Shape-shifting Foxes: An interview with historical fiction author Laura V. Baugh

Today I'm talking with Laura V. Baugh about her novella of mystical investigation in ancient Japan, Kitsune-Tsuki.

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1) Tell us about your story.

Tsurugu no Kiyomori is an onmyoji hired to find a kitsune alleged to be in the area, to protect the daimyou's new bride. The problem is, how does one find a shape-shifter -- and what if that shape-shifter may not even exist? So Tsurugu and Shishio Hitoshi, assigned to assist him, must evaluate whether events are supernatural or human-caused, and whether suspicious persons are really kitsune in disguise or merely suspicious humans.

2) What inspired you to write this story?

I actually wrote this story on demand, so to speak, for an Asian fantasy anthology. The publisher ended up shelving the project for some years, though, and after my contract finally expired, I decided to self-publish, just to get Kitsune-Tsuki out there!

I'd been bumping into a number of references to Abe no Seimei, a famous historical onmyouji with a lot of legend now attached to him. One of the stories about him alleged his mother was a kitsune, and that supernatural element granted him extra ability. So I wanted to do something with onmyoudou and kitsune.

3) Your story revolves an onmyoji and his investigation into potential kitsune afflicting an area. Please tell us a bit about omnyoji and kitsune.

Onmydo is, in a nutshell summary for Westerners, a sort of astrological nature magic. Onmyouji (practitioners of onmyoudou) held court positions in Japanese history, much as a European court often had a particular bishop or cardinal, or the typical fantasy kingdom its court wizard.

Kitsune are one of the most popular Japanese youkai, fox spirits with one to nine tails, depending on age and power. They are wise and clever, usually pranksters, and can also be benevolent or malicious. They can change form into nearly anything, including a human you might know, but they have limitations as well. They might also sometimes possess a human and cause him to act a certain way, and this state is called kitsune-tsuki.

What's fascinating to me is how these traditions have influenced even modern life. A typical Japanese telephone greeting is, "Moshi, moshi" -- a sound a kitsune could not make, and a way to verify that one is speaking to the true individual and not a shape-shifter.

4) What got you interested in ancient Japan?

Oh, I'm interested in everything! But this era is pretty intriguing. Kitsune-Tsuki is set during the Heian/Kamakura transition, when the glittering hyper-stylized court life of The Tale of Genji is slipping into the feudal state and the warrior is gaining status on the poet. This gave me a chance to play with both the Heian conventions -- moon-gazing parties, poetry contests, the necessary obscuring of Kaede-dono's face -- and the setting of a warlord's household as he's trying to consolidate power and security.

5) Is there a particular aspect of ancient Japanese culture you find particularly fascinating?

The multi-layered stylization of Heian court life is really fascinating -- where one never says what one means, but instead writes a poem with subtext, and everything from the color and grade of paper to the quality of one's handwriting influenced the meaning of the poem and one's social standing. I don't think I'd fare well there, myself, but it's a really interesting world to consider.

6) Do you have any sequels to this novella planned?

I do! I'm finishing a novel now, following Tsurugu and others from Kitsune-Tsuki. Without giving anything away, I think the ending of this novella sets up some questions which will be fun to answer. Also, the sequel novel gives me room to introduce more youkai, so watch for kappa, oni, tengu, and more!

7) Please share with us about any of your other works in progress.

I'm shopping a fantasy series right now -- I can't say anything definite yet, but I'm feeling pretty good about it at the moment. It's set in a more typical Western world, but there are a lot of Eastern influences on the culture and particularly in the "other race."

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Thanks, Laura.

If you'd like to learn more about Laura, you can find her at:

http://aeclipse-press.com/

https://www.facebook.com/LauraVBaugh

https://twitter.com/Laura_VAB

Kitsune-Tsuki can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.

The Age of Tranquility and Peace: Heian Japan #15: Genji's Dreamer, Murasaki Shikibu

This is another in my continuing series on Heian-era Japan. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please check out my overview entry.

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As autumn advances, the Tsuchimikado mansion looks unutterably beautiful. Every branch on every tree by the lake and each tuft of grass on the banks of the stream takes on its own particular color, which is then intensified by the evening light. The voices in the ceaseless recitation of sutras are all the more impressive as they continue throughout the night; in the slowly cooling breeze it is difficult to distinguish them from the endless murmur of the stream.

--The Diary of Lady Murasaki

In an earlier entry, I discussed the large contributions of women to Heian literature, including the creation of Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji), a book some would give the title of "world's first novel." What about the woman behind this masterpiece, Lady Murasaki?

We perhaps know more than one would expect of a woman born over a thousand years ago but still not tremendously much. Despite the highly literate and records-obsessed nature of Heian society, our direct evidence of Lady Murasaki is limited to fragments of her diary (which is really a collection of writings, some autobiographical observations, some other materials like poetry) and a small number of indirect historical references. If Lady Murasaki had been born a man, we'd probably know a lot more about her, but at the time women were mostly viewed as a means to an end: children. The names, even of many high-status women, were often not recorded. Instead, when referenced, they were given titles that related them to male relatives.

Indeed, the "name" associated with Lady Murasaki, Murasaki Shikibu, is a nickname of sorts referencing the color lavender and the government ministry employing her father. Do we have no clue of her real name? There's some circumstantial evidence from historical records that suggests she may have been one Takako Fujiwara.

So, what do we know? She appears to have been born around 973 to the northern Fujiwara. She had a brother and two sisters, along with several half-brothers and siblings. Her family line, in general, was known for their poets, something that in Heian society was quite well respected.

In a somewhat unusual move, she was allowed a decent amount of education in Chinese and Chinese literature alongside her brother. As I mentioned in my mistresses of literature entry, one of the reasons Heian women contributed so much to classical Japanese literature was because they were often both simultaneously denied a Chinese education (the prestige language at the time) and Japanese itself was somewhat devalued compared to Chinese in terms of its alleged literary value. These otherwise educated and intelligent women thus produced vernacular works to sate their creative and intellectual needs.

Initially, Lady Murasaki learned Chinese by listening at the door when her brother was receiving lessons. After her father realized how keen her mind was, he apparently allowed some more direct instruction and was even said to have lamented she was not born a boy. While her brother was not particularly stupid, the evidence suggests he wasn't as intelligent as Lady Murasaki and lacked a certain ambition. As much of this evidence comes from some comments in her diary, one cannot help but suspect some bias. That being said, she was very honest in her diary about her own perceived faults, so it'd be a mistake to dismiss her observations out of her hand.

She would be married around 998 to a distant cousin. What is interesting about this marriage is that it took place so late, relatively speaking, in her life. Normally, aristocratic women of this period were married off as soon as they hit puberty. It's unclear how she felt about her husband, but he didn't last long, dying in 1001 from cholera. She did manage to have a daughter with her husband before his death.

Sometime between 1001 and 1004, her already burgeoning talent as a storyteller was becoming known and, combined with the political connections of her father, it allowed her to be brought to the imperial court to serve as a lady-in-waiting for the Empress Shoshi.

Fujiwara succession politics actually resulted in a period of two empresses under one emperor, Shoshi and Teishi. Lady Murasaki seemed to have literary disdain for Sei Shōnagon, a poet and servant of Empress Teishi, and author of another famous work from the period, The Pillow Book. 

