ENTHRONING THE MIKADO

John Casey argues the case for

keeping the ancient Japanese accession rites on the new Emperor's coronation

THE Japanese government has announced that the accession ceremonies of the new Emperor will be held strictly according to ancient tradition. In particular, the Daijo- sai (The Great New Food Festival) which is as central to the enthronement of the Japanese emperor as the anointing and coronation is to the British monarch — will be treated as a state ceremony.

The Japanese accession rites not only pre-date English coronations by many cen- turies: they may even be the oldest con- tinuing state ceremonies of any sort in the world. They are partly influenced by Chinese imperial ceremonies, and partly native Japanese. The most mysterious part of the ritual — the Daijo-sai — takes place twice, once before midnight, and once at two in the morning, and is conducted by the emperor alone, except for two female attendants. No one really knows what the emperor does in this ritual, except that he drinks some white sake, and some black sake, and eats some rice and some millet. The rice has been cultivated in a field chosen by soothsayers, and is gathered with elaborate religious ceremonies. A Shinto priest once explained to me that this symbolises gratitude to the gods for the harvest. But it seems that the ritual has a more mystical meaning, and is a form of Holy Communion with the gods. There is an empty couch in the room which some people think is provided for the Japanese sun goddess, Amaterasu, herself. Many Japanese will tell you that what the ritual really signifies is a sexual union between the emperor and the goddess, so that divinity enters into him, and he becomes a true emperor. This almost certainly just reflects a modern preoccupation with sex. What is true is that the emperor at this moment acts as the high priest of Shinto- ism, and communes with the gods as the representative of the whole Japanese peo- ple. Indeed, some scholars say that the accession rites of an emperor are the most sacred of all Shinto ceremonies, because they symbolise the unique occasion on which man becomes one with the gods.

These accession rites last took place in 1926, when the late Emperor came to the throne. One might think that the English, with their own unique attachment to archaic ceremonial, would view the revival of such an ancient ritual with sympathetic curiosity.

The first press comments suggest other- wise. An article in the Daily Telegraph, besides dismissing the whole thing as `mythical nonsense', has warned that the

JAPANESE SPECIAL

determination of the Japanese government to stage the coronation in its traditional form threatens the democratic future of Japan. The occasion will be used by Japanese politicians to encourage national- ism, and a belief in the uniqueness of the Japanese race. In short, the old demons are reviving.

In Japan, too, many people urged that all this hocus-pocus be abandoned. Not only are many Japanese embarassed at such an archaic survival in the land of micro-chips, trade surpluses and the Re- cruit scandal, they also think it illegal for the government to provide funds for a religious ceremony. Yet to leave out these ceremonies would be like holding a British coronation without the anointing and actual crowning.

The source of these difficulties is the American-imposed constitution. The old Meiji Constitution, which was 'bestowed' on the Japanese by the Emperor Meiji in 1889, forthrightly described Japan as a land `ruled and reigned over by a line of emperors from ages eternal.' It implicitly accepted the traditional view that the emperors (and all the Japanese) were offspring of the gods. The 'American' Constitution re-defined the emperor as `the symbol of the unity of the Japanese peo- ple.' It strictly separated Church and State, and forbade the government to give away financial support to the native Japanese religion of Shinto.

Most Japanese, in so far as they are devout at all, practise two religions Buddhism and Shinto. Weddings and the ceremonies of childhood are conducted by Shinto priests. Funerals are almost always Buddhist. Shinto is the indigenous, pagan religion of Japan. Shinto is a nature reli- gion, with a multitude of gods. It has no dogmas, but exists to make you feel especially to make you feel the sublimity of nature. In Shinto, anything can have kami (numinousness), from thunder, to a sacred grove of trees. A great man — a warrior, or even an artist — can have kami. Naturally the emperor has it. For most Japanese, Shinto simply means leading a clean life. The duties are simple — to get up early, work diligently, take a daily bath, and look after your family. Between 1868 and 1945 the authorities had grafted onto this ancient folk religion a patriotic cult, called State Shinto. State Shinto encour- aged nationalism, emperor worship, and a belief in the divine imperial mission of the Japanese race. The Americans abolished State Shinto, and prohibited state support for any religion whatsoever. When the Emperor Showa (i.e. Hirohi- to) died, the delicate question arose of how his funeral should be conducted. Since the emperor is ex-officio high priest of Shinto- ism, he must have a purely Shinto funeral. Voices were raised to say that a religious state funeral would contravene the separa- tion of Church and State. So the govern- ment compromised. The religious parts of the funeral were declared to be `private', and were boycotted by conscientious secu- larists, including the Japanese Socialist Party. Only the secular parts were `official' and openly paid for by the State. The differences between the two parts were striking. The secular section seemed most- ly to consist of an endless line of Third World despots (no doubt conscious of Japan's burgeoning foreign aid) bowing very deeply to the coffin. It was exceeding- ly tedious. The Shinto sections were en- trancing, especially the phalanx of soldiers in Heian period costume, carrying the huge imperial palanquin, the only sound being the perfectly synchronised, rapid footfalls over the gravel, and the cawing of a few rooks.

