#devanagara

What We Have in Canon

On Buddhism's Relationship With the Devangaran Court

I assume you're drawing from this question in the 2021 interview with JynX (Q117), which, I should clarify actually states the reverse of what you've mentioned.

Q: How strong exactly is the dominance of Buddhism in Devanagara? Does it have a privileged position established in the law? Are other religions accepted by the capital's residents? A: Buddhism doesn't really hold anyone in a special position outside of the sovereign family (imperial family), although the Department of Divinities and such do exist. Other religions are accepted as well, rather similar to modern Japan.

It says that "Buddhism treats the Imperial family specially", rather than the other way around, that "the Imperial family treats Buddhism specially".

Still, it's absolutely not a stretch to say that it's likely for Buddhism to be intertwined with a lot of the court's proceeding either, especially considering the numerous references to Buddhism in Devanagara as a whole.

Buddhism and Devangara as a Whole

So, let's first take a quick look at what we already have regarding connections between the two, which are mainly twofold:

One, the Imperial family seems rather fond of using Sanskrit, which is largely tied to Buddhism in Japan, we have:

Devanagara (Unclear, possibly देवनगर): "Holy Capital", also found on the Fujiwara dynasty's crown

Rudhira (रुधिर): "Blood"

Dhanya Nakta (धन्यनक्त): "Fortunate/Blissful Night""

To be clear, we aren't sure if the Devanagarans actually named the Rudhira, though considering they named both their capital and state-run casino in Sanskrit, its safe to say that they're quite fond of the language.

Two, Buddhism and the architecture of Devangara are closely related.

For one, buildings of religious and historical significance are preserved despite the rapid modernisation, this no doubt includes the Buddhist buildings of Devanagara, most notable the Pagoda of the Heavenly Mirror.

And secondly, the capital's popular architectural style seems to be styled after the pagoda of Buddhist origins, said to imitate the building in which the Buddha's remains, called śarīra.

Below: The common Devanagaran skyscraper and the Hōryū Temple's five-story pagoda, the oldest one of its kind in the world.

What the Audience is Meant to Take Away

To close off the first section, let's take a look at what I think (and I do stress "think", I'm not Japanese after all) JynX intended for the audience to take away from all this.

Firstly, I think you can be at ease that there's not much the average audience is really intended to "get", outside of making the observation that Devangara is heavily inspired by Buddhism.

Buddhist practices are of course very well known and observed in Japan, though I don't think you could quite extend this to mean that they'd know the religion in a very in-depth sense.

In other words, everyone, Japanese or overseas, is gonna have to do (perhaps even copious) amounts of research to really get JynX's elaborate references, so no worries there, we're all in the same, very confusing boat.

Secondly though, as far as I can tell, Buddhism seems to inform the aesthetic undertones of the city and its culture, but it does not seem to inform the city's system of government.

Why is Buddhism Not a Clue?

So this is turning out to be rather sour, isn't it? I do apologise for that. Still, there is more to go, and we can start with how I came to this conclusion:

What we now know as "Japanese Buddhism" and "Shinto" used to be very closely intertwined, almost treated as one thing.

Buddhism was introduced during the late Kofun period (552 to 538), and by the Asuka period (592/593 to 710) it had already been widely accepted by both the people and the imperial court.

While the specific details may vary, the two belief systems came to linked together as one, this is referred to by scholars as shinbutsu-shuugo (神仏習合), the "syncretism of kami and buddhas".

This lasted from the Asuka period, all the way up to the Meiji period, during the Meiji restoration.

Specifically, the Meiji government issued the Kami and Buddhas Separation Order (神仏判然令) in 1868, leading to the shinbutsu-bunri (神仏分離), the "separation of kami and buddhas", ending almost 1300 years of the two religions being treated as one.

The point of this story, is to realise that we're trying to retroactively and anachronistically apply a modern category of "Japanese Buddhism" onto a court system clearly modelled after that of Asuka or Heian era Japan.

As Buddhism and Shinto freely mixed back then, practices are rarely able to be traced back to either one specifically, or rather, it is because of this very mix that Japan's many unique customs and observances emerged.

In other words, JynX is able to be really creative and selective with what he wants Devanagara to be like. He could apply what has nowadays been extracted out of the old syncretistic system as Japanese Buddhism and simply apply that onto Devanagara.

Alternatively, he could get creative and mix in other elements as well. We actually already have one such example of this, the writing of Sanskrit in Devanagari.

Japan never adopted the writing of Sanskrit in its native script(s) (various Brahmi scrips back then), but rather, they either transliterated Sanskrit terms into kanji characters or simply translated the terms based on meaning (more often than not by borrowing their Chinese counterparts).

Yet we see, on the Fujiwaran crown for example, that Devangara in fact uses modern day Devanagari to write Sanskrit. How widespread this is in Devanagara is of course unknown, but its certainly something that you wouldn't find with Japan.

Why Buddhism is a Clue

I know I just did a whole thing explaining why Buddhism doesn't really work as a clue for us to figure out more about Devangara, let alone its court, but that's not entirely true either.

