The 1889 constitution of which country recognized the divine power of its emperor deriving it from a native belief that the imperial family was the offspring of the sun goddess Amaterasu?
Divine right of kings ever since the Zhou dynasty, whose rulers had used this philosophy to justify their overthrow of the previous Shang dynasty. Chinese historians interpreted a successful revolt as evidence that the Mandate of Heaven had passed on to the usurper. In Japan, the Son of Heaven title was less conditional than its Chinese equivalent. There was no divine mandate that punished the emperor for failing to rule justly. The right to rule of the Japanese emperor, descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu, was absolute. The Japanese emperors traditionally wielded little secular power; generally, it was the duty of the sitting emperor
Enthronement of the Japanese Emperor his Imperial Ancestress, sun-goddess Amaterasu-ōmikami, in such a way as to share in a unique way in her divinity. The ceremony is not mentioned in the Constitution imposed by the American occupation forces, and so its present constitutionality was questioned at the time of the accession of the present Emperor Akihito. First, two special rice paddies are chosen and purified by elaborate Shinto purification rites. The families of the farmers who are to cultivate the rice in these paddies must be in perfect health. Once the rice is grown and harvested, it is stored in a special Shinto shrine as