A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (13 page)

These practices of regencies and cloister government, along with numerous other power-plays and court intrigues, inevitably damaged the cohesion and effectiveness of central government, and contributed further to the decline in real central control of the nation.

The decline of the court and central government went hand-in-hand with a decline in things Chinese. Even well into the second half of the period it was still a sign of class for a male aristocrat to be versant with Chinese language and literature, but this was now in the sense of a ‘classical education’. When Japanese now thought of China, they thought of the China of old, not of contemporary China. At the time, China too was in a period of dynastic decline, with the T’ang period coming to an end in 906. Official embassies to China had already ceased in the ninth century, and no further missions were to take place for some centuries. It was felt that Japan had little left to learn from China at this stage.
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As Chinese influence receded, a distinctly Japanese identity emerged all the more clearly. Chinese script was modified into the Japanese
kana
script, largely thanks to aristocratic women who were discouraged from using Chinese.
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Distinctive forms of painting appeared. So too did distinctive forms of poetry, particularly based on groupings of syllables into patterns of seven and five, and characterised by understatement and suggestion rather than the ornateness and richness of Chinese poetry.

Distinctive aesthetic
values also emerged, such as
okashi
and particularly
(mono no) aware
, aesthetics which are still very much alive in modern Japan.
Okashi
refers to something unusual and generally amusing, often in a relatively trivial sense, such as a breach of etiquette.
Mono no aware
, which is usually expressed through the symbolism of nature, represents a view that life is beautiful but ephemeral. It translates literally as ‘the sadness of things’. This aesthetic is also found elsewhere – as in the Latin term
lacrimae rerum
(the tears of things) – but is particularly prevalent in Japan. The term
aware
occurs more than a thousand times in the
Genji Monogatari
, but its flavour is perhaps best illustrated by an earlier poem by the ninth-century poetess Ono no Komachi:
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The blossoms have faded,

While I grow old idly,

Watching the rain.

The attitudes to life underlying both
okashi
and
mono no aware
seem to reflect Buddhist influence, particularly
mapp
(‘last law’). This predicts the final decline of humankind, the final proof that human existence is, in itself, without substance. This final phase was expected to begin in Japan in the latter half of the Heian period, and presentiment of it was not confined to the court alone. A sense of the imminent coming of
mapp
pervaded much of society.
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Many of the major nobles at court certainly seem to have lived lives without substance, but the same could not necessarily be said of those minor nobles sent as managers to the provinces, or other powerful local leaders. Displaying a more realistic approach to life, they concerned themselves with acquiring real power. In fact, these minor aristocrats were often heads of offshoot branches of the Fujiwara or imperial families, and included the ‘shed’ imperial-line families Minamoto (also known as Genji) and Taira (also known as Heike).
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Excluded from rights of accession, they often bore grudges towards the central nobles.

They were allowed to maintain armed guards, who were themselves often of aristocratic descent. These armed forces, known as
bushi
(warriors) or
samurai
(retainers), grew increasingly powerful through alliances. Eventually they were powerful enough to intervene in central court affairs.

Their involvement in court affairs was eventually to lead to the loss of primacy of the central government. In 1156, rival claimants to the headship of the Fujiwara family – still influential though past its heyday – were struggling for control of the court. They enlisted the help of rival provincial military groups, the Taira and the Minamoto. The Taira were led by Taira no Kiyomori (1118–81), whose base was in the Inland Sea region to
the west. The Minamoto were led by Minamoto no Tameyoshi (1096–1156), whose base was in the Kant
region to the east.

In the military clash that followed, the Taira group was victorious, partly because of inner divisions within the Minamoto camp. Tameyoshi was executed. Kiyomori now started to establish himself in the capital, perhaps not quite as supreme ruler but certainly in a very powerful position.

However, the Taira camp too was divided. Its ranks in fact included a Minamoto, Tameyoshi’s eldest son Yoshitomo (1123–60). Yoshitomo was seen by many as the main contributor to the victory over his father, but he felt insufficiently rewarded. As a result, in 1159 he attacked the Taira forces in the capital, but was defeated and killed by Kiyomori.

