HISTORY OF JAPAN LIBRARY

JAMES MURDOCH' HISTORY OF JAPAN FROM THE ORIGINS

TO THE ARRIVAL OF THE PORTUGUESE IN 1542 AD

CHAPTER II

LEGENDARY JAPAN

(JAPANESE SOURCES.)

WE may now proceed to avail ourselves of such light as the native Japanese mythical legendary narratives throw upon the situation previous to 400 AD. Such light is at best crepuscular. The earliest Japanese document we possess is the Kojiki, or Record of Ancient Matters, which was compiled in 712 AD,—that is, some ten generations after the close of the period we propose to deal with in this chapter. It was in the first of these ten generations (about 404 AD) that the art of writing was introduced into Japan; and even so it seems the keeping of records and of treasury accounts was entrusted to and remained in the hands of a corporation of scribes of Korean origin for two centuries. Doubtless their occupation was mainly with ordinary work a day contemporary exigen­cies. However, we know that when an Emperor or a great chieftain was entombed in his last resting-place,—the mausoleum that took months or sometimes, indeed, years to construct,—it was customary for the great Ministers or the most prominent clansman to pronounce the eulogies of the august deceased. In these funeral orations, doubtless, abundant stress was laid upon ancient, perhaps divine lineage, and the merits and exploits of ancestors immediate and remote. We hear of such eulogies being read. Likely enough, then, these Korean scribes may have been called upon to commit them to writing,—perhaps even to compose them. These documents, if kept, as they would naturally be, would be of great value as material to future historians or annalists.

It was not till Buddhism had obtained a secure foothold among the upper classes—shortly before 600 AD and after intercourse with China was, after an interruption of a century, resumed—that the native Japanese began to show any great enthusiasm for scholarly pursuits. It was only in 621, two centuries after the introduction of the art of writing, that the first History of Japan was produced. Part of this work, the History of the Emperors, was lost in the Great Revolution of 645; but one portion, the History of the Country, was saved, and ultimately got incorporated in one or other of two subsequent works, the Kojiki (712) and the Nihongi (720).

It is to these works exclusively that we must go for any information from written native sources about Ancient Japan. It is needless to say that inasmuch as everything set forth antecedent to 400 AD reposes on mere tradition these records down to that date must be utilised with the greatest caution. But there is a still more important consideration. These annals do not give us the traditions of ancient Japan but merely a selection from these traditions. Yasumaro, who edited and committed the Kojiki to writing (and who was also joint­author of the later Nihongi), tells us this expressly in his preface

“Hereupon the Heavenly Sovereign (i.e. Temmu Tenno in 681) commanded saying: “I hear that the chronicles of the Emperors and likewise the original works in the possession of the various families deviate from exact truth, and are mostly amplified by empty falsehoods. If at the present time these imperfections be not amended, ere many years the purport of this, the great basis of the country, the great foundation of the monarchy, will be destroyed. So now I desire to have the chronicles of the Emperors selected and recorded; and the old words examined and ascertained, falsehoods being erased and the truth determined, in order to transmit the (latter) to after ages.” At that time there was a retainer whose surname was Hiyeda and his personal name Are. He was 28 years old (in 681), and of so intelligent a disposition that he could repeat with his mouth whatever met his eyes, and record in his heart whatever struck his ears. Forthwith Are was commanded to learn by heart the genealogies of the Emperors, and likewise the words of former ages. Nevertheless, time elapsed and the age changed, and the thing was not yet carried out. Then, on November 3rd, 711, the ruling Empress Gemmyo commanded me, Yasumaro, to select and record the old words learnt by Hiyeda-no-Are according to the Imperial Decree, and dutifully to lift them up to Her. In reverent obedience to the contents of the Decree I have made a careful choice.”

A reference to the Nihongi shows that two of the twelve commissioners entrusted with the task of compiling annals in 681 “took the pen in hand themselves and made notes.” So it is not necessary to assume that Are’s memory continued for thirty years to be the sole depository of the data that ultimately became the Kojiki in 711. Nor does a careful examination of the lan­guage of Yasumaro’s Preface commit us to the necessity of maintaining that he simply wrote out what fell from Are’s lips.

The need of a selection and a careful choice will become apparent when we consider the political objects the Kojiki and Nihongi were alike composed to subserve. In 647, shortly after the great and startling coup d’état of 645, we meet with the following in an Imperial Decree:—“The Empire was entrusted (by the Sun-Goddess to her descendants, with the words) ‘My children in their capacity of Deities shall rule it’. For this reason, this country, since Heaven and Earth began, has been a monarchy. From the time that Our Imperial Ancestor first ruled the land, there has been great concord in the Empire, and there has never been any factiousness.

“In recent times, however, the names, first of the Gods and then of the Emperors, have in some cases been separated (from their proper application) and converted into the Uji (i.e., family names) of Omi or Muraji, or they have been separated and made the qualifications of Miyakko, etc. In consequence of this, the minds of the people of the whole country take a strong partisan bias, and conceiving a deep sense of the me and thee, hold firmly each to their names. Moreover the feeble and incompetent Omi, Muraji, Tomo no Miyakko and Kuni no Miyakko [all kinds of local chieftains,—heads of groups, corporations, clans, or chiefs of districts] make of such names their family names; and so the names of Gods and the names of Sovereigns are applied to persons and places in an unauthorised manner, in accordance with the bent of their own feelings. Now, by using the names of Gods and the names of Sovereigns as bribes, they draw to themselves the slaves of others, and so bring dishonour upon unspotted names. The conse­quence is that the minds of the people have become unsettled and the government of the country cannot be carried on. The duty has therefore now devolved on us in Our Capacity as Celestial Divinity to regulate and settle these things.”

Some Japanese scholars have perhaps not altogether unreasonably complained that the purport of this is obscure. However, an earlier passage in the Nihongi may help to elucidate the matter somewhat.

