City Planning and Palace Architecture in the Creation of the Nara Political Order: the Accomodation of Place and Purpose at Heijo-Ky6
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East Asian History VOLUME 1 • JUNE 1991 THE CONTINUATION OF Papers on Far EasternHistory Institute of Advanced Studies Australian National University Editor Geremie Barme Assistant Editor Helen Lo Editorial Board John Clark Igor de Rachewiltz Mark Elvin (Convenor) John Fincher Helen Hardacre Colin Jeffcon W.].F.Jenner Lo Hui-min Gavan MacCormack David Marr Michael Underdown Business Manager Marion Weeks Production Oahn Collins Design Maureen MacKenzie, Em Squared Typographic Design Printed by Goanna Print, Fyshwick, ACT This is the first issue of EastAsian History in the series previously entitled Papers on Far Eastern history. As before, the journal will be published twice a year. Contributions should be sent to The Editor, EastAsian History Division of Pacific and Asian History, Research School of Pacific Studies Australian National University, GPO Box 4, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia Phone 06 2493140 Fax 06 2491839 Subscription Enquiries The Business Manager, EastAsian History,at the above address Annual Subscription Rates Australia A$20 Overseas US$20 iii Jt CONTENTS 1 The Three Kingdoms and WesternJin: A History of China in the Third Century AD Raje deCrespigny 37 City Planning and Palace Architecture in the Creation of the Nara Political Order: The Accomodation of Place and Purpose at HeijO-ky6 WilliamH. Coaldrake 55 The Darqad and the Uriyangqai of Lake Kobsogol Ceveng (C.t.tamcarano�translatedby I. deRachewi ltz &j.R.Krneger 81 Concepts of Nature and Technology in Pre-Industrial Japan TessaMorris-Suzuki 98 The Ching-shan Diary: A Clue to its Forgery Lo Hui-min 125 The Meiji Constitution: Theory and Practice Masuda Tomo�translated byA. Fraser 141 Using the Past to Save the Present: Dai Qing's Historiographical Dissent GeremieBarme iv Cover calligraphy Yan Zhenqing M�J�O, Tang calligrapher and statesman Cover illustration 'Rokuro'[Lathel, by Tachibana Minko ��IttI, in Saiga shokunin burui�il�A m� [Illustrations of different types of craftsmenl, Edo, 1770 CITY PLANNING AND PALACE ARCHITECTURE IN THE CREATION OF THE NARA POLITICAL ORDER: THE ACCOMMODATION OF PLACE AND PURPOSE AT HEIJO-KYO � WilliamH. Coaldrake The planned capital city now known as Nara was the focus of church and This is a part of a study entitled ArchitectuT'f! state, culture and technology, for most of the eighth century in Japan. Nara and authorityinjapan, to be published by Routledge in the Nissan Institute Japanese was officially established in 710 AD as Heijo-kyo lJZ�J;(, the 'capital city of Studies Series of the University of Oxford. I peace'. 1 Here the scale of urban planning and architectural construction wish to thank TsuboiKiyotari, fonner Direc undertaken by the Japanese state reached new and unprecedented propor tor-General of the Nara National Cultural tions as it strove to emulate in its institutions and their physical setting the PropertiesResearch Institute (NaraKokuritsu Bunkazai KenkyUjo), together with Kamei example of its illustrious contemporary, the Tang dynasty, then at the height Nobuo and Nishimura Yasushi of the Instit of its power and glory in China. Nara was the locus of imperial government ute, for their assistance. Figures 2-8 are based upon the Tang-inspired penal and administrative codes (the Taiba supplied courtesy of the Institute. Helpful ritsury)*3r�� codes), the centre of state religion and the matrix of a suggestionshave also beenmade by lnagaki Eiz6, Professor Emeritus of the University of classical court culture. It was equally the cradle of new technologies, Tokyo, and Geremie Banne and Kenneth particularly in city planning and in the creation of monumental architecture, Gardiner of the Australian National Uni exemplified by the Daigokuden *lin (Imperial Audience Hall) at the versity. palace and the Daibutsuden:*� � (Great Buddha Hall) ofTOdai-ji *:*�, 1 The second character now means 'castle', which, although later rebuilt on a more modest scale, is still reputed to be but in the eighth centuty meant a 'walled . dty' in the Chinese usage from which it was the largest timber-frame structure in the world. adopted. Historiographically, Nara demonstrates the opportunities presented by urban and architectural sources for reconstructing the past. City plans and architecture may serve as a rich body of primary sources not only fo r urban and architectural history but also for research into the development of the human institutions housed within their physical environment. A generation ago, Oscar Handlin andJohn Burchard called fo r the integration of the study of the built environment with institutional and social history in the preface to their landmark work, TheHistorian and tbe City : 37 38 WILLIAM H. COALDRAKE 2 Oscar Handlin and John Burchard, eds., Archaeologists and historians have devoted time and effortto the reconstruction 1behistorianand thecity(Cambridge, Mass. of urban forms and have given us a reasonably accurate deSCription of the and London: M.I.T. Press, 1%3), p.vi. evolution of the physical layouts at