The is an imperial

rescript A rescript is a public government document. More formally, it is a document issued not on the initiative of the author, but in response to a question (usually legal) posed to the author. The word originates from replies issued by Roman emperors t ...

issued by

Hirohito , Posthumous name, posthumously honored as , was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, from 25 December 1926 until Death and state funeral of Hirohito, his death in 1989. He remains Japan's longest-reigni ...

, the

emperor of Japan The emperor of Japan is the hereditary monarch and head of state of Japan. The emperor is defined by the Constitution of Japan as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, his position deriving from "the will of ...

, as part of a New Year's statement on 1 January 1946 at the request of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. In the rescript, which started with his citation of the Five Charter Oath of 1868, the

Emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

denied the concept of his divinity, which would eventually lead to the promulgation of the new Constitution, under which the Emperor is "the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people".Emperor, Imperial Rescript Denying His Divinity (Professing His Humanity)
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National Diet Library The is the national library of Japan and among the largest libraries in the world. It was established in 1948 for the purpose of assisting members of the in researching matters of public policy. The library is similar in purpose and scope to ...

.''

The Declaration

Delivery of this

was to be one of the Emperor's last acts as the imperial Sovereign. The Supreme Commander Allied Powers and the Western world in general gave great attention to the following passage towards the end of the rescript: This first draft of this rescript is said to have been drafted by Japanese cultural scholars Reginald Horace Blyth and Harold Gould Henderson, who also contributed to the popularisation of

Zen Zen (; from Chinese: ''Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka phil ...

and the poetic form of

haiku is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 Mora (linguistics), morae (called ''On (Japanese prosody), on'' in Japanese) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a ''kire ...

outside

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Interpretation

The exact meaning of this text, which was published in archaic Japanese, has been the subject of considerable debate. In particular, in the passage of the declaration which was officially translated as "false conception according to which the emperor is divine", the unusual term was used instead of the more common word means "exist" or "appear", means "person" and means "god". The word was first mentioned in the (), where the legendary Japanese prince Yamato Takeru said "I am the son of an ."

Western view

According to the popular Western view, promoted by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, the rescript challenged the centuries-old claim that the Japanese emperor and his predecessors were descendants of the sun goddess Amaterasu, and thus the Emperor had now publicly admitted that he was not a living

god In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

. Thus, the same day as the rescript was issued,

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

Douglas MacArthur Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American general who served as a top commander during World War II and the Korean War, achieving the rank of General of the Army (United States), General of the Army. He served with dis ...

announced that he was very much pleased with the Emperor's statement, which he saw as his commitment to lead his people in the democratisation of Japan. Although is often translated as "divine" or "divinity", some Western scholars (including John W. Dower and Herbert P. Bix) have pointed out that its real meaning is "manifest " (or, more generally, " incarnation of a god"), and that therefore the emperor would still be, according to the declaration, an ("living god"), although not an ("manifest "). In fact, Jean Herbert explains that, according to the Japanese tradition, the figure of the emperor would be "the extension in time" of the goddess Amaterasu and the previous emperors, representing a privileged moment in eternity. Consequently, it would be inadmissible to deny its divine origin."

Japanese view

On 1 January 1946, the rescript was reported on the front page of many major newspapers. The headline was "New year's day rescript paves way for peace and progress for the people as Emperor laments confusion of ideals." The headline was, "Rescript presented in the new year: The bonds of society are trust, respect, the Emperor, and the People." The newspaper headlines did not mention divinity, only that peace and the emperor were with the people. The emperor's refutation of divinity was not valuable as news.この章は、Shillony (2003)、313–14 頁 (第8章21『「神道指令」と「人間宣言」』)を参照。 Critics of the Western interpretation, including Emperor Shōwa himself, argue that the repudiation of divinity was not the point of the rescript. Some argue that since this rescript starts with a full quote from the Five Charter Oath of 1868 by

Emperor Meiji , posthumously honored as , was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the List of emperors of Japan, traditional order of succession, reigning from 1867 until his death in 1912. His reign is associated with the Meiji Restoration of 1868, which ...

, the Emperor's true intention was that Japan had already been democratic since the

Meiji Era The was an Japanese era name, era of History of Japan, Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feu ...

and was not democratized by the occupiers. As was clarified in a press interview on 23 August 1977, the Emperor wanted the Japanese people not to forget pride in Japan. This interpretation is supported by the fact that the imperial rescript was published with a commentary by

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Kijūrō Shidehara that dwelt exclusively on the prior existence of democracy in the Meiji Era and did not make even passing reference to the emperor's "renunciation of divinity." Emperor Shōwa was persistent in the idea that the emperor of Japan should be considered a descendant of the gods. In December 1945, he told his vice-grand chamberlain Michio Kinoshita: "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." Shinto officials and right-wing groups throughout Japan today do not recognize the declaration as admitting that the emperor and country are not divine. The English rescript was discovered in 2005 and was published in the on 1 January 2006. Professor Osamu Watanabe sent the following comments to the newspaper: The Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Maeda Tamon, along with Gakushuin University director Katsunoshin Yamanashi and Prime Minister Kijuro Shidehara, are key figures in Japan who have read and examined the draft of the Humanity Declaration. He was also a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

and, like many Japanese

Christians A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the world. The words '' Christ'' and ''C ...

, revered the emperor.Shillony (2003)、312頁 (第8章21『「神道指令」と「人間宣言」』)。 In December 1945, he answered in a question and answer session of the Imperial Diet that "the emperor is a god". "It is not a god of Western concept, but 'in the sense that it is the highest level in the world in the traditional Japanese concept' is a god", he replied.Creemers, ''Shrine Shinto'', pp. 124–32; ''Kodansha Encyclopedia'', vol. 5, p. 80.

Notes

Citations

References

* Dower, John W. (1999). '' Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II.'' New York: W. W. Norton. ; * ベン・アミー・シロニー(著) Ben-Ami Shillony(原著)『母なる天皇―女性的君主制の過去・現在・未来』大谷堅志郎 (翻訳)、講談社 (2003/1/1). .

External links

Full text of the rescript
(in Japanese and English, not official)

(official in Japanese)
Original Document
(National Archives of Japan) 1946 in Japan Japanese monarchy Occupied Japan Rescripts Hirohito Shinto in Japan 1946 documents Japanese Imperial rescripts 1946 in Japanese politics Japanese imperial history {{State Shinto