Fujiwara no Kamatari — The Man Who Said He Would Make Him King

Picking Up the Shoe

"Your kindness has been beyond measure, more than I had ever hoped for. Who could keep from making this prince king of all the land?"

The Nihon Shoki (the Chronicles of Japan) says a man said this to a prince's servant, at the prince's palace.

The servant passed the words on to his master just as he heard them. The prince was delighted.

The man who spoke was not from a royal family. In the first month of the lunar calendar that year, he had turned down a job he had just been given and shut himself away at home.

He was Nakatomi no Kamatari. Later he would be given the family name Fujiwara. In the records of this time, he is written as "Kamako." He was thirty-one by the old way of counting age.

The job he refused was head of the Office of the Gods, the office that ran the rites for Japan's gods. The Nakatomi family had served in those rites for generations.

Kamatari refused again and again. Then he said he was ill and withdrew to his house in Mishima.

Around the same time, there was another prince who stayed away from the court. Prince Karu. His leg was bad.

Kamatari had long been friendly with this prince. So he went to stay at the prince's palace.

The prince treated his guest as someone very important. He had his favorite consort, a lady of the Abe family, sweep out a separate building and lay down new mats, piled thick. He made sure the guest lacked nothing.

Kamatari was moved by this welcome. The words at the beginning were what he said to the servant at that time.

There is one more biography of this man. It is the Tōshi Kaden, put together by his descendant Fujiwara no Nakamaro, a book written to praise an ancestor. In it, the words of the same scene are a little different.

"How could I not make your lord emperor? A gentleman does not eat his words."

To eat your words means to take back what you said. So he meant: I keep my promises.

But the same biography goes on right after that. The prince was not big enough for the task of planning something great together. So Kamatari tried to pick yet another lord.

In other words, with the very mouth that had said he keeps his promises, he began looking for his next partner.

This biography also has another story. Since his youth, whenever he read a military book called the Six Secret Teachings, he read it aloud again and again. It hands down the teachings of Taigong Wang, an adviser who helped a king found a new country.

Someone once said that two strong men always walked behind him. Hearing that, Kamatari secretly felt proud, the book also says.

A book written to praise an ancestor, and it still records even the time he felt proud.

Kamatari had a reason for looking for a partner.

Soga no Iruka. A man who used his power at court as he pleased.

The year before, Iruka had sent soldiers after a royal named Prince Yamashiro no Ōe and cornered him. The Chronicles say the prince said this:

"If I raise an army and strike Iruka, I am sure to win. But I do not want to hurt the people for the sake of one man, myself."

The prince took his own life, together with his family. Even Iruka's father, Emishi, is said to have cursed when he heard, saying how stupid Iruka was.

The Chronicles say Kamatari was angry at Iruka. Iruka was throwing the order between lord and servant, older and younger, into disorder, and eyeing the power of the country.

After looking over the royals one by one, the one Kamatari set his heart on was a prince called Naka no Ōe. But there was no way to get close to him.

One day, under the zelkova tree at Hōkō-ji temple, there was a gathering to play a ball game. Kamatari had joined the group.

Along with the ball, Naka no Ōe's leather shoe came off and fell.

Kamatari picked it up and set it on his palm. He knelt in front of the prince and offered it with respect.

Naka no Ōe knelt facing him too, and took it with respect.

From that day, the two became close. They talked about what was in their hearts and hid nothing, the Chronicles say.

But if they met too often, people would grow suspicious.

So the two took books in hand and began going to a scholar called Master Minabuchi, to learn the teachings of the Duke of Zhou and Confucius.

Going and coming, they walked shoulder to shoulder on the road and talked in secret. Not once did their opinions differ.

That talk would soon turn into a plan to cut down a man inside the palace.

The Night the Bride Vanished

"To plan something great, the best thing is to have help."

Kamatari said this to Naka no Ōe, the Chronicles of Japan say.

The helper he had in mind was Soga no Kurayamada no Maro. He was from the Soga clan, the same as Iruka. According to the Tōshi Kaden, the biography put together by Kamatari's descendant, Maro and Iruka disliked each other.

Take Maro's eldest daughter as Naka no Ōe's consort. Once they are relatives, tell Maro the plan. There is no shorter road to success. So Kamatari argued, and Naka no Ōe was delighted and did as he said.