It's hard to sort out how much of this bad blood was merely political (Teishi actually died before Murasaki even came to court) versus literary, but Murasaki's own words seem to suggest she found Shōnagon an aggressive and arrogant woman. Unlike The Tale of Genji, The Pillow Book was a collection of personal observations and thoughts. Lady Murasaki, again judging by her diary, didn't seem to really think that highly of that type of work for general public consumption. Her diary also reveals that Murasaki was aware that many found her perhaps too aloof and intense. Given that Shōnagon had a reputation for more general ease about people, one wonders how much of Murasaki's feelings were just an indirect clash of personalities.

The diary (at least what we have) appears to have been started in 1008 and was maintained for at least two years. Her diary entries indicate she was a keen observer of court society, but somewhat disdainful of what she felt were the excesses of court.

Interestingly enough, her diary also reveals she somewhat concealed her knowledge of Chinese from many, as she feared it would be considered unfeminine, though apparently some other ladies-in-waiting thought she was flaunting her knowledge at times with the empress. Given that much of what we know about her life at court is from her own words, it's again hard to filter for the bias, but it should be stressed that Lady Murasaki was unusually educated even for a aristocratic woman. This was likely to cause jealously no matter how she presented herself.

Empress Shoshi's husband, Emperor Ichigo, died in 1011. So she retired from court, and this in turn meant her ladies-in-waiting had to retire with her. Although there are some records indicating that Murasaki was still around the empress in 1013, things get somewhat less clear by 1014. There's varying indirect evidence that she may have died in 1014, but other evidence suggests she may have lived for another decade.

It's unclear her seminal work, The Tale of Genji, was actually written. It may have at least have been started during her marriage, and large portions of it were read to Emperor Ichigo, so it must have been at least mostly complete before 1011. A 1021 diary entry by another noblewoman confirms its completion by at least that date. Given a possible death in 1014, one might think that it was definitely finished before then, but there is a certain amount of controversy about the last section of the book that is somewhat different in style and character focus. It's possible that someone else, perhaps even Lady Murasaki's daughter, may have written those chapters, so the mystery of the timing of authorship remains somewhat cloudy.

Schedule Change: Historical Thursday

My finite time pie is being sliced up more and more finely these days. Due to that, I've been thinking about the best way to handle certain things. I really enjoy sharing my historical tidbits with you, and the bulk of the time is spent on research I've been doing anyway. That being said, producing a half-way coherent blog post from my notes still requires time. After several weeks of messing with scheduling, what I've realized is that it doesn't seem too bad to get out one historical entry a week, but two is a bit of a strain.

People seem to be enjoying both my Heian entries and Regency entries, so I don't think I want to stop posting about either. In addition, I actually want to start a series on Joseon Korea soon.

So, what's the solution? Instead of having discrete days where I'm doing Regency or Heian (or Korean) material, I'm going to now post on historical matters once a week (on occasion two when I have time) with a general target of having the posts go up Thursday evening. As my last historical post was Heian, this upcoming week will be a Regency post. I'll then just alternate by week. The Korean entries probably won't be starting for a month or two.

Thank you for continuing to read my blog and leaving comments. I hope you'll continue to enjoy my historical entries.

The Age of Tranquility and Peace: Heian Japan #13: Exile, Opportunity, and a Deified Bureacrat: The Provincials

Welcome to my continuing series on Heian-era Japan. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, just click here for an overview of the Heian era.

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Last week I discussed the rigid rank system that defined the most elite of the social classes. The highest aristocratic elites were those typically concentrated in the capital. Court society was the center of Heian Japan, and high court position was the target of the ambitious. Despite the relative grandeur of the capital,  there still was an entire country filled with citizenry. What of the people who had some social standing but were not directly present for the social and political battles at court?

Heian Japan, while lacking the vastness and population of their neighbor and cultural mentor China, still was divided into various provinces. These provinces required governors and subordinate officials. In many societies, governorship of a province would seem a plum assignment, a way for an ambitious man to make his mark. The rigidity and peculiarities of Heian social organization, however, could make such an assignment a form of social suicide.

Court was the center of social and political life. Anything that put a person away from it was damaging not only that it kept people away from the front lines of social and politically maneuvering, but also just in the inherent less prestige associated with provincial assignments. Indeed, the typical rank of many provincial governors was equal or less than the rank associated with relatively minor functionaries in the government ministries of arguably lesser importance. In general, provincial distance from the capital and size influenced the rank associated with provincial positions (governorship or otherwise) and the relative hit in potential prestige. 

If one was given a provincial position and then returned to the capital, it could be difficult to successful re-enter court society (though not impossible). Indeed, being assigned to a distant province was used, on occasion, as a form of exile. It should also be noted, though, that many officials of lower initial status  ended up just having to do a requisite tour-of-duty in the provinces. So, the whole thing became a sort of self-fulfilling cycle. A high status official would be able to stay in the capital and consolidate their position, while the lower status officials would be sent off and have to play catch-up. Some officials with status might be assigned a provincial position but through deft maneuvering send a subordinate to actually perform the actual job. While one could see how in some occasions this might result in a talented lesser man being sent, there were many occasions where the men sent were not up to the task. Poor provincial administration would be a continuing issue as the decades and centuries of the Heian era passed.

One individual who demonstrates both escape from provincial social damage and provincial life as a form of exile is Michizane Sugawara (845-903; I will be doing an entire entry dedicated to him at some point). He started his career as a sixth-rank official. He had to do a four-year tour as a provincial governor. He later returned to the capital and worked his way up to third rank, but later political struggles had him reassigned to a remote province at reduced rank.  

Now, Sugawara-san is a rather unusual example. He was a hyper-talented individual who advanced in rank with more success than many officials. In addition, he was so respected and influential that following his death, a series of ill omens (drought, disease, lightning striking the palace, imperial children death, et cetera) were actually attributed to his angry spirit venting his wrath for an unjust exile. In response, not only was his higher rank and position restored posthumously, the court even built a shrine to him. He would subsequently be deified as Tenjin-sama, the kami of scholarship. To this day, there are people who pray at Tenjin-sama shrines.

Anyway, excluding future kami, many officials realized they would have trouble gaining decent status back at the capital and elected to stay in the provinces where they could consolidate local wealth, political, and even military power. This would, on occasion, lead to some issues including the occasional rebellion.

The Age of Tranquility and Peace: Heian Japan #11: Sokutai and Noshi, the Tuxedo and Business Suit of Heian Japan

Welcome to my continuing series on Heian-era Japan. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, just click here for an overview of the Heian era.

I'm a bit behind this week. I apologize for the delay.

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In my last Heian entry I discussed the beautiful but cumbersome garments worn by aristocratic females. What then of formal menswear?

For the most formal of occasions, men would wear the sokutai. The sokutai (a tunic over loose trousers) was worn over a kosode smaller (narrow-sleeved robes). So, it was layered like the formal wear of women, but it lacked the huge number of layers typically associated with women's wear. A key element of the sokutai was a long tail attached to a kosode. The tail's length varied with the relative status and rank of the man--something very critical to the rank-obsessed Heian aristocracy.

A kammuri, a stiffened gauze hat with a long tail, was the typical head gear. Accessories included a cypress fan, something associated with masculine authority during the Heian era, and a baton (typical ivory or wood).

A modern Japanese man in a sokutai and  kammuri during  a 2009 festival.
Picture from Wikimedia Commons/Photographer "Corpse Reviver"

If the sokutai was the rough equivalent of a tuxedo, the noshi was more your standard issue everyday business suit. The noshi was was also worn over kosode, but was unlined and worn with very wide trousers that provided better mobility or a hakama (a divided skirt). Though the kammuri might be worn with the noshi, the eboshi, a tall cone-shaped linen hat was more common.

