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The Emperors of Modern Japan Handbook of Oriental Studies Handbuch Der Orientalistik The Emperors of Modern Japan Handbook of Oriental Studies Handbuch der Orientalistik Section Five Japan Edited by M. Blum R. Kersten M.F. Low VOLUME 14 The Emperors of Modern Japan Edited by Ben-Ami Shillony LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008 Cover illustration: Japanese Imperial Palace, Tokyo Japan. Photo by Lonnie Toshio Kishiyama, July 2006. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The emperors of modern Japan / edited by Ben-Ami Shillony. p. cm. — (Handbook of Oriental Studies = Handbuch der Orientalistik. Section 5, Japan, ISSN 0921-5239 ; 14) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-16822-0 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Emperors—Japan. 2. Japan— History—1868– I. Shillony, Ben-Ami. DS881.95.E487 2008 952.03092’2—dc22 2008026657 ISSN 0921-5239 ISBN 978 90 04 16822 0 Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................ 1 Ben-Ami Shillony PART ONE GENERAL THEMES The Strange Survival and Its Modern Signifi cance .................. 15 Imatani Akira The Way of Revering the Emperor: Imperial Philosophy and Bushidō in Modern Japan ........................................................ 23 Christopher Goto-Jones State Shinto and Emperor Veneration ....................................... 53 Shimazono Susumu Ise Jingū and Modern Emperorship .......................................... 79 Rosemarie Bernard The Emperor and the Left in Interwar Japan .......................... 107 Rikki Kersten Conservative Dissatisfaction with the Modern Emperors ......... 137 Ben-Ami Shillony Emperors and Christianity ......................................................... 163 Ben-Ami Shillony The Unreciprocated Gaze: Emperors and Photography .......... 185 Julia Adeney Thomas vi contents PART TWO INDIVIDUAL EMPERORS AND EMPRESSES The ‘Great Emperor’ Meiji ........................................................ 213 Hara Takeshi Taishō: An Enigmatic Emperor and his Infl uential Wife ......... 227 Hara Takeshi Empress Nagako and the Family State ...................................... 241 Sally A. Hastings Axes to Grind: The Hirohito War Guilt Controversy in Japan ....................................................................................... 271 Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi The Emperor in the Constitutional Debate .............................. 299 Sigal Ben-Rafael Galanti Akihito and the Problem of Succession ..................................... 313 Takahashi Hiroshi Contributors ................................................................................ 331 Chronology of the Japanese Emperors since the Mid-Nineteenth Century ........................................................ 335 Recommended Books in English ................................................ 339 Index ........................................................................................... 343 INTRODUCTION The historical role of the Japanese emperors was different from that of kings and emperors in most other countries. On the one hand, the dynasty was so sacred, that no one dared to overthrow it in recorded history. As a result, the same family, which does not even possess a name, has been reigning continuously in Japan for at least fi fteen cen- turies, making it the oldest dynasty on earth today. Although Japan knew many periods of internal warfare and political turmoil, except for a fi fty-six-year schism between two branches of the dynasty in the fourteenth century, the imperial family did not split into rivaling courts. This meant that, except for those fi fty-six years, there was always one emperor recognized by the whole country. The dynasty was based on the male line, therefore no other family, not even the aristocratic Fujiwara clan which for about a thousand years intermarried with the imperial family, could place one of its own sons on the throne. The possession of such a long and unbroken dynasty provided the Japanese with pride, and it kept the country from breaking into separate kingdoms as so often happened in other places. On the other hand, the emperors of Japan were weaker than royals in other countries. The imperial court of Japan adopted the trappings of the imperial court of China, but it never controlled the state in the way that the Chinese monarchs did. Since the ninth century, there has hardly been a Japanese emperor who administered the state, commanded troops, or initiated policies. Weak royals existed in other countries too, but in Japan this was the norm. Not expected to exercise power, the emperors of Japan could be minors or (unlike in China) women—the daughters of emperors—with the throne reverting to the male line after their reign (there was only one case, in 715, when a reigning empress, Gemmei, the daughter of an emperor and the widow of a crown prince, was succeeded by another woman, her daughter Genshō who was born from that prince). Unlike in other countries, where abdication of kings was a rarity, in Japan about half of the historic emperors (not including the mythical ones), despite their sacrosanct position, resigned out of their own will or on the demands of the people in power. The religious role of the emperors was to intermediate between the state and the Shinto gods and to perform rites that only they, as descendants of the 2 introduction sun goddess, were allowed to perform. This did not prevent them from patronizing Buddhism, and some of them became Buddhist monks or nuns after their retirement. The combination of sanctity and weakness, which characterized the Japanese emperors, enabled others—aristocrats, warlords, or former emperors—to manipulate them for their own benefi t. The imperial aura, which preserved the dynasty, also sustained the power of the actual rulers. Between the twelfth and the nineteenth centuries, the emperors sanctioned the authority of the military lords, while preserving the façade of a civilian imperial government. The success of the Tokugawa shoguns in unifying the country and maintaining a long peace was partly due to their ability to control the throne in an effective way. Despite their weakness, the Japanese emperors were the only ones who could bestow legitimacy on the actual rulers and provide them with coveted imperial titles. The emperors legitimized the status quo, but they could also sanction change. In the second half of the fi rst millennium, the imperial court was the conduit through which Chinese culture, including Buddhism, entered Japan, and in the nineteenth century it was instrumental in espousing western civilization. Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the fi fteen-year old emperor, Mutsuhito (known posthumously as the Meiji Emperor), bestowed legitimacy on the new government and its sweeping reforms. But ‘Meiji the Great,’ as he was often called, neither initiated nor controlled these changes. To the outside world and to his own people he was the para- mount symbol of the rising Japanese nation. He inaugurated factories, issued a constitution, and established a parliament, but he also declared wars, legitimized aggression, and authorized colonies. The imperial institution hindered democracy by sanctioning the authoritarian state, but it also provided the stability which was needed for modernization. As all praise was due to the sacred monarch, there was no room in Japan for a charismatic dictator, like the ‘great leaders’ who appeared in other modernizing societies. Throughout modern history, leadership in Japan remained collective. The emperor legitimized what the ruling group of politicians, military men, senior bureaucrats and imperial advisers had agreed upon in advance. He was rarely expected to choose between confl icting recommendations or to formulate his own policies. The postwar constitution, imposed by the allied occupation and embraced by the Japanese public, demoted the emperor to the status of a symbol of the state and of the unity of the people. Although that had, in fact, been his role throughout history, it was the fi rst time introduction 3 that his powerlessness was explicitly admitted and decreed. Today, the Japanese emperor has less authority than his predecessors, because for the fi rst time in history he has been deprived of his central role, which was legitimization. No longer the sovereign, he signs offi cial documents in the same way as presidents in other countries do, but does not sanc- tion anything anymore. Nonetheless, conspicuous components of his previous position have been retained. The same family continues to occupy the throne, the same title tennō continues to be carried by the emperors, the emperor performs the same Shinto rites as his predecessors, and the same man, Hirohito, who had reigned before and during the war, remained on the throne for nearly forty-four years after the war ended. Japan
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