Analyzing Famine in the 8th Century

[Ross Bender]

Shoku Nihongi records 135 instances of famine over the 8th century. I laboriously collected dates and instances of famine in specific provinces by hand from my translation. Then I began experimenting using Chatgpt. It produced a spreadsheet with all dates and provinces, then produced a chart of frequency by province, a timeline, and even a famine map by decade. These are appended below.

Other disasters noted in Shoku Nihongi are below. My next step will be to log these, and then have Chatgpt produce similar charts for all events. I have always wondered, and still do, how significant this data is, particularly because there seems to be no way to measure the severity of each event.

If others have experimented using AI analysis for similar problems, I'd be very interested to hear about these.

Ross Bender

Amazon.com: SHOKU NIHONGI 697-791: A Translation of Maki 1-40 eBook : Bender, Ross, Bender, Ross Lynn: Kindle Store

Drought - 69

Earthquake – 89

Epidemic – 68

Famine – 135

[Maribeth Graybill]

Thanks, Ross, for sharing this very interesting data. The number of earthquakes is not so surprising, perhaps, if manor tremors were also included; but the mentions of epidemic and famine came as a shock. 

I'm wondering if heavy taxes collected leading up to (and perhaps continuing after?) the consecration of the 東大寺大仏 in 752 may have impacted harvests.

Maribeth Graybill

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[Leonardo Wolfe]

Dear Dr. Graybill,

Hopefully Dr. Bender will provide a more detailed response, but, of possible interest, Dr. Bender has translated the below edict, which was issued a few months before the eye-opening ceremony of May 26th.

Tenpyō Shōhō 4.1.3 (January 23, 752)

From this day to the last day of the twelfth month the killing of living beings is prohibited throughout the realm. However, for people who live near the sea, and who cannot make a living without fishing, two dry quarts of unhulled rice shall be provided daily. Provisions shall be compassionately provided according to need to those who are unable to make a living, including widowers, widows, those who live alone, those suffering from poverty, the aged and the sick.

天平勝宝四年（七五二）正月辛巳【三】 ○辛巳。

禁断始従正月三日迄于十二月晦日、天下殺生。但縁海百姓。以漁為業。不得生存者。随其人数。日別給籾二升。又鰥寡孤独。貧窮老疾。不能自存者。量加賑恤。

Kind regards,

Leonardo Wolfe

[Bryan D. Lowe]

Dear All,

In response to Dr. Graybill’s question, I would certainly encourage more attention to environmental patterns as a more likely causal variable. Wayne Farris has written on this in some detail and mostly attributes famines at this time to drought, particularly caused by a global rise of hot and dry weather and possibly aided in the Japanese case by poor irrigation techniques. This does seem to be an issue of global history. As he notes (p. 285), "This hypothesis is not new to European medievalists. Palaeoclimatologists in Western Europe almost universally accept — through examination of pollen, glaciers, and other archaeological and written materials — that the continent entered a period of unusually hot and dry weather beginning about 750 or 800 C.E."

The citation is as follows:

Farris, William Wayne. "Famine, Climate, and Farming in Japan, 670 – 1100." In Heian Japan, Centers and Peripheries edited by Mikael S. Adolphson, Edward Kamens and Stacie Matsumoto, 275-304. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824862817-014

 It’s an excellent article that looks at famines year by year and places them in a broader environmental and technological context.

Best,

Bryan

---------
Bryan D. Lowe
Associate Professor of Religion
Melancthon W. Jacobus University Preceptor
Princeton University

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[Ivan Rumánek]

Dear All,

   I wonder if this might have been a factor behind one of the important events, the moving of the Capital from Yamato to Yamashiro.

Sincerely,

Ivan Rumánek

pi 12. 12. 2025 o 20:16 'Bryan D. Lowe' via PMJS: Listserv <pm...@googlegroups.com> napísal(a):

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[Jordan Sand]

Colleagues,

I am intrigued to see this edict against killing living beings quoted in full. A number of works I have read cite it in explaining the Japanese avoidance of breeding mammals for human consumption (colloquially simplified to "Buddhism prohibited meat-eating"). I had not realized that Shōmu hoped to wean fisherfolk off fish with grants of rice. I wonder if this rice was ever actually delivered and what the recipients made of it all.

