Emperor Jingu

[Matthew Stavros]

Dear PMJSers,

What's the current consensus on "emperor" vs "empress" in the case of a female tennō? I recall there being a debate a few years back, however, I didn't follow it closely then. 

Matthew Stavros

Matthew Stavros, PhD
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies (=Associate Professor)

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
The University of Sydney
matthew...@sydney.edu.au

PMJS, Editor and Network Administrator 
www.mstavros.com | www.kyotohistory.com 

Signatory to the Charter of the National Alliance for Public Universities

[Lisa Kochinski]

Dear Matthew,

One way to avoid the gender implications would be to use "sovereign" for both. Some scholars suggest not using "emperor" for tennō as it implies a military ruler, which the tennō were not.

It also depends on what period the term is being applied to. For early rulers, there's a good article by Yoshimura Takehiko (2014), 日本古代の王. The PDF is apparently too big to attach here, so if anyone would like to have a scan of this article, please email me separately (see  email address below).

I am in no way an expert on this, and look forward to comments from others.

Best regards,

Lisa Kochinski

PhD Student, Premodern Japanese Religion

School of Religion

University of Southern California

koch...@usc.edu

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[Michael Pye]

Dear Matthew and list users,

If it's just a question of whether or not to use the English form
Empress in the case of a female Tenno, then why not. Quite a lot of
-ess words are still used, e.g. actress, though others have fallen out
of use, such as authoress.
The follow-up question, about whether to use the imperatorial term at
all, is a different one. It depends how big you think an "empire" has
to be for its head to be an emperor. In those early days, establishing
hegemony over much of Japan was quite a feat of power projection and
justifies it. In these latter days, since the end of the overseas
Japanese empire (Dainipponteikoku), there is no justification for it
except convention. Since "king" would not quite do justice to the
word, perhaps we just have to follow the established convention.
best wishes,
Michael Pye

from Matthew Stavros <msta...@gmail.com>:

> Dear PMJSers,
>
> What's the current consensus on "emperor" vs "empress" in the case of a

> female *tennō*? I recall there being a debate a few years back, however, I

> didn't follow it closely then.
>
> Matthew Stavros
>

> *Matthew Stavros, PhD*

> Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies (=Associate Professor)
> Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
> The University of Sydney
> matthew...@sydney.edu.au
>
> PMJS, Editor and Network Administrator
> www.mstavros.com | www.kyotohistory.com

> Signatory to the Charter <http://napuaustralia.org/charter/> of the

> National Alliance for Public Universities
>

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[M. Adolphson]

Der Ms. Kochinski,

I am curious as to why an emperor has to be a "military ruler." And how would you define one? Where does Tenmu fit in? Or those who ruled during the wars against the Emishi? 

Would we then have to define each ruler's status as emperor or not based on their martial leadership? I think that might be rather confusing for our students. I for one would prefer that we do not make premodern Japanese history any more complicated to the readers than it already is.

Best,

Mickey Adolphson

[David Eason]

Dear Professor Pye,

I hope that you will excuse my ignorance here, but I have always
understand the issues surrounding the use of the English word “emperor”
for tenno to entail rather different issues than those you raised in your
previous post - points that are not especially analogous to the reasons
as to why the terms actress and authoress have, at least in the U.S.,
largely fallen into disuse (yes, both).

Namely, the objection that I have often heard raised is that, to many
people, “empress” suggests the wife of an emperor and can thus lead to
confusion. There is of course no reason that this need be so, as there are
obviously plenty of historical examples from other places and times where
the term “empress” points to a woman with ruling authority independent of
a spouse - Empress Catherine of Russia, for instance (or Queen Victoria in
her role as “Empress of India,” for that matter).

Nevertheless, because the primary wife of the tenno from at least the
time of Meiji have been commonly referred to in English as “empresses,”
referring to women who earlier ruled as tenno by the term “empress” does
not immediately make clear the distinction between their position from the
roles occupied by imperial consorts who potentially bore offspring for the
sovereign but did not otherwise exercise any official ruling prerogatives
of their own.


Best,

David Eason

---
Dr. David Eason (デービット・イーソン)
准教授
外国語学部、１号館、１４１２室
関西外国語大学
easo...@kansaigaidai.ac.jp





On 10/20/15, 7:44 AM, "Michael Pye" <pm...@googlegroups.com on behalf of

[Ruppert, Brian Douglas]

Dear All,

I don't recall the discussion Matthew mentions but I do prefer one or other of the following: female sovereign or ruling empress. I prefer not to use the term emperor due to the proliferation of alternate kanji including "wang/ou," although I'll be the first to admit that there are also Daoist implications offering a potential cosmological symbolism presumably justifying the use of ruling empress. (Empress by itself doesn't work since it would confuse the ruling empress with the formal wife of the tennou.) I've always preferred female sovereign, so on that score I would agree with Lisa Kochinski.

Brian

Brian Ruppert

University of Illinois

[Ruppert, Brian Douglas]

One further clarification:

I would clarify that I am not commenting on the issue of a supposed connection between the English term "emperor" and martial implications. I'm not aware of that discussion in the academic literature.

Brian

Brian Ruppert

---

From: pm...@googlegroups.com [pm...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Ruppert, Brian Douglas [rup...@illinois.edu]
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2015 7:30 PM
To: pm...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [PMJS] Emperor Jingu

[Michael Pye]

Dear David,
Well, I follow your line of thought. Just a couple of responses.
First, actress etc., just because some people stop using a word (e.g.
in the U.S.A.) it doesn't mean that other people have to do so. For me
"actress" is a perfectly normal word. ("authoress" is hopeless of
course.)
By the way in German there is of course a standard way of referring
distinctively to male and female versions of the same thing, e.g. as
Schauspieler (actor) and Schauspielerin, Student and Studentin,
Priester and Priesterin.
Back to Japan, you are of course right that "Empress" could mean the
ruler herself, or the wife of an Emperor. For the latter, however,
Empress Consort is available.
As to the aspect of military overlordship, this surely arises within
the overwhelmingly usual meaning of the English word, because it comes
from the Latin/Roman Imperator and has a long history through Europe,
as in the Holy Roman Empire consisting of more than one country down
to the Empress of India, as indicated.
Of course, if we use for shogun for shogun we could use tenno for
tenno. End of problem.
best wishes,
Michael Pye

Zitat von David Eason <david...@gmail.com>:just

[Ross Bender]

I'm a bit confused here, because if we're referring to the mighty legendary Jingū Kōgō who conquered Korea, she was never a Tennō. “Empress Jingu” gets about 45,800 Google hits, while “Emperor Jingu” gets only 1,970.

In the textbook Japan Emerging: Premodern Japan to 1850, ed. by Karl Friday (2012), pp. 117-118 I explain it thus:

 

From 592 when the first female sovereign, Suiko, took the throne, until the death of Shōtoku in 770, six women reigned as supreme rulers of Japan, interspersed with male rulers. In the official histories they were all named “Tennō.” As we have seen, this word is usually translated rather anachronistically as “Emperor”, and the term does not make a distinction between male or female. One of the difficulties in writing about ancient Japanese history in English is that we usually speak, for example, of the “Empress Jitō”, who was both the spouse of the Emperor Temmu but also Tennō in her own right after his death. But the female Tennō Genmei, Genshō, and Kōken were never the consorts of male rulers, and the latter two never married. One solution would be to simply call the female Tennō “Emperor”, but at present the convention is either to term them all “Empress” or to use some circumlocution such as “female sovereign.”

 

In my  The Edicts of the Last Empress, 749-770 translation of the senmyō, I use “Empress” both for those women who ruled as wives of emperors and for those who ruled in their own right.  The great Empress Kōmyō was of course the spouse of Emperor Shōmu, but never ruled on her own as a Tennō. After Shōmu’s death, she is referred to as Kōmyō Kōtaigō, 光明皇太后which I translate as “Dowager Empress.” This by the way is the translation given in Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC, along with “Queen Mother.”

There is perhaps no way to satisfactorily solve this problem completely. Of course “Heavenly Sovereign Kōken” might work, but that would not denote her gender. All in all, I think “Empress” for the premodern female Tennō, as well as the primary wives of Tennō is the simplest and most elegant solution, although Michael Pye's "Empress Consort" is certainly more precise.

Ross Bender

https://independent.academia.edu/RossBender

[S. Tsumura]

Why worry about the confusion for the word “empress”?  The common term “queen” has been used with the same ambiguity in English for centuries.

Susan Tsumura

[Cynthea Bogel]

For early rulers one ( or the)  issue, gender and status/marriage issues in translation not withstanding,  is that the term 天皇is not attested to contemporaneously until Tenmu (some say Suiko). Terms used such as Great king 大王 may be titles, or honorifics (Yoshimura Takehiko). This is what I have learned from my colleagues here but in case my understanding is mistaken I will not cite them here!

Great King Suiko anyone? 

Cynthea. 

Cynthea J. Bogel

Kyushu University

九州大学大学院人文科学府教授

Sent from my iPhone

Composed with voice dictation software. Apologies for any typos or infelicities. 

[Alexander Vovin]

Let me just add my two cents on two recent threads.

Himiko (roughly *pi[e] mie huo cannot be a hoax, because this title corresponds almost exactly to much later Old Japanese Pi1 no2 mi1ko1 'Sun prince[ss]' applicable to supreme rulers, amply attested in the texts. It is unimaginable that Chinese travellers would create a transcription of this and many other titles in Wei zhi wo ren zhuan just in their studies. And directions to *yamatai make at least some sense, if we dispense with the real hoax here: a myth of *yamatai: it never existed, and certainly not in Northern Kyushu, because in 3rd c. Chinese the character 台 was not read *tai, but tə, therefore where can be Yamatə except in Yamatə (i,e . Yamato in Old Japanese prnounciation)? (:-).

I see one usefullness in the usage of 'emperor' -- Japan tried to assert its equal footing with China starting from the famous/infamous episode 'greetings from the the emperor of the country wherethe sun rises to the emperor of the country where the sun sets'. In contrast, Korean and Ryukyuan kings have never tried to vie for this equal status and always deemed themselves the retainers of China (except the very last Korean king -- Kojon, but that is a very different story -- he actually was forced to adopt the 'Emperor' title, and leaving the room, he said, Now I am the **** emperor, because the implications were obvious -- loss of the Chinese protection and the imminent Japanese occupation). Now, if my memory does not betray me, several Vietnamese rulers, who fiercely fought for their independence from China, and therefore tried to put Vietnam in opposition to China, rather than under its protection, also adopted the imperial title. I am afraid that replacing emperor with sovereign will obscure this important part of premodern East Asian politics: well, every king is a 'sovereign'. Or may be we should start calling Chinese emperors 'sovereigns" as well (:-).

All the best,

Alexander Vovin
Membre d'Academia Europaea
Directeur d'études, linguistique historique du Japon et de l'Asie du Nord-Est

ECOLE DES HAUTES ETUDES EN SCIENCES SOCIALES

CENTRE DE RECHERCHES LINGUISTIQUES SUR L'ASIE ORIENTALE

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Adjunct Professor of Linguistics

Department of Linguistics

University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Honolulu
HI 96822, USA

sasha...@gmail.com

[Matthew Stavros]

Funny coincidence. The word "sovereign" to me suggests a position of supreme power, real-world influence, a status very few Japanese tenno enjoyed. So I looked up the word "sovereign" in my (positively sovereign) Apple computer dictionary to confirm my impression and guess what? The very first definition and example is  

1 a supreme ruler, especially a monarch. the Emperor became the first Japanese sovereign to visit Britain.

Sigh. Whatever to do? 

At any rate, thanks everyone for your input on this topic. I suspect discussion can (and probably will) go on for some time. I'm satisfied in the knowledge that there really isn't a consensus. 

Regards, Matthew Stavros

Matthew Stavros

Matthew Stavros, PhD

Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies (=Associate Professor)

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
The University of Sydney
matthew...@sydney.edu.au

PMJS, Editor and Network Administrator 
www.mstavros.com | www.kyotohistory.com 

Signatory to the Charter of the National Alliance for Public Universities

[Christopher Larcombe]

Dear Matthew,

 

I wonder whether the notion of “sovereignty” – and its related pronoun “sovereign” – is historically too wedded to modern (i.e, 17th C) notions of political legitimacy, in particular that legitimacy which applies to the supreme body (which is not in all cases coextensive with any particular person who may *symbolise* such a body) with the power to make law for a polity with the rule of recognition which authorises such supremacy, for it to be transposed without distortion to a pre-modern context. In addition, it strikes me as far too general to be useful if the intent is to capture historical nuance, because it encompasses “sovereigns” as various as kings, queens, emperors, princes (if the polity is a “princedom”), “the people”, parliament, “the queen in parliament”, “the constitution”, etc.

 

Traduttore, traditore?

