of his Master’s Kana reading of it without his Commentary, and useful for reference, though the title is a misnomer, 1803; the “Records of Ancient Matters with Marginal Notes” (古事記標註), by Murakami Tadanori, 1874; the “Records of Ancient Matters in the Syllabic Character” (假名古事記), by Sakata no Kaneyasu, 1874, a misleading book, as it gives the modern Kana reading with its arbitrarily inserted Honorifics and other departures from the actual text, as the ipsissima verba of the original work; the “Records of Ancient Matters Revised” (校正古事記), by Uyematsu Shigewoka, 1875. All these editions are in three volumes, and the “Records of Ancient Matters with the Ancient Reading” has also been reprinted in one volume on beautiful thin paper. Another in four volumes by Fujihara no Masaoki, 1871, entitled the “Records of Ancient Matters in the Divine Character” (神字古事記), is a real curiosity of literature, though otherwise of no value. In it the editor has been at the pains of reproducing the whole work, according to its modern Kana reading, in that adaptation of the Korean alphabetic writing which some modern Japanese authors have supposed to be characters of peculiar age and sanctity, used by the ancient gods of their country and named “Divine Characters” accordingly.
Besides these actual editions of the “Records of Ancient Matters,” there is a considerable mass of literature bearing less directly on the same work, and all of which cannot be here enumerated. It may be sufficient to mention the “Correct Account of the Divine Age” (神代正語) by Motowori, 8 Vols. 1789, and a commentary thereon entitled “Tokiha-Gusa” (神代正語常盤草) by Wosada Tominobu, from which the present translator has borrowed a few ideas; the “Sources of the Ancient Histories” (古史徴) and its sequel entitled “Exposition of the Ancient Histories” (古史傅), by Hirata Atsutane, begun printing in 1819,—works which are specially admirable from a philological point of view, and in which the student will find the solution of not a few difficulties which even to Motowori had been insuperable;[1] the “Idzu no Chi-Waki” (稜威道別), by Tachibana no Moribe, begun printing in 1851,
- ↑ Unfortunately the portion already printed does not carry the history down even to the close of the “Divine Age.” The work is as colossal in extent as it is minute in research, forty-one volumes (including the eleven forming the “Sources”) having already appeared. The “Idzu no Chi-Waki” and “Idzu no Koto-Waki” are still similarly incomplete.
