朱の世界 2The World of Vermilion, Part 2

At the age of eighteen, in 791, Kukai enrolled in the only national university in the country. This was an extraordinary admission for the time and is often cited as evidence of his precocious genius. But his entry into the university is understood to have been made possible through the determined efforts of his maternal uncle, Ato no Otari. Kukai had left his home province of Shikoku in 788 and traveled to the capital at Heijo-kyo to place himself under the guidance of Ato no Otari, a man known as a scholar. For the next four years or so he devoted himself to study under his uncle's tutelage. Because the image of Kukai as Japan's most illustrious monk is so overpowering, a crucial detail tends to go unnoticed. What Ato no Otari was actually teaching him was not Buddhism. It was Confucianism.

During this period Kukai studied the Chinese classics that would later become standard education for samurai in the Edo period. His studies encompassed the Analerta of Confucius, the Classic of Filial Piety, the Zuo Zhuan, and extended to the techniques of literary composition. Whether Ato no Otari recognized genuine talent in his nephew or whether the uncle's motives were tied to advancing his own career as a scholar in Heijo-kyo is impossible to say. What we know for certain is that Kukai's admission to the university did happen. The university of that era was not designed for provincial gentry of Kukai's standing. It existed for the aristocratic and clerical elite of Heijo-kyo. His enrollment was therefore exceptional, and the circumstances behind it remain obscure. Yet it is precisely by pressing into this obscurity that we begin to see the forces that would later propel Kukai's rise.

What we can discern at a minimum is that his uncle Ato no Otari invested extraordinary effort in advancing Kukai's prospects. He poured himself into the young man's private education as though staking his own future on his nephew's success, and it is reasonable to infer that behind the scenes he was also distributing bribes to secure Kukai's university admission. No matter how brilliant the young man may have been, the prevailing values of Heijo-kyo would not have permitted such an exceptional arrangement on merit alone. As a member of the aristocracy himself, Ato no Otari would have been thoroughly familiar with such practices. So while we cannot determine what Ato no Otari's ultimate purpose was, we can grasp that he held what may be the only key to understanding Kukai's otherwise enigmatic youth. Unfortunately, the details of Ato no Otari's own life are almost entirely unknown. It is generally assumed that as a scholar he had managed to position himself in proximity to the imperial family, though some have suggested he may have fallen from grace in connection with a political upheaval in 807.

It is commonly held that Ato no Otari provided Kukai with financial and material support during his time in Heijo-kyo, largely because no other patron appears in the historical record. Ato no Otari was certainly an aristocrat and a scholar, but exactly what rank he held and what kind of life he led remains unclear. The aristocratic world of that era was one in which a single clan, the Fujiwara, had achieved spectacular dominance and was laying the foundations of the entire noble class system. I personally suspect that the dynamics of the ancient clans exerted a powerful influence on these events, and that by tracing those dynamics we can find clues that lead us back to Kukai. The place to look is at the surname [阿刀] (Ato) itself.

The Ato clan [阿刀氏] was one of Japan's ancient lineages and had entirely different roots from the Hata, the immigrant clan I discussed in the previous article. The origins of the Ato trace back to the Mononobe, one of the oldest clans in Japan. The two clans venerated the same ancestral deity, which suggests that the Ato lineage reaches deep into antiquity. That deity was Nigihayahi. His divine lineage is distinct from that of Amaterasu, the goddess positioned as the ancestral deity of the current imperial house, but in ancient Japan it was the faction aligned with Nigihayahi that held formidable real power. When the figure who would become the first emperor, Jinmu, launched his invasion of Yamato, it was through a transfer of authority from the Nigihayahi faction that the new regime was established. At the time Jinmu's forces did not know the enthronement rituals of Yamato, and so they relied on a figure called Umashimaji, a son of Nigihayahi and the man regarded as the founder of the Mononobe clan, to carry out the ceremony that installed the first emperor. Because of this lineage the Mononobe are considered the clan closest to the imperial line from its very inception.