The information we have in canon about Buddhism and Devangara indeed doesn't tell us much, but we can use Buddhism's major presence in Devanagara as a small piece of a much bigger puzzle, and through it figure out what Devangara's imperial court could be mirrored after.

Ending

However, I do think that this answers the original questions.

"What is the average Japanese audience supposed to glean about the imperial family from the Buddhism's heavy presence in Devanagara?"

Honestly, nothing special. It doesn't tell us much about the imperial family at all, perhaps other than that they likely hold Buddhist beliefs as well.

Rather, it could tell us, if only a small bit, about the general culture surrounding Buddhism in Devangara. It's the main religion of the city, informing much of the city's culture and aesthetics, and it's highly respected by even the ruling class.

I think I'll also make a companion post to this one, explaining what one might be able to glean about Devangara's government using its ties to Buddhism as a clue.

I do apologise for ending it on a sour note, that this line of thinking just goes nowhere, but that is the conclusion I came to, and I'd like to be honest about it.

On a brighter note though, I must thank you for the ask regardless! It is precisely during my research for this post that I realised that the capital's ties to Buddhism can be used to further learn about its basis as a whole!

I hope the follow up will kinda make up for this one being a downer.

I do admit that even then it won't bring us much about the day-to-day culture of the imperial family though, since so much of court culture was dependant on religion and influence from China, Devangara is rather hard to apply it all to.

Origins of the Fujiwara

The Fujiwara has their origins in the Asuka period (592/593 to 710), with the court official and aristocrat Nakatomi no Kamatari (中臣 鎌足), who played a key role in the Taika Reforms.

Having been knowledge for his efforts, he was granted the new name Fujiwara by the emperor, starting the Fujiwara lineage.

The next major development came in the following Nara period (710 to 794), when the Fujiwara split into four houses:

The Northern House of Fujiwara (藤原北家)

The Southern House of Fujiwara (藤原南家)

The Ceremonials House of Fujiwara (藤原式家)

The Capital House of Fujiwara (藤原京家)

Sesshō and Kampaku

Now we can briefly check out the history of the Japanese imperial court, frankly it's not too important to this discussion, but I'd like to go over two court positions here: Sesshō and Kampaku.

Sesshō

Sesshō (摂政) was a temporary position given to a regent who acted in the stead of an emperor before he came of age or on behalf of the reigning Empress.

Prior to the Heian period, the position of sesshō was never granted to someone outside of the royal lineage.

For example, the first and most famous royal sesshō would be Prince Shōtoku (聖徳太子), who served under Empress Suiko (推古天皇). (Though unlike most cases it's widely believed that Suiko was not powerless, and that she held considerable political power herself.)

Kampaku

The Kampaku (関白) was, in theory, the chief advisor to the Emperor, and is the highest nobility rank. Though as we'll soon see, it's much more than that.

The Fujiwara's Rise to Power

Now we fast forward to the Heian period, where we look at a member of the Northern House of Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Yoshifusa (藤原良房).

Yoshifusa had a grandson who became the 56th Emperor Seiwa, using this tie and his own powerful position in court, he became the first Sesshō who was not a royal himself.

After the Yoshifusa's death, his adoptive son Fujiwara no Mototsune (藤原基経) invented the position of Kampaku, which effectively gave him power to continue acting as regent even after the emperor came of age. Using this position, he acted as regent for Emperor Seiwa, as well as the 3 emperors who would succeed him.

The Fujiwara would continue to maintain strong familial ties with the royal family through marrying their daughters into it, and thus the position of kampaku became an effectively hereditary title, passed down the head of the northern house.

Of course, the Fujiwara's reign by proxy would not last forever and their power would indeed wane, though I don't feel that's too relevant here, so I'll end the history lesson at that.

Fujiwara in Devanagara

It's difficult to speculate, especially since the information comes to us through Clause, but Chouki seems to claim that the Mugneri Taira clan are a branch of the ones from reality that escaped to Mugenri after the Jishō-Juei War (治承・寿永の乱).

Thus we can speculate that perhaps the Mugenri Fujiwara is a branch of the Fujiwara themselves.

Perhaps directly the descendants of the Northern House that decided to prolong their glory by similarly escaping to Mugenri and started their own dynasty, or one of the other branches who tried to use the northern branch as their claim to power in Mugneri.

Either way, it would seem that the Fujiwara cut out the middle-man position once they got into Mugenri, and ruled directly as monarchs themselves.

Other than that, there's not much more I can say that connects our history and that of Devanagara. Perhaps there are minor parallels to be drawn:

Like how the Devanagaran government seems to be modeled after that of the Ritsuryō system (律令制), used during the Heian period

Or how the Great Mirror is named after a historical tale of the same name which covers the golden days of Fujiwara rule.

Ultimately though, there's no major tie that really connect the two outside of the fact that they were both (once) dominated by a Fujiwara lineage, so this is all I have.

Conclusion

Admittedly Japanese history isn't really my forte, compared to Japanese mythology, and of course I'm a professional in neither, so it's more than possible that I've missed something.

Still, I think that should cover the most important link between the two. Anything else would have to wait until we potentially learn more about Devanagara. With any luck, BotC would shed more light on this topic soon~.