n
o
heia n japa n
center s a nd
Per ipher ies
•
Edited by
Mikael Adolphson, Edward Kamens,
and Stacie Matsumoto
Heian Japan, Centers and peripHeries
Heian Japan,
Centers and Peripheries
Mikael adolpHson,
edward kaMens, and
staCie MatsuMoto,
editors
University of Hawai‘i Press
d
Honolulu
© 2007 University of Hawai‘i Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
12 11 10 09 08 07 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Heian Japan, centers and peripheries / Mikael Adolphson,
Edward Kamens, and Stacie Matsumoto, editors.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn-13: 978-0-8248-3013-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
isBn-10: 0-8248-3013-X (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Japan — History — Heian period, 794–1185.
I. Adolphson, Mikael S., 1961– II. Kamens, Edward,
1952– III. Matsumoto, Stacie, 1969–
ds856. H424 2007
952'.01 — dc22
2006024714
University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acidfree paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and
durability of the Council on Library Resources.
Designed by April Leidig-Higgins
Printed by Edwards Brothers Inc.
Contents
List of Maps, Figures, and Tables vii
Acknowledgments ix
Terminology and Translations xi
1 Between and Beyond Centers and Peripheries 1
Mikael adolpHson and edward kaMens
PartI.LocatingPoliticalCentersandPeripheries
2 From Female Sovereign to Mother of the Nation:
Women and Government in the Heian Period 15
Fukutō sanae witH takesHi watanaBe
3 Court and Provinces under Regent Fujiwara no Tadahira 35
Joan r. piggott
4 Kugyō and Zuryō: Center and Periphery in the Era of Fujiwara
no Michinaga 66
g. CaMeron Hurst iii
PartII.ShiftingCategoriesinLiteratureandtheArts
5 he Way of the Literati: Chinese Learning and Literary
Practice in Mid-Heian Japan 105
ivo sMits
6 Terrains of Text in Mid-Heian Court Culture 129
edward kaMens
7 he Buddhist Transformation of Japan in the Ninth Century:
he Case of Eleven-Headed Kannon 153
saMuel C. Morse
PartIII.EstablishingNewReligiousSpheres
8 Scholasticism, Exegesis, and Ritual Practice: On Renovation in
the History of Buddhist Writing in the Early Heian Period 179
ryūiCHi aBé
9 Institutional Diversity and Religious Integration:
he Establishment of Temple Networks in the Heian Age 212
Mikael adolpHson
vi | Contents
10 he Archeology of Anxiety:
An Underground History of Heian Religion 245
d. Max MoerMan
PartIV.NegotiatingDomesticPeripheries
11 Famine, Climate, and Farming in Japan, 670 – 1100 275
williaM wayne Farris
12 Life of Commoners in the Provinces:
he Owarinogebumi of 988 305
CHarlotte von versCHuer
13 Lordship Interdicted: Taira no Tadatsune and
the Limited Horizons of Warrior Ambition 329
karl Friday
PartV.PlacingHeianJapanintheAsianWorld
14 Cross-border Traic on the Kyushu Coast, 794 – 1086 357
BruCe l. Batten
15 Jōjin’s Travels from Center to Center
(with Some Periphery in between) 384
roBert Borgen
References 415
Contributors 439
Glossary-Index 441
Maps, Figures, and taBles
Map 1.1. Provinces and highways of Heian Japan xii
Map 1.2. Central Japan xiii
Map 1.3. Heian-kyō in the mid-Heian age xiv
Map 2.1. he Imperial Palace compound (dairi) 20
Map 2.2. he Greater Imperial Palace precincts (daidairi) 24
Map 10.1. Late twelfth-century sūtra burial sites 254
Map 10.2. Sūtra burial sites in Kyushu 255
Map 12.1. Owari Province 306
Map 13.1. Bōsō peninsula 330
Map 14.1. Hakata and vicinity 359
Map 15.1. Jōjin’s travels 386
Figure 2.1. Imperial genealogy of the seventh and eighth centuries 17
Figure 2.2. Imperial genealogy of the early and mid-Heian period 21
Figure 4.1. Sekkanke genealogy during Michinaga’s times 71
Figure 6.1. Detail from MurasakiShikibunikkiekotoba 149
Figure 7.1. Eleven-Headed Kannon, Hokkeji, Nara 154
Figure 7.2. Eleven-Headed Kannon, Ryōsenji, Nara 154
Figure 7.3. Eleven-Headed Kannon, Chōenji, Osaka Prefecture 155
Figure 7.4. Eleven-Headed Kannon, Jikō Enpukuji, Wakayama Prefecture 155
Figure 7.5. Eleven-Headed Kannon, Tadadera, Fukui Prefecture 156
Figure 7.6. Eleven-Headed Kannon, Futagami Kannondō, Fukui City 156
Figure 7.7. Eleven-Headed Kannon, Kōgenji, Shiga Prefecture 172
Figure 9.1. Imperial genealogy of the early Heian age 216
Figure 10.1. Diagram of sūtra burial 249
Figure 10.2. Sūtra container 249
Figure 10.3. Chinese porcelain sūtra container 257
Figure 10.4. Bronze plate incised with text of the LotusSūtra 263
Figure 11.1. Drought and government orders to plant dry ields 290
