Not all venues of government activity were secluded behind the walls of the Daidairi. Almost all that were not, however, shared a basic functional similarity in that they facilitated some form of direct and usually ostentatious interaction between the imperial institution and the outside world, including foreign dignitaries, members of the Buddhist establishment, and, usually only incidentally, commoners. These several sites were primarily located within a strip of land that extended south from the Daidairi toward the capital’s southern boundary (between the roads of Nishi-Omiya and Omiya). This thick band of space on either side of the great Suzaku Road might be considered a sort of “corridor of public pageantry” (see Figure 1.3).
Because of the strong relationship between status and the built environment in Heian-kyo, some of these external venues can be considered as functional sets. For example, we might treat as a single set the capital’s formal entrance gate of Rajo, Suzaku Road, and the Daidairi’s main gate of Suzaku. Each was reserved for use by the emperor, the highest members of the court, and foreign ambassadors who, traveling in long processions—sometimes stately, sometimes festive—would pass through each on their way to or from the palace.32 Together they provided for the public display of elite pageantry while, in a material sense, making a statement about Japanese imperial efficacy through
1.11. Dairi, Chodo-in, and Buraku-in (from right to left), illustrated by Mori Koan, 1750. The absence of symmetry in the Dairi is itself a departure from the continental model. National Archives of Japan
Their close adherence to Sinocentric models. The two great gates and the format of the city itself would have been immediately familiar to visitors from China and Korea, reminiscent of corresponding features in their own capitals. Two other facilities that might be added to this set are the twin Eastern and Western Korokan, diplomatic compounds built to receive, entertain, and lodge foreign visitors.33 Located on either side of Suzaku Road, just north of Shichijo, these compounds were also part of the infrastructure of imperial pageantry in that they, through their use of Chinese-style architecture and gardens, provided a venue for the Japanese to demonstrate their attainment of continental-style civilization.
Just south of the Daidairi, but removed by several blocks from Suzaku Road to the east, was Shinsenen. Covering eight city blocks, this sprawling, walled garden was the emperor’s exclusive nature reserve. A natural spring irrigated a large pond around which stood palatial structures built in a continental style. What little we know about Shinsen’en suggests that while it may not initially have had a public function, it soon became a venue for high-profile divination rituals, particularly those related to rainfall.34
All commercial activity in Heian-kyo was meant to take place within two publicly sanctioned markets planned symmetrically on either side of the city between Rokujo and Shichijo Roads. Walled and gated, the Eastern and Western Markets operated on an alternating basis, and what took place within each was under the close scrutiny of imperial administrators and police.35 Besides being a place where goods were bartered, bought, and sold, the markets also served as the capital’s execution grounds.36 On set days of the month, criminals were marched into the market en masse. After being publicly condemned for their crimes, they were either taken away to meet their ends or—in an apparently sanctioned exception to the rule against killing within the capital—executed on the spot.37 The markets also fulfilled some of the functions of a modern town square or public park. They were, for example, choice locations for the activities of proselytizers and prostitutes. Among the former, the most famous is the monk Kuya (903972). Referred to as the “market saint” (ichi no hijiri), Kuya gained notoriety for preaching the principles of Amida worship to commoners and later founding the temple of Rokuhara Mitsuji southeast of the city.38 Although these sites were closely controlled, it appears that urban planners were keenly aware of their importance to the city’s long-term
Viability. The official markets were among the earliest institutions transferred from Nagaoka-kyo when the new capital was founded.39
Perhaps the most important of the public institutions located outside the Daidairi were the two great temples of Toji and Saiji.40 Their names, meaning East and West Temple respectively, were informal appellations ascribed to each based on their locations vis-a-vis the Rajo Gate. Toji and Saiji were built at government expense and placed under direct court supervision. The monks were charged with the task of ensuring divine protection for the state, the capital, and the body of the emperor. Besides standing as grand symbols of imperial wealth and moral veracity astride the capital’s “front door,” the physical infrastructure of the two temples themselves might have had cosmological implications. Geomancy experts have argued that contemporaries envisioned the five-storied pagodas adorning each of the temple grounds as serving to trap positive celestial energy (ki), thereby preventing it from leaking out of the city to the south.41 Such a capacity would have been important to the overall geomantic fitness of a capital built to harness the forces of the universe and apply them to the execution of virtuous government.
Toji and Saiji were exceptional because they were the only two temples that stood within Heian-kyo’s official boundaries. It is a widely repeated notion that Emperor Kanmu banned temples from the capital because he sought to divorce imperial politics from the influence of the powerful Buddhist sects, such as those whose temples dominated the landscape of the earlier Heijo-kyo. But not only has the notion that Kanmu had an aversion to Buddhism been successfully challenged in recent scholarship, we actually have no historical evidence that temples were formally banned from Heian-kyo during Kanmu’s lifetime. A paucity of textual evidence, of course, does not mean there was no ban and, to be sure, the extreme rarity of temples within the city remained real and conspicuous well into the fifteenth century.42 Nevertheless, the many textual sources that refer to temple proscriptions use language that suggests a “custom” or “tradition” rather than a law. It is likely that this particular taboo belonged to a distinct repertoire of capital customs that, although perhaps never inscribed into law, were nevertheless followed assiduously and remained valid over time. Because of its importance, this theme will be discussed in much greater detail later in this study.
The most important government offices and ministries maintained
Detached facilities outside the Daidairi. With a name that might be rendered in English as “dormitory blocks of the various offices” (shoshi-kuriya-machi), these numerous yet unremarkable compounds occupied blocks throughout Heian-kyo’s urban landscape.43 Each employed and housed hundreds of workers who, conscripted from the provinces on a rotating basis, performed duties related to the functions of the ministries or offices to which their respective compounds were affiliated. Some were highly skilled tradesmen such as architects, accountants, potters, weavers, and metalworkers. Most, however, fulfilled more menial tasks as guards and laborers. Almost all their “dorms” were located north of Nijo in close proximity to the Daidairi, and a majority were clustered on the enclosure’s eastern side, an area that would eventually become, for reasons not unrelated to the dorms themselves, the center of elite society.
World History
