The Asuka and Nara periods: Buddhism, law and the first capital at Nara

By winning a clan fight. The Nihon Shoki gives 552 for Buddhism’s arrival from the Korean kingdom of Baekje, and other sources give 538. Both dates are doubtful.

The Soga clan backed the new religion, and Soga no Umako is the name tied to that side. The Mononobe and Nakatomi opposed it, and the Soga won.

The Seventeen-Article Constitution of 604. Prince Shotoku served as regent for Empress Suiko. Modern scholars question much of the traditional picture of him, so treat the constitution as a credited work, not a settled fact.

In 594, according to tree-ring dating.

Wait, really? The central pillar timber of Horyuji’s five-storey pagoda was felled that year, about a century before the traditional early 8th-century date and before the temple’s 670 fire record. The source is a Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties monograph on a 2001 survey.

A felling date is not a construction date, so the pagoda itself may be later. Even so, the timber is old. Horyuji’s Western Precinct buildings are among the oldest surviving wooden structures in the world, and UNESCO listed the temple in 1993.

From 701 the Taiho Code registered households and allotted rice land by age, sex and rank. In return, farmers owed four things:

• Grain tax (so) on their land.
• Local products or cloth (cho).
• Labour or cloth (yo).
• Compulsory loans (suiko).

A 2020 study estimates that 30 to 40% of peasant income was taken, with enforcement weakening later in the 8th century.

Emperor Shomu ordered it, and it was dedicated in 752. The Buddha is about 15 m tall and used a great deal of bronze. In 735 to 737 smallpox killed many nobles, including all four Fujiwara brothers, and one estimate says a quarter to a third of the population died. Estimates conflict.

Many accounts link the epidemic to the Buddha, but no source states a direct cause, so the link is an account, not a fact. The court left Nara for Nagaoka-kyo in 784 and moved again to Heian-kyo in 794, where the Heian page picks up.

• Earlier: Kofun and Yamato. Later: Heian.
• Nara, Osaka, Koyasan and Ise temples and shrines has Todai-ji, Kasuga Taisha and Horyuji in more detail, with closed days and goshuin.
• Kyoto temples and shrines covers the city the court moved to in 794.
• The temples and shrines guide lists every main site in one table.
• The history guide places every era on one timeline. The Culture hub holds every culture topic.