A history of the Japanese people

by F. Brinkley; Dairoku Kikuchi

The task of applying ideographic script to phonetic purposes is exceedingly difficult. In the ideographic script each character has a distinct sound and a complete meaning. Thus, in China shan signifies "mountain," and ming "light." But in Japanese "mountain" becomes yama and "light" akari. It is evident, then, that one of two things has to be done. Either the sounds of the Japanese words must be changed to those of the Chinese ideographs; or the sounds of the Chinese ideographs must alone be taken (irrespective of their meaning), and with them a phonetic syllabary must be formed. Both of these devices were employed by a Japanese scholar of early times. Sometimes disregarding the significance of the ideographs altogether, he used them simply as representing sounds, and with them built up pure Japanese words; at other times, he altered the sounds of Japanese words to those of their Chinese equivalents and then wrote them frankly with their ideographic symbols.

In this way each Japanese word came to have two pronunciations: first, its own original sound for colloquial purposes; and second, its borrowed sound for purposes of writing. At the outset the spoken and the written languages were doubtless kept tolerably distinct. But by degrees, as respect for Chinese literature developed, it became a learned accomplishment to pronounce Japanese words after the Chinese manner, and the habit ultimately acquired such a vogue that the language of men—who wrote and spoke ideographically—grew to be different from the language of women—who wrote and spoke phonetically. When Hiyeda no Are was required to memorize the annals and traditions collected and revised at the Imperial Court, the language in which he committed them to heart was pure Japanese, and in that language he dictated them, twenty-nine years later, to the scribe Yasumaro. The latter, in setting down the products of Are's memory, wrote for the most part phonetically; but sometimes, finding that method too cumbersome, he had recourse to the ideographic language, with which he was familiar. At all events, adding nothing nor taking away anything, he produced a truthful record of the myths, traditions, and salient historical incidents credited by the Japanese of the seventh century.

It may well be supposed, nevertheless, that Are's memory, however tenacious, failed in many respects, and that his historical details were comparatively meagre. An altogether different spirit presided at the work subsequently undertaken by this same Yasumaro, when, in conjunction with other scholars, he was required to collate the historical materials obtained abundantly from various sources since the vandalism of the Soga nobles. The prime object of these collaborators was to produce a Japanese history worthy to stand side by side with the classic models of China. Therefore, they used the Chinese language almost entirely, the chief exception being in the case of the old poems, a great number of which appear in the Records and the Chronicles alike. The actual words of these poems had to be preserved as well as the metre, and therefore it was necessary to indite them phonetically. For the rest, the Nihon Shoki, which resulted from the labours of these annalists and literati, was so Chinese that its authors did not hesitate to draw largely upon the cosmogonic myths of the Middle Kingdom, and to put into the mouths of Japanese monarchs, or into their decrees, quotations from Chinese literature. "As a repertory of ancient Japanese myth and legend there is little to choose between the Records and the Chronicles. The former is, on the whole, the fuller of the two, and contains legends which the latter passes over in silence; but the Chronicles, as we now have them, are enriched by variants of the early myths, the value of which, for purposes of comparison, is recognized by scientific inquirers. But there can be no comparison between the two works when viewed as history. Hiyeda no Are's memory cannot be expected to compete in fullness and accuracy with the abundant documentary literature accessible to the writers of the Chronicles, and an examination of the two works shows that, in respect to the record of actual events, the Chronicles are far the more useful authority".*

*Aston's Nihongi.

