Two Suguri-Yasumaros : A Working Hypothesis for Reconsidering the Possibility of Palace Eunuchs in Ancient Japan

 

Two Suguri-Yasumaros

A Working Hypothesis for Reconsidering the Possibility of Palace Eunuchs in Ancient Japan

Introduction

In the study of ancient Japanese history, the question of palace eunuchs remains an exceptionally difficult one.

In ancient China and on the Korean Peninsula, eunuchs are well attested as participants in court institutions, particularly in connection with the inner palace and the women's quarters. By contrast, with regard to the ritsuryō state of ancient Japan, it has generally been understood that no institutional system of palace eunuchs existed.

Yet an important methodological question arises here. Is this conclusion based on positive evidence demonstrating that palace eunuchs did not exist in ancient Japan? Or does it rest primarily on the absence of sources that clearly document an institution of palace eunuchs?

This paper does not claim to resolve this question.

Instead, it focuses on a single individual: Suguri-Yasumaro.

Two different types of historical sources contain a person bearing this name.

The first is the Suguri-Yasumaro recorded in the Household Register of Hanifu Village, Kamo District, Mino Province (Mino no Kuni Kamo-gun Hanifu-ri Koseki).

The second is the Suguri-Yasumaro recorded on a wooden tablet excavated from the southern drainage ditch along the Palace Road at the presumed Sake Bureau (Miki-no-Tsukasa) within the Heijō Palace.

Most importantly, the Suguri-Yasumaro recorded in the household register is described as:

“a castrated man and a person with an illness/disability”

The first of these terms is of particular significance. The character 閹 fundamentally refers to the castration of a male, and 閹人 therefore denotes, in its most basic sense, a castrated man.

In Chinese historical usage, however, 閹人 could also refer to men who served at the imperial court, especially in connection with the inner palace. In such contexts, the term overlaps with the broader historical category of the palace eunuch.

But this distinction must be maintained carefully.

It would be methodologically inappropriate simply to equate:

閹人 = palace eunuch = court servant.

The term 閹人, in the first instance, describes a physical condition. It does not, by itself, establish that the individual belonged to a formally constituted institution of palace eunuchs.

The question, therefore, is not simply whether the existence of the word 閹人 proves the existence of palace eunuchs in ancient Japan.

The more fundamental question is:

Why was a man specifically described as 閹人 in an ancient Japanese household register?

It is this question that provides the starting point for the present investigation.

1. The First Source: Suguri-Yasumaro in the Household Register of Hanifu Village, Kamo District, Mino Province

The Household Register of Hanifu Village, Kamo District, Mino Province is one of the most important surviving sources for the study of population, household structure, social status, and physical characteristics in ancient Japan.

Among the individuals recorded in the register is:

Suguri-Yasumaro

The entry provides an unusually significant piece of information about him:

閹人・残疾

For present purposes, I translate this as:

“a castrated man and a person with an illness/disability.”

The term 閹人 deserves particular attention.

As noted above, 閹 fundamentally denotes the castration of a male. Thus, at the most literal level, 閹人 describes a castrated man.

In the history of China, however, castrated men were frequently associated with service at the imperial court, and particularly with the inner palace. Consequently, the historical concept of the palace eunuch cannot be entirely separated from the term 閹人.

Nevertheless, the two concepts should not be conflated.

A man could be described as 閹人 because of his physical condition without necessarily belonging to an institution of palace eunuchs. Conversely, if a castrated man actually served at court, his physical status might acquire an institutional and occupational significance.

The evidence from the household register therefore raises a question that deserves closer investigation:

What social or occupational circumstances lay behind the description of Suguri-Yasumaro as 閹人?

The household register itself does not answer this question.

It is precisely this unexplained piece of information that makes the entry significant.

2. The Second Source: Suguri-Yasumaro on a Wooden Tablet from the Heijō Palace

The second source is a wooden tablet excavated from the southern drainage ditch along the Palace Road at the presumed Sake Bureau (Miki-no-Tsukasa) within the Heijō Palace.

