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Japan: History and Culture from Classical to Cool
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The Rule of Taste: Lives of Heian Aristocrats, (794–1185)

The Heian period, from 794 to 1185, is named for the new imperial capital established at Heian-kyō (later called Kyoto). That city would remain the imperial capital of Japan until 1868, when the young Meiji emperor moved his court to Tokyo to stand at the head of a new system of government and a new nation-state. Heian is known as Japan’s classical period, a time when aesthetics and court culture attained a high degree of refinement. Around the year 1000, there was a flowering of distinctively Japanese aristocratic culture centering on the court, while imported Chinese cultural practices, from poetry to geomancy, also continued. It was an age of great creativity in literature, the arts, and religion. The lives of Heian elites were filled with aesthetic cultural practices. Cloistered and idle in the capital city, courtiers obsessed over their appearance, love affairs, cultural pastimes, and ceremonial rites. This chapter focuses on such activities among the aristocracy. It is important, however, to remember that these elites constituted only a small minority, numbering several thousand men and women in a population of around 5.5 million persons. The rich written record of courtly life—including diaries, poetry, and novels produced by noblemen and noblewomen—describes a lifestyle that no member of the lower classes could dream of attaining.

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS

In early Heian, courtiers and aristocrats, led by vigorous emperors, continued to actively assimilate Chinese administrative and cultural models introduced under Nara-era reforms. Emperor Kammu (737–806) moved the capital from Nara to Heian-kyō in 794 in order to escape the influence of powerful Buddhist monastic institutions and to locate the palace closer to his allies, powerful clans of immigrants from the Korean Peninsula. Kammu attempted to maintain many of the centralized practices of government established in Nara but abolished conscription. The site for the new capital was selected through geomancy, with surrounding mountains and waterways that served to protect the court. As in Nara, the streets were laid out in a rational grid.

MAP 4. Kyoto, formerly known as Heian-kyō, in 1696. Note the grid of streets and the geomantic setting. From James Murdoch and Isoh Yamagata, A History of Japan during the Century of Early Foreign Intercourse (1542–1651) (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1926).

After a half-century, however, imperial authority and the centralized ritsuryō state waned as a court-centered polity emerged. One particular clan, the Fujiwara, used marriage politics to gain influence over the imperial household and effectively controlled the office of the emperor for over two hundred years. This established a pattern we will see repeatedly over the course of the following centuries, with emperors and other symbolic leaders who reigned but did not rule. That is, actual political power was in the hands of another, pulling the strings behind the throne. In this case, the hand that wielded power was a Fujiwara regent; in later years it would be a retired emperor or the shogun. Emperors were not eliminated—throughout history they remained a powerful symbol of authority and national identity, based on the myth of divine descent from the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu. The centralized state eroded under the Fujiwara, estates were increasingly reprivatized, and clan influence increased. With the crumbling of the Tang empire, in 838 the court stopped sending official embassies to China, the source of knowledge for developments in government, religion, and culture, although Buddhist priests continued to travel between Japan and the continent. Turning away from the all-inclusive borrowing from China in the Nara period, native forms of classical culture emerged. This shift from a phase of intensive cultural borrowing to one of introspection or isolation, with the Japanese absorbing and adapting foreign forms but creating more indigenous practices, would emerge as another important pattern in Japanese history. We will see it again in the sixteenth century, with the arrival of Catholic missionaries—the Japanese first eagerly adopted their fashions and guns, then prohibited foreign visitors and Christianity—and again in the nineteenth century, with frenzied borrowing from Western institutions and cultures under the new Meiji government, followed by the growth of nationalism and xenophobia that, among other factors, led to the Pacific War.

During the tenth and eleventh centuries the Fujiwara—a powerful clan descended from Nakatomi no Kamatari, who helped launch the Taika reforms—dominated the court. They excelled in marriage politics, maneuvering their daughters into the position of wives or consorts of the emperor in order to give birth to male children who might succeed the monarch. Boys with Fujiwara mothers were raised in the maternal home, allowing Fujiwara grandfathers and uncles to exert influence over imperial successors. After ascending the throne, they took Fujiwara wives and consorts—usually their cousins or aunts—and when the union resulted in a son, the emperor was persuaded to abdicate, with a Fujiwara acting as regent (sesshō) for the child and exercising actual political control. The first to take power in this way was Fujiwara no Yoshifusa (804–72), who appointed himself regent to his grandson, the eight-year-old emperor, ruling on behalf of the monarch until he reached maturity. Yet when the boy reached adulthood, another Fujiwara, Mototsune (836–91), continued as a type of regent in the newly established position of chancellor (kanpaku). The Fujiwara continued to control the throne without actually occupying it for two hundred years, reaching the apex of their power in the tenth and eleventh centuries under Michinaga (966–1027), who was effectively head of state for three decades, using his daughters to control three emperors. Michinaga’s era coincides with what is considered the golden age of classical culture, and he is said to be the model for Genji in the renowned Tale of Genji, although one scholar suggested that the novel’s main character is actually the “anti-Michinaga,” sensitive and beautiful rather than crudely powerful.

Fujiwara dominance was sometimes opposed by other members of the court. There were occasional periods without a Fujiwara regent, when rival courtiers or other members of the imperial family attempted to gain control over the throne. In the late ninth century, the gifted statesman, scholar, and poet Sugawara no Michizane (843–903) gained the favor of Emperor Uda (867–931) and rose through court ranks to the position of minister of the right (udaijin), one of the emperor’s two closest advisors. His two daughters became imperial consorts, and for a few years Michizane exercised Fujiwara-like power over the court. Rivals conspired against him; they falsely accused Michizane of plotting against the emperor, and he was sent into exile at Dazaifu in Kyushu, where he died of homesickness. Before departing the capital, he sorrowfully composed a poem addressed to the precious plum tree he would leave behind:

When the east wind blows,

Send me your perfume,

Blossoms of the plum:

Though your lord be absent

Forget not the spring.¹

After Michizane’s death, his enemies met mysterious ends; the capital was plagued with fires, storms, and diseases; and the imperial palace was struck repeatedly by lightning. These calamities were blamed on Michizane’s vengeful spirit, which was posthumously appeased by restoring his titles and building the Kitano-tenmangu Shrine in the capital in 987. Michizane was the first Japanese subject to be enshrined as a kami by imperial decree, and he became known as the deity Tenjin, associated with literature and learning. Today, children taking school entrance examinations visit Tenjin shrines throughout the nation to request his help with their studies. The plum tree at the Tenmangu Shrine in Dazaifu is called the “flying plum” (tobi-ume), and legend claims that it missed its master so much that it flew to his place of exile. The Michizane legend became a staple of popular culture. In the fifteenth century, it became the basis for the Nō play Raiden, and in the eighteenth century the story was adapted for the puppet theater and Kabuki as Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy.

