500's
semi autonomous tribal units, Yamato group leadership
Religions  useful page

• Shinto religion, way of gods, same words for government and religion, emperor is God
• Buddhism introduced, 6th century

600's
Taika Reform 645 AD, continued 200 years

• copy Chinese culture -- institutions, language, philosophy
• concept of national unity symbolized by emperor
• emperor's dual role:
• Shinto religious leader with elaborate rituals, ceremonial functions
• Chinese like secular emperor
• Chinese type bureaucracy (but hereditary)
• Chinese law
• government control of land
• culture - philosophy, written language, later nationalized with phonetic script
• but distinctive from China, more decentralized

 

 
 
 

Implications:
 

Taika: Tradition of cultural borrowing.

Confucian heritage is foundation for Emperor system and very powerful, centralized bureaucracy.

• intermediaries control land
• central government looses tax
• emperor has symbolic role only

Mongol invasion 1274, 1281 -- attemped, did not succeed

    Implications:
   Japan has not been worried about invasion from its neighbors
    Population not mixed by conquest (bringing different ethnic groups, cultures,  religions, languages, etc.)

Feudalism

• central state, military leader (shogun), symbolic emperor
• decentralization, feudal lords (daimyo)
• hereditary classes:
• warriors samurai - warrior culture > literature > hereditary civil bureaucracy
• personal loyalty, honor, suicide
• peasants
• artisans
• urban merchant class

Conclusions:

• national unity (emperor, shogun
• balance of centralization and decentralization, symbol of unity
• never invaded until 1945
• Chinese culture as part of Japan's culture, especially political culture