In general, when one compares women's clothing to men's clothing are similar in that the aesthetics of both are based around the emphasizing of the clothing rather than any element of the body. Despite the rampant sexism of the period, there was no particular elevation of the unadorned male body as an aesthetic ideal above women. Male aristocrats, however, weren't burdened with clothing that made moving nearly a much of a chore. They, of course, had more freedom of movement in general, evenin formal wear, so it only makes sense that their clothing wouldn't be designed in such a way to effectively cripple their movement.

The Age of Tranquility and Peace: Heian Japan #10: Beautiful impracticality-Women's Court Dress

Welcome to my continuing series on Heian-era Japan. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, just click here for an overview of the Heian era.

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Like many other things in the Heian era, aristocratic clothing was influenced by China, in particular a Chinese tendency in the later Tang and Sung dynasties toward layered clothing. The formal clothing of aristocratic Heian women, the karaginumo (Chinese coat skirt), was not a simple copy of  Chinese designs, but, instead, a garment that elaborated on during the relative isolation of the Heian era to produce something Chinese-influenced but still very much Japanese in flavor.

The karaginumo is often referred to as the junihitoe, an expression that translates as "twelve unlined robes." Although this does accurately reflect the layered nature of the the clothing, it's a bit of a misnomer in that there was no special fixation on twelve exact layers or even unlined clothing. The tendency to refer to the karaginumo as junihitoe stems from an over-extrapolation based off a single popular literary source from the period. The actual number and nature of the layers would vary by season and occasion. In many cases, it would exceed twelve, though modern versions of the karaginumo, which are mostly only worn in ceremonial occasions by members of the imperial court, tend toward a small number, often five.

Emperor (then Crown Prince) Akihito and Empress Michiko at their wedding in 1959.

At the core of all these layers, aristocratic women wore a narrow-sleeved robe called the kosode. These were normally made of silk. The kosode would be tucked into a type of baggy ankle-length divided skirt-like affair called a hakama. There would be another, longer hakama worn over the first.


Over the above, were the actual  layers,  loose-fitting robes referred to as uchiki. These would be unlined during the summer and lined during colder seasons. Over the various uchiki, the proper lady would wear a half-coat and a train decorated with streamers. The sleeves of the robes were straight and extremely long. Each uchiki was smaller than the layer beneath it. This resulted in the layer edges being visible at the hem, sleeves, and neck.

Although most uchiki didn't include some of the extensive patterns seen in later-era kimono-wear, the individual uchiki were typically dyed in various solid colors except for the two top layers. The top layers would normally be brocaded silk and could include patterns.

Now, with all these layers, long hakama, and what not, one might think this would have a serious impact on mobility. Indeed, the elaborate court clothing of the Heian-era aristocratic woman didn't make movement easy at all. It wasn't unusual for intra-room movement to be confined to knee-based movement. Unsurprisingly, these women required servants/ladies-in-waiting to aid them in getting dressed.

The crippling of their movement wasn't a particular disadvantage to these women under normal social circumstances. For the most part, their day was spent sitting in a limited number of locations.

Of course, the huge number of layers obliterated any real hint of body profile. For all the Heian-era obsession with beauty, various indications from period literature and diaries at the time seem to suggest that the Heian-era aristocracy didn't actually find the actual body beautiful.

The Age of Tranquility and Peace: Heian Japan #10: The Dark Smile of Beauty, Ohaguro

I present the tenth in my series on Heian-era Japan. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, just click here for an overview of the Heian era.

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Beauty standards vary wildly by culture and time period. Paleness, for example, has often been historically valued for its implicit lack of association with outdoor labor. A proper aristocratic Heian beauty would take this to an extreme by using rice-powder (or lead-based, yikes) make-up to ensure a pale face. Such a beauty regime isn't particularly unusual cross-culturally, but those same Heian beauties would combine the facial work with something a bit less common (even if not unique to Japan): blackened teeth.

Actually, following the lead of the imperial family, this blackening of the teeth, ohaguro, was seen both among aristocratic men and women, even though it tended to be more common in women, and the relative gender balance would vary throughout the Heian era. While in later periods teeth darkening was often associated with older married women, in this era it tended to be more associated with adolescents and coming-of-age.

The involvement of both men and women might seem odd at first. Black teeth were desired because they were considered beautiful. This means, in turn, that men were applying a beautification treatment. This was  consistent with general Heian aesthetic ideals. Although there were obvious differences between what was expected of men and women, the underlying Heian obsession with beauty was applied to both genders. A proper aristocratic man was expected to be beautiful in his own way. One might even argue that the two fundamental pillars of Heian thought were beauty and harmony.

Darkened teeth were valued for multiple reasons. Black teeth contrasted nicely with the common pale white make-up. In addition, Heian aristocrats found aesthetic value in the color itself. There's also the more practical reality of limited dental care in this period often leaving the typical citizen, even aristocrats, with unattractive yellowed teeth if not otherwise dyed. In addition to the aesthetic aspects, ohaguro also acted as a sort of a primitive dental sealant and helped to limit tooth decay. While the people of the period may not have had a full handle on why ohaguro helped their teeth, they were aware of the health benefit.

Despite evidence that teeth darkening may have started centuries prior to the start of the Heian era, it seems to have become firmly established during the Nara era (710-794) and then became wide-spread (among aristocrats at least) during the Heian period.  It's specifically referenced in the 11th-century Tale of Genji. The practice would linger on in Japan until the 19th-century, when it was banned as part of general cultural reforms by the government.

The actual dyeing was accomplished with an acidic mixture of tea, vinegar, rice wine, and iron fillings. This was not a permanent procedure, and generally required reapplication every few days or so. Besides the basic time inconvenience, the dye itself smelled awful.

Ah, the things people'll do for beauty.

The Age of Tranquility and Peace, Heian Japan #9: Enlightenment for the masses, Amidism

I present the ninth in my series on Heian-era Japan. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, just click here for an overview of the Heian era.

This is part three of a mini-series on Buddhism during the Heian era. For a general overview of Buddhism, see this entry. For a discussion of the two major sects popular during the period, see this entry.

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Last week, I discussed Shingon and Tendai Buddhism, both major sects that received aristocratic and even some imperial patronage. The Heian era was no different than any age in history--most people in Heian society were on the bottom of the socio-economic period. The pomp and circumstance of some aspects of the Shingon and Tendai sects was directed more toward aristocrats than the poor, ignorant masses. While the old ways of Shinto influenced all levels of society, the Heian era also saw the spread of a type of Buddhism that would in later centuries gain mass appeal in all levels of society: Amidism,  Pure Land Buddhism.

Pure Land beliefs descended from the various Pure Land traditions that originated in the second century in India and were later transmitted to Japan via China. In a broad sense, the Pure Land traditions focus on the the bodhisattva Amida Buddha. Amida is the Buddha of Everlasting Light and Comprehensive Love. While the perception of the exact nature and historicity of Amida Buddha vary by sect, he's often suggested to be a previous incarnation of  Siddharta. In this original incarnation, Amida refused to accept enlightenment unless he could ensure eternal happiness in the Pure Land, a sort of heavenly celestial realm and, ultimately, enlightenment for all sentient beings. This concept is usually referred to as the "Original Vow". Depending on the interpretation of the sect or individual tradition, there are multiple Pure Lands.

The intercession of Amida provided a sort of general hope of enlightenment for everyone. Calling upon him by name repeatedly (the nembutsu) with sincere faith using "Namu Amida Butsu" would allow the a person to be reborn into the Pure Land after death. What's notable is though meditation and other Buddhist practices were part of the Pure Land tradition, and later more formalized Pure Land sects, in a sense the Pure Land tradition was, on some level, offering believers a bypass for the more complicated rituals, methods, and paths to enlightenment present in the more aristocratic traditions.

