320 Part IV: East Asian Civilization
course of some centuries finally overtopped it” (Sansom 1952:106). No
scholar-official class like the Chinese shenshi ever emerged, for the hold of aris-
tocratic territorial clans was never broken.
More successful, however, was the building of cities on the Chinese plan.
Chang’an was the largest city in the world at this time, and its centrally
planned, grid-like layout with the imperial palace in the north-central portion
of the city was simply what a city should be, to the Japanese, who had none.
Their administrative centers had been wherever the residence of a clan chief or
a Yamato ruler might be; the Shinto horror of death pollution required that res-
idences be pulled down and destroyed at death, so no permanent court had
emerged; instead, their traces remain archaeologically all over the Nara basin.
So the eighth-century Japanese built themselves a city like Chang’an called
Nara. This was a space to fill with the new culture coming from China, though
Japan’s total population of six million at that time could hardly sustain a major
urban complex. Perhaps 20,000 people lived there during its peak. Only the
eastern half of the planned city was ever built, and this was filled with temples,
monasteries, and mansions in Chinese architectural styles. It must have seemed
a marvelous and foreign place to humble Japanese who came to behold it or to
work there: there were new gods whose forms were visible, language was cap-
tured in the strange markings of the Chinese script, and men of high status
wore their rank visibly on Chinese-style robes.
But Nara remained the seat of government and learning for a mere 75
years; the capital then moved twice, first to Nagaoka (784 to 794) then, more
enduringly, to Kyoto (794–1869). Some have supposed the move was decided
because of the increasing power of the monastic establishment at Nara, or it
may have been linked to some intrigue of the Fujiwaras. In any event, it was a
hugely expensive undertaking. All the provinces were required to send all their
taxes for the year to build the city, plus all the material needed for construction.
Much of this income went to compensate the nobility, who also had to relocate
to the new city. Then, after only 10 years in Nagaoka, they picked up and
moved again, to Kyoto, this time because a series of inexplicable deaths of peo-
ple of high rank was understood to be caused by angry spirits, of whom there
continued to be tremendous, unreserved fear. Kyoto was sited based on Chi-
nese geomancy (fengshui), carefully announced to Amaterasu at Ise, and then,
again, built on the Chang’an plan, with the imperial residence in the north-cen-
ter, a wall with 14 gates, and a temple of Confucius. Here in Kyoto the cultur-
ally splendid Heian or Fujiwara period unfolded. (Heian was the old name for
Kyoto; the Fujiwara were a powerful clan closely intermarried with the impe-
rial line.) It remained the residence of the imperial line until the Meiji Restora-
tion of 1868.Romance at Court
We probably know more about the life of women at the Heian court than
about any comparable class of women in any other premodern state. There are