Jordan

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Jordan Sand
Professor of Japanese History and Culture

Georgetown University / Kokugakuin University

[Leonardo Wolfe]

Dear Prof. Sand,

Small correction.

Empress Kōken was in power at the time.

Kind regards,

Leonardo Wolfe

[Susan Tsumura]

About the edict,

I would not say that the puropose of the edict was to wean fisherfolk off fish with grants of rice. It was to let them survive for that year. The prohibition was only for one year, till the end of the 12th month, the year of the dedication, and after that they would have to go back to fishing as the grants applied to people who could not make a living without fishing.

Susan Tsumura

> 2025/12/14 10:51 JST に Jordan Sand <sa...@georgetown.edu> が次のように書きました:

[Shapinsky, Peter D]

Thanks for the interesting discussion.

Presumably these hyakushō paid at least some of their taxes in kind in fish and other maritime products. So, whether or not the commoners fished or not, the conscience of the nobility—subsisting without meat for a year—was clear that they had taken care of the people.

There are medieval Noh plays and didactic tales that relate the breaking of these interdictions by “sea people” fisher folk, requiring divine intervention to save them, which one might read as evidence of people choosing survival over piety.  In the medieval period, religious estate proprietors such as Tōji issued periodic interdictions against killing for the estates they administered, including the maritime estate of Yugeshima, which would have been to some extent enforced by estate officers. 

In the 8th c., did provincial temples or district offices or village branch temples enforce these interdictions at the local level?

Also, did the 8th c. court make similar grants of rice made to hunters, who were equally damned in the eyes of the Buddhist establishment for killing living things?

Thanks all!

Peter

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Peter Shapinsky

Professor of History

University of Illinois, Springfield

MS UHB 3050

Springfield, IL 62703-5407

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psh...@uis.edu

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[Leonardo Wolfe]

Dear all,

I agree with Dr. Tsumura's assesment, however, it may be worth mentioning that there was also an earlier three-year ban.

Tenpyō 17.9.15 (October 14, 745)

For three years the killing of birds and animals throughout the realm is completely prohibited.

天平十七年（七四五）九月己巳【十五】○己巳。

禁断三年之内天下殺一切宍。

Whilst the context, and purpose of length, of this isn't overtly clear to me, Emperor Shōmu was Tennō at the time. Notably, it contains no clear provisions for the consequences of such a ban.

Other prohibition orders do exist, such as the below, but usually of a shorter length.

Tenpyō Hōji 2.7.4  (August 12, 758)

The Emperor gave an edict: “Recently the condition of the Dowager Empress Kōmyō has not been good, and this has continued for over ten days. We consider that for extending life and healing disease, there is nothing better than carrying out benevolence and compassion. Therefore throughout all the provinces of the realm, from now until the thirtieth day of the twelfth month, killing is forbidden. Also the meat of wild boar and deer is forever forbidden to be served at Court.” [...]

天平宝字二年（七五八）七月甲戌【四】○甲戌。

勅。比来、皇太后寝膳不安。稍経旬曰。朕思。延年済疾。莫若仁慈。宜令天下諸国。始自今日。迄今年十二月卅日。禁断殺生。又以猪鹿之類。永不得進御。[...]

Kind regards,

Leonardo Wolfe

[Jordan Sand]

My thanks to Leonardo Wolfe and Susan Tsumura for correcting me and following up about the edict of 752 prohibiting killing of animals and offering rice as compensation to fisherfolk. I looked again at one of the sources I had seen mentioning it and found that the author had listed it together with a number of other edicts of the 8th century, some specifically prohibiting killing of oxen and horses and others more generally prohibiting the taking of life. The article did not mention the inclusion of fish in this prohibition. I can't help but be curious whether ordinary folk obeyed these prohibitions, but I suppose it is difficult to know.

Jordan

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