Japan's Failed Reforms in the 700s

Japan had been growing economically, the Japanese using better tools and fertilizer, more draft animals in agriculture, and better tools in their crafts. Better roads and a fleet of ships facilitated trade. Horses and fighting equipment continued to pour into Japan from the Asian continent. Japan was growing also in population, and they were expanding against indigenous hunter-gatherers on the main island, Honshu. (See Emishi and Ainu.)

In 710, the capital moved from what is now Osaka to Nara, the new emperor moving to a new palace in order to avoid the pollution of his predecessor's death. Nara was a city of about 200,000 and modeled after China's great city, Chang'an, but without Chang'an's great walls – Japan being an island nation and less worried about invading armies. At Nara in 743, the Emperor Shomu ordered the building of the Great Buddha Temple, the Todai-ji.

At the imperial court in Nara, factionalism continued while the Nakatomi remained dominant. Various aristocrat families and Buddhist monks contended for influence under Nakatomi domination – while about 10,000 persons in Nara worked at government jobs.

From 710 to 784 was a time of reforms. The whole of Japan (excluding areas where indigenous people still lived) came under the discipline of the government in the capital. People paid taxes to the palace in the form of a percentage of what they grew, or in textiles, labor or military service. Roads linked Nara to provincial cities, and taxes were collected more efficiently. And land reform was created designed to help the common farmer.

But the land reforms were circumvented or postponed. Aristocratic families were growing in wealth and buying more land. Buddhist temples were also amassing wealth and buying more land. Land reclamation favored the wealthy, who could afford the costs involved. Less land was available to the common farmer – repeating what had occurred in Han China. And tax exemptions were given to the most influential families.

Good works, however, were done by the Buddhists. Dedicated to serving common people, Buddhists initiated public works such as the founding of charity hospitals, free clinics, free lodging houses, orphanages and old people's homes. Perhaps the spirit of good deeds played a small role in inspiring government projects such as building bridges, excavating canals, improving irrigation and building harbors. And Buddhism was viewed with awe for its inspiring good deeds and for its powers of magic in warding off calamity.

The Buddhists in Japan continued to see the material world as illusory, holding that reality was one's own consciousness and harmony under the Universal Buddha. But, of course, they continued to make accommodations with the material world. Buddhist monasteries had their own armies and were unscrupulous in making alliances. As readers of Chinese, some Buddhist monks became expert in administration and technical matters, such as engineering, and these monks served Japan much as the Latin reading clergy served in medieval Europe.

For common peasants calamity was, however, an overwhelming reality. Common peasants went into debt and if they could not repay their debts they were held in bondage or as slaves. Some peasants escaped to frontier areas. Some became vagrants, and some joined other peasants in working on great estates. The one-tenth or so of the population that became slaves were the possession of government bureaucrats, landlords and temples. The main concern of the court nobility, meanwhile, was ritual and ceremony. There, orchestras with string and percussion instruments played. People danced and wore brilliant costumes and fanciful masks.

An emperor's daughter succeeded to power in 749 and became known as the Empress Koken. She brought Buddhist priests into court and then abdicated in 758 on the advice of her cousin, Fujiwara Nakamaro, and she was succeeded by the emperor Junnin. Junnin was murdered, and in 764 the Empress Koken re-ascended the throne, with a new name: Empress Shotoku. She appears to have fallen in love with a Buddhist monk, Kokyo – with whom she was rumored to share the same pillow. Empress Shotoku promoted Kokyo as her chief minister. She commissioned the printing of one million prayer charms and may have wanted to make Kokyo emperor. Nara society was shocked. The Fujiwara family stepped in and by 770 she was out of power. Soon she was dead. Henceforth women were to be exempted from imperial succession. And Buddhist monks were removed from the offices they held.

The new emperor, Kammu, wished to be free of influence from the Buddhist monasteries around Nara. In 784 he moved his court thirty-five miles northwest to Nagaoka, a new palace and royal court built there in five months by 300,000 men. To defray the expense of the move, taxes were increased, a burden felt by the peasantry.

Bad omens appeared at the new capital in the form of frequent epidemics and the death of the heir, and it was believed that his spirit had to be placated. So in 794, after only ten years at Nagaoka, the capital was moved again, to Heian-kyo – which means "Capital of Peace and Tranquility." It was another city modeled after Chang'an. Eventually, in the eleventh century, accompanying the failure of peace and tranquility, the capital was to be renamed Kyoto (pronounced KYOH-toe rather than Key-oh-toe) – which means "capital city."

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