It will readily be supposed, too, that the authors of both works confused the present with the past, and, in describing the manners and customs of by-gone eras, unconsciously limned their pictures with colours taken from the palette of their own times, "when the national thought and institutions had become deeply modified by Chinese influences." Valuable as the two books are, therefore, they cannot be accepted without large limitations. The Nihon Shoki occupied a high place in national esteem from the outset. In the year following its compilation, the Empress Gensho summoned eminent scholars to the Court and caused them to deliver lectures on the contents of the book, a custom which was followed regularly by subsequent sovereigns and still finds a place among the New Year ceremonials. This book proved to be the precursor of five others with which it is commonly associated by Japanese scholars. They are the Zoku Nihongi (Supplementary Chronicles of Japan), in forty volumes, which covers the period from 697 to 791 and was finished in 798; the Nihon Koki (Later Chronicles of Japan), in forty volumes—ten only survive—which covers the period from 792 to 833; the Zoku Nihon Koki (Supplementary Later Chronicles), in twenty volumes, which covers the single reign of the Emperor Nimmyo (834-850) and was compiled in 869; the Montoku Jitsu-roku (True Annals of Montoku), in ten volumes, covering the reign of Montoku (851-858), and compiled in 879, and the Sandai Jitsu-roku (True Annals of Three Reigns) in fifty volumes, covering the period from 859 to 887 and compiled in 901. These five compilations together with the Nihon Shoki are honoured as the Six National Histories. It is noticeable that the writers were men of the highest rank, from prime ministers downwards. In such honour was the historiographer's art held in Japan in the eighth and ninth centuries.

CHRONOLOGY

Before beginning to read Japanese history it is necessary to know something of the chronology followed in its pages. There have been in Japan four systems for counting the passage of time. The first is by the reigns of the Emperors. That is to say, the first year of a sovereign's reign—reckoning from the New Year's day following his accession—became the 1 of the series, and the years were thenceforth numbered consecutively until his death or abdication. This method might be sufficiently accurate if the exact duration of each reign were known as well as the exact sequence of the reigns. But no such precision could be expected in the case of unwritten history, transmitted orally from generation to generation. Thus, while Japanese annalists, by accepting the aggregate duration of all the reigns known to them, arrive at the conclusion that the first Emperor, Jimmu, ascended the throne in the year 660 B.C., it is found on analysis that their figures assign to the first seventeen sovereigns an average age of 109 years.

The second system was by means of periods deriving their name (nengo) from some remarkable incident. Thus, the discovery of copper in Japan was commemorated by calling the year Wado (Japanese copper), and the era so called lasted seven years. Such a plan was even more liable to error than the device of reckoning by reigns, and a specially confusing feature was that the first year of the period dated retrospectively from the previous New Year's day, so that events were often recorded as having occurred in the final year of one period and in the opening year of another. This system was originally imported from China in the year A.D. 645, and is at present in use, the year 1910 being the forty-third of the Meiji (Enlightenment and Peace) period.

The third system was that of the sexagenary cycle. This was operated after the manner of a clock having two concentric dials, the circumference of the larger dial being divided into ten equal parts, each marked with one of the ten "celestial signs," and the circumference of the smaller dial being divided into twelve equal parts each marked with one of the twelve signs of the zodiac. The long hand of the clock, pointing to the larger dial, was supposed to make one revolution in ten years, and the shorter hand, pointing to the small dial, revolved once in twelve years. Thus, starting from the point where the marks on the two dials coincide, the long hand gained upon the short hand by one-sixtieth each year, and once in every sixty years the two hands were found at the point of conjunction. Years were indicated by naming the "celestial stem" and the zodiacal sign to which the imaginary hands happen to be pointing, just as clock-time is indicated by the minutes read from the long hand and the hours from the short. The sexagenary cycle came into use in China in 623 B.C. The exact date of its importation into Japan is unknown, but it was probably about the end of the fourth century A.D. It is a sufficiently accurate manner of counting so long as the tale of cycles is carefully kept, but any neglect in that respect exposes the calculator to an error of sixty years or some multiple of sixty. Keen scrutiny and collation of the histories of China, Korea, and Japan have exposed a mistake of at least 120 years connected with the earliest employment of the sexagenary cycle in Japan.

The fourth method corresponds to that adopted in Europe where the number of a year is referred to the birth of Christ. In Japan, the accession of the Emperor Jimmu—660 B.C.—is taken for a basis, and thus the Occidental year 1910 becomes the 2570th year of the Japanese dynasty. With such methods of reckoning some collateral evidence is needed before accepting any of the dates given in Japanese annals. Kaempfer and even Rein were content to endorse the chronology of the Chronicles—the Records avoid dates altogether—but other Occidental scholars* have with justice been more sceptical, and their doubts have been confirmed by several eminent Japanese historians in recent times. Where, then, is collateral evidence to be found?