 

Chris Larcombe

 

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[Ivan Rumánek]

Dear colleagues,

   let me add in a bit of my experience from outside the global scope of English-speaking sphere. As a Slovak, I lecture in the Czech Republic and as such, including my translating activities, I face these issues in two Slavic languages. Of course, similarly to German, we also distinguish, absolutely naturally and without any hint of sexism, the gender, the least as the Slavic languages still have grammatical gender in their fundamental set-up and this cannot be avoided as even the verbs (in past tense anyway) have gender-distinguishing forms.

   Emperor is "cisár" in Slovak ("císař" in Czech). Empress is "cisárovná / císařovna". Just as "kráľ / král" is king and "kráľovná / královna" is queen. The female gender counterpart "cisárovná / císařovna" is the usual, customary and traditional term here to designate both the consort of a tennou and the female tennou on her own right. Nevertheless, to help my students, and readers, realize there IS a difference which tends to be more often than not overlooked, I have designed and used a new "term" especially denoting the female tennou - by adding the feminine morphene -ka to the male noun "cisár / císař": "cisárka / císařka". Nevertheless, I only use this newly coined word when I need to emphasize what was the standing of such a person, otherwise I tend to use the Japanese term "tennou" with the female gender endings in pronouns, adjectives and verbs referring to such a personage. Although, of course, I am aware that no such distinction has ever been done in the king-queen dichotomy, even though the long reign of Her Majesty could have naturally provoked a debate in the English-speaking world similar to this one of ours here. But with the British sense of conservatism, the term Queen might quite well serve on as it has for centuries ever since Elizabeth I. Although originally, as its etymology shows, it did not mean much more than just a "wife" of the king (Swedish kvinna = woman)...

All the best,

Ivan Rumánek

[Richard Bowring]

Interesting discussion. What about 'monarch’? I have always been worried about using ‘emperor’ because pre-modern Japan had no empire in the sense that we usually use the term: Roman, Chinese. (I was just about to add Ottoman but then realised that traditionally we do not refer to an Ottoman emperor, but a sultan, which would suggest we should just persevere with tenno.) It may be custom to use the term emperor now but it is still misleading, then and now except for a short period when Japan did have an empire.

But my real question here is who first tried to translated the term tenno? Was it the Jesuits writing in Latin or Portuguese, or is it much later? I have no idea.

Richard Bowring

[Mikael Bauer]

Dear Professor Bowring,

or Dutch? I do remember a few early Dutch publications in which not the term 'tenno' was used at all, he was referred to as 'mikado' (not translated) all the time. I cannot check now, but these were 18th-19th century I believe.

Best,

Mikael Bauer Ph.D. (Harvard)
Lecturer in Japanese Studies/ Programme Manager of Japanese Studies
Michael Sadler building, room 4.23

School of Languages, Cultures and Societies (LCS)
University of Leeds
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UK
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---

From: pm...@googlegroups.com <pm...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Richard Bowring <rb...@cam.ac.uk>
Sent: 20 October 2015 09:30
To: pm...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: [PMJS] Emperor Jingu

[Ivan Rumánek]

Yes! I think THIS is the important Q: when was "emperor" used first to translate "tennou", "mikado" (or even "ofokimi", for that matter...)

Ivan Rumánek

[Matthew Stavros]

Gosh, not to complicate things even more, but at least in the primary sources I read, "天皇" shows up almost never. The sovereign is referred to as either 天, 君 (主君) or, my favourite, a blank space. Are we sure it's a consistent historical term? 

As a parallel example, I make the observation in my book that—starling to many yet common knowledge to those who pay attention to such things—"Heian-kyō" was not the name of the classical capital any more than "Kyoto" was the name of its medieval counterpart. 

Discuss. 

Matthew Stavros

Matthew Stavros, PhD
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies (=Associate Professor)

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
The University of Sydney
matthew...@sydney.edu.au

PMJS, Editor and Network Administrator 
www.mstavros.com | www.kyotohistory.com 

Signatory to the Charter of the National Alliance for Public Universities

[Jonathan López-Vera]

Dear Professor Bowring,

I don't know if we should "blame" the Jesuits in this case, in their texts they –both Portuguese and Castillian– use the word "emperor" ("emperador") to talk about Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, while they use "king" ("rey") to talk about the daimyō... and they don't follow this scheme in all cases, sometimes it's kind of difficult to follow them, since they call Hidetada "prince" ("príncipe") even in the moment when he was the shōgun and Ieyasu was formally ōgosho. So, maybe it's correct that they were the first ones to talk about an "emperor"of Japan, but they were not talking about the tennō.

I hope someone can give us some more light about this idea.

Best,

[raji.s...@aoi.uzh.ch]

Dear Prof. Bowring, dear colleagues

I certainly understand your misgivings about using the term "emperor" at all in the absence of an empire. As others have pointed out, however, the term Tennō was created to indicate imperial aspirations. And the Nihon shoki goes out of its way to create a history for that empire (whatever we think of its reality). The myth of Empress Jingu/Okinaga Tarashi Hime is, of course, a seminal element in this, as it serves to demonstrate how the newly fashioned "Nippon" has been a full-fledged empire, with subservient kingdoms and all, for centuries. To style Jingu as "empress" is, in a sense, appropriately anachronistic, because the whole story as told by Nihon shoki (and Kojiki) and retold and enhanced in other ancient documents is.
Or, should we "rectify the names" and style the Tennō as monarchs? We would then be using a functional designation in place of a title. Or should we politely take the aspiration for reality? I tend to think that as a translation, Emperor/Empress works fine in expressing what the title wanted to indicate: that its bearers were masters of an empire with backing from the heavens. How about using "Emperor" when translating the title and "monarch" (or other appropriate designation) when referring to their political function?

Best regards

Raji Steineck

Prof. Dr. Raji C. Steineck
Professor für Japanologie
Asien-Orient-Institut
Universität Zürich
Zürichbergstrasse 4
8032 Zürich

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-----pm...@googlegroups.com schrieb: -----
An: pm...@googlegroups.com
Von: Richard Bowring
Gesendet von: pm...@googlegroups.com
Datum: 20.10.2015 10:30
Betreff: Re: [PMJS] Emperor Jingu

[Jos Vos]

Matthew's remarks remind me of one of the prescribed essay titles students currently taking the International Baccalaureate course (I.B. - May 2016 Exam Session) were given for Theory of Knowledge (TOK) - one of their most challenging subjects:

"To what extent do the concepts that we use shape the conclusions that we reach?"

With kind regards,

Jos

 

---

From: msta...@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2015 20:11:24 +1100

Subject: Re: [PMJS] Emperor Jingu

To: pm...@googlegroups.com

[Scheid, Bernhard]

On Sasha’s question: Or may be we should start calling Chinese emperors 'sovereigns" as well?

 

The other day I heard a lecture by Mark Elliot (Harvard) on “Was China an empire?” and learned that there are reasons do doubt that (according to the respective historical period). The only term that can be unmistakenly translated as “emperor” is, according to Elliot, a 皇帝 who reigns a 帝国. Especially the latter term, 帝国however, seems to be a neologism influenced by Western concepts. It was first adopted by Meiji Japan and only later, after the Sino-Japanese war, by China!

 

While I found this information very interesting, it also shows that a too narrow definition of “emperor” or “empress” – rulers of ancient Rome or “imperia” modelled after Rome – would render all our conventions wrong. Personally, I opt for some kind of pragmatism and simply define “emperor” as a title that is not supposed to have another title above it.  In reality, every title has its own fate as the cases of say Habsburg Kaisers vs. British Kings/Queens demonstrate.

 

Best wishes

 

Bernhard

 

 

Von: pm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:pm...@googlegroups.com] Im Auftrag von Alexander Vovin
Gesendet: Dienstag, 20. Oktober 2015 06:07
An: pm...@googlegroups.com
Betreff: Re: [PMJS] Emperor Jingu

 

Let me just add my two cents on two recent threads.

All the best,

[Michael Pye]

Dear list,
Surely the special feature of an empire and hence of an emperor (or
empress) is an increase of hegenomy over a number of previously more
or less disparate units or areas? Doesn't this apply sufficiently to
the emergent Yamato supremacy? Admittedly it was only a little empire,
by world standards....
best wishes,
Michael Pye

[Mervart, David]

Well, of course neither the Portuguese nor the Dutch would have had the chance to translate or indeed as much as hear of the mysterious beast “tennō”. For, to the best of my knowledge, no one called the peculiar Kyoto relic by that title between something like 13th and late-18th century. It was dairi or -in, or some such other thing, if talked about at all. (See Watanabe Hiroshi, Higashi Ajia no ōken to shisō; I believe Luke Roberts has translated the particular and very useful introductory passage on the anachronistic use of some tenacious historical terms). Although I seem to remember Godaigo supposedly tried to resurrect the title during his standoff with the warrior powers.

The Dutch used “keyzer” (=Caesar =emperor) to describe the sovereign over the composite Tokugawa united states. The “keyzer” was of course the Tokugawa supremo. English usage followed this logic, so Perry quite sensibly brought the US president’s letter addressed to the “emperor of Japan” (i.e., Tokugawa Iemochi).

Early modern European observers seem to have sought to understand the situation of Japan’s polity on the model of the (modern) Roman empire and its peculiar duality between the secular and ecclesiastical power. When Kaempfer speaks of the Kyoto entity, “mikado”, he sometimes calls him (or rather Scheuchzer does, when he translates Kaempfer’s Latin and German) “the ecclesiasticall emperor” to distinguish him from the “secular emperor” in Edo. The salient point, anyway, was not so much that “empire” is grand, but that it is composite and (in practice) fragmented, a considerably messier affair than a proper centralised kingdom like that of, say, France. Emperors presided over multi-lingual, complex, composite and potentially tricky realms, although that might also be because those realms were territorially large and extended beyond the seas.

Troubles with cross-cultural terminology and its potentially distorting effects are of course not a post-modern prerogative: Aizawa Seishisai’s Shinron of 1825 has an interesting note on the abuse of the lofty -tei (Ch: -di) 帝 epithet when used by the Hollandologists to translate the self-proclaimed petty “kaisers" or “emperors" of the Far West. What insolence to suggest those might be even remotely a similar sort of thing.

David

--
David Mervart, PhD

Profesor Visitante

Centro de Estudios de Asia Oriental

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

[Ross Bender]

The Nara sovereigns certainly thought themselves heads of an empire, even though it was a rather fictive imperium. The following is from an entry in Shoku Nihongi, translated in my Nara Japan, 749-757, p. 123.

Tenpyō Shōhō 4.6.17 

On this day a banquet was provided for the Silla envoys in the Administrative Palace.[1]  The Empress gave an edict:

“Silla has served this court from the time that Okinagatarashihime Ōkisaki [2]pacified that country until now, and performed the duty of protecting its frontiers. However, that country’s former King Sŭngkyŏng[3] and the Great Minister Sakong were negligent in word and deed and neglected propriety in word and deed.[4]  Therefore they have sent ambassadors to explain this negligence. This time Prince Hŏnyŏng[5]  wished to come and repent of the mistake. However, considering that the country might be disordered, now he has sent Prince T’aeryŏm in his stead and moreover has sent tribute. We therefore are overjoyed and grant him rank and also gifts.”

The Empress gave a further edict:

“From now on the King himself should come in person to court to report. If he sends an envoy in his place, he should send a written report.”

 

---

[1] Chōdō 朝堂

[2] 気長足媛皇太后 – Jingū Kōgō 神功皇后

[3] SNIII p. 123 n. 10 Sŭngkyŏng 承慶 -King Hyosŏng 孝成; Sakong 思恭

[4] SNIII p. 123 n. 12 – references to history of relations with Silla during the Tenpyō period.

[5] SNIII p. 123 n. 13 Prince Hŏnyŏng 軒英 - Kyŏngtŏk 景徳

Also FWIW the Oxford Corpus of Old Japanese Texts uses “Empress” throughout their list of Senmyō:

http://vsarpj.orinst.ox.ac.uk/corpus/texts.html#norito

Ross Bender

https://independent.academia.edu/RossBender

[David Eason]

Dear All,

   If I might be permitted to add just a few small points to the discussion, I want to begin by thanking Michael Pye for his response to my earlier message. I had mentioned word usage in the U.S. in particular not in order to be totalizing or prescriptive, but rather for the opposite reason – in order to indicate that I was only referring to the very limited context that I knew best (or that was, at the very least, my original intent). 

   As for early translations of tennō as “emperor” or its counterpart in other languages, a quick search of the early 1600s Arte da Lingoa de Iapam does not seem to contain an entry for “tennō,” though there is one for “mikado” which is, rather interestingly, rendered into Portuguese as “rey” (in other words, “king”). Still, if I remember my sources correctly, I believe that by the end of this same century Engelbert Kaempfer may have used tennō or some translation for tennō at some point in his account, but I am afraid that I do not have the reference on hand in order to be sure. 

