Kojiki and Nihon Shoki.
Kojiki and Nihon shoki (Nihongi)
Kiki is an abbreviation referring to Kojiki (often abbreviated as ki 記) and Nihon shoki (often abbreviated as 紀, and referred to as Nihongi), the two oldest extant historical records of Japan. During the reign of Emperor Kinmei in the middle of the sixth century, a period before the Kiki, it appears that compilations of the history of Japan based on oral traditions known as Teiki (Teiō no hitsugi) and Kuji (Honji and Sendai kuji) and others were created, but these have not survived down to the present. Teiki appears to have had as its main theme the genealogy of the imperial family, while Kuji seems to have contained legends, stories, and song-tales handed down by the imperial family. Also, even in the beginning of the seventh century during the reign of Empress Suiko, Shōtoku Taishi and Soga no Umako began compiling the historical works Tennōki and Kokki, but neither of these is extant. In the latter half of the seventh century, Emperor Tenmu, who ascended the throne due to the Jinshin Disturbance (672), inherited this experiment in historiography from his predecessors. According to the preface to Kojiki, Tenmu believed that historical records were the foundation of the state, and the groundwork of imperial rule (the framework of the state, the great foundation of the imperial influence), and from this standpoint he attempted to have the preceding works like Teiki and Kuji combined and amended, in order to create a standard historical text. This undertaking did not reach fruition during his lifetime, but the Kojiki and Nihon shoki were both completed within thirty or forty years, using the beginning project as a base.
Kojiki
Kojiki was presented to the court in 712 in the reign of Empress Genmei. The oldest surviving manuscript is the Shinpukuji witness, copied around the Nanboku era. In the past this record was called furukotobumi, meaning a record of ancient things or events. The record was edited and transcribed by Ō no Yasumaro. According to the preface written by Yasumaro placed at the beginning of Kojiki, Emperor Tenmu ordered the compilation of the work, and instructed Hieda no Are, a palace retainer, to read through and learn the texts of Teiki and Kuji, and this work was then transcribed by Yasumaro according to the command given by Genmei, the ruler at the time. The usage of 'read through and learn' is believed to refer to becoming proficient in the various unwritten traditions and myths. There was a low courtier who had no official post, and even Yasumaro only advanced to receive the fifth rank by the time of his death. This indicates a crucial difference with the work of Prince Toneri, a son of Emperor Tenmu, who was put in charge of the compilation of Nihon shoki, a work compiled to be an official history of the state. Also the title Kojiki does not appear in Shoku Nihongi, the second official history after Nihon shoki, suggesting that Kojiki was not considered a historical record.
In essence Kojiki is not a history, but is mythology. It is not for a state based on the ritsuryo system, and it seems that it was compiled as a record of the origins of the imperial family. There were many difficulties in recording an oral tradition preserving the Yamato (native Japanese) vocabulary, without losing the kotodama (the spirit power of the word) inherent in the lexicon of the myths when converting these words to kanji, a foreign orthography. In order to overcome this difficulty, Kojiki is written in a hybrid script, fusing the use of a Chinese graph for its phonetic value with the use of a graph for its semantic value. When recording song, the former (phonetic script) is used, while the latter forms the basis of prose, with phonetic script mixed in—this was an attempt to preserve the orality of the spoken traditions of mythology. To those courtiers well-versed in Chinese at the time, Kojiki was certainly much more difficult to read than Nihon shoki, but rather than being compiled for a wide readership, Kojiki was compiled to preserve the language of the myths, so the court did not consider the difficulty of reading the text a problem. Furthermore, before a certain action happens in Kojiki there is a form of prediction, and then the completion of that action is described in detail, and this is a characteristic of oral literature.