The Pure Land, it should be noted, is not the same thing as achieving enlightenment. True enlightenment would be the ultimate release for the soul, an escape from the cycle of rebirth. Once in the Pure Land (in the Heian era it was often thought of as the Western Paradise), the perfection of the realm was supposed to help facilitate true enlightenment. Many Amidists, however, effectively ended up more interested in being reborn into a heavenly realm than the ostensible Buddhist goal of release.

While there wasn't a true formal Pure Land sect in the Heian period, the ideas gained currency, particularly with the help of Genshin (942-1017), originally a Tendai scholar. In 985, he wrote  Ōjōyōshū (The Essentials of Salvation or the The Essentials of Birth in the Pure Land), a three-volume treatise on Amidist ideas. Interesting enough, Genshin emphasized visual meditation rather than the nembutsu but the latter would gain more general popularity, perhaps because of the relative ease of chanting.

Ōjōyōshū, besides spending a large amount of time describing the glories of the Pure Land, also put a lot of emphasis on Hell realms. The descriptions were even potent enough to influence conceptions of horror throughout the centuries and, arguably, still do. Genshin would pen many other works promoting Amidist ideas. Key to his conception underlying Pure Land ideas was that Heian society had fallen into corruption. He argued that not only had society become corrupt, but in fact the world had entered a fundamental age of decline.

With its promise of universal salvation and implicit critique of the structure of society (and thus implicit critique of the wealthy and powerful), the Amidist ideals gained considerable currency among the masses, though more than a few aristocrats fell under the sway of the Pure Land.

Although formal Pure Land sects woudn't really be crystallize until after the Heian era, Amidist ideas had firmly penetrated the consciousness of Heian society as can be seen in period diaries and period fiction such as references in The Tale of Genji.

The Age of Tranquility and Peace, Heian Japan #7: An Overview of Buddhism, The Middle Way

I present the seventh in my series on Heian-era Japan. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, just click here for an overview of the Heian era.

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Last week, I offered a very cursory overview of Shinto, the native religion of the Japanese people.  Though Shinto played a huge role in Japanese culture during the Heian period, Buddhism was just as important. If you'll recall from an earlier post, it was some concern over the political power of Buddhist temples that partially motivated the move of the capital that marked the start of the Heian era.

Given the incredible complexity and diversity of Buddhism over Asia, this will be, like the Shinto overview, a very basic overview. Today, I'm going to give a basic overview of Buddhism in general and then next two weeks I'll explore some of the permutations of Buddhism that defined the religion in Heian-era Japan. In future posts, I'll delve deeper into some of these aspects as relevant and cover some of the political aspects as well. For ease, I'll use some of the more common (read: often Sanskrit, a language of ancient India) words for some of these terms, as I tend to suspect many people have at least heard them versus their Japanese counterparts. The conceptual ideas are more important than the specific terminology here anyway.

As Buddhism spread from India all about Asia and eventually to Japan, it mixed with various existing folk traditions and concepts. In some cases, this means two people might be Buddhist but have apparently opposing metaphysical positions. So, I hope what you take away from this first Buddhist entry is more just the general concepts underlying Buddhist thought, which, at the minimum, give a general enough context to understand the basics of the religion. Next week and the following week, we'll attend to more fine detail as it applies to the main Japanese schools of Buddhism during the Heian era. It's also important to note that back in Heian Japan, many people didn't exactly spend a lot of time considering the fine metaphysics of their religion (even the educated), so the general ethical ideals motivating people's people are perhaps more important than a fine understand of the metaphysics.

First, some basic background. The Buddhist religion was founded by Siddhartha Gautama. He was born in what is now part of Nepal. Though he is often referred to as the Buddha, the word itself just really means enlightened and/or awakened one.  Historians aren't totally sure of when he lived (there's competing sources), but it's approximately somewhere  around the between the 6th-4th century BC. There's differing historical opinions on who he actually was (and various biographies vary), but the evidence does suggest the son of a man of great political importance, a prince.

Now, there's a lot of differing miracles and the like that have been attributed to the Buddha, but we're going to skip past a lot of that to focus basically on the core tenets of the Buddhist message in a painfully simplistic (i.e., blog-sized manner). One can make argument the original core Buddhist message was a reformist message, of sorts, against certain strains of the dominant regional Hindu beliefs. It was not, however, some sort of direct reaction by the Buddha against those religious beliefs (indeed, there is some overlap). So, don't think of the Buddha as the Martin Luther of South Asia.

The traditional biographies inform us that the Buddha became weary with his lifestyle of ease, power, and luxury. He traveled about and witnessing poverty, death, and suffering he was previously shielded from and the reality that death came for all, he decided to become an ascetic and travel about in search of enlightenment, particularly by studying with various religious teachers in India.

At the time, the ascetic tradition was a strong part of the dominant Hindu religious tradition (which we really don't need to understand for Heian-stuff, so I'll be not be writing about that). The summary version of all of this is that the Buddha realized that extreme asceticism would not lead him to enlightenment. After 49 days of meditation under a type of fig tree now called the Sacred Fig (even the Latin name is Ficus religiosa), he achieves enlightenment (the tree also is commonly referred to, among other names, as a Bodhi Tree--an enlightenment tree). He accepted that the path to enlightenment was to follow The Middle Way, path that involved avoiding extremes of both self-indulgence and its opposite, as embodied in the extreme forms of asceticism.

The general concepts of Buddhism are supported by the belief in karma. In the most simplistic definition, Buddhist karma is collective actions and thoughts people perform throughout their life. These actions bring about spiritual effects or consequences in that they affect the cycle of rebirth. Positive karma moves one closer to true enlightenment and freedom from the endless cycle of rebirth. This rebirth can mean many things, but this is not a literal reincarnation of the exact same entity. Things get complicated depending on how one wants to define soul and what not, but it's important to note that basically there is a continuity of sorts.

Arguably, in fundamental Buddhist truth, there's no true independence of being from existence or the  universe itself. Part of the unease that comes with the cycle of rebirth comes from the spiritual denying of that truth and the fixation on individual existence. A common analogy is to think of individual entities are like a wave in the ocean. It has an independent existence of sorts but is not truly different than the ocean.

When that sort of thing is considered,  karma sets up a situation that, in a sense, modulates the factors of reality leading to the arising of a new entity (kind of like the wind blowing on the ocean or the tug of the moon). Depending on the the type of Buddhism the range of possible incarnation might be anything to animals to what would be commonly considered supernatural beings or gods. There's even certain types of Buddhism that posit that incarnation is really about the becoming of being that comes from changing experiences and deny particular concern about supernatural concerns.

What does that freedom entail? Well, that may vary based on the type of Buddhism. Some forms basically postulate things that are basically just heaven-like concepts somewhat familiar  in concept to many Westerners but others have the entity becoming one with the universe a sort of fundamental satisfaction that comes with becoming part of the true whole (or at least recognizing one is part of the true whole).

