was a form of ceremonial court dress prescribed in Japan under the ritsuryō system. It was worn by the emperor, the crown prince, imperial princes, princes, officials of the fifth rank and above, and court women on important ceremonial occasions such as the New Year court audience and the enthronement ceremony.
Under the ritsuryō system, official dress was divided into categories such as raifuku, chōfuku and seifuku. Raifuku was the most formal of these ceremonial dress systems. Although it was developed under the influence of Tang-dynasty dress, its construction included many elements distinctive to Japan, such as the use of trousers and the hirami.
From the Heian period onward, as the annual New Year court audience declined, raifuku came to be used primarily as a special form of dress for enthronement ceremonies. In the medieval period, old garments were borrowed and the forms of the dress became increasingly confused. In the Edo period, a system was established in which raifuku kept in the imperial storehouses was lent out for use at the imperial palace. After the Meiji Restoration, the costume used in enthronement ceremonies was changed to the sokutai, and raifuku ceased to be worn in actual court ceremonies.
Overview Raifuku was the highest-ranking ceremonial dress within the official dress system of the ritsuryō state. In the clothing regulations of the Yōrō Code, official dress was divided into raifuku, chōfuku and seifuku, and raifuku was prescribed for major rites such as the great sacrifices, the Daijōsai, and New Year's ceremonies.
Male raifuku consisted of such elements as a ceremonial crown, robe, white trousers, hirami, corded sash, ribbon ornament, jade pendants, ivory tablet, socks and ceremonial shoes. The color and composition of the costume varied according to rank and status, visually expressing the hierarchy of the crown prince, imperial princes, princes, and officials. Female raifuku was likewise regulated according to the status of imperial princesses, princesses, and court women.
The emperor's raifuku was centered on the kon'e and benkan, and was distinguished from the raifuku of courtiers. Although courtier raifuku was influenced by Tang dress, it had distinctive Japanese features, including the use of trousers and hirami, the method of wearing the ribbon ornament, and the absence of a leather belt.
From the Heian period onward, as the New Year court audience fell into disuse, raifuku ceased to be worn in annual court ceremonies and came to be used chiefly for enthronement ceremonies. In the medieval period, old garments were increasingly borrowed, and by the late medieval period garments held as court property were lent for enthronement ceremonies. In the early modern period, garments preserved in the imperial storehouses were repaired and reused, while new sets were occasionally produced for particular enthronements.
System
Raifuku, chōfuku and seifuku The official dress system prescribed by the clothing regulations of the Yōrō Code distinguished among raifuku, chōfuku and seifuku. Raifuku was ceremonial dress worn for major rites such as the great sacrifices, the Daijōsai, and New Year's ceremonies. Chōfuku was official dress worn by ranked officials when attending court, while seifuku was chiefly the prescribed dress worn by unranked persons on official court occasions.
Tang China had a complex system of official dress, including mianfu, court dress, public dress, cap dress, pingjinze, ku-zhe and everyday court dress. By contrast, the Yōrō Code used raifuku, chōfuku and seifuku as its basic categories, with further distinctions by sex and by civil or military status. The emperor's raifuku resembled Tang mianfu, and the raifuku of courtiers resembled Tang court dress, public dress and cap dress, but in both cases the construction and details differed greatly. Japanese chōfuku is considered to have been broadly equivalent to Tang everyday court dress.
Male and female raifuku Male raifuku was divided into civil-official and military-official forms. In civil-official raifuku, such elements as the ceremonial crown, robe, white trousers, hirami, ribbon ornament, jade pendants, ivory tablet, socks and ceremonial shoes were prescribed. As for color, the crown prince wore ōni yellow-red, while imperial princes, princes and officials used purple and scarlet according to rank.
Female raifuku was also regulated according to the status of imperial princesses, princesses and court women, and included such elements as the hōkei jeweled coiffure, robe, skirt, hirami, socks and ceremonial shoes. Female raifuku is thought to have disappeared by the end of the medieval period. In early modern enthronement ceremonies, women of the aristocracy wore what is commonly called the jūnihitoe rather than the ancient form of female raifuku.
Differences from Tang dress Although the raifuku of the Yōrō Code was part of the dress system of a ritsuryō state influenced by Tang institutions, it was not a direct importation of Tang court dress. Formal Tang dress such as mianfu and court dress was fundamentally organized around the combination of an upper robe and a skirt-like lower garment. By contrast, Japanese imperial ceremonial robes and raifuku were constructed from a robe, trousers and hirami.
According to the New Book of Tang, Tang court dress, or full dress, consisted on the upper body of a white gauze inner garment, over which was worn a round collar ornament known as quling fangxin, and then a red gauze unlined robe. The collar and sleeve edges were black. On the lower body, a white skirt was worn, over which was placed a red skirt with black edging, and a red gauze knee-covering was suspended in front. In addition, the Tang ribbon ornament differed from the ribbon ornament of Japanese raifuku, functioning as a back-hanging ornament worn on the rear of the costume.
