kwammu

Updated: June 10, 2025

Momokawa died before the accession of Kwammu, but to him was largely due the great influence subsequently wielded by the Fujiwara at Court. It is on record that Kwammu, speaking in after years to Momokawa's son, Otsugu, recalled his father's memory with tears, and said that but for Momokawa he would never have reigned over the empire.

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

The name of Taira was conferred also on three other sons of Kwammu, the Princes Mamta, Kaya, and Nakano, so that there were four Tairahouses just as there were four Fujiwara. The Emperor Saga had fifty children. From the sixth son downwards they were grouped under the uji of Minamoto. All received appointments to important offices.

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

Shortly afterwards, the Emperor repaired to Nara, and during the absence of the Court from Nagaoka, Prince Sagara compassed the assassination of Tanetsugu. Kwammu exacted stern vengeance for his favourite minister. He disgraced the prince and sent him into exile in the island of Awaji, which place he did not reach alive, as was perhaps designed.

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

These latter, probably educated in part by the be system, which tended to reduce the worker with his hands to a position of marked subservience, had learned to regard their own hereditary privileges as practically unlimited, and to conclude that well nigh any measure of forced labour was due to them from their inferiors. Konin could not correct this conception, and neither could Kwammu.

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

Much space has been given to this strange tale by certain annalists, but its only apparent basis of fact would seem to be that Momokawa, wishing to secure the succession to Prince Yamabe afterwards Emperor Kwammu compassed the deaths of the Empress Inokami and her son, Osabe, the heir apparent.

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

Thus, although Kwammu's warnings and exhortations were earnest, and his dismissals and degradations of provincial officials frequent, he failed to achieve anything radical. The reign of Kwammu is remarkable for two things: the conquest of the eastern Yemishi by Tamuramaro and the transfer of the capital from Nara to Kyoto.

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

Throughout the whole of her subsequent intercourse with the Pohai kingdom, intercourse which, though exceedingly fitful, lasted for nearly a century and a half, Japan uniformly insisted upon the maintenance of that attitude. The first ruler in the epoch was Kwammu.

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

Ultimately this last function became the most important of the kurando's duties. The necessity of revising these rules and regulations was appreciated by the Emperor Kwammu, but he did not live to witness the completion of the work, which he had entrusted to the sa-daijin, Fujiwara Uchimaro, and others.

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

Sometimes the Buddhist priests lent themselves to the deception of becoming nominal owners of large estates in order to enable the real owners to escape taxation. Buddhism in Japan ultimately became a great militant power, ready at all times to appeal to force. Heijo, the fifty-first sovereign, was the eldest son of Kwammu.

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