Footnote 2:[(return)]
The scholar who above all others has, with rare acumen united to laborious and prolonged toil, illuminated the subject of Japan's chronology and early history is Mr. W.G. Aston of the British Civil Service. He studied at the Queen's University, Ireland, receiving the degree of M.A. He was appointed student-interpreter in Japan, August 6, 1864. He is the author of a Grammar of the Written Japanese Language, and has been a student of the comparative history and speech and writing of China, Korea, and Japan, during the past thirty years. See his valuable papers in the T.A.S.J., and the learned societies in Great Britain. In his paper on Early Japanese History, T.A.S.J., Vol. XVI., pp. 39-75, he recapitulates the result of his researches, in which he is, in the main, supported by critical native scholars, and by the late William Bramsen, in his Japanese Chronological Tables, Tōkiō, 1880. He considers A.D. 461 as the first trustworthy date in the Japanese annals. We quote from his paper, Early Japanese History, T.A.S.J., Vol. XVI., p. 73.
1. The earliest date of the accepted Japanese Chronology, the accuracy of which is confirmed by external evidence, is A.D. 461.
2. Japanese History, properly so called, can hardly be said to exist previous to A.D. 500. (A cursory examination leads me to think that the annals of the sixth century must also be received with caution.)
3. Korean History and Chronology are more trustworthy than those of Japan during the period previous to that date.
4. While there was an Empress of Japan in the third century A.D., the statement that she conquered Korea is highly improbable.
5. Chinese learning was introduced into Japan from Korea 120 years later than the date given in Japanese History.
6. The main fact of Japan having a predominant influence in some parts of Korea during the fifth century is confirmed by the Korean and Chinese chronicles, which, however, show that the Japanese accounts are very inaccurate in matters of detail.
Footnote 3:[(return)]
Basil Hall Chamberlain, who has done the world of learning such signal service by his works on the Japanese language, and especially by his translation, with critical introduction and commentary, of the Kojiki, is an English gentleman, born at Southsea, Hampshire, England, on the 18th day of October, 1830. His mother was a daughter of the well-known traveller and author, Captain Basil Hall, R.N., and his father an Admiral in the British Navy. He was educated for Oxford, but instead of entering, for reasons of health, he spent a number of years in western Mid southern Europe, acquiring a knowledge of various languages and literatures. His coming to Japan (in May, 1873) was rather the result of an accident—a long sea voyage and a trial of the Japanese climate having been recommended. The country and the field of study suited the invalid well. After teaching for a time in the Naval College the Japanese honored themselves and this scholar by making him, in April, 1886, Professor of Philology at the Imperial University. His works, The Classical Poetry of the Japanese, his various grammars and hand-books for the acquisition of the language, his Hand-book for Japan, his Aino Studies, Things Japanese, papers in the T.A.S.J. and his translation of the Kojiki are all of a high order of value. They are marked by candor, fairness, insight, and a mastery of difficult themes that makes his readers his constant debtors.
Footnote 4:[(return)]
"If the term 'Altaic' be held to include Korean and Japanese, then Japanese assumes prime importance as being by far the oldest living representative of that great linguistic group, its literature antedating by many centuries the most ancient productions of the Manchus, Mongols, Turks, Hungarians, or Finns."—Chamberlain, Simplified Grammar, Introd., p. vi.
Footnote 5:[(return)]
Corea, the Hermit Nation, pp. 13-14; Mr. Pom K. Soh's paper on Education in Korea; Report of U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1890-91.
Footnote 6:[(return)]
T.A.S.J., Vol. XVI., p. 74; Bramsen's Chronological Tables, Introd., p. 34; T.J., p. 32.
Footnote 7:[(return)]
The Middle Kingdom, Vol. I., p. 531.
Footnote 8:[(return)]
"The frog in the well knows not the great ocean." This proverb, so freely quoted throughout Chinese Asia, and in recent years so much applied to themselves by the Japanese, is of Hindu origin and is found in the Sanskrit.
Footnote 9:[(return)]
This is shown with literary skill and power in a modern popular work, the title of which, Dai Nippon Kai-biyaku Yurai-iki, which, very freely indeed, may be translated Instances of Divine Interposition in Behalf of Great Japan. A copy of this work was presented to the writer by the late daimiō of Echizen, and was read with interest as containing the common people's ideas about their country and history. It was published in Yedo in 1856, while Japan was still excited over the visits of the American and European fleets. On the basis of the information furnished in this work General Le Gendre wrote his influential book, Progressive Japan, in which a number of quotations from the Kai-biyaku may be read.
Footnote 10:[(return)]
In the Kojiki, pp. 101-104, we have the poetical account of the abdication of the lord of Idzumo in favor of the Yamato conqueror, on condition that the latter should build a temple and have him honored among the gods. One of the rituals contains the congratulatory address of the chieftains of Idzumo, on their surrender to "the first Mikado, Jimmu Tennō." See also T.J., p. 206.