The tablet records a request concerning supplies and daily rations and contains references to the Office of Court Robes, myōbu, official orders, requests, and other administrative personnel.

At the end of the text appears:

May 22 — Suguri-Yasumaro

This is significant.

The wooden tablet indicates that an individual named Suguri-Yasumaro was involved in the processing of an administrative document within the operational sphere of the Heijō Palace.

The document was not a private memorandum. Rather, its terminology points toward the management of supplies, food provisions, personnel, and documentary procedures associated with the court.

The presence of terms relating to the Office of Court Robes, daily rations, myōbu, official orders, requests, superintendents, and clerical personnel suggests an administrative environment in which the movement and distribution of material resources were being recorded.

The important point, therefore, is not yet that Suguri-Yasumaro was a palace eunuch.

That cannot be established from this tablet.

The more modest—and more secure—observation is:

An individual named Suguri-Yasumaro was involved in administrative activity within the Heijō Palace.

This becomes especially interesting when considered alongside the household register's description of another Suguri-Yasumaro as 閹人.

3. Placing the Two Sources in Dialogue

The two sources may be summarized as follows:

Source	Information concerning Suguri-Yasumaro
Household Register of Hanifu Village, Kamo District, Mino Province	Suguri-Yasumaro — “a castrated man and a person with an illness/disability”
Wooden tablet from the Heijō Palace	Suguri-Yasumaro — involved in administrative activity within the court

At this point, however, no definitive conclusion can be drawn.

The central problem is obvious:

Were these two Suguri-Yasumaros one and the same person?

The mere coincidence of a personal name is insufficient evidence. Two different individuals could certainly have borne the same name.

At the same time, however:

The available evidence does not demonstrate that they were different individuals.

This creates a legitimate research problem.

The appropriate response is not to assume identity as a fact, but to ask what historical reconstruction becomes possible if their identity is provisionally hypothesized.

That is the purpose of the present working hypothesis.

4. A Working Hypothesis Concerning Suguri-Yasumaro

Let us provisionally reconstruct the possible life course of Suguri-Yasumaro.

He may have spent his early life in Mino Province. At some point, he may have moved from the provinces to the central court.

At the Heijō Palace, he may have become involved in administrative work concerning supplies, provisions, personnel, or court clothing.

He then remained in the central area for some period of time.

Eventually, he may have reached his fifties and, perhaps after completing his service at court, returned to Mino Province.

There, he appears in the household register as:

“a castrated man and a person with an illness/disability.”

If this reconstruction were correct, an important possibility would emerge:

A man identified in a local household register as 閹人 may have previously served within the central court.

This would raise a further question:

Could ancient Japan have employed castrated men in court service even though it did not possess a formally institutionalized system of palace eunuchs comparable to those of China or the Korean Peninsula?

This is the most ambitious aspect of the present hypothesis.

It should, however, be emphasized that this is precisely a working hypothesis, not an established conclusion.

5. The Problem of the Inner Palace

A further distinction is essential.

Service at the Heijō Palace does not necessarily mean service in the inner palace or women's quarters.

There is currently no direct evidence establishing that Suguri-Yasumaro served in the inner palace.

Accordingly, the proposition:

Suguri-Yasumaro was a servant in the inner palace

must remain hypothetical.

Nevertheless, if a castrated man served within the court, the inner palace becomes one of the areas that deserves particular investigation.

The reason is obvious. The presence of castrated men in a court environment has implications not merely for their physical status but also for the organization and accessibility of spaces occupied by court women.

Thus, the hypothesis may be advanced one step further:

Might Suguri-Yasumaro have performed duties connected with the court, perhaps including duties associated with the inner palace or women's quarters?

This is a more speculative proposition, and I readily acknowledge that it may be criticized as conjectural.

That criticism would be entirely legitimate.

The essential point is to preserve the hierarchy of evidence.

Documentary evidence

A person named Suguri-Yasumaro appears in a household register and a wooden tablet.

Documentary evidence

The Suguri-Yasumaro in the household register is described as 閹人・残疾.

Documentary evidence

The Suguri-Yasumaro on the wooden tablet was involved in administrative activity within the Heijō Palace.