various periods. But the reasons for the 3 For example, Naito Akira, Edo no toshino development of those forms and their relation to the life conducted within them k£nchiku, supplementary volume to Edozu have rarely been treated adequately.2 byObu, ed. Naito Akira and Suwa Haruo (Tokyo: Mainichi Shimbunsha, 1972); Henry This issue may now have been addressed in the case of European cities, and D. Smith, "Tokyo as an idea: an exploration Japanese cities such as Edo and Kanazawa,3 but the problem has not been of Japanese urban thought until 1945: journalof japanese Studies 4, no.2 (978): adequately addressed in the case of Nara.4 This is perhaps understandable 45-80;James L. McClain, Kanazawa: a sev because little of the original eighth-century city stands today above ground enteenth-centuryjapanesecastle town (New level. Scholarly attention has been concentrated on the painstaking archeo Haven and London: Yale University Press, logical task of re-establishing the physical form of the city and of its architec 1982); Edward Seidensticker, Low city, high city: Tokyofrom Edo to the earthquake.How ture from beneath the mud of the paddy fieldswhich spread over the ruins the Shogun s ancientcapital becamea great of once proud portalsand halls of state afterthe capital was moved again in 1867-1923 modemcity, (New York: Alfred 784.5 Nara studies have been the province of the archeologist and of the A. Knopf, 1983); Edward Seidensticker, Tokyo rising: the city since the great earthquake historian specializing in interpreting the officialhistory of the era, the Shoku (Rutland, Vt. and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, Nibongi *.t *![!,B covering the years 697-792. Second only to the Nihon 1991); Mildred Friedman, ed., Tokyo:fonn sbokil3*_*C in the Rikkokusbi :1\1E5e or "Six National HistOries," it is alld spirit (New York: Harry N. Abrams, more reliable as an historical source because it largely dispenses with 1986). mythology and concentrates on contemporary events, recording decisions 4 A recent exception is a publication in tended as an illustrated work for children. of the day and activities of the court.6 See Miyamoto Nagajiro and Hozumi Kazuo, Considerable progress has been made in archeological endeavour and Heijo-kyil: kodai 110 toshi keikaku to k£n documentary analysis but the fruits of these endeavours have not been chiku, Nihonjin wa dono yo ni kenzobutsu brought together in order to recreate the entirety of place and purpose o tsukutte kita ka, no.7 (Tokyo: SOshisha, 1986). advocated by Handlin and Burchard. It is particularly important that this 5 The first known archeological survey of approach be applied to Nara, for place and purpose were not related simply the palace site was carried out in 1852 by by coincidence; there was a deliberate and sustained governmentpolicy to Kitaura Sadamasa, the Bakufu official in link the two as an organic whole. Central to our historical understandingof charge of the Yamato district. After the Meiji the entire Nara period is the relationship between the principles and Restoration, Sekino Tadashi surveyed the site and in 1897 established the location of processes of governmenton the one hand, and the principles and processes the perimeter of the palace compound. In of city building on the other. What, therefore, was the relationship between 1922 it was designated a 'historic site' by the Nara as a place and Nara as a centre of imperial government? How did Ministry of Education and protected from governmentpolicy and concepts of authority dictate the form of the city and fu rther urban encroachment. Initial excava tions took place in 1924 and the archeologi its architecture of state? calpotential of the site was confirmed.Since 1955, systematic archeological work has been carried out by the government agency The Relationship between Place and Purpose at Nara now known as the Nara Kokuritsu Bunkazai Kenkyiijo(Nara National CulturalProperties Research Institute).An area of approximately The relationship between architecture and authority has special impor 300,000 square metres, amounting to some tance in the case of cities planned primarily as government capitals. thirty per cent of the palace site, has now been excavated and details of many of the Throughout history cities have expressed the power of ruling classes. The buildings reconstructed. The results of the carefulstructuring of a built environment according to an overall conception surveys are published regularly as Heijo-kyU of human relations has definitive psychological and behavioural effects on hakkutsu chiisa hokoku. a community. This makes cities effective tools for social engineering, 6 I have relied on the version of the Shoku Ni hollgi published in Kokusbi taikei, vo1.2, especially through class-determined zoning of the populace and by regula- CIlY PLANNING & PALACE ARCHITEC.TURE IN THE NARA POUTICAL ORDER 39 tion of architectural style according to status. Cities have also acted as led. Kuroita Katsumi (Tokyo: Yoshikawa unsurpassed symbols of authority, partly as a result of the opportunity they K6bunkan, 1935), henceforth cited as Sboku afford to give physical expression to an all-encompassing vision of the Nibongi.