Emperor

• Other Titles: 内裏 (dairi), 禁裏 (kinri), 天子 (tenshi), 御門 (mikado)
• Japanese: 天皇 (tennô)

The hereditary monarch of Japan is commonly referred to in English as the "emperor." In addition to his secular political role, the tennô is also considered the highest Shinto priest in Japan.

Terminology

In Japanese

The term tennô, though standard today, was not common traditionally. In the Edo period, terms such as dairi (a metonym more literally meaning the palace) and mikado (another metonym, lit. "august gate") were more common.

In accordance with Chinese practice, the term tenshi (lit. "son of Heaven") was also common in the pre-modern period. In fact, a famous communication said to have been issued to the Chinese emperor by Shôtoku Taishi in 607, in which he wrote "from the Son of Heaven of the land of the rising sun, to the Son of Heaven in the land of the setting sun," this is the term used for both emperors.

The term tennô (C: tiān huáng) is said to have originally had a strong association with the Taoist worship of the North Star, and was only ever used in China briefly, from around 675 to around 705. Of course, it was during this period that the Yamato court adopted many aspects of Chinese political ideology, and indeed it was during that brief period that the term tennô came into use in Japan, beginning with either Emperor Temmu (r. 673-686) or his successor Empress Jitô (r. 686-697). This marks the end of the period of "Great Kings" (ôkimi), and the beginning of rule by "emperors." Amino Yoshihiko, among others, have argued that this also marks the beginning of something we might legitimately call "Japan," suggesting that what came before should be considered "Wa" or "Yamato," and not "Japan," that all rulers prior to Temmu should not be called "emperors," and that figures such as Empress Suiko (r. 554-628) and Shôtoku Taishi, important as they may be historically, should not be considered "Japanese."

While the term tennô was adopted in Japan, more standard terms for "emperor" in China include huángdi (J: kôtei) and simply di (J: tei). In Japanese, these terms are used almost exclusively to refer only to non-Japanese emperors (e.g. including not only Chinese emperors, but also emperors of Rome or of the Holy Roman Empire). The term kôtei was only used in Japan to refer to the Japanese emperor for a time in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and then only in communication with China, before the title tennô was formally adopted in 1936.

Regardless of which of these terms was employed, however, for much of Japanese history, Japanese rulers made a point of emphasizing that Japan, too, possessed a Son of Heaven, an "emperor," and not a "king" (国王, J: kokuô, C: guo wang). Regardless of how we might translate it (as "king" or otherwise), to be ruled by a koku-ô, as Korea and Ryûkyû were, meant submission to Chinese suzerainty. The koku-ô of Korea and Ryûkyû received investiture from Chinese envoys, meaning that their legitimacy was, at least in some sense, derived from or dependent upon the Chinese emperor. Furthermore, in order to engage in official trade relations with China, one had to be a tributary state; that is, one had to pay tribute. This was something most shoguns, and Japanese emperors alike, refused to do, instead insisting upon their equality with the Chinese emperor, or their exclusion from the Sinocentric system entirely.

In English

In present-day English, the "emperor of Japan" refers to the tennô 天皇, the monarch who has reigned over (but not necessarily ruled) Japan for virtually all of recorded history. However, it only became standard in English sometime after Perry's visit in 1853. Indeed, the formal letters from US Presidents Fillmore and Pierce carried to Japan by Commodore Perry and Townsend Harris respectively all used the term "emperor" to refer to the shogun.

The 16th-century Jesuits more commonly used terms such as "nobleman," "king," or "prince," to refer to the tennô, but hardly ever the term "emperor," if at all. Borrowing or imitating Japanese terms, they also often used terms such as mikado and dairi 内裏, the latter literally referring to the imperial palace, in much the same way we might today say "Washington" or "the White House" to mean the President of the United States. (The "emperor" doll in the Doll Festival set is still called the dairi today.)

The Jesuits also called the daimyô "kings," "dukes," or "princes," which was hardly a misuse of the European term, as the daimyô, especially in Kyushu where the Jesuits were first active, were independent rulers who really ruled their territory and fought each other. The tennô was described by St. Francis Xavier as the hereditary ruler of the whole country, but one who was no longer obeyed.

Will Adams, an Englishman who arrived in Japan in 1600, referred to Tokugawa Ieyasu, who became the first Tokugawa shogun in 1603, as "king" in a 1611 letter to his wife, and as "emperor" in a pamphlet of the same date. "Emperor" in Europe referred to someone who ruled over kings, so in the latter he was clearly indicating that Ieyasu ruled over all the various "kings" (i.e. the daimyô) who Europeans knew existed in Japan. The Englishmen who arrived in Japan with the East India Company in 1613 also referred to the then-retired shogun Ieyasu and the shogun Hidetada as "emperor," both in public and private.

Richard Cocks mentioned the "dairi" in 1616, and Engelbert Kaempfer, who came to the Dutch settlement in 1690, described Japan as possessing "two Emperors at the same time, the one secular, the other ecclesiastical." Thus, he does refer to the tennô in Kyoto as the "Ecclesiastical Hereditary Emperor," though more frequently his use of the term "emperor" (as in "Embassy to the Emperor's court") referred to the shogun, in Edo.

One sometimes comes across statements to the effect that during the Edo period the secretive Japanese told the Dutch that the shogun was the emperor, hiding the existence of the real emperor, but such statements are misconceptions deriving from a lack of familiarity with the history of early Japanese-European contact. It is clear that the Europeans, though they knew of the tennô, chose "emperor" as the word most suitable to their minds to describe the shogun.

Today, the Emperor of Japan is the only reigning figure in the world to be called "emperor." Historian Ben-Ami Shillony, citing the fact that the tennô scarcely had any political power for the majority of the period 1192-1867, and that outside of 1895-1945 Japan has never possessed an "empire," argues that the English-language term "emperor" is inapplicable. He suggests instead that tennô be used as is, just as foreign terms such as shah, tsar, sultan, and Dalai Lama are employed in English. There is considerable validity to this argument, as it pertains to the contemporary situation. However, as discussed above, there is great historical significance to Japan's possessing an "emperor," rather than a "king," in its hierarchical position in the region, relative to the Emperor of China and the Kings of Korea and Ryûkyû. So long as these terms are to be used for other states in the region, there is an argument to be made for the use of such terms for Japan as well.

References

• Michael Cooper, They Came to Japan, University of California Press, 1965.
• John Whitney Hall (ed.), The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 4, Cambridge University Press, 1991.