From this point onward, however, the following propositions remain hypotheses:

The two Suguri-Yasumaros were the same person.

Suguri-Yasumaro was castrated before or during his period of court service.

He served in the inner palace or women's quarters.

These levels of argument must not be collapsed into one another.

6. Why the Possibility of a Return to Mino in Old Age Matters

Age may provide another important dimension to this hypothesis.

If the Suguri-Yasumaro of the wooden tablet and the Suguri-Yasumaro of the household register were the same person, and if the latter had reached his fifties by the time of registration, he would no longer have been a young court worker.

The possibility of a life course such as the following therefore deserves consideration:

Court service
↓
Extended residence in the central capital
↓
Aging
↓
Return to Mino Province
↓
Registration in the local household register

Again, this sequence cannot currently be demonstrated.

But if it were eventually supported by additional evidence, two apparently disconnected pieces of information would become components of a single biography.

The household register would preserve:

Suguri-Yasumaro in his later years in local society,

while the wooden tablet would preserve:

Suguri-Yasumaro during his period of service at the central court.

The significance of this possibility goes beyond the identification of two individuals bearing the same name.

It would represent an attempt to reconstruct the life history of a single individual across two different documentary systems: a local household register and a central court document.

7. Why Did Suguri-Yasumaro Come to Live in Hanifu Village?

At this point, I would like to present another inference of my own concerning the circumstances under which Suguri-Yasumaro came to reside in Hanifu Village, Kamo District, Mino Province.

The Hanifu Village Household Register contains not only Suguri-Yasumaro but also members of several groups bearing the Suguri (勝) designation:

• Fuha no Suguri — the Suguri group associated with Fuha District;
• Kagami no Suguri — the Suguri group associated with Kagami District;
• Miya no Suguri — the Suguri group associated with the capital.

Within the register, members of these groups also formed marriage relationships with the powerful Hata lineage.

For example:

1. Hata no Komaro, the younger brother of a household head, aged forty-two and a male of full working age, was married to Suguri-zoku Momome, aged thirty-seven and a woman of full working age.
2. Fuha no Suguri-zoku Kanamaro, head of a subordinate household, was married to Hata-bito Miyawame, aged sixty and a woman of full working age.

These marriages suggest that the Suguri groups had acquired a certain degree of influence within the settlement through their marital connections with the Hata lineage, one of its powerful groups.

Previous research has calculated that, among the total population of 1,119 recorded in the Hanifu Village Household Register, 497 individuals can be regarded as being of continental immigrant origin on the basis of personal names, clan designations, or group affiliations, including Hata-bito, Hata-bito-be, and Suguri.

My own calculation suggests that, if the groups represented by Ato-omi and Kishi-omi are regarded as belonging to the Kishi/Kishi-type immigrant tradition, at least another ten individuals may be added.

This produces a minimum figure of 507 individuals, or approximately 45.3 percent of the total population, who can be directly identified as being of continental immigrant origin.

This figure should not, however, be mistaken for the actual number of people of continental immigrant origin living in Hanifu Village. The documentary categories do not permit such a simple calculation.

Nevertheless, the fact that a large collective of people of continental immigrant origin—approaching half of the recorded population—was concentrated in this settlement suggests that Hanifu may have provided a particularly congenial social environment for Suguri-Yasumaro, who himself belonged to a group associated with continental immigrants.

8. A Further Hypothesis: The Jinshin War and the Expansion of Continental Immigrant Groups

This inevitably involves placing one hypothesis upon another.

The distribution of Kawaramadera-style roof tiles at eleven sites in Mino Province raises a further possibility.

It may be that the expansion of the power and influence of continental immigrant groups in Mino was connected, at least in part, with the Jinshin War.

I would tentatively suggest that the temples associated with Kawaramadera-style tiles in Kagami and Fuha Districts may represent, at least in part, the consequences of rewards or privileges granted to groups that contributed to the victory of the imperial side.

If this interpretation is correct, the Suguri groups' presence in Hanifu Village may have to be understood within a much larger political and social transformation following the Jinshin War.