What followed shortly afterwards – whatever the precise details – was to change the history of Japan.

By many accounts Kiyomori seems to have had a great passion for women, particularly Yoshitomo’s concubine, Tokiwa.
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He is said to have threatened to kill her three children by Yoshitomo unless she gave herself to him. She duly surrendered to his ‘advances’. Kiyomori’s own step-mother, Ike no Zenni, also seems to have pleaded for the lives of Yoshitomo’s children (six in all).

Whether or not this particular interpretation of events is true, it is a fact that Kiyomori spared all six children.
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It was a deed of humanity uncharacteristic of his usual ruthlessness. It was also exceptional by the standards of the day, for it was common practice – even sanctioned in law – to eliminate the family of vanquished rivals.
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Most importantly, it was eventually to lead to the downfall of the Taira. Two of the spared sons, Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147–99, the son of a priest’s daughter) and Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159–89, one of Tokiwa’s three sons), were to vanquish the Taira, ushering in a new era in Japanese history.

After his victory over Yoshitomo, Kiyomori settled in the capital and over the next twenty years or so immersed himself in court life, dominating it. In 1180, at the peak of Taira power, Kiyomori enthroned his own 2-year-old grandson, Antoku (1178–85, r.1180–83).

An aggrieved rival claimant, Prince Mochihito (1151–80), called for Minamoto support for his cause. Yoritomo, who had been in exile in the Izu Peninsula, readily responded. Perhaps aided by a general feeling that Kiyomori had ‘lost touch’ with the provinces, Yoritomo soon attracted large numbers of provincial warriors to his side, including his half-brother Yoshitsune.

Mochihito was killed that same year, and Kiyomori died the following year of fever, but Yoritomo continued the campaign against the Taira. There was some delay in the fighting due to widespread famine and pestilence, but in 1183 Minamoto forces seized the capital. The Taira, now led by Kiyomori’s son Tomomori (1151–85), fled westwards, taking the young Antoku with them. The Minamoto pursued them, and Yoshitsune inflicted the final defeat in 1185 in a naval battle at Dannoura, off the western tip of Honsh
. Tomomori threw himself into the sea rather than surrender. A similar fate awaited Antoku. He was held in the arms of his grand-mother, Kiyomori’s widow, as she too jumped into the sea.

An almost contemporary account of the death of Antoku reveals a strong element of Buddhistic fatalism, especially when his grandmother explains to him why she must end his life:
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Your Majesty does not know that he was reborn to the Imperial throne in this world as a result of the merit of the Ten Virtues practiced in former lives. Now, however, some evil karma claims you. … Japan is small as a grain of millet, but now it is a vale of misery. There is a pure land of happiness beneath the waves, another capital where no sorrow is. It is there that I am taking my Sovereign.

It was not necessarily a passive or negative fatalism. As the struggles for power show, some people of the day were not only active, they were positively assertive. But the outcome of things was attributed to fate. Though Buddhism does hold people ultimately accountable for their actions, and for the creation of their own fate, the insertion of karma and fortune into the cause and effect of events helped diffuse the issue of immediate moral responsibility.
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It was easier to avoid issues of conscience when the outcome of events could be blamed on an earlier life. This fitted in nicely with deep-rooted Japanese preferences for the avoidance of moral judgement.

The famine and pestilence that brought a temporary halt to the fighting were just part of a series of natural disasters during the last few years of the Heian period, adding to the man-made disasters of warfare. There was also, for example, a severe typhoon in 1180, a major earthquake in 1184, and a number of serious fires and floods around the same time. These events were described graphically in a work written some thirty years later by a retired priest, Kamo no Ch
mei (c.1155–1216). His
H
j
ki
(The Ten Foot Square Hut) of 1212 describes the famine and pestilence of 1181–82:
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