Part 19 (1/2)

IV. Ministers and functionaries should make decorous behavior their guiding principle, for decorous behavior is the main factor in governing the people. If superiors do not behave with decorum, inferiors are disorderly; if inferiors are wanting in proper behaviour, offences are inevitable. Thus it is that when lord and va.s.sal behave with propriety, the distinctions of rank are not confused; and when the people behave with propriety, the government of the State proceeds of itself.

V. Refraining from gluttony and abandoning covetous desires, deal impartially with the suits brought before you. Of complaints preferred by the people there are a thousand in one day: how many, then, will there be in a series of years? Should he that decides suits at law make gain his ordinary motive and hear causes with a view to receiving bribes, then will the suits of the rich man be like a stone flung into water,* while the plaints of the poor will resemble water cast on a stone. In such circ.u.mstances, the poor man will not know whither to betake himself, and the duty of a minister will not be discharged.

*That is to say, they will encounter no opposition.

VI. Chastise that which is evil and encourage that which is good.

This was the excellent rule of antiquity. Conceal not, therefore, the good qualities of others, and fail not to correct that which is wrong when you see it. Flatterers and deceivers are a sharp weapon for the overthrow of the State, and a pointed sword for the destruction of the people. Sycophants are also fond, when they meet, of dilating to their superiors on the errors of their inferiors; to their inferiors, they censure the faults of their superiors. Men of this kind are all wanting in fidelity to their lord, and in benevolence towards the people. From such an origin great civil disturbances arise.

VII. Let every man have his own charge, and let not the spheres of duty be confused. When wise men are entrusted with office, the sound of praise arises. If unprincipled men hold office, disasters and tumults are multiplied. In this world, few are born with knowledge: wisdom is the product of earnest meditation. In all things, whether great or small, find the right man, and they will surely be well managed: on all occasions, be they urgent or the reverse, meet with but a wise man and they will of themselves be amenable. In this way will the State be eternal and the Temples of the Earth and of Grain*

will be free from danger. Therefore did the wise sovereigns of antiquity seek the man to fill the office, and not the office for the sake of the man.

*A Chinese expression for the Imperial house.

VIII. Let the ministers and functionaries attend the Court early in the morning, and retire late. The business of the State does not admit of remissness, and the whole day is hardly enough for its accomplishment. If, therefore, the attendance at Court is late, emergencies cannot be met: if officials retire soon, the work cannot be completed.

IX. Good faith is the foundation of right. In everything let there be good faith, for in it there surely consists the good and the bad, success and failure. If the lord and the va.s.sal observe good faith one with another, what is there which cannot be accomplished? If the lord and the va.s.sal do not observe good faith towards one another, everything without exception ends in failure.

X. Let us cease from wrath, and refrain from angry looks. Nor let us be resentful when others differ from us. For all men have hearts, and each heart has its own leanings. Their right is our wrong, and our right is their wrong. We are not unquestionably sages nor are they unquestionably fools. Both of us are simply ordinary men. How can anyone lay down a rule by which to distinguish right from wrong? For we are all, one with another, wise and foolish like a ring which has no end. Therefore, although others give way to anger, let us, on the contrary, dread our own faults, and though we alone may be in the right, let us follow the mult.i.tude and act like them.

XI. Give clear appreciation to merit and demerit, and deal out to each its sure reward or punishment. In these days, reward does not attend upon merit, nor punishment upon crime. Ye high functionaries who have charge of public affairs, let it be your task to make clear rewards and punishments.

XII. Let not the provincial authorities or the kuni no miyatsuko levy exactions on the people. In a country there are not two lords; the people have not two masters. The sovereign is the master of the people of the whole country. The officials to whom he gives charge are all his va.s.sals. How can they, as well as the Government, presume to levy taxes on the people?

XIII. Let all persons entrusted with office attend equally to their functions. Owing to illness or despatch on missions their work may sometimes be neglected. But whenever they are able to attend to business, let them be as accommodating as though they had cognizance of it from before, and let them not hinder public affairs on the score of not having had to do with them.

XIV. Ministers and functionaries, be not envious. If we envy others, they, in turn, will envy us. The evils of envy know no limit. If others excel us in intelligence, it gives us no pleasure; if they surpa.s.s us in ability, we are envious. Therefore it is not until after the lapse of five hundred years that we at last meet with a wise man, and even in a thousand years we hardly obtain one sage. But if wise men and sages be not found, how shall the country be governed?

