Nara period

From Academic Kids

The Nara period (奈良時代) of the History of Japan covers the years from about AD 710 to 784. The Empress Genmei established the capital at Nara, also known as Heijō-kyō, where it remained the capital of Japanese civilization until the Emperor Kanmu established the new capital at Nagaoka (and, only a decade later, Heian, or Kyōto).

Most of Japanese society during this period was agricultural in nature, centered around villages. Most of the villagers followed the Shinto religion, based around the worship of natural and ancestral spirits (kami).

The capital at Nara was modelled after Chang'an (Xi'an), the capital city of Tang China. In many other ways the Japanese upper classes patterned themselves after the Chinese, including adopting the Chinese written characters (kanji) and the religion of Buddhism.

Nara period literature

Concentrated efforts by the imperial court to record and document its history produced the first works of Japanese literature during the Nara period. Works such as the Kojiki (古事記) and the Nihon shoki (日本書紀) were political in nature, used to record and therefore justify and establish the supremacy of the rule of the emperors within Japan itself and to China and Korea.

With the spread of written language, Japanese poetry, known in Japanese as waka, started to be written. Over time, personal collections were referenced to establish the first large collection of Japanese poetry known as Man'yōshū (万葉集) sometime after 759. Chinese characters were used to express sounds of Japanese until kana were invented. The Chinese characters used to express the sounds of Japanese are known as man'yōgana.

Economic, social, and administrative developments

Before the Taihō Code was established, the capital was customarily moved after the death of an emperor because of the ancient belief that a place of death was polluted. Reforms and bureaucratization of government led to the establishment of a permanent imperial capital at Heijō-kyō, or Nara, in AD 710. The capital at Nara, which gave its name to the new period, was styled after the grand Chinese Tang Dynasty (618–907) capital at Chang'an and was the first truly urban center in Japan. It soon had a population of 200,000, representing nearly 4 per cent of the country's population, and some 10,000 people worked in government jobs.

Economic and administrative activity increased during the Nara period. Roads linked Nara to provincial capitals, and taxes were collected more efficiently and routinely. Coins were minted, if not widely used. Outside the Nara area, however, there was little commercial activity, and in the provinces the old Shōtoku land reform systems declined. By the mid-eighth century, shōen (landed estates), one of the most important economic institutions in medieval Japan, began to rise as a result of the search for a more manageable form of landholding. Local administration gradually became more self-sufficient, while the breakdown of the old land distribution system and the rise of taxes led to the loss or abandonment of land by many people who became the "wave people," or rōnin (see Glossary). Some of these formerly "public people" were privately employed by large landholders, and "public lands" increasingly reverted to the shōen.

Factional fighting at the imperial court continued throughout the Nara period. Imperial family members, leading court families, such as the Fujiwara, and Buddhist priests all contended for influence. In the late Nara period, financial burdens on the state increased, and the court began dismissing nonessential officials. In 792 universal conscription was abandoned, and district heads were allowed to establish private militia forces for local police work. Decentralization of authority became the rule despite the reforms of the Nara period. Eventually, to return control to imperial hands, the capital was moved in 784 to Nagaoka and in 794 to Heian-kyō (Capital of Peace and Tranquillity), or Heian, about twenty-six kilometers north of Nara. By the late eleventh century, the city was popularly called Kyōto (capital city), the name it has had ever since.

Cultural developments and the establishment of Buddhism

The Great Buddha at Nara, 752 CE.

Some of Japan's literary monuments were written during the Nara period, including the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, the first national histories, compiled in 712 and 720 respectively; the Man'yōshū (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves), an anthology of poems; and the Kaifūsō (Fond Recollections of Poetry), an anthology written in Chinese by Japanese emperors and princes.

Another major cultural development of the era was the permanent establishment of Buddhism in Japan. Buddhism had been introduced in the sixth century but had a mixed reception until the Nara period, when it was heartily embraced by Emperor Shōmu. Shōmu and his Fujiwara consort were fervent Buddhists and actively promoted the spread of Buddhism, making it the "guardian of the state" and strengthening Japanese institutions through still further Chinese acculturation.

During Shomu's reign, the Tōdaiji (Great Eastern Temple) was built, and within it was placed the Buddha Dainichi (Great Sun Buddha), a sixteen-metre-high, gilt-bronze statue. This Buddha was identified with the Sun Goddess, and from this point on, a gradual syncretism of Buddhism and Shinto ensued. Shōmu declared himself the "Servant of the Three Treasures" of Buddhism: the Buddha, the law or teachings of Buddhism, and the Buddhist community.

The central government also established temples called kokubunji in the provinces. The Tōdaiji was the kokubunji of Yamato Province.

Although these efforts stopped short of making Buddhism the state religion, Nara Buddhism heightened the status of the imperial family. Buddhist influence at court increased under the two reigns of Shōmu's daughter. As Empress Kōken (r. 749-758) she brought many Buddhist priests into court. Kōken abdicated in 758 on the advice of her cousin, Fujiwara Nakamaro. When the retired empress came to favor a Buddhist faith healer named Dokyo, Nakamaro rose up in arms in 764 but was quickly crushed. Kōken charged the ruling emperor with colluding with Nakamaro and had him deposed. Kōken reascended the throne as Empress Shōtoku (r. 764–770). The empress commissioned the printing of 1 million prayer charms—the Hyakumanto dharani—many examples of which survive. The small scrolls, dating from 770, are among the earliest printed works in the world. Shōtoku had the charms printed to placate the Buddhist clergy. She may even have wanted to make Dokyo emperor, but she died before she could act. Her actions shocked Nara society and led to the exclusion of women from imperial succession and the removal of Buddhist priests from positions of political authority.

International relations

The Nara court aggresively introduced Chinese civilization by sending diplomatic envoys to the Tang court every twenty years. Many Japanese students, both lay and Buddhist priests, studied in Chang'an and Luoyang. One student named Abe no Nakamaro passed the Chinese civil examination to be appointed to governmental posts in China. He served as Governor-General in Annam or Chinese Vietnam from 761 through 767. Many students who returned homeland were promoted to high government posts like Kibi no Mabi.

Tang China never sent official envoys to Japan, for Japanese kings, or emperors as they styled themselves, did not seek investiture from the Chinese emperor. A local Chinese government in Lower Yangzi Vally sent a mission to Japan to return Japanese envoys who entered China through the Manchurian kingdom of Bohai. The Chinese local mission cound not return home due to the rebellion of An Lu Shan, ending up to be naturalized in Japan.

The relation with the neighboring kingdom of Silla was initially peaceful. Japan and Silla exchanged diplomatic envoys regularly. But the rise of the kingdom of Bohai (Parhae in Korean) in Northeatern Asia destabilized the Japan-Silla relations. Bohai sent their first mission across the Sea of Japan to Nara in 728. Japan welcomed the Bohai mission, for the kingdom was a kind of restoration of the ancient kingdom of Koguryo with which Japan was allied until Koguryo was conquered by Tang and Silla in 668. The friendly diplomtic and commercial intercourse with Bohai continued until the Manchurian kingdom was conquered by Khitan in the tenth century. On the other hands, the relation with Silla deteriorated year by year, for the Nara court claiming Japan's suzerainty over Silla.

References

• Template:Loc - Japan (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/jptoc.html)

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