I’m not sure what to make of these claims, particularly as the Imperial Household Agency has now officially denied them. It could be a deliberate leak to test public opinion, but that doesn’t seem to be the Emperor’s style. When he and the Empress decided that they would like to be cremated, ending a tradition of burials going back over 350 years, the Emperor informed the Imperial Household Agency which in turn sought advice from the government. As a result, the Emperor and Empress will be cremated, like most Japanese, and their ashes will be entombed in a modest mausoleum at the Musashino Imperial Graveyard. Likewise, for the proposed amendments to the Imperial Household Law regarding the succession, a committee considered the options and made its recommendations to the government. Because of the birth of Prince Hisohito, the recommendations were shelved, but they did support the succession of a female
Tennō, so it’s not as if there is a taboo on discussing the traditions governed by the Constitution and the Imperial Household Law. But there is more to the role of the Emperor than the narrow definitions of the Constitution of 1947.
Behind the walls of the Imperial Palace, the Emperor presides at an annual cycle of Shinto rituals. These receive very little publicity because, technically, they violate the constitutional separation of state and church. But by describing them as expressions of Japanese culture, a façade of constitutional propriety is maintained. Perhaps there is something in the religious traditions of the Imperial House that make abdication a difficult subject to discuss openly? There shouldn’t be, if we accept the most important paragraph of Emperor Showa’s 1947 Imperial Rescript on the Construction of a New Japan. Usually called the Renunciation of Divinity in English, and the Declaration of Humanity
Ningen-sengen in Japanese, the Emperor stated that:
The ties between Us and Our people have always stood on mutual trust and affection. They do not depend upon mere legends and myths. They are not predicated on the false conception that the Emperor is divine, and that the Japanese people are superior to other races and fated to rule the world.
But what exactly did Emperor Showa mean by divine? The word used in Japanese is
akitsumikami, an archaic, and ambiguous, term to describe a deity from the spiritual world made manifest in this world, or a title of honour for the emperor as ruler of the present world. When written as 明神
akitsumikami is a spiritual deity. In the rescript, however, it is written as 現御神, an honorific for the temporal emperor. That the rescript did not use the more common term
arahitogami, living god, suggests that it was meant to be ambiguous. Just a month before the rescript was issued, Emperor Showa told his Vice-Grand Chamberlain that:
It is permissible to say that the idea that the Japanese are descendants of the gods is a false conception; but it is absolutely impermissible to call chimerical the idea that the emperor is a descendant of the gods.
Even if Emperor Showa was being deliberately obtuse, the official English translation served its purpose as far as the Americans were concerned. But for the Japanese, or, more specifically, the notoriously conservative Imperial Household Agency, maybe there are Shinto beliefs that are best left undisturbed by the implications of an abdication. That would make sense if abdications were unheard of in Japanese history. But they are not.
Over 60 Emperors abdicated, the last time in 1817. There is even a specific title for an Emperor after his abdication:
Daijō Tennō 太上天皇. This is usually translated into English as Abdicated Emperor or Retired Emperor. But the characters 太上 actually imply something more like higher or senior.
Tài 太 is found in the titles of the Empress Dowager
Kōtaigō and Grand Empress Dowager
Tai-Kōtaigō and comes from the Chinese radical 大
dà - big, great (
Dà Qīng – The Great Qing – was the name of the last dynasty to rule China). As in China, where a Dowager Empress or Grand Dowager Empress could exercise significant political power, a
Daijō Tennō could still rule. In some cases, emperors abdicated so they could actually rule, free of the ritual responsibilities a reigning
Tennō. Maybe the prospect of a
Daijō Tennō raises issues that are best left dormant? But even that seems unlikely, as the Emperor’s duties are clearly defined by the Constitution, and the legislation to enable an abdication could easily state that the
Daijō Tennō is no longer Symbol of the State.
So what’s really going on? Is the Emperor trying to break the power of the Imperial Household Agency by going behind its back? Is there a power struggle within the Imperial Family? Is it a bald faced lie made up by a reporter keen for a scoop? Is it part of a larger plot to revise the 1947 Constitution? I must admit I’m leaning towards believing the Imperial Household Agency’s official denial. But you never know.
Eh, the Shoguns were a kind military dictator or governor or lord protector - whatever you prefer.