Since Nigihayahi's base was in Yamato, in the southern part of the Nara Basin, both the Mononobe and the Ato are generally understood to have their origins in the Kansai region. However, much about the ancient clans remains uncertain, and the thought patterns of that era were so fundamentally different from our own that it is impossible to interpret these matters through a modern historical lens. It is best to understand that when groups of distinct origin came together to form composite tribal units and eventually clans, a shared ancestral deity became a necessary binding force.

The essential point is this. Both the Mononobe and the Ato are presumed to have wielded significant influence in ancient Japan, but everything changed when a civil war destroyed the Mononobe's hold on power. This conflict erupted in the late 580s. The Mononobe, who had maintained a deep relationship with the throne since the first emperor Jinmu and who controlled the political, military, and religious levers of the court, were defeated by the Soga, a rising clan that had consolidated the immigrant communities of Yamato. The power dynamics within the court were overturned. The Soga's ascendancy and eventual dictatorship began, and in the process the surviving remnants of the Mononobe scattered to regions beyond the Soga's reach. The Soga themselves are believed to have had immigrant origins, which makes them in a sense the dominant immigrant power bloc before the Hata rose to influence in the Heian-kyo era after 794.

The Mononobe were historically destroyed in this defeat. Yet it is possible that some survivors branched off under new identities and managed to remain within the orbit of the court. The clan lost its political authority and its leading figures were executed, but not every member perished. The lineage was not entirely severed. In fact, by the time the Soga's dominance had ended and the revolutionary fortieth emperor, Tenmu (r. 673–686), was building a new era through one bold policy after another, individuals bearing what appears to be the Ato surname begin to appear in the records. Tenmu also implemented a system of rank reform in 684 known as the Eight Titles, and traces of the Ato clan are recorded there as well.

To put it plainly, the Ato clan most likely emerged as a derivative lineage after the fall of the Mononobe. My own view is that descendants who had changed their names to survive reemerged and regained standing during a subsequent period of upheaval when the balance of power shifted once again. In other words, the Ato carried forward the legacy of the Mononobe. This perspective is critically important for understanding Japanese history, because in the end it is the dynamics between clans that drive the civil wars, the coups, and the relocations of the capital.

And here is the crucial connection. Kukai's mother came from the Ato clan, and his father is identified as a man named Atochi Tokoku. This figure is recorded as having fought on the side of Emperor Tenmu when the civil war that brought Tenmu to the throne erupted, and through that service he is presumed to have gained a foothold in the court. Likewise, the fact that Kukai's uncle Ato no Otari was active as an aristocrat in Heijo-kyo tells us that the Ato held a recognized position. But it was not a position of great influence. They were, at most, a family of distinguished pedigree.

To understand the Ato properly, I believe it is essential to grasp how profoundly Japanese history was altered by the emergence of Emperor Tenmu, a revolutionary and charismatic figure from within the imperial family. The civil war through which Tenmu seized power was the Jinshin War of 672. The leader of the opposing faction was Tenmu's own elder brother and the crown prince of the thirty-eighth emperor, Tenji (r. 668–672). Tenji's closest ally was Nakatomi no Kamatari (614–669), and together they had orchestrated the military coup of 645 that destroyed the Soga clan, which had built an entire era of dominance. Nakatomi no Kamatari came from the Nakatomi, an ancient clan that had been closely associated with the Mononobe before the Soga's rise. Because of this association the Nakatomi had suffered under the Soga dictatorship, which had consolidated immigrant factions to seize power.

But Nakatomi no Kamatari's role as the architect of the coup that brought Tenji to power earned him extraordinary recognition. The day before his death he received the surname Fujiwara directly from Emperor Tenji. This was the founding moment of the Fujiwara, the lineage that would come to reign over Japan's entire aristocratic system. Without understanding that the dynamics of the ancient clans are always at work in the background, the historical context leading up to Kukai's era simply cannot be seen. And the man who single-handedly built the Fujiwara's ascendancy in the next generation was Nakatomi no Kamatari's son, Fujiwara no Fuhito (659–720).