415 AD. “The Emperor (Ingyo) made a decree, saying:— In the most ancient times good government consisted in the subjects having each one his proper place, and in names being correct. It is now four years since We entered on the auspicious office. Superiors and inferiors dispute with one another: the hundred surnames are not at peace. Some by mischance lose their proper surnames; others purposely lay claim to high family. This is perhaps the reason why good government is not attended to.

“After consulting the Ministers the following edict was then issued:—The Ministers, functionaries and the Miyakko of the various provinces each and all describe themselves, some as descendants of Emperors, others attributing to their race a miraculous origin, and saying that their ancestors came down from heaven. However, since the three Powers of Nature assumed distinct forms, many tens of thousands of years have elapsed, so that single houses have multiplied, and have formed anew ten thousand surnames of doubtful authenticity. Therefore let the people of the various houses and surnames wash themselves and practise abstinence, and let them, each one calling the Gods to witness, plunge their hands in boiling water.’ The cauldrons of the ordeal by boiling water were therefore placed on the ‘Evil Door of Words’ spur of the Amagashi Hill. Everybody was told to go thither, saying:—‘He who tells the truth will be uninjured; he who is false will assuredly suffer harm.’ Hereupon every one put on straps of tree-fibre and coming to the cauldrons, plunged their hands in the boiling water, when those who were true remained naturally uninjured, and all those who were false were harmed. Therefore those who had falsified (their titles) were afraid, and, slipping away beforehand, did not come forward. From this time forward the houses and surnames were spontaneously ordered, and there was no longer anyone who falsified them.”

In Professor Chamberlain’s masterly résumé of the contents of the Kojiki we meet with the following sentences:—“After Suizei Tenno (581-549 BC) occurs a blank of (according to the accepted chronology) five hundred years, during which absolutely nothing is related excepting dreary genealogies.... From this time (400 AD) forward the story in the Kojiki, though not well told, gives us some very curious pic­tures, and reads as if it were trustworthy. It is tolerably full for a few reigns, after which it again dwindles into mere genealogies, ending with the death of the Empress Suiko in 628 AD.”

Now, it may be shrewdly suspected that the chief raison d’être of the Kojiki was to furnish these genealogies, for apart from the previously cited passages from the Nihongi, we have a good many more hints leading us to infer that this very convenient and very potent weapon of a claim to divine descent was being wielded by more than one of the chiefs of the great houses contending for supremacy in old Yamato. In the fifth and sixth centuries, the Otomo, the Mononobe, the Soga and Others, with the Iwai in Kyushu and the Kibi in Mimana in Korea, were all to be reckoned with by those Nakatomi, or Fujiwara, who ultimately succeeded in breaking the power of the rival clans, in centralising the government and in making themselves the masters of the Empire of Japan. The coup d’état of 645 marked the beginning of a political and social transformation not a whit less startling than that of 1868. A full account of that amazing Revolution must be reserved for a subsequent chapter; but here even, for our present purpose, something must be known about it.

It may suffice to say that the Reformers established a strongly centralised government on the Chinese model, the Emperor at the head claiming absolute power; a strong and efficient Ministry, with a well-organised Bureaucracy under it, and local Governors in the outlying provinces making its authority felt at the expense of that of the old semi-independent territorial aristocracy. The personnel of the new administration was to a great extent furnished by the former magnates; and in the case of those who did not come to Court but stayed on in their former domains there was a tendency to recognise them as heads of districts acting under the Provincial Governor. But many of the old chiefs did not welcome the new state of things with enthusiasm, and it was desirable to break their power and render them innocuous. The provincial Governors were directed to look closely into the titles of those who aspired to authority. “If there be any persons,” they were instructed in 645, “who lay claim to a title but who, not being Kuni no Miyakko, Tomo no Miyakko, or Inaki of districts by descent, unscrupulously draw up lying memorials, saying: From the time of our forefathers we have had charge of this Miyake, or have ruled this district; in such cases, ye, the Governors, must not readily make application to the Court in acquiescence in such fictions, but must ascertain particularly the true facts before making your report.” Here the question of genealogies was evidently of considerable practical consequence.

Meanwhile, Buddhism had been adopted and regulated as the State religion in the interests of the State; Chinese learning had also been encouraged but at the same time made subservient to political ends, and although the old Shinto cult was for the time treated with neglect by Ministers' and Sovereign alike, its potentialities as an instrument of government were again recognised in the course of the next century, and its rituals elaborated by the astute Fujiwaras, those past-masters in state craft. And the centralised monarchy had found it advisable to increase its stability by yet another buttress,—the compilation of an official history.

This enterprise was taken in hand in 681 AD, but the work on it had been interrupted: and it was, as has been said, not until 711 that the Kojiki appeared, to be followed (and to be practically superseded for generations) by the Nihongi eight or nine years later (720).

The Nihongi, although a much longer work than the one that preceded it, is very much more occupied with the ages more immediately antecedent to the date of its compilation than is the Kojiki. Whereas of the 830 pages of Aston’s translation 530 are devoted to the period from 400 to 697 AD, and only 300 to mythical and legendary Japan, three-fourths of the bulk of the Kojiki (133 sections out of 180) are occupied with the tales of the Gods and of the series of long-lived Emperors which came to an end with Nintoku Tenno in 399 AD.

Inasmuch as the authors of both works,—those of the Nihongi notoriously so—tend to project the ideas of their own times or of the ages immediately antecedent to them into the primaeval past, any attempt to reconstruct Ancient Japan from their pages is bound to prove unsatisfactory, if not doomed to hopeless failure. Yet perhaps with the aid of the feeble light afforded by the other data at our disposal something may be effected. At all events it is necessary to know, not perhaps what was the case, but what these earliest Japanese logographers asserted to have been the case, for the selected early traditions have had a marked effect upon national thought and political developments at several weighty crises in the subsequent history of the Empire,—notably in the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries.