Best,

David Eason

---

Dr. David Eason (デービット・イーソン)

准教授

外国語学部、１号館、１４１２室

関西外国語大学

easo...@kansaigaidai.ac.jp

[S. Tsumura]

Europeans starting with the Jesuits and English (Adams and Cocks) referred to the shogun as emperor, presumably because he was over the “kings” (daimyo). The Dutch did also, so of course the Europeans in general and then the Americans, including Perry. As to who first used it for the tennô, couldn’t it be that the sonnô party found this word reprehensible as it implied the shogun was over the tenno, and when they came to power insisted that the tenno rather than the shogun be called “emperor” in English?

Susan Tsumura

[Ivan Rumánek]

Actually, Cambridge History of Japan uses "king" for the early monarchs of the Chronicles...

[Kai Nieminen]

Dear colleagues,

Jos refers to a point we non-English speakers meet often: the terminology differs from language to language. From the Finnish point of view, not only linguistically but also from political-historically, words seem to take a different shape. When we were under the Swedish regime, our sovereign was the king of Sweden; the from 1809 on we were under Russian regime lead by the czar (Shah in Persian); we just call him and other Russian emperors tsaari but in official documents also emperor (keisari  < caesar, Kaiser etc.) and in fact we never were a really integrated part of the Empire: Finland was an autonomous grand duchy with a Russian grand duke as a nominal sovereign. When we speak of the Swedish queen Kristina, our one-time sovereign, we use a Finnish feminine: kuningatar (queen) against kuningas (king), but this is the same word we use for any ruling or married queen anywhere in the world. The spouse of the czar was tsaaritar, but as we never were ruled by a female czar, we do not have this problem of distinguishing male and female emperor. And as we do not distinguish gender of the nouns or pronouns we have both advantages and disadvantages of identifying the roles.

Anyway, as Cynthea Bogel and Matthew Stawros have pointed, it is very seldom if ever we readers of pre-modern Japanese meet  words like "tennoo" or "mikado" etc.  Ue is much more common, as are kimi etc, as given by Matthew. So, if translating fiction (as I am) why not translate understandably according to the context. If writing or translating non-fiction, one always have the option of making a note.

Kai Nieminen

[Richard Bowring]

Many thanks for an interesting discussion, although I have already forgotten where it all started!
If I may add a coda. I appreciate that we should not bang on so much about English to the exclusion of all else, but I fear it is the lingua franca of today. When we are all speaking and writing Chinese it will be much easier and the problem will disappear.
I found Raji Steineck’s comments distinguishing name and function to be very helpful.
I suspect that Susan Tsumura is correct and that apart from Kaempfer (in translation) and his use of the term 'ecclesiastical emperor’ mention by David Mervart the use of the term ‘emperor’ to designate the mikado/tenno/etc rather than the shogun does not predate early Meiji. Actually the use of ‘emperor’ to refer to the shogun is itself of interest and fits well with Tokugawa Japan being in reality not a ‘state' but a collection of little (and some big) states with one overlord.
Richard Bowring

[Matthew Stavros]

I'd like it very much if, as a group, we could reflect further on the historicity of the Japanese word 天皇. Does it appear in primary sources, and if so, is it being used as a proper noun and formal title (capital T, Tennō) instead of an adulatory sobriquet ("the heavenly sovereign")? Though the word never shows up in the medieval documents I read, I've always assumed it was used in earlier history. 

Could Tennō be like 幕府, not an historical term at all? I shudder at the thought.

Matthew Stavros

Matthew Stavros, PhD
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies (=Associate Professor)

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
The University of Sydney
matthew...@sydney.edu.au

PMJS, Editor and Network Administrator 
www.mstavros.com | www.kyotohistory.com 

Signatory to the Charter of the National Alliance for Public Universities

[raji.s...@aoi.uzh.ch]

Dear Dr. Stavros

At least some medieval texts make prominent use of the term 天皇. The Jinnō shōtoku certainly does, but also Jihen's Kuji hongi gengi, to name just two of them that I have currently at hand.

Best regards

Raji

Prof. Dr. Raji C. Steineck
Professor für Japanologie
Asien-Orient-Institut
Universität Zürich
Zürichbergstrasse 4
8032 Zürich

++41+44-634 3181

Neue Publikationen/new publications
Kritik der symbolischen Formen I: Symbolische Form und Funktion
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That Wonderful Composite Called Author: Authorship in East Asian Literatures from the Beginnings to the Seventeenth Century
http://www.brill.com/products/book/wonderful-composite-called-author

-----pm...@googlegroups.com schrieb: -----

An: "PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies" <pm...@googlegroups.com>
Von: Matthew Stavros
Gesendet von: pm...@googlegroups.com
Datum: 22.10.2015 11:10

Betreff: Re: [PMJS] Emperor Jingu

[S. Tsumura]

In the Nihon Shoki “the 2nd year of Oki-naga-tarashi-hi-hiro-nuka Tennô” 息長足日広額 天皇 二年 occurs at the beginning of book 24, and the Heian-period Seiji Yôryaku Book 25 has dates like "Saga Tennô Kônin 13” 嵯峨天皇弘仁 十三年.
Susan Tsumura

> On Oct 22, 2015, at 18:09, Matthew Stavros <msta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'd like it very much if, as a group, we could reflect further on the historicity of the Japanese word 天皇. Does it appear in primary sources, and if so, is it being used as a proper noun and formal title (capital T, Tennō) instead of an adulatory sobriquet ("the heavenly sovereign")? Though the word never shows up in the medieval documents I read, I've always assumed it was used in earlier history.
>
> Could Tennō be like 幕府, not an historical term at all? I shudder at the thought.
>
> Matthew Stavros
>
> Matthew Stavros, PhD
> Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies (=Associate Professor)
> Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
> The University of Sydney
> matthew...@sydney.edu.au
>
> PMJS, Editor and Network Administrator
> www.mstavros.com | www.kyotohistory.com
> Signatory to the Charter of the National Alliance for Public Universities
>
> On Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 7:52 PM, Richard Bowring <rb...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> Many thanks for an interesting discussion, although I have already forgotten where it all started!
> If I may add a coda. I appreciate that we should not bang on so much about English to the exclusion of all else, but I fear it is the lingua franca of today. When we are all speaking and writing Chinese it will be much easier and the problem will disappear.
> I found Raji Steineck’s comments distinguishing name and function to be very helpful.
> I suspect that Susan Tsumura is correct and that apart from Kaempfer (in translation) and his use of the term 'ecclesiastical emperor’ mention by David Mervart the use of the term ‘emperor’ to designate the mikado/tenno/etc rather than the shogun does not predate early Meiji. Actually the use of ‘emperor’ to refer to the shogun is itself of interest and fits well with Tokugawa Japan being in reality not a ‘state' but a collection of little (and some big) states with one overlord.
> Richard Bowring
>

[Michael...@ma2.seikyou.ne.jp]

Tennou not an emperor!? Next, you $B!G (Bll be telling me a monogatari is not a novel.

I recommend a quick check of the Komonjo, Kokiroku, and other databases at Shiryou hensanjo website. One sees there that tennou is a quite common usage in contemporary sources, but generally not in direct reference to a reigning emperor.

m jamentz





> In the Nihon Shoki $B!H (Bthe 2nd year of Oki-naga-tarashi-hi-hiro-nuka Tenn $B +T!IB)D9B- (B
> $BF|9-3[ (B $BE79D (B $BFsG/ (B occurs at the beginning of book 24, and the Heian-period Seiji Y
> $B +T�(Byaku Book 25 has dates like "Saga Tenn $B +T (BK $B +T�(Bin 13 $B!I (B $B:72eE79D90?N (B $B==;0G/ (B.

> Susan Tsumura
>
> > On Oct 22, 2015, at 18:09, Matthew Stavros <msta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'd like it very much if, as a group, we could reflect further on the hist

> oricity of the Japanese word $BE79D (B. Does it appear in primary sources, and if s
> o, is it being used as a proper noun and formal title (capital T, Tenn $B +Wｩ (B ins

> tead of an adulatory sobriquet ("the heavenly sovereign")? Though the word n
> ever shows up in the medieval documents I read, I've always assumed it was u
> sed in earlier history.
> >

> > Could Tenn $B +W (Bbe like $BKkI\ (B, not an historical term at all? I shudder at the th

> ought.
> >
> > Matthew Stavros
> >
> > Matthew Stavros, PhD
> > Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies (=Associate Professor)
> > Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
> > The University of Sydney
> > matthew...@sydney.edu.au
> >
> > PMJS, Editor and Network Administrator
> > www.mstavros.com | www.kyotohistory.com
> > Signatory to the Charter of the National Alliance for Public Universities
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 7:52 PM, Richard Bowring <rb...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> > Many thanks for an interesting discussion, although I have already forgott
> en where it all started!
> > If I may add a coda. I appreciate that we should not bang on so much about
> English to the exclusion of all else, but I fear it is the lingua franca of
> today. When we are all speaking and writing Chinese it will be much easier
> and the problem will disappear.

> > I found Raji Steineck $B!G (Bs comments distinguishing name and function to be ve

> ry helpful.
> > I suspect that Susan Tsumura is correct and that apart from Kaempfer (in t

> ranslation) and his use of the term 'ecclesiastical emperor $B!G (B mention by Davi
> d Mervart the use of the term $B!F (Bemperor $B!G (B to designate the mikado/tenno/etc ra
> ther than the shogun does not predate early Meiji. Actually the use of $B!F (Bempe
> ror $B!G (B to refer to the shogun is itself of interest and fits well with Tokugaw
> a Japan being in reality not a $B!F (Bstate' but a collection of little (and some

> big) states with one overlord.
> > Richard Bowring
> >
> > act the group administrator at edi...@pmjs.org
>

> --
> PMJS is a scholarly forum.
>
> You are subscribed to PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies.
> To post to the list, send email to pm...@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe, send email to pmjs+uns...@googlegroups.com
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> Contact the group administrator at edi...@pmjs.org
>

[Ruppert, Brian Douglas]

Dear All,

I would concur with Michael. I've just glanced at both Kojiki and Nihon shoki, and I see that it appears quite a lot in the Kojiki (glossed "sumera mikoto") and almost ubiquitously in the Nihon shoki (also glossed "sumera mikoto").

Brian Ruppert

________________________________________
From: pm...@googlegroups.com [pm...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Michael...@ma2.seikyou.ne.jp [Michael...@ma2.seikyou.ne.jp]
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2015 6:38 AM
To: pm...@googlegroups.com
Cc: pm...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Re: [PMJS] Emperor Jingu

[Cynthea Bogel]

Whomever wrote the passages below in the Nihon shoki used the term tennō in reference to Tenmu and Jitō, and it would seem as a title for Monmu. Prof. Piggott has reviewed other usages in her work. We cannot be sure from when these titles or honorifics were used, however. Previously scholars thought that tennō was used from Suiko’s time but the text in which it occurs may postdate her.

On a related matter, as  I mentioned in an earlier post, Yoshimura Takehiko (日本古代の王・王妃　Meiji daigaku kiyo 75 [2014])＊＊  argues that Great King  大王- -used prior to tennō for a ruler, and previously taken as a “title--might instead be an honorific term.  

If my notes about a mokkan my colleague Prof. Ellen Van Goethem described to me are accurate, there is a mokkan inscribed with the characters 天皇. It is undated, but a mokkan found in the same cache carries a date of 677.  (and my musing) From this we might  infer that it was used from Tenmuʻs time 

Best, Cynthea Bogel

686.5.24 Emperor [Tenmu] falls ill. The Sutra of the Medicine Master Buddha was expounded at Kawara[i], and a retreat was held within the Palace.

癸亥。天皇體[体]不安。因以於川原寺。説薬師經。安居于宮中。Nihon shoki.

[i] Asuka kawara no miya 655-656 飛鳥川原宮

697. 6.26.  太上天皇  is used to refer to Jitō in the Nihon shoki

IN the Shoku Nihongi 

701.1   (大宝元年0     Shoku Nihongi, 2. Monmu Tennō (701.1)「続日本紀」巻第二 文武天皇

「天皇御大極殿受朝。其儀於正門樹烏形幢。左日像青龍朱雀幡。右月像玄武白虎幡。」 

 

＊＊

Title:	日本古代の王・王妃称号と「大王・大后」
Authors:	吉村,武彦
Shimei:	明治大学人文科学研究所紀要
Volume:	75
Start page:	175
End page:	193
ISSN:	0543-3894
Issue Date:	31-Mar-2014
OPACbibid:	http://opac.lib.meiji.ac.jp/webopac/ctlsrh.do?listcnt=5&maxcnt=100&bibid=SB00006015
URI:	http://hdl.handle.net/10291/16806

[Ross Bender]

Tennō 天皇 is used over 600 times in Shoku Nihongi. During the reign of the puppet emperor Junnin, Mikado 帝 is frequently used to denote Junnin, while TakanoTennō  高野天皇 is used for the Retired Empress "Kōken", an honorific name she was awarded only in 758.

