ENTHRONING AN EMPEROR

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 70, 15 December 1928, Page 26

ENTHRONING AN EMPEROR

THE DESCENDANT OF THE GODDESS OF THE SUN

The enthronement of the Emperor of Japan, whose various ceremonies occupy the greater part of a month, is an event that immediately lands "the inquiring foreigner in a maze of utter bewilderment, writes Ernest Pickering in (he “Morning Post,” For example, he will ask the apparently simple question ■why the ceremony should take place, not at the capital city of Tokya, but at Kyoto, 350 miles to the west.

The origin of the Imperial Dynasty is as remotely ancient as that of the nation itself, and, in Japanese mythology, is placed at the very creation of the world. The ancestress of the dynasty is the sun goddess Amaterasu, with whom also is associated the origin of that peculiar type of Japanese drama called the No, which still prevails to-day. She is said to have bequeathed to her earthly descendants the three sacred insignia which will be used in the present enthronement ceremony, namely, the mirror (kagaml), the sword (tsurugi), and the curved jewel (magatama), which respectively symbolise wisdom, courage, and mercy This divine ancestress dwells at the Imperial shrine of Ise, a remote and quiet spot to the south-east of Nara, which is a place of pilgrimage for every loyal Japanese. It was a direct descendant of Amaterasu, named Jimmu Tenno, who is said to have founded the Imperial Dynasty in 660 8.C., in the small province of Yamato, with its capital not far south of Nara, which city itself became the capital in the year 710 A.D. The brief Nara period of about eighty years is one of tlie most glorious in Japanese history, for it was then that Buddhism became definitely established in Japan, bringing with it a new art and literature. it was an era of noble temple building, and poetry flourished amazingly, with men and women vying with each other in that art on equal terms. That great collection of poetry called the Manyoshiu contains 4,000 poems of this period. Then, at the end of the Enghth Century, Kyoto became the capital, and so remained until 18G8. Most wonderful of all, during all this vast period, from the mythical GGO B.C. of Jimmu Tenno (which, after all, is probably only a century or so removed from actual fact) the Imperial line has remained unbroken to the present day, the new Emperor being the 125th descendant. Yet, the Imperial Dynasty has suffered innumerable vicissitudes, the most notable of which was the establishment of the first Shogunate in 1192 A.D. by the great warrior-statesman, Minamoto no Yoritomo. The office of Shogun carried with it the actual control of the military and economic resources of the empire, and made the Emperor a puppet bereft of all material power. Then the Shoguniite itself suffared many changes, until, in the year 1603, the great Tokugawa family gained possession of the office and retained it until 1867. It was at Kyoto, in the person of the feeble and impoverished Emperor, that authority ultimately dwelt, and it was there that the Japanese turned in 1867, when they began their remarkable career as a modern Power. Although, for administrative and other reasons, the Emperor moved his capital to Tokyo in 1868, transforming the Shogun’s castle into his Imperial Palace, yet Kyoto still so far remains the Imperial city that it has been officially ordained that the scene of each Enir peror’s enthronement as the actual ruler of Japan shall be the place where for over 1,0'”) years he had preserved his divine authority.