must read between the lines of Emperor Tenji’s odd behavior in the seventh century, as he appeared to broker dynastic ties with his own half-brother, a man who had shocked the court at Tenji’s own coronation banquet by pointedly stabbing the floor with a spear. Tenji had grabbed at his sword and had to be restrained by his chief minister—hardly a sign of a happy family. As if the imperial clan were not already perilously inbred, Tenji arranged marriages between many of his children and their own cousins, seemingly in an attempt to establish a new tradition. Tenji wanted his successor to be entirely imperial, descended in both the maternal and paternal lines from former emperors without any outside influence.
He didn’t get quite what he wanted. The half-brother himself seized the throne from Tenji’s son and heir, ruling from 673 to 686 as the fortieth emperor, Tenmu. He was married to his own niece, Emperor Tenji’s daughter, who would succeed him in her own right to reign from 686 to 697 as Empress Jitō. Under their reigns, Buddhism was pushed even further onto the Japanese people, in part as a new means of establishing control in the outlying regions: temples were set up; repeated rituals that also emphasized the power of the sovereign were promoted; and the copying of sutras was promised. By the time Empress Jitō died, her court was directly funding 545 temples in the Yamato region.
The Tang dynasty did not merely inspire Japanese princes to take matters into their own hands and Japanese empresses to rule in their own name. It also led to one of the farthest-reaching and longest-lasting cultural impacts upon Japan. Instead of the trickle of rumours and artifacts from Korea, the Tang dynasty led to direct Japanese contacts with the Chinese capital at Chang-an (modern Xi’an), and an onslaught of culture and trends.
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