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Kuroda Hideo, pasted in the wrong locations, that is, illustrations are out of
order plot-wise because of an error or miscommunication during the scroll
making (or possibly repair). When the illustrations are correctly placed, the
picture-story progresses more smoothly and rhythmically (see Kuroda, Kibi
Daijin nittō emaki no nazo).5
the histOriCaL CharaCters
kibi no Makibi, the minister
According to Shoku Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan, Continued, 797), an
imperially commissioned Japanese history text, Kibi no Makibi is one of
only two students sent abroad who became famous in China (Aoki, SNKBT
15: 459).6 He is also celebrated as one of only two scholars who reached the
position of minister of the right in Japanese history (Miyata, Kibi no Makibi
3).7 His father is Shimotsumichi no Kunikatsu (?–?), a minor official from
Bitchū Province (present-day Okayama prefecture); his mother is from the
Yagi family. Until he was awarded the name Kibi no Asome in 746, his name
was Shimotsumichi no Makibi.
In 716, when he was twenty-two years old, Makibi was chosen to be
part of the Japanese delegation to Tang China as a student, and the fol-
lowing year he traveled to China. Abe no Nakamaro was on the same mis-
sion, also as a student. After seventeen years in China, Makibi returned
with an enormous number of books and goods that were presented to
Emperor Shōmu (701–56, reign 724–49). He was awarded the senior sixth
rank lower and became an assistant master for the university. While Makibi
was in China, Shoku Nihongi records, he became fluent in thirteen areas of
learning and arts, including three major ancient Chinese history books, the
Five Classic Texts of Confucianism, yin-yang, calendars, astronomy, and
divination ( SNKBT 15: 459). In 743 Makibi was awarded the junior fourth
rank lower and became the crown prince’s household scholar.
Makibi was appointed a vice ambassador to Tang China in 751 as junior
fourth rank upper, and he traveled to China the following spring. In China,
Abe no Nakamaro was put in charge of receiving the Japanese delegation.
After an arduous return voyage, Makibi arrived back in Japan in 754. (Priest
Ganjin [Ch. Jianzhen, 688–763], an illustrious Chinese Buddhist monk, also
came to Japan on this return trip, but on a different ship.) In the same year,
he was appointed senior assistant governor-general of Dazaifu in Kyushu,
where he prepared for a possible war with Silla. In 764 Kibi no Makibi was
appointed to head an army to subjugate Emi no oshikatsu’s rebellion. With
his victory, Kibi was awarded junior third rank. In 766 he became minister
The Il ustrated Story of Minister Kibi’s Adventures in China
93
of the right and was awarded senior second rank in 769. When Empress
Shōtoku (718–70, reigned 764–70 [reigned 749–58 as Empress Kōken])
became ill in 770, Kibi held several military offices in addition to minister of
the right. After the death of the empress that year, Kibi lost the competition
for his candidacy for the throne and submitted his resignation from all of
the offices under the pretext of advanced age. The court accepted only his
resignation from military office and retained him as minister of the right.
He requested his resignation again in 771, and finally it was accepted. He
was eighty-one years old when he died in 775.8
(The setting for the story of the scroll is derived from Kibi no Makibi’s
second visit to China, during which he was, in fact, given a warm reception.)
abe no nakamaro, an Oni
Abe no Nakamaro (698–770) is, according to Shoku Nihongi, the other stu-
dent sent abroad who became famous in China. He is the most famous
member of the Japanese envoys to Tang and the only known Japanese who
passed the Chinese national civil service examination (Tōno 187). As a stu-
dent Nakamaro left for China in 717 with the same Japanese delegation that
took Kibi no Makibi to Tang. After passing the national civil service exami-
nation in 727, Nakamaro stayed in China and held promising court posi-
tions. In 733 he requested the emperor’s permission to return home with an
embassy departing for Japan, but his request was turned down. Finally, in
752 he received permission from Emperor Xuanzong (Jp. Gensō 685–762,
reigned 712–56) to return home to Japan with the embassy for which Kibi
no Makibi was a vice ambassador. Nakamaro’s ship was crippled because
of fierce storms at sea and reached the coast of the subject protectorate of
Annam (present-day northern half of Vietnam). Nakamaro abandoned his
hopes to return to Japan, and he went back to the Chinese capital. He served
in high-level positions in the capital and as the governor-general of Annam.
He was planning to return to his homeland in 770 but died without realizing
his wish. Nakamaro stayed in China for fifty-three years. He interacted with
some of the great poets of the Tang Dynasty, including Li Bai (701–62) and
Wang Wei (699?–759) (Fogel 17–18; Murai 13–28; Wang 185–87).
His longing for Japan is well reflected in the poem in Kokin wakashū (A
Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern, ca. 905), number 406:
Abe no Nakamaro. Composed on seeing the moon in China
Ama no hara
When I gaze far out
furisake mireba
across the plain of heaven
kasuga naru
I see the same moon
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mikasa no yama ni
that came up over the hill
ideshi tsuki kamo
of Mikasa at Kasuga.