viii | List of Maps, Figures, and Tables
Figure 11.2. Fluctuations in the price of brown rice in the famine
year of 762 290
Figure 13.1. Heike genealogy 336
Figure 15.1. Portrait of Jōjin 385
Figure 15.2. Genealogy of Jōjin’s family 387
Figure 15.3. Genealogy of key individuals associated with Jōjin 399
Table 3.1. Fujiwara no Tadahira’s career 37
Table 8.1. Kūkai’s interpretive strategy 199
Table 8.2. Correspondence between the ive HeartSūtra sections 203
Table 9.1. Jōgakuji 223
Table 9.2. Betsuin 229
Table 9.3. Matsuji 234
Table 11.1. he incidence of famine in Japan by century, 600–1900 276
Table 11.2. Climatological trends for selected centuries 280
Table 11.3. Famine years, extent and causes, 670–1100 281
Table 14.1. Changes in military administration in Kyushu 362
Table 14.2. he raid of 869 and its aftermath 367
Table 14.3. he events of the 890s 369
Table 14.4. he Toi Invasion and its aftermath 375
Table 14.5. Foreign contacts during the tenure of Fujiwara no Korenori 379
aCknowledgMents
Born as an afterthought following the conclusion of the Association for Asian
Studies conference in San Diego in March of 2000, this project began in earnest
in September of that year, when a planning group, consisting of Mikael Adolphson, G. Cameron Hurst III, Edward Kamens, Stacie Matsumoto, Joan Piggott,
and Mimi Yiengpruksawan, convened to propose a conference on Heian Japan.
Our goal was above all to stimulate interdisciplinary exchange and to further
promote discussions across national, continental, and generational boundaries
by addressing a common theme. To test the feasibility of such a project, a twoday workshop, which served as a forum for scholars to discuss their proposed
contributions to the conference, was held in September of 2001. An international
conference was subsequently held at Harvard University in June of 2002, when
scholars from three continents gathered for three days to focus exclusively on
the Heian age, a irst in the United States. he success of the conference made
a strong statement for the vitality of the ield, and the discussions that followed
bore witness to the many new issues that are still in need of further scrutiny.
During the course of this project, we have relied on the good spirit, support,
and cooperation of a large number of people, whom we would like to acknowledge. We would like to express our profound gratitude to the directors and staf
of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University
for their inancial and organizational support. he advice and encouragement
of Andrew Gordon, director of the institute, in the early stages and during the
conference were invaluable, and we are equally grateful for the continued support
by his successor, Susan Pharr. We should also like to acknowledge the crucial
inancial support we received from the Council on East Asia Studies at Yale University (Mimi Yiengpruksawan, chair) as cosponsor.
he conference kept the Reischauer Institute staf busy beyond reason in May
and June of 2002, and we therefore extend our special thanks to M. J. Scott,
Galen Amstutz, Ruiko Connor, Mary Amstutz, and Margot Chamberlain. Yōichi
Nakano and Emi Shimokawa provided additional assistance during the busy days
of the conference. he formal and informal discussions during the course of the
conference provided direction and motivation for the further development of
our essays and arguments. We are grateful to our discussants — Martin Collcutt,
Janet Goodwin, Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen, Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, Jacqueline Stone, Michael Puett, Detlev Taranczewski, and Hotate Michihisa — for
many insightful comments and suggestions. We would also like to express our
special thanks to Mimi Yiengpruksawan and Yoshimura Toshiko for their formal
presentations during the conference, as well as to Ethan Segal, Akiko Takata
Walley, and Takeshi Watanabe for their assistance at those surprisingly rare moments when translation and interpretation were needed. Anne Rose Kitagawa,
x | Acknowledgments
assistant curator of Japanese art at the Harvard University Art Museums; Anne
Nishimura Morse, curator of Japanese art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston;
and David Ferris, curator of rare books and manuscripts at the Harvard Law
School Library facilitated visits to these collections and arranged viewings of
rare items that greatly enriched the experience of the conference participants.
