M.S. Adolphson
Focusing on the same topic of household organizations, Ihara Kesao (b. 1949) came to a very
different conclusion. While acknowledging the importance of the kenmon, Ihara denies their
private nature, arguing instead that they should be considered public administrative units. He
bases much of his argument on appointments to these organs, which were often made in official
decrees issued from the emperor’s office. Accordingly, Ihara sees the kenmon, their assets, and
their management as an extension of imperial state administration, and places emphasis back on
the emperor and the organs within the imperial court. In fact, he argues that regardless of who
was in charge—the emperor, the Fujiwara regent, or the retired emperor—there was little differ-
ence in the way authority was exercised or the way the elites ruled. Thus, to Ihara, the kenmon
did not represent a change from earlier structures; he viewed the royal- court state as lasting to
the end of the Heian period.^49
The debate about the nature of the changes that occurred during the Heian age continued fol-
lowing Ihara’s work, and many scholars have voiced their critique to what they see as downplay-
ing those changes.^50 For the purpose of this chapter, it is perhaps most important to note that
both the ōchō kokka and kenmon taisei theories were created exactly to describe those changes and
that the ongoing debate about periodization based on new inquiries are strong signs of the
importance and impact of those concepts.
O ̄cho ̄ kokka and kenmon taisei – a question of periodization
Ultimately, both the concept of a royal- court state and a collaborative rule by “gates of power”
are tied to historians’ understanding of change over time and periodization. Japanese scholars
committed to a historical division based on a Western model have spent much time and energy
trying to match Japanese developments to stages they considered to be foundational for all soci-
eties. The major challenge for them, one might argue, was how to explain the exceptional sur-
vival of Japanese political and social institutions despite dramatic developments in other areas,
such as the economy. For example, despite a decline of the statutory state and the emergence of
private estates, the central elites maintained control of the provinces for numerous centuries, and
the imperial institution seems to have continued as the pinnacle of the state. Furthermore, the
emergence of the Kamakura shogunate did not, as many historians once assumed, result in the
immediate decline of court rule. Such realizations made it challenging for scholars to explain
Japanese history in terms of simple stages of noble rule being replaced by warrior rule, or a cen-
tralized court- state being replaced by a decentralized “feudal” society. Various interpretations of
the royal- court state as either an extension of the classical, noble state or as an early “feudal”
society, or attempts made to describe the Heian period as one of decline when the changes that
took place in effect secured more direct control of the countryside by the elites, illustrate the
problems associated with such efforts.
If we dispense with the European periodization scheme, the theories introduced in this chapter
are still helpful in conceptualizing the premodern age. Above all, the notion of a statutory and a
royal- court state recognizes important differences in the socio- political structures of the two
periods, pointing out changes that occurred during the early Heian period. The challenge is
whether scholars choose to see the transition as coinciding with the establishment of the regency
in the second half of the ninth century or during the broader changes that occurred in the tenth
century. That, in turn, depends on whether the focus is put on the narrower unit of the imperial
court and the capital, or whether one prefers to look for broader changes across various spec-
trums of society, in particular the countryside.
Since most periodization schemes are intimately connected to changes at the center, perhaps
it might be most convenient to consider the ōchō kokka theory as coinciding with the regency