In the Japanese mythology as officially “selected” in the eighth century, we begin in the Plain of High Heaven, where a succession of deities come into existence without creation and afterwards die. In course of time five pairs (male and female) of gods are born, the last of which, a brother and a sister named Izanagi and Izanami, were ordered to descend in order to make, consolidate and give birth to this drifting land. The legend makes them alight somewhere in the Inland Sea near Awaji, and they at once set to work to give birth to the Islands of Japan (the items in the lists of the various versions differing in number and occasionally in name), and to some thirty or forty deities. In giving birth to the last of them—the Fire God—Izanami loses her life and is buried on the borders of Idzumo and Hoki. Inconsolable for his loss, Izanagi, Orpheus-like, visits her in the underworld to implore her to return to him. She would willingly do so, and bids him wait while she consults with the deities of the place. But he, impatient at her long tarrying, breaks off one of the end-teeth of the comb stuck in the left bunch of his hair, lights it and goes in, only to find her a hideous mass of corruption, in the midst of which sit the Eight Gods of Thunder. Angry at being put to shame, Izanami sends the hosts of hell to pursue Izanagi, who escapes with difficulty, and, blocking up the Even Pass of Hades with a rock, stands opposite to his former spouse on the other side of it, and exchanges a bitter leave-taking with her. “ So what was called the Even-Pass-of-Hades is now called the Ifuya Pass in the Land of Idzumo.”

From Idzumo, then, Izanagi proceeds to Hyuga to purify himself, by bathing in a stream there. As he does so, fresh deities are born from each article of clothing he throws down on the river-bank, and from each part of his person. One of these deities is the Sun-Goddess, who was born from his left eye, while the Moon-God sprang from his right eye, and the last born of all, Susa-uo-wo (“the Impetuous Male”), was born from his nose. Between these three children their father divides the inheritance of the universe,—the claims of his other fifty odd children and those of the denizens of High Heaven being alike unconsidered.

As Professor Chamberlain points out, there are two early (an Idzumo and a Kyushu) cycles of Legends and a later one (that of Yamato); and the “selectors” of the myths have been at no small pains to dove-tail these into each other in a sufficiently neat and plausible fashion. In these two incidents above quoted—that of the Even Pass of Hades in Idzumo and of lzanagi’s purification and the birth of the Sun-Goddess and Susa-no-wo in Hyuga—we find the earliest attempt to link these two centres.

In the immediate sequel in the legend we may perhaps discern a still further effort in the same direction. The Moon- God is no more heard of; and while the Sun-Goddess ascends to assume rule in the Plain of High Heaven, Susa-no-wo, instead of taking charge of the sea, goes on crying and weeping till his beard reaches the pit of his stomach. When remon­strated with about all this by his father, this Impetuous Male, oblivious of the fact that from his very first breath he had been a motherless child, told his father that he wept because he wished to go to his mother in Hades! Thereupon his father expelled him with a divine expulsion, but the Impetuous Male expressed a wish to go and take leave of his sister the Sun-Goddess before going into exile. His arrival in the Plain of High Heaven was not exactly welcome; the Sun-Goddess arrayed herself in all the panoply of war when she went to meet him. She sternly inquired into the cause of his appearance, and, doubting his assertions, she proposed to him a test of his sincerity. They took their stand on opposite sides of the tranquil River of Heaven, and she begged him to hand her his mighty sabre. She broke it into three pieces and then crunched these in her mouth and blew the fragments away. Her breath and the fragments blown away turned into three female deities. Then Susa-no-wo (the Impetuous Male) took the jewels which his sister the Sun-Goddess wore, and crunched them in his mouth and blew them out, and they were turned into five male deities.

The question at once arose as to which parent these three female and these five male divinities respectively belonged? The Sun-Goddess claimed the males as her own, and assigned the three females to Susa-no-wo. Now it was the son of the eldest of these five male divinities who descended upon Mount Takachiho in Hyuga to take possession of Japan, and to establish the line of the Mikados. And the Impetuous Male was not only the ancestor of the Idzumo monarchs, but he is actually represented as ruling in Idzumo itself .

The partition of progeny by the Sun-Goddess did not please the Impetuous Male, and in his resentment he committed a series of outrages against his sister the Sun-Goddess, which threatened to be fraught with disastrous consequences. She retired into a murky cavern, and the whole Universe, which was then synonymous with the Plain of High Heaven and certain portions of the islands of the Japanese archipelago, was shrouded in night, much Io the inconvenience of the lieges—divine as well as human. By a cunning stratagem the Goddess was at last lured from her retreat, and Gods and men could again go about their lawful business for a fair moiety of their time, while the eight hundred myriad deities took counsel together, and imposed on His-Swift-Impetuous-Male-Augustness a fine of a thousand tables and likewise cut his beard, and even caused the nails of his fingers and toes to be pulled out, and expelled him with a divine expulsion.”

Yet in spite of all this it is Susa-no-wo who is henceforth the central figure in the mythical narrative for some consider­able space. According to one version in the Nihongi, accom­panied by a son he descended to the Land of Silla in Korea, where he built a boat of clay in which he passed over to Idzumo. There he rescues a maiden from an eight-forked dragon in one of whose tails he finds a wonderful sword, which afterwards becomes one of the items in the regalia of Japan. This sword plays an important part in the myth as a link between Kyushu and Idzumo. Various versions are given of the way in which the blade was sent up to the Plain of High Heaven,—some of them make the Impetuous Male himself deliver it up, while one in the Nihongi says it was a descendant of his in the fifth generation who did so. At all events, when the Sun-Goddess’s grand-child was sent down to Kyushu to occupy Japan we find the Goddess bestowing this very sword upon him as one of the three sacred insignia.

