ABSTRACT
SOON after the violent end of the arrogant Chancellor and his family, the Empress abdicated in favour of her brother, who ascended the throne as Kōtoku-Tennō (645-654 A.D.). He immediately gave the chief authors of the great revolution, Prince Nakano-ōe-Oji and Nakatomi-no-Kamatori, an important part in the management of the administration. He also appointed as his advisers Takamuko-no-Kuromaro and Sōbin, two men who had lived in China for a long time and were intimately acquainted with Chinese literature, and especially with the political administrative conditions of that country; with their aid he began to reform the government and administration of his Empire according to the Chinese model. The great significance of the reform received outward expression by the introduction of the Chinese custom of giving a name to the years, and so those years were called Taika, i.e. great reformation.