So how do obtain this freedom? Well, one must first understand the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. Now there are a lot subtleties lost in translations of these concepts and my rather cursory take on them here, but taking that into account these are (this wording is my own, there are many variations on this wording):

1) Existence is suffering: This isn't about is some simplistic idea that life is pain, but rather that a sort of spiritual unease lies at the center of common existence. An unease keeping one's life and from achieving true enlightenment.
2) The suffering is caused by desire: Specifically, desire and attachment for the things of the world
3) This suffering will only stop when the desire is quenched.
4) A freedom from the suffering can be attained by those who follow the Eight-Fold Path:

1) Right View
2) Right Intention
3) Right Speech
4) Right Action
5) Right Livelihood
6) Right Effort
7) Right Mindfulness
8) Right Concentration

Again, we'll speed along as to not spend the next ten years writing blog entries, but one key thing to take away from the above is that the idea is a holistic transformation of a person. It's not a matter of just doing the right thing but rather doing the right thing for the right reason because it's natural and not calculated. In the end, a person should follow the Eight-Fold Path naturally. Though Buddhism, particularly in Japan, does share some concern with defilement with Shinto, there's arguably a stronger emphasis on mental purity and purity of intention (hence a heavy focus on meditation). Obviously, this can all start getting tremendously complicated given the self-interest inherent in people in general. Various different types of Buddhism have different ways to handle this issue.

The Heian-era Japanese schools of thought are basically subsets of Mahayana Buddhism. Without delving too deep into the the metaphysics (as this is already going to be a three-part series of long entries), this is a universalist-type of Buddhism generally concerned with the enlightenment of mankind and not just personal enlightenment. Another important aspect are bodhisattvas. In the Mahayanan tradition, in simplistic terms, these are people who have are capable of achieving total enlightenment but hold back to aid others in reaching enlightenment. Depending on the version of Buddhism, these may be merely spiritually-advanced people or even beings who are effectively almost gods.

Next week, I'll continue with Part II of this series where we'll talk about the history and metaphysics underlying some of the major Heian-era Buddhist schools of thought and finish up the following week. Given all the discussion of a lack of attachment that I've mentioned above, certain aspects of Heian court culture in particular might seem to run counter to those Buddhist ideals. Well, just as with the practice of Christianity in Europe, some of this came from many people just not living up to the high standards of religion and some from certain particularly Japanese aspects of Buddhism. I'll try to touch on those in my breakdown of the specific Japanese schools of Buddhism.

The Age of Tranquility and Peace, Heian Japan #6: Shinto, the Way of the Gods

I present the sixth in my series on Heian-era Japan. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, just click here for an overview of the Heian era.

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One can't begin to understand a culture without understanding their religious and spiritual systems. I've been somewhat remiss as I have referenced Heian religion several times but have yet to take the time to talk about it much. Of course, religion, spirituality, and metaphysics is a complex topic, so like all these blog entries, I shall only be briefly skimming the surface.

The important thing to keep in mind about Heian-era Japan, and for that matter Japan for most of its history, is that its religious culture has been defined by an incredible amount of syncretism. Though they had the occasional bout of resistance to outside ideas and religious conflict, overall the people of the islands of Japan have had little lasting issue with integrating elements of different imported and native belief systems into something they did not find internally inconsistent.

During the Heian era, the culture was defined by a mix of the homegrown Shinto belief system and Buddhism imported from China. As the imperial family claimed descent from Amaterasu, the Shinto sun goddess, and many important families were involved in Shinto rites and/or temples, there was never a strong effort to push aside the beliefs, particularly as Shinto and the imported forms of Buddhism didn't demand much in the way of religious exclusivity from the common adherent.

Today I want to focus on Shinto (lit. The Way of the Gods or Spirits). It's important to note that Shinto, in contrast to Buddhism, can't be traced back to a single prophet or teacher. Instead, it is the accumulation of supernatural and spiritual beliefs that mostly originated, based on archaeological evidence, as least as far back as the late Jomon period (roughly 2000 BC to about 300-400 BC). It's unclear how much of Shinto beliefs developed independently versus being the result of influence by people emigrating to Japan from other parts of East Asia. In the centuries of the following Yayoi period, many elements of Shinto belief became somewhat more formalized. The imperial family, incidentally, claims descent to this period.

There were various iterations in Shinto belief between the Jomon and Heian eras. As this is a blog series about the Heian era, and not earlier Japanese history, we'll skip those and talk about the form Shinto had comfortably settled into during our period of interest.


Actually, we'll cheat and take a slight step back to the Nara period (710-794 AD). During this period, two vary important works were written: the Kojiki (712) and the Nihon Shoki (720). The Kojiki was mostly a book of myths and legends. The Nihon Shoki, although it includes some mythological material, was written more as a more dedicated history work. These works are relevant because they described (and more importantly recorded on paper) various extant myths, legends, and spiritual practices. At the time, Shinto was not thought of some sort of unified method of religious practice, but instead just the sum total of the collected beliefs of the people in those classical and pre-classical Japanese. The word Shinto itself was used in the Nihon Shoki to contrast it with the imported Buddhism. It wasn't until about the 12th-century that it came to be associated with somewhat more formalized, yet still accepting of syncretism, religious doctrines. So, in that sense, for a good chunk of Japanese history, Shinto was just whatever they believed in and certainly wasn't perceived as some sort of formalized religion. Shinto was just the way of the world, not special revelation.

Given that Shinto was just a way of understanding the world around them, the classical Japanese had little trouble, in general, taking up Buddhism at the same time. This is not to say, however, that no one ever had metaphysical struggles nor rejected, on some level, syncretism. Such issues are attested to in period fiction, period diaries, and other primary source historical material. That being said there was no wide-scale displacement of Shinto by Buddhism like there was with many other religions of the world as they spread into areas with extant folk religions. The two forms of belief both infused themselves into the spiritual DNA of Japan and to this today there are huge numbers of who follow both Shinto and Buddhist practices in Japan.

A key aspect of Shinto thought is a lack of separation in the spirit world and the human world. The fundamental root of Shinto is reverence and worship of kami. This is a very nebulous term. Sometimes it's translated into English as spirits and sometimes as gods. In a sense, it's both. Kami can be the inherent quality of certain things in nature. Kami also can be what Westerners would typically describe as some sort of animistic spirits. Some kami are also closer to what would typically be referred to as gods. Even these beings, however, are not quite the omnipotent and semi-omnipotent gods that defines say, the various Abrahamic faiths.

You could have a kami that dwells within a tree or a kami that literally was the tree. You could have a kami that is the a human who after death becomes the embodiment of the godlike embodiment of a concept (i.e., Tenjin-sama, kami of scholarship) or you could have a kami like Ame-no-Uzume-no-mikoto. This goddess was married to another kami and roughly speaking was the embodiment of merriment and revelry. A famous myth relates how when the sun goddess Amaterasu retreated to a cave after her storm god brother attacked her temples and servitors darkness fell over the world. Ame-no-Uzume-no-mikoto performed a comical dance that caused other kami to laugh. A curious Amaterasu ended up emerging from the cave to see the source of the entertainment, and others nearby blocked the cave, thus keeping the sun goddess outside and returning light to the world.

The basis of the worship of various kami were (and are) shrines throughout Japan both larger complexes and smaller more personal shrines in places like homes or in places like roads or the forest. Some of these shines are rather grand and scope (such as those associated with Tenjin-sama) and therefore would attract attention from many people, and some may be focused on some extremely local kami and might only be of interest to a particular village. Again, the important thing, metaphysically, is that these kami are not separate from the rest of the world even if, on occasion, they are insubstantial or physically intangible. They do not dwell in a separate spiritual plane or Heaven whether they are a goddess of merriment of the spirit of a river.

