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from the mouth of Are, which accounts for the completion of the manuscript in so short a time as four months and a half. Are’s age at this date is not stated, but as he was twenty-eight years of age some time in the reign of Temmu Tennô, it could not possibly have been more than sixty-eight, while taking into account the previous order of Temmu Tennô in 681 for the compilation of a history, and the statement that he was engaged on the composition of the Kojiki at the time of his death in 686, it would not be unreasonable to conclude that it belongs to about the last year of his reign, in which case Are was only fifty-three in 711.[1]
Apart from the fact that all European writers who have dealt with Shintô obtained their information from natives who were acquainted with its impure forms alone, another source of error has been the too ready recognition of the Nihongi as the only authority for the native cosmogony and the ancient legends. It is not difficult, however, by the aid of a comparison between the Nihongi and the Kojiki, to show that the former contains numerous traces of direct China influence, and this is also what we should be led to expect from the fact of its having been composed in a language which is intended to represent the Chinese idiom as nearly as possible, while the Kojiki is to a very large extent pure Japanese. Motoori has devoted several ages to the discussion of the book in question, and I think that it will be useful to take note of his observations.
The very commencement of the Nihongi affords an example. Its first words are, “Anciently, before heaven and earth separated and the Negative and Positive Essences were not parted, chaos was like a fowl’s egg; and subsequently deity came into existence in the midst thereof.” It then proceeds to state, “now it is said that in the beginning of heaven and earth, the soil floated about like a fish floating on the surface of water.” This latter passage is the real Japanese account of the beginning of the world, and what precedes the words “Now it is said” is an addition taken from Chinese books.
- ↑ Hirata in his Koshichô, Vol. I., gives reasons for supposing that Are was a woman, and that the compilation of a history attributed to the year 681 and the project of the Kojiki were identical.
