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| 646–784 |
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| A period of imitation of continental civilization commenced with the Taika Reforms, an edict outlining general principles of national reorganization promulgated in 646, but only over the course of several decades were the reforms put into practice. The major features of the new system included: (1) nationalization of the land, (2) adoption of the Tang land distribution and tax systems, (3) reorganization of local government and other measures designed to increase the authority of the central government and maximize tax revenues, and (4) reorganization of the central government. The principles and many of the details of the reforms were borrowed directly from China, but in Japan, dominated as it was by a hereditary aristocracy, it proved extremely difficult to carry them out fully, and from the start they were modified in practice. | 1 |
| Although land was nationalized in theory, in actuality the large hereditary estates of clan chiefs were returned to them as salary for their official position and rank. The land was to be periodically divided among the tillers as determined by census, and uniform taxes were to be levied on all alike: a land tax paid in rice, corvée (often commuted at a fixed rate into a textile tax), and an excise levied on produce rather than rice. Closely patterned after the Chinese model, this system worked poorly in Japan. Powerful families and institutions frequently deprived the public domain of tax-yielding lands, and the peasants, impoverished by taxes, were often anxious to transfer themselves and their land from the taxpaying public domain to the care of privately owned manors. As a result, the history of economic development over the next few centuries was largely the story of land returning to private control and the emergence of large tax-free estates owned by the court nobility and great religious institutions. | 2 |
| Improved means of communication aided the centralization of government and tax collection, but while provincial governmental officials were to be the central appointees, in practice lower leaders retained their supremacy by occupying the local posts. It soon became the accepted custom for high provincial officials to remain at the capital and to delegate their powers to underlings in the provinces. An essential and permanent feature of the reforms was the reorganization and elaboration of the central government. A department of religion and a great council of state were established as two parallel organs. Below the latter were eight ministries, with many smaller bureaus below them. This organization proved to be too ponderous, however. Moreover, with the collapse of economic supports resulting from the growth of tax-free estates, this elaborate organism was effectively starved. In adopting the Chinese form of government, the Japanese made one significant change: the official hierarchy of Japan remained a hereditary aristocracy. With rare exceptions, there was little opportunity for the able or learned to rise very high. In the period from 701 to 777, seven more missions were sent to China. | 3 |
| During this period, the classic era of Japanese culture, poetry and prose in Chinese were composed, and native Japanese poetry enjoyed an early flowering. In the preceding century, Japanese artists had been imitating continental styles, and now the art of Tang China found fertile soil in Japan, which produced many of the greatest extant examples of East Asian architecture, sculpture, painting, and applied arts of that time. | 4 |
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| 663 |
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The Japanese withdrew from Korea after the defeat of a Japanese force, sent to the aid of Paekche, by a combined army from China and Silla (662). Thus ended the first period of Japanese continental expansion. The fall of Paekche (663) and of Kogury (668) (See 667) left Silla supreme on the peninsula and resulted in a great migration of Korean refugees into Japan. | 5 |
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| 670 |
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| The first Japanese census was taken through a system of household registers. | 6 |
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| 697 |
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The Empress Jit (r. 686–97) abdicated in favor of her grandson, Monmu (r. 697–707), in the first instance in Japan of the accession of a minor and the second of the abdication of a ruler; both practices would soon become the rule. | 7 |
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| 702 |
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The Taih Code, a new civil and penal legal code, was promulgated, probably the first complete codification of the laws embodied in the reforms that began in 646. These laws, together with their revision of 718, the Yr Code (not enforced until 757), have come down to us only through later legal commentaries, Ry no gige (833) and Ry no sh ge (920). A supplementary code, Engi shiki (Procedures of the Engi Era), was completed in 928. | 8 |
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| 710–84 |
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| The Nara Period began with the establishment of the capital at Heij (or Nara), the first permanent capital of Japan, which was laid out on the model of Chang'an, the Tang capital, except that it had no city walls. The Nara period ended with the move of the capital to Nagaoka. | 9 |
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| 712 |
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| The Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters), Japan's oldest book, recorded the history of the imperial line from its mythical origins; it was written in Chinese characters (used to a large extent phonetically to represent Japanese words). | 10 |
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| 720 |
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| The Nihon shoki (or Nihongi, Chronicles of Japan), a more detailed history of Japan, was compiled. It was continued to 887 by five other official histories, which together constituted the Rikkokushi (Six National Histories). | 11 |
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| 724–49 |
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| Emperor Shmu's reign, and the years when he dominated the court as a retired emperor (749–56), marked the height of Nara culture. | 12 |
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| 737 |
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| The deaths of the four grandsons of Kamatari delayed for several decades the complete domination of the imperial court by the Fujiwara clan. | 13 |
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| 741 |
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| Government temples were ordered erected in each province. | 14 |
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| 752 |
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| The dedication of the Great Buddha at Nara marked the completion of Shmu's most cherished project. The 53-foot bronze figure of the Buddha Rushana (in Sanskrit, Vaitocana) and the large hall built to house it were massive undertakings for the Japanese court, evidence of the great Buddhist fervor of the time. Many of the objects used in the dedication service, together with Shmu's personal belongings, form the basis of the collection of 8th-century furniture and art preserved at the imperial treasury in Nara (Shsin, begun in 756). | 15 |
| Shortly before the erection of the Great Buddha, the famous monk Gyki (668–749) was said to have propagated the concept that Buddhism and Shinto were two aspects of the same faith. Such beliefs served as justification for the growing amalgamation of the two religions, which was to lead by the 12th century to the development of Dual Shinto, in which Shinto gods were considered to be manifestations of Buddhist deities. | 16 |
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