The Idzumo legend then runs on in comparative isolation for six generations, during which, however, relations with Yamato begin. Onamuji, sixth in descent from the Impetuous Male, is ruling in Idzumo as a man of might when a great conclave of Gods is convoked in the High Plain of Heaven to discuss the affairs of Japan, and arrange for their settlement. Of this episode we have several ancillary versions in the Nihongi whose main narrative here differs in important details from that of the Kojiki. In the Nihongi it is not the Sun-Goddess but the Goddess’s ancestor eleven generations removed who mainly originates and directs the enterprise. This ancestor, Takamusubi, has a daughter whom he bestows in marriage on the Sun-Goddess’s eldest son, and it is in the interests of the son born of this union that this unusually “ immortal god” bestirs himself. (According to the Kojiki he had come into existence and passed away some icons before.) In the others it is the Sun-Goddess who is the protagonist here, and the grandson who ultimately was sent on the mission was unborn at the date of the great conclave held to discuss the project. A succession of envoys are sent down to Idzumo to summon Anamuji to give up his kingdom, but the first three messengers allow themselves to lie seduced and beguiled by the beauties of the land. A fourth embassy is at last successful in obtaining the submission of the monarch or deity of Idzumo, who surrenders his throne and undertakes to serve the new dynasty if a palace or temple be built for him and he be appropriately worshipped. One of Onamuji’s sons proved recalcitrant, however, and fled to Suwa in Shinano, where the temple of Take-minakata, as he was called, is thronged with devotees even at the present time. His brother Koto-shiro-nushi strongly urged compliance with the demands of the Sun-Goddess’s envoys, and in consequence of this he was subsequently held in great honour at the Imperial Court, of which he was considered one of the principal protectors. He appears as one of the deities who advised Jingo Kogo’s famous Korean expedition. The Jingikwan included him among the eight Gods specially worshipped by the Imperial House to the neglect of many more important deities, including even his father, Onamuji. One thing that perhaps helps to explain this is that Koto-shiro-nushi figures in the sequel as the grandfather of the second Emperor of Japan, for it was his daughter that Jimmu wedded and made his Empress after the conquest of Yamato. Koto-shiro-nushi is thus an important link, not merely between Idzumo and Kyushu, but between Idzumo, Kyushu and Yamato.

Onamuji’s cult as the Great God of Miwa was also sub­sequently established in Yamato. Behind the legend we have indications that the more cultured Idzumo State continued to be a source of apprehension to the Yamato rulers, who had no small trouble from time to time in conciliating or crushing the priestly dynasty on the shores of the Sea of Japan that had ostensibly demitted its secular functions.

On receiving the abdication of the Idzumo sovereign, the Sun-Goddess might naturally have, been expected to make Idzumo the immediate objective of her grandchild when he fared forth on his mission. However, it is on Mount Takachiho in the land of So (i.e. Kumaso) that Ninigi no Mikoto alights with his train; and the country around the Gulf of Kagoshima now becomes the scene of the legendary incidents.

The Heavenly Grandchild has a liaison with a native Sa­tsuma lady, who gives birth to triplets, between the two elder of whom there is discord when they arrive at manhood. In his distress the younger of these fares over sea to the Hall of the Dragon King, whose daughter he weds, and by whose help he is enabled to overcome his elder brother when he returns home. This elder brother, who promises that his descendants will serve those of the victor, is called the ancestor of the Hayato, who, as we shall see, are possibly identical with the Kumaso. The offspring of the younger brother and the daugh­ter of the Dragon King is a prince who, marrying his mother’s younger sister, becomes the father of the future first Emperor, Jimmu Tenno, and his three elder brothers.

The legends thus attribute a Satsuma or Kumaso strain of blood to the first earthly generation of the Imperial line, while they also will have it that the Hayato are of the stock of the elder brother of Jimmu Tenno’s grandfather

It is Jimmu who brings Kyushu and Yamato into touch with each other. Of his three brothers, one “treading on the crest of the waves, crossed over to the Eternal Land,” while yet another ‘‘went into the Sea-Plain, it being his deceased mother’s land.” But Jimmu and his elder brother, Itsu-se, dwelling in the Palace of Takachiho, took counsel saying: “By dwelling in what place shall we most quietly carry on the government of the Empire? It were probably best to go east.” Forthwith they loft Himuka (Hyuga or Osumi), on their progress to Tsukushi (Chikuzen). ‘‘So when they arrived at Usa in the land of Tovo (Buzen) two of the natives, the Prince of Usa and the Princess of Usa, built a palace raised on one foot, and offered them a great august banquet. Removing thence, they dwelt for one year at the Palace of Okada in tsukushi (Chiku-zen). Again making a progress up from that land, they dwelt seven yearn at the Palace of Takeri in Aki (modern Hiroshima). Again removing, and making a progress up from that land, they dwelt eight years at the Palace of Takashima in Kibi (Kibi= Bingo, Bitchu, Bizen) ”

This is the Kojiki account of the early Kumaso migration, and it has been given verbatim, inasmuch as the narrative has evidently been very considerably modified and “improved” in what they no doubt believed to be the interests of scholarship if not of plausibility by the compilers of the Nihongi. Accord­ing to it, Jimmu set out with his three brothers and a great naval force in the winter of 667 (!), and after visiting Usa, Chikuzen, and Aki, and making a stay of three years in Kibi, arrived off Naniwa (or Osaka) in the spring of 663 BC. The Kojiki’s narrative of the Conquest of Yamato is incoherent in several respects; the Nihongi addresses itself to removing some of the difficulties, and it does indeed get over some of those geographical stumbling-blocks to which Motoori has called attention.

