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Kibi no Makibi was born around 695 into the Shimotsumichi family, rooted in the Kibi region of present-day Okayama. His father Kunikatsu held a lower office in the palace guards. Makibi was selected in 716 to study in Tang China and departed in 717. The appointment placed him within Japan’s official effort to acquire continental knowledge. He studied a wide range of subjects, including Chinese classics, astronomy, music and military learning. His later name Kibi was not granted until 746. The student’s departure began a long career in which learning abroad would repeatedly become useful to the court. [1][2][3][8]
Makibi reached the Japanese court in 735 after long study in Tang China. His presentation included a 130-volume collection of Tang ritual texts, calendrical writings, music books, measuring equipment and weapons. The objects included pipes used to establish musical pitch, as well as several kinds of bows and arrows. They show that his knowledge ranged across texts, measurement, sound and military techniques. Emperor Shōmu’s court gave him appointments, including service in its college. The imported materials needed people who could explain and use them. Makibi’s next stage therefore joined the role of a returning scholar with the responsibilities of an official. [1][2][8]
After the epidemic of 737 killed leading aristocrats, Tachibana no Moroe became a central figure in government and relied on Makibi and the monk Genbō. Makibi also taught the Book of Han and the Record of Rites to Princess Abe, later Empress Kōken. In 740 Fujiwara no Hirotsugu demanded the removal of both Makibi and Genbō and rebelled in Kyushu. The rebellion failed, and Makibi remained in service. In 746 he received the name Kibi no Ason, which included a hereditary status title and applied to his branch of the Shimotsumichi family. Learning had gained him court access, but that access also made him a target within political conflict. [1][3]
In 750 Makibi was sent first to govern Chikuzen and then Hizen, provinces in Kyushu, as Fujiwara no Nakamaro gained influence at court. Modern biographies describe the postings as demotions from his earlier place in the capital. He was appointed deputy envoy to Tang China in 751 and traveled there again in 752. This time he went as an experienced mission official rather than a student beginning a long stay. He returned in 754 and served in the regional administration at Dazaifu. Work away from the capital continued to call on his learning, especially in matters of defense. Loss of central access changed where he served without ending his public career. [1][2][4][8]
In 756 Makibi began supervising the construction of Ito Castle on the western slopes of Mount Takasu in northern Kyushu. The work continued under Saeki no Imaemishi and was completed in 768, not in the year it began. Surviving earthworks and watchtower sites preserve parts of its defensive layout, while much about its interior remains unknown. Makibi also taught military knowledge. In 760 six guard personnel were sent from the capital to Dazaifu to study formations, terrain and the arrangement of camps with him. The instruction connected continental military texts with people expected to put their principles into practice. His years outside Nara thus included substantial responsibilities rather than an absence from government. [4][8]
Makibi returned to the capital in 764 as head of the office supervising Tōdai-ji construction. Later that year Fujiwara no Nakamaro rebelled against the authority of the retired Empress Kōken. Makibi served her side, directing troops to block the routes along which Nakamaro was expected to escape. The rebellion was defeated and Nakamaro killed. Makibi received higher rank, military honors and a senior guard command. Emperor Junnin, associated with Nakamaro’s political order, was deposed, and Kōken returned to the throne as Empress Shōtoku. A particular contribution to the victory restored Makibi to a central place in government. [1][8]
In 766 Empress Shōtoku appointed Makibi Minister of the Right, one of the court’s highest offices. The promotion was exceptional for his regional family background. In 769 he and Yamato no Nagaoka prepared a revision of twenty-four provisions in the existing Yōrō legal codes. The work corrected wording and inconsistencies rather than creating an entirely new comprehensive code. Its full text is lost, so the precise effects of individual provisions cannot be reconstructed securely. The revised statutes were put into effect only in 791, sixteen years after Makibi’s death. His contribution belongs to preparation and revision; later governments determined when and how the result was used. [1][3][5]
Empress Shōtoku died in 770, ending the reign in which Makibi had become Minister of the Right. Biographical accounts say that his preferred candidate in the succession was not accepted. He withdrew from office under Emperor Kōnin, with formal retirement dated to 771 in some chronologies, and died in 775. Later stories turned his journeys into extraordinary adventures, including escapes from tests and captivity through supernatural help. He was also credited with creating katakana, the Japanese phonetic script, in later tradition. That attribution is not accepted as proof of a single inventor. The legends belong to his reputation; his recorded public work supplies a different basis for understanding the scholar-official’s life. [1][2][7][6][5][8]
Classic
Makibi’s family belonged to the Shimotsumichi lineage of the Kibi region in western Japan.
