Asuka, Yamato

Listen for a moment. Wind moves through rice stalks. A bicycle bell rings somewhere down a narrow lane. A crow calls from a low wooded hill. The air smells of damp earth and cut grass. Nothing here looks like a capital. Yet some fourteen centuries ago, these quiet fields held the political heart of Japan.

You are standing in Asuka, a rural valley in the old province of Yamato, today part of Nara Prefecture. It sits just south of the city of Kashihara. Historians give this valley's name to a whole era: the Asuka period, which runs roughly from the middle of the sixth century to the year 710. In those years, Japan's rulers lived and governed here, and the country took on many of the forms it still recognises today.

So why does a former capital look like farmland? The answer is simple. In the Asuka era, the court moved its palace often, sometimes with each new ruler. The buildings were mostly wood, with thatched or tiled roofs. When the court finally settled in Nara in the early eighth century, Asuka returned to the fields. Its history went underground, into the soil you are walking on now.

The biggest change of this era arrived from across the sea. Buddhism reached Japan from the Korean peninsula in the sixth century, together with craftsmen, scholars, and new ideas about writing and government. Not everyone welcomed it. Powerful clans argued over whether the foreign faith should be accepted. The Soga clan supported it, and the Soga won that struggle. Their victory shaped the valley around you.

The clearest sign of that victory is Asuka-dera, often described as Japan's oldest full-scale Buddhist temple. It was founded by Soga no Umako at the end of the sixth century. Today the temple is small and modest. But inside sits the Great Buddha of Asuka, a bronze seated figure from the early seventh century. It has been damaged by fire and repaired many times. Look closely and you can see the patches. Surprisingly, it is still in its original location.

Just west of the temple, in an open field, stands a small stone pagoda-like monument. Locals call it the head mound of Soga no Iruka. In 645, Iruka, grandson of Umako, was killed at court in a palace coup. This event began a period of reform that strengthened the imperial house. Legend has it that Iruka's severed head flew through the air and landed on this spot. It is a story, not a record — but people still stop here to wonder.

Now walk south and east, and the landscape changes. The most striking site in the valley is Ishibutai, which means stone stage. It is a burial chamber built from about thirty enormous granite blocks. The earth mound that once covered it has disappeared, so the stones stand exposed to the sky. Many scholars believe this was the tomb of Soga no Umako himself. You can walk down inside the chamber and feel how cool and still the air becomes.

Asuka is also a place of strange stones. Scattered through the fields and woods are carved granite objects whose purpose nobody fully understands. One is the Turtle Stone, a large boulder with a face that seems to peer across the rice paddies. Locals say that if the turtle ever turns to face west, the whole valley will flood. Another, the Sakafune-ishi, is a long flat stone cut with channels. Some think it was used to move water in rituals. The truth is still uncertain.

Here is something many visitors miss. Asuka changed Japanese archaeology in 1972. That year, excavators opening the small Takamatsuzuka tomb found painted walls inside. The murals showed elegant court figures in coloured robes, along with guardian animals of the four directions. Nearby, the Kitora tomb later revealed a painted star chart on its ceiling, one of the oldest of its kind in East Asia. These paintings are fragile, and the originals are protected. Replicas and displays near the sites let you see them.

To the northwest, toward Kashihara, the story moves to its next chapter. In 694, the court built Fujiwara-kyo, the first Japanese capital laid out on a planned grid, modelled on Chinese cities. Around it stand three low hills known as the Three Mountains of Yamato: Unebi, Miminashi, and Kagu. They appear in the Man'yoshu, Japan's oldest surviving collection of poetry. Poets imagined the hills as rivals in love. On a clear day, you can pick out all three from the valley.

Asuka feels unchanged for a reason. Since 1980, Japan has had a special national law to protect the scenery of this village. It limits new construction and helps keep the fields, the low houses, and the wooded tomb mounds as they are. That is why you see so few tall buildings or bright signs. The protection covers not just the monuments but the landscape between them. In Asuka, the empty space is part of the history.

The farmers who live here are part of that landscape too. In the hills above the valley, at a place called Inabuchi, rice terraces step down the slopes in curving lines. In late summer the green turns gold, and red spider lilies often line the paths at the edges. Local residents also gather each year to make scarecrows for the fields, some of them funny, some of them very elaborate. It is a reminder that Asuka is a living village, not a museum.

Before you move on, pause wherever you are standing. Look at the low hills, the rice, the narrow road. Somewhere beneath your feet lie post holes from palaces, fragments of roof tile, perhaps another painted chamber not yet found. As you walk or cycle away, notice the small wooded mounds rising from the fields. Many of them are tombs. The ancient capital is still here — quietly, just under the surface of an ordinary afternoon.