Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/127

 This remarkable chapter of Japanese history may be broadly described as a political revolution resulting from the introduction of Chinese civilisation through the medium of Buddhist priests, just as a similar revolution in recent times resulted from the introduction of Western civilisation through the medium of gunboats. The splendour and prestige of the Tang dynasty, which in the beginning of the seventh century had wrested the sceptre of China from the hands of the scarcely less magnificent Sui sovereigns, were reflected in Japan. Tenchi and Mommu modelled their administration on the lines indicated in the "Golden Mirror" of Tatsong, and the grand capital established at Nara in the beginning of the eighth century was an imitation of the Tang metropolis at Hsian.

Another feature common to the records of seventh-century and nineteenth-century progress was extraordinary speed of achievement. Just as forty years of contact with Occidental civilisation sufficed to metamorphose Japan in modern time, so a cycle of Chinese influence revolutionised her in ancient days.

In the era immediately prior to the latter change, nothing was more marked than the wide interval separating the patrician and the plebeian sections of the nation. The lower orders, as has been already stated, were reduced to a state of virtual slavery, and the upper obeyed only the law of their own interests and passions. A patri