Emperor Shirakawa (1053–1129) also managed to wrest power from the Fujiwara. He did not have a Fujiwara mother, and in 1086 he abdicated and nominally retired to a Buddhist monastery, symbolically shaving his head—while actually continuing to exercise power behind his four-year-old son, Emperor Horikawa (1078–1107). This pattern, known as the “retired emperor system” (insei), continued under the next two emperors, allowing the paternal line (the imperial family) to regain authority over the throne and restore a degree of their earlier wealth and power, sapped by Fujiwara privatization of estates. But the late Heian period—the eleventh and twelfth centuries—was an era of decline for court authority overall. Violence became more prevalent throughout the country; there were revolts in the provinces, piracy was rampant, and monk-warriors led massive raids on the capital city. Leisured aristocratic life continued in the capital, but the nobility became more dependent on warrior chieftains to maintain order on their estates in the provinces. By the mid-twelfth century, some of these provincial warrior clans began to compete with the courtiers of the capital for wealth and power, leading to the establishment of dual governments in the Kamakura period (see chapter 4).

The economic power of the elite rested on the privatization of rights to land and income from private estates, called shōen, that supported the lavish lifestyles of courtiers, supplying necessities and luxuries like rice and silk, lumber and building materials, swords and horses, lacquer and wax, ink and brushes, and fish and poultry. Surplus produce from estates was transported by land and water to be traded at markets in the capital. Under the official imperial system established in Nara, all productive land was to be treated as taxable imperial property, which the emperor could parcel out to court families, shrines, and temples as tax-exempt shōen. In addition, estates created by noble families who reclaimed wild lands for agricultural purposes were also exempted from taxes, and thus there was heavy competition between families to reclaim lands and lure peasants from public lands to work on their private estates.

Another way to accrue income was through the process of commendation, in which a small landholder gave control of his holdings to a more powerful landlord, such as a court noble or a shrine or temple, in order to receive protection and tax immunity while retaining a share of income. The new landlord might, in turn, commend the land to an even higher-ranking member of court. Commendations resulted in a formal system of rights to a percentage of income or produce from land. These rights, known as shiki, were divisible, salable, and heritable. In this system, there were four or five levels of individuals entitled to proceeds from the land, over and above the peasants who cultivated it: local proprietors who had controlled the land prior to commendation, estate officials who managed estates for absentee proprietors in the capital, those central proprietors, and the principal patron. Each got a slice of the income from the estate.

Official appointments provided another source of income, generally dependent on rank. Heian aristocracy was divided into nine ranks that determined the positions one could hold within the court. The top three ranks, occupied by around twenty clans, had the power to dictate central court policy and amassed the greatest wealth. The bottom four ranks were occupied by professionals of lineages that specialized in law, medicine, geomancy, or other areas; they had little opportunity for advancement into the higher ranks. Junior court officials and governors of the provinces occupied the middle ranks, which held the potential for advancement in court.

THE CULTURE OF ARISTOCRATIC LIVES

Heian courtly life has been called “the rule of taste,” because the written record suggests that court society valued style and aesthetic experience as much as or more than the moral principles embodied in Chinese scholarship. The literary record of the era suggests that aristocrats were less interested in abstract, philosophical studies than in appreciating beauty and culture. With the rare exception, courtiers engaged in one or more of the arts. The “rule of taste” applied not only to the formal arts but also to nearly every aspect of the lives of the upper class. It was central to Heian Buddhism, making religion into an art and art into a religion. It was critical in conducting romantic liaisons. Even in the conduct of government, male officials were expected to perform stylized dances as part of their duties. Miyabi, or an appropriate level of refinement and sophistication, was an important elite aesthetic standard. Another term used in later centuries to describe Heian aesthetics is aware, indicating sensitivity to beauty or pathos in the sights or sounds of nature or in the conditions of human life. Throughout the centuries, the avid pursuit of a cult of beauty in all aspects of art, nature, and society has continued to play a critical role in the perception of Japan’s national aesthetic identity.

FIGURE 9. Scene from an illustrated hand scroll of The Tale of Genji, twelfth century, Tokugawa Art Museum, Nagoya, Japan. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The leisure supplied by income from the shōen estate system allowed elites to indulge in minutely detailed cultivation of taste. Sensitivity to seasonal changes and their reflections in nature were especially important qualities in aristocratic taste. Their aesthetic code applied to the smallest details, such as selecting an appropriate seasonal blossom to attach to a letter; its shade must also exactly complement the paper chosen. The range of colors in use was so wide that we cannot precisely translate some of their names. Furthermore, there was specific vocabulary for the color effects created by layering fabrics (kasane), such as producing the violet of the aster flower by layering a pale gray over blue, or producing a pale pink with white over scarlet. These color considerations were particularly important in women’s clothing. Feminine formal court clothing was elaborate and cumbersome. Known as the “twelve-layered garment” (jūnihitoe), it consisted of an unlined robe worn over loose crimson trousers, over which there were a number of colorful lined robes, a luxurious silk top robe, and a pleated train, all topped with a short coat. The hems and sleeves of the many robes were arranged to display colorful bands of silk.

A woman’s skill in selecting attractive and original color combinations was seen as a critical guide to her character and an expression of her aesthetic response to seasonal change. Literature and diaries often recorded the details of these ensembles. Murasaki Shikibu (978–1014?), the author of The Tale of Genji, noted in her diary: “The Empress was wearing the usual scarlet robe, under which she had kimonos of light plum, light green and yellow rose. His Majesty’s outer robe was made of grape-coloured brocade; underneath he had a willow green kimono and below that, one of pure white, all most unusual and up to date in both design and colour.”² The ugly, reverse side of the Heian appreciation of elegance and beauty was the intense pressure to have one’s own sense of elegance recognized, as seen in the many competitions that occupied the Heian elites, described at the end of this chapter. Courtiers cruelly gossiped about those who made aesthetic faux pas; artistic insensitivity could even be fatal to one’s career at court. Heian diaries and literature contain copious examples of snide remarks and criticisms over another’s lack of taste. The excerpt from Murasaki’s diary quoted above goes on to note how a court lady has made an error in her color combinations—one of the robes was “a shade too pale.” Sei Shōnagon (966–1017?), author of The Pillow Book (discussed below), was a master of sharp barbs, skewering others for ugliness, awkwardness, and self-importance, or for behaving inelegantly, such as by snoring, blowing one’s nose, or leaving doors open.

