Performative Loci of the Imperial Edicts in Nara Japan, 749-70

Abstract

The naiki presented the text to the Minister, the Minister submitted it to the Emperor. This being over, the Minister selected a capable man to read it, who received it and went back to his proper place. The Prince Imperial rose in the Eastern side of his seat and faced the West. Then everybody present from the princes downward rose and did likewise. The senmyō no taifu (herald) went to his appointed place and read the senmyō. Its contents were…. Then he said: Everybody obey this. The Prince Imperial first of all said “Aye.” Then everybody from the princes downward said likewise “Aye.” The Prince Imperial made obeisance. Then everybody present from the princes downward did the same. This was repeated as many times as senmyō were read. The ceremonial was always the same (Jōganshiki, c. 871; trans. Snellen 1934:166). This description of the reading of an Imperial edict (senmyō) from the Jōganshiki, a late ninth-century compendium of court procedures, provides an image of the formal declamation of the Emperor’s words in an orderly, routinized setting. The nobility are seated in their appointed places, the ritual is predetermined, and indeed, as the text notes: “The ceremonial was always the same.” But this illustration is deceptively static and misleading. The contemporary performative context of imperial edicts may in fact be accurately reflected in this late ninth-century handbook of court ritual, but the senmyō texts that we know from the official court histories, the Rikkokushi (Six National Histories, Sakamoto 1991) date back to the end of the seventh century. The official history Shoku Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan, Continued, Aoki et al. 1989-98) is the locus classicus for these texts and covers the years 697-791. The actual historical circumstances of these 62 senmyō, written in a peculiar form of Old Japanese, and some 900 other royal decrees inscribed in the Chinese of the chronicle, illuminate far more vivid and dynamic settings for imperial proclamations than is suggested by later sources such as the Jōganshiki. The purpose of this paper is to examine the performative loci of the imperial edicts during the reign of the “Last Empress,” Kōken-Shōtoku (r. 749-70)—their historical setting, geographical locale, and sometimes even the audiences for these royal pronouncements. This is the era in which fully half of the senmyō were recorded in Shoku Nihongi, and during which the production of the edicts inscribed in Chinese were also at their peak. The court annals of this period depict the reign of a powerful woman in a tumultuous epoch, as the Last Empress staved off challenges to her power from her royal cousins, and, in the famous denouement of her reign,