Now when chaos had begun to condense, but force and form were not yet manifest, and there was nought named, nought done, who could know its shape?[2] Nevertheless Heaven and Earth first parted, and the Three Deities performed the commencement of creation; the Passive and Active Essences then developed, and the Two Spirits became the ancestors of all things.[3] Therefore[4] did he enter obscurity and emerge into light, and the Sun and Moon were revealed by the washing of his eyes; he floated on and plunged into the sea-water, and Heavenly and Earthly Deities appeared through the ablutions of his person?[5] So in the dimness of the great commencement, we, by relying on the original teaching, learn the time of the conception of the earth and of the birth of islands; in the remoteness of the original beginning, we, by trusting the former sages, perceive the era of the genesis of Deities and of the establishment of men.[6] Truly do we know that a mirror was hung up,
- ↑ This number and that in the corner of every succeeding page of the Translation is the number of the Volume of Motowori’s Commentary treating of the Section in question.
- ↑ I.e., in the primeval void which preceded all phenomena there was neither form nor movement, and it was therefore unnamed and unknowable.
- ↑ This sentence summarizes the first eight Sections of the text of the “Records.” The “three Deities” are the Deity Master-of-the-August-Centre-of-Heaven, the High-August-Producing-Wondrous-Deity, and the Divine-Producing-Wondrous-Deity (see Sect. I. Notes 4, 5, and 6). The two Spirits representing the “Passive and Active Elements” are the creatrix and creator Izanami and Izanagi (the “Female-Who-Invites” and the “Male-Who-Invites,”—swe Sect. II, Note 8), the procreation by whom of the islands of the Japanese archipelago and of a large number of gods and goddesses forms the subject of Sections III.–VII.
- ↑ The word “therefore” is not appropriate in this place, and Motowori accordingly warns the reader to lay no stress upon it.
- ↑ This sentence alludes to Izanagi’s visit to Hades, and to the purification of his person on his return to the Upper World (see Sects. IX. and X). It also refers to the birth of the Sun-Goddess and of the Moon-God from his left and from his right eye respectively, and to that of a large number of lesser gods and goddesses, who were produced from every article of his wearing apparel and from every part of his person on the occasion of his performing those ablutions (see Sect. X).
- ↑ The “original teaching” here mentioned means the original traditions of Japanese antiquity. The “former sages,”—a term which in China fitly designates such philosophers as Confucius and Mencius, but which it is difficult to invest with any particular sense here in Japan where no sages have ever arisen,—may be