The text is composed of three books, with the first composed of mythology (the age of the kami), and the second and third books concerned with imperial lineage, dealing with the events of the imperial family up to the death of the thirty-third ruler, Empress Suiko, in the thirty-sixth year of her reign (628), which occurred about a century before the completion of the work. By the third book, the record is mainly concerned with revolts and the love stories of successive rulers intertwined in a song-story format. Substantial information about events continues down to Emperor Kenzō of the late fifth century, after which each imperial record consists mainly of genealogy. The origins of the imperial family, the rulers of the state, are sufficiently detailed in the second book, and the record took shape as it is because there were historically significant events in the reigns of Keitai, Suiko, and other rulers. The structure of the work in three books mirrors the establishment of the three orders: the establishment of the order of the universe, the establishment of the order of humanity, and the establishment of the order of history, which is contrasted with the character of the oral tradition consisting of the simple lexicon of the mythology, epic narration, and song-story. This differs with Nihon shoki, because Kojiki preserves no clear distinction between the reigns of the emperors, and there are times when the story continues even after a ruler has passed away. There are very few concrete dates in the record, aside from death dates for some of the emperors. Also there are many important events surrounding relations with the continent that are especially left out in the third volume, which is in complete contrast with Nihon shoki. And regardless that Emperor Genmei, to whom Kojiki was presented, was a fervid believer in Buddhism, Kojiki does not contain a single reference to the religion. Kojiki consciously refrains from making any mention of Buddhism. These characteristics show that Kojiki is grounded in the timeless and repetitive world of mythology, and because of this it originated from a 'closed' and self-contained structure of myth-history. In order to study the mythic Kojiki, it is better to focus on the consistent theme of the system of mythology, and the logic of the myths and that view of the world (sekaikan) which underpins the structure of the work, rather than focusing on dissecting the stories in order to discover the proto-form or kernel of truth regarding historical events, festivals, or mythological motifs.
Nihon shoki
Nihon shoki was presented to the court in 720 in the reign of Emperor Genshō. The oldest surviving manuscript is the Shitennōji copy, which dates from the end of the Nara period to the beginning of the Heian period. As a public project from the ritsuryo government, Nihon shoki is Japan's first official history, completed during a thirty-nine year period, starting in 681, compiled by Tenmu's third son, Prince Toneri, and many bureaucrats and historians. The work is written in classical Chinese, and includes many quotes from Chinese classics and chronicles. Chinese source materials include Wei shi, Shi ji, Han shu, Hou Han shu, and Wen xuan. It appears that Yiwen leiju, an encyclopedia in one hundred books compiled by Ou Yangxun and others of the Tang period, has also been effectively used by the Nihon shoki compilers. In the entry from 720 in Shoku Nihongi, the second official record after Nihon shoki, it says, "Prince Toneri of the first princely rank presented to the court the Nihongi which he was ordered to compile." Because of this the work is believed to have originally been called Nihongi. During the Heian era Murasaki Shikibu was known as Nihongi no Tsubone. The title Nihongi and the structure of the text in thirty books both are based on a Chinese model. In the case of China, shu (書) refers to a record (ji) dealing with dynastic affairs, the biographies (liezhuan) of ministers in the court, and other historiographic formats. Ji (紀) on the other hand means a chronological history. Nihon shoki consists of a record put in a chronological format, and that is why the character ki (Ch., ji 紀) is used. Also, Chinese chronological records like Han ji and Hou Han ji both consist of thirty books, so Nihon shoki appears to have been modeled on this, and comprises thirty books. But the title includes nihon, which means 'origin of the sun'. The court refused to use the Chinese usage of wa (倭 'dwarf'), and instead used nihon in the title, claiming that the country was independent of China.
