Table Of ContentJapanese Culture
FOURTH EDITION
Updated and Expanded
Paul Varley
University of Hawaii Press Honolulu
©
1973, 1977, 1984, 2000 by Paul Varley
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
05 04 03 02 01 5 4 3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Varley, H. Paul
—
Japanese culture / Paul Varley. 4th ed.
cm.
p.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
—
ISBN 0-8248-2292-7 (cloth) ISBN 0-8248-2152-1 (paper alk. paper)
— :
1. Japan Civilization. I. Title.
DS821.V36 2000
952—dc21 99-057345
University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and
meet the guidelines for permanence and durability ofthe Council on
Library Resources.
Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group
To Donald Keene
Contents
Preface ix
Major Periods and Cultural Epochs ofJapanese History x
Chinese Dynasties Since the Time of Unification Under xi
Han
the
Author’s Notes
xiii
The Emergence of Japanese Civilization
1 1
.
2. The Introduction of Buddhism 19
3. The Court at Its Zenith 48
4. The Advent of a New Age 77
5. The Canons of Medieval Taste 91
The Country Unified 140
6.
7. The Flourishing of a Bourgeois Culture 164
Heterodox Trends 205
8.
9. Encounter with the West 235
10. The Fruits of Modernity 271
Culture in the Present Age 304
1 1
.
Notes 353
Glossary 363
Selected Bibliography 367
Index 373
«
)
Preface
More than a quarter of a century has passed since the publication
of Japanese Culture. With each edition, it has expanded in size. Thus,
whereas the first edition ended with World War II, the second edition in-
cluded a postwar chapter (which remains the book’s longest chapter).
When the University ofHawaih Press published the third edition in 1984,
it reset the entire text and allowed me to add material throughout. Once
again, in this fourth edition, the text has been reset and I have been able
to add extensive new material on subjects such as samurai values, Zen
Buddhism, the tea ceremony (chanoyu Confucianism in the Tokugawa
}
period, the story of the forty-seven ronin, Mito scholarship in the early
nineteenth century, and mass culture and the comics in the present age.
As stated in the preface to the first edition, Japanese Culture is intended
as a survey, for the general reader, of Japanese culture, including reli-
gion, thought, the visual arts, literature, the theatre, the cinema, and
those special arts, such as the tea ceremony and landscape gardening,
that have been uniquely cherished in Japan. I have in particular sought
to relate cultural developments to political, social, and institutional trends
without burdening the text with an excess of the names, dates, and other
details of those trends.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my editor at the Univer-
sity of Hawafi Press, Patricia Crosby, who encouraged me to undertake
the revision and expansion ofJapanese Culture for this fourth edition and
who has supported and assisted me in various projects for the press over
the years.
Honolulu PV.
February 1999
Major Periods and Cultural Epochs
of Japanese History
Jomon period ca. 10,000-300 b.c.
Yayoi period ca. 300 b.c.-a.d. 300
Tomb period ca. 300-552
Age of Reform 552-710
Asuka epoch (552-645)
Hakuho epoch (645-710)
Nara period 710-784
Tempyo epoch (mid-eighth century)
Heian period 794-1185
Jogan epoch (mid- to late ninth century)
Fujiwara epoch (tenth century to late eleventh century)
Kamakura period 1185-1333
Kemmu Restoration 1333-1336
Muromachi (Ashikaga) period 1336-1573
Kitayama epoch (late fourteenth and early fifteenth
centuries)
Higashiyama epoch (second half of the fifteenth century)
Age of Unification 1568-1600
Azuchi-Momoyama epoch (1568-1600 or 1615)
Namban epoch (late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries)
Tokugawa (Edo) period 1600-1867
Genroku epoch 1675-1725)
(ca.
Bunka-Bunsei epoch (late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries)
Meiji period 1868-1912
Taisho period 1912-1926
Showa period 1926-1989
Heisei period 1989-
Chinese Dynasties since the Time
Han
of Unification under the
Han dynasty 206 b.c.-a.d. 220
Period of the six dynasties 220-589
Sui dynasty 589-618
T’ang dynasty 618-907
Period of the five dynasties 907-960
Sung dynasty 960-1279
Southern Sung dynasty 127-1279)
(1
Yuan (Mongol) dynasty 1279-1368
Ming dynasty 1368-1644
Ch’ing (Manchu) dynasty 1644-1911