Another bedrock concept in Shinto is purity. In Shinto belief humans are born pure and become impure through physical, spiritual, and moral corruption. Many forms of Shinto rituals are based on purification. As I'm running long, I'll just keep in simple and note wicked behavior is an easy form of corruption under Shinto belief. Disease is one thing associated with physical corruption. There are a variety of forms of spiritual corruption, but one major constant is death and dying. The presence of death or the handling of the dead was often considered a major form of corruption. Certain jobs, such as being an undertaker or tanner, were considering incredibly spiritually corrupting and assigned to low-caste outcasts. Arguably, this contributed to the formation of the burakumin social caste that in many way lingers even in modern Japan.

Like many topics I've covered, Shinto could be an entire blog series by itself, so I'll stop here and just reinforce the twin themes of kami and purity. I shall be revisiting certain aspects of Shinto in the future in more detail as well.

Next week, I'll briefly survey Japanese Buddhism. All the same caveats will apply.

The Age of Tranquility and Peace, Heian Japan #5: The Auspicious Masters of Divination, Calendars, Yin, and Yang, the Onmyoji

I present the fifth in my series on Heian-era Japan. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, just click here for an overview of the Heian era.

As October is drawing to a close, this will be my last, for a bit, more supernatural-themed Heian entry.

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Imagine a modern country and a modern bureaucracy. Depending on your government type, you have various ministries and our departments/ministries dedicated to the various functions expected of government: education, defense, civil affairs, et cetera. Bureaucrats and government officials populate these departments and ministries trying (we'll think positively here) to do their part to keep their respective functions running smoothly so that their respectively countries will run smoothly.

Maybe somebody doesn't grow up thinking, "My goal in life is to work in the Department of Agriculture" (or maybe they do), but in the end, they get their university/academy education, take their appropriate exams, and end up a government functionary.

In a sense, the Heian-era government wasn't really all that different. Although it never really functioned as the meritocracy certain aspects of the system would suggest (and I'm definitely not saying modern governments always manage that), the Heian-era system was still basically defined by taking educated people, applying sort of testing/filtering, and placing them into positions to help run the government. So, in that sense, the government of the Heian era doesn't really seem that foreign.

Now imagine your cousin went to work for the government and told you he was going to work in the Department of Divination. Imagine he told you that his job was going to advise the president on days were lucky and what path he should take if he left the White House to avoid unlucky circumstances. Maybe, just maybe, your cousin is even going to be called out to help lay out a new governmental facility to help it avoid bad spiritual flow or exorcise a few rogue spirits.

Science, religion, and mysticism weren't as separated for the people of the Heian era as they are for many people today. Indeed, what we would consider nothing but superstition often was looked at as one of the best ways to know about the world. Although there were governmental agencies dedicated to the management of Shinto ritual and the occasional angry spirit, the curious mix of the pragmatic and the supernatural was particularly embodied by the onmyō-ryō (lit. the bureau of Yin and Yang, but often referred to as the bureau of divination). 

This governmental agency was filled with onmyōji, practitioners of the semi-mystical art of onmyōdō (lit. The way of Yin and Yang). The onmyōji are a perfect example of Japanese syncretism. They combined elements of Chinese cosmology, native Shinto beliefs, Buddhism, and even elements of Indian astrology. Now while sometimes they are treated as if they were all-purpose magicians (the ability to summon a type of servant spirit, shikigami, is and was still associated with them), these government mystics actually tended toward more specialization in their jobs. This actually makes sense, if you think about it, as the existence of entire Buddhist priesthoods and Shinto-related government departments suggests that one type of magician wasn't going to cut it for the needs of the people.

Broadly speaking, the onmyōji's main duties can be divided into determination of auspiciousness (I'll expand on this in a moment), divination, and keeping track of the calendar. Although they were sometimes called to aid with exorcisms and the like, the plentiful number of Buddhist and more-dedicated Shinto religious personnel arguably got the lion's share of that sort of work, at least judging by period fiction and diaries. Conversely, restrictions on the ability of Buddhist priests, in particular, to practice astrology and divination (for the most part) left an opening for the onmyōji to gain firm control over these aspects of court life.

The calendar aspect is particularly interesting. We take it keeping track of time for granted in the modern era, but this was a specialized skill in the Heian era. In fact, for many centuries, it was even more specialized with a particular clan, the Kamo, becoming primarily responsible for calendar maintenance. One of the most famous onmyōji of the period, Seimei Abe (Abe no Seimei, 921-1005) who trained under the premiere master of the age was supposed to be so skilled that he became responsible for the more "important" skills of divination and astrology, while the son of his master was given instead the lesser task of calendar construction and maintenance. Arguably the latter probably ended up more important in the long run for the Heian government.

Besides the practical value in maintaining a calendar, it aided with the determination of things such as auspicious days. The aristocracy were obsessed with the concept of auspiciousness. There were auspicious days, auspicious numbers, and auspicious directions along with their inverse. Having a good calendar system aided in keeping track of this sort of thing, especially when combined with astrology. In addition, a good calendar was important in helping to keep track of the huge number of festivals and ceremonial days that defined aristocratic court life. 

This auspiciousness obsession was at the basis of the popularity of onmyōji. Though straight-forward divination questions (such as finding lost objects) were part of their techniques, the more indirect ability to advise people, particularly the nobles, on the various auspicious/inauspicious aspects of their life was more their stock and trade. This could have rather permanent impacts on even city layout, as they also advised the government and aristocrats on building position, layout, direction, and the like (similar in style to feng shui) to help maximize auspiciousness.

Sometimes this obsession with such concepts could lead to strange behaviors (strange to moderns anyway) that put certain aspects of period fiction into a more understandable framework. For example, more than a few piece of period fiction have a gentleman not taking the most direct way home and running into some sort of mischief (supernatural or otherwise) because of it. This is a reflection of receiving information about inauspicious directions from an onmyōji. It's common enough in period fiction, and period diaries also reflect that this sort of extreme adherence to these beliefs definitely impacted the lives of many aristocrats.

I could fill a whole blog series on the onmyōji, so I'll just close by stressing that despite the fact that many of their methods were more magical and esoteric in style, these men were part of the respected educated bureaucratic elite and were treated with the respect that many scientists are treated today. These were not fringe mystics. At the same time, these men's abilities were considered distinct from the religious and spiritual powers associated with Buddhist priests and Shinto priests and priestesses.

The Age of Tranquility and Peace, Heian Japan #4: The Demon of Rashōmon

I present the fourth in my series on Heian-era Japan. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, just click here for an overview of the Heian era.


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Today, I'm cheating a bit. I'm going to discuss a legend, "The Demon of  Rashōmon" or "The Demon's Arm," that though it's set in the Heian period and involves a historical figure, most of the actual details were the result of accretion in later centuries. That being said, it's still a perfect story for my October "Spooky-Boo" Halloween-themed entries. There are many versions of this legend, so if you later encounter a slightly different recounting, it wasn't that I'm trying to lead you astray. Though, in a story involving the Rashōmon, different versions of the truth are almost appropriate (see this film if you have no idea what I'm talking about).


The legend takes us to the latter part of the Heian period in the year 974. In the capital, Heian-kyō, several people have disappeared. The vanishings are attributed to an oni (a demon or ogre) named Ibaraki that is threatening people who try to pass through the Rashōmon, a large gate in the southern portion of the city. Though efforts are made to deal with Ibaraki, no one is able to dislodge him.

Enter one Tsuna Watanabe (Watanabe no Tsuna in the older traditional Japanese naming style), a samurai. He's not just some random warrior, but a retainer of the Fujiwara-regent affiliated Yorimitsu/Raiko Minamoto. In other words, he's a fairly connected fellow. Not to stray from our legend, but this sort of levels of political and social interconnection defined much of the politics and social life during this period--lines and webs of loyalties.

