Heian Period | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

The Heian period (794–1185) started with the transfer of the capital from Nara to the new imperial city of Heian-kyo (Kyoto) and ended with the establishment of a warrior government in Kamakura. This period was the peak of Japanese aristocratic and court life, a time during which literature and the arts flourished.

The ritsuryo system, first established in the Nara period (710–794 CE), was modeled on the political and economic system of Tang-dynasty (618–907 CE) China, which was composed of both a centralized government dominated by the emperor and nationally controlled estates. Although various attempts were made to preserve and augment the system, the expansion of shoen (private landed estates) and their exemption from taxation encroached on public land and reduced the authority of the central government. The creation of extra-statutory officials, such as sessho (regent) and kampaku (chief councillor), opened the way to power for non-imperial families among the nobility.

From the mid-ninth century, members of the Fujiwara family dominated the court and controlled the imperial line as sessho or kampaku by marrying their daughters to imperial successors. The rise of the Fujiwara family proved the failure of the ritsuryo emperor-dominated political system. From the late ninth century to the first half of the tenth century, however, emperors controlled the court without the Fujiwara regents. Emperor Uda (867–931), having no connection to the Fujiwara family, singled out Sugawara Michizane (845–903) to balance Fujiwara authority. But in 901, a member of the Fujiwara family, envious of the influence of Michizane, deceptively reported that Michizane was plotting against the emperor. Michizane was exiled to Kyushu and died there two years later. Emperor Daigo (885–930), Uda's successor, also avoided Fujiwara influence.

In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Fujiwara ruled the court by reestablishing the tradition of regents. The period from 967 to 1068 was called sekkan seiji (Fujiwara regency government). Emperors were born of Fujiwara mothers and were completely dominated by their uncles, fathers-in-law, or grandfathers. Their influence reached its peak under Fujiwara Michinaga (966–1028), who dominated the court from 995 to 1027. Michinaga's son Yorimichi, a high-ranking noble for three-quarters of a century, continued Fujiwara glory until the accession of emperor Go-Sanjo in 1068, when the Fujiwara declined and a succession of non-Fujiwara emperors came to power.

This period was characterized by the development of a truly Japanese culture in art and literature, after having absorbed Chinese values. The kana script, one of the most important inventions in Japanese cultural history, contributed to the creation of great quantities of verse and prose. Murasaki Shikibu's Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji, c. 1000), is not only a brilliant record of life among the aristocracy, but also a masterpiece of world literature. Waka, or Japanese poetry, was a crucial part of aristocratic daily life, and proficiency in making waka was regarded as essential for nobles. In religion, the secret sects of Tendai and Shingon Buddhism continued to flourish, but they lost their purely religious goals by connecting Buddhism to formalistic court rituals. Instead, the doctrines of the Jodo (Pure Land) sect, which emphasized simple faith in Amida Buddha, grew in popularity in the late Heian period. These doctrines offered consolation to the common people during the social disturbances that occurred in this period.

The accession of Go-Sanjo, the first emperor in one hundred years whose mother was not of the Fujiwara regents' line, initiated the last part of the Heian period, which extended until the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate (military government) in 1185. This last phase was dominated by three successively powerful retired emperors—Shirakawa, Toba, and Go-Sanjo—who replaced the reigning emperors of the earlier period and the regents of the mid-Heian period as the supreme political figures. It was a time of imperial revival.

Emperor Shirakawa (1053–1129) retired early, became a nominal Buddhist monk, and established insei (often translated as "cloistered government," because it was government by retired emperors who had taken the monk's tonsure) to rule behind the throne. His successors continued the system off and on until the late Kamakura period. Shoen continued to expand, with the imperial family under the active leadership of retired emperors replacing the Fujiwara as the largest shoen holders in the land. The imperial family developed a strong household organization that attracted a number of clients among the nobility, and the fortunes of the imperial house increased immensely.

During this time, however, the ritsuryo system almost faded away. In the absence of central authority in the provinces, powerful local individuals, banding together in bushidan (large military groups), caused confusion. Meanwhile, the Buddhist temples in the capital collected large armies and fought against one another, against the nobles, and against the court, for both economic and religious prizes. The general anarchy led many to believe that the world had entered mappo ("latter days of the law"), the final phase of human decline according to Buddhist doctrine.

With the outbreak of civil disturbances in 1156 and 1160, caused by conflicts over political power in both the imperial and the Fujiwara families involving two warrior clans, the Taira and the Minamoto, the military or warrior class became essential to the maintenance of civil government in the capital and indispensable to court politics. The warrior-noble Taira Kiyomori (1118–1181) maintained tenuous control over the court until 1185, but lost power eventually to the powerful Minamoto clan, which established the Kamakura bakufu and ushered in a new era in Japanese history.

Borgen, Robert. (1986) Sugawara no Michizane and the Early Heian Court. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Hall, John W., and Jeffrey P. Mass, eds. (1974) Medieval Japan: Essays in Institutional History. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Hurst, G. Cameron, III. (1976) Insei: Abdicated Sovereigns in the Politics of the Late Heian Japan, 1086–1185. New York: Columbia University Press.

McCullough, William H., and Helen Craig McCullough. (1980) Tale of Flowering Fortunes: Annals of Japanese Aristocratic Life in the Heian Period. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Shively, Donald H., and William H. McCullough, eds. (1999) The Cambridge History of Japan: Heian Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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