Ningen-sengen
On January 1, 1946, the Shōwa Emperor (Hirohito) issued the Imperial Rescript on the Construction of a New Japan (新日本建設に関する詔書 Shin Nippon Kensetsu ni Kan suru Shōsho?) and the Imperial Rescript on National Revitalization (年頭、国運振興の詔書 Nentō, Kokuun Shinkō no Shōsho?), commonly known collectively as the Humanity Declaration (人間宣言 Ningen-sengen?).
Delivery of this rescript was to be one of Hirohito'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:
- 朕ト爾等國民トノ間ノ紐帯ハ、終始相互ノ信頼ト敬愛トニ依リテ結バレ、單ナル神話ト傳説トニ依リテ生ゼルモノニ非ズ。天皇ヲ以テ現御神トシ、且日本國民ヲ以テ他ノ民族ニ優越セル民族ニシテ、延テ世界ヲ支配スベキ運命ヲ有ストノ架空ナル觀念ニ基クモノニモ非ズ。
- The ties between Us and Our people have always stood upon 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. (official translation)
According to the popular Western view, this challenged the centuries-old claim that he and those before him were descendants of the sun goddess Amaterasu, and thus the Emperor had now publicly admitted that he was not a living god. However, the meaning of the exact contents — delivered in stilted, archaic court Japanese — has been the subject of much debate. In particular, instead of the common word arahitogami for "living god", the more unusual phrase akitsumikami (現御神?) was used instead.
While usually glossed as "divinity" in English, some commentators, such as John W. Dower and Herbert P. Bix, have argued that this means "manifest kami", and the Emperor could still be an arahitogami even if he is not an akitsumikami. Defenders also note[citation needed] that the Emperor later asked and received permission to worship an ancestor, and then worshipped Amaterasu — implicitly reaffirming the mythical line of descent.
Hirohito himself was outraged about the idea that the emperor of Japan could not be considered a descendant of the gods. On 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.» (Peter Wetzler, Hirohito and War, University of Hawai'i press, 1998, p.3)
Critics of the Western interpretation, including the Emperor himself (Dower, Embracing defeat, 1999, p.314), argue that the repudiation of divinity was not the point of the rescript. Since this rescript starts with a full quote from the Five Charter Oath of 1868 by the Meiji Emperor, the Emperor's true intention was that Japan had already been democratic in the Meiji era and was not democratized by the occupiers. As was clarified at a press interview of August 23, 1977, the Emperor wanted the Japanese people not to forget pride in Japan. This interpretation is confirmed by the fact that the imperial rescript was published with a commentary by Prime minister Shidehara that dwelled 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". (Dower, ibid., p.317)
This rescript is said to have been drafted by Reginald Horace Blyth, who also contributed to the popularization of Zen and Haiku outside Japan.
See also
External links
- Full text of the rescript (in Japanese and English)
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