Was Makibi born in 693 or 695?
His birth is usually placed in 695, although some references give 693. The earlier date would make him two years older at the events of his career. [1][2]
His father, Shimotsumichi no Kunikatsu, was a lower officer in the guards serving the court. The family therefore possessed an existing connection with government, while standing outside its dominant aristocratic houses. Kokugakuin University’s clan history distinguishes the lineage’s regional roots from the highest offices later reached by Makibi. The regional identification does not by itself establish the exact place of his birth. His recorded career begins more clearly with selection for overseas study. [1][3][2][10]
In 716 Makibi was appointed as a student to be sent to Tang China. He left in 717, so appointment and departure belong to separate years. Official missions carried students as well as envoys whose principal work was diplomatic. The students could remain abroad to study while the mission that transported them returned. Makibi’s stay continued into the 730s. Its value to the Japanese court lay in knowledge and materials acquired where continental systems of ritual, writing and calculation were practiced. The range of his later presentation points to several subjects rather than a single narrow specialization. Chinese classical learning, calendrical calculation, music and military knowledge all entered his subsequent career. The overseas appointment gave a man from a less prominent family access to resources that could later support advancement. [1][2][8][3]
Arrival in Japan and arrival at court
Makibi’s return is commonly dated to 735, the year in which he presented his acquisitions at court.
Yamakawa’s account separates arrival in Japan in 734 from his appearance in the capital the following year. The distinction identifies what the best-known date actually marks. [1][2]
The Nara court under Emperor Shōmu received a substantial collection of books and objects. Its centerpiece included 130 volumes of Tang ritual material. Such writing concerned practices through which government and social order were formally expressed. The size of the collection mattered, but so did the availability of a person who had studied the world from which it came. Makibi could bring interpretation into the same setting as the imported texts. [1][2]
The presentation also included writings on the Dayan calendar and a metal measuring ruler associated with shadows. Calendrical knowledge joined calculation with the observation and measurement of celestial time. Music materials included a ten-volume work, copper pitch pipes and an iron instrument used to produce tones. Pitch instruments made standards of sound something that could be measured and reproduced, alongside explanation in books. Several types of horn-ended bows and different arrows represented military and technical knowledge. The variety makes it difficult to reduce Makibi’s study to literary cultivation alone. Texts and objects could complement each other where a practice required calculation, construction or performance. They also required trained users. Their presence in a court collection was the beginning of possible application, not a complete record of everything subsequently done with them. [1][8]
Makibi entered service as an assistant in the court college. The appointment gave scholarly work an institutional place within government. He subsequently held other court posts and became a tutor to the crown princess. These positions connected his imported learning with officials and members of the imperial household. The Dayan calendar associated with his acquisitions was adopted later, in 763. Its later use illustrates the possible distance between bringing a work home and incorporating it into official practice. The biography links Makibi with that transmission; it does not make every later calculation his individual work. His career would likewise carry military knowledge from study into instruction and action. The practical value of a returning scholar depended on opportunities to teach and serve. [1][8]
