【予習】ASNS2631 Week3 Lecture【Preperation】

Tutorial discussion:

1. What is the relationship between Buddhism and the imperial family? What is the relationship between Buddhism and Shintō?

As the seat of the 'imperial state', the capital may have housed as many as 10,000 government officials, and as the central cathedral of a national Buddhism, the landscape was dotted with temples large and small.

The function of Buddhism as 'protector of the state'(p.332)

In Nara, it was Temmu's great-grandson Obito [1 (Emperor Shomu, r. 724- 749) who built the edifice of state-sponsored Buddhism, centered on the cult of Vairocana and of the emperor, in Todaiji.

→Buddhism was national religion for Imperial family.




Dokyo affair represented serious conflicts between Shinto legitimating principles and Buddhist principles.

→Conflict between Buddhism and Shintoism because emperor gave much more power to Buddhist  




The revulsion against Dokyo, and the reaction against Nara Buddhist institutions may be part of the reason for the move of the capital.

→Because of Buddhism become more powerful and started to involve in politics, emperor Kanmu didn't like to Buddhism involved to politics. Therefore, he have moved capital to Heiankyo平安京.





The devoutly Buddhist Shomu, who had declared himself 'the servant of the Three Treasures' of Buddhism, however, found himself trapped by conflicting desires. On the one hand he wished to abdicate and devote himself to the pursuit of religious progress by taking religious vows, but on the other he also wanted to preserve the monarchy in his own line

→It is complex that one side he follow Buddhism, but other side he want to control the politics by himself. Not by Buddhism.

2. How was imperial succession arranged in the Nara period? What were the
(dis)advantages?

 the glory of the Nara period dominated by the Temmu line.

→The achievement of Tenmu is equally the achievement of Nara period.

the desire of the imperial house (Kammu) and the bureaucracy (nobility) to escape the baneful influence of the Nara-centered Buddhist church

→moved capital

3. What is the difference between a “court” and a “capital city”?

to phrase the question in different terms, was Heijo the 'first permanent capital', or merely the penultimate 'court'?

→These conclusions must be regarded as tentative, but however much the founding of Heijo in 710 may have been based on the expectation that it was to be a permanent capital

What would be the founding of Heijo?

• population?
• Enormous building?
• Emperor?
• Middle of politics?
• End of silkroad?

4. What motivated the construction of a capital city? The reasons may have varied over
time so consider each capital separately.

Heijokyo平城京

Emperor wanted to be far way from Asuka飛鳥 because there were old aristocrats who are Yamato clans. Emperor wanted to hold his own power to control the country.

→Source in Japanese.平城京に遷都されたのは、なぜか？　平城京から遷都されたのは、なぜか？

Heiankyo平安京

First, Heijo was somewhat less an 'immutable' capital than we are accustomed to think, but still retained some characteristics of a court site that had to compete with other candidates in the capital district. A second, corollary point is that the emperor and the court were not confined to a single capital city, as they would become in the Heian period.

' ... the monks' immense　political success more than anything else contributed to the declining prestige of Buddhism and forced the Nara bureaucrats to transfer the capital site.

 Kammu himself in 788, that the new capital district was 'convenient by water and by land'

 an important consideration in both the prosecution of the frontier wars in the northeast, and the pursuit of communications with the southwest and with the continent.

The revulsion against Dokyo, and the reaction against Nara Buddhist institutions may be part of the reason for the move of the capital. But surely there are other reasons to explain the uprooting of an urban complex approximating 200,000 souls in population-about 3% to 4% of the total population at the time and to justify the vast expense of replacing the hundreds of official buildings and thousands of official domiciles that were to be abandoned.