Our thanks also to W. David Garrahan, Jr., and Bruce Batten for their help with
several of the maps and charts included in this volume.
he conference organizers were particularly honored by the attendance and
participation of several distinguished scholars from Japan. In his remarks at the
conclusion of the 2002 conference, Professor Hotate of the Historiographical
Institute at the University of Tokyo noted with amazement that so many international scholars from disparate disciplines had come together around one theme
to discuss the Heian age. he norms in Japan still call for separate meetings of
historians, art historians, religionists, literary scholars, and so forth, but we note
that this, too, is changing. But one absence from the conference was most painfully felt. he late Professor Chino Kaori of Gakushūin University, whose works
on Heian and Kamakura art and gender have inspired many scholars in both
Japan and the West, was part of the small group of scholars who participated in
the workshop at Harvard in September of 2001, but she passed away suddenly in
January of 2002. It is our hope that this volume may in some measure pay homage to scholars such as Chino, whose insights into and approaches to Heian Japan
have encouraged us to look beyond traditional scholarly paradigms. We dedicate
this volume to her and to many others who have sought to shed new light on this
rich and complex epoch of Japan’s past.
terMinology and translations
In Japanese studies, scholars within the same ield frequently disagree on appropriate usages and translations, perhaps much more so if they belong to different disciplines. In our view, this is not necessarily a weakness since variations
may in fact indicate the actual historical usage of a term and point out the differences more clearly between modern and premodern linguistic usages. hus,
while we recognize the importance of consistency, and have indeed encouraged
it, the observant reader will also ind variations within this volume, but they
are relatively few and should not impede interested readers from engaging with
the general arguments. Although Japanese terms have unavoidably been used
throughout this volume, translations have been provided both in the individual
chapters and in the glossary-index. We have followed common academic practices in citing Japanese names with the surname irst, followed by the irst name.
When appropriate, we have retained the genitive no in names of large and highranking families (e.g., Fujiwara no Michinaga) since that was the practice during
the Heian era. For years and dates, we use the generally accepted hybrid form
— that is, giving the Western year followed by the month and day of the lunar
calendar. To help the reader locate entries in diaries that are cited in this study,
Japanese era names are consistently listed in the notes.
Map 1.1. Provinces and highways of Heian Japan. Source: Reprinted from Bruce Batten, GatewaytoJapan:HakatainWar
andPeace,500–1300(Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006) with permission of the author.
Map 1.2. Central Japan.
Adapted from volume
4 of Nihonnorekishi:
Ritsuryōkokka (Tokyo:
Shōgakkan, 1974).
Map 1.3. Heian-kyō in the mid-Heian age. Adapted from volume 8 of Nihonnorekishi:
Ōchōkizoku (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 1974).
1
d
Mikael adolpHson and edward kaMens
BetweenandBeyondCentersandPeripheries
T
his volume presents new approaches to and interpretations of the irst
three centuries of the Heian period (794 – 1086), several interrelated
aspects of which are reexamined or are analyzed for the irst time here,
in a group of studies that reach across disciplinary boundaries while
sharing a common theme or motif: the real or imagined coniguration of “centers and peripheries” and their many manifestations. As we use the term here,
“centers and peripheries” can refer to geographical or spatial relationships, but
it may also suggest various dynamics in, among, and between institutions and
collectives, clans and families, social classes and gender groups, practices and
conventions, and other entities, physical and abstract, that come under observation by scholars of this age.
