Kojiki


Kojiki, also sometimes read as Furukotofumi, is an early Japanese chronicle of myths, legends, songs, genealogies, oral traditions, and semi-historical accounts down to 641 concerning the origin of the Japanese archipelago, the kami, and the Japanese imperial line. It is claimed in its preface to have been composed by Ō no Yasumaro at the request of Empress Genmei in the early 8th century, and thus is usually considered to be the oldest extant literary work in Japan. The myths contained in the Kojiki as well as the Nihon Shoki are part of the inspiration behind many practices. Later, the myths were re-appropriated for Shinto practices such as the misogi purification ritual.

Composition

It is believed that the compilation of various geneological and anecdotal histories of the imperial court and prominent clans began during the reigns of Emperors Keitai and Kinmei in the 6th century, with the first concerted effort at historical compilation of which we have record being the one made in 620 under the auspices of Prince Shotoku and Soga no Umako. According to the Nihon Shoki, the documents compiled under their initiative were the Tennōki or the "Record of the Emperors," the Kokki or the "National Record," and other "fundamental records" pertaining to influential clans and free subjects. Out of these texts, only the Kokki survived the burning of Soga no Emishi's estate during the Isshi incident of 645, and it itself was apparently lost soon after.
The Kojiki's preface indicates that leading families also kept their own historical and genealogical records; indeed, one of the reasons it gives for the compilation of the Kojiki is the correction of errors that had supposedly crept into these documents. According to the preface, Emperor Tenmu ordered the review and emendation of clan documents and commissioned a certain court attendant of exceptional memory named Hieda no Are to memorize records and oral traditions concerning the imperial lineage. Beyond this memorization, nothing occurred until the reign of Empress Genmei, who on the 18th of the 9th month of 711 ordered the courtier Ō no Yasumaro to record what had been learned by Hieda no Are. He finished and presented his work to Empress Genmei on the 28th of the 1st month of 712.

Purpose

The Kojiki is a collation of different traditions woven into a single "official" mythology, made in an attempt to justify the rule of the imperial Yamato polity and at the same time to subsume different interest groups under its wing by giving them a place and an interest in the national genealogy-mythology. Apart from furthering the imperial agenda, an increased interest in the nation's origins in reaction to the influx of foreign culture and the need for an authoritative genealogical account by which to consider the claims of noble families and to reorganize them into a new system of ranks and titles are also possible factors for its compilation.
The Kojiki's narrative establishes the Yamato line's right to rule via myth and legend, portraying it as the progeny of heavenly deities and the rightful heir to the land of Japan. A good part of the latter portion of the text is spent recounting various genealogies which served not only to give the imperial family an air of antiquity, but also served to tie, whether true or not, many existing clans' genealogies to their own. Regardless of the work's original intent, it finalized and possibly even formulated the framework by which Japanese history was examined in terms of the reign of emperors.
In contrast to the Nihon Shoki, the first of six histories commissioned by the imperial court, which was modeled on Chinese dynastic histories and was intended to be a national chronicle that could be shown with pride to foreign envoys, the Kojiki is inward looking, concerned mainly with the ruling family and prominent clans, and is apparently intended for internal consumption. Whereas the Nihon Shoki uses a variety of source documents, the Kojiki is apparently based on sources handed down within the court.

