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YM COLUMN ARCHIVE

March 11, 2009

The Kojiki and Japanese sentiment

Next year is the 1,300th anniversary of the transfer of the national capital to Heijo-kyo so that the opportunities to talk about ancient people may increase in a topical conversation in daily life. Probably in commemoration of the anniversary as an event of the previous year, I was asked to talk about the comparison regarding the differing images of the universe held by ancient and modern people. I really gave it a due consideration what to talk about and finally came to the idea of poring over the Kojiki (A Record of Ancient Matters).

I remember I read somewhere a long time ago that the Kojiki was compiled, unlike the Nihonshoki (Chronicle of Japan), not in a way to forcibly and intentionally make up genealogy of state power but simply recorded straightforward people’s candid sentiments of the images about nature and universe. As I was further reading into pages with open mind, from time to time I came to understand this was true.

I’ve just finished Book one, i.e. shortly earlier enthronement of the Emperor Jinmu. I really concentrated myself in perusing the book up to this much, and now I’m excited all about it. Quite contrary to the long-time belief that we Japanese had not been concerned about constellation, now I can dimly draw up a picture in my mind from the tale ancient people passed from generation to generation (the story Hieda-no-Are told Onoyasu-Maro, to be exact). The picture I have in my mind is the alignment of the stars brilliantly depicted purely in Japanese way, which is called constellation in modern times.

The Kojiki is the magnificent story by no comparison. Discovering the fact that the stars moving in the heaven and Japanese sentiments were so resonating each other has made me so excited that I began taking notes of the book. Apart from the preconceived notion such as the viewpoint from “Imperial history” or the transfer of the national power from Izumo to Yamato, it is important to understand how our ancestors, under the circumstances of geographical location of the eastern end of Asia surrounded all by sea and the given climate conditions, had a dialogue with the universe to create “their own story”; the story I’m now struggling to reproduce by sparing the time out of my schedule. I may be able to report to you of its outcome hopefully within a year.

I welcome your opinions on this column to the following E-mail address.
matogawa@planetary.or.jp

(Translated by The Planetary Society of Japan)