The ritsuryo ̄ stateThe O ̄mi and Kiyomihara ryo ̄
Although the Ōmi codes themselves do not survive, we may deduce their content from fragmen-
tary evidence found in both Nihon shoki and Tōshi Kaden, a history of the early Fujiwara family
compiled around 760. According to Aoki Kazuo, these regulations, recorded as having been
enacted in 671, did not initially comprise a systematic legal code, but represented at most a patch-
work collection of preexisting stand- alone regulations. It was not until after the Jinshin War,
during the reign of Emperor Tenmu, that efforts were first made to organize this medley of regu-
lations into a systematic legal code, a project that was finally realized in the form of the Kiyomi-
hara ryō. As noted above, these last regulations initiated the practice of regularly compiling
nationwide household registers and reevaluating allotments of farm land once every six years.
Despite the establishment of these ryō statutes, a separate set of Kiyomihara ritsu was never com-
piled. The functions of the latter part of the code were supplied by a series of regulations taken
from Tang legal codes.^15
Taking up where Aoki left off, Hayakawa Shōhachi argued that the bureaucratic structure
during the reign of Emperor Tenmu differed substantially from that of the Taihō and Yōrō
codes. He maintained, for example, that although the institutions of Tenmu’s court did include
familiar names, such as daijōkan (the Council of State of the mature ritsuryō era)—evidenced by a
record of daijōkan officials participating in Tenmu’s funeral rites—this institution was composed
solely of royal servants, called councilors (nagon), while imperial decrees were promulgated to the
various offices and provinces by a parallel body, the Office of Major Controllers (daibenkan). Hay-
akawa concluded that the bureaucratic system of the post- Taihō era originated in the Kiyomi-
hara codes.^16
Inoue Mitsusada and Kishi Toshio, however, noted early on that the Kōgo Register, com-
piled in 670 during the reign of Emperor Tenji, is believed to have been integral to the enactment
of the Ōmi regulations.^17 Inoue further argued that evidence obtained from wooden tablets
(mokkan) used for official record keeping proves that the practice of organizing household regis-
ters into units of fifty households—a procedure that is supposed to have been introduced with
the Kōgo Register—was adopted no later than the early years of Emperor Tenji’s reign.^18
Inasmuch, therefore, as the system of population management developed during Tenmu’s
reign was based on the Kōgo Register, and that this register was continually revised, on the basis
of annual censuses, it has become clear that a direct connection exists between the Tenji court’s
instruments for overseeing its subjects and those of the ritsuryō state.^19 Yoshikawa Shinji has,
moreover, demonstrated that Hayakawa’s understanding of the means by which imperial orders
were promulgated under Tenmu was mistaken, and that, similar to its later namesake, the Office
of Major Controllers of Tenmu’s era composed a clerical unit within the Council of State.^20
The foregoing would seem to indicate that, the actual structure of the Ōmi code notwith-
standing, the achievements of the Tenji court—particularly those pertaining to organization of
the population at large—continued smoothly into Tenmu’s reign, and that the provisions of the
Kiyomihara code may be viewed as a further refinement of these same Tenji- era innovations.
Recently, however, doubts have been raised as to how closely the Kiyomihara codes actually
resembled the Taihō regulations.
Enomoto Jun’ichi and Kanegae Hiroyuki contend that the Kiyomihara and earlier codes were
derived from Korean, rather than Chinese prototypes. Enomoto points to the difficulties of car-
rying Tang legal documents back to Japan during the latter half of the seventh century, empha-
sizing the discontinuation of official envoys to the Tang after 670, and the close negotiations
between Japan and the Korean kingdom of Silla.^21 Kanegae notes the adoption of terms like kohori
(hyō), which were in common use in the three Korean kingdoms, and argues that post- Taika