his particular part of the Heian period saw some of its most fertile innovations and epochal achievements in literature and the arts, much of the process of
the consolidation of aristocratic authority in Kyoto, the emergence of powerful
court factions and religious institutions, and important adjustments in the Chinese-style system of rulership as well. At the same time, the era’s leaders faced
serious challenges from the provinces that called into question the primacy and
eiciency of the governmental system and tested the social and cultural status
quo (if, indeed, there was such). his image of crisis needs to be integrated with
that of cultural and ceremonial splendor, with the capital as its primary source
and site, which many with an interest in Japan will most readily associate with
this period. For this reason, a number of scholars have looked outward from
the capital (miyako) and toward the provinces (kuni) in recent years in order to
understand more about both. In this process, a middle ground of interaction,
negotiation, and accommodation has emerged as a site even more key to understanding than any particular center or periphery, be it capital and province or
otherwise.1 he capital and its denizens could not have lourished as they did
without resources acquired in and from the provinces; those in the provinces followed the cultural leads of those in the capital, but also put pressure on and made
their own distinctive contributions to cultural production at home, in adjacent
regions, and in the central metropolis itself. When challenges to the prevailing
order arose in the provinces, the tremors were felt at every level of the society
of the capital and in many of its modes of cultural expression; when structures
shifted in the capital, opportunities arose for altering the order in outlying areas
as well. he results of these new pressures, intermittent clashes, and ongoing
tensions were, of course, changes, some subtle, some more obvious, and not all
2 | Mikael adolpHson and edward kaMens
at one time or in one place. For these reasons, the authors of the essays in this
volume believe that a conceptualization of Heian Japan must not only take into
account conditions at the center and the various peripheries, but must also, and
above all, address the interrelationships between and among these spheres.
he timing of the publication of this volume is especially itting, given the
changes in approaches to texts and sources that have brought the methodologies
of many historians and scholars of art, literature, and religion closer together.
Hence it is not only a common interest in Heian Japan but also a new awareness
of commonalities in our modes of research that have energized this project and
have shaped its outcome. While this work self-consciously follows a tradition
of edited volumes of essays on premodern Japan, beginning with Studiesinthe
InstitutionalHistoryofEarlyModernJapan (1968), it also breaks with its predecessors in its common focus on one theme explored assiduously and collectively
across disciplinary boundaries.2 It is not only in the study of premodern Japan,
or in research on this particular period or parts thereof, that the theme or image
of centers and peripheries has presented itself as a compelling model, a powerful
instigator for new eforts to represent our understandings of the shape and experience of the past — only to resolve or dissolve, chimera-like, as investigations
proceed still deeper into the texts and other artifacts of that past that inevitably
make the emerging new picture still more blurred and markedly more complex.
In the essays in this volume, “center and periphery” serves as a point of departure and in some cases also as a point of return; it emerges as a construct to be
contested, redeined, modiied, augmented, or elaborated. It is illustrated or mirrored in an array of examples and phenomena that are juxtaposed as singular or
plural centers and peripheries, physical and abstract, topographical, institutional,
rhetorical, textual, and human. Some of these juxtapositions are explored within
individual essays; others will take shape as the investigations of one author or
another come into dialogue with still others.
his happens, for example, in the encounter between the igures of the wellknown courtier Fujiwara no Michinaga (966 – 1027), treated in detail here by
G. Cameron Hurst III, and Taira no Tadatsune (967 – 1031), whose life and career
is the topic of Karl Friday’s essay. Michinaga was perhaps the Heian courtier par
excellence and the most powerful man at the time when what may be Japan’s
greatest literary work, he TaleofGenji (Genjimonogatari), was written, while
Taira no Tadatsune’s seizure of the provincial headquarters in three provinces
in the east from 1028 to 1031 (shortly after Michinaga’s passing) has traditionally been interpreted as a sign of the imperial court’s decline. On the surface,
these igures can be said to represent the two contrasting (received) images of
the Heian world — tranquil, centralized, and civil at its core; unstable, dispersed,
and violent at the edges — and thus to personify the fundamental dichotomy of
capital versus countryside. However, as Hurst’s and Friday’s studies show, and
as many of the essays in this volume suggest, igures, events, relationships, and
policies in Heian society were much more complex than that, and the most interesting part of such stories is often that which is played out in the spaces in between the sites in which such major characters perform and in the often tangled
Between and Beyond Centers and Peripheries | 3
account of what transpires in or as a result of their interaction. he complexity
that is suggested here represents a difuseness, a multiplicity of forces and loci of
action, and a plurality of voices and actors in shifting roles rather than an isolated
society centered on one elite, one cultural modus operandi, one set of beliefs, or
any seemingly simple pairings of actors or sites. What emerges in place of the
former and simpler dichotomous image of a top and bottom, center and periphery Heian Japan is a number of newly observed patterns, conigurations, and
themes that deserve to be noted for what they indicate in the relations between
a variety of centers and peripheries — and in other spaces in between them. If
the Heian period was indeed an era of fundamental changes, then there are also
some fundamental changes in our images and understandings of it that should
be given serious consideration. hese are suggested by the essays collected here,
and might be organized as follows.
he Early Tenth-Century Turning Point
Several of the essays in this volume indicate that there was something of a quiet
watershed in the irst half of the tenth century, in which those holding power
at the political centers had no choice but to adopt a less rigid state apparatus.
he result was a new system of communicating, ruling, and administrating that
relied primarily on the personal and private powers and abilities of the people involved while still retaining the basic structures of the general social hierarchies.