My two volumes of translation from the Shoku Nihongi, The Edicts of the Last Empress, 749-770 and Nara Japan 749-757 include the text as well as my translation, and could clear up any misunderstanding about the use of Tennō during this particular era.

I would also recommend Dr. Hirabayashi Akihito's 平林章仁 new book "Tennō wa itsu kara Tennō ni natta ka?" (2015, Shōdensha).

Ross Bender

https://independent.academia.edu/RossBender

[Cynthea Bogel]

All, 

No differing with frequent use in the chronicles, but we must take care to distinguish between [lack of] proof of contemporaneous use for an Emperor or Empress and use by the writer/ compilers of the Nihon shoki and other references to early rulers.

That is why I mentioned the mokkan that could date to 677 and the Monmu reference early in the Shoku nihongi (701)

Thank you, Ross, for the Hirabayashi Akihito reference. THere is also this by Senda Minoru.  千田純

http://shikon.nichibun.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/123456789/866/1/nk35015.pdf

Best again, Cynthea

シンシア・ボーゲル、Ph.D.

九州大学人文科学研究院教授

日本美術史・仏教視覚文化

092-642-2370　

Cynthea J. Bogel, Ph.D.
Professor

Japanese art history and 

Buddhist visual culture in Asia

Kyushu University

[Luke Roberts]

I once did a bit of research on the use of “tennō” in later ages.  It’s usage went into decline in the early Heian with the appearance of ingō 院号 and the decline in Sinitic honorific posthumous names  called shigō 諡号 (see Yamaguchi below).  Only a few unfortunate banished emperors who did not have the chance to retire ended up with shigō tennō titles some time after they died— some within decades and some as late as Meiji.  Kitabatake Chikafusa lamented this change.  Even in those cases they often just were referred to by the shigō and followed by -in anyhow (i.e. Juntoku-in) —because I think it was the more normative form from Heian to near the end of Edo.  As Fujita Satoru’s research (Bakumatsu no tennō) shows, Emperor Kōkaku was instrumental in reviving the importance of the tennō moniker toward the end of the Edo period.  That is I think when Jingū definitively became not counted as a reigning sovereign.  Before then her position was sometimes yes and sometimes no depending on the source.

Best, Luke Roberts

 P.S. This information is presented briefly in the “Histories” chapter of my Performing the Great Peace, and more turgid detail in a chapter I published in James Baxter and Joshua Fogel’s Writing Histories in Japan.

Fujita Satoru 藤田覚. Bakumatsu no tennô 幕末の天皇. Kôdansha, 1994.

Yamaguchi Osamu 山口修. “‘Tennô’ shô no keifu” 「天皇」称の系譜. Bukkyô Daigaku sôgô kenkyûjo kiyô 仏教大学総合研究所紀要, no. 2 special issue (March 1995), pp. 96-118.

Let me add my thanks to Mikael Bauer as well.

[Luke Roberts]

Translations are always fraught with unintended associations. I think the huguenot Francois Caron called the guy in Kyoto “the pope” in his history of Japan, but I doubt his contemporary Jesuits were too happy with that. He also ranked daimyo variously as kings, dukes, counts etc.
Luke Roberts

[Chris Kern]

Looking at a non-history source, the Tale of Genji uses tenno three
times, but only in the phrase 太上天皇. Other than that the Emperor is
usually うへ or うち, although みかど is used numerous times as well, both of
current and retired Emperors (including one combination of both 院 and
みかど as 冷泉院の帝). 先帝 also occurs a few times as "former Emperor". This
may be notable as a pattern of use because Genji consistently uses
Sino-Japanese terms for government ranks and positions, and both 院 and
先帝 are Sino-Japanese. But for whatever reason the author preferred not
to use any sino-Japanese term to refer to the Emperor.

[David Eason]

Dear All,

   I am almost certain that there must be more recent as well as more in-depth scholarship concerning the mokkan that Professor Bogel mentioned in her prior messages than the following citation that I will mention here. Still, as I was preparing prior lessons for my early Japanese history class and trying to incorporate mokkan more fully into the course, I happened to come across a good discussion regarding this same mokkan with its use of the term tennō in Ichi Hiroki’s 2012 book Asuka no mokkan: kodai-shi no arata na kaimei (市大樹、『飛鳥の木簡ー古代史の新たな解明』). 

Again, I would not at all be surprised to learn that there are both more recent and better studies of the topic, but as a non-expert in the Asuka period I found it an accessible and useful introductory work. 

Best,

David Eason

---

Dr. David Eason (デービット・イーソン)

准教授

外国語学部、１号館、１４１２室

関西外国語大学

easo...@kansaigaidai.ac.jp

From: <pm...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cynthea Bogel <cjb...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: <pm...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thursday, October 22, 2015 at 10:17 PM
To: pmjs digest subscribers <pm...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [PMJS] Emperor Jingu

[Daniel F. P. Schley]

Dear all,

I would like to add just a further perspective on this interesting tennô/emperor-discussion.

During my own research on medieval kingship in Japan I found an interesting article (in German) from Walter Demel concerning the usage of the imperial title for non European monarchs. Based on the strong connection of imperator (Kaiser, emperor et.al.) with Christianity, e.g. the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire as protector of the church, the tsar for the orthodox church, foreign rulers like the Chinese Monarchs or the Shogun in Japan were at first not referred to with the imperial title but as kings (e.g. „rey“ for the mikado, as David Eason mentioned it).

Now as Demel argues in his article, this usage changed during the 17th century with the increasing economical interest in China and Japan. Thus diplomats and especially merchants, e.g. from the VOC (an early example is Joan Nieuhof’s account "Het Gesantschap der Neerlandtsche Oost-Indische Compagnie aan den Tartarischen Cham, tegenwoordigen Keizer van China" from 1665), with a less strong religious agenda began to use the much more prestigious imperial title for reigning and/or ruling monarchs.

For further details, please see: Walter Demel, Kaiser außerhalb Europas, in: Thomas Beck (ed.), Überseegeschichte. Beiträge der jüngeren Forschung, Stuttgart 1999, pp. 56-75, especially pp. 63f.

Best,

  Daniel Schley

_______________________________

Dr. Daniel F. Schley

Japan-Zentrum, LMU

Oettingenstr. 67, 80538 München, Deutschland

[William Bodiford]

Dear Everyone:

Over the years I have collected many notes regarding "tenno" as a historical term, as a modern title, and as a term to translate into English.  When this discussion first started I was unable to find time to contribute, but I had hoped to put some of my notes into order for this list.  I have abandoned the ambition of revising my notes.  I will simply copy 3 separate sets of them below in the hope that might be of some use.

First, this the list of definitions that I provide to undergraduate students in my course on reading Japanese Buddhist texts:

天皇  (テンノウ): 
1.    天の神。北極星を神格化したもの。

2.   道教では仙界の帝王として祭祀の対象とされたが、六朝末ごろから元始天尊が最高神とされるようになると、その下位に置かれた。

3.   唐の高宗の上元1年 (674) には地上の皇帝をも「天皇」と称した。

4.   皇帝・天子の敬称。

5.   明治憲法 (1889) では、大日本帝国の元首であり、軍隊の統帥権を握る者と定めた。

6.   日本国憲法 (1946) では、日本国および日本国民統合の象徴とされ、国家的儀礼としての国事行為のみを行い、国政に関する権能は持たない。男系の男子がこの地位を継承する。

        ----- end of reading notes for students ----

Second, is an excerpt or paraphrase (I cannot remember which) from Luke Robert's translation of discussion of this term by Watanabe Hiroshi.  First I will give the citations and then the excerpt.

Watanabe Hiroshi 渡辺浩.  1997.  Higashi Asia no ōken to shisō 東アジアの王権と思想 (East Asian Kingly Authorities and Ideologies).  Tokyo:  University of Tokyo Press. 
“Preface” translated by Luke S. Roberts as: 

Watanabe Hiroshi.  1998.  “About Some Japanese Historical Terms.”  Translated by Luke S. Roberts.  Sino-Japanese Studies 10, no. 2:  32-42.    


<p. 39>

Tennō 天皇
    In a certain sense the tennō did not exist in Japan from the middle of the thirteenth century until the end of the eighteenth century.  From the time of Juntoku 順德 tennō (r. 1210-1221) until its revival at the time of Kōkaku 光格 tennō (r. 1779-1817), the posthumous title (shigō 諡號) tennō was not officially used either before or after death.  While regnant they were called by such terms as kinri (sama) 禁裏 (樣), kinchū (sama) 禁中 (樣), tenshi (sama) 天子 (樣) (son of heaven), tōgin 當今 (the current [reign]), and shujō 主上 (my lord); after retirement were called Sentō 仙洞 (Sentō retirement villa), shin’in 新院 (newly retired), hon’in 本院 (the currently retired), and the like; and after death were called for example Gomizunoo-in 御水尾院 [(sic) should be:  後水尾院], Sakuramachi-in 櫻町院, Momozono-in 桃園院 [i.e., name with “in” appended].  In the previously mentioned Dai Nihon eidai setsuyō mujinzō 大日本永代節用無盡藏 [Inexhaustible Warehouse Almanac of Great Japan] (1854), the section called “Honchō nendai yōran” 本朝年代要覧 (Era Names of Our Court) also refers to Kōkaku and Jinkō 仁孝 and all before (with the exception of the ancient period, Juntoku, and a few other tennō) faithfully as somebody-in 何々院.   People of the Edo period would not have said something like “Gomizunoo tennō” 御水尾天皇 [(sic) should be:  後水尾天皇] .  

    Such scholars as Nakai Chikuzan 中井竹山 (1730-1804) and Yamagata Taika 山縣太華 (1781-1866) lamented this situation in which “propriety of naming” was
<p. 40>
unclear.  Indeed, when we consider that there was someone in Edo called while in office such terms as kubō sama, tenka sama, shōgun sama [公方樣, 天下樣, 將軍樣], and who after retirement was called “ōgosho sama” 大御所樣 and the like, and who after death was called majestically, for example, Daitoku-inden 大德院殿, Daiyū-inden 大猷院殿, Jōken-inden 常憲院殿, then the relationship between Edo and Kyoto was indeed unclear.  However, that was the actual situation of the structure of the state.  It is said that not until 1925 were all of the former “Somebody-in” [officially] retroactively made into “Somebody-tennō.”  From the perspective of the official government historical perspective of the day, this was an appropriate measure.  But does current historical terminology need to be in accordance with that measure?  Is there a need to obscure such fascinating historical phenomena? 

    In this book, for all emperors before Kōkaku I will use the term “in.”  Furthermore, I will not use the term “tennō” but rather “kinri (sama).”

        ------ end of Watanabe trans by Roberts excerpt ----------
 
Third, here are my own random notes from years ago which I compiled from a variety of sources.  I have not attempted to update them, but include warts and all:

        The common English term "emperor" actually translates 日本国皇帝, the official title adopted in 1889 which reflects Japan's imperial ambitions of the 1889-1945 period.  It is important to note that the universal use of the term "tenno" results from post-1945 Japanese official policy.  Prior to 1945 the Japanese people and government routinely used a wide variety of other terms.  The terms used varied from one context to the next.  Written in Japanese these terms include:  sumera mikoto, sumemima no mikoto, mikado, o'kami, etc.  Written in Chinese, when aimed at an overseas audience 倭王, 倭国王, 大倭王, 皇帝,  etc. could appear and when written for internal consumption 王, 大王, 天子, 治天の君, 太上法皇 (used after Buddhist ordination), 乗輿, 車駕, 至尊, 主上, 御門, 帝, 天子様, 禁裏, 内裏, 禁中, etc. could appear.  After 1889, the official term was 日本国皇帝 but in common spoken Japanese terms like 天子様 (tenshi sama), お上 (o'kami), 主上 (o'kami), 聖上 (o'kami, shojo), 当今 (togin), 畏き辺り (kashikoki atari), 上御一人 (kami goichinin), etc. were used.  The national anthem uses the word "kimi" 君. 

        The government policy of applying "tenno" to all these contexts is a political act that seeks to suggest that the character and majesty of the "tenno" was the same at all times and all places.  That definitely was not the case.  Always consider using more descriptive terms (king, head of the royal family, the court, the monarch, etc.) depending on the context.   Moreover, at one time or another both Chinese and Korean groups have protested against using the term tenno 天皇 in reference to Japan.  They seem to prefer 日王.  Western scholars who write about Japan, though, almost always use the terms "tenno" and "emperor." 