This remains highly conjectural.

But it may provide a possible historical context for understanding why a person such as Suguri-Yasumaro, perhaps connected with a continental immigrant group, could have moved between a provincial community and the central court.

9. How Should We Approach the Proposition That “There Were No Palace Eunuchs in Japan”?

This is the point at which the greatest caution is required.

Even if the prevailing scholarly understanding is that ancient Japan had no institutional system of palace eunuchs, this paper cannot simply reverse the proposition and declare:

“Therefore, palace eunuchs existed in ancient Japan.”

Such a conclusion would go far beyond the evidence.

The question raised here is more limited:

Should the proposition that palace eunuchs did not exist in ancient Japan be subjected to renewed examination on the basis of the primary sources?

The distinction between:

an institutional system of palace eunuchs

and

the presence of castrated men serving at court

is fundamental.

Even if Suguri-Yasumaro were eventually shown to have been a castrated man serving at court, that fact alone would not demonstrate the existence in Japan of a palace eunuch institution comparable to those of China or the Korean Peninsula.

The more interesting possibility may instead be this:

Although the ritsuryō state did not formally establish “palace eunuchs” as a distinct institutional category, might it nevertheless have employed castrated men in the practical operation of the court when circumstances required?

If so, the phenomenon could not be adequately described by the simple binary opposition:

“There was a palace eunuch institution” versus “There was no palace eunuch institution.”

The actual historical situation may have been more complicated.

10. “There Was No Institution” Does Not Necessarily Mean “There Were No Such People”

This distinction lies at the heart of the present working hypothesis.

For an ancient state, the statement:

“It was not formally established as an institution”

does not necessarily entail:

“No such people existed.”

The offices and personnel listed in a formal administrative system need not have corresponded perfectly to every person actually required to operate the court.

Wooden tablets are particularly valuable precisely because they can reveal this operational reality.

They record:

• personal names;
• daily rations;
• food;
• supplies;
• court women;
• official orders;
• requests;
• superintendents;
• clerical personnel;

and many other details.

They therefore allow us to ask a question that is difficult to answer from institutional texts alone:

Who was actually doing what?

The same methodological principle should be applied to Suguri-Yasumaro.

If he actually worked at the court, then whether or not the ritsuryō administrative system formally recognized a category called “palace eunuch” is a separate question.

The phenomenon that matters is more concrete:

A castrated man may have been incorporated into the practical labor and administrative organization of the court.

11. What If This Is Criticized as “Pure Speculation”?

The hypothesis will inevitably invite objections.

For example:

“Could these simply have been two different people with the same name?”

“A castrated man was not necessarily a palace eunuch.”

“The wooden tablet does not establish service in the inner palace.”

“There is no evidence that Suguri-Yasumaro returned to Mino.”

“The evidence linking the two sources is too weak.”

All of these objections are legitimate.

Indeed, I accept them in advance.

The purpose of this paper is not to eliminate these objections but to formulate a research question that can be tested against additional evidence.

This paper does not attempt to prove that Suguri-Yasumaro was a palace eunuch.

Rather, it proposes a working hypothesis: if the Suguri-Yasumaro appearing in the household register and the Suguri-Yasumaro appearing on the wooden tablet are provisionally regarded as the same individual, how might the description 閹人・残疾 be related to his presence at the Heijō Palace?

This is not a conclusion.

Nor is it a claim that:

“A palace eunuch institution existed in ancient Japan.”

Instead, it is:

a source-oriented hypothesis designed to reopen the investigation of the proposition that palace eunuchs did not exist in ancient Japan.

This distinction is essential.

The fact that a hypothesis cannot yet be proven does not mean that it lacks value as a research hypothesis.

A productive working hypothesis does not exist merely to provide an answer.

It exists to direct attention toward sources that might otherwise remain unnoticed:

“Could there perhaps be evidence here that is relevant to this question?”

12. What Sources Should We Investigate Next?

If this working hypothesis is adopted, the next research tasks become relatively clear.