There are many who think that the Japanese government should produce a similar compromise for the accession cere- monies of the new Emperor. The trouble is that the only truly secular parts of the enthronement of a Japanese emperor are of modern invention. They signify, not, to be sure, his priestly role, but his status as absolute ruler. But that is exactly what the post-war constitution abolished. The reli- gious ceremonies which displease progressive-minded Japanese, and suspi- cious foreigners, are precisely those which go back to the time when the emperor was indeed simply the head of Japanese cul- ture, living quietly in Kyoto, writing poetry and carrying out fertility rituals.

The first foreigners who went to Japan thought that the shogun — the military ruler of the country — was in fact the emperor. They then became aware that there was another, shadowy figure, of sacred character but no political power, who was somehow above the shoguns.

The Chinese emperors always claimed to rule with 'the mandate of Heaven.' When a dynasty fell, it was presumed that the mandate had been withdrawn. With Japan it was different. The shoguns claimed to rule with the mandate of the emperor. When a shogunal house fell, it was pre- sumed that the emperor's mandate had been withdrawn. The emperor was `heaven'. The Japanese were traditionally content to live within the shadow of an emperor, whom they never saw, and who `Not enough money, too much walking.' exerted little influence.

It is difficult to know what the Japanese now think of the imperial system. They certainly seem to take little interest in individual members of the imperial family. The British invention of royal soapopera has not caught on in Japan. In fact, since the emperor lost the powers which were in theory his, after 1945, he has become much more like the emperors of Japanese tradi- tion. He was always a priest and sacred personage. But the warlord and absolute ruler, who featured so largely in allied propaganda during the war (and in Japanese nationalist propaganda as well) was essentially an invention of the Meiji restoration. He had few roots in Japanese history. It was only after 1868 that Heaven became overpoweringly present to public consciousness, with all the accoutrements of a European absolute ruler, riding on a white horse.It was about this time that the traditional term for the emperor — Mika- do — tended to be dropped in favour of Tenno, a change which was apparently intended to signify the emperor's new status.)

No doubt the nationalists do hope to profit by the ceremonies surrounding the new Emperor. And the religious ideas on which the ceremonies are based must affront the liberal conscience. For they are full of symbolic allusions to the myth of the Japanese as a unique people, offspring of the gods. Unlike Buddhism, Shinto is not a universalist religion, but is about the rela- tion of one people to its gods, and about Japan as 'the land of the gods'. Indeed, the islands of Japan themselves, according to myth, dropped from Heaven (rather like Ireland in the song) to be the abode of this favoured people.

Why should this matter to us? Although paranoia about the Japanese is one of the few forms of covert racialism still accept- able in polite society, it is irrational to think that there is any danger of a revival of Japanese militarism and ultra- nationalism. But the habit of putting the worst interpretation on everything the Japanese do seems too strong to break.

It would be good if the Japanese were to find in the Emperor's accession ceremonies an occasion for rediscovering some of their traditions. Many of the most thoughtful Japanese deplore the vulgarisation of Japanese culture that has seemed an inevit- able part of democratisation.

The accession ceremonies take one back to the time before Japan decided to be- come a modern nation state, with powerful armed forces and an overseas empire. Not only would it be sad if rituals of such antiquity were abandoned: it would also mean that the Japanese monarchy would be no more than a 19th-century invention, scaled down by foreign conquerors.