XV. To turn away from that which is private and to set one's face towards that which is public this is the path of a minister. If a man is influenced by private motives, he will a.s.suredly feel resentment; if he is influenced by resentment, he will a.s.suredly fail to act harmoniously with others; if he fails to act harmoniously with others, he will a.s.suredly sacrifice the public interest to his private feelings. When resentment arises, it interferes with order and is subversive of law. Therefore, in the first clause it was said that superiors and inferiors should agree together. The purport is the same as this.

XVI. Let the employment of the people in forced labour be at seasonable times. This is an ancient and excellent rule. Let them be employed, therefore, in the winter months when they have leisure. But from spring to autumn, when they are engaged in agriculture or with the mulberry trees, the people should not be employed. For if they do not attend to agriculture, what will they have to eat? If they do not attend to the mulberry trees, what will they do for clothing?

XVII. Decisions on important matters should not be rendered by one person alone: they should be discussed by many. But small matters being of less consequence, need not be consulted about by a number of people. It is only in the discussion of weighty affairs, when there is an apprehension of miscarriage, that matters should be arranged in concert with others so as to arrive at the right conclusion.*

*The above is taken almost verbatim from Aston's translation of the Nihongi.

For a doc.u.ment compiled at the beginning of the seventh century these seventeen ethical precepts merit much approbation. With the exception of the doctrine of expediency, enunciated at the close of the tenth article, the code of Shotoku might be taken for guide by any community in any age. But the prince as a moral reformer* cannot be credited with originality; his merit consists in having studied Confucianism and Buddhism intelligently. The political purport of his code is more remarkable. In the whole seventeen articles there is nothing to inculcate wors.h.i.+p of the Kami or observance of s.h.i.+nto rites. Again, whereas, according to the j.a.panese creed, the sovereign power is derived from the Imperial ancestor, the latter is nowhere alluded to. The seventh article makes the eternity of the State and the security of the Imperial house depend upon wise administration by well-selected officials, but says nothing of hereditary rights. How is such a vital omission to be interpreted, except on the supposition that Shotoku, who had witnessed the worst abuses incidental to the hereditary system of the uji, intended by this code to enter a solemn protest against that system?

*It is a curious fact that tradition represents this prince as having been born at the door of a stable. Hence his original name, Umayado (Stable-door).

Further, the importance attached to the people* is a very prominent feature of the code. Thus, in Article IV, it is stated that ”when the people behave with propriety the government of the State proceeds of itself;” Article V speaks of ”complaints preferred by the people;”

Article VI refers to ”the overthrow of the State” and ”the destruction of the people;” Article VII emphasises ”the eternity of the State;” that ”the sovereign is the master of the people of the whole country;” that ”the officials to whom he gives charge are all his va.s.sals,” and that these officials, whether miyatsuko or provincial authorities, must not ”presume, as well as the Government, to levy taxes on the people.” All those expressions amount to a distinct condemnation of the uji system, under which the only people directly subject to the sovereign were those of the minas.h.i.+ro, and those who had been naturalized or otherwise specially a.s.signed, all the rest being practically the property of the uji, and the only lands paying direct taxes to the Throne were the domains of the miyake.

*The word used is hyakusho, which ultimately came to be applied to farmers only.

Forty-two years later (A.D. 646), the abolition of private property in persons and lands was destined to become the policy of the State, but its foundations seem to have been laid in Shotoku's time. It would be an error to suppose that the neglect of s.h.i.+nto suggested by the above code was by any means a distinct feature of the era, or even a practice of the prince himself. Thus, an Imperial edict, published in the year 607, enjoined that there must be no remissness in the wors.h.i.+p of the Kami, and that they should be sincerely reverenced by all officials, In the sequel of this edict Prince Shotoku himself, the o-omi, and a number of functionaries wors.h.i.+pped the Kami of heaven and of earth. In fact, Shotoku, for all his enthusiasm in the cause of Buddhism, seems to have shrunk from anything like bigoted exclusiveness. He is quoted* as saying: ”The management of State affairs cannot be achieved unless it is based on knowledge, and the sources of knowledge are Confucianism, Buddhism, and s.h.i.+nto.”** He who inclines to one of these three, must study the other two also; for what one knows seems reasonable, but that of which one is ignorant appears unreasonable. Therefore an administrator of public affairs should make himself acquainted with all three and should not affect one only, for such partiality signifies maladministration.

*In the Sankyo-ron.

**The order of this enumeration is significant.

DEATH OF SHOTOKU TAIs.h.i.+