JAPAN
or of embroidered silk studded with plates of jade. Two other garments were added—one over the trousers and one over the coat—but they had nothing of the loose flowing character usually associated with Japanese dress. They were, in fact, copied with scarcely any change from the Chinese robes of the epoch, and had their dimensions been fuller, they would be identical with the Chinese robes of the present day. We thus conclude that, just as the men of modern Japan have copied the costumes of the Occident in adopting its civilisation, so the men of ancient Japan imported Chinese robes with Chinese systems of morality and administration.
Law after law was enacted regulating the exact measurements of these various articles and, above all, their quality and texture. In early times, the best material available was manufactured from the paper mulberry or from hemp; but, by and by, grass cloth and cotton fabrics came into use, and, in the fifth century, sericulture and silk-weaving were successfully practised. The silk then produced was of very inferior quality, and though several fine varieties—as sarcenet, figured silk, brocade, and so on—were soon obtained, they served for ornamental purposes rather than for every-day wear. But in the Nara epoch, neither the most elaborate fabrics that the home loom could turn out, nor yet the rare silks and brocades brought from China by the Buddhist priests, who made it a duty to familiarise
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