34
“Ko-ji-ki,” or Records of Ancient Matters.
[Vol. VI.
Deity Possessor-of-the-Outer-Mountains. (Eight Deities in all from the Deity Possessor-of-the-True-Pass-Mountains to the Deity Possessor-of-the-Outer-Mountains.) So the name of the sword with which [the Male-Who-Invites] cut off [his son’s head] was Heavenly-Point-Blade-Extended, and another name was Majestic-Point-Blade-Extended.[1]
[Sect. IX.—The Land of Hades.]
Thereupon [His Augustness the Hale-Who-Invites], wishing to meet and see his younger sister Her Augustness the Female-Who-Invites, followed after her to the Land of Hades.[2] So when from the palace she raised the door and came out to meet him,[3] His Augustness the
- ↑ These two names are in the original Ame-no-wo-ha-bari and Itsu-no-wo-ha-bari. Their import is not absolutely clear, but they seem to designate a weapon broad towards the point, such as is represented in the illustrations given in Vol. I, pp. 19–20 and Vol. II, pp. 4–5 of the “Tokika-Gusa.”
- ↑ The characters in the original which are here rendered Hades are 黄泉, lit. “Yellow Stream,” a Chinese name for the Underworld to which a remark of Mencius and a story in the “Tso Chuan” appear to have given rise. They here represent the Japanese word Yomo or Yomi, which we find phonetically written with the characters 豫母 in the name of Yomo-tsu-shiko-me a little further on, and which is defined by Motowori as “an underworld, … the habitation of the dead, … the land whither, when they die, go all men, whether noble or mean, virtuous or wicked.” The orthodox Japanese derivation of Yomi is from Yoru, “night,” which would give us for Yomo-tsu-kuni some such rendering as “the Land of Gloom.” A suggestion quoted by Arawi Hakuseki (“Tōga” art. Idzumi) that the word may really be but a mispronunciation of Yâma, the Sanscrit name of the Buddhist god of hell, is however worthy of consideration; and it seems best on the whole to translate Yomi or Yomo by “Hades,” a term which is itself of uncertain derivation, and the signification attached to which closely resembles the Japanese Shintō notion of the world beyond, or rather beneath, the grave.
- ↑ The original text 爾自殿騰戸出向之時 seems to be corrupt, and Motowori, unable to make anything of 騰戸, leaves 騰 without any Japanese rending (see the remarks in his Commentary, vol. VI. pp. 5–6). Mr. Aston, in the version of this passage given in the Chrestomathy appended to his “Grammar of the Japanese Written Language,” follows Motowori in not translating 騰, but does not allude to the difficulty.
