Seventeen Article Constitution

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Seventeen Article Constitution, in Japanese history, code of moral precepts for the ruling class, issued in 604 ce by the regent Shōtoku Taishi, which set the fundamental spirit and orientation for the subsequent Chinese-based centralized reforms. Written at a time of disunity, when Japan was divided into hereditary, semiautonomous uji units, the articles laid greatest stress on the Chinese Confucian concepts of a unified state ruled by one sovereign; the employment of officials on the basis of merit, not heredity; the responsibilities of the officials to the ruled, as well as the obedience of the subjects to their rulers; and an ideally harmonious bureaucracy founded on the Confucian virtues of justice, decorum, and diligence. Adherence to the Buddhist “treasures”—the Buddha, the “law,” and the monasteries—was also exhorted. Specific prohibitions denied local officials the power to collect taxes and exact corvée services. Most of its provisions were not put into effect until much later, and some historians claim that the constitution in its extant form is a later forgery.