Now, depending on the version of the legend, Tsuna  agrees to go deal with Ibaraki without much prompting or after being offered a bit of motivation (i.e., a wager). He camps out near the Rashōmon for several nights, but Ibaraki doesn't appear.

He's riding home from the gate one night when he encounters a beautiful girl (depending on the version, she may be in the rain). Now, actually, even absent the presence of Ibaraki, this is somewhat suspicious by the standards of the time. A wandering girl, if not a demon, could have been a variety of supernatural being (ghost, shape-shifting fox, et cetera), so Tsuna is a bit on guard. They talk and the girl manages to convince Tsuna she's nothing more than a beautiful girl.

After she invites him to her home, he tells her to get on the horse. They ride for a while. He turns around to look at her and sees her transforming into a demonic form. Now, depending on the version of the legend, the details slightly different. In some versions, he draws his sword, Higekiri, and cuts off an arm of the demon. Subsequently, the creature flees into the sky. In other versions, they actually have more a pitched battle, but in the end he still cuts off its arm.

Tsuna versus Ibaraki
From imagefree.org

Tsuna takes the arm as a trophy and returns home. There's no more sightings of Ibaraki and no additional disappearances.  It very much appears that the samurai has frightened off the demon.

Some time later Tsuna is approached by an elderly woman (in some versions she's an older female relative, in others she's his childhood nurse). They speak for some time, and he eventually decides to show her his demon trophy. As he opens up the chest where he's been storing the macabre souvenir, the woman turns into Ibaraki, snatches the arm, and flies away. Fortunately though, the demon never returns to the capital. Apparently having it's arm cut off once was enough.

Although this is a fairly straight-forward tale of man against the supernatural, and many details are later additions, it does still allude to some interesting sociological aspects of the later Heian period. As I've stressed in previous entries, the much of the standards of the era were defined by aristocratic bureaucratic elites who prized educational, beauty, and art--and not so much a good sword arm. Tsuna Watanabe is an  example of a man gaining a lot of renown during the Heian era for his martial valor and not his more artistic or political sensibilities. Given his the years of his life (953-1025) spanned later years in Heian period, one could argue that this is reflective of the changes already slowly occurring in Japanese society that would lead to the rise of the warrior-lead shogunate.

The ghost story itself is instructive as well. Even if details were added in later periods, it's a good example of the type of thought process that often accompanied what we would now instantly just recognize as crimes conducted by humans. Often when a mysterious crime occurred, people would attribute it to some sort of supernatural entity. As daily life was also defined by a huge number of practical superstitions and taboos (which I'll delve into in a future date), it was natural for people to see magic behind everything that occurred rather than attribute the evil to mundane, if wicked, people. In one famous case, a decapitated head was found in the Imperial palace. The violence of the act already necessitated a lengthy period of spiritual cleansing; it's attribution to malevolent supernatural entities didn't help matters.

Now this isn't to say that the people of the Heian period never accepted the simple, classic villainy of humanity. A review of period diaries indicates that there was a mix of relative levels of superstition. It's just that in a world where ritual and superstition permeated the culture, it was an easy leap from something like serial disappearances or serial murders to the supernatural.

Sometimes things just weren't all that tranquil or peaceful in the Age of Tranquility and Peace.

The Age of Tranquility and Peace, Heian Japan #3: The Fujiwara and the Poisoned Chrysanthemum, Fujiwara control of the emperor

I'm running a little late this week, but today, I present the third in my series on Heian-era Japan. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, just click here for a brief overview of the Heian era.

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Despite the presence of a monarch who claims descent from a sun goddess, Amaterasu, much of Japanese history has been defined by emperors rather lacking in absolute power and the concordant ability to rule unchecked. Today, the current Japanese emperor spends much of his time involved in religious ritual and ceremonial procedures rather than phoning the prime minister to tell him how to run things. The evolution of the modern role of the emperor is outside the scope of this series, but we'll instead discuss the rise and fall of the emperor during the Heian period.

The Imperial Seal of Japan, a 16-petal  chrysanthemum, hence
why the sitting empire is sometimes referred to as sitting on the Chrysanthemum Throne

The Heian era began with the 50th Japanese emperor, Kanmu, moving the capital to Heian-kyo (present day Kyoto) in 794. This came only thirteen years after a previous capital move. It isn't that the emperor just liked to move, though. Instead, the second move, in particular, was reportedly motivated by political considerations. Buddhist temples and local aristocrats had become too influential, effectively limiting the emperor's power. By moving the capital, the emperor was attempting to refocus political power into the central government lead by him. 

Emperor Kanmu (737-806)

The government of Heian-kyo was a bureaucratic beast consisting of a governing council, many departments and many officials. Due to the complexity of both the governmental structure and the socio-political factors that went into becoming an official, we'll set that aside for now other than to note it was influenced by Tang-era Chinese government, and many elements that defined the Heian-era Japanese government were codified during the preceding Nara and Asuka periods (710-794 and 538-710, respectively).


The emperor sat onto his government. The mere existence of a bureaucracy already limited a lot of the emperor's power early on by limiting his ability to get things done easily and directly. Certain religious considerations also kept down a lot of the kind of pure terror that might keep certain people in line. Violence was considered to cause spiritual pollution, which, in turn, required purification. So, he couldn't exactly drag people into the palace to have their heads cut off and stuck on pikes to terrify his enemies.  One may laugh at my extreme example, but it's striking how many rulers in many lands (including Japan at different points in its history) basically preserved their power through monopolizing that sort of callous violence.


His daily routine was heavily influenced by religious ritual (particularly Shinto ritual) and so matters of spiritual purity were particularly important to the emperor. In fact, the emperor being so busy with daily rituals, both secular or otherwise, also limited his direct political influence. He simply didn't have time to micromanage the affairs of the government. 


Emperor Kanmu's efforts to reorganize the government and capital to tighten central power were also undermined by the machinations of the Fujiwara clan. The Fujiwara were a powerful aristocratic family that had been previously involved in disrupting the attempt of another powerful clan, the Soga, to consolidate control over the imperial government in the 7th century. By the time of the Heian era, Fujiwara were in many positions in the government. Many Fujiwara princesses had intermarried with the Imperial line since the Nara period.


By the 9th century, with their power on the rise and many of their enemies politically neutralized, the Fujiwara made a more bold bid for de facto control. If the sitting emperor produced a male child with a Fujiwara wife or consort, the Fujiwara lobbied hard to ensure that child would be named successor. In the interim, the child would spend a lot of time around his clan. They would also appoint a formal adviser. If underage when the assuming the Imperial Throne, the adviser would become a type of reagent called a sesshō, and, as a result, the elder Fujiwara would have general control of the government. Such was the case with the first Fujiwara regent, Yoshifusa, who became the regent for the Emperor Seiwa (850-881, reign: 858-876). Though the Fujiwara couldn't always keep complete control of the government, they would exhibit considerable influence to the 11th century.


Another way the emperor's true power was taken, regardless of whether he was of partially Fujiwara blood or not was because of the Japanese institution of retired emperors. As I noted above, the emperor had to spend a lot of time on rituals, protocol, and other assorted official activities. An emperor, however, could choose to retire. As I'll explain more of  in a bit, these retired emperors later ended up a power center themselves that competed with the sitting emperor.


The Fujiwara also exploited the earlier version of this system by encouraging emperors to retire young (usually in their thirties or forties) so that the next boy emperor could rise. So, even if a half-Fujiwara emperor started thinking seriously about limiting the ability of the clan (and why would he, if his own mother was a Fujiwara), he may soon have ended up finding himself pushed aside, so a newer, more pliable candidate could take the job. It is important to note that the Fujiwara were everywhere in the government, so the amount of social and political pressure they could bring to bear was tremendous, even on the emperor.