        To make matters more complicated, in Chinese documents during the Ming dynasty, the military ruler (shogun) was known as the 日本国王 and during the Qing he was known as 日本国大君.  (BTW:   大君 is the origin of the English "tycoon.")  Finally, the royal family is said to lack a surname.  (They award family names on others, so no one has the power to give one to them.)  Some scholars, however, refer to them as the "Yamato" (倭 or 和) clan.  The Japanese version of Wikipedia has very detailed information about all of the above usages.

        ------ end of random notes

I hope some of this information is helpful.

. . . . William Bodiford

--

William M. Bodiford
UCLA Asian Lang & Cultures
BOX 951540; 290 Royce Hall
Los Angeles CA 90095-1540

Professor, Buddhist Studies and Japanese Religions
http://www.alc.ucla.edu/faculty/william-m-bodiford
Chair, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
http://www.alc.ucla.edu/
Phone: 310-206-8235
FAX: 310-825-8808
_______________________
These statements are my own, not those of the University of California.
_______________________

[Matthew Stavros]

William Bodiford (with the help of Luke Roberts) has provided an extremely useful resource. Thanks very much indeed. I'm tempted to ask permission to make this into a PMJS Paper, with a permanent link for future students. 

Matthew Stavros

Matthew Stavros, PhD
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies (=Associate Professor)

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
The University of Sydney
matthew...@sydney.edu.au

PMJS, Editor and Network Administrator 
www.mstavros.com | www.kyotohistory.com 

Signatory to the Charter of the National Alliance for Public Universities

[Michael...@ma2.seikyou.ne.jp]

Hello All,

I would like to thank William Bodiford and Luke Roberts for their contributions on this question. Ever since this passage from Watanabe Hiroshi’s work came up on this list (or was it H-Japan?) several years ago, I have been troubled by its implications.

I believe Luke Roberts' translation of Watanabe Hiroshi is accurate and would like to question the significance of the phrase “a certain sense” in the following passage:

“In a certain sense the tenn ��did not exist in Japan from the middle of the thirteenth century until the end of the eighteenth century…”

This passage is followed by examples of euphemistic expressions for the tenn �� This seems to tell us more about linguistic-social customs than the existence of an emperor/tenn �� I am struggling for an analogy here, but if, for example, one were prohibited by custom from saying the name of one’s god, would it be proper to conclude that such a god did not exist?

m jamentz

> William Bodiford (with the help of Luke Roberts) has provided an extremely
> useful resource. Thanks very much indeed. I'm tempted to ask permission to

> make this into a *PMJS Paper*, with a permanent link for future students.
>
>
> Matthew Stavros
>
> *Matthew Stavros, PhD*

> Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies (=Associate Professor)
> Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
> The University of Sydney
> matthew...@sydney.edu.au
>
> PMJS, Editor and Network Administrator
> www.mstavros.com | www.kyotohistory.com

> Signatory to the Charter <http://napuaustralia.org/charter/> of the

> National Alliance for Public Universities
>
> On Sat, Oct 24, 2015 at 8:37 AM, William Bodiford <bodi...@ucla.edu> wrote:
>
>
> > Dear Everyone:
> >
> > Over the years I have collected many notes regarding "tenno" as a
> > historical term, as a modern title, and as a term to translate into
> > English. When this discussion first started I was unable to find time to
> > contribute, but I had hoped to put some of my notes into order for this
> > list. I have abandoned the ambition of revising my notes. I will simply
> > copy 3 separate sets of them below in the hope that might be of some use.
> >
> > First, this the list of definitions that I provide to undergraduate
> > students in my course on reading Japanese Buddhist texts:
> >
> > 天皇 (テンノウ):
> > 1. 天の神。北極星を神格化したもの。
> >
> > 2. 道教では仙界の帝王として祭祀の対象とされたが、六朝末ごろから元始天尊が最高神とされるようになると、その下位に置かれた。
> >
> > 3. 唐の高宗の上元1年 (674) には地上の皇帝をも「天皇」と称した。
> >
> > 4. 皇帝・天子の敬称。
> >
> > 5. 明治憲法 (1889) では、大日本帝国の元首であり、軍隊の統帥権を握る者と定めた。
> >
> > 6. 日本国憲法 (1946)
> > では、日本国および日本国民統合の象徴とされ、国家的儀礼としての国事行為のみを行い、国政に関する権能は持たない。男系の男子がこの地位を継承する。
> >
> > ----- end of reading notes for students ----
> >
> > Second, is an excerpt or paraphrase (I cannot remember which) from Luke
> > Robert's translation of discussion of this term by Watanabe Hiroshi. Firs
> t
> > I will give the citations and then the excerpt.
> >

> > Watanabe Hiroshi 渡辺浩. 1997. Higashi Asia no ��en to shis ��東アジアの王権と思想

> > (East Asian Kingly Authorities and Ideologies). Tokyo: University of
> > Tokyo Press.
> > “Preface” translated by Luke S. Roberts as:
> >
> > Watanabe Hiroshi. 1998. “About Some Japanese Historical Terms.”
> > Translated by Luke S. Roberts. Sino-Japanese Studies 10, no. 2:
> > 32-42.
> >
> >
> > <p. 39>
> >

> > Tenn ��天皇
> > In a certain sense the tenn ��did not exist in Japan from the middle of

>
> > the thirteenth century until the end of the eighteenth century. From the

> > time of Juntoku 順? tenn ��(r. 1210-1221) until its revival at the time of
> > K ��aku 光格 tenn ��(r. 1779-1817), the posthumous title (shig ��諡號) tenn ��was

> > not officially used either before or after death. While regnant they were
>

> > called by such terms as kinri (sama) 禁裏 (樣), kinch ��(sama) 禁中 (樣), tenshi
> > (sama) 天子 (樣) (son of heaven), t ��in 當今 (the current [reign]), and shuj ��主
> 上
> > (my lord); after retirement were called Sent ��仙洞 (Sent ��retirement villa),

>
> > shin’in 新院 (newly retired), hon’in 本院 (the currently retired), and the
> > like; and after death were called for example Gomizunoo-in 御水尾院 [(sic)
> > should be: 後水尾院], Sakuramachi-in 櫻町院, Momozono-in 桃園院 [i.e., name with

> > “in” appended]. In the previously mentioned Dai Nihon eidai setsuy ��
> > mujinz ��大日本永代節用無盡藏 [Inexhaustible Warehouse Almanac of Great Japan] (1854)
> ,
> > the section called “Honch ��nendai y ��an” 本朝年代要覧 (Era Names of Our Court)
> > also refers to K ��aku and Jink ��仁孝 and all before (with the exception of
> > the ancient period, Juntoku, and a few other tenn �� faithfully as

> > somebody-in 何々院. People of the Edo period would not have said something

> > like “Gomizunoo tenn �”�御水尾天皇 [(sic) should be: 後水尾天皇] .

> >
> > Such scholars as Nakai Chikuzan 中井竹山 (1730-1804) and Yamagata Taika
> > 山縣太華 (1781-1866) lamented this situation in which “propriety of naming” wa
> s
> > <p. 40>
> > unclear. Indeed, when we consider that there was someone in Edo called

> > while in office such terms as kub ��sama, tenka sama, sh ��un sama [公方樣, 天下樣
> ,
> > 將軍樣], and who after retirement was called “ ��osho sama” 大御所樣 and the like,

>
> > and who after death was called majestically, for example, Daitoku-inden

> > 大?院殿, Daiy ��inden 大猷院殿, J ��en-inden 常憲院殿, then the relationship between Ed

> o
> > and Kyoto was indeed unclear. However, that was the actual situation of
> > the structure of the state. It is said that not until 1925 were all of th
> e
> > former “Somebody-in” [officially] retroactively made into

> > “Somebody-tenn ��” From the perspective of the official government

> > historical perspective of the day, this was an appropriate measure. But
> > does current historical terminology need to be in accordance with that
> > measure? Is there a need to obscure such fascinating historical
> > phenomena?
> >

> > In this book, for all emperors before K ��aku I will use the term
> > “in.” Furthermore, I will not use the term “tenn �”�but rather “kinri

> > tenn ��emperor-discussion.

> > During my own research on medieval kingship in Japan I found an
> > interesting article (in German) from Walter Demel concerning the usage of
> > the imperial title for non European monarchs. Based on the strong
> > connection of imperator (Kaiser, emperor et.al.) with Christianity, e.g.
> > the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire as protector of the church, the tsar
> > for the orthodox church, foreign rulers like the Chinese Monarchs or the
> > Shogun in Japan were at first not referred to with the imperial title but

> > as kings (e.g. ?rey“ for the mikado, as David Eason mentioned it).

> > Now as Demel argues in his article, this usage changed during the 17th
> > century with the increasing economical interest in China and Japan. Thus
> > diplomats and especially merchants, e.g. from the VOC (an early example is
>
> > Joan Nieuhof’s account "Het Gesantschap der Neerlandtsche Oost-Indische
> > Compagnie aan den Tartarischen Cham, tegenwoordigen Keizer van China" from
>
> > 1665), with a less strong religious agenda began to use the much more
> > prestigious imperial title for reigning and/or ruling monarchs.
> >

> > For further details, please see: Walter Demel, Kaiser au ��rhalb Europas,
> > in: Thomas Beck (ed.), U?berseegeschichte. Beitra?ge der ju?ngeren

> > Forschung, Stuttgart 1999, pp. 56-75, especially pp. 63f.
> >
> > Best,
> > Daniel Schley
> >
> > _______________________________
> >
> > Dr. Daniel F. Schley
> > Japan-Zentrum, LMU

> > Oettingenstr. 67, 80538 M ��chen, Deutschland

> >
> > Am 20.10.2015 um 13:23 schrieb David Eason < <david...@gmail.com>
> > david...@gmail.com>:
> >
> > Dear All,
> >
> > If I might be permitted to add just a few small points to the
> > discussion, I want to begin by thanking Michael Pye for his response to my
>
> > earlier message. I had mentioned word usage in the U.S. in particular not
> > in order to be totalizing or prescriptive, but rather for the opposite

> > reason ? in order to indicate that I was only referring to the very limite

> d
> > context that I knew best (or that was, at the very least, my original
> > intent).
> >

> > As for early translations of tenn ��as “emperor” or its counterpart in
> > other languages, a quick search of the early 1600s *Arte da Lingoa de
> > Iapam *does not seem to contain an entry for “tenn ��” though there is one

> > for “mikado” which is, rather interestingly, rendered into Portuguese as
> > “rey” (in other words, “king”). Still, if I remember my sources correctly,
>
> > I believe that by the end of this same century Engelbert Kaempfer may have
>

> > used tenn ��or some translation for tenn ��at some point in his account, but

>
> > I am afraid that I do not have the reference on hand in order to be sure.
> >
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > David Eason
> >
> > ---
> > Dr. David Eason (デービット・イーソン)
> > 准教授
> > 外国語学部、１号館、１４１２室
> > 関西外国語大学
> > easo...@kansaigaidai.ac.jp
> >
> > From: <pm...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Matthew Stavros <
> > <msta...@gmail.com>msta...@gmail.com>
> > Reply-To: <pm...@googlegroups.com>
> > Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2015 at 6:11 PM
> > To: "PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies" < <pm...@googlegroups.com>
> > pm...@googlegroups.com>
> > Subject: Re: [PMJS] Emperor Jingu
> >
> > Gosh, not to complicate things even more, but at least in the primary
> > sources I read, "天皇" shows up almost never. The sovereign is referred to a
> s
> > either 天, 君 (主君) or, my favourite, a blank space. Are we sure it's a
> > consistent historical term?
> >

> > As a parallel example, I make the observation in my book that?starling to

> > many yet common knowledge to those who pay attention to such

> > things?"Heian-ky �� was not the name of the classical capital any more than

>
> > "Kyoto" was the name of its medieval counterpart.
> >
> > Discuss.
> >
> >
> > Matthew Stavros
> >

> > * Matthew Stavros, PhD*

> > Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies (=Associate Professor)
> > Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
> > The University of Sydney

> > <matthew...@sydney.edu.au>matthew...@sydney.edu.au

> >
> > PMJS, Editor and Network Administrator

> > <http://www.mstavros.com/>www.mstavros.com |
> > <http://www.kyotohistory.com/>www.kyotohistory.com
> > Signatory to the Charter <http://napuaustralia.org/charter/> of the

> > National Alliance for Public Universities
> >

> > On Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 7:45 PM, 'Ivan Rum ��ek' via PMJS: Listserve <

> > pm...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Yes! I think THIS is the important Q: when was "emperor" used first to
> >> translate "tennou", "mikado" (or even "ofokimi", for that matter...)
> >>

