IN THE NARA EPOCH
beans) and vinegar served for seasoning purposes. In this context reference may be made to a detail which constitutes another point of likeness between the adoption of foreign civilisation in the seventh and eighth centuries and its adoption in modern times. Milk was suggested to the Emperor Kōtoku (645–654) by a Korean envoy as a useful article of medicinal diet, and it found so much favour that at the beginning of the eighth century a "milk section" was established in the medical bureau, and an imperial edict required that butter should be sent to the Court periodically from all parts of the empire. The fancy did not live more than a hundred years, nor was it revived until the eighteenth century. The lower orders enjoyed none of these luxuries. A poem of the period shows that instead of fish, salt was their principal relish; instead of rice, barley or millet their staple article of diet; and instead of clear sake they drank the lees of the brewer's vat diluted with water.
In a peculiarly constructed[1] wooden storehouse attached to the celebrated temple Totai-ji there is preserved a collection of objects from the palaces of the Emperors and Empresses that reigned during the Nara epoch. It would plainly be a false conclusion to regard these things as specimens of the furniture and utensils ordinarily used at the Court of Japan in the eighth century. Had they not been rare and choice in their time,
- ↑ See Appendix, note 29.
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