Kamatari went himself to settle the matter.

But on the very night the eldest daughter was to be married, the girl was stolen by someone from her own clan. In a small note, the Chronicles say the thief was Musa no Omi.

Maro was shaken and afraid. He lay on his back, not knowing what to do.

His younger daughter, puzzled by her father's state, came to his side and asked what was wrong. When he told her, she said:

"Please do not worry. It is not too late to give me instead."

Her father was delighted. And he gave that daughter to Naka no Ōe.

It was the younger daughter who stepped forward, in her sister's place.

In the Kaden, the one who carried the bride off is Maro's younger brother, Musashi. Naka no Ōe was angry at the rudeness and tried to punish Musashi. Then Kamatari stopped him, the Kaden says:

"We have already settled the great affair of the whole land. Why be angry over a small mistake inside a house?"

Naka no Ōe stopped at once.

Even the uproar over a stolen bride, coming from this man's mouth, became "a small mistake inside a house."

Perhaps Kamatari's eyes were fixed on one point far ahead, and nothing else.

It was Naka no Ōe who hesitated.

According to the Kaden, Naka no Ōe confessed: If I tell my mother, the sovereign, about this, the plan may fail. If I do not, I will be acting behind her back. It also worries me to startle her. As a subject and as a son, is that the right way?

Kamatari answered, the Kaden says:

"The duty of a subject and a son is only loyalty and respect for parents. The way of loyalty and respect protects the country and builds up the family. If the cords of the imperial house were to be torn and cut, and the foundation of the country to crumble, there could be no greater disloyalty or disrespect."

According to the Kaden, Naka no Ōe said:

"Whether I succeed or fail depends on you. Do your best."

Next, Kamatari recommended two men to Naka no Ōe. Saeki no Komaro and Kazuraki no Wakainukai no Amita.

The words he used to recommend them, the Chronicles leave out, writing only "and so on." The Kaden has this: brave in battle, strong in decision, strong enough to lift a heavy cauldron. For this great matter, these two are the only ones to add.

In the eleventh month of the lunar calendar that year, Iruka and his father Emishi built two houses side by side on a hill called Amakashi.

They had the father's house called the "Upper Palace Gate" and Iruka's the "Valley Palace Gate," and had their children called "miko," princes. All of these words were meant for the emperor's family. They put a fence around the houses, built armories, and kept strong men always armed to guard them.

The new year came. The sixth month of the lunar calendar, 645.

Naka no Ōe secretly told Maro the plan. On the day of a ceremony, when tribute arrived from three kingdoms of Korea, Maro would read out their state letters. And then Iruka would be cut down.

Maro agreed.

That day, Empress Kōgyoku came out to the Great Hall. Beside her stood Prince Furuhito no Ōe, a prince of Soga blood.

The Kaden describes how Iruka was that day.

When he went to leave and put on his shoes, the shoe spun around three times and would not go onto his foot. Iruka had a bad feeling and wondered whether to turn back. But the messengers called him again and again, and he rushed there against his will, it says.

The year before, Kamatari's story had begun with picking up a prince's shoe that had come off.

Iruka was a suspicious man. Day and night, he never let go of his sword.

Kamatari knew this, so he had taught a trick to a jester beforehand. A jester is an entertainer who makes people laugh with funny moves.

What the trick was has not been handed down.

Iruka laughed.

Then he took off his sword and took his seat.

I Do Not Know My Crime

When Iruka took his seat, Soga no Kurayamada no Maro stepped forward and began to read the state letters.

Meanwhile, Naka no Ōe had the twelve gates of the palace shut all at once. He gathered the gatekeepers in one place, saying he would give them rewards, so that no one could go in or out. He hid beside the hall with a long spear in hand.

Kamatari and the others took bows and arrows and stood guard.

Two swords, kept in a box, were handed to Saeki no Komaro and Amita. They were the two Kamatari had recommended to Naka no Ōe. The man who handed them over said this, the Chronicles of Japan say:

"Do it well, do it well. Cut him down at once."

Komaro and Amita washed down their rice with water.

And in their fear, they threw it up.

Kamatari scolded the two and got their courage up.

The reading of the letters drew near its end. Komaro and Amita had not come.

Sweat poured down Maro's body. His voice was shaking, and his hands trembled.

