古墳の調査と復古を生んだ蒲生君平Kunpei Gamo and the Revival of the Kofun
Today, we explore a figure who played a crucial role in investigating and reviving 1,500-year-old kofun (ancient burial mounds) during the late Edo period, ultimately shaping the spirit of a new era.
As of today, approximately 160,000 kofun have been identified across Japan. These burial mounds vary greatly in shape and size. The top ten prefectures with the most kofun are as follows:
- Hyogo Prefecture: 18,707
- Tottori Prefecture: 13,505
- Kyoto Prefecture: 13,103
- Chiba Prefecture: 12,772
- Okayama Prefecture: 11,880
- Hiroshima Prefecture: 11,334
- Fukuoka Prefecture: 10,759
- Nara Prefecture: 9,663
- Mie Prefecture: 7,128
- Gifu Prefecture: 5,218
On the other hand, some regions have no kofun at all. For example, no burial mounds have been discovered in Hokkaido, Aomori, or Akita Prefectures, while Okinawa has only two confirmed kofun. Despite the sheer number of kofun, attention generally goes only to the huge ones. These are mostly in Kansai, especially Osaka and Nara.
The largest, Emperor Nintoku's mausoleum (Sakai City, Osaka), has a mound 486 meters long, built in a massive three-tiered structure. Kofun in this area are World Heritage sites, so many readers may know them.
The kofun in Nara and Osaka, regions with deep historical ties to the imperial family, tend to bear the names of successive emperors. But how were these ancient burial mounds, built centuries ago, linked to specific emperors in the first place?
To put it plainly, none of them has any basis. Yet the identifications drew on the Nihon Shoki (completed in 720), long regarded as the orthodox account of Japanese history, and on local tradition as well, so they are not entirely wide of the mark.
Kofun drew attention in the late Edo period not simply because they were rare ancient tombs. As the era moved toward the great upheaval of the Meiji Restoration, they became one important ingredient of emperor worship.
Right up to the Bakumatsu (the final years of the Edo period), these kofun were hardly looked at, left to decay without maintenance or repairs. Even now, 99% of kofun, all but those deemed important, lie in ruin and no longer keep their former shape.
Toward the end of the Bakumatsu, the view that kofun were the tombs of successive emperors spread among some people, and their resentment grew fierce against the Tokugawa shogunate, which neither repaired nor managed them.
These people read one book closely: Sanryoshi (山陵志, Records of Imperial Mausoleums), written by Kunpei Gamo (蒲生君平, 1768–1813), a Confucian scholar born in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture.
Kofun themselves had been surveyed and reported piecemeal throughout the Edo period, but the systematizing began with this book.
The work of surveying kofun one after another and arranging them systematically took Kunpei his whole life. In 1796, he traveled to Kyoto for his first survey, and from 1799 onward, he fully committed himself to his research.
By 1800, he embarked on a journey to survey all kofun in Osaka, eventually bringing his findings to Norinaga Motoori (本居宣長), a scholar of National Learning (kokugaku) in Ise (Mie Prefecture). Even for Norinaga, who studied the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters), Kunpei, who did actual fieldwork on kofun, was someone to respect.
He went on tirelessly, even crossing to Sado Island (Niigata Prefecture) to survey kofun. As this shows, Kunpei was a born traveler.
What drove him? To know that, we need the background of the age. What mattered most, I infer, was meeting in his youth fellow travelers who surveyed the whole country with Japan's future in mind and held far-sighted views: Shihei Hayashi (林子平, 1738–1793) and Hikokuro Takayama (高山彦九郎, 1747–1793).
Shihei was the first to stress the importance of coastal defense, and Hikokuro was a man who set the spirit of the Meiji Restoration. Kunpei visited them and learned a great deal from these predecessors, who likewise cared about Japan's future.
Kunpei lived in an age in which Shihei's proposals were ignored by the shogunate, the domains and the court, and Russia then moved against Hokkaido. Many people were indignant, and the question of relations with Russia began to be debated hotly.
The intellectuals of the time were divided:
・Confucian scholar Riken Nakai (中井履軒) advocated ceding Karafuto (Sakhalin) and the Kuril Islands.
・Dutch-studies physician Genpaku Sugita (杉田玄白) favored diplomatic engagement with Russia.
Kunpei opposed both fiercely. He consistently argued for repelling Russia.
But mere opposition is armchair theory. To turn his claim into realistic policy, he held that the shogunate must first put its domestic affairs in order and create a discourse around which people would unite against foreign pressure. Building on Shihei's theory of coastal defense, his proposals were:
- Rebuild the finances.
- Strengthen the navy and build warships.
- Greatly widen the military role that had been limited to samurai, and establish an army.
- Prepare to resist to the end the foreign powers that invade Japan.
At the time, saying such things was considered extremely dangerous. The shogunate in fact regarded Kunpei's words and deeds as dangerous, saw them as slander of its intentions, and he came close to harsh punishment.
Fortunately, Jussai Hayashi (林述斎), a figure of weight in the shogunate and its spiritual pillar, thought highly of Kunpei, and he escaped. From then on Kunpei struggled to turn his research into books.