloistered Emperor was a slave of superstition. He caused no less
than six temples* to be built of special grandeur, and to the
principal of these (Hosho-ji) he made frequent visits in state, on
which occasions gorgeous ceremonies were performed. He erected the
Temple of the 33,333 Images of Kwannon (the Sanjusangen-do) in Kyoto;
he made four progresses to the monastery at Koya and eight to that at
Kumano; he commissioned artists to paint 5470 Buddhist pictures,
sculptors to cast 127 statues each sixteen feet high; 3150 life-size,
and 2930 of three feet or less, and he raised twenty-one large
pagodas and 446,630 small ones.
*These were designated Roku-sho-ji, or "six excellent temples."
His respect for Buddhism was so extreme that he strictly interdicted
the taking of life in any form, a veto which involved the destruction
of eight thousand fishing nets and the loss of their means of
sustenance to innumerable fishermen, as well as the release of all
falcons kept for hawking. It has even been suggested that Shirakawa's
piety amounted to a species of insanity, for, on one occasion, when
rain prevented a contemplated progress to Hosho-ji, he sentenced the
rain to imprisonment and caused a quantity to be confined in a
vessel.* To the nation, however, all this meant something very much
more than a mere freak. It meant that the treasury was depleted and
that revenue had to be obtained by recourse to the abuses which
Go-Sanjo had struggled so earnestly to check, the sale of offices and
ranks, even in perpetuity, and the inclusion of great tracts of State
land in private manors.
*This silliness was spoken of by the people as ame-kingoku (the
incarceration of the rain).
TOBA
Horikawa died in 1107, after a reign of twenty years, and was
succeeded by his son Toba, a child of five. Affairs of State
continued to be directed by the cloistered sovereign, and he chose
for his grandson's consort Taiken-mon-in, who bore to him a son, the
future Emperor Sutoku. Toba abdicated, after a reign of fifteen
years, on the very day of Sutoku's nomination as heir apparent, and,
six years later, Shirakawa died (1128), having administered the
empire from the cloister during a space of forty-three years.
As a device to wrest the governing power from the grasp of the
Fujiwara, Go-Sanjo's plan was certainly successful, and had he lived
to put it into operation himself, the results must have been
different. But in the greatly inferior hands of Shirakawa this new
division of Imperial authority and the segregation of its source
undoubtedly conspired to prepare the path for military feudalism and
for curtained Emperors.
Toba, with the title of Ho-o, took the tonsure and administered from
the cloister after Shirakawa's death. One of his first acts after
abdication was to take another consort, a daughter of Fujiwara
Tadazane, whom he made Empress under the name of Kaya-no-in; but as
she bore him no offspring, he placed in the Toba palace a second
Fujiwara lady, Bifuku-mon-in, daughter of Nagazane. By her he had
(1139) a son whom he caused to be adopted by the Empress, preparatory
to placing him on the throne as Emperor Konoe, at the age of three.
Thus, the cloistered sovereigns followed faithfully in the footsteps
of the Fujiwara.
SOLDIER-PRIESTS
A phenomenon which became conspicuous during the reign of Shirakawa
was recourse to violence by Buddhist priests. This abuse had its
origin in the acquisition of large manors by temples and the
consequent employment of soldiers to act as guards. Ultimately, great
monasteries like Kofuku-ji, Onjo-ji, and Enryaku-ji came to possess
thousands of these armed men, and consequently wielded temporal
power. Shirakawa's absorbing belief in Buddhism created opportunities
for the exercise of this influence. Keenly anxious that a son should
be born of his union with Kenko, the daughter of Fujiwara Yorimichi,
his Majesty bespoke the prayers of Raigo, lord-abbot of Onjo-ji. It
happened that unsuccessful application had frequently been made by
the Onjo-ji monks for an important religious privilege. Raigo
informed the Emperor that, if this favour were promised, the prayer
for a prince would certainly be heard. Shirakawa made the promise,
and Kenko gave birth to Prince Atsubumi. But when the Emperor would
have fulfilled his pledge, the priests of Enryaku-ji (Hiei-zan),
jealous that a privilege which they alone possessed should be granted
to priests of another monastery, repaired to the Court en masse to
protest. Shirakuwu yielded to this representation and despatched Oye
no Masafusa to placate Raigo. But the abbot refused to listen. He
starved himself to death, passing day and night in devotion, and
shortly after his demise the little prince, born in answer to his
prayers, died of small-pox.
In an age when superstition prevailed widely the death of the child
was, of course, attributed to the incantations of the abbot. From
that time a fierce feud raged between Onjo-ji and Enryaku-ji. In the
year 1081, the priest-soldiers of the latter set the torch to the
former, and, flocking to Kyoto in thousands, threw the capital into
disorder. Order was with difficulty restored through the exertions of
the kebiishi and the two Minamoto magnates, Yoshiiye and Yoshitsuna,
but it was deemed expedient to guard the palace and the person of
the Emperor with bushi. Twelve years later (1093), thousands of
cenobites, carrying the sacred tree of the Kasuga shrine, marched
from Nara to Kyoto, clamouring for vengeance on the governor of
Omi, whom they charged with arresting and killing the officials
of the shrine. This became a precedent. Thereafter, whenever the
priests had a grievance, they flocked to the palace carrying the
sacred tree of some temple or shrine. The soldier cenobites of
Enryaku-ji--yama-hoshi, as they were called--showed themselves
notably turbulent. They inaugurated the device of replacing the
sacred tree with the "divine car," against which none dare raise a
hand or shoot an arrow. If their petition were rejected, they would
abandon the car in the streets of the capital, thus placing the city
under a curse.
A notable instance occurred, in 1095, when these yama-hoshi of
Hiyoshi preferred a charge of blood-guiltiness against Minamoto
Yoshitsuna, governor of Mino. They flocked to the palace in a
truculent mob, but the bushi on duty, being under the command of a
Minamoto, did not hesitate to use their bows. Thereupon the
yama-hoshi discarded the divine car, hastened back to the temple, and
assembling all the priests, held a solemn service invoking the wrath
of heaven on the State. In an age of profound superstition such
action threw the Court into consternation, and infinite pains were
taken to persuade Shinto officials of an independent shrine to carry
the divine car back to Hiei-zan.
Instances of such turbulence were not infrequent, and they account in
part for the reckless prodigality shown by Shirakawa in building and
furnishing temples. The cenobites did not confine themselves to
demonstrations at the palace; they had their own quarrels also.
Kofuku-ji's hand was against Kimbusen and Todai-ji, and not a few
priests doffed the stole and cassock to engage in temporary
brigandage. The great Taira leader, Tadamori, and his son,
Kiyomori--one of the most prominent figures on the stage of medieval
Japan--dealt strongly with the Shinto communities at Hiyoshi and
Gion, and drove the Kofuku-ji priests out of the streets of Kyoto,
the result being that this great military family became an object of
execration at Kofuku-ji and Enryaku-ji alike. With difficulty the
Court kept peace between them. It is related of Shirakawa Ho-o that
the three things which he declared to defy his control were the
waters of the Kamo River, the fall of the dice, and the yama-hoshi.
ENGRAVING: PLAYING BATTLEDORE AND SHUTTLECOCK (From a painting)