Iruka grew suspicious and asked:

"Why are you trembling?"

"I am in awe of being so near the emperor, and the sweat runs down without my meaning it."

It was a quick excuse.

Naka no Ōe saw that Komaro and Amita were frozen with fear of Iruka's power, unable to move.

"Yaa!"

He gave a shout, and together with Komaro and Amita, he struck Iruka by surprise on the head and shoulder. Iruka stood up in shock, and Komaro swung his sword and cut one of his legs.

Iruka rolled toward the sovereign's seat, put his head to the floor, and said:

"The one who should be on the throne is a child of heaven. I do not know my crime. Please look into it."

Empress Kōgyoku was greatly shocked and said to Naka no Ōe:

"I do not understand what you are doing. What has happened?"

Naka no Ōe bowed to the ground and answered:

"Kuratsukuri is trying to destroy the whole imperial family and tip the throne over. How can we put Kuratsukuri in the place of a child of heaven?"

Kuratsukuri is another name for Iruka.

The empress stood up and went into the inner rooms.

Komaro and Amita cut Iruka down.

It rained that day, and water filled the courtyard. Iruka's body was covered with a straw mat and a screen, the Chronicles say.

The Kamatari in the records is a man who stood guard with a bow and arrows.

But about eight hundred years later, in an engi, a history of a temple, put together by a temple that honors Kamatari, the story grows. Kamatari's sword struck off Iruka's shoulder. The cut head flew and bit into a stone pillar, and bounced up forty times. Several such tales are written side by side.

What Kamatari thought that day, he left nothing in writing.

There were people on the struck-down side too.

Prince Furuhito no Ōe ran back to his palace and told those around him:

"The Koreans have killed Lord Kuratsukuri. My heart aches."

Perhaps that is what he called the thing that happened at the ceremony welcoming envoys from the Korean kingdoms. A note in the Chronicles explains it to mean that Iruka was killed over dealings with the Korean states. The prince went into his bedchamber, shut his gate, and did not come out.

Naka no Ōe entered Hōkō-ji and made the temple a fortress. The princes and nobles all followed him. It was the temple with that zelkova tree.

Some people took up arms and gathered to fight on the Soga side. But one of them said this, took off his sword, threw away his bow, and left:

"Because of our lord Iruka, we will surely be punished. The Great Minister too can only wait to be struck down today or tomorrow. Then for whom should we fight in vain and all be punished?"

The men who had gathered scattered too.

The next day, Iruka's father Emishi, before he could be struck down, burned all the records of the emperors and of the state, and the treasures. A man named Fune no Fubito Esaka quickly pulled the burning state records out of the fire and gave them to Naka no Ōe.

That day, Emishi and Iruka were allowed to be buried in their tomb.

They were also allowed to weep aloud.

The King Who Was Left Behind

According to the Tōshi Kaden, the biography put together by his descendant, Naka no Ōe praised Kamatari. The broken rope is stretched tight again, and the tilted fortune has risen again. It is truly because of you, my lord.

Kamatari answered, it is said:

"This is because of a sacred virtue. It is not my doing."

Two days after Iruka was cut down, Empress Kōgyoku tried to hand the throne to Naka no Ōe.

Naka no Ōe asked Kamatari for advice. The Chronicles of Japan give Kamatari's answer:

"Furuhito no Ōe is your elder brother, my prince. Prince Karu is your uncle. Now Furuhito no Ōe is here, and if you take the throne, you go against the spirit of a younger brother who gives way with humility. Why not set up your uncle, and answer the hopes of the people?"

Naka no Ōe was deeply pleased with this idea, and passed it secretly to the empress.

Prince Karu. The prince Kamatari had gone to stay with, a little over a year before, moved by his welcome. According to the Kaden, he was also the one Kamatari afterward judged too small and began looking past for another lord.

Prince Karu refused many times and tried to give it to Furuhito no Ōe.

Furuhito no Ōe stepped back, folded his hands, and said he would become a monk and go to Yoshino, follow the Buddha's way, and protect the emperor.

When he finished, he took off the sword at his waist and threw it on the ground. He made all his followers take off their swords too.

Then he went to Hōkō-ji, shaved off his beard and hair between the Buddha hall and the pagoda, and put on a monk's robe.

