Japanese History

1) Buddhism started on the Northern edge of India and spread around to China. Japan then got China's version of Buddhism

a) Central them of reincarnation

i) The bodily desires are what drag us into the next body. Ridding yourself of these desires = Nirvana.

ii) Buddha ins't supernatural. Cyclical time not linear.

iii) Theravada Hinayana ~ original Buddha

iv) Mahayana ~ Japanese version of Buddhism (from China)

(1) Prayer to those who have reached Nirvana

v) Shinto and Buddhists were able to get along

b) Shinto preoccupied with spiritual purity

i) Death is a very large spiritual impurity

(1) Emperor's death considered the ultimate and so they moved Capitals after every death

ii) In 794 the government moves to Heian (Kyoto) and stayed there for over 1000 years

2) Often times they had puppet bosses with the real Emperor running things from behind the scenes

a) Regents from the Fujiwara family effectively ran the government with child emperors

b) When one of the retired emperors tries to regain power they call in the Samurai.

3) Minamoto Yoritomo won the Samurai Wars and named himself Shogun

a) Government then run by Shogun and called the Bakafu

i) Had the real power until the Hojo family

b) Bakafu was threatened by the Mongolian invasions

i) Were able to defeat the Mongols but were severely weakened in the process

c) No one effective ruler and so daimyo controlled their territory with taxes (rice)

d) First European contact (Portuguese) during this time~ around 1492

e) First Jesuit missionaries in 1549

i) Worked from top down. Converted some daimyo and Samurai

ii) Wanted to learn gun technology

f) Around this time some daimyo were able to concentrate power enough to unify large pieces of Japan

i) Oda Nobunaga got half of Japan

ii) Hideyoshi comes from a peasant family~ becomes a servant to Nobunaga and works his way up. Eventually becomes his advisor and takes over Nobunaga's empire after his death

(1) Hideyoshi conquers the other half of Japan

(2) Hideyoshi then makes it so that no one could change classes anymore.

(3) Hideyoshi tries to conquer Korea

(4) He was friendly with Christian missionaries at first but then persecuted them savagely until his death

iii) Civil War afterwards

iv) Tokugawa Ieyasu wins

v) Tokugawa Bakafu created

(1) Created a puppet government in Kyoto (Emperor) to rule from 1603-1888

4) Tokugawa Bakafu (Dynasty?)

a) Samurai- Ruling class

b) Peasants- farmers (were expected to be subservient / obedient)

(1) Peasant life centered on the household and village

ii) Wet rice farming took a lot of coordination