The annotation to the poem reads “Long ago, Nakamaro was sent to
study in China. After he had had to stay for many years, there was an oppor-
tunity for him to take passage home with a returning Japanese embassy. He
set out, and a group of Chinese held a farewell party for him on the beach
at a place called Mingzhou. This poem is said to have been composed after
nightfall, when Nakamaro noticed that an extraordinarily beautiful moon
had risen” (McCullough, Kokin wakashū 97; SNKBZ 11: 172).
(In Minister Kibi’s Adventures, Nakamaro appears as an oni who intro-
duces himself as Nakamaro’s dead spirit. This is clearly fictional. He was
alive when Kibi no Makibi visited China the second time as a vice ambas-
sador. But Nakamaro being an oni as a dead spirit is true to the Chinese
concept of gui 鬼. The letter 鬼 is a hieroglyph that presents the shape of
a dead body at a burial during the Yin Dynasty [1500–770 BCE]; the fun-
damental meaning of 鬼 is therefore a dead body itself [see, for example,
Li, “ ‘Kiki’ seiritsu ni okeru ‘oni’ to iu hyōgen oyobi sono hensen ni tsuite”
425].9 Further, the fact that Nakamaro-oni’s demonic appearance frightens
to death anyone who sees him concurs with an ancient Japanese belief of
an oni whose shapeless negative energy causes humans to fall ill or die [see
Takahashi, Shuten Dōji no tanjō 3–4]. The oni’s keen interest in his descen-
dants’ official rank is very Japanese as well.)
what the illustRateD
stORY teLLs us
Minister Kibi’s Adventures, with its skillful, humorous portrayal of human
figures, is not only a remarkable hand scroll but also a multilayered text
that issues three major signals. The most obvious one concerns medieval
Japanese elites’ attitude toward foreign powers in general and reflects their
strong desire to be equal to or to surpass their Chinese counterparts in
particular. The second is about domestic political affairs—the picture scroll
is Cloistered Emperor GoShirakawa’s clandestine code against Heike rule.
The third is that this is part of the series of texts that give credentials to
Kibi no Makibi as the founder of Japanese Onmyōdō.
Japanese foreign Diplomacy toward superpowers
Komine Kazuaki states that Minister Kibi’s Adventures in China reveals the
everlasting Japanese inferiority complex toward major powers and, as
the reverse side of the coin, conscious superior pride in his own country
The Il ustrated Story of Minister Kibi’s Adventures in China
95
(Komine, “Kibi no daijin nittō emaki to sono shūhen” 3). The picture
scrolls were not only prized objects of interest or hobbies to be stored in
a treasure house, but they also existed as concrete objects to extol power
(Komine, “Yabatai-shi” no nazo 69–70).
Similarly, Murai Shōsuke writes that Minister Kibi’s Adventures had
Nakamaro’s birth one generation early and changed the Chinese imperial
court’s warm reception of Japanese embassies to that of persecution. The
story boasts of the superiority of the Japanese intellectual’s talents and of
Japanese deities’ miraculous efficacy over members of the Chinese court.
Beneath the surface, however, one can readily see Japan’s inferiority com-
plex and xenophobia (Murai 26–27).10 To understand this power game, we
must first turn to pre-modern East Asian diplomacy.
Japanese Diplomacy with Tang China
Diplomacy in East Asia in pre-modern times took the form of the Sino-
centric investiture and tribute system. This was based on the traditional
Chinese worldview in which China edified foreigners-barbarians with
Chinese culture. The most civilized and advanced country, China, was the
center of the universe; and the rest, that is, external peripheral countries,
were not yet civilized or were yet to be infused with Chinese culture. The
Chinese emperor, the Son of Heaven, was the only emperor in the world,
and anyone who wanted to trade with China accepted this investiture and
tribute system in which the external countries offered tribute to the Chinese
emperor in the form of a suzerain-vassal relationship and the Chinese
emperor bestowed peerage such as a title of king. There are three major
reasons Sino-centrism was accepted: (1) China was the most advanced civi-
lization in East Asia, and (2) the tributary countries could make a profit.
After offering tribute to China, the missions were presented with return
bestowals that often surpassed their tribute. Further, once they entered
China, the Chinese court paid their traveling and living expenses. (3) The
Chinese Empire was willing to open its country to anyone, regardless of
race or nationality, who was willing to learn its culture (Tōno 17–18).
As Tōno Haruyuki writes, the purpose of Japanese missions to Tang
China was to have a friendly relationship with the strongest and most
advanced country in East Asia and to adopt its superior culture (Tōno 15).
Until the seventh century, the nature of these missions was mainly politi-
cal—Japanese seeking acknowledgment in the international arena. But the
purpose gradually evolved from political to cultural—Japanese absorption of
the advanced Chinese culture—particularly in the eighth century and onward.
