Although Japan accepted much from Chinese civilization, it rejected such core elements as eunuch rule, the imperial examination system, autocratic emperorship, and dynastic revolution, thereby building its own unique political order and spiritual history.
Through the history of Japan’s emperor as a priestly rather than a political ruler, and through an intellectual tradition that embraced Buddhism while never placing Confucianism at the center of national thought, this passage argues for the distinctiveness of Japanese civilization.

2019-04-15
That is because Ieyasu was not a descendant of Amaterasu Ōmikami.
In this way, Japan was able to escape the harmful tradition of China’s dynastic revolution and create a political order unique to Japan.

I am republishing here the chapter I posted on 2018-01-28 under the title, “For example, what Japan rejected were eunuchs and the imperial examination system.
Another major point is that it did not adopt an autocratic imperial system.”
What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.
To begin with, regarding the awareness that “Japan received enormous benefits from China in terms of civilization and culture,” it is certainly true that from around the Asuka period onward, Japan accepted culture and civilization from the continent in various forms.
Among these were Buddhism and Confucianism.
It also adopted Chinese characters and the ritsuryō legal-administrative system.
By the Edo period, it had also incorporated a considerable amount of Confucian spirit.
But does that mean that Japanese civilization and culture, and the Japanese spirit, have remained under Chinese influence throughout?
Or that Japan has become merely an offshoot of Chinese civilization and culture?
That cannot be said at all.
Rather, while accepting culture and civilization from the continent, the Japanese have always made their own judgments, selecting and discarding, rejecting what they considered bad and adopting what they thought meaningful.
For example, what they rejected were eunuchs and the imperial examination system.
Another major point is that they did not adopt an autocratic imperial system.
The Chinese emperor is a ruler who governs all the people.
Japan rejected that kind of vast imperial power and created the unique existence called the Tennō, the Emperor.
The Emperor is by no means a political ruler.
Because he stands in an unbroken line for ages eternal and fulfills the role of a priest praying for the people, he is deeply revered by the people from the bottom of their hearts.
Moreover, the basis of the Emperor has absolutely nothing to do with the Chinese idea of dynastic revolution, the notion that the Son of Heaven is granted his position by Heaven’s mandate and rules all under Heaven, but if he defies that mandate, Heaven takes away that position and grants it to a virtuous man of another surname.
It is based on the mythology that has existed since the Kojiki.
Once that is the case, when one looks at the nature of the Emperor, dynastic revolution can hardly occur in the first place.
For example, no matter how much power Tokugawa Ieyasu wielded, he could not replace the Emperor.
That is because Ieyasu was not a descendant of Amaterasu Ōmikami.
In this way, Japan was able to escape the harmful tradition of China’s dynastic revolution and create a political order unique to Japan.
To be continued.

This is the chapter I posted on 2018-01-28 under the title, “Kūkai, Saichō, Shinran, and the others are all connected with Buddhism, but can one readily name a Confucian scholar? Hardly.”
What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Even in the realm of thought, although Japan certainly accepted Chinese thought and was influenced by it, it is not necessarily true that Japan has had no thought of its own.
From the opposite perspective, one can catch glimpses of the process by which Japan continually escaped from Chinese influence and formed its own intellectual and spiritual history.
My recent book, which summarizes Japan’s intellectual and spiritual history from just such a reverse perspective, is Why Was Japan Alone Able to Escape China’s Spell? A Japanese Intellectual History of “Leaving China” (PHP Shinsho), though to tell the truth, I almost wanted to make the subtitle, A Japanese Intellectual History of “Leaving China”, the main title itself.
Japan, where Shinto and Buddhism were syncretized.
Even while being influenced by Chinese civilization and thought, the Japanese have from the very beginning sought to confront them and create something uniquely their own.
In that earlier book, I wrote that “Japan possesses a fresh and unencumbered cast of mind, free from bondage to any particular civilization or ideology.”
One example is Confucianism and Buddhism.
Omitted in the middle.
Yet from the Asuka through the Muromachi period, the Japanese attitude toward Buddhism and Confucianism was entirely different.
Especially in the Asuka and Nara periods, the Yamato court devoted all its energies to building a Buddhist state.
It constructed Tōdai-ji and the Great Buddha, and placed provincial temples throughout the country.
It accepted Buddhism as a means of protecting and pacifying the nation, and it spread as a national religion.
And yet toward Confucianism, it was extremely cold.
One phenomenon that no Japanese scholar has thus far raised as an issue is that among Japanese thinkers before the Muromachi period, there was not a single Confucian scholar.
Kūkai, Saichō, and Shinran, for instance, are all figures related to Buddhism, but can one readily name a Confucian scholar? Hardly.