The was an imperial palace built by Emperor Shōmu, initially as a villa, later named by himself as the capital of Japan in 744 AD. It was located in Kōka District of

Ōmi Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan, which today comprises Shiga Prefecture. It was one of the provinces that made up the Tōsandō Circuit (subnational entity), circuit. Its nickname is . Under the ''Engishiki'' classification system, ...

in what is now part of the city of Kōka, Shiga Prefecture,

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 ...

. The capital-palace is also referred to as in the ''

Shoku Nihongi The is an imperially-commissioned Japanese history text. Completed in 797, it is the second of the '' Six National Histories'', coming directly after the and followed by ''Nihon Kōki''. Fujiwara no Tsugutada and Sugano no Mamichi served as t ...

''. Its ruins were designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1974.

Overview

After the rebellion of

Fujiwara no Hirotsugu Fujiwara (, written: 藤原 lit. "''Wisteria'' field") is a Japanese surname. (In English conversation it is likely to be rendered as .) Notable people with the surname include: ; Families * The Fujiwara clan The was a powerful family of imperia ...

in 740, Emperor Shōmu relocated his seat to (currently part of Kizugawa, Kyoto) and also built a detached villa deep in the mountains of southern Ōmi, which was called "Rakumura". He often visited this villa and in 742 decided to make it his primary residence. There are various theories as to why Emperor Shōmu chose to relocate to such an inconvenient location deep in the mountains. The Kuni area was a power base for Tachibana no Moroe, who was then the minister with de facto power over the " dajō-kan" council. The preference of Shigaraki possibly points to the rival

Fujiwara clan The was a powerful family of imperial regents in Japan, descending from the Nakatomi clan and, as legend held, through them their ancestral god Ame-no-Koyane. The Fujiwara prospered since ancient times and dominated the imperial court until th ...

under Fujiwara no Nakamaro mounting a comeback, since their influence extended around the Shigaraki area in Ōmi Province. On the other hand, Emperor Shōmu may have been influenced by Buddhist prelates such as Rōben and Gyōki, who saw the area as a holy site. An indication of this is the plans Emperor Shōmu announced the following year for the construction of a monumental image of the Vairocana Buddha in emulation of the Longmen Grottoes in

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

China near the Shigaraki site. In 744, the name of the palace gradually changed from "Shigaraki" to "Kōka", and in November of the same year, the central support pillar of the Vairocana Buddha statue was erected at Kōka-ji, a Buddhist temple which had been established to house the image. In 745, Kōka was officially proclaimed as the capital. However, the vast expense required for the project resulted in resistance by many of his vassals, and a series of natural disasters such as wildfires and the Tenpei Earthquake forced Emperor Shōmu to return to Heijō-kyō. The plan to build a giant statue in Shigaraki was transformed into the Nara Daibutsu project. The actual site of the palace was lost for many years. Initially, ruins in the Urano neighborhood of Shigaraki were thought to be the site of the palace, and these ruins were given the National Historic Site designation in 1926. However, later archeologists located another possible site two kilometers to the north, in the Miyamachi neighborhood. The foundation of large buildings were uncovered, and artifacts included a large number of wooden tags indicating tax payments. This site was redesigned the "Shigaraki Palace ruins" in 2005, with the original site now thought to be the ruins of Kōka-ji. The site is about 20 minutes on foot from Shigarakigushi Station on the Shigaraki Kogen Railway. The site was backfilled after excavation, but some of the artifacts can be seen at the

References

External links

Shiga-Biwako Tourist Information

Notes

{{Authority control Former capitals of Japan History of Shiga Prefecture Emperor Shōmu Archaeological sites in Japan Kōka, Shiga Historic Sites of Japan Former palaces in Japan

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