In the year 715 the Empress Genmei announced her decision to abdicate in favor of her daughter, princess Hidaka, who would reign as Empress Gensho.1 After observing that the position of the ruler was the highest attainment of the sage, whose wisdom and virtue placed him or her at the pivot of heaven and earth, her edict continued:From our accession, we have nourished our black-haired subjects (Jp. reigen; Ch. liyuan ??). Owing to the protection of Heaven and the virtue inherited from our ancestors the nation is at peace and our realm is prosperous.But in the years since our accession we have borne constant care for our subjects, not resting day or night. Day in and day out we have given our constant attention and toiled at all manner of affairs of state. In this way, nine years have passed. Now the flower of youth is gradually fading and old age (mo ?) is approaching. We deeply crave peace and escape from our duties; we wish to tread on high clouds, to do away with unpleasant things, to forget the dust [of the mundane world] like discarding an old pair of sandals....The Imperial Princess Hidaka of the first rank has been greeted with auspicious signs. She has already displayed virtuous behavior; her disposition is generous and benevolent; she is graceful and lovely; the country worships her.... Now we yield our rank to the Imperial Princess. Ministers and officials, receive her respectfully, and in so doing, obey our wishes.(adapted from Snellen 1937, 277-78, with reference to snkbt 12: 234-35 and Ujitani 1992, 1: 164-45).This edict marked an important turning point in the way in which the body of the heavenly sovereign (tenno ??) was publicly portrayed. Although this was not the first instance in which a Japanese ruler had abdicated, it is the first time that the encroachment of old age had been given as a reason.2 The official chronicles up to this point-the Kojiki (712), the Nihon shoki (720), and early chapters of the Shoku Nihongi (797)-had recorded instances in which rulers had expressed misgivings about the weight of supreme responsibility; they had recorded instances in which rulers had contracted serious illnesses; and they had solemnly noted the moment that each successive ruler had died. But prior to this edict not one of those rulers had been depicted growing old. That is to say, even in cases in which the chronicles had described a sovereign who enjoyed extraordinary longevity, none of these sovereigns had been designated as an elder, or identified using terms indicating old age, such as ro ?, mo ?, ki ?, or their cognates. Nor did these texts attribute any of the stereotypical physical marks of old age, such as white hair or wrinkles, to any ruler prior to Genmei.3Why had the compilers of Japan's earliest official histories so fastidiously omitted any mention of the aging of any of Genmei's predecessors? Before moving on to a discussion of longevity practices, we would do well to consider this question. The framing of the royal body in these earliest Japanese texts and their use of longevity and youthful vitality to symbolize power and justify authority provided cues for authors of the Nara (710-794) and Heian (794-1185) periods who wished to valorize the current ruler, the court, or the capital. These texts were composed in what David Bialock (2007, 13) has characterized as the hybrid cultural assemblage of Nara and early-Heian Japan, which brought together a bricolage of quasi-Daoist and yin-yang knowledge in efforts to legitimate the royal tradition. These discourses contributed to a political and cultural milieu that determined, in part, what kinds of practices would be of interest to those who were part of that milieu and who sought to maintain or enhance their status within it.Longevity and Legitimacy in Early JapanEarly Japanese elites and their immigrant advisors employed an eclectic range of strategies to legitimate the Tenno. The most famous of these involved the construction of genealogies that linked the current ruler to a line of heavenly deities (amatsukami ? …