The Fujiwara's fortunes finally startd to reverse in 1068. The Emperor Go-Sanjō (1034-1073) had the particular misfortune (from the Fujiwara point of view) of not being born to a Fujiwara. There had been others since the Fujiwara squeezed their fingers around the throne, but he was the first in a hundred years. He also initiated several legal and political reforms to to curtail the influence of the Fujiwara. His son, the Emperor Shirakawa further eroded the control of the Fujiwara in an unusual way. He retired early as I discussed earlier, but went so far as to set up an alternative court in 1087 with officials and advisers. He became a so-called "cloistered emperor". This cloistered emperor system would seriously undermine the effective power of the sitting emperor, both weakening the emperor himself and the Fujiwara indirectly who had spent centuries developing their power around the control of the emperor.


With the close of the 12th century would come the Genpei War. That war saw the power of the emperor all but totally obliterated as the shoguns, military dictators, took firm control of Japan for centuries. Although the position of emperor was never eliminated, it lost almost all political power, either direct or indirect as the bureaucratic system, and the officials that populated it, became less important than the military might of the samurai. The cloistered emperors would linger for a few centuries, but their power had also been seriously curtailed.


There's a certain irony accompanying the cloistered system. I didn't go into detail above, but when these emperors retired, the standard practice was to go live in a Buddhist temple and take on Buddhist holy orders. So, the Emperor Kanmu had initiated the Heian era by moving the capital partially to escape the political influence of Buddhist temples on the government, but by the end of the era, retired emperors living as Buddhist holy men had tremendous influence.

The Age of Tranquility and Peace #2: The Mistresses of Literature

Today, I present the second in my series on Heian-era Japan. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, just click here for a brief overview of the Heian era.


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One of the most famous (and influential) cultural artifacts of the Heian era is the Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji). Some people have made the argument that Genji is the world's first true novel. Before we discuss either the story or its author, Murasaki Shikibu, in future posts, I  wanted to discuss the general status of literature in Heian culture.


It is striking that many  famous works of ancient Japanese literature and artistic achievement are associated with the Heian era and, more unusual given cultural trends around the world at the time, many major literature achievements are associated with women. The former is easy enough to explain. Though Heian Japan was still  under the long shadow of the former Chinese Tang dynasty, it was a period of relative isolation with only a marginal amount of direct contact between the two countries. The Japanese had turned inward. In a contrast to earlier periods, a stable population of aristocrats had more time to devote their attention to the writing arts. There was also a certain practical consideration at work. Although there's some contradictory evidence, the bulk of historical evidence suggests that the Japanese did have a true writing system until the importation of Chinese characters in the the 4th century. It's hard to have a literature tradition without actual writing.


I don't want to go off on too much of a linguistic tangent (and this tangent simplifies things), but anyone who has studied both any Chinese dialect and Japanese is struck by the stark language differences. They are in completely different language families. It's not like a French versus Spanish difference, it's more like a French versus Arabic difference. Suffice it to say, Chinese characters make for more difficult rendering of the native Japanese language. For one thing, they aren't, for the most part, phonetic. This makes them great for making Chinese dialects intelligible, but it makes learning them difficult and applying them to other languages even harder. 


By the Heian era, script-based phonetic systems better adapted to the Japanese language were developed, but even to this day, Japanese writing is a mix of Chinese characters (kanji) and the derived hiragana and katakana phonetic systems. Despite the development of these more arguably "Japanese" writing systems, the continued obsession with all things Chinese (ironic given the termination of official contact with China) led to an high Japanese cultural value being placed  not just the Chinese writing system, but the language itself. An educated Heian man grew up on Classical Chinese books written in Classical Chinese. Even the official court documents were mostly written in Chinese. Imagine if Shakespeare was expected to write all his plays in Latin.


The rights and status of women had been somewhat reduced in many ways compared to earlier eras, but Heian-era aristocratic women were still educated. They were not, however, generally educated in Chinese. There were exceptions though, such as Murasaki Shikibu.

Murasaki Shikibu, the world's first novelist?
(Picture from the Boston Museum of Fine Art)

Another factor involved was the philosophical concern about what proper writing and literature should even include. Although all educated people, men or women, were expected to be masters of many forms of poetry, there was a general anti-fiction bias among many men. Keep in mind that records of folk tales, legends, and the like were not considered to fall under the realm of fiction. In The Tale of Genji, there is even a scene where an educated man expresses his disdain for fiction and an educated women engages him in a mild debate about the idea.


Lastly, Heian-era aristocratic women, although free in many ways (such as possessing a surprising amount of sexual freedom), were still very dependent on their position and status of the men in their lives. In fact, records of that time rarely bothered to note the names of many women, even those of high status. For example, the name associated with the authorship of The Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibu, is actually a nickname. Denied access to many intellectual spheres of society, many women chose to channel their efforts into things like literature. 


The combination of the above-mentioned factors lead to these women having a major presence in Japanese classical literature, and even managing to preserve their reputation despite several centuries of sexist revisionism that tried to strip authorship of things like Genji from the female authors.


Besides vernacular novels such as The Tale of Genji, many women also spent time writing in daily diaries. Indeed, so many of these diaries (including such writings from Lady Murasaki) have survived into the modern era they constitute an entire area of classical Japanese study in of themselves. In addition, many women also wrote what we would basically classify as themed essays along with some other random information (such as court gossip). These generally are now classified as falling into the so-called zuihitsu genre.


Despite Lady Murasaki's fame, and surviving diary entries, the most famous diarist and zuihitsu writer was actually a rival at court (though they never met directly as Sei left shortly before Murasaki's arrival at court), Sei Shōnagon (yes, this is another nickname). Her Pillow Book arguably defined the genre. I will be discussing both of these women and their works in more detail in future posts.

Sei Shōnagon, semi-feisty rival of Murasaki Shikibu
(Picture from Boston Museum of Fine Arts)

Changes (The Non-Jim Butcher Kind)! Call the Prince Reagent, have him talk with a Fujiwara regent, and then go find an alchemist

Okay, this has been coming for a while, but I'm going to slightly be shifting the content on my blog (and in some cases already have).

I'll still going to be doing weekly interviews and guest blogs from other authors. I think this is a great way to help out both authors and readers.

In addition, starting next week, I'm going to try and be efficient and combine two of my writing-relating activities together: blogging and research.

So, starting next week, I'm starting three new weekly features. On Mondays, I'll be talking about different magical systems. I'm a very non-magical person and don't believe in any magic (except the magic of compound interest), but in the course of writing various fantasy and paranormal stories I've become fascinated by the varied types of magical beliefs and systems that people have thought up. I intend to focus both on historical magical systems and those that have only appeared in the pages of novels. I intend to call this 'Magical Mondays'. What can I say, I like alliteration.

On Thursdays, I will be sharing tidbits about Georgian and Regency England (Mr. Beard's Regency Tour). On Sundays, I will be sharing tidbits about Heian Japan as part of my "The Age of Tranquility and Peace" (a rough literal translation of Heian jidai, not necessarily an objective statement about the entire period).

These entries will usually be modest in size, but I hope to communicate at least some small bit of useful information in them.

I'll no longer be participating in SFFS or SSS due to time constraints, though I'll still be trying to stop by many of the blogs I routinely visit to comment, but it will probably take me the entire week to make it through those.

I hope, if you're interested in any of those topics, you'll stop by.