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While sending missions to Tang China, however, Japan had its own
Japano-centrism—a Japanese version of Sino-centrism in which Japan was
the benevolent country to which the rest of the countries should pay trib-
ute.11 The famous letter written by Shōtoku Taishi (574–622), prince regent
of Japan, to the emperor of China, “The Son of Heaven in the land where
the sun rises addresses a letter to the Son of Heaven in the land where the
sun sets. We hope you are well”—which so upset the Chinese emperor that
he told “the official in charge of foreign affairs that this letter from the bar-
barians was discourteous, and that such a letter should not again be brought
to his attention” (Tsunoda 1: 10)—is often used as an example of Japanese
diplomacy with China (attempting to be) on equal footing, as well as the
origin of the name Nihon, “where the sun rises.”12 Murai Shōsuke explains:
According to Ryō no shūge (Annotations for Laws and Regulation, mid-
ninth century), the areas within the reach of [the] Japanese Emperor’s rule
were called kenai, other areas, outside of the Japanese imperial control,
were kegai. Kegai had three categories: “rinkoku” (neighboring countries)
which was Tang, “bankoku” (uncivilized countries) that included Silla, and
“iteki” (barbarian countries) such as Emishi (indigenous Japanese who lived
in the northeastern part of the mainland). Some regulations even regarded
was created to fill this gap. These ideal international relations, with Japan’s
position equal to China and a notch above the countries in the Korean
Peninsula, became a firmly held concept among Japanese ruling elites from
the eighth century over the medieval period. (Murai 31–32)
Thus, in the eighth century and onward, Japan used different political
standards for home and for the Tang imperial court. While the domestic reg-
ulations were written as if China were subservient to Japan, Japan’s delega-
tion seemed to take its state letter as addressing its superior; the state letters
from Tang, inconvenient to the Japanese court, were quietly dismissed. Wang
Zhenping writes that Japanese courtiers managed to pay only lip service to
the regulations in regard to Tang state letters. The Japanese state letters,
“while superficially recognizing China’s superiority, not only offered a Tang
emperor no real political submission, but also dignified the Japanese ruler.
This seemingly unattainable goal was achieved by an ingenious manipulation
of language” (Wang 3). It was actually more than manipulation of language
because from the record of “Tōketsu” (Answers from Tang), we learn that
Japan officially agreed to provide tribute once every twenty years (Tōno
27–33; Inamoto, “Kentōshi sono hikari to kage” 14). In the almost 300-year
span of the Tang Dynasty (618–907), the number of Japanese diplomatic
The Il ustrated Story of Minister Kibi’s Adventures in China
97
missions sent to China, including those that were planned but not carried
out, totaled twenty (Inamoto, “Kentōshi sono hikari to kage” 6).13
Japanese Diplomacy with Song China
After the Japanese missions to Tang ceased in 894 according to the pro-
posal of Sugawara no Michizane (845–903), no
official missions were sent
to Song China from Japan. Private citizens were not allowed to cross the
ocean, though Song merchants came to such Japanese ports as Hakata in
Kyushu and Tsuruga on the coast of the Sea of Japan. In the post-Tang
period, as Joshua Fogel writes, “economic motives joined cultural ones, as
well as vestiges of political ones from even earlier, as the fundament for
continuing Sino-Japanese ties” (Fogel 20–21).
The Northern Song (960–1127), from the time of Shenzong’s enthrone-
ment in 1068, frequently asked Japan for tribute. But after Kaikaku’s
group of Buddhist monks went to China in 1082 on a pilgrimage, which
the Chinese court considered a semi-official mission, no Japanese monks
traveled to China for eighty-five years. Then in 1167 Chōgen’s (1121–
1206) group entered the Southern Song with timber necessary to repair
Ayuwang Temple in Qing yuan fu (present-day Ningbo); this was per-
haps sponsored by Cloistered Emperor GoShirakawa. The Southern
Song court (1127–1279) considered Chōgen an official Japanese envoy
(Taniguchi, “Kibidaijin emaki” 272; Yokouchi, Nihon chūsei no Bukkyō to
Higashi Ajia 427).
The commercial exchange between China—Southern Song—and
Japan was thriving in the second half of the twelfth century, especially with
Taira no Kiyomori’s (1118–81) efforts. In 1172 Southern Song emperor
Xiaozong (1127–94, reigned 1162–89) sent a delegation to Japan to present
gifts and state letters to both Cloistered Emperor GoShirakawa and Taira no
Kiyomori, addressing the former as “King of Japan.” As mentioned earlier,
accepting the title of king meant accepting a subservient position to China,
which was against Japan’s official stance. Kujō Kanezane (1149–1207), a
nobleman well versed in court customs, comments on the seventeenth day
of the ninth month of 1172 in his diary titled Gyokuyō that offering the
title “king of Japan” was “extremely weird” (Taniguchi, “Kibidaijin emaki”
274). Apparently, Cloistered Emperor GoShirakawa was a person who was
not concerned about tradition or who was liberated from the common
mind-set (Kobayashi, GoShirakawa Jōkō 235). GoShirakawa and Kiyomori
met the Chinese delegation, which was further criticized as unprecedented.
The king of Japan and Kiyomori gave the Chinese delegation return gifts