The epidemic of 737 killed many court aristocrats, including the four leading Fujiwara brothers. The surviving Tachibana no Moroe became Minister of the Right in 738 and assumed a central role in government. Makibi and Genbō, the monk who had returned from Tang China with a large body of Buddhist texts, worked within his circle. Their knowledge served different fields, but both possessed resources acquired abroad that the court valued. Makibi’s appointments included responsibilities in education and the palace guards. A scholar’s career could thus move among offices whose work was not confined to reading books. The deaths of leading officials created a new political setting for his service. His place in government developed within this particular circle of surviving officials and their associates. [1]
Makibi became a tutor to Princess Abe, the daughter of Emperor Shōmu who had been designated crown princess. She would later reign as Kōken and then as Shōtoku. His teaching included the Book of Han, an account of a major Chinese dynasty, and the Record of Rites. The subjects connected historical knowledge with ideas about ordered conduct and government. In 743 he held senior responsibility in the crown prince’s establishment together with his scholarly position. The pupil’s household gave classical teaching a location close to future sovereign authority. Yokota Ken’ichi interprets the trust formed through this service as important to Makibi’s later promotion under Shōtoku. Her later appointment of Makibi as minister followed an association that had begun with his teaching. Years of service could produce a relationship whose political value emerged much later. [1]
Hirotsugu’s rebellion in 740 made Makibi’s position a declared political issue. Hirotsugu demanded that Makibi and Genbō be removed before taking up arms in Kyushu. The demand identifies them as targets; it does not establish that every charge or grievance against them was justified. The rebellion was suppressed, and Makibi continued to hold court responsibilities. In 746 the sovereign granted him the name Kibi no Ason, joining a regional designation with a recognized hereditary status title. Kokugakuin’s clan account explains that other branches continued to use the Shimotsumichi name. The grant distinguished Makibi’s line rather than renaming an entire regional population. Recognition at court did not protect him indefinitely. The accession of his former pupil as Kōken in 749 coincided with the rise of Fujiwara no Nakamaro and a less favorable stage in his career. [1][3]
Makibi’s service changed sharply in 750. He was appointed governor of Chikuzen and subsequently Hizen, both in Kyushu. The transfer took him away from the Nara court where teaching and senior appointments had established his position. Yokota and other reference accounts describe the change as a demotion under the growing influence of Fujiwara no Nakamaro. Nakamaro came from one of the leading Fujiwara branches and acquired exceptional authority during Kōken’s reign. Makibi’s learning had not insulated him from this change in the distribution of court power. Service at a distance could restrict access to the sovereign even while leaving official responsibilities in place. [1][2][10]
Appointment or departure?
In 751 Makibi was appointed a deputy envoy for another mission to Tang China.
The voyage followed in 752. Some compressed accounts use the appointment year as the year of travel; the fuller chronology keeps them separate. [1][2]
The role differed from his first departure as a student in 717. He now traveled as an experienced official whose earlier study and court service had already made him familiar with continental learning. The mission was diplomatic as well as a route for transmitting people and material. Makibi returned to Japan in 754. The second return did not immediately restore his former position at the center of government. [1][2]
After returning, Makibi served at Dazaifu, the major regional administration in northern Kyushu. Its responsibilities included defense and relations with the wider East Asian world. The office lay within a region through which overseas missions passed and where the court maintained protective works.
The sequence of Dazaifu appointments
Makibi eventually held the post of senior assistant, or dazai daini.