> >> Ivan Rum ��ek

> >>
> >> 2015-10-20 9:35 GMT+01:00 Mikael Bauer <M.B...@leeds.ac.uk>:
> >>
> >>> Dear Professor Bowring,
> >>> or Dutch? I do remember a few early Dutch publications in which not the
> >>> term 'tenno' was used at all, he was referred to as 'mikado' (not
> >>> translated) all the time. I cannot check now, but these were 18th-19th
> >>> century I believe.
> >>> Best,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Mikael Bauer Ph.D. (Harvard)
> >>> Lecturer in Japanese Studies/ Programme Manager of Japanese Studies
> >>> Michael Sadler building, room 4.23
> >>> School of Languages, Cultures and Societies (LCS)
> >>> University of Leeds
> >>> Leeds LS2 9JT
> >>> UK
> >>> office tel.: 01133430210
> >>>
> >>> 有明の 月もあかしの 浦風に 波ばかりこそ よると見えしか
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> http://www.leeds.ac.uk/site/custom_scripts/people_profile_details.php?pr
> ofileID=1421
> >>>
> >>> http://leeds.academia.edu/MikaelBauer
> >>>
> >>> http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/about/people.html
> >>>
> >>> http://www.ukabs.org.uk/ukabs/conferences/2014-conference/
> >>>
> >>>

> >>> ------------------------------
> >>> *From:* <pm...@googlegroups.com>pm...@googlegroups.com <

> >>> pm...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Richard Bowring <rb...@cam.ac.uk>

> >>> *Sent:* 20 October 2015 09:30
> >>> *To:* <pm...@googlegroups.com>pm...@googlegroups.com
> >>> *Subject:* Re: [PMJS] Emperor Jingu

> >>>
> >>> Interesting discussion. What about 'monarch’? I have always been worried
>
> >>> about using ‘emperor’ because pre-modern Japan had no empire in the sens
> e
> >>> that we usually use the term: Roman, Chinese. (I was just about to add
> >>> Ottoman but then realised that traditionally we do not refer to an Ottom
> an
> >>> emperor, but a sultan, which would suggest we should just persevere with
>
> >>> tenno.) It may be custom to use the term emperor now but it is still
> >>> misleading, then and now except for a short period when Japan did have a
> n
> >>> empire.
> >>> But my real question here is who first tried to translated the term
> >>> tenno? Was it the Jesuits writing in Latin or Portuguese, or is it much
> >>> later? I have no idea.
> >>> Richard Bowring
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 19 Oct 2015, at 20:46, Matthew Stavros < <msta...@gmail.com>
> >>> msta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Dear PMJSers,
> >>>
> >>> What's the current consensus on "emperor" vs "empress" in the case of a

> >>> female *tenn ��? I recall there being a debate a few years back,

> >>> however, I didn't follow it closely then.
> >>>
> >>> Matthew Stavros
> >>>

> >>> * Matthew Stavros, PhD*

> >>> Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies (=Associate Professor)
> >>> Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
> >>> The University of Sydney

> >>> <matthew...@sydney.edu.au>matthew...@sydney.edu.au

> >>>
> >>> PMJS, Editor and Network Administrator

> >>> <http://www.mstavros.com/>www.mstavros.com |
> >>> <http://www.kyotohistory.com/>www.kyotohistory.com
> >>> Signatory to the Charter <http://napuaustralia.org/charter/> of the

> >>> National Alliance for Public Universities
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> PMJS is a scholarly forum.
> >>>
> >>> You are subscribed to PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies.
> >>> To post to the list, send email to <pm...@googlegroups.com>
> >>> pm...@googlegroups.com
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> >>> pmjs+uns...@googlegroups.com

> >>> Visit the PMJS web site at <http://www.pmjs.org/>www.pmjs.org
> >>> Contact the group administrator at <edi...@pmjs.org>edi...@pmjs.org

> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> PMJS is a scholarly forum.
> >>>
> >>> You are subscribed to PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies.
> >>> To post to the list, send email to <pm...@googlegroups.com>

> >>> pm...@googlegroups.com
> >>> To unsubscribe, send email to <pmjs%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> >>> pmjs+uns...@googlegroups.com
> >>> Visit the PMJS web site at <http://www.pmjs.org/>www.pmjs.org
> >>> Contact the group administrator at <edi...@pmjs.org>edi...@pmjs.org

> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> PMJS is a scholarly forum.
> >>>
> >>> You are subscribed to PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies.
> >>> To post to the list, send email to <pm...@googlegroups.com>

> >>> pm...@googlegroups.com
> >>> To unsubscribe, send email to <pmjs%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> >>> pmjs+uns...@googlegroups.com
> >>> Visit the PMJS web site at <http://www.pmjs.org/>www.pmjs.org
> >>> Contact the group administrator at <edi...@pmjs.org>edi...@pmjs.org

> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> PMJS is a scholarly forum.
> >>
> >> You are subscribed to PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies.
> >> To post to the list, send email to <pm...@googlegroups.com>

> >> pm...@googlegroups.com
> >> To unsubscribe, send email to <pmjs%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> >> pmjs+uns...@googlegroups.com
> >> Visit the PMJS web site at <http://www.pmjs.org/>www.pmjs.org
> >> Contact the group administrator at <edi...@pmjs.org>edi...@pmjs.org

> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > PMJS is a scholarly forum.
> >
> > You are subscribed to PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies.
> > To post to the list, send email to <pm...@googlegroups.com>
> > pm...@googlegroups.com
> > To unsubscribe, send email to pmjs+uns...@googlegroups.com
> > Visit the PMJS web site at www.pmjs.org

> > Contact the group administrator at <edi...@pmjs.org>edi...@pmjs.org

> >
> > --
> > PMJS is a scholarly forum.
> >
> > You are subscribed to PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies.
> > To post to the list, send email to <pm...@googlegroups.com>
> > pm...@googlegroups.com
> > To unsubscribe, send email to pmjs+uns...@googlegroups.com
> > Visit the PMJS web site at www.pmjs.org

> > Contact the group administrator at <edi...@pmjs.org>edi...@pmjs.org

[S. Tsumura]

Maybe the change in the European designations of non European monarchs changed changed during the 17th century for some like the ruler of China. But in Japan, the Europeans there referred to the daimyo and sometimes the mikado as “kings,” but they referred to the real ruler, the Tokugawa shogun, as “emperor" already from the beginning of the 17th century.  According to Jonathan López-Vera’s post, they even used it even earlier for Hideyoshi. 

It is interesting that Will Adams, in a 1611 letter describing his first, pre-Sekigahara, meeting with Ieyasu,  refers to him as “king,” while in another letter of the same date he says “in processe of four or five yeeres the Emperour called me,” which would be after he became shogun.

Susan Tsumura

[Cynthea Bogel]

All, 

I think the notes, translations, and thoughts provided by Prof. Bodiford are a very useful half to what would ideally be a more comprehensive historical coverage of the occurrence and meaning of tennō in pre-modern texts—how we might understand the term, and how we might or might not translate it, and why—that would include material from the 7th through 12th century. 

Clearly the term tennō had traction by Tenmu’s reign, but how the Japanese perceived the Chinese emperors of the Sui and Tang dynasties, for example, relative to their own rulers, why and from exactly when they called their rulers tennō, is not clear, although later writings (persons, and rulers) certainly fixed the early kings and lords (terms, terms!) in a constructed lineage of what we might call “imperial history” and “emperors.”  

There are many more qualified persons than this art historian of ancient Japan to create this “early half”—although I do like trying. I think the recent articles in Japanese on “kings,” “great kings,” “emperors,” that I and others have mentioned (I have also thought of the work of Tsuda Sokichi more than once during these discussions, which sheds so much light, and controversy, on ancient texts and their modern interpretations); combined with the English scholarship of Joan Piggott, Herman Ooms (pp. 41-8 in Imperial Politics is relevant to the current discussion), Gina Barnes, and others; along with a review of the ancient chronicles and/or their translations (Ross Bender’s recent efforts among them), are an appropriate basis for research on the early periods. 

I followed up on a few things. The late 7th-early 8th c. Yachūji 野中寺 Miroku bronze statue (18.5 cm, seated), which came to light again only in 1918, bears an inscription with the word tennō and the date of 666 (or 606, depending on interpretation of cyclical characters; Suiko’s reign is 593-628 (so if 606 it refers to her reign)

「丙寅年四月大旧八日癸卯開記　栢寺智識之等詣中宮天皇大御身労坐之時　請願之奉弥勒御像也　友等人数一百十八　是依六道四生人等此教可相之也」

The mokkan with the date of 677 (Tenmu 6) I mentioned in an earlier post was found at Asuka Pond 明日香村の飛鳥池遺跡  in 1998 (I quickly checked the 奈良文研 site but did not find a report for it) along with a fragment bearing the word tennō 「天皇聚露弘□□」

This is the earliest documented occurrence of the term if that mokkan dates to the mid 670s.  I attach an image 

from http://www.nara-np.co.jp/special/takamatu/vol_02a_01.html

an article about the find, which  discusses the 677 mokkan as well 

飛鳥池遺跡の「天皇」木簡から、その可能性がクローズアップされた。縦11.8センチ、横1.9センチの木簡には、「天皇聚露弘□□」（□は確認できない文字）と記されていた。「天皇が露を集めて広く…」と読めるが、意味はよく分からない。同じ南北溝から見つかった木簡は「丁丑年12月三野国刀支評次米」と読めた。「丁丑年」は天武6（677）年。新嘗（にいなめ）祭に用いる次米（すきのこめ）が、刀支評（現在の岐阜県南部）から上納された際の荷札木簡だった。この年の新嘗祭は「日本書紀」にも記録されており、神的権威を高めるための重要な儀式だった。

Donald McCallum (The Four Great Temples) discusses the 670s mokkan in regard to the “peculiar name" for Daikandaiji and his guess that new terminology is deployed—tennō, daikan, daiji—around this time. The name Daikandaiji, however,  does not appear in the Nihon shoki until 682.  (McCallum p. 140)

He cites Kumagai Kimio  熊谷公男, Ōkimi kara tennō e  大王から天皇へ on the mokkan. Apparently it is illustrated in the frontispiece and the term tennō discussed on pages 334-47.

The discussion began here on the list with the use of the English term “Empress", which spawned at least three branches—gender issues, the occurrence of the term as a title or honorary referent, and the meaning of the term tennō and related terms over time. I hope the discussion will continue, it has been very interesting. So…more, please!

Regards from Fukuoka,

Cynthea Bogel

シンシア・ボーゲル、Ph.D.

九州大学人文科学研究院教授

日本美術史・仏教視覚文化

092-642-2370　

Cynthea J. Bogel, Ph.D.
Professor

Japanese art history and 

Buddhist visual culture in Asia

Kyushu University

[S. Tsumura]

For the date on the statue 丙寅年四月大旧八日癸卯: The 大旧 in the middle is certainly an unusual format, and I don’t know what the 旧 could be, but 666/4 was a long 大 month, and 666/4/8 was 癸卯. On the other hand, 606/4 was a short month, and 606/4/8 was 壬辰, so I conclude the statue is likely to be 666. 

Susan Tsumura

[Cynthea Bogel]

Yes that's the general consensus.

Cynthea J. Bogel

Kyushu University

九州大学大学院人文科学府教授

Sent from my iPhone

Composed with voice dictation software. Apologies for any typos or infelicities. 

[S. Tsumura]

> S. Tsumura <st...@music.email.ne.jp> wrote:
>
> For the date on the statue 丙寅年四月大旧八日癸卯: The 大旧 in the middle is certainly an unusual format, and I don’t know what the 旧 could be, but 666/4 was a long 大 month, and 666/4/8 was 癸卯. On the other hand, 606/4 was a short month, and 606/4/8 was 壬辰, so I conclude the statue is likely to be 666.
>
> Susan Tsumura

P.S. I just realised that 大旧 should probably be 大月, a 30-day month, so 666 is virtually certain. Just to be sure, I checked the 8th-century 丙寅 years 726 and 786, too, but the cyclic days do not match.

[maria chiara migliore]

Dear all, 

In Kiseiryō 儀制令 (Laws on Ceremonial) of Yorō ritsuryō 養老律令 (issued in 722),  article 1, is clearly explained that the title 天皇 is to be used in official sovereign edicts issued in occasion of international relations (天皇。詔書所称). (by the way, Kiseiryō lists 4 titles for the sovereign: 天子、天皇、皇帝、陛下, the use of each is also explained). Consequently, in Kushikiryō 公式令 (Laws on Official Documents) is given the first and second form of the incipit of the sovereign edicts, that is: 明神御宇日本天皇詔旨. 日本天皇 is to be read in Japanese as "hi no moto no subera”. I am referring to Inoue Mitsusada, et al., eds, Ritsuryō, Iwanami (Nihon shiso taikei), 1976, pp. 343 and 365-366 respectively. See also the note 1b on page 630, which explains that the title of 天皇 began to be used from Suiko reign. 

mcmigliore

Il giorno 24/ott/2015, alle ore 05:38, Cynthea Bogel <cjb...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

All, 

I think the notes, translations, and thoughts provided by Prof. Bodiford are a very useful half to what would ideally be a more comprehensive historical coverage of the occurrence and meaning of tennō in pre-modern texts—how we might understand the term, and how we might or might not translate it, and why—that would include material from the 7th through 12th century. 