When Emperor Tenmu won a decisive victory in the Jinshin War and built a large-scale capital at Asuka in present-day Nara Prefecture, Fujiwara no Fuhito, who had been on the losing side, was spared execution on account of his youth. He was merely stripped of his aristocratic status. Yet from this lowest possible starting point he achieved a spectacular rise within a single generation. By the time Tenmu's consort ascended the throne in her own right as Empress Jito, Fuhito had acquired power that surpassed even the emperor's.

The capital during the period of Fujiwara no Fuhito's ascent, from 694 to 710, was Fujiwara-kyo, built in the Asuka region. As the name itself reveals, Fuhito was the driving force behind this relocation, and he clearly wielded enough influence to move the empress herself. Some scholars have suggested that Fuhito and Empress Jito may have been intimately involved and that he leveraged this relationship to consolidate his position as the most powerful political figure of the age. Jito abdicated in 697 in favor of her grandson, Emperor Monmu, but Fuhito's grip on power remained firm. When Monmu's successor, Empress Genmei, issued the edict to relocate the capital from Fujiwara-kyo to Heijo-kyo, Fuhito played the central role in that transition as well. This was the first time a capital was established on the Nara city side, but because the distance from Fujiwara-kyo was not great, much of the old power structure was likely carried over.

From a broad perspective it is no exaggeration to say that Fujiwara hegemony built Heijo-kyo. Their influence exceeded even the emperor's, and this demands attention. But what we must continue to examine is the dynamics of the ancient clans. The Fujiwara lineage was rooted in the Nakatomi, and while the Nakatomi had once been close to the Mononobe, the two clans venerated different ancestral deities. By the Heijo-kyo period their relationship was no longer intimate. When we factor in this background and examine how the Nakatomi lineage came to dominate Heijo-kyo, it becomes clear that the Ato, as a derivative of the Mononobe, were in no position to thrive.

Fujiwara no Fuhito completed the relocation to Heijo-kyo and died in 720. After his death, political power at Heijo-kyo was seized by his four sons. This seizure of power manifested as open conflict with the imperial family. In 724, when Emperor Shomu ascended the throne under Fujiwara patronage, a formidable imperial figure named Prince Nagaya (676–729) pushed back. Nagaya held enormous authority over imperial succession decisions, and as long as he retained that authority the Fujiwara could not freely manipulate the throne. They maneuvered Emperor Shomu into leveling charges against Nagaya and ultimately drove him to suicide.

When Fuhito's four sons eliminated this imperial powerhouse in 729, the Fujiwara golden age began. But in 737 a smallpox epidemic swept through Heijo-kyo and all four brothers died. The Fujiwara's momentum was temporarily broken. Yet the strategic architecture that Fuhito had spent his life constructing proved resilient enough to survive even the loss of all four of his politically powerful sons. The key was a daughter. Fuhito's daughter became Empress Consort Komyo, the first woman outside the imperial bloodline ever to be elevated to that position. This was unmistakably a residue of Fuhito's once-supreme power, though by this time both Fuhito and the four brothers who had won the political battles were dead. In these circumstances Komyo displayed a political acumen worthy of her father. She prevented the extinction of the Fujiwara by championing her nephew Fujiwara no Nakamaro, becoming the architect of the clan's restoration.

Through the efforts of Empress Consort Komyo and the Fujiwara lineage she sustained, the clan that had narrowly escaped destruction maintained its sweeping influence from the Heijo-kyo era through to Heian-kyo. They became a permanent axis around which political power turned. It was during this period, when the Fujiwara still held a measure of that power, that Kukai began his life in Heijo-kyo. The Fujiwara no longer commanded the glory of their peak, but they retained enough influence that any aristocrat hoping to advance in Heijo-kyo had to reckon with how to navigate their sphere. The Ato, however, had not risen to prominence. For them the path to advancement would not come through Fujiwara patronage. They would need to find a different road.