Reference chronologies differ over the exact sequence of his assistant appointments, but agree on substantial service there. [1][2]
His knowledge could be applied through military instruction and the construction of a fortress. That work makes the regional years more than an empty interval before a later return to Nara. Exclusion from one political setting could coexist with responsibility in another. Ito Castle gives the military work a specific site and construction history. [1][2][4][8]
Kibi no Makibi was serving in the Dazaifu regional administration in northern Kyushu when he was assigned to begin work on Ito Castle in 756. The fortress occupied the western slopes of Mount Takasu, near the coastal approaches of northern Kyushu. Its position joined steep ground with lower terrain rather than enclosing only a mountain summit. The project belonged to a period of tension in East Asia, when the court considered its defenses and plans concerning Silla on the Korean peninsula. Makibi’s continental military knowledge gave the assignment a connection with his earlier learning. Itoshima City’s historical account interprets the layout as reflecting Chinese-style mountain fortification. The association draws on the defensive remains and the recorded role of a supervisor trained in China. The construction itself extended over years. [4][1][8]
Makibi was the first supervisor, but Saeki no Imaemishi later took over. The recorded completion date is 768, twelve years after work began. Makibi had already returned to the capital before that ending. The sequence makes construction a continuing official operation rather than a single man’s completed achievement in 756. Eight watchtower sites and an earthwork extending about two kilometers along the mountain’s foot have been identified. They show some of the scale and organization of the defenses. The buildings and arrangements inside the enclosure are less clearly understood. The surviving remains therefore support a history of defensive construction while leaving many details of its use uncertain. A successor could complete work begun under Makibi, just as institutions could use knowledge acquired before his appointment. [4][1][8]
Military instruction provides another specific record of his regional service. In 760 six men from the capital’s guards were sent to Dazaifu to study with him. Their subjects included formations associated with Zhuge Liang, the Nine Grounds of Sunzi’s military teaching, and the placement and orientation of camps. The named curriculum connects a scholar’s knowledge with the movements and positions of military personnel. Kasai Kazuhiro discusses this instruction as evidence that the court valued Makibi’s command of continental military learning. The pupils carried that learning beyond the individual teacher. Fortress supervision and instruction required different forms of work, but both gave him an operational role in defense. His service in Kyushu retained these responsibilities despite his distance from the sovereign. The court recalled him in 764, shortly before a crisis would call on his military judgment at its center. [8][4][1]
The recall of 764 ended Makibi’s long period of service centered on Kyushu, interrupted by his second journey to China. He was appointed head of the office responsible for Tōdai-ji construction. The appointment placed him in charge of a major construction administration at the capital. Later in the year the struggle between Fujiwara no Nakamaro and the retired Empress Kōken became armed conflict. Kōken had yielded the throne to Junnin but retained substantial authority. Nakamaro’s position was closely connected with the reigning Junnin, while Kōken’s circle included the monk Dōkyō. Makibi’s former pupil was now the retired sovereign seeking to defeat a leading official who had helped exclude him from the capital. The conflict brought his military judgment into the struggle between these court groups. [1][2]
Makibi’s recorded contribution concerned the movement of troops and the enemy’s likely routes. He anticipated that Nakamaro would try to escape and dispatched forces to intercept him. The action sought to prevent retreat from becoming a successful move to another base of resistance. It therefore depended on directing personnel toward places where movement could be restricted. Kasai’s analysis connects the episode with Makibi’s earlier military learning. The connection has a practical shape: knowledge served the positioning of forces rather than remaining an ornament to a scholar’s reputation. Nakamaro was defeated and killed. Many actors took part in the suppression; Makibi’s contribution was important without making him the sole fighter or author of victory. The result changed the political conditions under which he could serve. [1][8]
For his service Makibi received Junior Third Rank, military honors and command of a central guard organization. The awards recognized a particular act in the conflict and gave him responsibilities in its aftermath. Junnin was deposed, and Kōken resumed the throne under the name Shōtoku. Her restoration joined formal sovereign office with the authority she had exercised while retired. Makibi then advanced through senior council positions. In 766 he became Minister of the Right. Yokota relates this high appointment to the sovereign’s earlier trust as well as his demonstrated service. The return to prominence depended on both expertise and a changed political order. Victory opened another stage of government work, including a project to revise existing law. [1][8][5]
