Japan

by Walter G. Dickson

Except the greater elevation and whiteness of the roofs, there is nothing to distinguish the palace from the adjacent streets. That the Emperor should be thus housed probably involves a great state principle. The houses of Daimios and high officers are built in a much more durable manner. The Shiogoon’s residences at Osaka, Miako, Yedo, and other places, are generally built more like fortifications or places of great strength. In similar style are raised the houses, palaces or forts of the Daimios in their respective provinces. It cannot, therefore, be from any fear of earthquakes that this style of a plain wood-and-paper house is adopted, but it is probably founded on the same principle as that on which the imperial pedigree is drawn up; viz., with the view of giving to it the appearance of a temple, and surrounding the Emperor with the circumstances and attributes of a god.

This palace in Miako appears to be the only one now used by the Emperor. He is supposed to move from it temporarily only upon rare occasions. When he is obliged to change his residence, as when the palace is burned down, he occupies apartments in some one of the many temples in the neighborhood. Any display of splendor in building is reserved for the Shiogoon, who has several palaces of great size and strength, as at Miako, Osaka, Fusimi, Yedo, Kofoo, Soonpoo, all of which are laid out on the plan of forts and built with a view to defense from military attacks.

JAPAN
AND HER ISLANDS

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It has been stated, and often repeated, that the Emperor of Japan sits on a throne all day without moving his hands, or even his eyes; that he is treated as a god, and that his subjects believe that the empire totters if he is unsteady. These are the exaggerations of the lower classes. There is no doubt that he is treated with the greatest reverence and respect—that he is, as it were, an ideal abstraction, a thing apart, necessary to the empire—that he is the Lord’s anointed, and not to be touched, and that no subject, however great he may be, or however firmly he may have grasped the power of the empire in the convulsions of a revolutionary period, may contemplate placing himself upon that seat; and we shall find that two of the greatest men who rose to the highest power did not dare to take such a step, though one, and perhaps both, proposed it to himself, and broached the idea to his followers. Though Nobunanga set up a representation of himself to be worshiped, he did not set aside the Emperor; and though Taikosama proposed to depose the Emperor, his followers would not allow it, or at least dissuaded him from making the attempt. Still the Emperor is not altogether looked upon as the spiritual being he is generally represented in modern books. Indeed, in the first periods of the history of the country the head of the empire was the commander, the leader of the army. Zinmu led his army to victory; and long after him the Empress Jinku Kogoo led her army into Corea. Her son Osin, better known by his posthumous title of Hatchimang, was at the head of his army. But where there is no enemy to fight the post of commander-in-chief soon falls into abeyance. Japan has long been in this position—of having no enemy to watch or to attack. Such a position entails, almost of necessity, the creation of a duality or double power. The weak condition to which the imperial court descended, after it had been denuded of its power, and after the command of its armies had fallen from the hands of scions of the blood-royal into those of other families, was followed by convulsions, civil wars, and bloodshed, till the people returned to a state of ignorance, and the fields to barrenness; but this seems only a consequence of having no enemy, no near neighbor with whom, by a process of constant watching and battling, as in Europe, the sinews of a nation are strengthened, and national feeling is concentrated into a unity.

The annals of the emperors show that, for long after the time of Zinmu, his successors took an active part in the politics, the wars, and the intrigues of the state. It is not a matter of wonder that the hands which held the scepter should have become feeble during the fierce civil wars which raged in the sixteenth century. The country would seem to have been driven by necessity to have two emperors—or at least, two opposing interests; and when the hereditary commander-in-chief had in turn become a nonentity, one adventurer after another started up—first, Nobunanga; secondly, Taikosama; thirdly, Iyeyas, all able men. The first battled with the Buddhist priesthood, the second turned his arms against Corea, the third, the ablest of all, devised that dual system of seemingly divided empire, by which the power of the executive remained in the hands of the Shiogoon at Yedo, while the source or fountain of honors remained with the Emperor in Miako. The configuration of the islands prevents their being cut into two empires; it remained for Iyeyas to devise a dual system by which peace has been preserved in a remarkable way for two hundred and fifty years.

As to the titles by which the Emperor is known, these are drawn in most part from the Chinese, and denote, in language suited to Oriental ideas, the illustrious position which he holds. The names express the idea that he reigns by divine right. The oldest of these titles seems to be Mikoto. This is a Japanese word meaning “venerable,” and translated into Chinese, “tsun.” The word Mikado is more commonly used now, and is translated by the Chinese “Ti,” or emperor. The word “O” or “Wo” is the Chinese “Wang,” emperor; and the word “ten,” or heaven, is commonly added—“Ten wo,” the heavenly ruler; or the combination “Owo,” or “Oho-wo,” meaning the great ruler, in which sense “Dai-wo” is also used. “Tenshi” is the “tien-tsi” of China, the son of heaven. “O-ooji,” the great family, is sometimes applied to the Emperor. The common people talk of the Emperor as “Miyako sama,” in contradistinction to “Yedo sama,” the Shiogoon, the Lord of Yedo. “Ooyaysama,” or the superior lord, is also used. “Dairi,” made up of two Chinese words signifying the inner court or “the interior,” is equivalent to the words “the court” in English, and seems to include the residences of the royal families and higher nobility. It is, however, sometimes applied to the Emperor himself, and sometimes to the palace as a building. The first word, “dai” is written both “great,” ta, and “inner,” nai. The latter seems the more common. “Gosho” is a word sometimes applied to the palace, at others to the Emperor and the government. The word “in,” or “een,” is a Buddhist word, added to the posthumous name of some of the deceased emperors instead of “Ten wo.” In addition to these, other names are used, as “Kwo tei,” or ruler of the people, “Chokku,” etc.

From the earliest period in the history of Japan, mention is made of three things which necessarily appertain to the person who sits upon the throne. They seem to be looked on as symbols of the imperial power, as palladia of the empire. In one of the treatises upon the Emperor’s court it is said of these mysterious emblems: “In that early time the heaven-illuminating god arrived at Kashiwabarra, then the capital, and placed an eight-cubit mirror and a grass-shaving sword in the palace, on the throne of the Emperor, and these received such homage as was rendered in the early times. The efficacy of the god was very great, so that the Emperor, dwelling with this god (these divine symbols), was, as it were, equal to a god. Within the palace these things were laid up, that the divine power might remain wherever these things were. At that time (two high officers) regulated the sacrificial rites and ceremonies until the tenth emperor, who, fearing the sacredness of the divine presence, took these two efficacious symbols, the sword and the mirror, and put them away in another place, which was the origin of the idea of the Emperor sitting like a god in the place of a god.”

In this quotation only two things are mentioned—the sword and the mirror. A third is spoken of sometimes as a ball of crystal, at others as a seal, “sinji.” Klaproth calls it a ball of greenstone with two small round holes. The three things go by the name of “Sanjioo no jinji.” During the long and bloody wars between the emperors of the north and south, in the sixteenth century, the former, who resided in Miako, and finally established himself on the throne, was not considered incontestably emperor until he obtained possession of these three sacred symbols. Though the emperor of the south was hard pressed, and almost a refugee in the mountains, he kept possession of them, and finally concluded a truce, delivering them up to his opponent, emperor de facto. On one occasion the three precious jewels were stolen, and after being kept several months were recovered or sent back. On several occasions they have narrowly escaped destruction by fire, and in the year 1040 A.D. the mirror was broken by the heat; but the pieces were recognized and placed together. Within the last few years (in 1851) they were again nearly exposed to a similar chance of destruction, but were saved by Hoongay Hashimoto, who brought them out at the risk of his life.