Court life was highly gendered. Binaries of male/female, public/private, and Chinese/Japanese often overlapped. Thus, public buildings associated with male domains, such as government offices or Buddhist temples, were usually built using Chinese elements, like tiled roofs with curved eaves and tile or stone floors, according to Chinese geomancy; private residences where women were sequestered featured wooden floors and thatched roofs. Masculine and feminine aesthetic and emotional ideals are conveyed in the rich literary and visual record. Male beauty was represented by a round, white-powdered face with a tiny mouth, narrow eyes, and a wisp of beard. Men generously scented their hair and clothing with incense. Literature informs us that ideal men should also be sensitive to beauty and unafraid to cry when parting from their loved ones or when moved by the beauty of nature. By contrast, hairy and muscular men were considered unattractive. Feminine beauty had many of the same ideals, favoring plump white faces and delicate round mouths. White skin was a sign of aristocratic birth; powder was used to produce the right degree. Over this base, women usually applied rouge to their cheeks and lips. Heian women also painted their eyebrows into large, black, rectangular blocks (see fig. 9). They blackened their teeth with a dye of iron and vinegar, a practice called ohaguro that was adopted by married women and courtesans in later eras. Those who failed to attend to these toiletries were thought hideous, with teeth that gleamed horribly. Hair was an important aspect of female attractiveness. It should be straight, glossy, parted in the middle, and very long, ideally reaching the ground. The glimpse of a fine head of hair was often enough to interest a potential lover. In an episode from The Tale of Genji, a character becomes hopelessly infatuated with a girl he has only glimpsed from behind.

In the Heian period, aristocratic women enjoyed a relatively high degree of independence and security not often seen in Japanese history: they possessed the legal right to inherit and keep property, so daughters of the elite usually had independent incomes and were entitled to maintain their own houses. As seen in Fujiwara marriage politics, many principal wives lived in their natal home during marriage, escaping the tyranny of mothers-in-law. Daughters were desired, because marriage politics made them useful as tools for advancement in court. There was fierce rivalry for the hand of attractive girls of high birth who would produce attractive daughters. In comparison to noblemen, who still had to occasionally tend to official duties, noblewomen had more free time to devote to literary and artistic pursuits. As a result, nearly every noteworthy author at the height of Heian culture was a woman. Furthermore, men sometimes adopted the personae of women in their poems and diaries, such as in The Tosa Diary (Tosa nikki), in which the author Ki no Tsurayuki (872–945) pretended to write as a woman in his traveling entourage.

One probable reason for such a ruse was that women were free to use the kana phonetic script, known as the “women’s hand” (onnade), allowing them to express their thoughts and feelings more freely in their native tongue. “Serious writing,” by contrast—including matters of state, religion, and philosophy—was composed in classical Chinese by male scholars, priests, and officials. In order to be able to write in their native language, Heian women used the kana syllabary derived from simplified Chinese characters, although many women were also literate in classical Chinese. Chinese calligraphy can be classified into three styles: shin, with extremely formal and angular characters; sō, with curvy, loose, elegant characters; and gyō—somewhere in between. The cursive sō, or grass style, eventually evolved into kana, which could be used to express oneself clearly in one’s mother tongue. (Note that these three style types are also widely used in other Japanese spatial designs, such as in gardens and flower arrangement.) A variety of texts were written in kana by men and women alike, including poetry; diaries like The Tosa Diary, The Gossamer Years, and The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu; collections of miscellaneous jottings, exemplified by The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon; vernacular tales; and long fictional narratives, most notably The Tale of Genji, described in greater detail later in this chapter.

While Heian women enjoyed a degree of status and independence, according to Confucian and Buddhist doctrine there was no question about male supremacy and female inferiority. Buddhist teachings claimed that no matter how virtuous, a woman could not be reborn as a higher being without first being reborn as a man. Confucianism’s “Three Obediences” subordinated women to their fathers, brothers, and husbands. Despite the privileges she enjoyed, an elite woman who was not in active court service led an immobile and sedentary existence. At home, when not with immediate family or servants, she was hidden behind a screen or curtains, although she might display her elegant taste to visitors by letting her sleeves peek out from behind the screen (see fig. 9). She could rarely leave the house, and when outside she always needed to be protected from the eyes of strangers. If embarking in a carriage, she was also hidden by screens; if on foot, she draped a thin robe over her hair and head, securing these with a deep, broad-brimmed hat. Surrounded by servants, Heian elite women were free of domestic duties, including looking after children, and spent their days practicing poetry, calligraphy, or music and waiting for letters or visits from their husbands and lovers.

The literature of the time depicts elite women obsessed by their relations with men, their very existence seemingly governed by the latter’s romantic attitudes. Like most aspects of Heian society, elite courting and marriage customs were prescribed. Heian society was polygamous, with three main types of relationships. Principal wives were chosen by the bridegroom’s family according to social, political, and economic considerations. Since the number of suitable candidates was limited to those of equal court rank, marriages between cousins or between aunts and nephews were acceptable. On average, girls were betrothed at age twelve and boys at fourteen; wives were often several years older than their husbands. Principal wives lived with their natal family; the husband either visited her while continuing to live with his parents (a living arrangement known as “duolocal”) or sometimes moved in himself (“uxorilocal”). When the husband’s father died, the principal wife would normally move into her husband’s residence.

