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HIST 87: Meeting 2B Key Terms

A. Today’s Historical Periods 1. Review Kofun Period, 300-538 (burial mounds; rise of Yamato clan) Asuka Period, 538-710 (establishment of Imperial Court and ritsuryō system) Nara Period, 710-784 (first permanent capital, “Heijō-kyō”) Heian Period, 784-1185 (second permanent capital) Kamakura Period, 1185-1333 (Minamoto shogunate, HQ in Kamakura) Muromachi Period, 1338-1573 (Ashikaga shogunate, HQ in Kyoto) 2. New Paekche Kingdom, 18 BCE – 660 CE Sui Dynasty, 581-618 Later or Unified Silla Kingdom, 668-935 Tang Dynasty, 618-907 Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, 907-979 Song Dynasty, 960-1279 Koryŏ Kingdom, 918-1392 B. Today’s Chronology c. 400: Introduction of Chinese learning to Japanese islands via Paekche Kingdom (Korean peninsula) 600s: Yamato Court sends 10 embassies to Sui and Tang courts (100-600 people per embassy). 607: Prince Shōtoku sends embassy to Sui court with letter identifies himself as “son of heaven in land where the sun rises.” 700s: Yamato Court sends 9 embassies to Tang Court. 701: Taihō Code 712: Compilation of Kojiki, a history of the “divine land” and the Imperial (Yamato) Court 720: Compilation of Nihon shoki, the first of the Six National Histories 800s: Yamato Court receives embassies from Po-hai Kingdom; increased private commerce with China and Korea makes sending embassies less critical. 804 and 838: Yamato Court sends 2 embassies to Tang Court. 894: Embassies to Tang discontinued at urging of Sugawara no Michizane. 901: Sugawara no Michizane exiled to Dazaifu; dies two years later. 920: Completion of Kokinwakashū (Collection of waka from ancient and modern times). 930: Flooding and fires kill numerous Fujiwara in Heian-kyō. 936: Ki no Tsurayaki completes Tosa nikki (Tosa diary). 970: Minamoto no Tamenori writes Kuchizusami (Fun with learning) for his student Fujiwara no Matsuo-gimi. 993: Posthumous promotion of Sugawara no Michizane to Senior First Rank. 996: Publication of The Pillow Book.

c. 1030s: Fujiwara no Akihira writes Tettsui den (Biography of an iron hammer). c. 1050: Fujiwara no Akihira writes Shinsarugakuki (An account of the new monkey music). C. Key Terms 1. tennō 天皇 Term for “emperor” that rises to use in the Yamato court in the 7th century around the time of Emperor Temmu. Theoretically distinguished the Yamato emperor from the emperors of Chinese dynasties, who more commonly (though not exclusively) used the title huangdi 皇帝 (Jp. kōtei). Ooms (2009, p. 155) notes that around the same time the term came into regular usage in Japan, the third Tang emperor Gaozong also adopted it. So it’s possible that the two different terms are evidence of a forked path in political thought and practice, rather than an attempt to create a uniquely Yamato form of emperorship. 2. kanshi 漢詩 Poetry written in Japan in Chinese and using Chinese forms. Sugawara no Michizane was a famous kanshi poet. 3. waka 和歌 Poetry written in Japanese kana (syllables), which were derived from Chinese characters, in particular syllable patterns. Examples include Kojiki, Man’yōshū, and Kokinwakashū. 4. sarugaku 猿楽 Literally, “monkey music.” Nighttime carnival entertainments popular from the 11th to the 14th centuries. D. Key Quotes, Images, Etc. 1. From the Meng ch’iu, trans. Watson (The seeking of the unenlightened, c. early Tang): “Wang Jung was simple and efficient, P’ei K’ai was honest and liberal-minded.” 2. From Minamoto no Tamenori’s Kuchizusami (Fun with learning, 970), trans. and paraphrase Ury 1999:

(a) “Geography”: “The Three Passes”; “The Seven High Mountains”; “The Nine Tumuli”; “The Three Bridges.” (b) “Human Beings”: “the five emperors of Chinese high antiquity; three dynasties of Hsia, Yin, and Chou; eleven emperors of the Former and the twelve of the Later Han; the nine lesser disciplines of Confucius and other notables; names for the barbarians of the four directions; six kinds of portentous dreams; three conditions under which a man cannot spurn his wife; the seven grounds for divorcing her; three kinds of subordination which wife owes husband (father before marriage, husband upon marriage, son after husband’s death); three persons to whom a man owes loyalty (father, teacher, lord); organs and cavities of the body; words for various degrees of direct ancestor and direct descendant; kinds of persons and transgressions to be forgiven; the dangerous years in

a human life (13, 25, 37, 49, 61, 73, 85, 91); charm to protect against a bad dream or make a good dream come true; a verse to chant if you come across a dead man in the road at night.”

(i) Five Emperors = Yellow Emperor; Zhuanxu; Emperor Ku; Emperor Yao; Emperor Shun. (ii) Barbarians in Four Directions = Dongyi 東夷 (East); Nanman南蠻 (South); Xirong ⻄戎 (West); Beidi 北狄 (North).

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sovereigns_and_Five_Emperors; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Barbarians.

3. From Fujiwara no Akihira, Shinsarugakuki (An account of the new monkey music, c. 1050): “The eldest daughter’s husband is a famous gambler. He is a master with the shaker – the dice fall as he bids. Gaming-table incantations flow from his silver tongue, and he excels in the arts of strategy. He surpasses even Enkan Michihiro at rolling ‘fives and fours’ and ‘fours and threes,’ cutting lines on the board, executing the Chinese roll, and at handling all kinds of shakers, dice, special techniques, and dice-game arguments….” (trans. Joan Piggott, quoted in Shirane, ed., Traditional Japanese Literature, 494). 4. Prince Shōtoku’s letter to the Sui Court, 607: “The son of heaven [emperor] in the land where the sun rises [⽇本] addresses a letter to the son of heaven in the land where the sun sets.” 5. Sandai jitsuroku (True history of the three reigns of Japan; 901): “On the thirtieth day of the fifth month of the fourteenth year of Jōgan [872], a great serpent appeared in one of the halls of the official provincial Buddhist temple in Suruga. There were thirty-one copies of the Heart Sutra wrapped around a single roller, and it ate them. The monks who witnessed this tied a rope around its tail and hung it upside down from a tree. Shortly afterward, it disgorged the sacred books and fell on the ground half dead, but then it suddenly revived” (Ury 1999, 363, paraphrasing Sandai jitsuroku).