The nature and scope of the code will be sufficiently understood from the titles of its various sections: (1) Official Titles; (2) Duties of Officials; (3) Duties of Officials of the Empress' Household; (4) Duties of Officials in the Household of the Heir Apparent; (5) Duties of Officials in the Households of Officers of High Rank; (6) Services to the Gods; (7) Buddhist Priests; (8) the Family; (9) the Land; (10) Taxation; (11) Learning; (12) Official Ranks and Titles; (13) The Descent of the Crown and Dignities of Imperial Persons; (14) Meritorious Discharge of Official Duties; (15) Salaries; (16) Court Guards; (17) Army and Frontier Defences; (18) Ceremonies; (19) Official Costumes; (20) Public Works; (21) Mode of addressing Persons of Rank; (22) Stores of Rice and other Grain; (23) Stables and Fodder; (24) Duties of Medical Officers attached to the Court; (25) Official Vacations; (26) Funerals and Mourning; (27) Watch and Ward and Markets; (28) Arrest of Criminals; (29) Jails, and (30) Miscellaneous, including Bailment, Finding of Lost Goods, etc.*
This "Code and the Penal Law" accompanying it went into full operation from the Daiho era and remained in force thereafter, subject to the revisions above indicated. There is no reason to doubt that the highly artificial organization of society which such statutes indicate, existed, in outline at all events, from the reign of Kotoku, but its plainly legalized reality dates, so far as history is concerned, from the Daiho era. As for the rules (kyaku) and regulations (shiki), they were re-drafted: first, in the Konin era (810-824) by a commission under the direction of the grand councillor,* Fujiwara Fuyutsugu; next, in the Jokwan era (859-877) by Fujiwara Ujimune and others, and finally in the Engi era (901-923) by a committee with Fujiwara Tadahira for president. These three sets of provisions were spoken of in subsequent ages as the "Rules and Regulations of the Three Generations" (Sandai-kyaku-shiki). It will be observed that just as this remarkable body of enactments owed its inception in Japan to Kamatari, the great founder of the Fujiwara family, so every subsequent revision was presided over by one of his descendants. The thirty sections of the code comprise 949 articles, which are all extant, but of the penal laws in twelve sections there remain only 322 articles.