He was the prince who had shut his gate and not come out two days before. That day Iruka had taken off his sword. This time, this prince threw his down.

Prince Karu took the throne. He was Emperor Kōtoku. Naka no Ōe became crown prince.

Kamatari was given the Great Brocade Cap, a court rank shown by a cap, and the post of Uchitsuomi, an inner minister who advised the ruler. Maro, who had sweated as he read the letters, became Minister of the Right.

The Chronicles describe Kamatari in those days like this: He held true loyalty in his heart and, with the power of a chief minister, stood above the officials. So whom to promote and whom to remove was decided just as he planned.

Five days later, the new emperor, the former empress and the crown prince gathered their retainers under a great zelkova tree and made them swear before the gods of heaven and earth.

"Heaven has used our hands to destroy a violent and rebellious man. Now, together, we pledge with the blood of our hearts. From now on, the lord will have no second government, and the subject no second court. If we break this oath, heaven will send disaster, earth will bring strange things, demons will punish us, and men will strike us down."

Who could keep from making this prince king of all the land?

Those words had come true.

Eight years passed.

In 653, Naka no Ōe asked Emperor Kōtoku to move the capital to Yamato. The emperor would not allow it.

Then Naka no Ōe took his mother, the former empress, the empress of Emperor Kōtoku, and his younger brothers and moved to a temporary palace at Asuka. High-ranking men and officials all followed him.

The emperor was bitter. He thought of giving up the throne and had a new palace built at Yamasaki, the Chronicles say.

The man who was told he would be made king, and became king, was left behind like this.

Which side Kamatari was on then, the Chronicles say nothing.

In the fifth month of the lunar calendar of that same year, 653, several scholar monks boarded the ship of the envoys heading for China, then ruled by the Tang. In the list of their names is one named Jōe. In a small note, the Chronicles add: eldest son of the Inner Minister.

He was Kamatari's eldest son.

In the temple history from eight hundred years later, there is even a story that Jōe was in fact Emperor Kōtoku's son, and that Kamatari was given by the emperor a consort who was already pregnant. The Chronicles have no such story.

In the first month of the lunar calendar the next year, 654, Kamatari was given the Purple Cap, a still higher rank, and his fief households were increased. Fief households are families whose taxes he could receive. In the record of this year, the Chronicles write him as "Kamatari" just once.

Neither beside the king who was left behind, nor beside the crown prince who left him, does the Kamatari of the Chronicles show himself. All we can see is the color of his cap changing.

In 656, Kamatari fell ill and shut himself in his house at Yamashina. Treatment did not help.

The history of the temple that honors Kamatari tells this. A nun from Baekje, a kingdom in Korea, named Hōmyō visited and said that if the Yuima Sutra were read to him, his illness would heal by itself. When it was read to him, he recovered.

The Yuima Sutra is a scripture whose hero is a man called Yuima, lying sick in bed. According to the Kaden, every year in the tenth month of the lunar calendar Kamatari held a Buddhist service and had Yuima's teachings preached.

In 661, Empress Saimei died at a temporary palace far away at Asakura. She was the same woman who had asked in the Great Hall, "What has happened?" Kōgyoku had taken the throne a second time.

According to the Kaden, when the empress's body grew weak, Kamatari prayed to the gods and to the Buddha for her long life.

In 667 the capital moved to Ōmi, and in the first month of the lunar calendar of 668, Naka no Ōe at last took the throne. He was Emperor Tenji.

Twenty-four years had passed since the shoe was picked up.

According to the biography by his descendant, after the enthronement, at a drinking party in a tall hall by the beach, one long spear pierced through the floorboards.

Keep the Funeral Simple

This scene is told only by the Tōshi Kaden, the biography put together by his descendant.

Emperor Tenji gathered his retainers and held a banquet in the tall hall on the beach. When the wine had gone round and the fun was at its peak, the emperor's younger brother, Prince Ōama, drove a long spear through the floorboards.

The emperor was shocked and flew into a rage. He had his brother seized and tried to have him killed.

Kamatari urged him strongly to stop. The emperor held back at once.

At first, Prince Ōama had not liked how heavily the emperor relied on Kamatari. From this time on, the Kaden says, he became especially close to Kamatari and respected him.

