Humanity Declaration

The most direct element of this was the renunciation of divine status.

On January first, nineteen forty-six, a rescript was issued in Hirohito's name known in English as the Humanity Declaration that denied the basis of imperial divinity.

The relevant passage stated that the ties between emperor and people do not rest on the false conception that the emperor is divine and that the Japanese people are superior to other races.

The word the document used for divine akitsumikami, meaning a god manifest in human form, was the specific theological claim that had underpinned the imperial institution's sacred authority for centuries.