The Nihongi compilers have found it advisable to devote more attention to the problem of dovetailing the Kyushu and the Main Island legends into each other than the Kojiki has done. In the conquest of Yamato, the Nigi-haya-hi no Mikoto story is only referred to in the Kojiki; in the Nihongi it is utilised to good purpose to legitimatise the rule of the Kyushu conquerers in Central Japan. In the Nihongi there are four other attempts to bring Kyushu and Yamato into connection,— Keiko Tenno’s invasion of Kyushu and his seven years’ sojourn there (82 to AD), of which the Kojiki says nothing; the story of Yamato-dake’s conquest of the Kumaso in the same reign; Chuai Tenno’s struggle with the Kumaso a century later (192-200 AD), and Jingo’s chastisement of them just pre­vious to her Korean expedition.

Now, in all these accounts, except that of Yamato Take, the lues etymologica runs riot. In the Kojiki’s account of the con­quest of Yamato, there are three or four etymologies. In that of the Nihongi there are four times as many, while incidents are either adduced or invented to account for popular sayings, incantations, and practices. And in the passages dealing with Keiko and Chuai and Jingo in Kyushu we find place-name after place-name accounted for by certain events and episodes in their respective enterprises. Again, the tale of Jingo’s conquest of Yamato after the Korean expedition is not without echoes of events in the history of Jimmu. It should be furthermore men­tioned that in the Kojiki Chuai Tenno (Jingo’s husband) is introduced on the stage with his court in North-Eastern Kyushu and not in Central Japan, where all the previous em­perors are represented to have had theirs. The Nihongi, on the other hand, here again supplies a link, and makes Chuai simply come to Kyushu from Yamato on a punitive expedition. But for this latter version of the story, we might be tempted to fancy that we have here a hint of yet another irruption of Kumaso or Kyushu men into Yamato. If the Nihongi gets over the seeming geographical dislocation in the story it introduces sad confusion into its own chronology at this point. Chuai Tenno’s son, Ojin Tenno, the future God of War, was fourteen months in the womb of his mother, Jingo Kogo. But as Chuai was born in 148 AD and his father, Yamato-dake, died in 111 AD., Chuai’s lady mother must have been a very remarkable woman indeed.

As has just been said, the Yamato-dake legend is also utilised to bring Yamato and Kyushu into touch. At the age of sixteen this prince made a very summary end of his own elder brother, who had offended their father, the Emperor, and the latter, thinking his presence at Court somewhat dangerous, dispatched him on a mission to Kyushu to deal with the “rebellious” Kumaso there. By an act of daring treachery he succeeds in assassinating two of their prominent chiefs and returns to Yamato in triumph, only to find that there is a similar enterprise ready for him in another direction. He is sent off to subdue the Yemishi or Ainu in Eastern Japan,—around Tokyo Bay,—and, in command of a force composed mainly of his own butler, he completes the work,—“an achievement fully equal in courage, skill, daring, patience, and romantic interest to that of Napoleon,” an American historian would have us believe. The story of Yamato-dake was evidently a very fine old folklore tale which Temmu’s commissioners admired so highly that they fancied a place should be found for it in their authentic record of “Ancient Matters.”

But here again the Kojiki and the Nihongi differ in their narratives. Both alike make the hero smite the West and the East; but whereas the Kojiki makes him proceed to Idzumo, and slay the bravo there—also by a piece of trickery—the Nihongi says nothing about that particular incident in his career, and employs the details given in the Kojiki to embroider an earlier Idzumo story. According to the Nihongi the 11th legendary Emperor Sui-nin wished to see the Divine Treasures of the Temple of Idzumo, and sent envoys to bring them to him. The High Priest was then absent in Tsukushi (Kyushu), and a younger brother of his complied with the Imperial order. On his return the High Priest was exceedingly wroth, and later on he killed his younger brother in a treacherous manner,—in exactly the way the Kojiki makes Yamato-dake kill the Idzumo bravo. Imperial officers were thereupon sent to kill him; and therefore “the Omi of Idzumo desisted for a while from the worship of the Great God.”

Standing by itself this incident may seem pointless, but taken with certain preceding passages it acquires a good deal of significance. It is one incident in a struggle that was going on between the Gods of Idzumo and those of Yamato,—or perhaps more correctly it points to a persistent attempt on the part of the rulers of Yamato to break the power of the priest­rulers of Idzumo. In BC 93, we find the previous Emperor Sujin worshipping the Sun-Goddess and the Great God of Yamato together “within the Emperor’s Great Hall. He dreaded, however, the power of these Gods, and did not feel secure in their dwelling together.” So they were entrusted to two Imperial Priestesses and enshrined in separate localities. Thereupon a great pestilence broke out, and calamities of all kinds followed. At last Oho-mono-nushi (i.e. Onamuji) appeared to the Emperor in a dream and told him that if a certain mysterious son or descendant of his was appointed to worship him, troubles would cease. Thus the Idzumo God’s worship was established in Yamato, where he was known as the Great God of Miwa, and ultimately came to be regarded as the Great God of Yamato. Thus the Idzumo High Priests of the line of Onamuji found themselves confronted with a rival line in Yamato, and in the light of the subsequent Ya­mato attempts—for more than one are hinted at—to become possessed of the Divine Treasures of the Great Idzumo Temple, this incident acquires political no less than sacerdotal significance.

Meanwhile the Sun-Goddess, after having been in charge of the same priestess for eighty-seven years, was transferred to the care of Yamato-dake’s aunt, Yamato-hime no Mikoto. In 5 BC, the Goddess instructed the new priestess, saying: “ The province of Ise, of the divine wind, is the land whither repair the waves from the eternal world, the successive waves. It is a secluded and pleasant land. In this land I wish to dwell.” So a shrine was erected to her in the province of Ise. “It was there that Amaterasu no Ohokami first descended from Heaven.”