Of the thirty books, the first two consist of the 'age of the kami' sections, and the remaining books record the events of the rulers down to the forty-first Emperor, Jitō. The last section, books 28 to 30, deal with the newest events of the final twenty years, with Book 28 consisting almost entirely of the Jinshin Disturbance, which resulted in Tenmu ascending the throne. The final book, Book 30, ends with the abdication of Jitō in the eleventh year of her reign (697), dealing with recent history that continues up to just twenty years before the completion of the compilation project. The strategy of putting emphasis on this newest segment of history is fitting for a chronological project that purports to have recorded historical fact for each era. In that respect Nihon shoki is an unfinished project, demonstrating that it is an 'open' entity looking toward the future, showing an attitude that the court expects additions to this history to be compiled. In fact other official histories were compiled, starting with Shoku Nihongi. However, there are difficulties in the beginning sections of Nihon shoki because of the chronological nature of the history. Chinese histories did not feel the need to record the beginning of the world, but in the case of Japan, the court realized that recording the divine lineage of the royal family was indispensable, and this obligated the compilers to meld history with myth. But the chronology of the mythical period could not be delineated, and it was difficult to decide on the chronology of the earliest rulers. Therefore the compilers set aside the first two books for the 'age of the kami', and then grafted Jinmu into this fabric. The ascension of Jinmu was placed in a Shinyū year (660 BCE), which in China was designated as a year of great revolution. The Nihon shoki compilers set the present as their starting point, and projected a chronological lineage into the past, even as they left the future chronology open. At the same time that they modeled the record after Chinese annals, they spliced in mythology, and were able to emphasize the peculiar trait that the imperial lineage was of divine blood.
Kojiki and Nihon shoki
The common point between Kojiki and Nihon shoki is the basic structure where the justification for imperial rule is grounded in connecting the genealogy of the emperor to the deities Amaterasu and Takamimusuhi. Kojiki and Nihon shoki have many differences, as have been noted above. We can interpret this to mean that Japan between the seventh and eighth centuries had two attitudes or expressed a binary interest towards the superior culture of China. The first attitude is that Japan rejected the model of China and moved toward preserving its indigenous nature. By rejecting classical Chinese, Japan maintained the oral and mythical nature of its traditions by using a mixture of phonetic script and ideograms. Kojiki fits into this category by avoiding any mention of relations with China or Buddhism. The second attitude is an independent pattern, wherein Japan imitates China without becoming a slave to its culture by drawing distinctions between the two. Nihon shoki uses classical Chinese and a chronological framework, which were international standards at the time, but belongs to the category where the contents of this record include mythology from the 'age of the kami' and continues down to the imperial genealogy, emphasizing this indigenous concept. The differences in Kojiki and Nihon shoki allow us to see that from the end of the seventh century to the beginning of the eighth the court went through a systematic change where the government was modeled after the Tang ritsuryo codes between the eras of Tenmu and Genmei, but respecting kingship there were two competing ideologies. Regarding these two ideologies, recent scholarship has shown that Kojiki claims that the imperial family are one member of a influential group of families where consultation is held in a system of kingship where each family is equal, while Nihon shoki claims the imperial family has consolidated power and has a unique position of authority.
On a national level, the official history Nihon shoki, being written in classical Chinese, was naturally venerated over Kojiki, which was written in a mixture of Chinese and phonetic script, and deals with the mythological origins of the imperial family. In 721, one year after Nihon shoki had been completed, there was already a lecture held at court about the text, and in the Heian era, after 812, six lectures on the text were held regularly every thirty years until 956. After 878 a Nihongi banquet was held at the end of the lectures and poetry was composed (Nihongi kyōen waka). The results of these lectures were compiled into a large work called Shaku nihongi in 1274 by Urabe Kanekata. After this period in the middle ages, because of the belief in shinbutsu shūgō (the amalgamation of Buddhism and Shintō), in doctrinal fashion Shintō scholars interpreted only the 'age of the kami' portions of Nihon shoki. After its completion, Kojiki gathered very little attention, but in the early modern era, Motoori Norinaga completed Kojiki-den in 1798, and Kojiki was viewed as a Shintō classic through the work of kokugaku, which rejected syncretism with Confucian and Buddhist belief, and sought for a pure Shintō. Also, Hirata Atsutane, in Koshi seibun and other works, investigated the differences of Kojiki and Nihon shoki and demonstrated a method for reconstructing what he thought was the correct ancient tradition. Research into Kojiki and Nihon shoki by kokugaku scholars has opened the way since the early modern period to productive work into the classics of Japan.
— Matsumura Kazuo
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