Imperial Politics and Symbolics in Ancient Japan: The Tenmu Dynasty, 650-800

3 Alibis

3 ALIBIS In a eulogy, Chitoko Takima no Mahito recited the succession to the throne of the imperial ancestors. Following this ritual, formerly called the Sun succession, Tenmu was buried in the Ōchino Royal Tomb. —688/11/11. Nihon shoki Great Kagu Mountain: At the sunrise-facing great eastern palace gate, A spring mountain stands luxuriantly dense; Unebi, that lush mountain: At the sunset-facing great western palace gate, A lush mountain rises mountain-perfect; Miminashi, green-sedge mountain, At the back-facing great northern palace gate In full splendor stands in godliness; The Yoshino mountains, lovely in their name, From the sun-facing southern palace gate Lie far off in the cloudland of the sky. —Anonymous poem on Fujiwara-kyō from Jitō’s reign. Manyōshū Tenmu, Yamato’s last great king and Nihon’s first tennō, is portrayed intheNihonshokiasanextraordinarymilitarystrategist,institutionbuilder, and ruler: powerful, charismatic, and numinous. Prince Toneri, the final editor of the work, allotted to Tenmu and his consort Jitō more attention (15 percent of the total volume) than given to any of the thirty-nine other rulers chronicled. Eight years earlier, the Kojiki’s Preface had already celebratedTenmu ’sJinshinvictoryinpanegyric,epic,andevencosmicterms.1 The Manyōshū, ancient Japan’s earliest monumental compilation of poetry, was finalized by Ōtomo Yakamochi (718–785), grandson of the leader of the Ōtomo forces, Tenmu’s allies during the Jinshin War.2 It offers the earliest representation of a Yamato ruler as kami-in-the-present in a poem about Tenmu, composed while he was still alive. These texts, the oldest extantcompositionsofhistory,mythology,andlyrics,datefromthetimeof Tenmu and Jitō, and they are about them as well, in direct or oblique ways. 50 | alibis Yet we are left in the dark regarding the year this celebrated figure was born, or his age when he died, routine entries for all historical rulers in the Nihonshoki.3Ontheotherhand,equallyunusualistheabsenceintheNihon shoki ofTenji’swake andburial.Foratleastthreedecades, Tenjiwasdenied the honors befitting a Yamato great king. The Shoku Nihongi, completed in 797, a century after the Nihon shoki, tells us that Jitō had a tumulus built for Tenji toward the end of her life. Until then, Tenji’s place in history had been usurped by Tenmu’s achievements in war and peace and by the image constructed around him.4 What ancient records and poems tell us or are silent about and the images portrayed therein are closely related. They feed each other: images halo achievements, which in turn shape memorialization . Tenmu came to possess power he seized by force, the highest one in the land, which is represented as if power, the highest one in the cosmos, hadcometopossesshim—rulingpower’sperfectalibi,providingitsholder an alternate identity wherein to hide. FromtheMargintoaNewCenter We encounter Tenmu first as crown prince. He is referred to as such in the Nihon shoki (inconsistently) and also in a Fujiwara Nakamaro house history (Tōshi kaden) of his uji, written in 760–762. Nakamaro suggests that considerable tension marked the relationship between the two brothers, if one may extrapolate from one important incident. At Tenji’s coronation banquet in 668, a possibly tipsy, probably jealous younger brother (“crown prince” in the text) threatened the new great king by plunging a long spear into the floorboards right in front of him.5 Startled, Tenji reached for his sword,butFujiwaraKamataripreventedhimfromstrikingdownthecrown prince.ThisanecdotecastsNakamaro’sgreat-grandfatherintheFujiwara’s role (by the 760s paradigmatic) of protector of the crown and throws an unflattering light on Tenmu’s uprising five years later as one rooted in personal ambition.6 Next we meet Tenmu as rebel. When in 671, the last year of his life, Tenji appointed his son Prince Ōtomo to the position of daijōdaijin (prime minister ),7 he sparked the succession issue that triggered Tenmu’s uprising. Tenmu left the court, retreated to the Yoshino Mountains, and from there launched his military campaign against Prince Ōtomo in the middle of the following year. Emerging victorious and with Tenji’s royal quarters in Ōmi destroyed, he built his own in Asuka. In hindsight, however, Tenmu was a transient in his own palace, for soon after he occupied it, he started planning Yamato’s first capital, Fujiwara-kyō. Ultimately, he created a “realm” alibis | 51 because he fashioned a center by mobilizing cosmic notions of centrality. Tenmu did not simply replace Tenji as the next great king. Presided over by a tennō, Tenmu’s regime was of a different order. After his victory...