Suiko

Japanese empress (r. 593-628)

• Born: 554
• Birthplace: Yamato (now Nara prefecture), Japan
• Died: April 15, 0628
• Place of death: Yamato (now Nara prefecture), Japan

The first female monarch of Japan, Suiko presided over reforms of the bureaucracy and the first known attempts to compile a history of Japan. Her reign saw the compilation of a blueprint for a far-reaching modernization process, the Seventeen Article Constitution. She was also instrumental in lending support to Buddhism.

Early Life

According to the Nihon shoki (compiled 720 c.e.; Nishongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697, 1896; best known as Nihon shoki), an early chronicle of Japan, the future empress Suiko (sew-ee-koh) was the daughter of Emperor Kimmei (r. 539-571) and his consort Kitashi Hime. At the time of Suiko’s birth, nothing predestined her eventual rise to the pinnacle of power in Yamato, the center of a loose confederation of clans ruled by her father. Most significantly, her gender appeared to exclude her from high office. Although archaeology has unearthed ample evidence for the existence of female rulers in various regions of archaic Japan, and later Japanese chronicles describe the exploits of powerful women before Suiko, officially there was no precedent for a woman to be accorded the title of “great king” in her own right.

Very little is known about her life before she ascended the throne at the age of thirty-nine in 593. The historicity of the few anecdotes related in the official chronicles is highly questionable, and her role in the imperial family has been the object of much speculation. It is clear, however, that she was at once a product of and a facilitator for the consolidation of the dynasty that continues to occupy the throne of Japan to this day. According to the official version of dynastic history as fixed in the early eighth century records, Suiko’s father, Kimmei, was the twenty-ninth in a line of sovereigns of Japan that claimed direct descent from the sun goddess Amaterasu. Suiko’s paternal grandfather Keitai (r. 507-531) is acknowledged by many historians as the first verifiable historical emperor of Japan (other historians begin with Kimmei) and might have been the actual founder of the dynasty.

Suiko’s mother came from the powerful Soga clan. The head of this clan, Soga Iname (d. 570) was not only the chief minister but also the father of two consorts of Kimmei. Both women gave birth to future occupants of the throne and their consorts, thus enhancing the fortune of the Soga clan. It appears that Suiko’s designated role was to help solidify the power of the dynasty by becoming the consort of her own half brother, Emperor Bidatsu (r. 572-585) in 576. This endogamous marital arrangement was perhaps one way to exclude the possibility of other powerful in-laws usurping the power of the dynasty or that of the Soga clan. Many, if not all, of Suiko’s aunts, sisters, and half sisters appear to have shared a similar fate.

Suiko thus makes her first appearance in the official chronicles as empress not in her own right but rather as “queen consort” of her half brother, Emperor Bidatsu. Beyond that fact, very little is known about her early life. Even Bidatsu himself was overshadowed in the imagination of later chroniclers by his powerful chief minister Soga Umako (d. 626), who also happened to be Suiko’s uncle. Umako was the quintessential king maker. During his tenure, he installed no less than four sovereigns, starting with Bidatsu and ending with his niece Suiko.

It is impossible to ascertain exactly what Suiko’s role was after the death of her husband in 585. The throne passed first to her full brother, who reigned as Yōmei (r. 585-587) for two years, and then, in 587 to her cousin, Emperor Sushun (r. 587-592). Although all historians agree that the real power behind the throne was Soga Umako, some believe that the person on the throne was actually none other than Suiko herself, with Yōmei and Sushun as mere puppets whose role was elevated by later chroniclers. Such a scenario would explain why she emerged as an acceptable candidate for the position of sovereign in 592; she simply had the expertise.

Furthermore, Suiko appears to have been a neutral candidate at a time when a preponderance of princes of the blood might have led to succession disputes and perhaps even dynastic war. The throne had fallen vacant because of the untimely and violent death of Emperor Sushun in 592. Later chroniclers made no secret of the fact that the assassination was the work of Sushun’s chief minister (and uncle) Soga Umako, although the motive behind the deed is less clear. Having literally gotten away with murder, Umako proceeded to promote the candidacy of his niece Suiko, a cousin, sister, widow, daughter, and granddaughter of previous emperors. Umako prevailed, and Suiko was ceremonially installed as the thirty-third sovereign ruler of Japan in early 593.

Life’s Work

Suiko’s reign as the first officially recognized female monarch of Japan lasted for an astonishing thirty-six years, until her death at age seventy-four in 628. She outlived not only the man who had put her on the throne, Soga Umako, but also the person who more than anybody else contributed to making her reign an unqualified success Prince Shōtoku (574-622). In almost all subsequent histories, it is Shōtoku who is credited with the great innovations undertaken during Suiko’s long reign. The official chronicle relates that on ascending the throne, the empress entrusted all matters of state to the prince, her nineteen-year-old nephew and a son of Emperor Yōmei. Shōtoku was subsequently recognized as the creative genius behind a modernization drive unparalleled in history, and to this day, textbooks and scholarly works alike describe his role in detail while Suiko is hardly mentioned at all.

Although it might be impossible to determine the exact nature of Suiko’s role as empress because of the rather limited written evidence available, research has revealed an image of Suiko that goes beyond that of a mere figurehead. Shōtoku’s appointment as prince regent would have acted as a check on the power of chief minister Soga Umako, thus enhancing Suiko’s position as empress. Given the experience Suiko had on ascending the throne, she probably did choose the person who would be entrusted with carrying out the policies she intended to promote. Most likely, neither Empress Suiko nor Prince Regent Shōtoku could have accomplished so much without the presence and help of the other.

