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Ritsuryō
, , is the historical law system based on the philosophies of Confucianism and Chinese Legalism in Japan. The political system in accord to Ritsuryō is called "Ritsuryō-sei" (律令制). ''Kyaku'' (格) are amendments of Ritsuryō, ''Shiki'' (式) are enactments. Ritsuryō defines both a and an . During the late Asuka period (late 6th century – 710) and Nara period (710–794), the Imperial Court in Kyoto, trying to replicate China's rigorous political system from the Tang dynasty, created and enforced some collections of Ritsuryō. Over the course of centuries, the ''ritsuryō'' state produced more and more information which was carefully archived; however, with the passage of time in the Heian period, ''ritsuryō'' institutions evolved into a political and cultural system without feedback. In 645, the Taika reforms were the first signs of implementation of the system. Major re-statements of Ritsuryō included the following: * '' Ōmi-ryō'' (近江令, 669) – 22 volum ...
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Daijō-kan
The , also known as the Great Council of State, was (i) (''Daijō-kan'') the highest organ of Japan's premodern Imperial government under the Ritsuryō legal system during and after the Nara period or (ii) (''Dajō-kan'') the highest organ of Japan's government briefly restored to power after the Meiji Restoration, which was replaced by the Cabinet of Japan, Cabinet. It was consolidated in the Taihō Code of 702. The Asuka Kiyomihara Code of 689 marks the initial appearance of this central administrative body composed of the three ministers—the ''Daijō-daijin'' (Chancellor), the ''Sadaijin'' (Minister of the Left) and the ''Udaijin'' (Minister of the Right).Hall, John Whitney ''et al.''. (1993) ''The Cambridge History of Japan'', p. 232./ref> The Imperial governing structure was headed by the ''Daijō-kan''. This council and its subsidiary ministries handled all secular administrative affairs of the country, while the ''Jingi-kan'' or Department of Worship, oversaw all matter ...
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Provinces Of Japan
were first-level administrative divisions of Japan from the 600s to 1868. Provinces were established in Japan in the late 7th century under the Ritsuryō law system that formed the first central government. Each province was divided into and grouped into one of the geographic regions or Circuit (administrative division), circuits known as the ''Gokishichidō'' (Five Home Provinces and Seven Circuits). Provincial borders often changed until the end of the Nara period (710 to 794), but remained unchanged from the Heian period (794 to 1185) until the Edo period (1603 to 1868). The provinces coexisted with the ''Han system, han'' (domain) system, the personal estates of feudal lords and warriors, and became secondary to the domains in the late Muromachi period (1336 to 1573). The Provinces of Japan were replaced with the current Prefectures of Japan, prefecture system in the ''Fuhanken sanchisei'' during the Meiji Restoration from 1868 to 1871, except for Hokkaido, which was For ...
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Yōrō Code
The was one iteration of several codes or governing rules compiled in early Nara period in Classical Japan. It was compiled in 718, the second year of the Yōrō regnal era by Fujiwara no Fuhito et al., but not promulgated until 757 under the regime of Fujiwara no Nakamaro under Empress Kōken. The penal code portions (''ritsu'') were largely lost, although they have been reconstructed. The content of the civil code portions (''ryō'') are preserved nearly fully, copied out in later texts. Overview The Yōrō Code was a revision of the Taihō Code of 701, and differences may have been limited. Still, when Nakamaro put the laws into effect in 757, it was unpopular among the nobility as it "slowed down the promotion schedule for officials." State of preservation While the precursor code (Taihō Code) does not survive, a substantial amount of Yōrō Code is preserved in the piece, (833), especially the civil codes. In English-language scholarly literature, some commentators ...
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Ōmi Code
The are a collection of governing rules compiled in 668AD, hence being the first collection of Ritsuryō laws in classical Japan. These laws were compiled by Fujiwara no Kamatari under the order of Emperor Tenji. This collection of laws is now lost and its disputed existence is supported only by short references in later documents (among which the ''Tōshi Kaden'', a history of the Fujiwara). It is furthermore missing from the ''Nihon Shoki''. The ''Ōmi-ryō'', consisting of 22 volumes, was promulgated in the last year of Tenji's reign. This legal codification is no longer extant, but it is said to have been refined in what is known as the Asuka Kiyomihara Code, Asuka Kiyomihara ''ritsu-ryō'' of 689; and these are understood to have been a forerunner of the Taihō ''ritsu-ryō'' of 701.Varley, p. 136 n43. See also * Ritsuryō * Taihō Code * Yōrō Code * Asuka Kiyomihara Code Notes References * Richard Ponsonby-Fane, Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1959) ''The Imp ...
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Taihō Code
The was an administrative reorganisation enacted in 703 in Japan, at the end of the Asuka period. It was historically one of the . It was compiled at the direction of Prince Osakabe, Fujiwara no Fuhito and Awata no Mahito. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Taihō Code" in . The work was begun at the request of Emperor Monmu and, like many other developments in the country at the time, it was largely an adaptation of the governmental system of China's Tang dynasty. The establishment of the Taihō Code was one of the first events to include Confucianism as a significant element in the Japanese code of ethics and government. The Code was revised during the Nara period to accommodate certain Japanese traditions and practical necessities of administration. The revised edition was named the . Major work on the Yōrō Code was completed in 718. The Taihō Code contained only two major departures from the Tang model. First, government positions and class status were based on birth ...
