The Asuka Kiyomihara Code (飛鳥浄御原令, Asuka Kiyomihara-ryō) refers to a collection of governing rules compiled and promulgated in 689, one of the first, if not the first collection of Ritsuryō laws in classical Japan.[1] This also marks the initial appearance of the central administrative body called the Daijō-kan (Council of State) composed of the three ministers—the Daijō-daijin (Chancellor), the Sadaijin (Minister of the Left) and the Udaijin (Minister of the Right).[2]
In 662, Emperor Tenji is said to have compiled the first Japanese legal code known to modern historians. The Ōmi-ryō, consisting of 22 volumes, was promulgated in the last year of Tenji's reign.[3] This legal codification is no longer extant, but it is said to have been refined in what is known as the Asuka Kiyomihara ritsu-ryō of 689.[2] The compilation was commenced in 681 under Emperor Tenmu. The Emperor died in 686, but the finalization of the Code took a few more years. It was promulgated in 689. These are understood to have been a forerunner of the Taihō ritsu-ryō of 701.[4]
Although not "finalized" (not incorporating a penal code, a ritsu, for instance), the code already incorporated several important regulations (for instance compulsory registration for citizens and pestilence reporting system),[5] which paved the way for the more complete Taihō Code.[2]
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References
- Farris, William Wayne. (1998). Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures: Issues in the Historical Archaeology of Ancient Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-2030-5
- Hall, John Whitney, Delmer M. Brown and Kozo Yamamura. (1993). The Cambridge History of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22352-2
- Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1959). The Imperial House of Japan. Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society. OCLC 194887
- Varley, H. Paul, ed. (1980). Kitabatake Chikafusa, 1359, Jinnō Shōtōki ("A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns: Jinnō Shōtōki of Kitabatake Chikafusa" translated by H. Paul Varley). New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-04940-4