For instance, while the imperial court retained the right to appoint governors,
the latter were contracted to deliver taxes at a speciic rate in return for less supervision and the opportunity to reap inancial beneits. Such adjustments were
crucial in that they helped avoid what might otherwise have been a debilitating crisis for the imperial court, which found it increasingly diicult to control
local powers and to collect taxes under the procedures of the ritsuryō (penal and
administrative code) state. Contrary to traditional interpretations, which saw
this change as a sign of the imperial court’s collapse, we see in it a means for the
capital elites to maintain, if not strengthen, their administrative control of the
various peripheries, by accommodating the needs of enough peripheral powers
to keep them at bay.
he strongest indicator of the early tenth-century transformation is undoubtedly visible in the imperial court’s administration of taxes and the provinces. As
both Bruce Batten and Wayne Farris point out, the court came to shift from direct control to a hands-of tax-farming approach. In Batten’s case, this is evident
in Kyoto’s involvement in decisions regarding foreign missions as well as attacks
in northern Kyushu. Although one might expect a tighter central grip in times
of foreign raids along the shores of Kyushu, the court instead came to rely entirely on the individual capacities of oicials selected to serve in the area during
frequent raids in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. If such oicials were
incompetent or unable to deal with the situation, then a more competent person
was simply selected until the problems were dealt with. For Farris, the decline in
famine reports in the provinces in the tenth and eleventh centuries is not only
4 | Mikael adolpHson and edward kaMens
an issue of a lack of sources, but also relects the same kind of change in management of the provinces. Although it is diicult to ascertain how these famines
afected the courtiers and whether they represented a decline in revenues for the
capital elites, there can be no doubt of the lessening of direct capital management
of the provinces.
Joan Piggott’s analysis of Fujiwara no Tadahira’s political career at the court,
based in particular on his own diary, also indicates that the irst half of the tenth
century was a time of transition. Tadahira was the most important courtier for
close to two decades and was thus responsible for handling the provincial challenges of Taira no Masakado and Fujiwara no Sumitomo in the 930s. Piggott
argues that Tadahira was crucial in institutionalizing the regent’s role in the central government, while utilizing both oicial appointments and patrimonial ties
in dealing with provincial matters. His inluence over provincial appointments
reveal not a decline of central control of the provinces, but rather a mutual dependence with Tadahira’s maintaining the upper hand. Less than a century later,
the capital elites had worked out the kinks of this new management style, and
the attitude in the court’s handling of Taira no Tadatsune’s rebellion in the early
eleventh century aptly demonstrates the success of the new strategies. As Karl
Friday argues, despite the seriousness of Tadatsune’s raids and resistance against
the irst two captains appointed to arrest him, the court never seems to have panicked or felt overly threatened. Rather, it simply replaced the inept representatives
with a courtier who was better equipped to handle the insurgence through his
own private resources and connections with Tadatsune. Hurst provides further
evidence of this change as he notes that a new system, where public land was
divided into smaller units (myō) to facilitate the collection of taxes and dues, was
put in place at the beginning of the tenth century. As part of these new procedures, Hurst explains, the imperial court “essentially ceased its involvement in
the details of provincial administration in return for provincial governors serving
essentially as tax collectors.”3 For the inluential Michinaga, the assignment of
governorships to his own kin and retainers became an efective and beneicial
way of maintaining a close tie with the provinces.
In a similar way, Adolphson points out that the political elites gave up attempts
to control temples through a state network of approved designations in the tenth
century. But while one might expect an uncontrolled growth of religious institutions beyond the reach of the capital elites, the central monasteries of Enryakuji,
Onjōji, Kōfukuji, Tōdaiji, and Tōji became the new nexuses to which smaller
temples came to look for recognition and support. In short, once the ideal of a
state-controlled religious hierarchy was irmly abandoned in the tenth century,
the well-connected temples emerged as centers in their own right, and peripheral
temples throughout Japan came to be more tightly linked to them as branches.
his process was above all fueled by the increasing popularity of the Tendai and
Shingon beliefs that had begun a century earlier. Similarly, Ryūichi Abé inds the
origins of the ideological emergence of more independent Buddhist strongholds
in the early ninth century, when Buddhist texts were disassociated from Confucian modes of interpretation governed by the notion of service to the state. his
Between and Beyond Centers and Peripheries | 5
disassociation spurred further developments in the sphere of religious discourse,
as scholarship and writing were separated from the craft of politics that took
place in the tenth century. In short, the neatly centered bureaucratic imperial
state was replaced by a multicentered and broadened composite in which both
secular and religious elites were no longer controlled by the proscriptions of the
ritsuryō state, but were still part of the state itself.
