ENTHRONING AN EMPEROR.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 2672, 29 December 1928, Page 2

ENTHRONING AN EMPEROR.

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 the Morning Post.) For example, he will ask the apparently simple question why the ceremony should take place, not at the capital city of Tokio, but at Koyto, 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 Araaterasu, 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 insijn-a which will be used in the present enthronement ceremony, namely, the mirror (kagami), 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 Araaterasu, 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 80 years is one of the 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 nourished amazingly, with men and women vying with each other in that art on equal terms. That great collection of poetry called the Mauyoshiu contains 4000 poems of this .period. Then, at the end of the Bth. century, Kyoto became the capital, and so remained until 1868. Most wonderful of all, during all this vast period, from the mythical 660 B.C. of Jimmu Tenno (which, after all, is probably only a century or so removed from the 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 warriorstatesman Minamoto no Yoritomo. The office of the 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 Shogunate itself suffered many changes, until, in the year 1603, the great Tokugawa family gained possesion 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 Tokio 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 Emperor's enthronement as the actual ruler of Japan shall be the place where for over 1000 years he had preserved his divine authority.