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Asuka Kiyomihara Code
The refers to a collection of governing rules compiled and promulgated in 689, one of the first, if not the first collection of Ritsuryō laws in classical Japan. This also marks the initial appearance of the central administrative body called the ''Daijō-kan'' (Council of State) composed of the three ministers—the ''Daijō-daijin'' (Chancellor), the ''Sadaijin'' (Minister of the Left) and the ''Udaijin'' (Minister of the Right).Hall, John Whitney ''et al.'' (1993) ''The Cambridge History of Japan'', p. 232./ref> In 662, Emperor Tenji is said to have compiled the first Japanese legal code known to modern historians. The Ōmi-ryō, consisting of 22 volumes, was promulgated in the last year of Tenji's reign. This legal codification is no longer extant, but it is said to have been refined in what is known as the Asuka Kiyomihara ''ritsu-ryō'' of 689. The compilation was commenced in 681 under Emperor Tenmu. The Emperor died in 686, but the finalization of the Code took a few ...
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Shōen
A was a field or manor in Japan. The Japanese term comes from the Tang dynasty Chinese term "莊園" (Mandarin: ''zhuāngyuán'', Cantonese: ''zong1 jyun4''). Shōen, from about the 8th to the late 15th century, describes any of the private, tax free, often autonomous estates or manors whose rise undermined the political and economic power of the emperor and contributed to the growth of powerful local clans. The estates developed from land tracts assigned to officially sanctioned Shintō shrines or Buddhist temples or granted by the emperor as gifts to the Imperial family, friends, or officials. As these estates grew, they became independent of the civil administrative system and contributed to the rise of a local military class. With the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate, or military dictatorship, in 1192, centrally appointed stewards weakened the power of these local landlords. The shōen system passed out of existence around the middle of the 15th century, when village ...
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Nara Period
The of the history of Japan covers the years from CE 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the capital of Japanese civilization until Emperor Kanmu established a new capital, Nagaoka-kyō, in 784, before moving to Heian-kyō, modern Kyoto, a decade later in 794. Japanese society during this period was predominantly agricultural and centered on village life. Most of the villagers followed Shintō, a religion based on the worship of natural and ancestral spirits named ''kami.'' The capital at Nara was modeled after Chang'an, the capital city of the Tang dynasty. In many other ways, the Japanese upper classes patterned themselves after the Chinese, including adopting the Chinese writing system, Chinese fashion, and a Chinese version of Buddhism. Literature Concentrated efforts by the imperial court to record its history produced the ...
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Asuka Period
The was a period in the history of Japan lasting from 538 to 710 (or 592 to 645), although its beginning could be said to overlap with the preceding Kofun period. The Yamato polity evolved greatly during the Asuka period, which is named after the Asuka region, about south of the modern city of Nara. The Asuka period is characterized by its significant artistic, social, and political transformations, having their origins in the late Kofun period. The introduction of Buddhism marked a change in Japanese society. The Asuka period is also distinguished by the change in the name of the country from to . Naming The term "Asuka period" was first used to describe a period in the history of Japanese fine-arts and architecture. It was proposed by fine-arts scholars and Okakura Kakuzō around 1900. Sekino dated the Asuka period as ending with the Taika Reform of 646. Okakura, however, saw it as ending with the transfer of the capital to the Heijō Palace of Nara. Although historians ge ...
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Gokishichidō
was the name for ancient administrative units organized in Japan during the Asuka period (AD 538–710), as part of a legal and governmental system borrowed from the Chinese. Though these units did not survive as administrative structures beyond the Muromachi period (1336–1573), they did remain important geographical entities until the 19th century. Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). The Gokishichidō consisted of five provinces in the Kinai () or capital region, plus seven ''dō'' () or circuits, each of which contained provinces of its own. When Hokkaido was included as a circuit after the defeat of the Republic of Ezo in 1869, the system was briefly called . The abolition of the ''han'' system abolished the -han (early modern feudal domains) in 1871, -dō/circuits and provinces were per se not abolished by the abolition of domains; but the prefectures that sprang from the domains became the primary administrative division of the country and were soon merged and reorganized to terr ...
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Kokushi (official)
were provincial officials in Classical Japan. They were nobles sent from the central government in Kyoto to oversee a province, a system that was established as part of the Taika Reform in 645, and enacted by the ''Ritsuryō'' system. There were four classes of ''kokushi'', from the highest to the lowest: ''Kami'' (守), ''Suke'' (介), ''Jō'' (掾), and ''Sakan'' (目). In the Middle Ages, an acting governor called ''mokudai'', the ''daikan'' of the ''kokushi'', took over the local government of the province, while the ''kokushi'' returned to the capital to take on a supervising role. History The oldest reference to the term ''kokushi'' appears on the Seventeen-article constitution from 604. As part of the Taika Reform in 645, a new system of provincial government was established, marking the beginning of the ''kokushi''. Before this, the governors were called ''mikotomochi'' (宰 or 使者). This term was replaced with the ''kanji'' characters 国 (province) and 司 (governo ...
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Jingi-kan
The , also known as the Department of Shinto Affairs, Department of Rites, Department of Worship, as well as Council of Divinities, was a Japanese Imperial bureaucracy established in the 8th century, as part of the ''ritsuryō'' reforms. It was first consolidated under Taihō Code which established the and Daijō-kan, the . However, the department and Daijō-kan made its first appearance in the Asuka Kiyomihara Code. While ''Daijō-kan'' handled secular administrative affairs of the country, ''Jingi-kan'' oversaw almost all matters related to Shintō, particularly of ''kami'' worship. In other words, the general function of ''jingi-kan'' includes to oversee ''kami''-related affairs at court, provincial shrines, performance rites for the , as well as coordinating the provinces' ritual practices with those in the capital based on a code called , which roughly translates to "Code of Celestial and Terrestrial Deities" or "Code of Heavenly and Earthly Gods". While the department exist ...
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