Suiko apparently realized that the Japan of her day was increasingly becoming part of an East Asian region dominated by recently reunified China. The two greatest cultural imports from the Asian mainland, the Chinese writing system and Buddhism, had been introduced in the fifth and sixth centuries respectively. Unsurprisingly, Suiko is often portrayed as a great sponsor of Buddhism. Her Soga relatives were early supporters, her brother Yōmei is considered the first Japanese monarch to have embraced the new religion, and Prince Shōtoku’s commentaries on Buddhist scripture survive to this day. The state sponsorship of Buddhism has often been interpreted as an attempt to curtail the independence of aristocratic clans who defined themselves as descendants of gods from the native Shintō pantheon. Ironically, the imperial dynasty was also such a clan, believed to have descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu.

To ensure the political future of the dynasty, Suiko took important steps toward turning the court into an institution. In 600, Suiko sent the first official Japanese embassy to China, then ruled by the Sui Dynasty (581-618). In her messages to the Chinese emperor, she referred to herself as tennō, a “heavenly sovereign,” and called her country Nippon, or “land of the rising sun.” She thus pioneered the use of both terms, which are used to this day. The ensuing diplomatic relationship with China led Suiko and her court to realize that if Japan were to stand its ground as an independent power, learning and applying the principles of Chinese administration and statecraft were of utmost importance. The two most basic principles to emulate were centralization of power in the hands of the imperial institution and administration of the realm through a bureaucracy. Suiko’s actions throughout her reign show that she was committed to achieving just that kind of modernization.

In 603, construction began at a new palace site in Oharida just south of the present-day city of Nara. Its layout was closely modeled after the ideal plan for a monarch’s palace found in the Chinese classics. The imperial palace grounds occupied the north-central part of a larger rectangle. A central north-south axis provided a pivot for the symmetrical layout of buildings on either side. The site was thus designed to symbolize harmony and equilibrium, values that were to prevail in all political affairs.

That same year, Suiko introduced a new ranking system for courtiers. Henceforth, people close to the emperor were to be assigned twelve ranks named after the six cardinal Confucian virtues (virtue, benevolence, propriety, loyalty, justice, and knowledge) with a junior and senior grade for each. Unlike earlier ranking systems, this new hierarchy worked on a strictly individual basis. Ranks could not be inherited, and promotion and demotion occurred at the discretion of the monarch. Although historians have cast some doubt on the actual implementation of this system in Suiko’s day, it remains the first attempt on record to impose a bureaucratic ranking order not based on clan membership.

Perhaps the single most important document to come out of Suiko’s long reign was the Seventeen Article Constitution of 604. Though attributed to Shōtoku Taishi, it is reasonable to assume that Suiko had at least some hand in compiling this document. The “constitution” was a general blueprint for the building of a Chinese-style polity centered on the imperial court. The text is full of references to Confucianism and Buddhism, drawing cosmological parallels between nature and society and exhorting officials to uphold the quintessentially moral order in which the king commands and the minister obeys. The Seventeen Article Constitution is the oldest extant Confucian text in Japan.

Later in her reign, in 624, Suiko created the first government agency to oversee the proliferating new religion of Buddhism. Her interest in Buddhism had been long-standing; an apocryphal anecdote has her intervening on behalf of Buddhist clerics at the tender age of sixteen. As empress, Suiko had managed to make Buddhism an integral part of courtly society; her patronage of this religion culminated in the construction of a huge 16-foot (5-meter) bronze statue of Buddha in 608.

Suiko died in 628, having outlived her erstwhile mentor Soga Umako and her protégé Shōtoku Taishi. It would take seventeen more years of bloody intrigues and Soga domination of court affairs before her visionary plans were finally put into practice in the Taika reforms of 645.

Significance

The reforms of 645, based largely on what Suiko and Shōtoku had envisioned earlier in the century, created the Japanese state. Ironically, the turmoil surrounding the inauguration of these reforms apparently also cost later generations a priceless glimpse into the realities of Suiko’s reign. Later chronicles reveal that the two earliest histories ever to be compiled in Japan were destroyed in a fire in 645. These two histories had been compiled by Soga Iruka and Shōtoku Taishi at the behest of Suiko in 620. The compilation of such dynastic histories is in itself a significant step toward institutionalization. With Suiko’s reign as the culminating point, such an account would have provided priceless details about this remarkable historical figure.

Suiko’s achievements as empress make her significant beyond the mere fact that she was the first woman to occupy the throne of Japan. Her efforts to reorganize the court and make it the viable center of a well-structured polity put her among the ranks of the true founders of Japan.

Major Emperors of the Asuka Period, 539-715

Reign

• Ruler

539-571

• Kimmei

572-585

• Bidatsu

585-587

• Yōmei

587-592

• Sushun

593-628

• Suiko (f)

629-641

• Jomei

642-645

• Kōgyoku (f)

645-654

• Kōtoku

655-661

• Saimei (f)

661-672

• Tenji

672

• Kōbun

673-686

• Temmu

686-697

• Jitō (f)

697-707

• Mommu

707-715

• Gemmei (f)

Note: (f) indicates an empress.

Bibliography

Barnes, Gina. China, Korea, and Japan: The Rise of Civilization in East Asia. London: Thames and Hudson, 1993. Includes an analysis of pre- and proto-historic Japan, emphasizing connections with the mainland.

Martin, Peter. The Chrysanthemum Throne: A History of the Emperors of Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997. A collection of short biographical sketches of all emperors and empresses. Not a scholarly work.

Mulhern, Chieko I., ed. Heroic with Grace: Legendary Women of Japan. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1991. Includes two chapters on all empresses of Japan. A valuable source of information on the question of female rulership.

Piggott, Joan R. The Emergence of Japanese Kingship. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997. Contains a chapter on Suiko, the most complete treatment of the subject available in English.