Journal paper
| Issue No. | No. 48 |
|---|---|
| Title | The Origin of the Title of Japanese Country and the Tennō (Tianhuang) System－Based on Newly Discovered Tomb Epitaph and Wooden Tablets |
| Author | Kao, Ming-shih |
| Page | 259-280 |
| Abstract | There has been a dispute about the time of the emergence of the Japanese Country title (yamato) and the emperor system (sumera-mikoto). My article suggested that the term yamato first appeared at 668 AD when the Ōmi code was issued. In the year 670 AD, Empress Wu Zetian, upon learning the change of Japanese Country name, ordered the change from “Wo” (yamato) into “Riben” (yamato, nihon). In 2011 AD, a Baiji soldier’s tombstone “Ni-jun epitaph” (d. in 678 AD) was discovered. “Riben” was mentioned in the inscription. This was first time the term “Riben” ever found in the inscriptions on bronzes and stone tablets. It was also very close to the year 670 AD when Japan was renamed. As far as the Tang Dynasty was concerned, it was evidently that Japan was addressed as “Riben” at the year 670 AD.
With the change of the name of Japanese country, during the reign of Tenmu Tennō (673-686 AD), the previous title for the Japanese King “ōkimi” was changed to Tennō (sumera-mikoto). This change was supported by the newly discovered wooden tablets in Nara area, where the term “sumera-mikoto” was inscribed. Thus, the Japanese title for the Tennō was first appeared in the Statute of Kiyomihararyō, which was compiled in 681 AD. The Tennō system was later confirmed and completed in the Statute of Taihōryō in 702 AD and the Statute of Yōrōryō in 757 AD. With the emergence of the terms “Riben”(yamato, ni-hon) and “Tianhuang” (sumera-mikoto), we could understand that after the Taika reform, Japan had made great efforts to establish a country ruled by law, following the model of the Tang Dynasty. Around the Eighth Century AD, the state-building enterprise of Japan as a Ritsuryō Japan (a country ruled by law and regulations) gradually took the form of Tianhuang despotic system with the emperor (Tennō) as the supreme leader. |
| Keyword | the name of the Japanese Country, Tennō system, Jing Zhen-cheng epitaph, Du Ci-xian epitaph, Ni-jun epitaph |
| Attached File | File download |