A Survey Of 12th Century Japanese Buddhism

Karen Andrews

Institute of Buddhist Studies Berkeley, CA

The twelfth century was a time of chaos and change for Japan. The governmental organization changed dramatically. The economic structure began to shift. There were innumerable battles of varying sizes. There were a number of devastating natural disasters. There was little or no governmental control over much of the country for much of the time. All this could not help but have an effect upon the religious climate of the country. Buddhism provided the context in which the chaos of the century was viewed. The climate of the age, which was interpreted through Buddhism, also changed the priorities of Buddhists. New sects started and old sects changed their emphases. Some of the new sects took Buddhism, which had been primarily the province of the aristocracy, and began expanding its scope to touch the rest of the population.

According to traditional historical reckoning, the twelfth century includes the end of the Heian era and the beginning of the Kamakura era. I will first describe the situation in the first part of the century, and then will describe how the situation changed towards the end of the century.

The Imperial Court in the First Part of the Century

In the first part of the twelfth century, Japan was ruled by the imperial court. The court was located at the city of Heian, which is now known as Kyoto. Although the emperor was officially in control of the government, the emperor was usually a young man or boy with limited political powers. The real control tended to rest in the hands of regents, retired emperors (who were older and had more experience than the emperors), chancellors, and other high ranking members of the aristocracy. There was often fierce political infighting and jockeying for power between the highest officials. Family allegiance played an important part in these political struggles.

Position in the government was determined by birth. Many important governmental posts became hereditary positions of certain families. Often the highest positions would be held by boys who were barely in their teens. Instead of devoting their attention to the dull details of governance, the aristocracy devoted much of their energy to cultural pursuits such as poetry, calligraphy, dress, the mixing of perfume, and codified forms of courtship. The Heian era was a time of flowering for Japanese culture. Aristocrats placed a high value on poetical ability and on other artistic talents. Elegance, refinement, and aesthetic taste were respected more than hard work or endurance. Ostentatious displays of wealth were the rule. Showy exhibitions were preferred in private life, public life, and religious life.

As ability and education were only occasionally used as factors in deciding appointments to important positions, and the aristocracy spent much of their energy and resources on cultural rather than governmental pursuits, the government's potency was not as high as it might have been. In reality, the imperial court had little control over the outlying provinces. As there was no official order, the strongest families in a region would take control by force of arms, and keep control over the area by maintaining an armed force. These families were the origins of the warrior class. They acted as governors, and for the most part, were free to manage the regions they controlled however they chose. The governors usually exploited the peasants under them, extracting extremely high taxes. Battles and skirmishes between opposing forces were common. However, the provincial rulers generally continued to acknowledge the sovereignty of the imperial court, even if that acknowledgement did not always translate into obedience of imperial dictates.

The imperial government's lack of control over the provinces ended up weakening the emperor's economic position. Originally, several hundred years earlier, all of the land in Japan had been officially owned by the emperor. This gave the imperial government the right to tax all the land. However, special dispensations were granted to certain landholders which made their land into "shoen," or untaxable land. Although the invention of shoen was not originally a problem, over the centuries more and more land was claimed as untaxable land. This was made possible by the disorganization of the national government. No one had kept careful track of which land had officially been granted tax-exempt status, and which land had not. Whatever system there was was further confused by the policy of allowing local governors to grant tax-exempt status to land within their jurisdiction. Although the imperial government made repeated attempts to halt the rapid increase in tax-exempt land, none of these attempts were successful.