Secondary wives, or concubines, were officially recognized and received the same courting and marriage rituals (described below) as principal wives. Rules about class and rank were less rigid but would not fall outside the general aristocracy—it was inconceivable for a nobleman to take a peasant girl as an official concubine. If the principal wife failed to produce offspring, she would normally adopt a child of the concubine. The third type of relationship, and the most commonplace, was the casual affair, in which the woman was usually a court lady-in-waiting or from a far lower class. The parties might be married to others. Chastity was not particularly considered a female virtue, and unattached noblewomen, many with their own houses, could sleep with whomever they liked, refuse a man’s favors, or terminate the relationship. Nevertheless, because women were required to remain at home, they were stuck waiting for the men to arrive. Thus, jealousy was an emotion commonly recorded in the literature, sometimes driving women to hysteria and insanity. Jealousy was closely tied to the idea of public humiliation—that the scorned woman would lose status in the eyes of others. In The Tale of Genji, such jealousy drives one of Genji’s lovers to travel as a spirit and murder one of her rivals. The Gossamer Years, a journal of the unnamed secondary wife of powerful court noble Fujiwara no Kaneie (929–90), records her misery and humiliation over his many affairs as she waits anxiously at home, not knowing when or whether he will visit. The author cruelly celebrates when one of her rivals, who has recently given birth, also loses the favor of Kaneie when the child dies: “Now she was abandoned. The pain must be even sharper than mine. I was satisfied.”³

Formal love affairs, for principal and secondary wives, were conducted according to ritual. After a man or his family learned of a suitable woman through a matchmaker, he would write a poem expressing conventionally romantic sentiments. This called for a prompt reply, composed either by the woman or, more usually, by the most capable member of her family or entourage, under her name. The man would scrutinize the reply carefully, examining the calligraphy and poetic skill for signs of the woman’s character and charm. If she passed muster, he arranged to visit her secretly on the first convenient night. Generally the woman’s family knew this was happening; besides, the architecture of mansions, with sliding paper doors and screens to separate rooms, did not allow for real secrecy. On this first night, by custom, the man should express sadness at the first sign of dawn, dragging himself away. Returning home, he would immediately compose his “next morning letter,” adding a love poem. When the messenger arrived with the letter at the woman’s house, he would be given wine and gifts along with the reply. On the following night a second visit was paid, with another exchange of letters. The third night was the most important. On this occasion, small rice cakes known as “third night cakes” were prepared and placed in the room. The appearance of the cakes was a central marriage rite that placed a religious sanction on the union. At that time the woman’s father sent the man a formal letter of approval. After a few days, there would be a small social event with wine and food, in which a priest conducted rituals and the couple exchanged cups of sake. Now that they were openly wed, the man could visit the woman’s house at any time and stay until late in the morning.

Even casual liaisons often called for poetry in establishing communications between the parties. In Tales of Ise, while on a hawking trip to a village outside of Nara, Ariwara no Narihira (825–80) approaches a local beauty he has spied through a fence with this poem:

Seeing such blooming beauty,

Fresh as the murasaki of Kasuga Moor,

Like this passion-plant pattern,

The passion in my heart

Knows not any limit.⁴

Poems could also express disappointment in a lover. Later in Tales of Ise, while Narihira is on a falconing expedition, he has a tryst with a shrine priestess but is unable to meet her the following night because of required attendance at an all-night banquet. The following morning she sends a simple poem that indicates her displeasure:

Shallow our union,

Shallow as the inlet

One walks unwetted.⁵

Literary Arts

Poetry was indeed central to court life; composing, exchanging, and quoting poems were critical means of communication, and perhaps no other society in the world has attached such importance to poetic skills. Elite Heian life was punctuated with poetry from beginning to end, and no important event was complete without it. Birth was attended by congratulatory verses; poetic exchanges were integral parts of both formal and informal rites of courting; and when death approached, parting poems would be composed. Poetry was often the best way to achieve a romantic conquest or to obtain a promotion at court. Those who weren’t very skilled at poetry were often ridiculed. For instance, Tales of Ise includes an awkward poem sent to a lady-in-waiting by an admirer, about which the narrator remarks, “What a shabby and ignoble poem!”⁶

Poems were judged by the appropriate use of nature imagery, the ability to use and allude to other famous Chinese and Japanese poems, and the subtlety or nuance of their expression. One should be obscure and use allusion rather than being direct or too explicit. For example, in The Pillow Book, when Sei Shōnagon fears that she has fallen out of favor with the empress, she receives a letter from Her Highness with nothing written on the paper itself. Instead it encloses a single yellow petal from a mountain rose on which the words “He who does not speak his love” are written. Shōnagon recognizes the words from a classical poem and understands, from this obscure hint, that she is still in the empress’s favor. There were many occasions in daily life—a visit to the country, the first snowfall of the year—when failure to compose an appropriate poem immediately was considered a faux pas. Also, when one received a poem, it was mandatory to send a prompt reply using the same imagery.

The most popular form of Heian poetry was the tanka, written in Japanese rather than classical Chinese. These poems consisted of a verse of five lines with thirty-one syllables following the pattern 5-7-5-7-7. Fine examples of poetry were collected in twenty-one imperial anthologies, beginning with the Kokinshū (Collection of ancient and modern poems) in 905. The Kokinshū contained around eleven hundred poems that fell into two main categories echoing the interests of Nara poets: poems about love and those about the seasons and nature. Smaller groupings included poems about travel, congratulations, and laments. The Kokinshū was highly influential in dictating the proper form, format, and topics of Japanese poetry until the late nineteenth century. In its often-quoted preface, one of the main compilers, Ki no Tsurayuki, claims:

Japanese poetry has the human heart as seed and myriads of words as leaves. It comes into being when men use the seen and the heard to give voice to feelings aroused by the innumerable events in their lives. The song of the warbler among the blossoms, the voice of the frog dwelling in the water—these teach us that every living creature sings. It is song that moves heaven and earth without effort, stirs emotions in the invisible spirits and gods, brings harmony to the relations between men and women, and calms the heart of fierce warriors.⁷

Exchanging or completing famous verses was a common aspect of festive Heian gatherings. Poetry contests were fiercely competitive: topics were announced well in advance, and participants came armed with well-polished poems. Entries were recited in pairs by official readers and recorded for posterity. The judge’s decisions and reasoning were also recorded. Thus, these were no casual games, but battles in which a person’s reputation could be made or broken. Another type of poetry contest placed men and women on opposing teams. One team member delivered a love poem, and the other had to promptly recite an appropriate response using similar imagery and tone. Such poetic games have remained popular throughout Japanese history. Even today, some families play a card game during the New Year’s holidays that requires players to complete the second half of famous verses from a collection of a hundred poems from a hundred poets called the Hyakunin isshu.

The sister art to poetry in Heian Japan, as in China, was calligraphy. Much of the enjoyment that people derived from poetry and literature depended on the actual handwriting. Bad handwriting was as fatal to your reputation as bad poetry—handwriting was regarded as the mirror of the soul. People waited anxiously for the first letter from a potential lover because poor calligraphy was sure to disqualify them from favor. This is illustrated in The Tale of Genji when Genji is reading a note from one of his admirers and Murasaki is curious less about the content than about the calligraphy. As she looks at the envelope, she sees that the penmanship conveys the sensitivity and elegance of the most refined ladies at court. Later, when Murasaki has a new rival in the young girl who has become Genji’s official wife, she is anxious to view the girl’s handwriting and feels reassured when she sees the childish, unpolished style, even feeling sorry for the girl because her hand is shameful for someone of her rank.