It may be well to take note of those elements in the composite cult of ancient Japan which came from the south. The Sun-Goddess herself heads the list, and then we have the Nakatomi priesthood, whose descendants were destined to become all-powerful politically in the Empire under the name of Fujiwara. Furthermore, there were the Imibe, or “abstainers,” who, however, ultimately receded into insignificance, and the Sarume or female “mediums.” This would appear to have been about the sum total of the Southern invaders’ contribution to the religious life of the community. It is true that Jimmu, Chuai. Jingo, Ojin, Yamato-dake, and Takeuchi no Sukune were afterwards deified and worshipped as Gods, but none of these are treated as deities in the older Shinto books. But, meagre as the Kyushu element in the old religion may appear to be, it was enough. The Southern men have at all times been remarkable for organising and administrative ability, and their organising and administrative faculties enabled the Nakatomi to utilise the Idzumo cult and the Idzumo pantheon very effectively in the service of themselves and of Yamato.

We are not without indications that, however inferior to the Yamato men in political and military power the Idzumo people may have been, they were evidently possessed of a higher culture than they. One such hint is afforded by the legend of Nomi no Sukune who is now worshipped as the Patron God of Wrestlers, although it was certainly not from his wrestling that the Idzumo claims to a milder and more ad­vanced civilisation become apparent. In BC 23 “the courtiers represented to the Emperor as follows:—In the village of Taima there is a valiant man called Kuyehaya of Taima He is of great bodily strength, so that he can break horns aid straighten out hooks. He is always saying to the people: “You may search the four quarters, but where is there one to compare with me in strength? O that I could meet with a man of might, with whom to have a trial of strength, regard­less of life or death.” The Emperor, hearing this, proclaimed to his Ministers, saying: ‘We hear that Kuyehaya of Taima is the champion of the Empire. Might there be anyone to compare with him? One of the Ministers came forward and said: ‘Thy servant hears that in the Land of Idzumo there is a valiant man named Nomi no Sukune. It is desirable that thou should send for him, by way of trial, and match him with Kuyehaya?” The Emperor did so, and “straightway Komi no Sukune and Kuyehaya were made to wrestle together. The two men stood opposite to one another. Each raised his foot and kicked at the other, when Nomi no Sukune broke with a kick the ribs of Kuyehaya, and also kicked and broke his loins and thus killed him. Therefore the land of Kuyehaya was seized, and was all given to Nomi no Sukune.” Nomi then entered the Emperor’s service, but it was not till more than a score of years later on that he rendered his great service to the cause of humanity.

In 2 BC the Emperor’s younger brother, Yamato-hiko, died and “was buried at Tsukizaka in Musa. Thereupon his personal attendants were assembled, and were all buried alive upright in the precincts of the mausoleum. For several days they died not, but wept and wailed day and night. At last they died and rotted. Dogs and crows gathered and ate them. The Emperor, hearing the sound of their weeping and wailing, was grieved in heart, and commanded his high officers, saying —It is a very painful thing to force those whom one has loved in life to follow him in death. Though it be an ancient custom, why follow it, if it is bad? From this time forward, take counsel so as to put a stop to the following of the dead.”

Five years later this became a very pressing question when the Empress died (ad 3).  Some time before the burial, the Emperor commanded his Ministers, saying:—‘We have already recognised that the practice of following the dead is not good. What should now be done in performing this burial?’ Thereupon Nomi no Sukune came forward and said:—‘It is not good to bury living men upright at the tumulus of a prince. How can such a practice be handed down to posterity? I beg leave to propose an expedient to your Majesty.’ So he sent messengers to summon up from the land of Idzumo a hundred men of the clay-workers’ company. He himself directed men of the clay-workers’ company to take clay and form therewith shapes of men, horse, and various objects, which he presented to the Emperor, saying:—‘Henceforward let it be a law for future ages to substitute things of clay for living men, and to set them up at tumuli.’ Then a Decree was issued saying :—‘Henceforth these clay figures must be set up at tumuli; let not men be harmed.’ The Em­peror bountifully rewarded Nomi no Sukune for this service, and also bestowed on him a kneading-place, and appointed him to the official charge of the clay-workers’ company. His original title was therefore changed, and he was called Hashi no Omi. This was how it came to pass that the Hashi no Muraji (Chief of the Clay-workers) superintends the burials of the Emperors.”

Inasmuch as we hear of this practice of “following the dead” being in vogue in Japan as late as the middle of the third century AD, and inasmuch as the early chronology of the Nihongi has been not unfairly characterised as “one of the greatest literary frauds ever perpetrated,” we may see further reason to doubt the hoary antiquity assigned to certain of the Japanese dolmens. Writes Mr. Gowland :—“An important feature of some of the ancient burial mounds and dolmens is the terracotta figures which were set up on them at the funeral ceremonies. Like many other races, the early Japanese practised that curious rite of animistic religion, the funeral sacrifices of men, women, and horses for the services of the dead in a future life. According to the Nihongi, the substitution of terra cotta figures for living retainers was made about the beginning of our era, but remains of these figures have been found on mounds which are probably of an earlier date.... Terra-cotta figures of horses were also frequently set up on burial mounds along with the human figures.”

Now, if the Chinese are correct in saying that there were no horses in Japan until the third century AD.—indeed it is only after the Korean present of a stallion and a mare in 284 (or 404 according to Mr. Aston) that we hear much about horses in the Nihongi,—we have here another indication that not a few of the Japanese tumuli are of a much later origin than is commonly supposed.