Multiple Centers and Peripheries
It is clear from the essays in this volume that, contrary to the traditional view of
a dominating and static imperial court that eventually fell victim to its own rigid
ranking, a singular dichotomy between center and periphery is inadequate. We
ind both within Kyoto and in the countryside several centers and various degrees
of peripheries with luid boundaries and a substantial middle ground in-between.
Even within the imperial court itself, there was more than one nexus of power.
Fukutō Sanae demonstrates in her essay on women as rulers and imperial consorts that although women were relegated to the periphery of the bureaucratic
and ceremonial workings of the imperial state from the late eighth century, they
continued to wield power behind the scenes in spaces symbolically and physically adjacent to the oicial halls. In that sense, the Japanese description of the
age dominated by regents (ca. 858 – 1086) as a royal court state (ōchōkokka)may
accurately relect the centrality of the capital city of Kyoto (Heian-kyō), but it may
simultaneously give the false impression that other signiicant centers did not
exist. For example, during that age the most inluential monasteries emerged as
centers of power in their own right. As Adolphson demonstrates, the creation of
branch networks by powerful temples strengthened the presence of the elites in
the provinces while also broadening the center itself, inviting more temples to be
part of the pyramid of power. Abé’s analysis of texts focusing on the HeartSūtra
in the eighth and ninth centuries also indicates a broadening of the center as the
Buddhist texts themselves were disassociated and became independent from the
state, even as they continued to be crucial in rituals sanctifying it. In his study
of a surge in production of images of Eleven-Headed Kannon, Samuel Morse
focuses on Buddhist teachings that traditionally have been seen as peripheral
compared to the Tendai and Shingon schools. He criticizes such interpretations
for relying exclusively on textual analyses, where the esoteric schools have gotten most attention, in part because of their subsequent dominance in the second
half of the Heian age. Instead, Morse shows that the Kannon cult was yet another
important aspect of early Heian Japan, further reinforcing our impression of a
multifaceted and multicentered society.
If the political center thus appears substantially broader than previously
thought, then the periphery must also be characterized as appearing less peripheral. For example, both Batten and D. Max Moerman show that the Dazaifu — the
governmental headquarters in northern Kyushu — was a center in its own right.
Not only did it serve as the nexus for foreign communication in the Heian age,
but it was also the center of foreign trade during a period that has tradition-
6 | Mikael adolpHson and edward kaMens
ally been seen as isolated. hus, it earned the epithet “the capital of the western
periphery” (saikyokunodaijō), a clear relection of the Dazaifu’s importance to
Kyoto’s own status.4 hus, even as the court relaxed its direct control of the Dazaifu, its main oicial, the governor of Kyushu, was a man of and from the court.
Indeed, it might be argued that the Dazaifu was so important that had the court
lost control of it, it would have had a much more diicult time legitimizing its
rule. his notion is further supported by Moerman’s piece on sūtra burials, which
establishes the particular importance of northern Kyushu to the capital nobles,
as it was the most frequent region for such practices. Temples and shrines in
northern Kyushu were moreover tied to the court or temples close to the court,
and the Hachiman deity, with origins in northern Kyushu, had its own shrine
just south of Kyoto itself.
Robert Borgen examines the monk Jōjin’s (1011 – 1081) travels between two
political centers in East Asia, Kyoto and Kaifeng, both of which were not accustomed to dealing with one another on an oicial level. It is clear both from Jōjin’s
own account and the Heian court’s reluctance to deal directly with the Chinese
court in the eleventh century that the Kyoto elites were unsure how to relate to
centers outside Kyoto’s direct sphere of inluence. As Borgen demonstrates, the
Chinese court was eager to establish more frequent exchanges with its Japanese
counterpart, but the Chinese empire presented problems for the Japanese worldview, so Japanese leaders, who allowed commercial and other ties to lourish,
avoided formal diplomatic exchanges. At the same time, however, there were no
intrinsic tensions in religious terms, since such centers were found in multiple
locations both inside and outside the urban centers in both countries. Jōjin himself can thus be characterized as the middle ground that connected political and
religious centers in eleventh-century Japan and China. Such interaction would
not have taken place without the support of members of the imperial court in
Heian-kyō. he notion of an isolated Heian world would thus seem exaggerated
and misleading. Indeed, Borgen even argues that a premodern and distinct idea
of “Japaneseness” is visible in the Heian age, not because of isolation, but in the
context of consistent contact with other centers outside the imagined realm of
the Heian state.
