The Decline and Fall of the Soga
The Political Uses of Climate and Stars in Nihon Shoki
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.9771/aa.v0i66.49359Keywords:
Japanese history, Asuka period, Nara period, Chinese cosmology, Nihon ShokiAbstract
Analyzing the Soga’s fall as described in the Nihon Shoki (720 CE), this article explores how the chronicle’s writer sutilized climatic, astronomical, and other natural phenomena in justifying the coup d’etat of 645 CE, relating it to the Soga’s historical trajectory, the weight of the Chinese cosmological conceptions
in Japan at that time, and the context in which the Nihon Shoki was written. The paper also examines the role of omens, comparing their incidence in the three preceding and the three succeeding reigns to the core of the rise and fall of the Soga. The paper concludes with an exegetic analysis of these episodes, seeking arguments that corroborate the hypotheses presented.
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