Poetry and calligraphy combined in the art of letter writing, another area that held high critical standards. Sending a letter involved a great deal of preparation. First one had to choose paper of the proper thickness, size, design, and color to suit the emotional mood one wanted to suggest, as well as the season and the weather on that particular day. Paper might also be decorated with metallic flakes or pre-imprinted with designs. A single sheet might also be a collage, made by tearing or cutting different papers diagonally and joining them together to provide a rainbow of hues. Letters were sometimes inscribed on fans or other materials. The calligraphy was at least as important as the message, and the writer made several drafts with different brushes to produce the exact effect wanted. The centerpiece of the letter was usually a poem with a central image of some aspect of nature that delicately symbolized the occasion. After finishing the letter, the writer would scent the paper appropriately and carefully fold it in one of the accepted styles. The next step was to select the proper branch or blossom to attach, depending on the season, mood, and imagery of the letter and the color of the paper. Finally, the writer would summon an attractive messenger and give him instructions about delivery. In Heian diaries and literature, messengers constantly shuttle between aristocratic mansions, day and night, delivering these tasteful missives.

Turning to narrative, the literary classic The Tale of Genji is undoubtedly a treasure of world literature. Written from around 1000 to 1012 and attributed to court lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu, it quickly became popular in elite circles, and hand-copied manuscripts were distributed throughout the provinces. Genji has been called the world’s first novel, the first modern novel, the first psychological novel, and the earliest novel still considered a classic. It has key elements found in the modern novel: a well-developed central character, a large cast of other major and minor characters, and a sequence of events over a period of time covering the central character’s lifetime and beyond. The work does not have a specific plot; over the course of fifty-four chapters, characters grow older, develop relationships, and experience events, much as in real life. One complication for readers is that characters are rarely given an explicit name, instead referred to by their function or role (e.g., Minister of the Left), an honorific (e.g., His Excellency), or their relation to other characters (e.g., Heir Apparent), which may change as the novel progresses. This lack of names may stem from a court preference for ambiguity that made it overly blunt to specifically mention a character’s name, or it may have been a tactic used by Murasaki to maintain a fictionalized veneer and avoid offense to members of the court.

Through the years, Genji has remained extremely influential in Japanese literature, drama, and visual arts. Well-known episodes or chapters have been adapted numerous times in Nō, Kabuki, and Bunraku (puppet theater) plays. In modern times, several versions have been made for TV and film, the most recent in 2011. Allusions to Genji are abundant in later poetry, prose, and fiction. It is also parodied, such as in Ihara Saikaku’s The Life of an Amorous Man from the Edo period (see chapter 7). The original tale centers on the life and many loves of the “shining prince” Genji, a handsome and gifted example of the aesthetic sensitivity and talent idealized for Heian male courtiers. Genji is the son of an emperor and his beloved, if low-ranking, concubine who died when the boy was just three years old. Although the emperor wishes to name the boy as his heir, Genji’s low birth makes this impossible. Instead, Genji is removed from the royal lineage and given the surname Minamoto, which will allow him to obtain court ranks and official appointments. As a young man he marries Aoi, the daughter of a powerful courtier. They are not well matched, and Genji finds solace in love affairs with other women of all stations. His father, the emperor, takes another official wife, Fujitsubo, who resembles Genji’s dead mother. Genji becomes obsessed with his stepmother, and she eventually succumbs to his amorous attention. Their liaison results in a child, whom others believe was sired by the emperor. Genji is also captivated by Fujitsubo’s young niece Murasaki; he brings her to his palace to be raised and groomed as his ideal lover. One of Genji’s affairs leads to a scandal at the court and he subsequently becomes exiled. After his eventual return, Genji ascends to the pinnacle of court power and works to advance the careers of his children and grandchildren. When his son with Fujitsubo becomes emperor, he receives the unprecedented title Honorary Retired Emperor. The last third of the text deals with Genji’s grandson Niou and his best friend Kaoru, who engage in rivalry over women.

Another form of Heian literature is the collection of miscellaneous observations, gossip, and opinions (zuihitsu), epitomized by The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon. The sharp wit, keen eye, and aesthetic sensibility of the author, a court lady-in-waiting and rival to Murasaki Shikibu, are visible in the many lists scattered throughout the work. For example, “Unsuitable Things” include “ugly handwriting on red paper” and “a handsome man with an ugly wife”; “Elegant Things” include “a rosary in rock crystal” and “plum blossoms covered in snow”; and “Rare Things” include “a servant who does not speak badly about his master.”⁸ Some of the views Shōnagon expresses feel surprisingly modern, especially those concerning human relationships. Many of us today can relate to some of the items in the following list.

EMBARRASSING THINGS

While entertaining a visitor, one hears some servants chatting without any restraint in one of the back rooms. It is embarrassing to know that one’s visitor can overhear. But how to stop them?

A man whom one loves gets drunk and keeps repeating himself.

To have spoken about someone not knowing that he could overhear. This is embarrassing even if it be a servant or some other completely insignificant person.

To hear one’s servants making merry. This is equally annoying if one is on a journey and staying in cramped quarters or at home and hears the servants in a neighboring room.

Parents, convinced that their ugly child is adorable, pet him and repeat the things he has said, imitating his voice.

An ignoramus who in the presence of some learned person puts on a knowing air and converses about men of old.

A man recites his own poems (not especially good ones) and tells one about the praise they have received—most embarrassing.

Lying awake at night, one says something to one’s companion, who simply goes on sleeping.

In the presence of a skilled musician, someone plays a zither just for his own pleasure and without tuning it.