First

We should investigate genealogical materials concerning the Suguri lineage and Suguri-Yasumaro.

Second

The household registers and census-related records of Mino Province should be reconsidered in order to establish Suguri-Yasumaro's family relationships, age, place of residence, and social status.

Third

The wooden tablets from the Heijō Palace should be systematically searched for the name:

Suguri-Yasumaro

Fourth

The relationship between the Suguri lineage, continental immigrant groups, and service at the central court should be examined.

Fifth

Terms such as:

閹 / 閹人 / 宦 / 残疾

should be systematically searched across the Shōsōin documents, wooden tablets, household registers, census registers, commentaries on the ritsuryō codes, and other contemporary records.

Sixth

Documents and wooden tablets relating to the inner palace and women's quarters should be reexamined for evidence that might indicate the presence or activities of castrated men.

Seventh

And this may be the most important point:

Rather than searching for the institutional term “palace eunuch,” we should search for what men described as 閹人 actually did.

This should become a central research strategy.

13. Why This Hypothesis Matters

The significance of this hypothesis does not lie primarily in the sensational claim:

“Japan had palace eunuchs.”

Its real significance lies elsewhere.

It lies in the possibility that:

There may have been a gap between the formal institutions of the ancient state and the actual people who worked within them.

The ritsuryō codes can be understood, in a sense, as a blueprint of the state.

Wooden tablets, by contrast, provide glimpses of the operational reality in which the state actually functioned.

Household registers tell us how those individuals were subsequently incorporated into local society.

If the central court wooden tablet and the provincial household register can ultimately be connected through one individual—Suguri-Yasumaro—the implications would be considerable.

Through a single individual, we could potentially connect:

court — government office — labor — bodily status — mobility — local society

within a single biographical trajectory.

And somewhere within that trajectory stands the striking description:

閹人・残疾

—a piece of information concerning the individual's body that may deserve far greater historical attention than it has received.

Conclusion: Not a Proof, but a Starting Point for Investigation

At the present stage, what can be established with confidence concerning Suguri-Yasumaro remains limited.

A person named Suguri-Yasumaro appears in the Household Register of Hanifu Village and is described as:

“a castrated man and a person with an illness/disability.”

A person named Suguri-Yasumaro also appears on a wooden tablet excavated from the Heijō Palace and is connected with administrative activity within the court.

Beyond these points, certainty becomes impossible.

Yet once the two individuals are provisionally hypothesized to be the same person, a different historical image becomes conceivable.

One might then reconstruct the following possible life course:

A man from Mino
↓
Movement to the central court
↓
Service at the Heijō Palace
↓
Possible connection with the inner palace?
↓
Advancing age
↓
Possible return to Mino
↓
Registration in the household register
↓
“A castrated man and a person with an illness/disability”

Much of this remains unknown.

Some of these gaps may remain impossible to fill.

But the purpose of historical research is not to fill gaps with imagination.

It is to determine:

which gaps exist, and which sources might allow us to investigate them.

The position of this paper is therefore clear.

This paper does not attempt to prove that Suguri-Yasumaro was a palace eunuch.

Rather, it proposes a working hypothesis that examines how the description “a castrated man and a person with an illness/disability” might be connected with Suguri-Yasumaro's presence at the Heijō Palace if the individuals appearing in these different sources are provisionally treated as the same person.

And:

This is not a conclusion. It is a source-oriented hypothesis for reconsidering the established proposition that palace eunuchs did not exist in ancient Japan.

In this sense, the value of the hypothesis lies not in the certainty with which it can currently be proven.

Its value lies rather in the possibility of doing something more fundamental:

to take the word 閹人 not merely as an unusual description of bodily status preserved in a provincial household register, but to consider it in connection with the life of an individual who may have worked at the political center of the ancient Japanese state, the Heijō Palace.

And, by doing so:

to ask once again, on the basis of the primary sources themselves, whether the proposition that “palace eunuchs did not exist in ancient Japan” has perhaps been treated as more self-evident than the surviving evidence actually permits.

That, ultimately, is the significance of this modest working hypothesis concerning Suguri-Yasumaro.