RECORDS OF ANCIENT MATTERS.
[Sect. I.—The Beginning of Heaven and Earth.]
The names of the Deities[1] that were born[2] in the Plain of High Heaven[3] when the Heaven and Earth began were the Deity Master-of-the-August-Centre-of-Heaven,[4] next the High-August-Producing-Wondrous Deity,[5] next the Divine-Producing-Wondrous-Deity.[6] These three Deities were all Deities born alone, and hid their persons.[7] The names of the Deities that were born next from a thing that sprouted up like unto a reed-shoot when the earth,[8] young and like unto floating oil, drifted about medusa-like, were the Pleasant-Reed-Shoot-Prince-Elder
- ↑ For this rendering of the Japanese word kami see Introduction, pp. xvii–xviii
- ↑ Literally, “that became” (成). Such “becoming” is concisely defined by Motowori as “the birth of that which did not exist before.”
- ↑ In Japanese Takama-no-hara.
- ↑ Ame-no-mi-naka-nushi-no-kami.
- ↑ Taka-mi-musu-bi-no-kami. It is open to doubt whether the syllable bi, instead of signifying “wondrous,” may not simply be a verbal termination, in which case the three syllables musubi would mean, not “wondrous producing,” but simply “producing,” i.e., if we adopt the interpretation of the Verb musubu as “to produce” in the Active sense of the word, an interpretation as to whose propriety there is some room for doubt. In the absence of certainty the translator has followed the view expressed by Motowori and adopted by Hirata. The same remark applies to the following and other similar names.
- ↑ Kami-musu-bi-no-kami. This name reappears in later Sections under the lengthened form of Kami-musu-bi-mi-oya-no-mikoto, i.e., His Augustness the Deity-Producing-Wondrous-August-Ancestor, and also in abbreviated forms.
- ↑ I.e., they all came into existence without being procreated in the manner usual with both gods and men, and afterwards disappeared, i.e., died.
- ↑ Here and elsewhere the character 國, properly “country” (regio), is used where “earth” (tellus) better suits the sense. Apparently in the old language the word kuni (written 國), which is now restricted to the former meaning, was used ambiguously somewhat like our word “land.”