A son-in-law who has long since stopped visiting his wife runs into his father-in-law in a public place.⁹

Visual Arts

It was not only the literary arts that flourished and were indigenized during the Heian period; native styles of painting, architecture, and decorative arts also emerged. Yamato-e, or Japanese pictures, which depicted familiar landscapes and the activities and circumstances of the elite courtiers, formed a contrast to Chinese-style painting (kara-e), typically of Confucian sages, Chinese legends, and imagined landscapes, although both were popular. Yamato-e are further divided into feminine painting (onna-e) and masculine painting (otoko-e), depending on subject matter, techniques, and where the work was displayed. Onna-e are more decorative, using combinations of dyed papers embellished with gold leaf. Calligraphy in feminine works was invariably in kana. They paid close attention to the details of costume and interior and have been invaluable in providing information on the material culture of elites, depicting clothing, architecture, and furnishings. A pictorial technique, the “blown-away roof” (fukinuki yatai), provided a bird’s-eye view of the interiors of homes (see fig. 9). Mansions of courtiers were vast but contained minimal furniture. Furnishings in use, such as painted sliding doors and curtained room dividers, folding screens, and tatami mats bordered in brocade, were highly decorative. Useful items such as lacquered containers, trays, and armrests were richly embellished, featuring elegant paintings or inlays of gold, silver, or mother-of-pearl. While interiors, costumes, and hairstyles were rendered in detail in onna-e, the faces of individuals were rather generic, using a technique known as hikime kagibana (slit eyes, hook nose). Masculine paintings contained historical or religious content and will be further discussed in the next chapter.

Both masculine and feminine styles were painted on sliding doors and folding screens and included in long, illustrated hand scrolls (emakimono). These horizontal scrolls combined illustration, poetry, and text to tell a story, joining together pieces of paper or silk and rolling these around a cylinder, which allowed one to unroll the tale a bit at a time (around one to two feet) to follow the narrative. One story could result in many scrolls, as with a twelfth-century set prepared for The Tale of Genji with an estimated twenty scrolls totaling over 450 feet, containing over one hundred paintings and over three hundred sheets of calligraphy created by teams of artists. Sadly, only fragments of these Genji hand scrolls have survived. The scrolls themselves were luxurious items; their cylinders were made with precious materials like jade and ivory, and their covers were made of beautiful brocades. They were commissioned by, and circulated only among, court aristocrats. Another famous set of picture scrolls illustrates the eleventh-century tale “Yoru no Nezame” (Wakeful at night), a tragic story of the unhappy love affairs of its heroine Nezame, who becomes pregnant by her sister’s husband and is unwillingly pursued by the emperor.

Performing Arts

Music and dance were also central to court life, and courtiers spent a good deal of time practicing their songs, dances, and instruments. An imperial department of music had been established as early as 701, staffed by teachers and performers specializing in styles of music or dance imported from Koguryō, Silla, and Tang China or in native Japanese styles. The official song and dance repertory contained around 120 pieces. Gagaku (elegant music) was the name for all styles of court music. It employed a pentatonic scale and was played using a variety of wind, string, and percussion instruments. Among the best known of these are the hichiriki, an oboe; the shō, a mouth organ; the biwa, a four-stringed lute; and the tsuzumi, an hourglass-shaped drum. Dance performances by courtiers and officials were an important aspect of court ritual. The Tale of Genji describes how the hero is rewarded with a promotion in rank after his particularly moving performance of a dance called Seigaiha (Waves of the blue ocean).

Other categories of Heian performers included asobi and shirabyōshi, professional women who provided both entertainment and sexual services for Heian elites. The asobi were distinct from common prostitutes, literate and accomplished traveling performers who worked along roads and river routes from the capital, often staging their songs and dances on small boats. They were particularly known for singing modern songs, known as imayo, rather than the classical repertoire found at court. Patrons praised their talents, seductive skills, elegant attire, and beauty in poetry and prose. In the fictional tale “Shinsarugakuki,” Fujiwara no Akihira (989–1066) describes an asobi as follows: “Her vigor in soliciting lovers, her knowledge of all the sexual positions, the merits of her lute strings and buds of wheat and her mastery of the dragon’s flutter and tiger’s tread techniques—all are her endowments. Not only that, she has the voice of a bird in Amida’s paradise, as well as the face of an angel.”¹⁰

Shirabyōshi, female dancers who wore men’s attire and danced with swords, became popular in the late Heian period. They were known for their slow, rhythmic performances and, like the asobi and later eras’ courtesans and geisha, were both generally well educated and available for sexual services to their elite customers. Some became the concubines of famous individuals and were celebrated in literature, like Shizuka, the lover of Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159–89), a popular hero in The Tale of the Heike, or Giō and Hotoke, concubines associated with Taira no Kiyomori (1118–81) (see chapter 4).

Games and Pastimes

In addition to literary and performing arts, Heian elites engaged in a wide variety of competitive games and contests. Men gambled at the chess-like board game of Go (see fig. 9), backgammon (sugoroku), and dice. They played a game of football known as kemari, where the objective was to prevent a leather ball from touching the ground. Kemari was played in a circle, on a square field with a tree planted at each of the four corners: a willow, a cherry, a pine, and a maple. Imperial guards and provincial warriors of the elite class competed at archery and horsemanship.

“Comparison games” were a popular form of leisure, played with a certain category of items—like seashells, flowers, or birds—instead of with poems. Players were divided into two teams, and pairs from opposing sides would pit their entries, along with an appropriate poem, against each other. A panel of judges compared the items submitted in terms of beauty and/or rarity. For example, in the small-bird comparison, members of each team brought songbirds they had raised at home, which were compared in terms of plumage, color, and voice. Other popular pastimes involved incenses and perfumes. The names of Genji’s heir, Niou, and his friend, Kaoru, both refer to scent, demonstrating its critical importance in daily lives. Elites used incense to scent their clothing, hair, and living quarters, often creating their own secret, signature scents through combinations of different woods like sandalwood and pine, spices like clove and cinnamon, musks, resins, and other substances, ground together with iron mortars and bound with honey. An episode in The Tale of Genji describes an incense-blending contest and its accoutrements—beautiful containers and jars, censers, and boxes. Incense-based games included one in which a player burned one kind of incense and the next player burned a fragrance that would combine pleasantly with the first. In another game, participants tried to create the atmosphere of a particular poem from the Kokinshū by combining incenses. Like most Heian social occasions, all such games were accompanied by plenty of wine, music, and flirtation.

HEIAN RELIGION AND BELIEF

Religion and supernatural belief pervaded classical society. For the Heian aristocrat, hardly a day passed without performing some rite with religious or supernatural implications. Tendai and Shingon, two schools of Buddhism introduced in the era, provided structured paths for the elite to gain merit in pursuit of spiritual development. Details of their daily lives, however, were often guided by popular beliefs and practices, such as geomancy and divination, as much as or more than by institutional Buddhism. Everyday life was governed by beliefs about taboos, auspicious and inauspicious days and directions, and pollution and ritual purification.

