Japan had been inhabited for thousands of years before it emerged as a unified nation under the leadership of
“The emperor of the country where the sun rises addresses a letter to the emperor of the country where the sun sets."
Opening lines of first Japanese diplomatic message to China, c. 607
Portrait: Shotoku Taishi (center).
The Yamato (yuh-MAH-toh; "imperial") family during the Kofun period (250-552). The country's actual written history began, however, in 405, when the Japanese adopted the Chinese written language, which they would use for many centuries before developing a version more suited to the Japanese spoken language.
The influence of China, a much older and at that time more advanced civilization, was strong from the beginning. So, too, was the influence of Korea, which in addition to its own traditions had incorporated many aspects of Chinese civilization. One of these was the religion of Buddhism, which first arrived in Japan when the king of Korea sent a set of Buddhist scrolls and an image of the Buddha to the Japanese imperial court in 552.
The Buddha, or Siddhartha Gautama (si-DAR-tuh GOW-tuh-muh), had originated the religion in India more than a thousand years earlier; but as it made its way northward and eastward, the form of Buddhism had changed considerably to accommodate the new lands where it was received. Nonetheless, many in the Japanese ruling classes reacted against the new religion, which they considered a threat to the traditional Japanese faith of Shinto. Prince Shotoku Taishi, a powerful member of the imperial court, would exert the deciding influence, however, helping to incorporate Buddhism into the Japanese way of life.
World History
