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Japan Economic and Cultural Developments
Contact with Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) China was renewed
during
the Muromachi period after the Chinese sought support in
suppressing Japanese pirates, or wako, who
controlled the
seas and pillaged coastal areas of China. Wanting to
improve
relations with China and to rid Japan of the wako
threat,
Yoshimitsu accepted a relationship with the Chinese that
was to
last for half a century. Japanese wood, sulfur, copper
ore, swords,
and folding fans were traded for Chinese silk, porcelain,
books,
and coins, in what the Chinese considered tribute but the
Japanese
saw as profitable trade.
During the time of the Ashikaga bakufu, a new
national
culture, called Muromachi culture, emerged from the
bakufu
headquarters in Kyoto to reach all levels of society. Zen
Buddhism
played a large role in spreading not only religious but
also
artistic influences, especially those derived from Chinese
painting
of the Chinese Song (960-1279), Yuan, and Ming dynasties.
The
proximity of the imperial court and the bakufu
resulted in
a commingling of imperial family members, courtiers,
daimyo,
samurai, and Zen priests. Art of all kinds--architecture,
literature, No drama, comedy, poetry, the tea ceremony,
landscape
gardening, and flower arranging--all flourished during
Muromachi
times.
There also was renewed interest in Shinto, which had
quietly
coexisted with Buddhism during the centuries of the
latter's
predominance. In fact, Shinto, which lacked its own
scriptures and
had few prayers, as a result of syncretic practices begun
in the
Nara period, had widely adopted Shingon Buddhist rituals.
Between
the eighth and fourteenth centuries, was nearly totally
absorbed by
Buddhism and became known as Ryobu Shinto (Dual Shinto).
The Mongol
invasions in the late thirteenth century, however, had
evoked a
national consciousness of the role of the kamikaze in
defeating the
enemy. Less than fifty years later (1339-43), Kitabatake
Chikafusa
(1293-1354), the chief commander of the Southern Court
forces,
wrote the Jinno sh t ki (Chronicle of the Direct
Descent of
the Divine Sovereigns). This chronicle emphasized the
importance of
maintaining the divine descent of the imperial line from
Amaterasu
to the current emperor, a condition that gave Japan a
special
national polity (kokutai). Besides reenforcing the
concept
of the emperor as a deity, the Jinno sh t ki
provided a
Shinto view of history, which stressed the divine nature
of all
Japanese and the country's spiritual supremacy over China
and
India. As a result, a change gradually occurred in the
balance
between the dual Buddhist-Shinto religious practice.
Between the
fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, Shinto reemerged as
the
primary belief system, developed its own philosophy and
scripture
(based on Confucian and Buddhist canons), and became a
powerful
nationalistic force.
Data as of January 1994
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