At this point it may be well to advert to another circumstance which seems to be of some importance when we consider the early relations of Kyushu and Idzumo men. In the seats of the Kumaso—that is, in Satsuma, Osumi, and Southern Hyuga—there are very few dolmens. It was in this land of So (i.e. Kumaso) that the Heavenly Grandchild is said to have made his appearance in Japan. It was here that he was succeeded in the exercise of his sway (of 528 years) by three successive generations of his descendants, the last of which fared forth to effect the conquest of Yamato. Now, since dolmen-burial was rarely practised by the Kumaso it is not likely that it was the Kyushu invaders that introduced the dolmen into Yamato. It was evidently of Idzumo origin, and the victorious southern chieftains probably adopted it after establishing themselves in their new seats.

In both the Nihongi and the Kojiki the history of the early Emperors is continuous with the mythology. This fact was fully acknowledged by those leading native commentators of the eighteenth century whose opinions are regarded as ortho­dox by modern Shintoists. From this the conclusion is drawn that everything in these old standard national histories must be accepted as literal truth, the supernatural equally with the natural. This position seems to have the merit of being logical at least, for the tales of Jimmu, of Yamato-dake, of Jingo, and of the rest stand or fall by the same criterion as the legends of the Creator and the Creatress Izanagi and Izanami. Both sets of tales are told in the same books, in the same style, and with an almost equal amount of supernatural detail. The so-called historical part is as devoid as the other of all contemporary evidence, while it is contradicted by such conte­porary Chinese notices of Japan as we have. However, as has been already hinted, the main purpose of the compilers of the Kojiki and the Nihongi at this point was not so much to write a history as to supply genealogies which were to be regarded as official and authentic. This makes a cursory glance at some results of their efforts necessary.

In both books the Imperial succession from Jimmu devolves from father to son down to Seimu, the thirteenth Emperor. However, it is neither the eldest son, nor yet the son of the chief consort, who necessarily comes to occupy the throne on the demise of the father. The Imperial family is usually a small one at this time. The first six sovereigns have no more than thirteen children between them; the seventh is credited with eleven, his two immediate successors with five each, Sujin with twelve, and Sui-nin with sixteen, while Seimu, the thirteenth, had one son if we follow the Kojiki and “no male offspring” according to the Nihongi. In all this there is nothing remarkable. But the twelfth sovereign, whose stature was ten feet five inches, is assigned no fewer than eighty children, and in connection with these we seem to get a glimpse into the political condition of primeval Japan. With the exception of the three eldest, “the other seventy and odd children were all granted fiefs of provinces and districts, and each proceeded to his own province. Therefore, those who at the present time are called Wake of the various provinces are the descendants of these separated (wakare) Princes.” Mr. Aston remarks that this passage from the 'Nihongi points to something like a feudal system. But while no one has done better service than Mr. Aston in calling attention to the numerous instances where the Kihongi gets embellished not merely with the diction but with the incidents of Chinese histories, he seems here to have forgotten that Wu-wang, the founder of the Chow dynasty, is said (1115 BC) to have divided his kingdom into seventy-two feudal States, in order that he might bestow appanages on his relations and the descendants of former Emperors. However, it must be frankly admitted that this is not the only passage that points to the possible prevalence of something analogous to a feudal system in legendary Japan. In 291 Ojin Tenno, also the father of a large family (26 sons and daughters), is represented as dividing Kibi, which corresponds to the provinces of Bizen, Bitchu, and Bingo, into six fiefs and apportioning them to as many of his children.

With the death of Keiko Tenno’s successor, Seimu (whose chronicle of two brief pages is mainly made up of impossible Chinese speeches and decrees, albeit he reigned from 130 to 190 AD), occurs the first break in the transmission of the Imperial dignity from father to son. It then passes to Seimu’s nephew-and Keiko’s grandson—to Chuai Tenno (192-200), another Son of Anak, who fell only the odd inches short of his grandfather’s stature of ten feet five. The genealogy here is puzzling in sooth. Yamato-dake was the second son of Keiko, and one of Keiko’s consorts (according to the Kojiki) was the great grand-daughter of Yamato-dake! In other words Keiko Tenno is made to marry his own great-great-granddaughter! Nor is this all. As already pointed out, Chuai Tenno was born in 148 AD, while his father Yamato-dake died in 111,—that is, thirty-seven years before the birth of his son! And in addition to all this, at this point there is a great topographical breach in the legend. Without a word of warning the Kojiki here transfers the seat of the Court from Yamato, where it had been for thirteen generations, to Kyushu. Chuai is occupied in reducing the Kumaso, but his consort the Amazon Jingo is “divinely possessed,” and when “ the Prime Minister the noble Takeuchi, being in the pure Court, requested the divine orders, the Empress charged him with this instruction and counsel:—‘There is a land to the westward, and in that land is abundance of various treasures dazzling to the eye, from gold and silver downwards. I will now bestow this land upon thee!’” Chuai Tenno was incredulous, called the “possessing” deities lying deities, and was straightway stricken with death. Then the Kojiki makes Jingo proceed to the conquest, not of Korea, but of Shiragi or Silla, which is a very different matter. “So the wave of the august vessel pushed up on to the land of Shiragi (Silla), reaching to the middle of the country. Thereupon the chieftain of the country, alarmed and trembling, petitioned (the Empress) saying: ‘From this time forward, obedient to the Heavenly Sovereign’s commands, I will feed Her august horses, and will marshal vessels every year, nor ever let the vessels’ keels dry or their poles and oars dry, and will re­spectfully serve Her without drawing back while Heaven and Earth shall last.’ So therefore the Land of Shiragi (Silla) was constituted the feeder of the august horses, and the Land of Kudara (Pakche) the crossing store. Then the Empress stuck her august staff on the gate of the chieftain of Shiragi (Silla), and having made the Rough Spirits of the Great Deities of the Inlet of Sumi the guardian Deities of the land, she laid them to rest, and crossed back.”