Clearly the term tennō had traction by Tenmu’s reign, but how the Japanese perceived the Chinese emperors of the Sui and Tang dynasties, for example, relative to their own rulers, why and from exactly when they called their rulers tennō, is not clear, although later writings (persons, and rulers) certainly fixed the early kings and lords (terms, terms!) in a constructed lineage of what we might call “imperial history” and “emperors.”  

There are many more qualified persons than this art historian of ancient Japan to create this “early half”—although I do like trying. I think the recent articles in Japanese on “kings,” “great kings,” “emperors,” that I and others have mentioned (I have also thought of the work of Tsuda Sokichi more than once during these discussions, which sheds so much light, and controversy, on ancient texts and their modern interpretations); combined with the English scholarship of Joan Piggott, Herman Ooms (pp. 41-8 in Imperial Politics is relevant to the current discussion), Gina Barnes, and others; along with a review of the ancient chronicles and/or their translations (Ross Bender’s recent efforts among them), are an appropriate basis for research on the early periods. 

I followed up on a few things. The late 7th-early 8th c. Yachūji 野中寺 Miroku bronze statue (18.5 cm, seated), which came to light again only in 1918, bears an inscription with the word tennō and the date of 666 (or 606, depending on interpretation of cyclical characters; Suiko’s reign is 593-628 (so if 606 it refers to her reign)

「丙寅年四月大旧八日癸卯開記　栢寺智識之等詣中宮天皇大御身労坐之時　請願之奉弥勒御像也　友等人数一百十八　是依六道四生人等此教可相之也」

The mokkan with the date of 677 (Tenmu 6) I mentioned in an earlier post was found at Asuka Pond 明日香村の飛鳥池遺跡  in 1998 (I quickly checked the 奈良文研 site but did not find a report for it) along with a fragment bearing the word tennō 「天皇聚露弘□□」

This is the earliest documented occurrence of the term if that mokkan dates to the mid 670s.  I attach an image 

from http://www.nara-np.co.jp/special/takamatu/vol_02a_01.html

an article about the find, which  discusses the 677 mokkan as well 

飛鳥池遺跡の「天皇」木簡から、その可能性がクローズアップされた。縦11.8センチ、横1.9センチの木簡には、「天皇聚露弘□□」（□は確認できない文字）と記されていた。「天皇が露を集めて広く…」と読めるが、意味はよく分からない。同じ南北溝から見つかった木簡は「丁丑年12月三野国刀支評次米」と読めた。「丁丑年」は天武6（677）年。新嘗（にいなめ）祭に用いる次米（すきのこめ）が、刀支評（現在の岐阜県南部）から上納された際の荷札木簡だった。この年の新嘗祭は「日本書紀」にも記録されており、神的権威を高めるための重要な儀式だった。

Donald McCallum (The Four Great Temples) discusses the 670s mokkan in regard to the “peculiar name" for Daikandaiji and his guess that new terminology is deployed—tennō, daikan, daiji—around this time. The name Daikandaiji, however,  does not appear in the Nihon shoki until 682.  (McCallum p. 140)

He cites Kumagai Kimio  熊谷公男, Ōkimi kara tennō e  大王から天皇へ on the mokkan. Apparently it is illustrated in the frontispiece and the term tennō discussed on pages 334-47.

The discussion began here on the list with the use of the English term “Empress", which spawned at least three branches—gender issues, the occurrence of the term as a title or honorary referent, and the meaning of the term tennō and related terms over time. I hope the discussion will continue, it has been very interesting. So…more, please!

Regards from Fukuoka,

Cynthea Bogel

<PastedGraphic-1.tiff>

Maria Chiara Migliore

Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici

Università del Salento 

Piazzetta Rizzo, 1

73100 Lecce

[Scheid, Bernhard]

The change from "king" to "emperor" in the European notion of Chinese sovereigns seems to be directly related to the conquest of the Qing (1644), which left a lasting impression on European observers, as pointed out by the sinologist Mark Elliot (see my previous post to this thread). But otherwise, Demel and Elliot point out the same phenomenon, thank you for the reference.

________________________________________
Von: pm...@googlegroups.com [pm...@googlegroups.com]&quot; im Auftrag von &quot;Daniel F. P. Schley [df.s...@gmx.de]
Gesendet: Freitag, 23. Oktober 2015 09:41
An: pm...@googlegroups.com

Betreff: Re: [PMJS] Emperor Jingu

Dear all,

I would like to add just a further perspective on this interesting tennô/emperor-discussion.
During my own research on medieval kingship in Japan I found an interesting article (in German) from Walter Demel concerning the usage of the imperial title for non European monarchs. Based on the strong connection of imperator (Kaiser, emperor et.al.) with Christianity, e.g. the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire as protector of the church, the tsar for the orthodox church, foreign rulers like the Chinese Monarchs or the Shogun in Japan were at first not referred to with the imperial title but as kings (e.g. „rey“ for the mikado, as David Eason mentioned it).
Now as Demel argues in his article, this usage changed during the 17th century with the increasing economical interest in China and Japan. Thus diplomats and especially merchants, e.g. from the VOC (an early example is Joan Nieuhof’s account "Het Gesantschap der Neerlandtsche Oost-Indische Compagnie aan den Tartarischen Cham, tegenwoordigen Keizer van China" from 1665), with a less strong religious agenda began to use the much more prestigious imperial title for reigning and/or ruling monarchs.

For further details, please see: Walter Demel, Kaiser außerhalb Europas, in: Thomas Beck (ed.), Überseegeschichte. Beiträge der jüngeren Forschung, Stuttgart 1999, pp. 56-75, especially pp. 63f.

Best,
Daniel Schley

_______________________________

Dr. Daniel F. Schley
Japan-Zentrum, LMU
Oettingenstr. 67, 80538 München, Deutschland

Am 20.10.2015 um 13:23 schrieb David Eason <david...@gmail.com<mailto:david...@gmail.com>>:

Dear All,

If I might be permitted to add just a few small points to the discussion, I want to begin by thanking Michael Pye for his response to my earlier message. I had mentioned word usage in the U.S. in particular not in order to be totalizing or prescriptive, but rather for the opposite reason – in order to indicate that I was only referring to the very limited context that I knew best (or that was, at the very least, my original intent).

As for early translations of tennō as “emperor” or its counterpart in other languages, a quick search of the early 1600s Arte da Lingoa de Iapam does not seem to contain an entry for “tennō,” though there is one for “mikado” which is, rather interestingly, rendered into Portuguese as “rey” (in other words, “king”). Still, if I remember my sources correctly, I believe that by the end of this same century Engelbert Kaempfer may have used tennō or some translation for tennō at some point in his account, but I am afraid that I do not have the reference on hand in order to be sure.


Best,

David Eason

---
Dr. David Eason (デービット・イーソン)
准教授
外国語学部、１号館、１４１２室
関西外国語大学

easo...@kansaigaidai.ac.jp<mailto:easo...@kansaigaidai.ac.jp>

From: <pm...@googlegroups.com<mailto:pm...@googlegroups.com>> on behalf of Matthew Stavros <msta...@gmail.com<mailto:msta...@gmail.com>>
Reply-To: <pm...@googlegroups.com<mailto:pm...@googlegroups.com>>
Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2015 at 6:11 PM
To: "PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies" <pm...@googlegroups.com<mailto:pm...@googlegroups.com>>
Subject: Re: [PMJS] Emperor Jingu

Gosh, not to complicate things even more, but at least in the primary sources I read, "天皇" shows up almost never. The sovereign is referred to as either 天, 君 (主君) or, my favourite, a blank space. Are we sure it's a consistent historical term?

As a parallel example, I make the observation in my book that—starling to many yet common knowledge to those who pay attention to such things—"Heian-kyō" was not the name of the classical capital any more than "Kyoto" was the name of its medieval counterpart.

Discuss.


Matthew Stavros

Matthew Stavros, PhD
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies (=Associate Professor)
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
The University of Sydney

matthew...@sydney.edu.au<mailto:matthew...@sydney.edu.au>

PMJS, Editor and Network Administrator

www.mstavros.com<http://www.mstavros.com/> | www.kyotohistory.com<http://www.kyotohistory.com/>
Signatory to the Charter<http://napuaustralia.org/charter/> of the National Alliance for Public Universities

On Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 7:45 PM, 'Ivan Rumánek' via PMJS: Listserve <pm...@googlegroups.com<mailto:pm...@googlegroups.com>> wrote:
Yes! I think THIS is the important Q: when was "emperor" used first to translate "tennou", "mikado" (or even "ofokimi", for that matter...)

Ivan Rumánek

2015-10-20 9:35 GMT+01:00 Mikael Bauer <M.B...@leeds.ac.uk<mailto:M.B...@leeds.ac.uk>>:

Dear Professor Bowring,
or Dutch? I do remember a few early Dutch publications in which not the term 'tenno' was used at all, he was referred to as 'mikado' (not translated) all the time. I cannot check now, but these were 18th-19th century I believe.
Best,


Mikael Bauer Ph.D. (Harvard)
Lecturer in Japanese Studies/ Programme Manager of Japanese Studies
Michael Sadler building, room 4.23
School of Languages, Cultures and Societies (LCS)
University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT
UK
office tel.: 01133430210

有明の 月もあかしの 浦風に 波ばかりこそ よると見えしか


http://www.leeds.ac.uk/site/custom_scripts/people_profile_details.php?profileID=1421

http://leeds.academia.edu/MikaelBauer

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/about/people.html

http://www.ukabs.org.uk/ukabs/conferences/2014-conference/


________________________________

From: pm...@googlegroups.com<mailto:pm...@googlegroups.com> <pm...@googlegroups.com<mailto:pm...@googlegroups.com>> on behalf of Richard Bowring <rb...@cam.ac.uk<mailto:rb...@cam.ac.uk>>

Sent: 20 October 2015 09:30

To: pm...@googlegroups.com<mailto:pm...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: [PMJS] Emperor Jingu

Interesting discussion. What about 'monarch’? I have always been worried about using ‘emperor’ because pre-modern Japan had no empire in the sense that we usually use the term: Roman, Chinese. (I was just about to add Ottoman but then realised that traditionally we do not refer to an Ottoman emperor, but a sultan, which would suggest we should just persevere with tenno.) It may be custom to use the term emperor now but it is still misleading, then and now except for a short period when Japan did have an empire.
But my real question here is who first tried to translated the term tenno? Was it the Jesuits writing in Latin or Portuguese, or is it much later? I have no idea.
Richard Bowring

On 19 Oct 2015, at 20:46, Matthew Stavros <msta...@gmail.com<mailto:msta...@gmail.com>> wrote:

Dear PMJSers,

What's the current consensus on "emperor" vs "empress" in the case of a female tennō? I recall there being a debate a few years back, however, I didn't follow it closely then.

Matthew Stavros

Matthew Stavros, PhD
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies (=Associate Professor)
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
The University of Sydney

matthew...@sydney.edu.au<mailto:matthew...@sydney.edu.au>

PMJS, Editor and Network Administrator

www.mstavros.com<http://www.mstavros.com/> | www.kyotohistory.com<http://www.kyotohistory.com/>
Signatory to the Charter<http://napuaustralia.org/charter/> of the National Alliance for Public Universities

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[Luke Roberts]

Thanks Michael. Yes that is an interesting and difficult question. On the one hand we can say that on the principles of lineage and institutional history the emperors/tennō were there all along. That is one way to look at things and indeed the standard 19th and 20th century way to understand the issue. This way of understanding derives from a desire to create and sustain national imagination, which is quite natural discursively in our political context. It is not intellectually wrong to do so, and great scholarship is done using this perspective, but like all methodologies it allows us to see some things and hides other things, which is to say it had discursive power.

What Watanabe was doing was trying to understand the consciousness of the people of particular eras by paying close attention to the language they used at the time and the contexts of usage. One can get into the mind of people of the past better by respecting their language usage more. This method of identifying and historiciizing terminological uses also enables us to reflect on how and why we use what terms we do today, because we must inevitably translate their usage into language that we can understand. These possibilities have made this method one of the key inspirations for my own research. I’d be the first to say that it too allows some things to be seen and hides other things.