By contrast, Japanese raifuku was constructed by placing the hirami over white trousers. In Tang court dress, a skirt or lower garment was not worn over outer trousers in formal dress. Thus, while Japanese raifuku showed Tang influence in the upper body, it preserved older Japanese elements in the lower body, including forms traceable to the court dress of the Suiko period. It was also distinctive in its use of the ribbon ornament and in the absence of a leather belt.
History
Before the establishment of the system
Although raifuku as a formal system was clearly established only after the Taihō Code, earlier Japanese court practice already included the use of special crowns and ornaments in ceremony. The account of Wa in the Book of Sui states that the king of Wa first made caps, fashioned them from brocade, and decorated them with gold and silver floral ornaments. This is thought to correspond to the establishment of the Twelve Level Cap and Rank System in 603.
The entry for the twelfth month of the eleventh year of Empress Suiko in the Nihon Shoki states that, together with the establishment of the Twelve Level Cap and Rank System, it was prescribed that uzu floral ornaments were to be worn on New Year's Day. The word, written and also transcribed phonetically as (uzu), referred to a floral ornament inserted into the hair or crown. Tayasu Munetake, in Fukushoku kanken, saw in the distinction between wearing uzu on New Year's Day and not wearing them on ordinary days the origin of the distinction between Japanese raifuku and chōfuku.
The Book of Sui also states that men of Wa wore qunru, with small sleeves, and that their shoes were lacquered and tied to the legs. In this context, ru is understood as an upper garment and qun as a skirt-like garment worn on the lower body. The pleated, short wrap-skirt-like garment worn over trousers by the male figure in the Tenjukoku Shūchō Mandala may be seen as a garment element leading to the later hirami.
In 605, Crown Prince Shōtoku is said to have ordered princes and officials to wear hirami. The hirami later became an important element of raifuku, but in 682 an edict prohibited imperial princes and all officials from wearing maemo, hirami, hagimomo and similar garments. This prohibition is understood as a temporary exclusion of older garment elements in the process of reorganizing dress in a Tang style.
Thus, before the Taihō Code, a systematic form of raifuku like that of later periods had not yet been established. Nevertheless, elements later associated with raifuku, such as crowns, uzu and hirami, were already present in the court dress of the Asuka period.
Taihō and Yōrō Codes Raifuku appears clearly as an institution after the Taihō Code. The entry for New Year's Day in 702 in the Shoku Nihongi states that when the emperor appeared in the Daigokuden and received the court audience, imperial princes and officials of the rank of Dainagon and above wore raifuku for the first time, while princes and officials below them wore chōfuku. At this stage, wearers of raifuku were limited to imperial princes and officials of the rank of Dainagon and above, a narrower range than in later regulations.
The clothing regulations of the Taihō Code do not survive, so the detailed composition and color system of raifuku under the Taihō Code are not known. However, the account of Wa and Japan in the Old Book of Tang describes the dress of the envoy Awata no Mahito when he had an audience with Wu Zetian. According to this passage, Awata wore a jintoku crown, the top of which formed a flower spreading in four directions, and he wore a purple robe with a silk belt at the waist.
Awata's crown resembled the jintoku crown but differed from it in having a floral ornament at the top, and is considered to have been of the same lineage as the ceremonial crown prescribed later by the Yōrō Code. The form of his purple robe, however, is debated. In the section on ceremonial dress in the Old Book of Tang, the red gauze robe of court dress is understood as a crossed-collar robe, while the robe of everyday court dress is understood as having a round collar. It is therefore difficult to determine whether Awata's purple robe should be regarded as a crossed-collar robe similar to the later large-sleeved robe of raifuku, or as a round-collar robe. Since Awata was not yet a Dainagon at the time of his mission, it is also possible that he wore a ceremonial crown together with chōfuku. One theory holds that, at the stage of the Taihō Code, the upper garment was a tubular-sleeved, sajin crossed-collar robe, with the wearer's right panel overlapping the left, like those seen in the male figures of the Takamatsuzuka Tomb murals, and that there was not yet a major formal distinction between raifuku and chōfuku.
The clothing regulations of the Yōrō Code later defined the raifuku system in greater detail. Although the text of the Yōrō Code itself has been lost, its contents are known from commentaries such as the Ryō no gige and Ryō no shūge. In the Yōrō clothing regulations, the distinction among raifuku, chōfuku and seifuku was set out, and dress was prescribed according to status, rank and sex for the crown prince, imperial princes, princes, officials, imperial princesses, princesses and court women. These Yōrō regulations became the basis of the raifuku system from the Nara period onward.
Nara period
In the Nara period, the raifuku system based on the ritsuryō codes was used in court ceremony. The Shoku Nihongi records that in the first month of 715 the crown prince wore raifuku for the first time.