And the year Kukai began his studies under Ato no Otari, 788, was the moment the era began to shift dramatically. The reason was the man who had just taken the throne. The fiftieth emperor, Kanmu (r. 781–806), is rarely discussed in these terms, but he carried immigrant blood. His mother was a consort of the forty-ninth emperor, Konin (r. 770–781), and she came from a clan with immigrant roots. Later known as Takano no Niigasa, her father belonged to the Yamato clan, a lineage tracing back to the royal house of Baekje's King Muryeong, and her mother came from the Haji clan, another lineage with continental origins. Whether these ancestors had arrived in Japan during a specific recent wave of migration is uncertain.

Immigrant bloodlines had of course flowed into the imperial family long before this. But the important point is that Kanmu himself was someone the immigrant factions could consider one of their own. He was the central figure behind the relocations from Heijo-kyo to Nagaoka-kyo and then to Heian-kyo, and as I suggested in the previous article these moves required enormous budgets and technical expertise that were supplied through the cooperation of the Hata. Since the Hata were an immigrant clan, Kanmu's ties to the newer power blocs clearly ran deeper than his connections to the traditional ancient clans. Moreover, Kanmu had originally been raised not as a potential emperor but as a bureaucrat, because questions about his lineage had placed him outside the line of succession. He had even served in positions such as head of the imperial university. It was only around the age of thirty-four that complications in the succession brought him unexpectedly into contention for the throne. He had never been intended to become emperor.

Kanmu ascended the throne in 781 at the age of forty-five. Before that he had operated in a relatively independent orbit outside the conventional norms of the imperial family, and his deep engagement with scholarship is well attested. It may have been during this period that he formed a relationship with the scholar Ato no Otari, a connection that could explain why Otari was later entrusted with the education of Kanmu's third son, Prince Iyo (783–807). While fulfilling duties such as overseeing the university, Kanmu would have had occasion to build connections with factions that the traditional imperial family did not engage with. Chief among these were the Hata, and if we add the immigrant networks accessible through his mother's side, it is likely that immigrant factions were already providing support at the time of Kanmu's enthronement.

In other words, by the final years of Heijo-kyo the momentum of the immigrant factions had already reached a level that could not be ignored. The Fujiwara, having lost much of their former luster, may no longer have been able to contain them. And so the fault line deepened between the old guard determined to remain on the Nara side and the larger movement to break away and establish a new order on new ground. At the center of the faction backing the latter were the immigrant clans. It should be noted, however, that after the capital moved to Heian-kyo the Fujiwara found a fresh opportunity to reassert themselves. The branch descended from Fuhito's second son seized commanding influence and ascended to the pinnacle of the aristocratic system through what became known as regency politics. At that point the hegemony of the ancient clans reasserted itself over the immigrant factions, and since this dominance persisted throughout the Heian period, the high-water mark of immigrant influence should probably be placed around the time of the Heian-kyo relocation.

Yet when we consider the pre-enthronement Kanmu and his exposure to immigrant networks, the exceptional good fortune that allowed Kukai to gain admission to the university through Ato no Otari's determined advocacy begins to look inseparable from Kanmu's own extraordinary biography. If the faction that spotted Kukai's talent was indeed an immigrant clan maneuvering to establish itself as a pillar of the new order, then much of what Kukai did afterward can be understood as aligning with their agenda. For Kukai to be selected, again exceptionally, as a member of the state mission to Tang China in 804 would have been impossible without powerful backing from the new leadership of Heian-kyo. Put differently, without the support of the very faction that had been at the core of the Heian-kyo relocation, a figure like Kukai could never have crossed the sea to Tang China. And we must also consider that the emperor who approved the composition of that mission was Kanmu himself. For Kanmu the relocation to Heian-kyo would have been impossible without the Hata's support, and it stands to reason that he repaid them with substantial privileges.

So what was the hidden purpose behind Emperor Kanmu and the Hata-led immigrant coalition of the new era when they identified the young Kukai and chose to back him? It is only through this lens that a portrait of Kukai invisible to conventional history begins to come into view.