まあちゃまの今語り

Was Heguri-no-Matori a Usurper?

　In that case, did Heguri-no-Matori encroach on the religious power of the Tennou indeed? Honestly speaking, we cannot find any obvious and absolute proof that he did it rudely. According to descriptions written concisely in the Chronicles of Japan, he only exerted his political competence dictatorially and his son competed with the crown prince for a woman as his private affair. Moreover, in the ancient dual system, there is probability that the crown prince was allocated some political powers apart from the Tennou, the highest officiator. So, we should be prudent to come to the conclusion that he was a usurper who deprived the Tennou of his religious power on this occasion.

The Ruin of the Heguri Family

This bold and rude behavior of Shibi apparently signified that the Hegri family ignored the Tennou family and exceeded his limits as a prime minister. At this juncture, Ootomo-no-Kanamura, who was the other Oomuraji, decided to castigate Heguri-no-Matori and Shibi on behalf of the Tennou family and commanded a besieging army to its residence. Tightly sieged by the army, Matori and Shibi were resigned to their fate and cursed the Tennou in despair. At last, the Heguri family was ruined with pathetic Kage-hime.

The Ancient Government of Japan

       By the way, the Oomuraji was a high political or administrative officer founded in the Chotei ranking with the Oomi. To our regret, however, we cannot know correctly their competences, the number of these posts and allocation of powers among them. The Yamato-Chotei would be a union in a kind composed of influential clans originating in the Yayoi-era. The only information that we can ask for in the Chronicles of Japan at the present days is that the Oomi was occupied by Hegri-no-Matori and the Oomurajis were by two persons, Mononobe-no-Arakai and Ootomo-no-Kanamura at least in the reign of Buretu-Tennou.

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Shibi - A Plunder

Hegri-no-Matori, a would-be Prime Minister, had a son whose name was Shibi. As for this son, he was as arrogant as his father and was so self-conceited to believe himself to be prior to the Tennou. At last, a crucial affair occurred when Shibi plundered the fair lady of the prince’s heart, Kage-hime, who was a daughter of one of Oomurajis, Mononobe-no-Arakai.

The High-handedness of the Prime Minister Heguri

The Chronicles of Japan, one of the oldest official documents, described intensively the first case that a political authority came to domineer over a Tennou in the reign of Buretu-Tennou in 5^th century.

This tyrant was Heguri-no-Matori, who was an Oomi, minister of the Yamato-Chotei and also was chief of one of powerful clans. In those days, not a small number of clans, gathering from all over the nation and inhabiting around Yamato, attended the Chotei to work for public duties, though there were not systematical administrative institutions as that of modern states.

The Japanese Political History

  　　　　　In Japanese political history, we encounter with some serious crises caused by ambitions which both of religious and political authorities held to encroach powers of the other party aggressively. Their struggles to introduce despotic monarchy in place of conventional diarchy and to transform the fundamental character of this nation have resulted in upheavals time and again.

     In order to explain the causes and effect concretly, we will take up several cases from ancient to modern times. These examinations, provably, would prove the secret of Japanese governmental or political stability and conditions for it finally.

Crosses between religious and political genealogies

     While as a constitutional convention, sharing roles between religious authority and political power has been established  in the Japanese history, we can find some exceptional events deviating from this convention.

     Whenever these deviations occured, the Japanese suffered from serious disturbances spliting themselves into hostile camps or faced life-or death question for the nation, the reign of the Godaigo-Tennou who directly governed the nation for a while in the 14th century, the age of wars when Nobunaga Oda, a warlord of the Sengoku finally tried to  shift the nation to centralism in the 16th century, and the Meiji revolution in the later 19th ctentury, and so on.

    We will introduce these Japanese historical turbulences from tomorrow. 

Defects of Centralism

     The decisive defect of centralism is that nobody can effectively and legitimately control the only ruler who exert the supreme power exclusively to command and direct any subjects in his territory or his empire.

     Such a centralism is compared to a system witout any safe devices. There are no functions to reify check and balance among institutions, to appeal to the law under a rule of law, and to relieve his subject from infringements on their freedom and rights.

     Likely enough, centralism has distressed human beings and gone contrary to morality.

Prevention of Despotism

     The dual system of religious authority and political power between Tennous and governors has probably fulfiled preventive function of despotism.

      In any ages peoples of any countries have been tortured by despotic monarchs or absolute rulers who grasped all powers in their own hands and exerted his absolute powers over their subjects arbiturarily.  In japan, on the other hand, Tennous and their courts had restrained political governors, and vice versa.

     This system of mutual containment has prevented emergences of dictators or tyrants for a long time in Japanese history.