Over the course of the Heian period, Buddhism began to move out of the monasteries and into the residences of the aristocracy, where it could be seen in performance of pious tasks intended to accumulate good karma, such as copying sutras, building statues, and commissioning temples and artworks. In 804, Emperor Kammu, who had moved the capital to Heian-kyō to escape the influence of the powerful Nara Buddhist schools, sent two young monks to China to find alternative schools of Buddhism that might be brought back to Japan to protect the new capital. The monks were part of the same diplomatic mission to Tang China but traveled on different boats. The monk Saichō (767–822) made a direct passage, but the boat of the second monk, Kūkai (774–835), was blown to the south. As a result, they studied and brought back very different forms of Buddhism.

Saichō remained in China for around a year, studying a variety of Buddhist teachings and approaches at a monastery on Mount Tiantai. The Tendai school of Buddhism he established in Japan advocated a mix of monastic discipline, meditation, and orthodox teachings based largely on The Lotus Sutra, considered the Buddha’s supreme teaching, reconciling all other schools in a comprehensive synthesis and containing everything necessary for salvation. Tendai stressed that intellectual and contemplative approaches to religion were like the two wings of a bird—one needed both teachings and meditation to achieve enlightenment. Overall, Tendai focused on exoteric teachings and practices—those that are open, publicly available, and attributed to the historical Buddha—rather than the esoteric, secret teachings and rituals associated with the Buddha Dainichi, which were emphasized by Shingon, the religion established by Saichō’s competitor Kūkai.

Returning to Japan in 805, Saichō established a monastery and temple complex called Enryakuji on Mount Hiei, to the northeast of the capital, considered the most unlucky direction. The temple would protect the capital from evil emanating from that direction. Saichō’s Buddhism was strongly oriented toward protection of the state and loyalty to the ruler. Tendai received a great deal of patronage from emperors and the court, allowing the Enryakuji complex to eventually grow to over three thousand buildings. In order to establish independence from the older sects of Nara, Saichō insisted that Tendai monks be ordained at Mount Hiei with a set of vows and monastic rules and precepts much simpler than those for monks ordained at Tōdaiji in Nara, and reflective of norms in China. He developed a plan to rigorously train monks for twelve years. The best students would remain on Mount Hiei as religious leaders; others would be sent to the provinces, either as teachers or as functionaries assisting provincial governors in projects such as land reclamation and bridge construction.

Like the great Nara temples, Enryakuji received tax-free estates from the court. By the twelfth century, Enryakuji had hundreds of shōen estates scattered throughout the provinces, supporting a large network of provincial branch temples. All of the powerful monasteries during this era built up private armies of monk-soldiers (sōhei) to protect their interests and landholdings. When Tendai temples felt their interests were in jeopardy, the warrior-monks of Enryakuji would swarm down the mountain to threaten the capital. Rivalry between monastic armies from the Nara monasteries and Enryakuji, and between Enryakuji and private warrior bands protecting the estates of court families, contributed to the violence and turmoil in the late Heian period. One eleventh-century emperor reportedly remarked that there were three things in the world that he could not control—the floods of the Kamo river, gambling, and the monks of Mount Hiei.

The other monk on the 804 diplomatic mission was the brilliant young Kūkai, one of the most revered figures in Japanese religious history. Legends credit Kūkai with developing the Japanese kana script and with the ability to locate hot springs and other bodies of water through divination. Japan’s most famous pilgrimage route links eighty-eight temples associated with Kūkai on the island of Shikoku. The 750-mile route is still undertaken today by around a hundred thousand pilgrims annually. It takes thirty to sixty days to complete on foot, but the majority of pilgrims today take buses.

Like Saichō, Kūkai sought a universal and unifying Buddhist tradition more appropriate to Japan’s needs than the abstract doctrines of the Nara schools. He studied at the Tang capital Chang’an, where the Chinese Buddhist master Huigo initiated him into esoteric teachings and rites that would eventually become known in Japan as Shingon (true word or mantra). Shingon emphasized the transcendent or all-embracing cosmic Buddha Dainichi, believing that other Buddhas and bodhisattvas were manifestations of the cosmic Buddha.

Shingon’s esoteric teachings could not be fully understood through textual study alone; practitioners embodied the words, actions, and thoughts of Dainichi through mantras, mudras, and mandalas. Mantras were secret incantations composed of sacred syllables that were chanted and repeated; the name Shingon comes from this practice. Mudras represented the actions of Dainichi through sequences of stylized hand gestures, each with a specific meaning, just as in Buddhist statuary. And mandalas were paintings that practitioners meditated upon, representing Dainichi’s central position in the universe and his transformation into myriad forms and beings. Kūkai brought two mandalas back from China: the Mandala of the Diamond Realm, symbolizing the unchanging principles of the Buddha; and the Mandala of the Womb Realm, depicting the active manifestations of the Buddha. In addition to being objects of meditation, the mandalas were used to select a patron Buddhist deity (like a guardian saint) for initiates, who were blindfolded and instructed to throw a flower on one of the mandalas. Its landing place helped determine the initiate’s tutelary deity.

The secrets of the Shingon teachings and the meanings of the mantras, mudras, and rituals had to be imparted orally by a master directly to a disciple. In this sense, Shingon was probably the first Japanese tradition to stress the importance of the direct transmission of secrets from master to disciple. In later years, this practice would spread from Japanese religion to arts and even business, where different schools and houses jealously guarded their own secrets.

Because Shingon rituals and practices were complex, colorful, and artistic, they naturally held a deep appeal for Heian courtiers, who valued aesthetic sophistication. Kūkai proved very popular among the elite, and he was appointed by the emperor to be head of two great temples, Tōdaiji in Nara and Tōji in Heian-kyō. Secure in his ties to the capital, Kūkai established his own monastery far to the south of Heian-kyō (present-day Kyoto) at Mount Kōya. It rivaled Enryakuji for religious, political, and economic influence.

During the mid-Heian period, a new devotional practice began to develop within Tendai, offering hope for salvation that didn’t require intense study and meditation. The new movement centered on the Buddha Amida and offered salvation in his Pure Land of the Western Paradise. Rebirth in the Pure Land was available if one simply placed one’s faith in Amida, expressed in a short prayer called the nembutsu that said simply, “Praise to the Buddha Amida” (Namu Amida Butsu). Thus, the practice offered ordinary men and women, and not just monks and nuns, access to the Pure Land that was not too difficult to obtain. These practices eventually evolved into Pure Land Buddhism and its offshoot True Pure Land Buddhism, which is the largest sect of Buddhism in Japan today (see chapter 4).