Both Edward Kamens and Ivo Smits demonstrate that the old notions of Japanese writings at the center and Chinese writings in the peripheries, with women
identiied with the former and men with the latter in the mid-Heian age, do not
hold up to closer scrutiny. Rather, there was considerable crossover between the
two spheres, open to both negotiation and co-opting. Kamens inds a terrain of
texts and usages of techniques between these two extremes, with a substantial
and salient middle ground in-between. Smits shows irst of all that learning and
literary skills in and of themselves were central to the Heian elites, but he demonstrates that, contrary to earlier assumptions, Chinese writing endured as the
core of this literacy. Like Kamens, he rejects the notion of a simple dichotomy
between women’s and men’s handwritings, claiming instead that there was much
more middle ground than exclusive modes for either sex.
he overall impression from several of the essays in this volume is that men
Between and Beyond Centers and Peripheries | 7
and women of the Heian age recognized spheres within competing centers both
inside and outside Japan. Moreover, by the mid-Heian age, this multitude of centers had been allowed to grow and become immersed in the state itself. In other
words, a broadening and diversiication of the center occurred during the early
and mid-Heian age, a development that simultaneously resulted in an advancing
integration of centers and peripheries.
Integration of Centers and Peripheries
According to the traditional view, the relaxation of direct administration of the
provinces in the mid-to-late Heian age necessarily meant a decline of central
control and presence in the peripheries. However, as several essays in this volume
indicate, the abandonment of the bureaucratic management of the realm actually helped the central elites strengthen their control and make it more efective.
he establishment of private estates (shōen), a process that got under way during
the age under scrutiny here but that accelerated markedly during the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, for instance, has often been seen as a sign of decline.
In truth, however, the patrons and proprietors at the top of the shōen pyramid
belonged to the class of capital elites, and their involvement in the collection of
taxes and management of the estates through local stewards shrunk the distance
between rulers and ruled. Granted, the relationship between the top and management levels was not always smooth, but neither was that between provincial
administrators and the court, as evidenced in Charlotte von Verschuer’s chapter.
In the irst comprehensive analysis of four of the articles in the famous 988 petition from local oicials in Owari Province, she highlights the tensions between
ambitious governors and those who were entrusted with matters of provincial
administration. By contrast, the private administration of public and private land
became more efective from the proprietors’ and administrators’ point of view
because of the contractual nature of their relationship. And because local notables gained authority by representing central elites, the presence of the center
in the peripheries was more likely to be reinforced than weakened. If the balance
between the two parties shifted, then the contract could always be negotiated.
In short, the privatization of land helped to bring local elites into the centered
hierarchy, thus strengthening the integration of centers and peripheries.
It must also be noted, however, that integration should not be taken to mean
a one-way exploitative relationship. Von Verschuer’s study reveals the important
codependent relationship between local administrators and the central authorities, further proving the integrated nature of the relationship between them. We
detect an intricate power triangle of both codependence and competing interests
with the imperial court, the ofending governor, and the local notables. he offending governor was eventually deposed by the imperial court and could thus
not continue his innovative tax-collecting strategies without the endorsement of
the court. he capital elites were naturally materially dependent on the provincial population, but local oicials needed, and could utilize, the court to protect
their own position.
8 | Mikael adolpHson and edward kaMens
In Hurst’s treatment of Michinaga, the shift away from rigid bureaucratic
procedures again reminds us of the center’s concern with and strengthened
control of the provinces in the eleventh century. And the contributions by the
middle-ranking provincial governors (zuryō)and resident oicials were signiicant and important to the court elites, as indicated by the lavish gifts Michinaga received. In Hurst’s words, “he court depended upon the zuryō for their
livelihood — taxes, construction projects, and contributions both public and
private — while the governors themselves relied upon the nobles, especially the
Regents House, for appointments to the posts that guaranteed access to those
resources. Both parties seemed to appreciate this dependency.”5 Friday’s treatment of the Tadatsune insurgence also conirms the multifaceted and codependent nature of centers and peripheries, involving farmers and provincial elites
in the local arena as well as ranking courtiers and temples in the capital region.