Transmission and study

Whereas the Nihon Shoki, owing to its status as one of the six imperial histories, was widely read and studied during the Heian period, the Kojiki was mostly treated as an ancillary text. Indeed, a work known as the Sendai Kuji Hongi, claimed to have been authored by Prince Shotōku and Soga no Umako, was considered to be earlier and more reliable than the Kojiki. By the Kamakura period, the work languished in obscurity such that very few people had access to the text, particularly that of the middle volume. It is due to this neglect that the Kojiki is available only in comparatively late manuscripts, the earliest of which dates to the late 14th century.
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It was with the advent of printing in the early modern period that the Kojiki first reached a wide audience. The earliest printed edition of the text was the Kan'ei Kojiki, published in Kyoto in 1644. A second edition, the Gōtō Kojiki was printed by :ja:出口延佳|Deguchi Nobuyoshi, a priest at Ise Shrine, in 1687.
The birth of nativist studies and nationalist sentiment during the Edo period saw a reappraisal of the Kojiki. Kokugaku scholars saw Japan's earliest writings as the repository of a uniquely superior Japanese identity that could be revived by recovering the ancient language they were written in; the Kojiki, by virtue of its antiquity, gained the status of a sacred text. The Kojiki came to be highly regarded that scholars such as Kada no Azumamaro and Kamo no Mabuchi - himself a student of Azumamaro - produced annotated versions of it.
The Kojiki received its most serious study and exposition in the hands of Motoori Norinaga, who obtained a copy of the Kan'ei printed edition in 1754. After meeting Mabuchi in 1763, Norinaga began to devote his efforts to an in-depth scholarly study of the text. A monumental 44-volume study of the Kojiki called Kojiki-den, composed over a thirty-four year period, was the fruit of his labor. With Norinaga, the Kojiki assumed an importance equal to the Nihon Shoki; in fact, in his view the Kojiki was a more trustworthy source for ancient Japanese traditions than was the Shoki precisely because it was free of "Chinese mentality." He viewed the Kojiki as a true account of actual events that when read correctly, could reveal Japan in its pristine, ideal state as a community where the kami, the emperor and the people lived in harmony. Norinaga's work was carried on in different directions by his disciple Hirata Atsutane and his rivals Fujitani Mitsue and Tachibana Moribe, who each produced commentaries and treatises on the text.
The Kojiki became once more the object of scholarly focus and discussion in the Meiji period with the introduction of Western academic disciplines such as philology and comparative mythology. The importance of the text as a work of literary value was recognized, and scholars realized that its accounts were comparable in many ways to ancient Greek and Roman myths. At the same time, however, the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki achieved a sort of scriptural status under State Shintō, which viewed the stories contained therein as orthodox national history. Official ideology upheld as unquestionable fact the belief in the emperor's divinity and the idea of Japan as a racially superior "national body", with scholars who questioned their veracity facing the threat of censorship, forced resignation, or even trial in court.
In 1913, :ja:津田左右吉|Tsuda Sōkichi argued in a study that the Kojiki, particularly in its earlier sections, was neither history nor myth but a document created to legitimize the rule of the imperial line. While his conclusions led to considerable controversy, his influence remains in subsequent studies of the text, which amounts largely to development and correction of the line of thought originally proposed by him. In reaction to Tsuda, Watsuji Tetsurō argued for a literary appreciation of the Kojiki, claiming that this gave it inner coherence. :ja:倉野憲司|Kurano Kenji took it a step further, proposing that the Kojiki may best be compared with Western epic literature and regarded as a national epic like Beowulf is in the English-speaking world. During the 1920s and 30s, linguist Hashimoto Shinkichi studied the phonology of the Old Japanese language, and his conclusions were applied by scholars to the study of the text.
The Kojiki continued to attract the attention of academics and other specialists in the post-war period, which saw the appearance of numerous editions, translations and commentaries on the text by authors such as Kurano Kenji, Takeda Yūkichi, :ja:西郷信綱|Saigō Nobutsuna, and :ja:神野志隆光|Kōnoshi Takamitsu.

Manuscripts

There are two major branches of Kojiki manuscripts: Ise and Urabe. The extant Urabe branch consists of 36 existing manuscripts all based on the 1522 copies by Urabe Kanenaga. The Ise branch may be subdivided into the Shinpukuji-bon manuscript of 1371–1372 and the Dōka-bon manuscripts. The Dōka sub-branch consists of:
  • the Dōka-bon manuscript of 1381; only the first half of the first volume remains
  • the Dōshō-bon manuscript of 1424; only the first volume remains, and there are many defects
  • the Shun'yu-bon manuscript of 1426; one volume
The Shinpukuji-bon manuscript is the oldest existing manuscript. While divided into the Ise branch, it is actually a mixture of the two branches. The monk Ken'yu based his copy on Ōnakatomi Sadayo's copy. In 1266, Sadayo copied volumes one and three but did not have access to the second volume. Finally, in 1282, he obtained access to the second volume through a Urabe-branch manuscript that he used to transcribe.

Structure

The Kojiki contains various songs and poems. While the historical records and myths are written in a form of Chinese with a heavy mixture of Japanese elements, the songs are written with Chinese characters, though only used phonetically. This special use of Chinese characters is called Man'yōgana, a knowledge of which is critical to understanding these songs, which are written in Old Japanese.

Sections

The Kojiki is divided into three parts: the Kamitsumaki, the Nakatsumaki and the Shimotsumaki.
  • The Kamitsumaki, also known as the Kamiyo no Maki, includes the preface of the Kojiki, and is focused on the deities of creation and the births of various deities of the kamiyo period, or Age of the Gods. The Kamitsumaki also outlines the myths concerning the foundation of Japan. It describes how Ninigi-no-Mikoto, grandson of Amaterasu and great-grandfather of Emperor Jimmu, descended from heaven to Takachihonomine in Kyūshū and became the progenitor of the Japanese Imperial line.
  • The Nakatsumaki begins with the conquests of Jimmu, which make him the first Emperor of Japan; and ends with the 15th Emperor, Ōjin. The second through ninth Emperors' reigns are recorded in a minimum of detail, with only their names, the names of their various descendants, and the locations of their palaces and tombs listed, with no mention of their achievements. Many of the stories in this volume are mythological; the allegedly historical information is highly suspect.
  • The Shimotsumaki covers the 16th to 33rd Emperors and, unlike previous volumes, has very limited references to interactions with deities. Information about the 24th to 33rd Emperors is scant.

    Synopsis

What follows is a condensed summary of the contents of the text, including many of the names of gods, emperors, and locations as well as events which took place in association with them. The original Japanese is included in parentheses where appropriate.

Preface (序)

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The Kamitsumaki (上巻), or first volume

  • The Creation of Heaven and Earth
  • The Birth of the Gods
  • Amaterasu and Susanoo
  • Ōkuninushi
  • The Subjugation of Ashihara-no-Nakatsukuni
  • The Descent of Ninigi, the Heavenly Grandson
  • Hoori
  • Ugayafukiaezu
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The Nakatsumaki (中巻), or second volume

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The Shimotsumaki (下巻), or final volume

English-language translations