FIGURE 10. Mandala of the Womb Realm, ninth century, Tōji, Kyoto, Japan. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Amida became a popular subject of art commissioned by courtiers. Paintings of Amida descending to earth on a purple cloud, accompanied by bodhisattvas and other divine beings, known as raigō, were part of Heian death rituals. Raigō were brought to the houses of persons nearing death so that Amida might welcome them to the Pure Land.

FIGURE 11. Welcoming Descent of Amida and Bodhisattvas, fourteenth century. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

One of the reasons for the emerging popularity of Amida devotion was the belief that, in the eleventh century, Japan had entered the Latter Age of the Buddhist Law, known in Japanese as mappō, which early Buddhist texts predicted would begin two thousand years after the passing of the historical Buddha and would last for ten thousand years. Texts claimed it would be an age of decadence and the decline of Buddhism, a pessimistic and gloomy era. Saichō claimed that “in the Latter days of the Law, there will be none to keep the Buddha’s commandments. If there should be such, they will be as rare as a tiger in a market place.” During mappō, one could not rely on one’s own efforts alone for salvation or good rebirth and had to have faith in the power of compassionate Buddhas, like Amida, who could guarantee salvation.

When it came to the details of their daily life, Heian aristocrats usually relied more on popular belief and practices than on the doctrines of institutional religion. Nevertheless, many such beliefs were often related to larger philosophical traditions, like Taoism and Buddhism. In turn, popular practices influenced the rites performed by institutionalized Buddhist sects, as seen in The Tale of Genji, which records how Buddhist priests often performed exorcisms and divinations.

The court’s Bureau of Divination was responsible for astrology, discerning good and evil omens, and other activities to help shape state policies in accord with the universe. Their findings also shaped everyday lives; court members limited their movements and activities according to calculations of lucky and unlucky days and directions. Some taboos were permanent and some temporary. The northeast was permanently the unlucky direction, but at different times other directions were considered unlucky (e.g., when one was sixteen years old, the northwest was inauspicious). One must not repair gates during the summer or water wells during the autumn, because kami were believed to reside there during those seasons. Taboos were also based on the Chinese cycle of sixty years, and calculations were made to determine when it was essential to stay indoors, or when to cut one’s hair or fingernails.

Ritual pollution, especially from illness or death, applied to all members of the household of the afflicted, who were “infected” by association. Their houses were off-limits to visitors, and special tags were hung on the shutters to keep others away. If a nobleman from a polluted household was required to venture outside because of official duties, he would attach a tag to his headdress to keep people at arm’s length.

FIGURE 12. Statue of a tengu dressed as a yamabushi mountain wizard. Photo by WolfgangMichel, via Wikimedia Commons.

The world of Heian was also heavily populated with goblins, demons, spirits, and other supernatural beings. Tengu were bird-like beings with beaks and wings that lived in the mountains and forests and had magical powers. In later centuries, depictions of tengu changed and they were represented as red-faced, long-nosed goblins. Foxes were closely associated with the supernatural. They could bewitch and possess individuals and could assume human forms, luring gullible young men into their power by appearing as a beautiful girl. Tanuki (Japanese raccoon dogs, sometimes called badgers) were also shapeshifters capable of possessing humans, but they were considered more mischievous than the devious foxes.

While tengu and foxes were visible, there were even more invisible spirits and demons who could cause all kinds of misfortune. Vengeful spirits of the dead who felt they had been wronged or treated badly in life could cause illness, death, or other disasters, as illustrated in the case of Sugawara no Michizane. Even the spirits of the living could travel and wreak havoc. In The Tale of Genji, the spirit of Rokujō, tormented by jealousy, travels outside of her living body to attack and kill a rival for Genji’s affections. People kept troublesome spirits from their houses by means of charms, spells, and incantations. Special precautions were taken around the emperor’s palace. At regular intervals, the imperial guards twanged their bowstrings to scare off evil spirits lurking in the air.

One of the main treatments for illness was to drive out evil spirits causing the malady through exorcism, conducted by shamans or Buddhist priests. People spoke of “catching an evil spirit” in the same way we talk about catching a cold today. In one episode from Genji, Kumoi blames her husband for their child’s illness. After returning home from a late-night romantic excursion, he had opened the windows and let in all the evil spirits who made the child ill. The husband accepts this explanation and apologizes.

To treat illness through exorcism, the priest or shaman recited incantations to drive the spirit into a medium, usually female. If this was successful, the spirit would then identify itself and the exorcist would drive it out of the medium. Heian literature is full of dramatic accounts of such practices, like this one noted by Sei Shōnagon in The Pillow Book:

When the girl had sat down next to the priest in front of a small three-foot curtain of state, he turned round and handed her a thin, highly polished wand. Then with his eyes tightly shut he began to read the mystic incantations, his voice coming out in staccato bursts as he uttered the sacred syllables. It was an impressive sight, and many of the ladies of the house came out from behind their screens and curtains and sat watching in a group. After a short time the medium began to tremble and fell into a trance. . . .

She lay there groaning and wailing in the most terrible way. . . .

Meanwhile it was announced that the patient was a little better. Some young attendants were sent to the kitchen to fetch hot water and other requisites. They wore pretty unlined robes and formal skirts whose light mauve color was as fresh as on the day they were dyed—it made a most charming effect.¹¹

Even in such dramatic circumstances, Heian elites managed to maintain their fashion sense.

In summary, Heian elites engaged in marriage politics and intrigue in order to gain power and wielded aesthetics to enhance their reputations. The proceeds of private estates supported their lavish lifestyles, allowing men and women of the court to cultivate literary, musical, and artistic talents that they displayed through competitive games, and to obsess over their frequent love affairs. They developed detailed aesthetic standards for everyday material culture, such as clothing, interior décor, and correspondence.

In contrast with the Nara period, when the imperial family had acted as the primary patrons of Buddhist monasteries, Buddhist art and practice associated with newly imported sects entered the private homes of courtier families. Their daily decisions were guided by popular belief in the supernatural, including geomancy, astrology, spirits, and omens.

Heian courtiers prized daughters for their potential to improve family standing through marriage to powerful men. Elite women, often cloistered at home awaiting husbands and lovers, produced much of the best literature of the era. Although they were considered inferior to men, women enjoyed economic rights and sexual liberties that would erode over the centuries as the patriarchal warrior class, which practiced primogeniture, ascended in power.