he enduring ties between the center and periphery, he explains, were part of
a complex and intense “interplay between the rural and urban elites, relecting
a balance between centrifugal and centripetal forces.”6 Moerman notes that a
variety of sūtras from various schools were buried at a number of sites, all indicating a multitude of religious centers and a close integration between regional
and national centers. he best example is undoubtedly northern Kyushu and
in particular the close cooperation and mutual support between the Hachiman
deity and Tōdaiji as well as the establishment of Iwashimizu Hachimangū south
of Kyoto. he change of administrative strategies of the Dazaifu in the early tenth
century provides further evidence of the increased integration and co-opting of
regional forces. In Batten’s words, local powers were “bound to the center by their
own parochial interests.”7 hese are indications not merely of the capital elites’
co-opting powerful regional beliefs but in fact of strong religious and political
bonds. he Northern Kyushu periphery was, after all, not so distant from the
Kyoto center, nor even all that peripheral.
Adolphson uses the term “centering” in describing the creation of temple networks, which came to stand as a successful sign of the central elites’ strategy of
tying provincial powers closer to the center, favoring inclusion over exclusion.
he diference from the Nara age (710 – 784) was that the representations of the
center were private temples, not state-controlled institutions. Morse’s essay also
points to an increased integration between the cults in the capital region and the
provinces. he artistic production in regional temples has left us with compelling
evidence that monks of the Hossō school centered in Nara actively contributed
to the spread of the Eleven-Headed Kannon cult among local residents, perhaps
even more so than Tendai and Shingon in certain regions. Regional spiritual preferences as well as the artistic and religious ideas of monks educated at one of the
religious centers came together in the production of statues at provincial temples.
Finally, Smits ofers an analysis of how the peripheries were brought closer to
the center through texts dealing with social fringes. he absurd was made accessible through comedic texts, and people on the social peripheries, whether poor
or by occupation, were brought closer to the center through Chinese writings
(kanbun), the main medium of the learned at the center. In this way, the mode
Between and Beyond Centers and Peripheries | 9
of kanbun on the one hand relected its centrality, while its usages — topics, categories, and social decorum — all show its depth as a terrain of negotiation and
integration with the peripheries.
Privatization
he emergence of multiple centers outside the immediate structures of the bureaucratic state relects a phenomenon some scholars have referred to as a process of privatization, an older interpretation that seems supported by the essays
in this volume even if today’s scholars may prefer a diferent terminology. his
was a slow yet clearly visible trend of increased use of extragovernmental means
to rule and administer, whose roots could be traced to well before the Heian age.
For example, before the Nara age, hereditary ties and private assets played an
important role in politics. he “century of reform” from the mid-seventh to the
mid-eighth centuries represented an overhaul to replace a conglomerate of powerful families with a state based on bureaucratic rules and codes. John Whitney
Hall described the adjustments that began in the late ninth century as “a return
to familial authority.”8 It is safe to conclude that these trends toward extragovernmental means of rulership and lordship are visible almost everywhere and
that they had a tremendous inluence on developments both in the late Heian
age and well after. In Fukutō’s piece, we learn that principal imperial consorts
exerted enormous inluence over political matters at the imperial court, not as
empresses, as during the seventh and eighth centuries, but as heads of the imperial family and mothers or grandmothers of reigning emperors. Fukutō sees this
development as an important stage in the development of the imperial house
itself as a private entity and faction within the court, leading to the rule by retired
emperors (insei) that came to characterize much of the twelfth century. he same
trend is equally visible within the imperial court in the cases of Fujiwara no Tadahira and Fujiwara no Michinaga as demonstrated by Piggott and Hurst respectively. Hurst’s essay deals directly with the efects of the use of private ties and
oices in matters of the state. In Piggott’s contribution, Tadahira stands out as
one of the main igures in institutionalizing the usage of such extragovernmental
means and personnel. For example, when the Shingon center Tōji complained
against alleged intrusions into its property in the Ōyama estate in 920, it iled its
petition directly to Tadahira instead of using the oicial and established channel
through the Council of State.
he religious sector went through a similar transformation during this age.
Beginning with the imperial court’s acknowledgment and sponsoring of privately
funded and founded cloisters in the ninth century, inluential patrons in the capital and provinces continued to support their own set of religious ceremonies and
networks. By the tenth century, the most popular temples came to cater directly
to the needs of the capital aristocrats, thus gaining increasing freedom from the
religious parameters proscribed in the bureaucratic codes. Abé’s description of
Kūkai’s disengaging of Buddhist texts from the state-mandated Confucian paradigm speaks to the beginning of this process, and Moerman’s essay shows that