BTW from this historicist perspective I do not think that the other expressions for the tennō were euphemisms or secondary. They each had direct and valid meanings for their speakers and listeners at the time, and functioned discursively. The desire to regard them all as secondary and unconsiously translate them into the single tennō is a reflection of modern politics and comes from us, I think, more than their users. To bring this back to Jingū the desire to not regard her as a sovereign to be counted in the numbered lists may have had to do with valuing rites of enthronement, whereas including her in the lists would have valued her lineage and effective sovereign capacities of leadership in a time of no ōkimi/tennō, a person who effectively bridged a dynastic break that in premodern and perhaps modern times should not be mentioned or looked at too directiy.

Thanks again for raising an important issue that is at the heart of why we think about terminology and translation.

Best wishes, Luke Roberts

[Michael...@ma2.seikyou.ne.jp]

Dear Luke and all,

The issue I was concerned with revolved around the word “exist.”

I’m afraid my own studies are rather narrowly focused, but it seems to me that tenn ��were a major presence (sonzai) in the late-Heian and Kamakura periods and I have assumed, perhaps incorrectly, they ‘were there’ (perhaps hiding behind some screen) all along. I too feel we need to pay careful attention to the language used in “our” sources (primary and secondary) and I ought to go back to Watanabe and make a greater effort to grasp his claim. Perhaps the key phrase is “in a certain sense, ” but I have not yet been able to discern in what sense this is. Perhaps it is some linguistic sense?

Best,
mike jamentz

> Thanks Michael. Yes that is an interesting and difficult question. On the o
> ne hand we can say that on the principles of lineage and institutional histo

> ry the emperors/tenn ��were there all along. That is one way to look at thin

> gs and indeed the standard 19th and 20th century way to understand the issue
> . This way of understanding derives from a desire to create and sustain nat
> ional imagination, which is quite natural discursively in our political cont
> ext. It is not intellectually wrong to do so, and great scholarship is done
> using this perspective, but like all methodologies it allows us to see some
> things and hides other things, which is to say it had discursive power.
>
> What Watanabe was doing was trying to understand the consciousness of the pe
> ople of particular eras by paying close attention to the language they used
> at the time and the contexts of usage. One can get into the mind of people
> of the past better by respecting their language usage more. This method of
> identifying and historiciizing terminological uses also enables us to reflec
> t on how and why we use what terms we do today, because we must inevitably t
> ranslate their usage into language that we can understand. These possibilit
> ies have made this method one of the key inspirations for my own research.
> I’d be the first to say that it too allows some things to be seen and hides
> other things.
>
> BTW from this historicist perspective I do not think that the other expressi

> ons for the tenn ��were euphemisms or secondary. They each had direct and va

> lid meanings for their speakers and listeners at the time, and functioned di
> scursively. The desire to regard them all as secondary and unconsiously tra

> nslate them into the single tenn ��is a reflection of modern politics and com
> es from us, I think, more than their users. To bring this back to Jing ��the

> desire to not regard her as a sovereign to be counted in the numbered lists
> may have had to do with valuing rites of enthronement, whereas including her
> in the lists would have valued her lineage and effective sovereign capaciti

> es of leadership in a time of no ��imi/tenn �� a person who effectively bridg

> ed a dynastic break that in premodern and perhaps modern times should not be
> mentioned or looked at too directiy.
>
> Thanks again for raising an important issue that is at the heart of why we t
> hink about terminology and translation.
>
> Best wishes, Luke Roberts
>
>
> On Oct 23, 2015, at 6:35 PM, Michael...@ma2.seikyou.ne.jp wrote:
>
> >
> > Hello All,
> >
> > I would like to thank William Bodiford and Luke Roberts for their contribu
> tions on this question. Ever since this passage from Watanabe Hiroshi’s work
> came up on this list (or was it H-Japan?) several years ago, I have been tr
> oubled by its implications.
> >
> > I believe Luke Roberts' translation of Watanabe Hiroshi is accurate and wo
> uld like to question the significance of the phrase “a certain sense” in the
> following passage:
> >

> > “In a certain sense the tenn ??did not exist in Japan from the middle of t

> he thirteenth century until the end of the eighteenth century…”
> >
> > This passage is followed by examples of euphemistic expressions for the te

> nn ?? This seems to tell us more about linguistic-social customs than the ex
> istence of an emperor/tenn ?? I am struggling for an analogy here, but if, f

> >>> Watanabe Hiroshi 渡辺浩. 1997. Higashi Asia no ??en to shis ??東アジアの王権と思想

>
> >>> (East Asian Kingly Authorities and Ideologies). Tokyo: University of
> >>> Tokyo Press.
> >>> “Preface” translated by Luke S. Roberts as:
> >>>
> >>> Watanabe Hiroshi. 1998. “About Some Japanese Historical Terms.”
> >>> Translated by Luke S. Roberts. Sino-Japanese Studies 10, no. 2:
> >>> 32-42.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> <p. 39>
> >>>

> >>> Tenn ??天皇
> >>> In a certain sense the tenn ??did not exist in Japan from the middle

> of
> >>
> >>> the thirteenth century until the end of the eighteenth century. From th
> e

> >>> time of Juntoku 順? tenn ??(r. 1210-1221) until its revival at the time o
> f
> >>> K ??aku 光格 tenn ??(r. 1779-1817), the posthumous title (shig ??諡號) tenn
> ??was

> >>> not officially used either before or after death. While regnant they we
> re
> >>

> >>> called by such terms as kinri (sama) 禁裏 (樣), kinch ??(sama) 禁中 (樣), tens
> hi
> >>> (sama) 天子 (樣) (son of heaven), t ??in 當今 (the current [reign]), and shuj
> ??主
> >> 上
> >>> (my lord); after retirement were called Sent ??仙洞 (Sent ??retirement vil

> la),
> >>
> >>> shin’in 新院 (newly retired), hon’in 本院 (the currently retired), and the
> >>> like; and after death were called for example Gomizunoo-in 御水尾院 [(sic)
> >>> should be: 後水尾院], Sakuramachi-in 櫻町院, Momozono-in 桃園院 [i.e., name with

> >>> “in” appended]. In the previously mentioned Dai Nihon eidai setsuy ??
> >>> mujinz ??大日本永代節用無盡藏 [Inexhaustible Warehouse Almanac of Great Japan] (18
> 54)
> >> ,
> >>> the section called “Honch ??nendai y ??an” 本朝年代要覧 (Era Names of Our Cour
> t)
> >>> also refers to K ??aku and Jink ??仁孝 and all before (with the exception
> of
> >>> the ancient period, Juntoku, and a few other tenn ?? faithfully as

> >>> somebody-in 何々院. People of the Edo period would not have said somethin
> g

> >>> like “Gomizunoo tenn ?”?御水尾天皇 [(sic) should be: 後水尾天皇] .

> >>>
> >>> Such scholars as Nakai Chikuzan 中井竹山 (1730-1804) and Yamagata Taika
> >>> 山縣太華 (1781-1866) lamented this situation in which “propriety of naming”
> wa
> >> s
> >>> <p. 40>
> >>> unclear. Indeed, when we consider that there was someone in Edo called

> >>> while in office such terms as kub ??sama, tenka sama, sh ??un sama [公方樣,
> 天下樣
> >> ,
> >>> 將軍樣], and who after retirement was called “ ??osho sama” 大御所樣 and the li

> ke,
> >>
> >>> and who after death was called majestically, for example, Daitoku-inden

> >>> 大?院殿, Daiy ??inden 大猷院殿, J ??en-inden 常憲院殿, then the relationship betwee

> n Ed
> >> o
> >>> and Kyoto was indeed unclear. However, that was the actual situation of
>
> >>> the structure of the state. It is said that not until 1925 were all of
> th
> >> e
> >>> former “Somebody-in” [officially] retroactively made into

> >>> “Somebody-tenn ??” From the perspective of the official government

> >>> historical perspective of the day, this was an appropriate measure. But
>
> >>> does current historical terminology need to be in accordance with that
> >>> measure? Is there a need to obscure such fascinating historical
> >>> phenomena?
> >>>

> >>> In this book, for all emperors before K ??aku I will use the term
> >>> “in.” Furthermore, I will not use the term “tenn ?”?but rather “kinri

> >>> tenn ??emperor-discussion.

> >>> During my own research on medieval kingship in Japan I found an
> >>> interesting article (in German) from Walter Demel concerning the usage o
> f
> >>> the imperial title for non European monarchs. Based on the strong
> >>> connection of imperator (Kaiser, emperor et.al.) with Christianity, e.g.
>
> >>> the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire as protector of the church, the tsa
> r
> >>> for the orthodox church, foreign rulers like the Chinese Monarchs or the
>
> >>> Shogun in Japan were at first not referred to with the imperial title bu
> t
> >>> as kings (e.g. ?rey“ for the mikado, as David Eason mentioned it).
> >>> Now as Demel argues in his article, this usage changed during the 17th
> >>> century with the increasing economical interest in China and Japan. Thus
>
> >>> diplomats and especially merchants, e.g. from the VOC (an early example
> is
> >>
> >>> Joan Nieuhof’s account "Het Gesantschap der Neerlandtsche Oost-Indische
> >>> Compagnie aan den Tartarischen Cham, tegenwoordigen Keizer van China" fr
> om
> >>
> >>> 1665), with a less strong religious agenda began to use the much more
> >>> prestigious imperial title for reigning and/or ruling monarchs.
> >>>

> >>> For further details, please see: Walter Demel, Kaiser au ??rhalb Europas

> ,
> >>> in: Thomas Beck (ed.), U?berseegeschichte. Beitra?ge der ju?ngeren
> >>> Forschung, Stuttgart 1999, pp. 56-75, especially pp. 63f.
> >>>
> >>> Best,
> >>> Daniel Schley
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________
> >>>
> >>> Dr. Daniel F. Schley
> >>> Japan-Zentrum, LMU

> >>> Oettingenstr. 67, 80538 M ??chen, Deutschland

> >>>
> >>> Am 20.10.2015 um 13:23 schrieb David Eason < <david...@gmail.com>
> >>> david...@gmail.com>:
> >>>
> >>> Dear All,
> >>>
> >>> If I might be permitted to add just a few small points to the
> >>> discussion, I want to begin by thanking Michael Pye for his response to
> my
> >>
> >>> earlier message. I had mentioned word usage in the U.S. in particular no
> t
> >>> in order to be totalizing or prescriptive, but rather for the opposite
> >>> reason ? in order to indicate that I was only referring to the very limi
> te
> >> d
> >>> context that I knew best (or that was, at the very least, my original
> >>> intent).
> >>>

> >>> As for early translations of tenn ??as “emperor” or its counterpart in

>
> >>> other languages, a quick search of the early 1600s *Arte da Lingoa de

> >>> Iapam *does not seem to contain an entry for “tenn ??” though there is o

> ne
> >>> for “mikado” which is, rather interestingly, rendered into Portuguese as
>
> >>> “rey” (in other words, “king”). Still, if I remember my sources correctl
> y,
> >>
> >>> I believe that by the end of this same century Engelbert Kaempfer may ha
> ve
> >>

> >>> used tenn ??or some translation for tenn ??at some point in his account,

> >>> things?"Heian-ky ?? was not the name of the classical capital any more t

> han
> >>
> >>> "Kyoto" was the name of its medieval counterpart.
> >>>
> >>> Discuss.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Matthew Stavros
> >>>
> >>> * Matthew Stavros, PhD*
> >>> Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies (=Associate Professor)
> >>> Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
> >>> The University of Sydney
> >>> <matthew...@sydney.edu.au>matthew...@sydney.edu.au
> >>>
> >>> PMJS, Editor and Network Administrator
> >>> <http://www.mstavros.com/>www.mstavros.com |
> >>> <http://www.kyotohistory.com/>www.kyotohistory.com
> >>> Signatory to the Charter <http://napuaustralia.org/charter/> of the
> >>> National Alliance for Public Universities
> >>>

> >>> On Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 7:45 PM, 'Ivan Rum ??ek' via PMJS: Listserve <

> >>> pm...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Yes! I think THIS is the important Q: when was "emperor" used first to
> >>>> translate "tennou", "mikado" (or even "ofokimi", for that matter...)
> >>>>

> >>>> Ivan Rum ??ek

> >>>>> female *tenn ??? I recall there being a debate a few years back,

[Luke Roberts]

I think yes a linguistic sense with the understanding that language plays a key role organizing people’s knowledge and actions. When he wrote that, given the evidence that he presented in those associated sentences, his meaning was that they were not given the tennō posthumous names but rather retirement -in names, and therefore they were “tennō” in that certain sense. Why look at things this way? This allowed him to question why the naming practices changed over time, and what the other naming practices meant in their context. I think that still much more can be done on those matters, which will shed light on the politics of those various days. It also allows one to analyze historically the modern constructions of tennō ideology.
I certainly would not disagree with you, nor would Watanabe, on the proposition that those people in Heian and Kamakura whom we have come to call uniformly tennō were politically very important beings. They had many dimensions of power structured around their existence.

Best wishes, Luke