True to its inveterate wont, the jack-daw Nihongi here tricks itself out in its frippery of peacock’s feathers purloined from Chinese books, and devotes eight or nine pages of stilted rhodomontade to this filibustering enterprise. It exceeds itself by winding up thus:—“Hereupon the kings of the two countries of Korvo and Pakche, hearing that Silla had rendered up its maps and registers (!), and made submission, secretly caused the warlike power (of the Empress) to be spied out. Finding then that they could not be victorious, they came of themselves without the camp, and bowing their heads to the ground and sighing, said: ‘Henceforth forever, these lands shall be styled thy western frontier provinces, and will not cease to offer tribute.’ Accordingly interior Govern­ments were instituted. This is what is termed the three Han.” Now, to talk of Silla “maps and registers” at this time is absurd. In the next place the name Koryo was not used until about 500 AD,—i.e., three centuries after this date. And in the third place the three Han were not Silla, Pakche, and Koguryu—or Shiragi, Kudara, and Koma in Japanese. In the earliest times there were three Han States in the south­west of the Korean peninsula. Of these Ma-han to the west consisted of 54 communities; Chen-han to the east included 12, and Pien-chen, to the south of the second, was composed of 12 more. One of these Ma-han communities later on formed the nucleus of the kingdom of Pakche, while others were absorbed in Kara or Kaya, which at one time formed either part or the whole of the Japanese possessions in the south of Korea, known in Japanese history as Mimana or Imna. In Koryo or Koguryu, or Korea to the north of Seoul, the Japanese never had the slightest foothold; to Silla they often made themselves very unpleasant and disagreeable, but they never seem to have conquered that State, while as regards Pakche they are frequently found co-operating with it against Silla. Their foothold was in the district between the confines of Silla and Pakche to the south. Here they seem to have really held a dominant position for some centuries, and it was this district that really constituted the three Han.

Now is this Jingo legend to be dismissed as an incident in a Japanese Apocrypha? Mr. Aston identifies the alleged expedition of 200 ad with those events of 249 ad which we have previously culled from the Korean histories. But just a little before this the Japanese “She” of contemporary Chinese re­cords was being “followed in death” by her thousand hapless attendants. These records, as has been stated, will have it that at this date there really was a great and able female sovereign in Japan, who had for long years exercised a strong and* beneficent rule over a united and peaceful country which her genius had extricated from a series of deadly internecine wars which had distracted and devastated the land for no fewer than eighty years.

During the two centuries between Jingo’s conquest of Shi-ragi and the death of Nintoku Tenno in 399, the annals reckon no more than three sovereigns: Jingo, who lived to attain her hundredth year, died in 269; her son Ojin ruled till 310, and after some peculiar difficulties about the succession he was followed by his second son Nintoku, who is assigned a reign of 87 years. This is according to the Nihongi. The Kojiki, on the other hand, makes Ojin live to 130; and as he was born just after his mother returned from her Korean expedition in 201, his reign would thus extend down to 331. Nintoku is credited not with a reign of 87, but with an age of 83 years.

If the chronology of these sovereigns in these ages presents problems, that of their Prime Minister treats us to impossibilities. Born on the same day as the Emperor Seimu in 92 ad, Takeuchi no Sukune was the friend and companion of that prince, who appointed him Chief Minister on succeeding to the throne in 130 ad. The exact year of his death is not given; but in 362 ad. we find the Emperor Nintoku consulting him and addressing him as

“Thou beyond all others

A man distant of age—

Thou beyond all others

A man long in the land.”

At that date he was 270 years of age,—if the chronology be trustworthy. During these three reigns the Nihongi has a good many notices of events in connection with Japanese and Korean intercourse. It is here that Mr. Aston has had no difficulty in showing that the Nihongi has antedated most of them by 120 years. In other words, the Nihongi writers have here interpolated two cycles of 60 years each. Some Japanese authorities will have it that between Jininiu (660 BC) and Nintoku (399 AD) as many as ten of these cycles of 60 years have thus been interposed, but their arguments in support of the contention are not wholly convincing.

It may well be asked why it was that the Nihongi authors fixed upon 660 BC as the exact date when Jimmu established the Empire of Japan. The most plausible account seems to be this :—It was not till 554 AD that the Japanese made an acquaintance with the Chinese system of chronology, when a man learned in the calendar was sent from Pakche in Korea by request, and it was only in 602, when chronological and astronomical works and a movable disc for calculating calendars were brought to Japan, that a really earnest study of the science of Chinese chronology seems to have been begun. It was in 675 that the first astronomical observatory was erected, and it was in 690 that the first official calendar was promulgated. This latter date was eight years subsequent to the establishment of Temmu’s Historical Com­mission and thirty years before the appearance of the Nihongi.

Now, Chinese chronology had the famous system of cycles, sixty years forming a smaller cycle, and twenty-one such cycles, or 1,260 years, a larger one. The fifty-eighth year of the smaller cycle was supposed by the Chinese to be the year in which some revolution was liable to take place. It is suggested that the writers of the Nihongi, seeing that 600 AD was the first year of revolution before the adoption of the calendar in 602, counted backward for the space of a large cycle, thus reaching 660 BC, and made that the first year of the Japanese Empire. They then fell under the necessity of distributing the somewhat scanty data at their disposal over a very long range of time, and, when it came to assigning events not merely their year, but their month, and their day of the month, the difficulties of producing a chronologically consistent narrative proved insuperable. Motoori and Mr., Aston and others have pointed out the most striking of the vagaries into which they were thus betrayed. But no list of such vagaries is complete, for the earlier (so-called) historical portion of the Nihongi bristles with them.

CHAPTER I. PROTOHISTORIC JAPAN (CHINESE AND KOREAN SOURCES.)

CHAPTER II. LEGENDARY JAPAN. (JAPANESE SOURCES.)

CHAPTER III. OLD YAMATO (400 A.D. - 550 A.D.)