Makibi became Minister of the Right in 766 under Empress Shōtoku. The office placed him among the highest officials participating in central government. His background in the Shimotsumichi lineage made the promotion unusual. The court’s great houses ordinarily supplied its most prominent officeholders, while his father had held a lower guard appointment. Makibi’s career had advanced through study, teaching, different offices and military service. Kokugakuin’s clan history notes that his son Izumi also entered the deliberative council, but that the family did not continue producing council members afterward. Makibi’s rise was followed by a shorter period of high office for his son, rather than generations of council appointments. High office could give expertise an influential setting without guaranteeing the same place to every descendant. [1][3][8]
In 769 Makibi joined Yamato no Nagaoka in preparing the revised statutes known as the Santei Ritsuryō. The project concerned twenty-four provisions of the Yōrō codes, the legal framework already used by the court. Reference accounts describe corrections to wording and inconsistencies among provisions. The work was therefore more limited than the compilation of a new complete body of law. Hayakawa Shōhachi interprets it as revision of the code’s own articles, in contrast with amendments issued separately as commands. This difference concerned how changes were attached to an existing statutory order. A government could preserve the framework while recognizing that some of its language required correction. Nagaoka’s participation makes the project collaborative, not a legal invention attributable to Makibi alone. The full revised text has not survived. [5]
The loss of the text limits a precise account of what changed in each of the twenty-four provisions. The recorded dates still establish a substantial gap between compilation and application. Prepared in 769, the revised statutes were implemented in 791. Makibi died in 775, so implementation belonged to a government operating after his lifetime. They were discontinued in 812. Yagi Atsuru connects the later discontinuance with complications in administration, while the exact content remains unavailable for direct comparison. The separate forty-five-article revision implemented in 797 was another work, not simply a different total for Makibi’s project. His participation shows scholarly service applied to the language of law at the end of a long career. The later history also makes clear that preparation, enactment and continued use were decisions made at different times. [5]
Shōtoku’s death in 770 changed the setting in which Makibi’s high office had operated. The sovereign who had received his teaching and later rewarded his military service was gone. Modern biographies report that he supported a succession preference that did not prevail. Their accounts associate him with candidates from the descendants of Tenmu, while Prince Shirakabe became Emperor Kōnin. Makibi withdrew from office under Kōnin; some references date formal retirement to 771. He died in 775. The new political order had not erased his earlier service, but it ended the conditions under which he remained an active senior minister. His life closes there, before the eventual implementation of the statutes he had helped revise. [1][2][5]
Later legends and the claim to have invented katakana
Later narratives gave his learning a different form. The Gōdanshō and the story associated with the Minister Kibi in China picture scroll describe Chinese hosts attempting to imprison or kill him. A supernatural helper enables him to answer literary tests and succeed at a game of go. The helper is identified as the ghost of Abe no Nakamaro, another Japanese scholar in China, distinct from Fujiwara no Nakamaro, Makibi’s political opponent. These accounts turn difficult knowledge into a means of overcoming extraordinary danger. They also attribute magical control over the sun and moon and connect him with later divinatory traditions.
The stories were composed and transmitted long after the journeys they describe. Their episodes reveal how a reputation developed, rather than providing a contemporary itinerary or record of captivity. The talented visitor becomes an exceptional figure through whom later audiences could imagine Japanese learning abroad. [7]
The attribution of katakana to Makibi belongs to this larger history of extraordinary learning. Yada Tsutomu notes that the belief remained current into the Edo period. Katakana is a phonetic script used alongside Chinese characters in writing Japanese; its development cannot be securely assigned to Makibi as a single inventor. The claim concentrates a wider history of writing into one famous scholar’s achievement. [6][7]
Makibi’s recorded career needs no such invention to be consequential. He brought specific materials to court, taught a royal pupil and military personnel, supervised the beginning of a fortress and helped direct forces in a crisis. His later legal work likewise depended on collaboration and on decisions taken after his death. The court history transmitting much of this career was itself compiled later in the eighth century, with its own selection and arrangement of past service. Learning gave Makibi repeated opportunities to act, while patronage and succession set limits on how long those opportunities lasted. That combination preserves both his achievement and the vulnerability of a life spent serving changing rulers. [6][1][5][8][4][9][2]
