Nara 101

Yesterday I went with a friend to Nara.

Nara is a fascinating place for me for a number of reasons, but not least because it represents an iconic shift in Japanese history.

Before I go any further, let me explain some things for the uninitiated.

Nara is the name of a small city in the Kinki region of Japan. To simplify just a little, Nara was the capitol of Japan from roughly 710 to 784. (These dates are off the top of my head. They may be off by a year or two.)

Nara is also the name of the period of time between the above years. The Nara Era, in other words.

At the time, the Chinese dynasty was the source of most culture and learning in the far-Eastern world. Therefore, if one outside of China wanted to be "civilized", one had to basically imitate China. We see that trend in other places as well, such as Shilla on the Korean peninsula.

Also, China, Korea, and Japan as political units as we know them today simply did not exist at the time. When I refer to these places, I do so only out of convenience; I do not literally mean "China", "Korea", or "Japan".

Ok, now that that's out of the way...

Before the Nara era, there apparently was a custom of relocating the capitol with each new emporer. Therefore, the capitol was of a much smaller scale and less ornate than it might otherwise have been. Also, because of this, there must have been a kind of expectation that the center of government would change fairly frequently, so there was a different mindset about such things in Japan in general at the time. In other words, there was a much more fluid image about the capitol and probably government in general. It makes me wonder just how central the government was at the time, but that's another story altogether.

Finally, after the emporer Tenmu ascended to the throne, he decided to build a permanent capitol for Japan. He did so in Yamato at a site called "Fujiwara-kyo". Although he did not live to see the completion of this new capitol, he is accredited with its founding.

Fujiwara-kyo, also known as Aramashi-no-Miyako, is known primarily as the first designed city in Japan. It consisted of the imperial palace in more or less the center, and streets laid out in a grid surrounding it. The imperial palace was much more elaborate than palaces before it, which is significant in my opinion, because it started a shift away from a small and mobile capitol to a large and fixed capitol.

But it was only a start.

In 710 the capitol was moved again. This time to Heijo-kyo, otherwise known as Nara.

Nara was built on an entirely different scale than Fujiwara-kyo, about four times larger, in fact! Imagine how the people of day must have felt to see this massive capitol! I'm in awe just looking at the ruins today! It copied the Chinese layout of capitols much more than did Fujiwara-kyo, also, with the imperial palace in the northernmost part of the city. And the imperial palace was just huge, especially considering the day and age.

Most significantly, Nara was the capitol of Japan for over 60 years, barring a short span of about 5 years in roughly the middle of the Nara Era. This was a long time, spanning the reign of over 7 emporers! To the best of my knowledge, this was just unheard of at the time, and it showed a marked shift in the politics of the time. It is to me when Japan entered the contemporary "modern" world.

In other words, the birth of Japan as a serious coherent political unit.

(I'm sorry, this is starting to get long. I'll stop here for now. Thanks for your patience!)