More than twenty years before, the one who had gripped a long spear and hidden beside the palace was the very emperor who was now angry.

According to the Kaden, that emperor and Kamatari were lord and subject but like teacher and friend. When they went out, they rode in the same carriage or rode horses side by side, and at home they pulled their mats close and sat knee to knee.

Many of Kamatari's words that remain in the Chronicles of Japan are about kings and the country.

But in the Man'yōshū, the oldest collection of Japanese poems, there are poems said to be by Kamatari. When he made them, we do not know.

When he asked a woman named Kagami no Ōkimi to marry him, they traded poems. She wrote: it is easy to keep a secret, like putting the lid on a comb box. But if you leave after dawn, never mind your name, it is my name I would hate to lose. Kamatari answered, if we do not sleep together, I do not think I can bear it.

The other is a poem from when he took Yasumiko, a palace woman, as his wife. A palace woman, uneme, is a woman who served at court.

"Ware wa mo ya, Yasumiko etari, minahito no, ekate ni su to iu, Yasumiko etari"

Ah, I have won Yasumiko. Yasumiko, whom everyone said could not be won, I have won her.

This short poem says he has won her, and says it twice.

Of all Kamatari's voices that remain on record, this poem is the most cheerful.

In the fifth month of the lunar calendar of 669, Emperor Tenji went hunting on the Yamashina plain. Prince Ōama and Kamatari both went along.

That year, lightning struck Kamatari's house.

In the tenth month of the lunar calendar, Kamatari lay ill. The Kaden says his illness grew worse little by little.

The emperor came to Kamatari's house himself to ask about the illness. He was so worried that he looked worn out, the Chronicles say. The emperor said:

"They say the way of heaven helps the kind. Were those lies? They say that if you pile up good deeds, more than enough good comes back. Yet there is no sign of it. If there is anything you need, say so at once."

Kamatari answered:

"I am a man of little worth. What more could I say? Only, please keep my funeral light and simple. While I lived, I could not do my duty in war or in the work of the state. Now that I am dead, how could I trouble you with a heavy burden?"

According to the Kaden, after saying this, Kamatari lay down again and said nothing more. The emperor choked with tears and went back to the palace.

Five days later, Prince Ōama came to Kamatari's house as the emperor's messenger. What he gave was the Great Woven Cap, the highest cap rank. According to another record quoted in a note of the Chronicles, he was also given the rank of minister and the family name Fujiwara at this time.

He was the brother whom Kamatari had saved from the emperor's anger in the spear trouble the Kaden tells of.

The next day, Kamatari died. He was fifty-six by the old way of counting.

Three days later, the emperor visited Kamatari's house again, had Soga no Akae read out the emperor's words, and gave a gold incense burner.

The Kaden records the emperor's words at length. Take this incense burner and, as you wished, follow Kannon, the goddess of mercy, up to heaven. And the emperor also lamented:

"We have not yet crossed the great river, and the boat and the oar have sunk. We have only just laid the foundation of the great house, and the ridge and the beams have broken. With whom shall I rule the country now, and with whom the people?"

The next year, Kamatari was buried at a temple in Yamashina. According to the Kaden, on the day of the funeral procession the emperor wore a white mourning robe, came on foot, and wept aloud before the coffin. The funeral things were prepared simply, as Kamatari had asked in his will.

In 672, a great war broke out, called the Jinshin War.

On the way out of Yoshino, heading east, Prince Ōama lamented, the Kaden says:

"If the minister were alive, would I have fallen into such pain as this?"

The Fujiwara family name that Kamatari received the day before he died was decided in 698 to pass to his son Fuhito. The rest of the clan were returned to their old name, Nakatomi. The reason given was that they were to serve in the rites of the gods.

"Who could keep from making this prince king of all the land?"

Kamatari, aged thirty-one, said this to the servant of the prince who welcomed him.

Twenty-five years later, this time it was the king who asked Kamatari, on his sickbed, whether he needed anything.

All Kamatari asked for was a light funeral.

In 1934, an old tomb was found on Mount Abu in Osaka. A man of about sixty was buried in it, and gold thread, apparently used in the embroidery of a cap, remained. There is a theory that this is Kamatari's tomb, but it has not been confirmed.

The man who asked for a light funeral — where he sleeps, even now no one knows for sure.