kamatari

Updated: May 12, 2025

Six months afterwards, the Empress abdicated in favour of Prince Karu, known in history as forty-second sovereign, Mommu. THE Emperor Mommu took for consort a daughter of Fuhito, representative of the Fujiwara family and son of the great Kamatari.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

There now appears a statesman destined to leave his name indelibly written on the pages of Japanese history, Kamatari, muraji of the Nakatomi-uji.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Moreover, Kamatari makes his first appearance in the annals as chief Shinto official. Nevertheless, it is not apparent that religious zeal or personal resentment was primarily responsible for Kamatari's determination to compass the ruin of the Soga.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

The secluded valley where the momentous meetings took place received the name of Tamu* no Mine, and a shrine stands there now in memory of Kamatari. The Emperor would fain have attended Kamatari's obsequies in person, but his ministers dissuaded him on the ground that such a course would be unprecedented.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

But the prince's procedure was largely regulated by Kamatari, who, alike in the prelude and in the sequel of this crisis, proved himself one of the greatest statesmen Japan ever produced.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

The fact is that the Fujiwara were a natural outcome of the situation. The Tang systems, which Kamatari, the great founder of the family, had been chiefly instrumental in introducing, placed in the hands of the sovereign powers much too extensive to be safely entrusted to a monarch qualified only by heredity.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

The Emperor Mommu enacted a law for the better control of priests and nuns, yet he erected the temple Kwannon-ji. Kamatari approved of his eldest son, Joye, entering the priesthood, and sent him to China to study the Sutras. He also gave up his residence at Yamashina for conversion into a monastery.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

The mikados had sunk out of sight, being regarded by the public with awe as spiritual emperors, while their ministers rose into power and became the leaders of life and the lords of events in Japan. They were of royal origin, and rose to leading power in the year 645, when Kamatari, the founder of the family, became regent of the empire.

Charles Morris - Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15): The Romance of Reality

Shotoku Taishi's Jushichi Kempo, though often spoken of as a legislative ordinance, was really an ethical code, but the Omi Ritsu-ryo had the character of genuine laws, the first of their kind in Japan. Unfortunately this valuable document did not survive. Our knowledge of it is confined to a statement in the Memoirs of Kamatari that it was compiled in the year 667.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Fourteen hundred years had elapsed, according to Japanese history, since the first of the Yamato sovereigns set up his Court, and never had the Imperial house incurred such disgrace as now befell it. Fujiwara no Nakamaro was a grandson of the great Kamatari. He held the rank of dainagon and was at once a learned man and an able administrator.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era