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On January 1, 1946, the Shōwa Emperor (Hirohito) issued the and the , commonly known collectively as the .
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:
- The ties between Us and Our people have always stood upon mutual trust and affection and 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.
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 — have been the subject of much debate. In particular, instead of the common word arahitogami for "living god", the more unusual phrase was used instead.
While usually glossed as "divinity" in English, some commentators 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 that the Emperor later asked and received permission to worship an ancestor, and then worshipped Amaterasu — implicitly reaffirming the mythical line of descent.
Critics of the Western interpretation, including the Emperor himself, 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 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)
"Ningen-sengen"