divisions by the use of numbered Sections with marginal headings. The titles proposed by Motowori in the Prolegomena to his Commentaries have been adopted with scarcely any alteration in the case of Vol. I. In Vols. II and III, where his sections mostly embrace the whole reign of an emperor, and the titles given by him to each Section consists only of the name of the palace where each emperor is said to have resided, there is less advantage in following him; for those Sections are often inordinately long, and their titles occasionally misleading and always inconvenient for purposes of reference, as the Japanese emperors are commonly known, not by the names of their places of residence, but by their “canonical names.” Motowori, as an ardent nationalist, of course rejected these “canonical names,” because they were first applied to the Japanese emperors at a comparatively late date in imitation of Chinese usage. But to a foreigner this need be no sufficient reason for discarding them. The Sections in the translation of Vols. II and III have therefore been obtained by breaking up the longer reigns into appropriate portions; and in such Sections, as also in the Foot-notes, the emperors are always mentioned by their “canonical names.”[1] The Vol. mentioned in brackets on every right-hand page is that of Motowori’s Commentary which treats of the Section contained in that page.
The Notes translated from the original are indented, and are printed small when they are in small type in the Japanese text. Those only which give directions for pronouncing certain characters phonetically have been omitted, as they have no significance when the original tongue and method of writing are exchanged for foreign vehicles of thought and expression. The Songs have likewise been indented for the sake of clearness, and each one printed as a separate paragraph. The occasionally unavoidable insertion in the translation of important words not occurring in the Japanese text has been indicated by printing such words
- ↑ The practice of bestowing a canonical name (okurina 謚) on an emperor after his decease dates from the latter part of the eighth century of our era when, at the command of the emperor Kuwam-mu, a scholar named Mifune-no-Mahito selected suitable “canonical names” for all the previous sovereigns, from Jim-mu down to Kuwam-mu’s immediate predecessor. From that time forward every emperor has received his “canonical name” soon after death, and it is generally by it alone that he is known to history.
